I




ESSAYS,
PHILOSOPHICAL AND THEOLOGICAL.
BY JAMES MARTINEAU.
BOSTON:
WILLIAM V. SPENCER.
1866.




CAMBRIDGE:
STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY JOHIN WILSON AND SON.




CONTENTS.
PAGE
COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.............    1
JOHN STUART MILL..........    63
NATURE AND GOD......   121
SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH..            171
MANSEL'S LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT......213
CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN....        244
REVELATION; WHAT IT IS NOT, AND WHAT IT IS..   280
PERSONAL INFLUENCES ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY: NEWMANCOLERIDGE- CARLYLE................  329
THEOLOGY IN ITS RELATION TO PROGRESSIVE KNOWLEDGE... 406








PUBLISHER'S PREFACE.
THE publisher takes special pleasure in offering
this volume of ESSAYS selected from the muchadmired writings of Rev. JAMES MARTINEAU,
Professor in Manchester College, London. Mr.
Martinea.u is considered one of the profoundest thinkers and most brilliant writers of this
century.  His contributions to the Prospective,
Westminster, National, and other Reviews attracted the attention of the best minds in both
England and America, and produced a marked
and favorable impression upon men of all denominations. He has done more, perhaps, than any
other writer of our time to detach religion from
its historical accidents and accretions, and to
defend its essential elements from the destructive assaults and tendencies of the positivist
-and critical schools. Ile is by far the ablest
exponent and champion of religious faith in
its contest with the scepticism and materialism
liiil




iv           PUBLISHER S PREFACE.
of the age; and his criticisms of Mill, Spencer,
Comte, Mansel, and Bain are almost necessary
to a complete understanding of the positions
these men severally occupy, and leave scarcely
any thing to be desired on the other side. The
subjects discussed in these Essays have awakened
a general and growing interest among all classes
of thoughtful readers; and the publisher esteems
himself fortunate in being able to collect them
from inaccessible magazines, and in presenting
them to the American public in a permanent and
elegant form.
BoSTON, March 31, 1866.




ESSAYS.








ESSAYS,
PHILOSOPHICAL AND THEOLOGICAL.
COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.*
FROM the day of a man's death seven years must elapse,
so this Catechism informs us, before he can be " incorporated in  the Supreme Being;" i. e. registered
among the worthies of humanity, and honored with a
commemorative bust. We neither belong to the priesthood, nor are within six years of the date that must
decide the question of Comte's apotheosis. Leaving so
great a verdict to the council of the future, we avail
ourselves of the labors of his translator and the recent
close of his career to notice a few characteristics of his
genius and system. Neither the puerilities of his later
writings, nor the self-exaggeration pervading them all,
cancel his claim to recognition as the most powerful
and constructive thinker of the modern scientific school,
and as a half-pious believer in the dreary visions of a
philosophy held by many, though avowed by few. The
* The Catechism of Positive Religion. Translated from the French of
Anguste Comte, by Richard Congreve. London: Chapman, 1858.
National Review, 1858.  1




2         COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
difficulties over which his influence has triumphed attest
his intellectual force. In his survey of particular sciences, not excepting his own (the mathematics), he has
incurred the reproach of serious errors and misconceptions. Even among savants, his temper and personal
pretensions are as unique as are Ewald's among critics
and theologians. His style is an oppressive miracle of
tediousness, benumbing the vivacity of the cleverest
translator, and taxing the patience of the most practised
student.  His chief reputed merit —the creation of
Sociology — he proclaims with the airs of a tt4yos, instead of committing it to the test of time and thought;
and men like Mr. Mill, who had accepted his baptism,
and been initiated into his gospel, excuse themselves
from his apocalypse. And no sooner do " Secularists "
indulge their gratitude for his abolition of theologies
and hierarchies, than he publishes himself Supreme
Pontiff of humanity, and sets up a theocracy without a
God. Yet, in spite of every weakness and offence, he
has found his way to the thought of the present age.
A few vigorous minds he has moulded to an extent unknown, perhaps, even to themselves; and many more
owe no slight obligation to the pregnant hints everywhere scattered through his first great work. His main
attempt- -viz. to destroy the antithesis between the
physical and the moral sciences, and draw them out in
one continuous series, by ranging man and his life
among natural objects — has established itself as a
characteristic of our time, and exhibits more signs of
vigor than the older forms of anthropological and
social doctrine. If the most marked intellectual tendency of the age be to advance the lines of every science




COMTE S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.            3
into a domain hitherto distinct- to press physical conceptions into chemistry, chemical into physiology, physiological into morals and politics, and by the energy
of inductive law to shoulder metaphysics and theology
over the brink of the world altogether —it is largely
due to the action, direct and indirect, of the Philosophie Positive.
The doctrines of Comte can scarcely be appreciated
without some reference to his personal career. On this
point, indeed, he himself lays no little stress; and he
has accordingly supplied, in a series of prefaces, an
autobiographical sketch of his mental history. It appears that during his earliest years he was exposed to
two singularly inharmonious influences, whose struggle
must have affected his whole development. His family
belonged to the Catholic and monarchical party in the
South of France; to conciliate which the first Napoleon
had surrendered to ecclesiastical regime the young revolutionary schools, in which, at the same time, the exact
sciences constituted the preponderant discipline, and
the political sentiments of the crisis still remained. No
amalgamation could well take place between elements
so discordant.  From the first, the theological influence
seems to have found no entry into our author's nature;
and his whole problem was to bring his political and
social ideas into some systematic relation to his mathematical and physical knowledge. In this respect his
genius and character bear the true Napoleonic type;
and as the exiled Emperor at St. Helena shows himself
still the officer of artillery, and regards the world from
the engineering point of view, so Comte betrays the
same tendency to push dynamics into the conquest of




4         COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
history and mankind, and coerce the universe of life
and persons into the formulas applicable to things.
The French tendency to large and neat generalization,
so tempting to the love of order, so dangerous to the
paramount feeling of truth, does not appear to have
been checked in him by any considerable devotion to
the literce humaniores.  No trace appears of the
scholarly habits of mind, and that peculiar balance
of faculty, to which philological and moral studies
seem to be indispensable. Though his view over history is wide, and supplies him with many original
reflections, yet the tact of sympathetic criticism is
nowhere found, and the dominance of the natural philosopher's rules of thought is always conspicuous. His
mathematical training was completed in the Polytechnic
School; and during its progress he seems to have
fallen under the influence of St. Simon, and caught
the inspiration of his socialistic dreams. This influence
he himself professes to have been "disastrous;" inasmuch as it suspended his purely philosophical activity
in favor of schemes of direct political experiment. But
the disciples of this singular enthusiast have always reproached Comte with intellectual plagiarism from their
master; and certainly the historical generalizations of
Comte continually remind us of the principles and
methods of the earlier school. After long dissatisfaction with the disorderly condition of all political and
social speculation, and an eager desire to carry the
exactitude of physical science up into the phenomena of
life and humanity, he at last realized his hope in 1822,
at the age of twenty-four, by the discovery of his great
law as to the three successive phases of human evolu



COMTE S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.           5
tion. This law is as follows: that, both in the individual and in the history of mankind, thought, in dealing
with its problems, passes of necessity through (1) a
theological stage; (2) a metaphysical; before reaching
(thirdly, and finally) the positive: resorting, in the
earliest instance, to the idea of living and personal
agents as the motive-power of nature; then proceedingo
to substitute abstract entities, such as force, substance,
&c.; and only at last content to relinquish every thing
except the study and classification of phenomena in
their relations of time and place. In 1825-6, he
sketched in some minor essays the mode of applying
this law to the re-organization of the body politic; and
in the latter year commenced an oral exposition of his
discovery in its entire range of application. His course
was unhappily interrupted by a profond orage cre'bral, in other words, a temporary attack of mental disorder; for their mismanagement of which he fiercely
attacks his physicians and the usages of their profession. His recovery enabled him to complete his
lectures in 1829. This vivd-voce exposition forms the
basis of his great work Cours de Philosophie Positive, the publication of which extended over twelve
years, from 1830-1842. It consists of six very thick
volumes, divided into sixty leFons; during the course
of which he reviews, by the light of his law, the ensemble of human knowledge, beginning with the purely
quantitative sciences, as the most simple; and having
taken the inorganic studies in the order of retreat from
this primitive base, advancing to the province of physiology. The laws won in that field he carries up into
anthropology; and by adding on the effects of combin



6         COMTE S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
ing men in associated numbers, he seeks to establish a
special and crowning science of Sociology. It is on
his ability to accomplish this final object that he stakes
the whole credit of his method; and whatever is prior
to this he regards as the mere vestibule to his great
structure. The better to secure a trial of his claims
upon this issue, he has made his sociological system the
subject of a separate work, Systeme de Politique
Positive; in which the natural sciences are entirely
left behind, and his law is applied exclusively to the
relations of human nature and history. The second
title of this work, Trait6 de Sociologie, being borrowed from his essay of 1824, resumes, in 1851, the
thread of his early career.
In the mean while a complete revolution had taken
place both in his inner character and in his external
relations; cutting his life into two dissimilar periods,
the identity of which in the same person his original
disciples must find it difficult to realize. The severe
mathematician, the rigorous philosophic censor, the
scornful materialist, is now converted into the "HighPriest of the Religion of Humanity," the chief of the
"Occidental Republic," the type of the "Regeneration
of the Affections," sending missionary despatches to
Russian emperors and Turkish viziers, and surrendered
apparently to the visionary enthusiasms of a St. Simon
or a Robert Owen.  He speaks of himself as the
founder of a new, final, and universal worship.  He
claims an annual subsidy from his disciples, in support
of his sacerdotal character, and addresses the yearly
circular which demands the tax to all the Western
lands.  He repudiates our chronological era and the




COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPtIY.          7
Roman calendar; makes 1788 his zero of human history, which begins for him with the French Revolution;
gives us thirteen months in the year, and a day over for
commemorating all the dead; and dates his productions
in a way horrifying to Quakers, and questionable even
to Hero-worshippers; finishing one preface on. the
23d Aristotle, year 63, another on 12th Dante, a third
on the 25th Charlemagne; writing to the Emperor
Nicholas on 19th Bichat, and to Reschid Pacha on the
7th Homer, &c. Whence this extraordinary change
in a man trained under the austere discipline of the
exact sciences?  Skilful observers of human character
might perhaps notice in his first great work symptoms of great personal peculiarity, but certainly nothing
which could prepare them for his later exhibitions.
An overbearing dogmatism and astounding self-appreciation appear in all his expositions; and the personal
preface in which he takes leave of the last volume of
his Philosophie, besides betraying frequent soreness
and bickerings towards the Acad6mie and the savants
of the day, querulously turns upon the authorities of
the Polytechnic School for not appointing him to one
of the higher professorships, and almost dares them to
dismiss him from the subordinate post he held there.
His contemptuous estimate of the reputations of the
hour and the intellectual spirit of his time would have
more effect but for the manifest admixture of disappointed feeling; for threnodies on the "decline of
science" are heard with impatience when deriving their
inspiration from personal grievances. There may have
been grounds for the complaints of persecution so frequently insinuated against Arago; but there is enough




8        COMTE S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
in Comte's teaching and influence, notwithstanding his
incontestable genius, to explain some indisposition on
the part of the directors of public education to trust
him with distinguished functions, without supposing
malignant cabals against him, prompted by jealousy,
and working by mean intrigue. Having publicly proclaimed his real or supposed injuries, and challenged
dismissal, he was almost unavoidably taken at his word;
and in 1843-4 underwent what he terms his "polytechnic spoliation," followed by seven years of persecution
from the " pedantocracy" of Paris. It was during this
interval that the agency presented itself which created
his "second career." He had been thrown back entirely on private life; he had just completed his
" immense elaboration," and his six volumes were before
the world; and he had attained, in some involuntary
way, another kind of freedom, not specifically defined,
but termed an " irreproachable moral freedom," — a
phrase which, interpreted by its connections, evidently
means a dissolution of the marriage-tie. Disengaged
in so many senses, he is no way claimed by the past,
but open to new impulses; and just at this opportune
crisis, by a destiny which might be called providential,
were it not that " theological ideas are cerebral infirmities," he fell in with "an incomparable angel," similarly
separated from matrimonial obligations, Mme. Clotilde
de Vaux. Drawn to sympathy at first by "the sad
conformity of their domestic destinies," they soon find
that each nature is constituted to give what the other
wants; she knowing nothing of Positivism, and he
nothing of love, and neither unwilling to learn the lesson of the other.  Comte attributes the previous sleep




COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.           9
of his gentler feelings, first to his early withdrawal
from the domestic circle into a scholastic seclusion; and
next, to a marriage which he had contracted on purpose to repair his deficient affections, and which, thus
taken as a prescription, very naturally failed to produce
any new symptoms. It was not too late, however, at
the age of forty-five, for the "better human sentiments" to be awakened in him; their energy, indeed,
was all the greater for their previous exceptional repression; and when appealed to by a type of feminine
nature unequalled in the past and present, and unsurpassable in the future, they effected in him a moral
resurrection, became the source of new positivist inspirations, and completed the conditions of his great mission - to re-organize entirely the whole of human
existence on the principle of giving ascendency to the
heart over the understanding. Of this lady, though
he speaks of her in all his prefaces as an object of
interest to the whole world, we know nothing except
that she was unhappy, and converted Comte from philosophical vigor to puerile sentimentality.  She had
begun, it seems, a fiction ( Willelmine) intended to
correct the mischievous influence of the doctrines of
Mme. Dudevant; and her admirer makes it a topic
of special praise, both of her and of himself, that notwithstanding their own unfavorable experience, they
always inculcated the sacredness of marriage, and resisted the laxity of domestic morals too prevalent in
France.  When, however, he tells us that the heroine
of the unfinished tale was to " have passed successively
through the chief actual aberrations," preserved through
all by natural purity and elevation, so as to end at last




10        COMITE S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
in domestic felicity, it is difficult to recognize the
superiority in moral conception to the novels of George
Sand; nor can we wonder that the authoress's family
were unwilling, after her death, to give effect to her
wish that the Ms. should be left in Comte's hands.  A
single year was the term of that "incomparable objective union" which was to alter his whole future career;
her early death then restored him to his solitude, and
left him, as he says, to the fainter though more assiduous exercise of "subjective adoration." Had any remnant of religious belief still clung to him, this event
would have swept it away: "Were it possible," he
says, " for my reason ever to go back to that theological condition which is adapted only to the infancy of
humanity, this catastrophe would suffice to make me
reject with indignation the providential optimism which
affects to console our miseries by enjoining on us a
stupid admiration of the most frightful disorders.
Ever-innocent victim as thou art, scarcely knowing
life but by its deepest griefs, thou art laid low at the
very moment when at length a worthy personal happiness commenced, closely connected with a human social
mission! And I too, though less pure —did I deserve, after so many unjust sufferings, to have thus
frustrated the long-delayed felicity reserved for a lonely
existence constantly devoted, from its opening, to the
fundamental service of humanity? Does not, moreover, this twofold private calamity constitute a public
loss in a way to exclude all idea of compensation?"
With this sentiment he seems to have completely imbued her own mind, little as it seems to breathe the
feminine tenderness which he ascribes to her; for she




COMTE S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.          ll
died repeating again and again the strong-minded protest that she did not deserve so to suffer and be cut off.
The philosopher's heart, however, once softened,
scarcely knows how to make enough of its newly-discovered susceptibilities. Not only did the image of his
mother, whom he acknowledges to have inadequately
loved during her lifetime, - terminated fourteen years
before,- now appear to him in a more affecting light;
but his servant-maid, — "the incomparable Sophie,"
endowed, as he observes, with the fortunate inability to
read, which the more strongly brings out her rectitude
and penetration, — becomes a model of womanly perfection, and completes his triad of guardian angels.
He celebrates them all as concerned in the tardy realization of his emotional life, and wishes it to be understood that their inspiration is silently present in the
whole execution of his great mission. But Madame
Clotilde is still the dominant influence; and the terms
in which the influence is described are most extraordinary, exhibiting the extravagance of passion without
its poetry, and reduced to a mere affair of quantity,
and uttering its devotion in tones that seem rather to
mock at other religion than to breathe their own.
WVhat Dante has done for Beatrice, Comte will more
effectually accomplish for his "holy Clotilde;" whose
name, associated with his own, is to go down and be
preserved in the most distant and imperishable memories of a grateful humanity. And it is highly characteristic, that her title to this eternal distinction is always
her influence upon him, and therefore her instrumentality in the development of Positivism: his system,
his discoveries, his genius, constitute the grand per



12        COMTE S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
manent essence; as connected with his public life an
importance belongs to his private life, and this importance is shared by her who so powerfully moved him.
The impression throughout is simply this: "When the
Himalayas fall in love and make sonnets of thunder,
the most'distant hamlets of the plain will ask'Who is
it?"' It was through her angelic agency that he has
become a really double organ for human nature, the
representative at once of its intellect and of its soul;
and without her he would never have been able, in his
own person, to append to the career of an Aristotle
that of a St. Paul! He certainly awards to the "new
Beatrice" titles which have no parallel in the immortal
verse that celebrates the elder one; for she is at once
his "subjective mother," the source of his second and
regenerated life, and his "objective daughter," the
docile pupil of his first and intellectual life. Nor do
merely human analogies and relations suffice to express
and satisfy his feeling. This lady is to be recognized,
not by him alone in his three daily prayers, but by all
truly regenerate people, as "the best personification of
the Supreme Being." Candor, however, requires us to
acknowledge that, in claiming this highest distinction,
he is by no means exclusive in his affection; for within
a few pages he says, that to the positivists every worthy
woman habitually furnishes the best representation of
the true Grand-Etre, and that the affective sex is, in his
system, set up as the moral Providence of the human
race. In his annual circular of 1853, addressed to the
tributaries who furnish his subsidy, he explains how it
is that he spends so much more of his moderate income
in house-rent than in maintenance; he admits that his




COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.           13
lodgings, strictly speaking, exceed his actual material
wants, but urges that they were the " scene of his moral
regeneration under the angelic impulse which commanded his second life; " and, considering the decisive
blessings which the West has already received from this
source, he would charge with ingratitude all those who,
sharing the public and private benefits of the new religion, would let him be torn from the scene of their
origin. These holy walls, with the adored image for
ever imprinted on them, are a daily help in developing
an intimate worship of the best personation of the
Supreme Being; and have proved so " during all those
years, already not a few, in which her glorious subjective eternity has taken the place (alas, too soon) of her
sad objective existence." There, under this resistless
patronage, such a harmony establishes itself between his
private and his public life, that the advances of each
may soon extend to the other; so as to make him feel
the true theory of their unity long before putting it into
expression. Thus the same environment which witnessed his first regeneration will soon find itself consecrated by many decisive celebrations of the chief
social sacraments. "I have just completed," he says,
"the principal part of my religious structure, and the
decisive little work in which the subjective participation
of my holy eternal companion is already unanimously
recognized. How else shall I be able to achieve, with
equal advantage, the remainder of the principal elaboration, and even the less important works that will follow? I have already reached the age when I must
scrupulously administer my time and my means of executing, with full cerebral vigor, all that I promised at




14        COMTE S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
the end of my fundamental work. It is for this reason
that I shall always repudiate the stupid material economy which would deprive me of a powerful spiritual
assistance." The fantastic forms under which, here and
elsewhere, the author's egotism and self-exaggeration
present themselves; the elaborate minuteness with
which for the benefit of the " West " and the "Future"
he publishes his sickliest feelings; the pomp with which
he claims "eternal veneration" as well as temporal
maintenance for his " noble services," - might induce a
suspicion that he is playing a part, and practising on
the simplicity of his disciples. Nor is it easy, in estimating minds of this peculiar constitution, to draw the
psychological, or even the moral, distinction between
self-flattery and artful misuse of the confidence of
others. But Comte's dogmatic self-assertion, whether
it speaks in maudlin softness or with hieratic grandeur,
we believe to be perfectly sincere; the homage which a
nature barren of every superhuman reverence, and paying only a provisional respect to the past phases of
mankind, necessarily turns in upon itself. Of Divine
and permanent in the universe he admits nothing; and
of its progressive phenomena he himself is the newest
and ripest, — the blossom shaped at length from the
rising sap, and tinted by the growing light, of history.
There was a grand fate concerned, he intimates, in his
encounter with Madame Clotilde; the rebirth of his
heart was indispensable; and " the ensemble of human
destinies commissioned an incomparable angel to deliver
to him the general result of the gradual perfectionating
of our moral nature." He evidently looks on the whole
past as a mere prelude to his own labors, and having




COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.        15
no significance except as ushering them in; all its products, like the nodding sheaves in Joseph's dream, are
to stand round upon the field and bow to him. If any
thing lingers on the world that is too stiff-necked and
refractory for this, it will simply have to disappear;
and the only force that remains to older modes of
thought is just sufficient for the process of mutual
annihilation, that Positivism may enter upon the cleared
field without a blow. For example, throughout the
area prepared by the Roman empire, two incompatible
forms of monotheism, Islam and Catholicism, have for
upwards of a millennium aspired to universality; at last
they are exhausted; for five centuries the Crescent has
renounced its pretensions to the West, and the Cross
surrenders to its "eternal antagonist" the very locality
which it first consecrated. The ancient territory of the
civilized world is nearly equally divided between the
two; they have no longer any energy that is productive
and conquering, but only enough to neutralize and
extinguish each other in favor of the Positive Philosophy.  For this hour the philosophy, through its
antecedents, has been all the while preparing itself.
Remounting by the steps of a noble filiation, Comte
claims Hume as his chief forerunner in philosophy,
with Kant as an accessory, whose fundamental conception waited for true development in Positivism. In
relation to political doctrine, he was preceded by Condorcet, in conjunction with De Maistre, whose principles first became fruitful in the positive school, and are
nowhere else appreciated. Add to these Bichat and
Gall as his predecessors in scientific physiology, and
you have the six recent names that connect him with




16        COMTE S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
the three systematic fathers of the true modern philosophy, Bacon, Descartes, and Leibnitz.  Higher still, he
finds himself again in the middle ages, under the cowl
of Thomas Aquinas, the cloak of Roger Bacon, and
the wreath of Dante; and thus directly reaches his true
precursor, the prince of genuine thinkers, the incomparable Aristotle.  Though the world was not ready
till now for the final retreat of monotheism before the
positive philosophy, all capable thinkers instinctively
felt their relative merits, however imperfectly they expressed their feeling. Tacitus and Trajan, it is now
admitted, were right in pronouncing "inimical to the
human race " a religion which consigned perfection to a
celestial isolation, disowned the dignity of labor by
deducing it from a divine curse, and made woman the
source of all evil. Those eminent men did but anticipate the ultimate. judgment of matured humanity.
They could not be aware of the provisional benefits of
which, during the infancy of a new civilization, this
faith was to be the medium; and they pronounced what
the ripened reason of our age at length confirms. And
when the Christian priesthood and influence had finally
become effete and retrograde, it was reserved for M.
Comte, by fully satisfying the intellect and sentiments
of these last days, to assume the Pontificate of Humanity, and vindicate the ancient instinctive antipathy of
philosophy to Christian or other theology.  It is worthy
of remark, however, that while, in his survey of old
times, his sympathies resort to the judgment of philosophic emperors and historians against a faith of the
common and even the servile class, it is his cue, in
dealing with the present day, to invert this order of




COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.           17
preference, to speak slightingly of the educated and
ruling orders of society, and to pay special court to the
proletary class, especially the women among them, and
above all, if they have the " fortunate inability to read."
Among these alone, he says, can be found the openness
to real truth, and the reverent docility necessary to true
discipleship; the freedom from pre-occupation by either
retrograde or anarchical ideas; and more particularly,
the mind unspoiled by pretended private judgment on
political and other matters quite beyond them. Already has the proletary class suffered in this way from
the exercise of universal suffrage; and only in women,
through their happy exemption from political rights and
interests, has the requisite submissiveness of spirit been
preserved. To them, therefore, he especially appeals;
not without a consciousness that he has some resistance
to expect from their feeling in favor of certain doctrines
on which he throws contempt, in particular the doctrine
of a future life. But this repugnance, he assures them,
is quite a mistake; and if they will only reflect that he
makes them the true personification of the Grand-Etre,
and through their influence on the affections of men
gives them a subjective immortality in the minds of
others, they will be convinced that his system is far
from being dry and cold, and will be ashamed to regret
the loss of a mere egoistic futurity. Does not positivism lay down the law of "eternal widowhood" (i. e.
forbid second marriages)? How, then, can it be said
not to provide an honorable homage to feminine affection? In all this bidding for support from particular
classes, there is surely something little worthy of either
a philosophy or a faith. And when we connect with it
2




18        COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
the assertion, in the fifth volume of his first great work,
that probably up to that time he was himself his only
disciple, it can scarcely fail to appear like the expression of morbid disappointment. The more and more
eccentric displays of pretension which characterize his
later volumes, are painful to all who appreciate his
earlier genius. But they are too curious as psychological studies, and too vitally connected with the distinctive type of his doctrine, to be left out of sight.
Indeed, he so constantly insists on the inseparable connection of his subjective experience with his public
action on the world, that it is impossible, by his own
rule, to characterize his system without tracing the
manifestations of his idiosyncrasy.
The episodical treatise in which are found the most
peculiar exhibitions of his later mode, is the Catechisme Positiviste, announced, as translated by Mr.
Congreve, at the head of this article. It was published
towards the end of 1852, and forms a kind of excursus
from the second volume of his Politique. It is in the
form of dialogue, between himself, as sacerdotal instructor, and an " angelic interlocutrix," who is no other
than Madame Clotilde. The conversations unfold the
mysteries of the positivist "religion;" the attributes of
the "incomparable goddess " of humanity; the "institution of guardian angels;" the three daily prayers;
the organization of the priesthood, and the whole ritual
and calendar of this new anti-faith. The date of publication was purposely fixed near the commencement of
Louis Napoleon's dictatorship. That crisis, the author
intimates, had imposed a salutary silence on all babblers (i. e. had extinguished journalism, political asso



COMTE'S LIFE AND PmLOSOPHY.            19
ciation, and discussion); and he avails himself of the
sudden stillness to obtain a hearing, and to "direct
especially the feminine and the proletary thought to his
fundamental revolution."  His previous scientific expositions address to the popular mind too antipathic a
treatment to win the indispensable success; and to meet
the conditions of active propagation, he turns outward
the moral and effective side of his doctrine, asking leave
to use only two pairs of strictly scientific terms, which
he cannot do without, viz. " statical and dynamical,"
" objective and subjective." Here, then, if anywhere,
we may expect to find the results on which he dwells
with greatest pride; and if we must seek in his larger
works the logical root and evolution of his system, here
is the depository of its choicest fruits.. Yet, strange to
say, the book is inconceivably absurd; and it is only in
the literature of Mormonism that any thing more childish and dismal can be found. Mr. Congreve's affectionate reverence for his master is undoubted; and the
aim of this translation is certainly to glorify, not humiliate, the new hierophant. People have always differed
about monuments; and Madame Tussaud is known to
believe that the saints and heroes look best in waxwork
and their own old clothes.
Since the publication of the b9oks of Exodus and
Leviticus, no more elaborate system of "religion" has
appeared than M. Comte's. It has its cultus, private
and public; its organization of dogma; its discipline,
penetrating to the whole of life; its altars, its temples,
its symbolism, its prescribed gestures and times; its
ratios and length of the different parts and sorts of
prayer; its rules for opening or shutting the eyes; its




20         COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
ecclesiastical courts and rules of canonization; its orders
of priesthood and scale of benefices; its adjustment of
the temporal to the spiritual power; its novitiate and
consecration; its nine sacraments; its angels, its last
judgment, its paradise: in short, all imaginable requisites of a religion, -except a God.  Were it not for
this omission, we should feel an interest in examining a
structure so curious and careful. But in presence of
this blank, any serious estimate of the scheme would
be as idle as for the geographer to discuss the climate
and flora of his dreams, or the architect to measure the
spires of the frost-work and criticise the castles in the
clouds.
It may well be asked, what possible principle of coherence, what inner meaning at all, there can be in a
system  professing  atheism, yet propagating a "religion."  WTith the answer to this natural inquiry we
shall be content, and then proceed to a less repulsive
side of our author's doctrine. His originality is sometimes too great for his conservatism; and he wants now
and then some equivalent for what he has been ruth'
lessly cancelling. Having superseded "monotheism,"
he finds it necessary to invent a " new Supreme Being;"
and such Being he has accordingly provided, and
ordered to be represented in statuary by "a woman of
thirty with a child in her arms."  This Grand-Etre is
"the aggregate of co-operative beings endowed with
nervous systems of three centres;" * the sum-total of
the civilized or progressive part of our race, whether
* Rdflexions synthdtiques, au point de vue positiviste, sur la Philosophie,
la Morale et la Religion; court Apergu de la Religion positive, &c. systdmatisde ou fondde par Auguste Comte, p. 65.




COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.          21
past, present, or future; the picked clay of humanity,
that falls kindly into an idealizing mould. The greater
portion of mankind's'elarotl having become historical,
and each generation adding its quota to the noble dead,
"the Supreme Being is not yet fully formed," but receives "new component parts" so long as our planet
remains habitable by men. "In the composition of the
Great Being the dead occupy the first place, then those
who are yet to be born. The two together are far
more numerous than the living, most of whom too are
only its servants, without the power at present of becoming its organs. There are but few men, and still
fewer women, who admit of being satisfactorily judged
in this respect before the completion of their objective
career" (p. 89). After death, however, - so it is
said with shocking burlesque, — there comes to each
the judgment, that is, the verdict of his fellow-citizens
whether he is worthy to be contributed to the GrandEtre; and should he be voted into so sublime a place,
his presence thenceforward in the recognized ideal of
humanity constitutes his " future life,"- his " subjective
immortality."
We need not proceed further. What the worship of
saints would be, if the King of Saints were dead, -
nay, what the sceptic Euhemerus actually supposed the
Hellenic mythology to be, - such deification of mortals
in default of an Immortal is the avowed religion of
positivism. The minutest prescriptions are given for
conducting the whole process, both mental and ritual.
At your altar in the morning, for instance, you are to
adore your mother, - probably (if you are adult) " become subjective" to you, and requiring to be brought




22        COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
before your secret vision. To help the effort and express the inwardness of the object, you must shut your
eyes. This done, you first set up the place on which
the figure is to enter; next, fix her intended attitude;
thirdly, choose her dress; and then, at length, permit
herself to glide into view; taking care to idealize by
subtraction only, not by addition. In due order, the
prayer to her ensues; consisting for the first half of
the hour in "commemoration" of her goodness; then,
for the rest, in "effusion" of the feelings thus awakened.
The evening prayer is to be said in bed, and to be only
half as long; and the midday devotion may limit itself
to recitals of a quarter of an hour. The wife and the
daughter (or, for a woman, the husband and son) are
to be conjoined as guardian angels with the mother,
and to have their turn of homage. The public worship
only applies the same principle to a wider circle of relations, running through and celebrating all the great
social ties, the several stages of human progress, the
natural classes of the body-politic; and forming an
ecclesiastical calendar, with special services all through
the year. The temples are all to face towards the
metropolis of humanity, - Paris, of course; but meanwhile the positivists will not object to use the churches
and cathedrals as they are, and occupy them as they
fall into disuse. Even the Madonnas may pass well
enough, with altered name, for the Goddess of Humanity. But instead of the cross (or of the crescent)
must be substituted, as sign of the faith, the curve
described by the hand in touching the three chief cerebral organs. There are no elements too incongruous
to blend in this strange "religion." The dissecting



COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.          23
room, the high altar, the lover's bower, all subscribe
their proportion to its ceremonial and sentiment; not
without an ever-recurring preponderance of the last,
significantly expressed in the saying, that "soon the
knee of man will never bend except to woman." *
It is dreary enough, yet pathetic too, to stand by and
see the great materialist elaborately mimic the Catholic
Church, which had surrounded his youth with its forms
without holding his manhood by its faith. The meaning was gone, but the picture remained, and looked in
at every deeper and gentler hour with a lingering
charm. The sacrament of early life was disenchanted;
yet he could not withdraw his eye. He forgot that the
wine of the Real Presence was poured out, and adored
the empty cup. His plagiarisms from Catholicism are
not confined to the details of external ritual. He
owns, and tries to imitate, the vast moral power it exercises through its biographical traditions, its gallery
of martyrs and saints; and to embody this education
by ideals is one of the chief ambitions of his system.
He missed the deeper truth, that these lesser pieties
depend upon a greater; that the human reverences constitute a true hierarchy, which falls into confusion when
the Supreme term is gone; that though lower men may
give veneration to a higher, he is higher no more if in
his heart he accepts it; and that only when the whole
heart of humanity is habitually drawn upward in trust
of a Living Perfection, can we safely apportion homage
to one another. Once or twice, indeed, the suspicion
seems to cross him that, if indeed we stand at the
head of living natures, the conditions of any collective
* Politique positive, vol. i. p. 259.




24        COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
humility must fail, and that it would be better for aspiration could we retain the sense of " our inferiority to
angelic beings."  But there will ever "appear above
us" (so he answers his own misgiving) "a type of
Real Perfection, below which we must still remain,
though it invites our persevering efforts to continual
approximation."  May we not ask, Where, then, do
you find this " type of Real Perfection above us?" Is
it indeed Real to you?  Or is it Ideal, - and that in
the poor sense of being merely imaginary?  If we
stand at the summit of the hierarchy, the space " above
us " is a blank, and has neither "type " nor attraction
any whither. The angels and God being removed, no
concrete personal living " perfection" exists beyond our
humanity, and what you substitute is an abstraction
feigned by our forecasting fancy - not an actual Being
other than ourselves, but a potential state of certain
future selves. Is not this poor ghost, which counterfeits the " Real " object of faith and trust, an involuntary testimony to the indispensable energy of that
religious aspiration for which Comte's universe is empty
of all provision?
From this desolate side of positivism we gladly turn
to estimate some of its distinctive features as a theory
of human knowledge and a classification of the sciences.
Its leading positions are these:
Theology and Metaphysics are two successive stages
of nescience unavoidable as preludes to all Science.
We can know nothing but phenomena, their co-existences and successions; and the test of our knowledge
is prevision.
By " phenomena " must be understood objects of per



COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.         25
ception, to the exclusion of psychological change reputed to be self-known.
The idea of Causality, efficient or final, is an illusion
which should be expelled from philosophy.
The sciences logically arrange themselves in a certain
series, according to the growing complexity of their
phenomena; and their historical agrees with their logical
order.
The first and the last of these positions involve historical assertions, as to the actual procedure of the
human mind, of the most sweeping kind. To test
them satisfactorily would require a survey of the whole
march of civilization, and a critique upon its springs
of movement possible only to the regular historian of
knowledge. It is easy enough, over so wide a field, to
gather and group examples in confirmation or in disproof; but the evidence of a general law depends on
the balance of the whole, and can only be estimated
on the large scale. We shall not attempt, therefore,
to explain the grounds of our prevailing dissent from
Comte's historical rules, or the connections which might
perhaps save whatever truth they have. We address
ourselves in preference to the three intermediate positions, which are the real key to the whole system.
A question, however, arises in limine as to the
name of this " philosophy." Why call it " Positive "?
From what is it discriminated by this epithet? The
terms with which it stands in contrast, and which mark
what it would exclude and replace, are "theological"
and " metaphysical."  But neither of these is its
proper correlate, or would ever occur to the mind in
connection with it. Each of them might be thrown




26        COMTE S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
into various antitheses: "theological" might be opposed to anthropologic, to atheistic, to naturalistic,
&c.; "metaphysical," to physical, to historical, to
logical, &c.; but cannot, in virtue of its own meaning
or definition, be made a contrary to "positive." The
only opposition into which this word can be thrown is
expressed by the term "negative;" and what Comte
really means to intimate by this phrase is, that there is
nothing at all in either theology or metaphysics, and
that his procedure is distinguished from them both by
having all the reality to itself.  He is quite at liberty
to think so, and to make good the boast, if he can; but
to embody it in his nomenclature, and adopt it as the
base of his classification, is in the highest degree unphilosophical, an offence at once against logical precision and moral propriety. To arrogate merit under
the guise of a scientific division, is quite inadmissible,
except in the code of quack-advertisements and ecclesiastical polemics. It is as if we were to divide human
studies into politics, poetry, and sense; or to classify
men as merchants, farmers, and fools. If we take
away the coloring of self-praise involved in the word
"positive," the attribute which we require to mark is
simply this, — the limitation of research to phenomena, in their orders of resemblance, co-existence,
and succession; an idea which the word positive has
no tendency whatever to convey. Phenomenological,
as opposed to ontological, indicates the character which
Comte requires to express; and had he stated it thus,
we should have recognized an old and well-established
antithesis, and perceived that the theology and metaphysics which he separates into two states are essentially




COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.         27
one; conjointly, indeed, opposed to his exclusiveness,
but only on principles common to them both. The
recognition of reality behind appearance, of causationr
as well as manifestation, is that which they assume and
Comte denies. The nature of the controversy is disguised, and its issue taken for granted, by the substitution of a threefold for a twofold classification, and the
appropriation to the final form of a laudatory predicate
instead of a neutral definition.
Beyond the petitio principii involved in this choice
of a word, nothing whatever is advanced to show that
phenomena and their laws are the only accessible objects
of human thought. The principle is diligently reiterated without end; but its evidence is never adduced,
and the difficulties attending its admission are nowhere
appreciated. The axiom being laid down that phenomena are all in all (and further, as we shall see, that
perception is the sole medium of intelligence), it is
clear that there can be no knowledge but physical; and
it is only stating this proposition from the other side, to
say that all theological and metaphysical conceptions
which go beyond phenomena are invalid; they must be
negative, if only the other be positive. Tried by the
tests of physical knowledge, ontological cannot but
fail; its genius being wholly different, and its criteria
not the same. It is the perpetual boast of Comte
that positive science gives prevision, a triumph never
won by its rivals. True, but not very conclusive; for
prevision, - the perception of what is to turn up hereafter, -is an apprehension of phenomena, and naturally must arise from the study of phenomena, and not
from reflection on realities other than phenomena.




28        COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
So far forth as theology and metaphysics have presumed
to obtrude themselves into any science of observation,
and usurp its proper work, so far have they mistaken
their province, and deserved the reproach of failure.
Nothing that they can teach respecting the causation
and meaning of things will enable us to determine beforehand the particular course of cosmical or human
events, or in the least dispense with the necessity of
inductive research. It is one thing to have true faith
and insight respecting the infinite sources of all possibilities, and quite another to be familiar with the order
of concrete actualities. But this rule reads both ways;
and if there be no right of road in one direction,
neither is there in the other; and Comte can no more
disturb the theologian's truth than the theologian can
interfere with his. If prevision is impossible, if we
cannot operate forward from the absolute to the relative, conversely we cannot operate backward from the
relative to the absolute; and the positivist should as
little pretend to deny upwards as the theologian to affirm downwards. As no theist professes that God is a
phenomenon, the failure of phenomenological research
to meet Him contradicts no one's faith; and the boast
of one investigator that he found no God at the end of
his telescope, and of another that the cerebral dissecting knife comes across no human soul, misconceived
altogether, though quite in the spirit of Comte, the fundamental conditions of the problem.  "Ovrro are known,
not as the corollaries, but as the postulates, of phenomena; and if not recognized at the beginning, will
never be found at the end. The two orders of apprehension, though each is the complement of the other,




COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.         29
have no common measure; and endless contradiction
arises from confounding their functions and methods.
Above all, is it absurd to test the validity of theological and metaphysical conceptions by their power of
movement and " progress "? Why, the very sameness
with which they are taunted,- their patience from age
to age, - is precisely the sole conceivable evidence they
could offer that they are what they profess to be, the
representation in us of the constancies of the universe.
And nothing could more effectually discredit them, as
the steady shadows of eternal entity, than a history of
growth and change. If they indeed be, as they pretend, the background of cognition answering to the
abiding realities which hold all phenomena, it is their
business and function to keep still. Their vindication
lies in their permanence. They are the conservative
elements of all knowledge; the base and condition of
movement, but not the moving thing; the vital atmosphere that sustains it, but not its beating wing. Do
you complain that the ideas of Causality, of Soul, of
God, of Substance, never get on, but are essentially
what they always were? Instead of damaging them,
you give the highest possible testimony to their veracity
and authority. Did they sweep forward, as you desire,
they would belie their word, and be detected as belonging to the tide of physical change, not to the infinite
deep below. If on account of this stationary character
any one denies to these ideas the name of knowledge;
if this word, as implying distinction and plurality, be
refused to the self-identical and simple, - we shall not
object, provided it be understood that they are, if not
knowledge, the conditions of knowledge; if not the




30        COMTE S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
object seen, the light by which we see; that reliance on
them is indispensable to reading the universe as it is,
and that the enlarging field of phenomena and law finds
them still equal to their all-comprehensive function,
though needing revision in their special form and application.
And to what, after all, amount the alleged "unprogressiveness " and "barrenness" of all conceptions except of phenomena and their laws? If by this be
meant that we spin no theological cotton, and lay down
no metaphysical telegraphs, that our breakfast-table
displays our electro-plate, but not our creed,- the
remark is true, but trivial enough.  If it asserts that
men's private temper, and family administration, and
political aims and social sympathies, are unaffected by
their religious and philosophical convictions; that those
convictions have ceased to influence what the poet
writes, the historian tells, the artist paints, what the
schoolmaster teaches, what the merchant does with his
wealth, what the patriot and the statesman endeavor to
achieve by law, — the statement is as false as it is
startling. Much as we are in the habit of hearing
about the old "ages of faith," when nobody doubted
and everybody obeyed, they never put in an appearance in real history, but shrink away like a golden age
from the illumination of direct evidence, and retire into
an elder darkness. Beyond the select enclosure of the
Church order, there have always been hardy and defiant
spirits, or thoughtless and indifferent, or subtle and
refined, that have yielded their inner life but little to
theological authority; and wherever opportunity of expression has been given, as in the earliest poetry of




COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.          31
France and Italy, this fact has unambiguously displayed
itself. There seems no reason to suppose that theological and philosophical ideas ever had more power in
the world than they have at this moment; though their
scattered and unorganized condition precludes them
from embodied and hierarchical manifestation of authority. M. Comte has no appreciation of the freedom
and variety of movement which the human mind in its
modern development demands. With the French tendency to idolize the " unity of power," and to see in distributed and individual forces nothing but " anarchy,"
he treats the insurrection against Catholicism as a dissolution of faith; and considers all the private and
personal substitutes for the theocratic regime of the
Church as merely provisional disguises of irretrievable
decay. Nor does it occur to him that it is illogical to
demand from the theological and abstract convictions
of men the same direct and visible application to the
business of the passing hour of which their technical
knowledge is susceptible. In our practical work we
have to deal with phenomena and modify them; and
here the instruments of our power can only be found in
right apprehension of the laws of phenomena. Theology and metaphysics do not profess to teach us these;
but to go behind them, and enable us to think truly of
their ground and source; supposing this promise realized, it can evidently give us no new arts, no rules by
which either to predict or to command any particular
succession of external facts. But the influence upon
our tone of sentiment and affection, upon the interpretation we put on life and nature, on the admirations we
feel and the ideal we follow, is profound and powerful,




32       COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
although indefinite. It is always difficult, indeed, to
fetch out this power into actual life, and give it concrete application; to bridge over the interval between
our faith respecting real being and our manipulation
with transient phenomena; to incorporate a spiritual
religion into a working church: and of this confessed
difficulty Comte avails himself to persuade us that the
"positive sciences " contain the only practical order of
human ideas. But the same argument would equally
discredit all our ideas of beauty, harmony, and sublimity; whose expression is, in like manner and from
like causes, difficult to create into palpable forms, and
when so created, is equally inoperative in the prediction
and command of phenomena. If the merchant does
not keep his books by his theology, neither does the
artist bake his bread by his aesthetics; and in either
case the reproach of inefficiency is equally idle.
But Comte not only restricts the intellect to phenomena, he restricts the word "phenomena" to the
changes perceptible by sense. They must be external
to us, presented to material observation, in order to
become "facts" at all.  Successions of feeling, idea,
and will, known to us by consciousness, are to be
thrown out of the account, and furnish nothing upon
which intelligence can work. Psychology, accordingly, resting as it does upon self-observation, is a
mere illusion; and logic and ethics, so far as they build
on it as their foundation, are altogether baseless. This
repudiation of all reflective knowledge is due chiefly to
Comte's acceptance of phrenology, —a system which
has always taken an infatuated pleasure in knocking out
its own brains, by denying ab initio the validity of




COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.          33
that self-knowledge on which all its own evidence
directly or indirectly depends.  The arguments on
which Comte relies in his criticism on the psychologists
are the stock objections of Gall and Spurzheim and
Combe, viz. that the mind observing and the mind
observed being the same, the alleged fact must be gone
and out of reach before it is looked at; that a mental
state is not a whole fact, but only a part or function of
a fact, being as much a mere outcoming of some cerebral state as the feeling of indigestion is the sensational
side of deranged action in the stomach; and that psychologists have never found any thing out, or reaped
any scientific fruit. The inadequacy of this argument
has been felt and acknowledged by J. P. Mill, whose
superior knowledge of psychological literature, and disciplined habits of reflection, enabled him to appreciate
far better than the French metaphysician the real value
of this class of pursuits.
It is necessary-to protest in limine against the representation which Comte gives of the "psychological
method." He places it in false contrast with a mode
of procedure against which it has nothing at all to
object, and which its votaries have, in fact, been the
chief agents in advancing. Availing himself of De
Blainville's remark, that the phenomnena of every living
being may be regarded either statically, i. e. with reference to the conditions essential to their occurrence,
or dynamically, i. e. with reference to the products in
which they embody themselves, he lays it down that
the mental functions must be studied under one of these
two aspects: we must either engage ourselves with the
organs requisite for their manifestation, in which case
3




34        COMTE S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
our work is purely physiological; or we must attend to
the construction and course of scientific theories, and
compare and analyze the ways of thinking by which
the human mind has actually won its knowledge and
achieved its progress, - and in this case our task resolves itself into a critique on the intellectual history of
mankind. To these two processes he opposes the psychological, which, he says, pretends to discover the
fundamental laws of the human mind by contemplating
it in itself, i. e. wholly apart from  either causes or
effects. The rivalry thus set up on behalf of the physiologists (to take their case first) every scientific psychologist will entirely disown. He does not in the least
object to the most searching investigation of the organic
conditions under which the several orders of mental
phenomena arise: he only maintains that, besides the
relations in which they stand to their bodily antecedents, they also have certain relations inter se; that,
as felt by us, they are variously like and unlike, so as to
be susceptible of classification, and present themselves
in determinable sequence so as to be reducible to laws.
To effect these classifications, and ascertain these laws,
is certainly the primary aim of the psychologist. He
thinks it possible to attain it by comparative self-knowledge; and even wete it proved that the whole series of
phenomena were loose among themselves, produced not
one out of another, but each separately from its own
prior organic condition, he still deems it a legitimate
and useful service to bring into order these derivative
uniformities; for there is no reason why in this particular instance the general rule should fail, that order
among the effects is a clue to corresponding order in




COMTE S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.         35
the cause. But in assuming this as his centre of work,
the psychologist passes no slight on the physiologist's
investigations into the nervous and cerebral conditions
of sensation, thought, and emotion. He is well aware
that the light of discovered order radiates forward as
well as backward, and that if uniformities of succession
or co-existence can be detected in the physical conditions, they will become exponents of similar relations
among the mental facts. He simply leaves this indirect
method of classification to the physiologist, and himself resorts to the direct; willingly availing himself of
every help supplied by researches into the vital organism, and giving no countenance to the narrow-minded
assumption that the selection of one order of relations
for special attention is a disparagement of another. It
is not to the discoveries, but to the fictions of phrenologists, that intellectual philosophy objects; nor can
any one familiar with the writings of Descartes and
Locke, of Spinoza and Berkeley, of Reid, Mill, and
Hamilton, deny its habitual eagerness to use to the
utmost the results placed at its disposal by the zeal of
the anatomist, The antagonism, therefore, supposed
by Comte is all his own.
It is equally so when he accuses psychologists of
substituting self-examination for study of the realized products of human thought, - such as scientific
hypothesis, the history of civilization, and development
of ideas. Not a book of modern psychology can be
found, not a dialogue of Plato, not a treatise of Aristotle, in which the logical laws of human reason are
not continually illustrated, if not directly deduced, by
reference to the organism and method of the sciences,




36        COMITE S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
and the recorded procedures of human thought. The
value of these historical materials for determining the
principles of cognition is not more appreciated by
Comte than by the objects of his criticism; the only
difference is, that while they consult individual consciousness, in addition to the recorded development of
the race, and for their power to read and interpret the
monuments of intellectual history profess themselves
indebted to sympathetic self-reflection, he denies that
we can know ourselves, yet insists that we decipher the
world. His position, therefore, is simply destructive;
and we have not the invidious office of depreciating his
proposed methods, which are of admitted value, but
only of defending the philosophical competency of our
owrn.
"The chief consideration proving clearly that the
mind's practical self-contemplation is a pure illusion,"
is the following. Whatever the mind knows, is its
object of knowledge; every object of knowledge is
other than the knowing subject, therefore what the
mind knows can never be itself. "By an invincible
necessity, the human mind can immediately observe all
phenomena except its own."  "The thinking individual
cannot divide himself in two; let one reason, while the
other looks at the reasoning. The organ observed and
the organ observing being in this case the same, how is
it possible that observation should have place?"
This argument curiously reverses a celebrated maxim
of James Mill, - and, indeed, of Hobbes, - to the
effect that to have a feeling, and to know that you
have it, are identical.  Comte tells us that to have a
feeling, and to know that you have it, are incompati



COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.          37
ble. e.g. I fall into a frozen pond; I know the water
and the ice, but I cannot possibly know that I am
cold. Or, I go a sea-voyage under bilious conditions;
I observe the swaying water and the lurching ship; but
"an invincible necessity" conceals from  me the fact
that I am sick. Of the two things given in the act of
perception, viz. the percipient consciousness and the
perceived object, it has usually been supposed possible
to doubt the second, but not the first; the very doubt
itself bringing, as another state of the conscious self,
its own refutation. And accordingly, though we have
numerous forms of idealism which construe all outward
phenomena into mere appearances within the mind, we
have hitherto had no strictly corresponding materialism,
cancelling from our knowledge all mental states on the
ground of their being ours, and claiming certainty for
the outer world precisely because it is foreign to us.
This, however, is the strange position taken up by
Comte. The argument by which he supports it is a
mere appeal to the mystery which belongs to all cognition, whether of external or internal facts. How is it
possible, he asks, that we should know our own state,
since we must cease our mental activity in order to
observe it? In other words, reflection upon our inner
experience must follow upon that experience itself,
and be separated from it by a certain interval of time.
Be it so; why is this' more inconceivable than the perception of an outward fact which stands off from me
by a certain interval of space? If our intelligence can
bridge the chasm of local separation, what hinders it
from uniting the termini of succession? What is mneznory, if the present self can never know any thing




38        COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
about the past self?  Its distinction is, that it reports
to us, not simply outward things in themselves, but
outward things (or inward) as they affect us; so that
— it has even been contended- there is properly no
memory but of our own former states. If now its reports are good for nothing, there is an end of the
matter, and human acquaintance with the past is an
illusion. But if they be accepted as valid, the knowledge which they supply is either immediate or mediate.
Is it immediate? Then are we immediately cognitive
of our own past states, in spite of Comte's maxim. Is
it mediate?  Then do we, as now remembering, know
something past, as having then perceived it; the truth
in my present remembrance is just what there was in
my former perception; and without immediate cognition of my own state at the percipient moment, no
mediate knowledge of it could be given by memory.
In fact, the act of perception is necessarily and equally
an act of self-consciousness, objective no more than
subjective; and to claim for it authority for phenomena
without, is in itself to concede to it like authority for
phenomenon within; nothing being an outward phenomenon at all except what appears on the double field
of thought and things, and is known as being and as
felt.
And if we be incapable of knowing our own experiences and thoughts, we cannot perform on them any
act of comparison, separation, or combination. Yet
what is human language but the crystallized form of
countless discriminations and analogies, so clearly felt,
and frequently referred to, as to demand the means of
permanent expression? Comte refers us to scientific




COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.           39
theories and logical processes as the only possible means
of reaching logical laws. But how could these intellectual methods speak to us intelligibly at all, were it
not for the parallel movement of our own thought,
carried into the study as interpreter and test? To
beings not self-conscious, or not able to rely on their
reflective insight into their own ways of intellectual
action, the record of other men's reasonings could
awaken no responsive intelligence; only through our
sympathetic self-knowledge do they find us out and
teach us any thing. All grammar, all philology, all
scientific language, are in fact psychological deposits;
not less certainly testifying to the perpetual action of
self-reflection, as one factor of human knowledge, than
the geological strata bear witness to the operation
through ages past of the very elements that work upon
our homesteads and on the beach at our garden-gate
to-day. Comte's advice is excellent, if addressed to
those who can open their vision upon their own nature
and intelligence; but has no sense or application for
the sort of blind chimera or one-eyed cyclops that he
imagines, with pictures of the universe glazed upon the
surface, and never taken home to any known self
within. No doubt our self-knowledge is dependent to
an incalculable extent on the living in a human world,
and standing before the face of other men: the manifestations of their nature, whether by natural language
of the moment or by the historical record of past processes of thought, are conditions necessary to the development of our reflective faculties; and if we were
to insist on insulating the self-consciousness from all
these data, that it might spin a science out of its own




40        COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
viscera, we should but impose upon an empty power a
self-consuming task. But, on the other hand, our
ability to decipher the expression of other minds depends, in its turn, on converse with our own; and to
bid us study the fruits of their research and meditation,
while despairing of all acquaintance with our own, is
to place a banquet before the sleeping or the dead. It
is impossible to make either of the reciprocal conditions prior to the other; their efficacy lies in the balance
and alternation of action and re-action; and so close is
the inter-dependence of psychological and objective
knowledge of human nature, that a theory which despises either excludes both.
The objection, however, which Comte is most zealous
in urging against the psychologists is, that their method
has never been crowned with any success, great or
small, and that their labor has been absolutely barren.
Even if this statement be tried by the test present to
the author's own mind, viz. the amount of direct discovery respecting the processes of the mind, it is a
monstrous exaggeration.  The logical doctrine of Aristotle, the modern theory of vision, the ascertainment of
laws of association and abstraction, Butler's exposition
of the moral constitution of man, —deserve to be
ranked among positive achievements of a high order,
and are recognized as such by the vast majority of competent judges on these points. If perfect unanimity is
not attained even on these doctrines, neither is it secured
at present in regard to any of the corresponding parts
of biological science; and the only advantage which
the positivist has over his predecessors in intellectual
philosophy is in his liberal promises for the future; his




COMTE S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.          41
disparagement of the past not being justified, so far as
yet appears, by the detection of a single law of our
mental or moral nature. These reproaches of backwardness should at least be reserved till they can be
uttered from a point of real advance. Perhaps, too,
the test by which the fruitfulness or sterility of a pursuit is estimated by Comte may not be altogether admissible. His demand obviously is for some new field
of "prevision" special to psychology: the demand is
disappointed, because intrinsically unreasonable. From
objective studies we expect objective results; from subjective studies it is natural to look for subjective results: not so much for a fresh sphere brought into
knowledge, as for a more refined knowing power, for
quickened faculties self-protected from beguiling errors,
for intellectual implements of more ethereal temper and
disciplined skill. That this appropriate effect of reflective studies has been their habitual attendant, is
undeniable; every period of intense speculative activity
being the precursor of the next advance of even physical science, and educating the faculties up to the point
when the discovery of new laws becomes possible; setting the previous gains of human research in due order
and relation, and preparing language and method for
new service. Alternately acting and studying its action,
the mind, whether by systole or diastole, sustains the
pulsation of its living thought; and to demand the one
operation without the other, is not less absurd than to
complain that the heart does not always propel without
resilience. Nor is it only in the successive periods of
human culture that this need of reflective studies is
observable. ANo fact is more conspicuous in individual




42           COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
biography  and the comparative  experiences of education, than  the  systematic  superiority, in  pliancy  and
balance of faculty, of men not strange to metaphysical
and moral studies, over those who never quit the circle
of mathematical relations and physical laws. Were
the methods of intellectual and moral philosophy altogether illusory, it is inconceivable that a certain habituation to them should be an indispensable gymnastic
for the mind, and a needful check to the narrowing
tendency of the "positive sciences," when exclusively
pursued. *
Closely connected with Comte's contempt for the psy* In spite of Comte's contempt for psychology, he is one of the most
resolute of psychologists himself; and freely appeals, when convenient, to
that very self-consciousness which at other times he declares to be quite
blank and dumb. Thus we find him announcing that the " phenomena of
life " are " known by immediate consciousness" (Plil. Pos. vol. ii. p. 648, vol.
iii. p. 8); an assertion standing in accurate contradiction to the doctrine on
which we have been commenting. Nay, so completely does he forget his
denial of any possible self-knowledge, as to affirm, when required for his purpose, that " man at first knows nothing but himself," — so as to apply his selfknowledge as a universal formula for the interpretation of nature. But how
could man erect his self-consciousness into a rule for explaining all phenomena, if no inward fact were cognizable by him at all?  Perhaps, however, it is only since monotheism came in, that psychology has become
impossible and absurd; for, while denying it to modern metaphysicians,
Comte is full of admiration of its use among the ancient augurs. He claims
for polytheism the honor of instituting the first careful observation of nature;
laments that we have to put up with our poor meteorological registers in
place of the far superior weather-tables of the Etruscan soothsayers; and
affirms that, with a view to the interpretation of dreams, the intellectual
and moral phenomena were made the subject of the most delicate observations, pursued day by day with a perseverance not to be again expected till
the positive philosophy has reached its final development (Phil. Pos. vol. v.
p. 135). It is to be presumed that, as dreams are altogether inward facts,
this marvellous store of scientific observation accumulated in their service,
and throwing light on the intellectual and moral life, could be no other than
psychological capital. How is it that it may be invested in Divination; but
must be inaccessible to Science, at least until Positivism finds a profitable
use for it?




COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.          43
chologists is his disrespect for certain ideas and beliefs
whose only guarantee is in our self-consciousness.
Thus he treats as an illusion our idea of Causation;
requiring us to dispense with it altogether, not merely
in its theological form of 1Viii, but no less in its scientific equivalent of Force.  "Every proposition," he
says, "which is not ultimately reducible to the simple
enunciation of a fact, particular or general, must be
destitute of all real and intelligible meaning." Again:
" Forces, in mechanics, are only movements, produced
or tending to be produced; but although this is happily
pretty well understood now-a-days, yet an essential form
is still required, if not in the conception, at least in the
habitual language, in order to cancel altogether the old
metaphysical notion of force, and present more accurately than hitherto the true point of view." And he
shows the same jealousy of any properly dynamical
notions when complaining afterwards of Bichat's speculation respecting " vital forces," and proposing to return
to the true path by substituting the word " properties"
for "forces"! His definition of the word "Law," as
an   invariable relation of succession or resemblance
among phenomena," together with his severe restriction
of the human mind to the investigation of "Laws,"
demands of us an entire disuse of all belief or even
idea of Causality.
Now if he had been content with saying that causes
lie beyond the field of observation, and that scientific
induction, even in its highest generalizations, can never
carry us further than the order of co-existence and
sequence among phenomena, he would have stated only
an important truth, -the one great truth on whose




44        COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
clear apprehension depends the whole difference between ancient and modern investigation of nature. All
knowledge which finds its test and triumph in accurate
prevision, or, more generally, in the determination of
absent facts by means of present data, does require
exclusively an attentive study of the relations of events
in time and place. Though we were endowed with no
other power than the ability to register, compare, and
analyze series, without any suspicion of a purpose, or
wonder about origination, we should want nothing (except, indeed, an indispensable moral incentive) to complete the conditions of scientific discovery.  It stands
to reason, indeed, that, in order to foresee, we need
only to know the sequences to which events, beginning
from the present, are limited; and that, in order to fillin the absent half of a cluster of phenomena by suggestion from what is at hand, we have but to learn
the groupings in which they uniformly occur. And the
rule, thus rational in its principle, is confirmed by the
actual history of natural knowledge. No scrutiny, it
is true, ever succeeds in laying hold of a new force,
and fixing it in its distinction before our view: all
that can be done is to detect some unsuspected effects,
which are but a fresh disposition or succession of phenomena; and behind that veil no astuteness can carry
us.  We are apt to be deceived on this point by the
habitual employment, in scientific treatises, of names
for reputed forces of different kinds, - chemical, electric, magnetic, vital, &c. We naturally suppose that
the votary of each department of research has something to tell us of the force prevailing there, and of the
characters which distinguish it from its dynamic neigh



COMTE S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.           45
bors.  On closer inspection, however, we shall find
that of the force itself, apart from what it does, he has
nothing special to say: he defines it by the aplpearances it puts forth; he separates it from other forces
by stating the dissimilar effects which they severally
exhibit; nor has he any other means of referring to the
ranks of avw4yent; than by marshalling the perceptible
phenomena under their appropriate heads. The name
"magnetism " stands for the viewless cause of all those
movements in certain metals (iron, cobalt, nickel)
which occur in the vicinity of particular ferruginous
ores, or of iron brought into similar conditions: the
movements may be induced under considerable variety
of prior conditions, through which it would be impossible for us to trace any identity of originating power;
and the assumption of unity rests entirely on the termination of all these conditions in one result, viz. the
polar disposition or deflection of the needle. It is the
specialty of the phenomenon that is honored with the hypothesis of a special force.  Heat, again, is the name
of an equally unknown cause of certain phenomena,such as a given animal sensation, and the expansion of
bodies, and their change from solid to liquid and liquid
into gaseous, — which are entered under this category
for no other reason than that they cling together, and
though not alike in themselves or appreciable through
the same sense, arise under the same physical conditions. The concurrence of these effects having tied
them into a group, the rise of any one of them becomes
a sign of the possibility of the rest, or of the presence
of the supposed cause: but of that cause, per se, as
apart from its effects, — of its unity, except in their




46        COMTE S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
concurrence; of its difference from magnetism, except
in the unlikeness and separation of the effects, —we
have assuredly no cognizance. Thus much, then, must
be freely granted to Comte, -that all investigation
into natural forces is delusive, unless understood to be
mere phenomenological research, prosecuted under the
disguise of dynamical language; and that its only real
result must be to ascertain the analogies and the order
of perceptible facts. If this be true, we must materially alter our ordinary conceptions of the operations of
nature. We must no longer attribute any reality or
efficient existence to gravitation, electricity, cohesion,
&c.; but, treating them as mere fictions of thought
subservient to classification, must resolve the universe,
under the eye of science, into a legion of phenomena,
irregular to begin with, but susceptible of being regimented and disciplined by due attention to their likeness and affinities. If our language is to be regulated
exclusively by the resources of the natural sciences,
and nothing to be admitted into it but what they can
undertake to guarantee, nothing short of a clean sweep
of every dynamical form of phrase can satisfy the obligations of truth. And yet this is manifestly impossible; and has been found so by Comte himself.
How are we to reduce this apparent inconsistency?
Inductive science gives us no access to causes behind
phenomena; yet we cannot expound it without speaking of them, and assuming them. Is fiction, then, the
indispensable vehicle of truth? And must a false postulate underlie the whole fabric of our knowledge? So
would it assuredly be, if every idea were to be discarded as invalid for which inductive science declines to




COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.          47
be responsible. But when we have confessed that, by
the way of perception, and in the study of laws, causation cannot be reached, it by no means follows that the
idea is to be expelled the service of the human mind.
The question arises, whether, as it evades us at the end
of science, it may not, perhaps, be found at the
beginning: the spectacle-case may well be empty, if
the glasses are already on the nose, helping us all the
while to see the very emptiness itself.  If the idea of
causality be a metaphysical datum, it is no wonder that
we miss it as a physical quoesitum; nor is it difficult to
understand why it presents no variety to our mind,
however various be the phenomena behind which it is
planted, or the corresponding changes of name it may
assume. By an irresistible law of' thought, all phenomena present themselves to us as the expression
of power, and refer us to a causal ground whence they
issue. This dynamic source we neither see, nor hear,
nor feel; it is given in thought - supplied by the
spontaneous activity of the mind itself as the correlative prefix to the phenomenon observed. By the
general acknowledgment of philosophers, this idea is so
strictly " a necessary idea " as to be entirely irremovable
from the conception of any change; to cut the tie between them, and think of phenomena as not effects, is
impossible, in fact, even to the very writers who propose it in theory.
What value, then, are we to put upon this belief?
Either we must take it as a natural revelation, or reject
it as a natural lie; in the case of an original datum of
thought contradictory to no other, a third course is
impossible. If we are to rely on the veracity of our




48        COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
constitution as thinking beings, we must accept the
subjective postulate as giving a valid rule for objective
nature. If we are to suppose our intellectual constitution mendacious, and deem causation a mental fiction,
no reason will remain for trusting our perceptive constitution any more; and our observation of facts and
quest of laws will perish by the contagion of uncertainty. It is impossible, except by arbitrary caprice,
to save the one part of our cognitive nature while
sacrificing the other, and vain to pretend that the depositions of the first are in any sense opposed to those of
the other. That the " power" given to us in thought
is apprehensible by no perception, avails as little to
disprove its reality as the inaudibleness of light to
convict the eye of false reports. Yet this is the only
argument by which Comte justifies his contempt for
causes. We freely surrender to him all search by
scientific methods after a plurality of forces distinguishable in themselves: but he confounds this illusory
aim with the recognition, on the authority of a law of
thought, of universal causation, inserted by the mind,
without any change of type, behind all sets of phenomena in turn. Start up what may to arrest our
attention, one and the same homogeneous idea of
power occurs to us; and whether it receives the name
of chemical, or physical, or vital, the dynamical background of the conception remains unvaried, and the
momentary representation alone is exposed to change.
The trustworthiness of this belief has the same guarantee
as the self-evident predicates of space and time: it is
the indispensable condition of our thinking of phenomena at all; they are just as absolutely unpresentable to




COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.         49
the mind apart from causality, as motion without duration and extension. Indeed, it is remarkable how these
two great data, Space and Time, rescue us from the
scepticism of the materialist school. They stand as
eternal barriers to forbid our final exit from the natural
faiths of reason; or as a bridge that spans the gulf between metaphysical and physical apprehension, and has
a bearing upon each; so that, destroy which you will,
the whole roadway of human knowledge falls, and
neither of the interdependent realms remains accessible
or habitable at all. Will you take your stand on the
entities of Reason alone? Then, as Comte truly says,
your knowledge will never advance a step; you will
find no law, and win no prevision. Will you try the
other side, and say that Perception of phenomena is
the only source of knowledge? Then you must throw
away from your belief both space and time,' which, as
eternal, are not phenomena, and as infinite, you cannot
have perceived; and with them must perish all that
they contain, so that your solid realism goes off into
absolute Nihilism. Will you attempt a compromise,
and let natural faith have its way unquestioned respecting these two necessary receptacles of phenomena?
Then the postulates of thought, by no means stopping
there, are not only good for these, but good for more;
and causality slips in by the plea that makes room for
Law.
Final causation, not less than efficient, our author
imagines to be contradicted and disproved by "positive" knowledge; and he is fond of turning aside from
his exposition to mark the points where science appears to exclude the notion of providential design.
4




50          COMTE S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
Thus astronomical discovery, in his opinion, completely
overthrows the doctrine of divine purpose in the arrangements of the solar system: 1. Because design,
whenever alleged, is conceived of as relative to man,
whose nature gives the only measure we have of good
and evil; and though he might plausibly be supposed
the object of divine care so long as his station was
assumed to be central, the idea must vanish with the
disclosure of the earth's dependent and planetary position.  2. Because it is demonstrated that the order and
stability of the solar system, and the fitness of its several bodies for the residence  of living  beings, are
necessary consequences of purely mechanical laws.
3. Because in many respects the system might be
greatly improved, and by no means deserves the admiration wasted on it.* This last argument we may leave
to those who feel themselves able to pronounce on the
relative merits of possible universes, as compared with
one another and with the actual. The belief in design
is by no means pledged to the doctrine of optimism.
The readiness with which every theist admits the existence of evil, the frequency with which he speaks of
imperfections in life and nature, and his habitual reference to a future and ideal world, show that his faith
can co-exist, without prejudice, with the conception of
more " advantageous conditions " of being than he wit* "With persons unused to the study of the celestial bodies, though very
likely well informed on other parts of natural philosophy, astronomy has still
the repute of being a science eminently religious; as if the famous words,'The heavens declare the glory of God,' had lost nothing of their truth." In a
note Comte adds, " Now-a-days, to minds familiarized betimes with the true
astronomical philosophy, the heavens declare no other glory than that of
Hipparchus, Kepler, Newton, and all those who have contributed to the
ascertainment of their laws." - Philosophie Positive, vol. ii. p. 36.




COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.          51
nesses where he is. For ourselves, we confess Comte's
censorship over the universe affects us very much in the
same way as many religious writers' patronage of it.
They undertake to show how much better, he how
much worse, it is than it might have been. If this sort
of argument is open to the one, it cannot be closed
against the other; and we may leave them to settle it
between them as best they may. Whether the stomach
is made on the best principles; whether the sea is not a
little too salt; whether the isthmus of Panama is not to
be regretted; whether the ice may not be rather overdone
about the poles; whether, if M. Lesseps had been consulted, the shortcomings of the Red Sea might not have
been avoided; whether the two sides of the moon are
fairly treated; whether Jupiter is all right without a
ring, or Venus would be improved by diminution of
light and levity, - are matters for those who know
every thing and a good deal more. Such questions are
as a flood let loose, and spreading without use and without bound, covering the landmarks of all fruit-bearing
truth and turning thought into a desolating waste.
Mend the world as you will, there must always remain
ideal standards, measured by which it will be liable to
criticism as before. The body of man, for instance, is
variously frail, and can scarcely stand, without fracture,
a ten-feet fall; but give him cast-iron ribs, and a railway accident will contrive to crush him; and the more
you harden him, the greater the forces into which he
will venture.  In short, the critique of nature in detail
is quite beyond us; and whether we find there little
providences or monstrous blemishes, we are alike in
danger of seeing only the reflection of our own egotism.




52        COMTE S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
Praising or censuring the arrangements of' the world,
we equally set up certain ideal ends of our own imagining, which we assume that it was or ought to serve; by
the test of these we try nature, and, according as her
structure realizes or falls short of them, we pronounce
it perfect or imperfect.  Comte and the divines are
therefore both within the same school of teleological
criticism; both speak of a good or a bad way of realizing a presupposed conception; both are equally far
from confining themselves to the study of actual phenomena and effects, uncompared with others that might
have been.  Forming as we do part of the scheme of
nature, limited as our power of conception is to the
resources of the universe that bounds the horizon of our
minds, we cannot pretend to be judges of the skill or
clumsiness of the world's laws; and the moment we
pass beyond the simple admiring perception of order
and relation, and begin to imagine how much better or
worse matters would have stood under other conditions,
we entangle ourselves in a thicket of ever-growing
problems, from which extrication is impossible.  The
faith in divine purpose will persevere through all; but
the critique of that purpose in special instances is variable and insecure, and was properly excluded by Bacon
from the business of science.
Thus the particular thought from which the creation
of the world has been supposed to spring, viz. to be the
moral centre of the universe, and the scene of a drama
fixing the gaze of all higher beings, does really, as
Comte's first argument remarks, lose its hold of probability by the Copernican discovery.  The plurality of
worlds, be they inhabited or uninhabited, is fatally at




COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.           53
variance with the scheme of moral symmetry that
makes man the hero of all time and nature. But to
discredit this particular idea is one thing; to disprove
the presence of design altogether is another.  The tendency of the Copernican discovery, is quite in the
opposite direction, to give enlargement, instead of curtailment and extinction, to the significance and purpose
of the world. The old theory of the divines proving
too small to suit the magnificence of the facts; its
chief object, man, finding himself in presence of a
scene so unexpectedly august,- which is the more
natural inference, that therefore this scene must have a
greater cause than we had conceived, or that it can
have none at all? And so perhaps it will ever be.
In one instance after another ad infinitum, it will be
found that the idea we had planted at the heart of a
thing is too small, and is transcended by the scale of
the reality. To make this the excuse for substituting a
smaller or a blank, is perversely to justify a logical
retrogression by a scientific advance, and to say that,
the more glorious the creation, the less thought must it
contain. No less a paradox than this is Comte's reasoningf that, because a particular idea of the divine
intention gives way, Final Causation in general is
exploded.
The only considerable argument in the passage on
which we are remarking is the second,- that the
physical forces and arrangements being known, to
which the order and stability of the solar system is
due, the phenomena are exhaustively explained without any intervention of purpose at all. Now what is
the nature, and wherein lies the plausibility, of this rea



54        COMTE S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
soning? It is simply a playing-off of physical causation
against moral, or, as it is called, final causation; the
forces of matter are adequate to produce all the movements and all the equilibrium, and so no force of mind is
wanted.  But have we not just learned from  Comte
that we know nothing of any forces of matter, nothing
of any production of one phenomenon from any other,
or from causation at all? that our investigations and
discoveries are are absolutely debarred from passing beyond
the grouping and succession of phenomena?  Then
what does he mean by here finding in physical causes a
substitute and equivalent for the volitional action which
he excludes? They cannot shut out and supersede that
action, unless they are competent to do the same thing;
if they claim to stand in its place, they must undertake
to discharge the required office instead of it. Either,
therefore, gravitation must be equal to the task hitherto
given to the Divine Will, i. e. must be a real efficient
force, and not a mere generalized phenomenon; or else
it cannot make good its rival pretensions, or enter at
all upon the field which is at present occupied by final
causes simply on the merit of this qualification.  In
other words, our author may take his choice of two
positions: he may limit the possible achievements of
our minds to the ascertainment of laws, and say that
causal problems are inaccessible; or, admitting causal
problems, he may pronounce one solution true and
another false, declaring e. g. in favor of physical forces
as against spiritual agency. But he cannot do both,
and slip about from the one to the other at will; he cannot fight a particular causal hypothesis with a mere law
of phenomena which is not causal, and say in the same




COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.          55
breath that we can know nothing of this matter, and
also that we know the matter to be not so-and-so, but
otherwise than that. Cause against cause, law against
law; but no cross-fire is possible; and, slam the heavy
gate of gravitation as you may in the face of Living
Agency, still if its bars are only ranges of co-existence
and succession, and its chevaux-de-frise only bristling
clusters of phenomena, causation will slip through and
round and over, and feel no obstruction to be there.
As to the choice which Comte practically makes between the two positions just described, there can be no
doubt. He assuredly thinks of nature, not simply as
the theatre of phenomena, but as the residence offorces.
In what sense can he affirm that periodicity of planetary
perturbation, and the consequent equilibrium of the solar
system and its orbitary movements, are necessary consequences of gravitation, if he does not conceive of
gravitation as a cause?  From the two great conditions
of every Newtonian solution, viz. projectile impulse
and centripetal tendency, eject the idea of force, and
what remains? The entire conception is simply made
up of this, and has no sort of faintest existence without
it. It is useless to give it notice to quit, and pretend
that it is gone, when you have put a new name upon
the door. We must not call it " attraction," lest there
should seem to be a power within: we are to speak
of it as " gravitation," because that is only "weight,"
which is nothing but a "fact;" as if it were not a fact
that held a power, a true dynamic affair, which no
imagination can chop up into incoherent successions.
Nor is the evasion more successful when we try the
phrase "tendency of bodies to mutual approach."




56       COMTE S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
The approach itself may be called a phenomenon; but
the "tendency" is no phenomenon, and cannot be
attributed by us to the bodies without regarding them
as the residence of force. And what are we to say to
the projectile impulse in the case of the planets?  Is
that also a phenomenon? Who witnessed and reported
it? Is it not evident that this whole scheme of physical
astronomy is a resolution of observed facts into dynamic
equivalents, and that the hypothesis posits for its calculations, not phenomena, but proper forces? Its logic
is this: if an impulse of certain intensity were given,
and if such and such a mutual attraction were constantly present, then the sort of motions which we
observe in the bodies of our system wouldfollow. So,
however, they also would if willed by an Omnipotent
Intelligence. Both doctrines are so far hypothetical;
both hypotheses are dynamic; both, are an adequate
provision for the facts; so that on this ground neither
can exclude the other. There is, however, this difference: we know that the doctrine of composition of
forces is an artificial device, by which, in innumerable
cases, we treat as if plural a spring of motion which,
like our own volition to a given muscular action, is
really simple; the quasi-plurality being a contrivance for bringing the phenomenon under dominion to
the calculus, and finding its equivalent.  If it be
maintained that the phenomenon is really composite,
antagonist muscles and numerous levers being set in
motion, we reply, that the complexity is at all events
in the mode of execution, not in the principle of origination, which, being our own conscious volition, we
know has none of those parts, but goes straight at the




COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.           57
resultant.  It appears, therefore, that the composite
doctrine betrays its fictitious character where the volitional origination is an indisputable fact; and that, even
allowing it in such case to represent reality, it is a mere
executive reality, wielded as an instrumental medium
by the immediate power of Will behind. In the same
manner, the hypothetical composition of the Newtonian
forces does nothing to exclude the primary causation of
a Divine Mind.
In this connection it is curious to notice, in so acute
a mind as our author's, the logical inconsequence produced by incompatible antipathies. He commits the
inconsistency, - which would be extraordinary were it
not ordinary with his class,- of excluding all Will
from the universe because there is nothing but Necessity, yet insisting on Necessity as an attribute of all
Will. It is evident that whichever of these two positions is established destroys the other; yet it is scarcely
possible for the atheist to avoid holding both.  "Look
at this whole frame of things," he says, "how can it
proceed from a mind, - a supernatural will? Is it not
all subject to regular laws, and do we not actually
obtain prevision of its phenomena? If it were the
product of mind, its order would be variable and free."
Of mind, therefore, it is a mark, that its phenomena
are unsusceptible of prevision; of volition it is characteristic to be free; and the absence of these attributes
negatives the presence of voluntary agency.  Here,
then, the atheistic argument itself not only concedes
liberty to will as possible, but reasons from it as the
one essential. Yet no sooner do these writers begin to
treat of the only will which we directly know, viz. our




58        COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
own, than they contend for the contradictory of all
this; affirming that the will has no freedom whatever;
that it follows determinate and ascertainable laws; that
its products are not variable or irreducible to rules of
prevision; and that if we cannot yet foresee them, the
fault is not in the indeterminateness of the facts, but in
the imperfect conquests of our knowledge.  From this
it would seem that necessity and determinateness of
sequence, being not less predicable of will than of other
orders of facts, may as well be a sign of it as of any
thing else, and cannot at all be taken to disprove it.
Either, then, the will is free, or else theism is unharmed; and the attack on either of these propositions
saves the other. The fact is, the atheistic reasoning is
an involuntary testimony to the inextinguishable faith
in the freedom of the will, -a testimony the more
impressive because unconsciously given by a hostile
witness. When the problem practically comes before
him, how to get rid of supernatural volition from the
universe, he can find but one mode, viz. to get rid of
every trace offreedom, and enthrone everywhere natural necessity. In this he follows a perfectly correct
logical instinct; he tries the issue upon the antithesis
of two notions that are truly contradictory. But if they
are mutually exclusive in the universe, so are they in
man; and it is the secret consciousness of this that
suggests and sustains the whole argument. When,
after this radical acknowledgment, Comte condescends
to the assertion that any man who fancies himself free,
may undeceive himself by standing on his head for a
few minutes, and trying what becomes of his clearest
thoughts and strongest resolves, we cannot fail to see




COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.          59
how much deeper is his involuntary wisdom than his
superficial polemic. As well might you urge it as a
disproof of free-will, that you cannot put the moon in
your pocket, or contrive to live five hundred years, or
write an epic in your sleep. Be the limitations of our
power prescribed by nature, or self-imposed, or a mixture of the two, no one ever denied or questioned them;
no one ever contended for a freedom in man unfettered
by organic conditions. To do so would be to pronounce him omnipotent and absolute. In truth, free
causality is so far from requiring the absence of all
limiting conditions, that it cannot be conceived of except
as in their presence. Its activity is in its very essence
preferential, - the adoption of this to the exclusion
of that; and to empty out all data, to cancel the finite
terms, is to destroy the problem and preclude the
power. All mental action is intrinsically relative, and
when predicated as absolute becomes entirely inconceivable.  It is therefore mere trifling to argue against
free-will by pointing out the dependence of moral phenomena on organic conditions.  These conditions are
the very data of the whole problem; they may exist in
every variety of number and intensity; by increasing
which the range left open to determination may be
continually narrowed, till, in the extreme case, it
wholly disappears, the quvesitum is among the data,
and the problem is self-resolved. The real question
is, whether this extreme case is universal.
But we must release our readers from an unconscionable detention.  We should, however, have been
unfaithful interpreters of our author, if we had not
made them feel a little of the tedium he inflicts. Our




60        COMTE S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
interest in him being chiefly from the moral side, we
have addressed ourselves exclusively to the dogmatic
groundwork of his system, and especially to the assumptions by which he discredits psychological science,
appends ethics to biology, and dismisses religion into
limbo.  It is in this, his Prima Philosophia, that we
find it necessary to contest every step. When, advancing from this abstract ground, he begins to construct
his hierarchy of the sciences, we acknowledge for the
first time the true style of a master-hand. Two things
only provoke remark in this part of his work: (1) The
principle of arrangement by which he gives order to
the sciences, advancing from the more universal properties to the more special, is by no means original; and
in the hands of Dr. Arnott had already, in 1827, been
employed to raise in outline precisely the symmetrical
pyramid of knowledge which Comte contemplates with
so much pride.  Our author's additional rule, that
with this logical order the historical growth of the
sciences agrees, will not, in our opinion, bear examination. (2) This linear arrangement of the sciences,
all around the same axis, appears to us absolutely
untrue, both to their inner logic and their outward
history. We deny that the knowledge of human nature
and life waits for an antecedent biology, chemistry,
physics, and astronomy, or uses their conclusions, when
obtained, as its presuppositions. We maintain the essential independence of its evidence and method, and
the possibility, nay even necessity, of its beginning
at the same moment, and advancing pari passu, with
our apprehension of the outward world.  We assert
that the sciences dispose themselves round two great




COMTE S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.           61
axes of thought, parallel and not unrelated, yet distinct;- the natural sciences held together by the one,
the moral by the other. In practice our author himself
proceeds as if it were so; and in his review of political
and social doctrine, leaves his physiology and chemistry
entirely behind. His notices of both groups of sciences, taken separately, abound with original criticisms
and striking generalizations; but it is especially in the
sphere of physical knowledge that his habits of thought
render him an instructive and suggestive guide.
As for his celebrated threefold law, we will only
point to the distorting effect it has had on his great
historical survey. In obedience to its cruel exactions,
the natural organism of European civilization has been
torn to pieces. As the third, or positive stage, had
accomplished its advent in the author's own person, it
was necessary to find the metaphysical period just
before; and so the whole life of the Reformed Christianity, in embryo and in manifest existence, is stripped
of its garb of faith, and turned out to view as a naked
metaphysical phenomenon.  But metaphysics, again,
have to be ushered in by theology; and of the three
stages of theology Monotheism is the last, - necessarily
following on Polytheism, as that, again, on Fetichism.
There is nothing for it, therefore, but to let the mediaeval Catholic Christianity stand as the world's first
monotheism, and to treat it as the legitimate offspring
and necessary development of the Greek and Roman
polytheism.  This accordingly Comte actually does.
Protestantism he illegitimates and outlaws from religion
altogether; and the genuine Christianity he fathers
upon the faith of Homer and the Scipios!  Once or




62        COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY.
twice, indeed, it seems to cross him that there was such
a people as the Hebrews, and that they were not the
polytheists they ought to have been. He sees the fact,
but pushes it out of his way with the remark, that the
Jewish monotheism  was "premature "!  The Jews
were always a disobliging people: what business had
they to be up so early in the morning, disturbing the
house ever so long before M. Comte's bell rang to
prayers?
It is unfortunate that Comte, like many men at once
capable and vain, rests his chief pretensions on precisely
what is weakest, least original, and most misleading,
in his modes of thought: whilst he drops unconsciously,
and leaves unmarked, his strongest and most fertile
reflections. The consequence necessarily is, that his
first reputation, conferred by disciples in answer to
his own demand, will have to shift its ground; that a
prior polemic must prepare the way for ultimate appreciation; and that before he can be wisely heard, the
louder half of him must be forgot.




63
JOHN  STUART  MILL.*
BOTANICAL students, more than thirty years ago, turning over the leaves of the English Flora, encountered
the frequent name of J. S. Mill, as an authority for the
habitat or the varieties of flowers. Before the earliest
of these papers was written, the author, stripling as he
must then have been, was already known to distinguished men as a faithful observer of nature. A holiday walk through the lanes and orchards of Kent,
which would have yielded to most youths a week's frolic
and a bag of apples, filled his tin box with the materials
of a naturalist's reputation. Nothing short of the same
method of severe earnestness, carried through the whole
intellectual training, and interpolating nothing between
the child and the man, can well have formed the most
elaborated mind of our age, and presented it almost
complete at its first appearance. These volumes, indeed, bring to our recollection many an essay which,
though not thought worthy to be included in their contents, would bear biographical testimony to the early
richness and variety of the author's attainments. Nor




64             JOHN STUART MILL.
was he thrown into this wide and heterogeneous culture
without an organizing clue. In the analytical psychology of the elder Mill he inherited an instrument of
great power for the logical reduction and systematic
grasp of all knowledge: and his belief in it and mastery
over it were complete. Limit as we may the pretensions
of the Hartleyan doctrine, it affords an incomparable
discipline for the first stage of philosophical reflection;
and, from the fascination which it invariably exercises
over young intellects, its discipline is unsparingly and
spontaneously applied. Its first principles easily pass
unchallenged in the sensational years of life, ere the
finer and deeper shades of inward consciousness have
emerged. Its chemistry of ideas actually explains so
many marvellous transformations, and seems potentially
competent to so much more, that we readily go into
captivity to it at an age when ingenuity of process is
more impressive to us than truth and precision of result.
It has often exercised a profound influence over minds
that, at a later stage, have been determined to violent
re-action against it: as in the case of Coleridge, who
named his first son after Hartley, and slept with the
Observations on Mlian under his pillow.  And of all
the writers of this school, the most enchaining and irresistible is James Mill, whose Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Miend has always appeared to us a
masterpiece of close and subtle exposition, to be dissented from, if you please, in its assumptions and conclusions, but rarely to be broken in the midst. Did the
facts of consciousness stand as he represents them, his
method would work. He satisfactorily explains -the
wrong human nature. The mental gymnastic, however,




JOHN STUART MILL.               65
involved in the study of such a work is invigorating,
and gives command over a kind of psychological calculus
to which innumerable problems yield. Furnished with
this, our author tried its application over the widened
field of his own generation and the richer resources of
his own nature: and we are recalled to his first tentatives in the present republication.
The cold rigor of the elder Mill concealed from the
world the extent of his literary knowledge; and when,
now and then, he supported his political doctrines from
the Republic of Plato, or dropped a tributary phrase
to the genius of that philosopher, people attributed it to
some freak of pedantry, and almost disputed the right
of a " Benthamite " to such an uncongenial admiration.
What was begrudged to the father was freely conceded
to the son, whose susceptibilities were believed to have
an ampler range, who was known to have scholarship as
well as science, and whose Platonic studies told not on
his dialectic only, but on his style. He encountered,
and to his true honor he vanquished, the greatest trial
that can meet the young philosopher at the outset of
his career, viz. the extravagant expectations and loudwhispered praises of an intellectual coterie, accustomed
to abuse and confident of triumph. Elderly prophets
who had been stoned in their day fixed their eyes upon
him as a sort of Utilitarian Messiah, who would take
away the reproach of the school. Could he not gracefully discuss poetry with the poet, and art with the artist? Had he not an appreciative insight into the earlier
philosophies, which Bentham could only laugh at and
caricature? Was he not surely destined, by his high
sympathies with heroic forms of character, to give the




66             JOHN STUART MILL.
hereditary doctrine a nobler interpretation, and rescue
it from the ignorant imputation of selfishness? That a
young writer, in whose hearing these things were continually said or implied, should disappoint no prediction
contained in them, is a rare evidence of moral as well
as intellectual strength. The narrowness and perversities which had brought the Utilitarian Radicals into disrepute, never, from the first, appeared in him. There
was even, we should say, a conscious revolt from them,
an over-anxious care to avoid them, and a deliberate set
of the will to apprehend the opposite point of view, and
feel whatever truth and beauty lay around it. It was
from some feeling of this kind, and especially from a
determination to disown the Bowring type of Benthamism, that the London Review  arose in 1835, under
the guarantee of our author's intellect and Sir William
Molesworth's purse; and the review of Professor Sedgwick's Discourse with which it opened, though unsparing - not to say arrogant - as a manifesto against the
rhetorical ethics of the Cambridge geologist, makes not
a few concessions on the other side; it cheerfully surrenders Paley, and cautiously guards its defence of
Locke; and shows a sensitiveness equally alive to the
nonsense of opponents and the shortcomings of friends.
So strongly are the papers of the next four or five years
marked by the apparent resolution to escape from party
one-sidedness, that they have almost an eclectic character, - with its usual accompaniment, an actual overbalance of candor in favor of rejected schemes of thought.
The masterly article on Bentham certainly occasioned
not a little flutter of displeasure among his thoroughgoing admirers, while the corresponding paper on Cole



JOHN STUART MILL.                67
ridge was welcomed by his disciples as a conciliatory
and generous advance. Both of them, it is true, were
written for the benefit of the author's own party: and
the former therefore naturally became a criticism, cor
rective of what was amiss at home; the latter an exposition, reporting what truth might be fetched in from
abroad: and the balance cannot be expected to hang as
even as if he had been teaching each party how to take
the measure of its own hero.  Still it is evident that he
rose from the study of Coleridge's writings with an admiration powerfully moved; that they first transferred
him from an abstract to an historical theory of politics;
and that, in exhibiting the speculative outline of these
writings, he felt half-ashamed of the radical allies for
whose instruction he performed the task. This schooling of himself into appreciation of a Conservative philosophy was not altogether acceptable to the veterans of
his party; but it obtained for him a hearing where their
voices could not effectually penetrate, and established
literary communication between lines of thought previously closed against each other. And his influence as
a writer, measured in its intensity and its kind, was
singularly complete at once - none of his larger productions having produced, it is probable, a deeper impression than the three great essays to which we have
referred. This, indeed, is no more than the tribute due
to the early balance and maturity of his powers. There
is something almost preternatural in the singular evenness of these Dissertations and Discussions, — the
produce of a quarter of a century, - scarcely betraying
growth, because requiring none; and indicating not less
severity of logic, and sharpness of statement, and au



6 8             JOHN STUART MILL.
thority of manner, in the first pages than in the last.
And a higher quality than any of these, and equally
apparent throughout, the more honorably distinguishes
our author because personal to himself, and by no means
habitual in his school, or indeed in any party connection,
- we mean a deliberate intellectual conscientiousness,
which, scorning to take advantage of accidental weakness, will even help an opponent to develop his strength,
that none but the real and decisive issue may be tried.
That our author is always successful in this we cannot
indeed profess to believe; but we are convinced he
always means it, and never misses it, unless through
the involuntary limits of his mental sympathies.
These limits, however, cannot fail to assert them
selves, in spite of the most elaborate culture.  A
catholic intellect is not to be created by resolve; and,
notwithstanding his wish to interpret between "Benthamites" and "Coleridgians," Mr. Mill has still left
the chasm between them without a bridge, and found
neither wing nor way for bringing them together. He
effected the exchange of one or two political ideas;
borrowed the vindication of a "Clerisy," or endowed
speculative class; enlarged the radical definition of the
functions of the State; favored, with St. Simon as well
as Coleridge, the search for " Ideas," as well as Facts in
History; qualified the austerities of Political Economy
with a tinge of Socialistic humanities; and balanced the
conception of Progress with that of Order. But these
modifications were torn from their connection and taken
over to the Bentham side without their root: fruits, as
it were, plucked from the orchard of the Highgate
philosopher and stowed away in the store-closet of St.




JOHN STUART MILL.               69
James's Park, sure to be consumed in a season and to be
reproductive of no more. Accordingly, the sociological
doctrine, whose first elements were taken from Coleridge, completed itself under the inspiration of Comnte.
WVe do not say that this interweaving of opposite ingredients prejudges the truth and unity of the doctrine;
but if the parts do cohere in one vital organism, it can
only be by grafting anew: and one or other has left its
stem, to grow apart no less than before. In fact, it
was only in particular results, never in fundamental
principle, that our author deemed approximation possible.  For himself, he surrendered no inch of his footing on the old ground of the " Experience-philosophy"
and the " Utilitarian Ethics," and only aimed to enlarge
its imperfect survey, and complete the edifice which had
been partially raised upon it. This he has accomplished
over a vast portion of the field, and his labors (with
those of Mr. Austin in another department) have so far,
we believe, consummated the possibilities of the system
which they represent. It has attained an unexampled
completeness and refinement; its subtlest corrections
have been applied; its inmost resources have been
strained; and now, more than ever, it ought adequately
to meet the intellectual and moral exigencies of life.
That it really covers the whole breadth of human want
our author doubtless believes; yet the tone of his writings leaves a singular impression of melancholy and
unrest. He seems rather to be making the best of the
human lot as it is, than to find it worthy of a wise man's
welcome. WTith a firm hand he draws the prohibitory
circle which limits our knowledge to the field of experience, and concentrates a steady eye on his survey




70             JOHN STUART MILL.
within it; yet not without glances of thought, - pathetic in their very anger, - towards the dark horizon
of necessity and nescience around. Balanced and courteous as he is, it is always with a certain sharpness
and irritation that he turns in that direction, and says,
" Why look there? there is nothing to be seen."  And
his moral discontent with the world is still more marked
and more depressing than the speculative: his admirations spending themselves, and with fastidious scantiness, on what is wholly out of reach —on Greek polities,
that have passed out of reality, and on socialistic, that
are doubtfully destined to arrive at it; and his dislikes
increasing as the objects are nearer home-England
being more stupid than France, and the decorous middle
class the meanest of all. Out of sympathy with society
as it is, and with languid hopes of what it is to be, our
author seems to sit apart, with genial pity for the multitudes below him, with disdain of whatever is around
him, and in silence of any thing above him.  No one
would believe beforehand that a writer so serene and
even, not to say cold, could affect the reader with so
much sadness.  You fall into it, without knowing
whence it comes. All the lights upon his page are
intellectual, breaking from a deep reserve of moral
gloom.
The great mass of Mr. Mill's labor has been devoted
to what may be termed the middle ground of human
thought, below the primary data which reason must
assume, and short of the applied science which has practice for its end. At the upper limit shunning the original postulates of all knowledge, and at the lower its
concrete results, he has addressed himself to its internie



JOHN STUART MILL.                71
diary processes, and determined the methods for working out derivative but still general truths. Does he
treat of the investigation of Nature? he takes it up to
the highest laws of phenomena, irrespective of the hypothesis of an ulterior source. Does he define the range
of Logic? it is the science of proof, dealing only with
the inference of secondary truths, not the science of
belief, which would include also the list of first truths.
Does he explain the business of Ethics? it is to appraise
and classify voluntary actions by their consequences,
not to scrutinize them in their springs. This avoidance
of the initial stage, this banishment of it into another
field, is perfectly legitimate, in order to bring each inquiry within manageable limits; and leaves in every
instance a body of researches which, in their independent prosecution, yield results of immense value and
interest. A perfectly serviceable logic of the inductive
sciences may be constructed, without settling the metaphysics of causation; and of the deductive procedure,
without determining the original premises of all thought.
And a treatise on morals, which should establish methods
of estimate for human actions and dispositions, founded
on their personal and social tendency, would contribute,
if not the more important, at least the larger half of a
complete body of Ethical doctrine. Political Economy
is not even in contact with any ultimate metaphysics at
all, and can only be taken up and treated as a mid-way
science, worked out, indeed, deductively, as our author
has most ably shown, but only from hypothetical preinises, special to itself, and not pretending to any unqualified, much less a-priori truth.  It lies, therefore,
unreservedly within the grasp of Mr. Mill's habitual




72             JOHN STUART MILL.
method; and has accordingly been treated by him, we
should say, with mastery more indisputable and complete than any other subject which he has touched.
That he has somewhat relaxed the severity of abstract
deduction maintained by James AMill and Senior; that
he has gone beyond the rigid border of the science, and
laid open to the eye and heart some neighboring fields
of social speculation; that in demonstrating natural
laws he so amply dwells on the conditions of their adjustment to human well-being, - may be complained
of by closet doctrinaires, may actually render his book
less fit for a student's manual; but, in our opinion,
gives a wise latitude to researches whose interest will
always lie chiefly in their applications. The problems
of Political Economy are peculiarly amenable to an intellect like our author's, whose characteristics are rather
French than English; -sharp apprehension of whatever can be rounded off as a finished whole in thought;
analytic adroitness in resolving a web of tangled elements, and measuring their value in the construction;
reasoning equal to any computation by linear co-ordinates, though not readily flowing into the organic freedom of a living dialectic; remarkable skill in laying out
his subject symmetrically before the eye, and presenting
its successive parts in clear and happy lights. No one
has more successfully caught the fortunate gift of the
French men-of-letters, — the art of making readers
think better of their own understanding and less awfully
of the topics discussed. It is seldom possible to read
many pages of a German philosopher without suspecting yourself a fool: and even if you conquer your first
despair, if you struggle and climb on, and make good




JOHN STUART MILL.               73
your footing as you ascend, you are desired to look
down so many frightful precipices and abysses on either
side, that the thin ridge of science seems but precarious
protection across the yawning nescience. French politeness takes far better care of your nerves, smooths
and rolls your path into a gravel-walk, beguiles you
into every ascent above your level, plants the abysses
out of sight with a laurel screen, and persuades you
that you are at the top just where the landscape is
clearest and you are still far below the clouds. This
exclusive taste for the positive and wholly visible, this
ingenuity in conducting to the best points of view, and
this faculty of lucidly exhibiting it, our author preeminently possesses; and in the treatment of Political
Economy these aptitudes are available with all their
benefits and without the slightest drawback.
Logic and Ethics, however, lie at a much less distance from metaphysical reflection; and, indeed, can be
cut away from it only by an artifice of arrangement.
So far as they admit of the separation, and their body
of doctrine stands unaffected by the metaphysical assumptions which are left outside, so far we think Mr.
Mill's strength as great here as elsewhere; and it is
great precisely in proportion as his middle ground
is more or less nearly adequate.  In Ethics he has
aimed at no more than the rescue of the "principle of
utility " from misapprehension and obloquy. The positive side of his vindication, legitimating the use in morals of a canon of "consequences," he has made good.
The negative side, excluding appeal to the authority of
any internal rule, and resolving conscience into a reflection of the accidental sentiments of others, appears to




74             JOHN STUART MILL.
us entirely to fail. In Logic, his exposition, considered
as an organon, an analysis of method, a conspectus of
rules for the interpretation of phenomena and the discovery of laws, is almost an exhaustive manual of
procedure for the present state of science. But considered as a philosophy, giving the ultimate rationale
of the intellectual processes it describes, it leaves us,
we confess, altogether unsatisfied.  Could he really
have maintained a metaphysical neutrality, - could
he have simply cut off and dropped out of view the
a-priori top of logic, the causal postulate of nature,
and the inner datum of morals, - could he have carried
out his work lower down without reference to them, -
our obligation to him would have been scarcely qualified.
But this was impossible. There are certain points of
his field at which the omitted topics cannot be ignored;
and here, unfortunately, our author's original silence
is exchanged for direct denial: we know no a-priori
truths; no causation beyond phenomenal conditions;
no inner moral rule.  Not only do these negations
necessarily descend upon our author's middle ground,
and affect a portion of his conclusions in detail, but they
express in him, as they must in every man, the grand
lines in the whole configuration of his mind. Some of
the directions which they take we will attempt to
trace.
First, then, Mr. Mill is faithful to his antecedents in
the fundamental question of all philosophy: "XWhat is it
possible for us to know?"  His answer is, " We can
know nothing but phenomena." In his article on Coleridge, he both presents the problem and records his
reply:




JOHN STUART MILL.                   75
"Every consistent scheme of philosophy requires as its
starting-point a theory respecting the sources of human knowledge, and the objects which the human faculties are capable
of taking cognizance of. The prevailing theory in the eighteenth century, on this most comprehensive of questions, was
that proclaimed by Locke, and commonly attributed to Aristotle- that all knowledge consists of generalizations from
experience. Of nature, or any thing whatever external to
ourselves, we know, according to this theory, nothing, except
the facts which present themselves to our senses, and such
other facts as may, by analogy, be inferred from these. There
is no knowledge a priori; no truths cognizable by the mind's
inward light, and grounded on intuitive evidence. Sensation,
and the mind's consciousness of its own acts, are not only the
exclusive sources, but the sole materials of our knowledge.
From this doctrine, Coleridge, with the German philosophers
since Kant (not to go further back), and most of the English since Reid, strongly dissents. He claims for the human
mind a capacity, within certain limits, of perceiving the nature
and properties of'Things in themselves.' He distinguishes
in the human intellect two faculties, which, in the technical
language common to him with the Germans, he calls Understanding and Reason. The former faculty judges of phenomena, or the appearances of things, and forms generalizations
from these; to the latter it belongs, by direct intuition, to
perceive things, and recognize truths, not cognizable by our
senses. The perceptions are not indeed innate, nor could ever
have been awakened in us without experience; but they are
not copies of it; experience is not their prototype, it is only
the occasion by which they are irresistibly suggested. The
experiences in nature excite in us, by an inherent law, ideas
of those invisible things which are the causes of the visible
appearances, and on whose laws those appearances depend:
and we then perceive that these things must have pre-existed
to render the appearances possible; just as (to use a frequent




76               JOHN STUART MILL.
illustration of Coleridge's) we see before we know that we
have eyes; but when once this is known to us, we perceive
that eyes must have pre-existed to enable us to see. Among
the truths which are thus known a priori, by occasion of
experience, but not themselves the subjects of experience,
Coleridge includes the fundamental doctrines of religion and
morals, the principles of mathematics, and the ultimate laws
even of physical nature; which he contends cannot be proved
by experience, though they must necessarily be consistent
with it, and would, if we knew them perfectly, enable us to
account for all observed facts, and to predict all those which
are as yet unobserved" (vol. i. pp. 403-405).
Our author's verdict on this question is given in these
words:
"We here content ourselves with a bare statement of our
opinion. It is that the truth, on this much-debated question,
lies with the school of Locke and of Bentham. The nature
and laws of things in themselves, and the hidden causes of the
phenomena which are the objects of experience, appear to us
radically inaccessible to the human faculties.  We see no
ground for believing that any thing can be the object of our
knowledge except our experience, and what can be inferred
from our experience by the analogies of experience itself;
nor that there is any idea, feeling, or power in the human
mind, which in order to account for it requires that its origin
should be referred to any other source. We are therefore at
issue with Coleridge on the central idea of his philosophy"
(vol. i. p. 409).
Were it to our purpose to discuss this problem with
Mr. Mill, instead of simply tracing its bearings upon
his scheme of thought, we should require a much more
precise statement of it than we find in the foregoing
passage, in which the association (however qualified)




JOHN STUART MILL.               77
of Locke and Aristotle, as giving the same suffrage in
reply to the same question, - the classification of Kant
with the ontologists, and the indiscriminate reference of
more recent " German philosophers" to the same side,
— indicate, under the form of historical error, no less
loose a conception of the opposite theses than of the
advocacy arrayed on either hand. Aristotle was just
as much a realist as Plato, though he made the realities
accessible to us by a different path. Kant was the great
iconoclast who discredited all objective entities as idols
of the mind; and till the re-action under Schelling, there
was no claim of any knowledge of " Things in themselves." In order to present the matter in a clearer
form, we must disengage from each other two aspects
of this problem, the ancient, and the modern; the identification of which by English writers is the source of
endless confusion. Among the Greek schools, the rivalry between the real and the phenomenal, between
"Things as they absolutely are," and Things as they
relatively appear, was fought out, not on the field of
our cognitive faculties, but in the open Kosmos. It
was a question, not of knowledge, but of being; not
logical, referring to the limits of thought, but metaphysical, concerning the constitution of existence. Instead of shaping itself into the form, " Can we get to
know any entities, or must we be content with phenomena?" it asked, " Are there any entities to be known,.or only regiments of phenomena?" In the view of one
party, time and space comprised nothing but an eternal
genesis of appearance out of appearance, - wave upon
wave, with no abiding deep below. In the view of the
other, the succession of phenomena was but the super



78             JOHN STUART MILL.
ficial expression, the momentary and relative activity
of substantive objects and permanent potencies behind,
which formed the constancies of the universe, and organically belonged to its unity. By neither party was
man set over against the universe to look at it across
an interval, as subject facing object. By both he was
regarded as himself a part and product of the Kosmos,
involved in the same problem, included in the same fate.
Its constitution, whatever it were, spread into him and
re-appeared there in miniature, and with no modification
except that of cropping-up into consciousness and emerging from simple being into being known. Phenomena,
entering us, turned up in the shape of sensations; entities, if there were any, in the shape of rational thought,
of ideas remotest from sense, - of the true, the beautiful, the good. If in the makrokosm around there was
more than phenomena, the personal mikrokosm could
not but repeat the tale and show these o'voa in our intellectual history. If, on the other hand, phenomena were
all, then in us also there could be only sensations and
their metamorphoses. It thus lay in the very genius of
the ancient philosophy that the problem of knowledge
should be subordinate to the problem of being, - the
mere shadow or reverberation of it in our little grotto of
consciousness; and that it should be judged downward,
from the great circle to the little. That there could be
any failure of concentric arrangement, - any misfit between existence and thought,- that if there were the
real as well as the seeming, it could remain incognizable,
-never occurred to the earliest representatives of this
controversy. None were sceptics of realistic knowledge,
except in virtue of a prior scepticism of real being.




JOHN STUART MILL.               79
Aristotle certainly had no such scepticism; and his controversy with Plato never touched the question whether
we had ontological knowledge, but only the question
how we had it. Plato explained it by identifying the
objective ideals embodied in natural kinds with our
subjective general ideas of the intellectual constitution
of the universe: its hierarchy of essential types came up
into conscious forms on the responding theatre of our
reason; so that we could read its entities straight off,
in virtue of our sympathetic share in the thoughts incarnated within it.  For this doctrine of immediate fellowship of reason with its realities, Aristotle substituted
a path of gradual approach to them: declaring that,
while Nature developed itself deductively, thinking itself
out into actuality from the general to the particular, and
thence to the individual, we must trace the same line
regressively, beginning with the sensible which is next
to us, and ascending to the universals which are furthest.
But this difference from Plato as to the method of
knowledge, involved no difference as to the things
known.  The goal of reason was the same for both
- the apprehension of real and ultimate entities. The
thing known by the consciousness within us, itself lay
in the world without us. This example shows that the
denial of " a-priori ideas " carries with it no denial of
ontological knowledge.
In modern times, from causes which we cannot stop
to trace, this problem has been taken in the inverse
order. The battle between the real and the phenomenal
has been removed from the Kosmical to the Human
theatre, and fought out on the enclosure of our faculties.
Without prejudging the contents of existence, it has




80             JOHN STUART MILL.
been asked,  "How far do our cognitive powers go?
Are they fitted up in adaptation to phenomena alone?
or does their competency reach to substantive being as
well?"  It has been supposed easier to stop at home
and measure the knowing subject, than to pass out and
determine the known object; and accordingly a Logical
critique of Man has taken the place of a Metaphysical
estimate of Nature. Such a critique (supposing that
we have resources for conducting it), in giving us the
measure of ourselves, gives us the measure of our world.
Either our faculties will prove equal to the problem on
both its sides; and then we shall stand where Plato and
Aristotle left us: or will turn out blind to all except the
phenomenal sphere; and then whatever else may lurk
behind will be to us as though it were not, and the
negation of knowledge will demand the non-affirmation
of being. The alternative can be decided only by psychological self-scrutiny. Is the verdict given in favor
of our ontological capacity? it can only be on the
ground that, besides our mere sensations and their
associated vestiges, we find in us an independent order
of ideas, carrying with them intuitive beliefs affirmative
of existence other than phenomenal, and no less entitled
to confidence than the susceptibilities of sense. Is the
verdict, on the other hand, a negative one? It may
rest upon either of two pleas. The independent testiirony of the Ideas of Reason may be denied, by resolving them back into elaborated traces of sensation. Or,
again, their originality and intuitive character being
allowed, they may be referred to the mere mould or
configuration of our mental constitution, inevitable for
us, but not on that account declaring itself necessary in




JOHN STUART MILL.               81
nature; with authority, therefore, merely subjective,
and destitute of all objective validity.  It is on the
former of these two pleas that Mr. Mill, in common
with the whole school of Locke, takes his stand; while
the latter is the ground assumed by Kant and his disciples.  The same sceptical conclusion belongs to both:
and the difference as to the analysis of the knowing
powers involves no difference as to the things known,
or rather, not known. This example shows that the
affirmation of "a-priori ideas" carries with it no affirmation of ontological knowledge.
A problem imperfectly conceived cannot be effectively
argued; and no " Coleridgian," it is probable, ever felt
himself hit by our author's occasional reasonings against
him. The keen aim and the steady hand are of no avail
where there is an optical displacement of the thing aimed
at.  Be his polemic, however, against the opposite
doctrine what it may, our present purpose is to track
through his philosophy the vestiges of his own. Is our
knowledge limited to phenomena? Then we must part
with our mathematical entities, - Space, the a-priori
ground of geometry,- Time, of successive counting,
or number, -with the necessary Infinitude of both.
We know them only in the limited samples of experience, as attributes of body and emptiness, of events
and feelings, over an indefinite field.  And the pure
geometric figures, with the properties they involve, instead of being truer than Nature, are false copies of
physical forms, yielding only approximate inferences,
whose boasted "necessity" is nothing but dependence
on inaccurate hypothesis. We must part also with our
Metaphysical entities, - Substance, as the ground of
6




82             JOHN STUART MILL,
Attributes, be it Matter, for the properties of nature
without us, or Mind, for the phenomena of consciousness
within us; Kind, as the real unity of essence looking
through a plurality of individuals; Cause, as a principle
of dynamic origination, or more than the aggregate of
phenomenal conditions. We must part with our Religious and Moral entities, - God, whether as transcendent cause of the universe, or Mind throughout it, or
living Light of human Conscience; and all the ideal
meanings in nature and life, whether owned as final
causes by Science, or caught as the inner expressiveness
of things by the intuition of Art.  This copious surrender of natural beliefs is the inevitable consequence of
the primary assumption;'it is shared with our author
by the Nominalist Divines of Oxford; and is no further
special to him, than in the unwavering consistency and
absence of self-deception with which he carries it out.
Hence his contempt, — the more unsparing from its
professing to spare, - for the recognition of purpose in
nature; expressed in sentences like this: "Upon this
peg he" (i. e. Professor Sedgwick) "appends a dissertation on the evidences of design in the universe; a
subject on which much originality was not to be hoped
for, and the nature of which may be allowed to protect
feebleness from, any severity of comment" (vol. i.
p. 105). And similar is his impatience of any expression of wonder: "And here he" (Professor Sedgwick
again) " begins by wondering. It is a common propensity of writers on natural theology to erect every thing
into a wonder. They cannot consider the greatness and
wisdom of God, once for all, as proved, but think themselves bound to be finding fresh arguments for it in




JOHN STUART MILL.               83
every chip or stone: and they think nothing a proof of
greatness unless they can wonder at it; and, to most
minds, a wonder explained is a wonder no longer"
(vol. i. p. 105).  It is curious to compare these scornful words with the maxim of Bacon,* - " Admiratio
est semen sapientice; " with the statement of Aristotle, t
that Wonder is the primitive philosophical impulse;
with the graceful saying of Plato, $ —" It is a happy
genealogy which makes Iris the daughter of Thaumas,"
- i. e. which treats the messenger of the Gods, - the
winged thought that passes to and fro between heaven
and earth, and brings them into communion, - as the
child of W onder: "for this," he says, "is the special
sentiment of the philosopher, nor has his pursuit any
other source."  The truth is, Mr. Mill expresses here,
as in all else, the characteristics of the strictly scientific
mind, whose work is done and whose contentment is
attained when the order of phenomena is fully determined, and no premonition of the future remains to be
gathered from the scheme of the past. Were this the
end of Philosophy, as it is the end of Science, his view
would be complete.
But not only, in our author's opinion, is our knowledge limited to phenomena. Among phenomena we can
know only the internal- our own sensations, thoughts,
emotions. The whole objective world vanishes under
his analysis: first, its substantive pretensions; then,
even its attributive. What do we know of matter?nothing but its properties.  What do we know of its
properties? - nothing but the sensations they give us.
* De Augmentis Scient. lib. i., Montagu, vol. viii. p. 8.
t Metaph. i. 2.: Theaet. 155.




84                    JOHN STUART MILL.
An object is no more than an associated group of qualities, the enumeration of which exhausts what we have
to say of it. A quality is no more than an assumed
and unknown source of some affection of sense: so that
not only does the hot, round, bright sun  evade us; its
heat, its form, its light evade us too; and we are aware
only of a co-existent warmth and visual dazzle of the
circular kind. The third chapter of the System of
Logic (book i.) expounds this doctrine with great
clearness  and  amplitude.   In  substitution  for the  ten
categories of Aristotle,* Mr. Mill distributes all " nameable things" -  all possible objects of thought and speech
-into four classes, viz.:
* We are surprised that Mr. Mill should treat Aristotle's list as an attempt
to classify " Nameable things," and drive them up into their summa genera.
A mere glance at the list corrects this common misconception. " Nameable
things " are the possible objects of thought; and consequently the "Names"
themselves, the possible subjects of propositions: and were these the matter
divided, we should have in the Categories a classification of possible Subjects,
and in the Predicables, of possible Predicates, of propositions; - a very instructive pair of logical results, but certainly not what Aristotle contemplated.
Without going through the list, it is evident at once that several of its terms
(e.g. 7rp6fv   t, 7rot, Tr6rE) do not represent any possible subjects of propositions. The assortment is in fact an enumeration, not of things signified by
Names, but, as Aristotle himself distinctly explains, of all possible meanings
of single Words,- including Adverbs, Prepositions, and other relational
words which are not Names at all. Regarded in this light, the catalogue is
not indeed unexceptionable; but does not yield the utter absurdities which Mr.
Mill naturally sees in it as a list of the most extensive classes into which
things could be distributed. We are quite aware that Mr. Mill's " Nanieable
Things" are not limited to Subjects, but include also what is "capable of
being predicated of other Things." Even this extension, however, does not
cover the ground of Aristotle's Categories, (inasmuch as the relational words
cannot be predicates any more than subjects,) while it disadvantageously
trenches on the ground of the Predicables. In classifying the significant
atoms (!f language, all mention of the two parts of the predicative relation is
as yet intrusive, and is accordingly avoided by Aristotle. When we advance
from tile Accidence to the Syntax of Logic, we then want two new classifications: Ist, of Nameable things or possible Subjects; 2dly, of Predicable




JOHN  STUART MILL.                     85
" 1st. Feelings or States of Consciousness.
2d. The Minds which experience those feelings.
3d. The Bodies, or external objects, which excite certain of
those feelings, together with the powers or properties whereby
they excite them.
4th. The Successions and Co-existences, the Likenesses
and Unlikenesses, between feelings or states of consciousness.
Those relations," it is added, " when considered as subsisting
between other things, exist in reality only between the states of
consciousness which those things, if bodies, excite; if minds,
either excite or experience" (Logic, vol. i. p. 83).
Though the usages of language forbid our author to
carry his reduction further, he gives us notice that the
second and third terms are but sham categories, really
resolvable into the first.  Of "Mind" we know  only
the " feelings or states of consciousness;" of "Body,"
and its "properties," only the resulting "feelings or
states of consciousness" again. The existence of myself, except as " a series of feelings," - the existence of
any thing other than myself, except as the feigned and
unknown cause of sensations, — I have no title to affirm. Though the structure of human speech assumes
them, it has no right to do so: and were it amenable to
the true laws of our intelligence, it would leave us with
only the first and fourth of the foregoing heads.  We
are thus shut up absolutely in Egoistic phenomena,
without cognizance of any objective world beyond our
own circumference, or subjective axis at our own centre.
things, or possible Predicates. From his running together of all these, - from
his imperfect use of the distinction between the extension and the comprehension of a term, - and from his removal of the adjective out of tPb,/ta into 5vo,ua,
our author's account of the " Import of Propositions" seems to us less lumiuous and satisfactory than any other part of his "System of Logic."




8 6            JOHN STUART MILL.
This is unqualified Idealism: the more so, because Mr.
Mill does not stop with the assertion that, apart from
their properties, we are ignorant of the nature of Matter and of Mind; but pronounces us ignorant of their
existence. The phenomena to which we are limited are
regarded by other philosophers as at least phenomena
of something; by him, as phenomena of nothing.
Berkeley himself did not remove the objective world
and swallow it up in the subjective: he merely changed
it from material into Divine, and left the Personal entities, of Man and God, undisturbed and alone with each
other. And even Fichte, the most thorough-going of
all Idealists, while taking every thing into the subject,
still did not break the vessel of personality, and spill
and scatter its living water into phenomenal spray.
Our author goes further, and says: we know of nothing
without; we know of only change within; and our
whole cognitive life consists in the conscious comparison and orderly notice of our feelings and ideas.
There is no part of Mr. Mill's scheme of thought in
which this idealistic theory of cognition does not make
itself felt. It induces him, as a psychologist, to cancel
the word Perception, and to deny that in the process
it denotes there is any thing more than associated Sensations.  When we seem to be carried out of ourselves
and referred to a world beyond, we are in reality only
referred from one of our own sensations to others,
from a single member of a cluster to the rest, -from
what we actually feel in one sense to what, in suitable
positions, we might simultaneously feel in another.'When we attribute whiteness to snow, we say that a
particular sensation of color belongs to a group, the




JOHN STUART MILL.                87
remainder of which, - a coldness, a softness, a sparkle,
&c. -are expressed by the word " snow." It is coexistence of sensations, and nothing else, that we predicate. The extreme test of this doctrine is found in our
apprehension of distance, form, and magnitude.  If
these can be stripped of their externality and resolved
into modifications of self,- if they can be turned from
synchronous relations in the space without us into successive feelings along the line of consciousness within
us, - the Idealist has solved his hardest riddle. Our
author has attempted this in reply to Mr. Samuel Bailey's attack on Berkeley's "Theory of Vision:" and, in
spite of our good opinion of his cause, we are not surprised that his arguments have failed to convince the
Sheffield philosopher. The question is, How do we see
things to be external to ourselves? and what is our
belief in their'outness'? Mr. Bailey answers: It is
an immediate intuition or revelation of the visual sense,
requiring no other condition.  Mr. Mill first answers:
It is a mental judgment, consisting in the suggestion of
tactual and muscular sensations by visual which have
become associated with them in experience. But then,
unfortunately, the tactual and muscular sensations are
not external, whilst our quesitum is: so that the thing
said to be " suggested " does not fit the case. To escape
from this difficulty, Mr. Mill next remarks, -" What
we regard as external is not the sensation, but the cause
of the sensation, - the thing which by its presence is
supposed to give rise to the sensation: the colored object, or the quality residing in that object which we term
its color" (vol. ii. p. 93).  The "outness" then attaches to the " object," in distinction from the "sensa



88             JOHN STUART MILL.
tion;" to the object therefore not as seen, or as felt,
but as " supposed." What then is this " supposition "?
Does the visual impression suffice to occasion it?  If
so, nothing else than vision is wanted for the belief of
"outness," and Mr. Bailey is right.  Or, must the supposition of an object wait for the sensations of Touch?
Then upon these, though not upon visual feeling, a belief in " outness " must attend, - an objective apprehension upon a subjective experience: and Touch differs
from Vision, in carrying with it more than sensation.
This psychological addition to sensation, in which Mr.
Mill after all-has to seek his " outness," is what is commonly called Perception by those who trust it.  With
him it is part and parcel of an unauthorized "supposition" respecting an objective source of our feelings;
and is not owned under any name which assigns its
valid authority. But though he describes it in disparaging terms, he cannot dispense with it, and really take
us out of ourselves by any manipulation of inward
sensations: and the only difference between him and
Mr. Bailey's disciples is this - that while they step into
externality on the terra firma of reliable Perception, he
is carried thither at a leap upon the back of a chimera.
The advantage, so far, appears to us entirely on Mr.
Bailey's side.  Only, we cannot think him  right in
attaching the indispensable perceptive function to the
simple visual susceptibility.  It is to the eyes as movable organs that it belongs; and were it not for association thus established with the muscular system, we
believe with Berkeley that sight would no more give us
externality than smell. Not, however, that there is any
magic in the "muscular sensations," giving them an




JOHN  STUART MILL.                       89
exceptional power to do this great thing for us. Were
the muscles insensible as ropes, they would retain, we
believe, their distinction, so long as they differ from all
our mere senses, in obeying the prior signals of our will,
and introducing our inner causality into collision with
outward obstruction. In that experience, we believe,
lies the birth-point of our objective perceptions and
our subjective self-consciousness; including both the
Mathematical antithesis  of here  and  there, and  the
Dynamical antithesis of our own Power and Power
other than  our own.   With Mr. Mill we deem  vision
by itself incompetent to give this report.   With  Mr.
Bailey, we accept the report as a revelation when we
get it; and regard it as altogether beyond the resources
of sensation, and needing description as a cognitive
Perception.*
To follow the vestiges of our author's idealism through
certain characteristics of his logic would involve too
many technicalities, and too deep a plunge into the
recesses of the Nominalist controversy. He naturally
dislikes the language of classification, invented in a very
different school; and, refusing to use it in defining the
business of a predication, treats every proposition as
* How difficult it is, on Mr. Mill's principles, to deal with our objective
belief, is evident on examining his account of the notions " Substance " and
" Quality." In order to step on to these notions, he avails himself of the
idea of Cause. "Quality" -hidden Cause of Sensation: " Substance " —
hidden Cause of qualities. It is therefore in obedience to the exigencies of
the Causal idea, that we are carried in thought behind phenomena, and set
down on the ontological field. Yet, when Mr. Mill comes to expound this
idea, he denies to it any but a phenomenal meaning: " When, in the course
of this inquiry, I speak of the cause of any phenomenon, I do not mean a
cause which is not itself a phenomenon" (Logic, i. p. 358). To work this
same idea both ways, —now to get up our entities, and then to knock them
down. - is surely making either too much or too little of it.




90             JOHN STUART MILL.
declaring simply a co-existence of attributes; thus interpreting both subject and predicate in their intension
rather than their extension, and giving the counterdevelopment to the quantitative methods of Mr. De
Morgan and Dr. Boole. If we are at liberty to sacrifice psychological truth to the exigencies of a calculus
of deduction, either principle is adequate to its end,
though the advantage practically lies with the mathematicians. But on both sides the unfortunate copula
seems to us to be put upon the rack and made to
say what it does not mean; and the simple fact to be
overlooked, that we naturally construe the subject of a
proposition in its extension, and the predicate (which
therefore may be an adjective) in its intension: so that
neither co-existence of attributes nor equation of groups
correspond with the living processes of thought and
language.  But on this special field we must not enter.
It is the instinct of idealism, whithersoever it turns,
to translate objective terms and conceptions into subjective, and to draw all reality and meaning into the
inward life.  To this we attribute the characteristic
prominence given, in Mr. Mill's Moral doctrine, to
self-formation and individuality.  The frequency
with which he recurs to this topic, and the earnestness with which he speaks of it, show how high it ranks
in his estimate. It is, indeed, the great province of
Ethics which he would recover from the neglect of previous utilitarians. Paley, he admits, looks too exclusively "to the objective consequences of actions, and
omits the subjective; attends to the effects on our outward condition and that of other people too much, to
those on our internal sources of happiness or unhap



JOHN STUART MILL.                   91
piness too little" (vol. i. p. 151).  And of Bentham's
theory it is still more strongly said that
" It will do nothing for the conduct of the individual, beyond
prescribing some of the more obvious dictates of worldly prudence, and outward probity and beneficence. There is no
need to expatiate on the deficiencies of a system of ethics which
does not pretend to aid individuals in the formation of their
own character; which recognizes no such wish as that of selfculture, we may even say no such power, as existing in human
nature; and if it did recognize, could furnish little assistance
to that great duty, because it overlooks the existence of about
half of the whole number of mental feelings which human
beings are capable of, including all those of which the direct
objects are states of their own mind.
"Morality consists of two parts. One of these is self-education; the training, by the human being himself, of his affections and will. That department is a blank in Bentham's
system. The other and co-equal part, the regulation of his
outward actions, must be altogether halting and imperfect
without the first: for how can we judge in what manner many
an action will affect even the worldly interests of ourselves
and others, unless we take in, as part of the question, its
influence on the regulation of our, or their, affections and
desires?" (vol. i. p. 363.)
This is well and wisely said: and it greatly narrows
the ground of difference between the opposite schools of
ethics.. Only secure at the outset a perfect programme
of human nature; take into account all its aims and
affections, including its aspirations after " ideal ends; "
accept these, ranged on their own scale of intensity and
self-estimation, as given facts; let the whole picture,
once drawn by thorough psychological survey, stand as
true for humanity and unimpeachable by the defects




92              JOHN STUART MILL.
of individuals;- and, under such conditions, Butler
himself will consent to your computing your code on
"the Greatest-Happiness principle." For, evidently, the
"greatest happiness " of a nature which has moral affections to begin with, aims at perfection and ideas of it
which it feels to be authoritative, - will be very different from  that of a nature simply sentient, and having
as yet to determine itself hither or thither by the relish
of its pleasures and the repulsion of its pains. Each
propensity, separately, brings us satisfaction when it
gains its end: but if we are so constituted that, taken
out of a certain order and proportion among the rest,
that satisfaction is again spoiled; if the same is true of
all in turn, so that for the whole series there is an ideal
law, the dislocation of which is the wreck of our inward
peace; if, further, there is inherent in this misery the
special consciousness that it is what we have no right to
incur, — then you can settle the due order of life by
the rule of "happiness," should it so please you; for
this rule is itself but the expression of a prior scale of
natural excellence and authority. All inward rightness
involving satisfaction, the satisfaction may be used as
its sign. Only, unfortunately, the sign cannot well be
made apparent, except to those who already know the
thing signified.
Notwithstanding, however, the great part which this
"Self-perfecting" by an inward ideal plays in our author's ethics, and its value as a formula for completing,
-we should rather say, relinquishing, - the utilitarian
theory, we find a difficulty in so combining his expositions of it as to settle it on any philosophical basis.
In the passage just cited, it is described as covering one
"'  -  0                                    C




JOHN STUART MILL.                 93
half of the whole ground of morality. Morality is,
however, in all cases but a means to an end (Logic,
p. 385), and that end is declared to be happiness.
Mr. Mill accordingly points out, as will have been
observed, that, without studying the effects of our conduct on our own characters, we cannot compute even
its external influence on the affairs of ourselves and
others.   Here the self-training is vindicated on the
general utilitarian ground that, without it, there will
be an omitted class of consequences.  WVe must take
care of our affections and will, as being important to
the interests of ourselves and others: and this particular
position, as not an end in themselves, but an instrument
of something ulterior, is essential to make the care of
them a moral act. Yet elsewhere our author lifts this
self-formation out of all subsidiary relations, and complains of Bentham that
"Man is never recognized by him as a being capable of pursuing spiritual perfection as an end; of desiring, for its own
sake, the conformity of his own character to his standard of
excellence, without hope of good or fear of evil from other
source than his own inward consciousness " (vol. i. p. 359).
"What is that to me?" Bentham would reply: "did
you not say that all morality is directed to an end
beyond it?  If this pursuit of yours is good on its
own account, it does not belong to morality; and it is
no imputation on me, as a moralist, that I say nothing
about it. A man may make it his end to conform to
his own standard of excellence: so much the worse for
him if the standard is a bad one, talk as he may of
spiritual perfection." And in truth Mr. Mill himself
elsewhere expressly treats as un-moral and purely




94                JOHN STUART MILL.
vesthetical this realization of inward harmony, this conformity with ideal laws; and pronounces it sentimental
" to set this aspect of actions above the moral," which
looks to their consequences:
" Every human action," he observes, "has three aspects:
its moral aspect, or that of its right and wrong; its esthetic
aspect, or that of its beauty; its sympathetic aspect, or that of
its lovableness. The first addresses itself to our reason and
conscience; the second to our imagination; the third to our
human fellow-feeling. According to the first, we approve or
disapprove; according to the second, we admire or despise;
according to the third, we love, pity, or dislike. The morality
of an action depends on its foreseeable consequences; its
beauty, and its lovableness, or the reverse, depend on the
qualities which it is evidence of. Thus a lie is wrong, because
its effect is to mislead, and because it tends to destroy the
confidence of man in man; it is also mean, because it is cowardly - because it proceeds from not daring to face the consequences of telling the truth - or at best is evidence of want
of that power to compass our ends by straightforward means,
which is conceived as properly belonging to every person not
deficient in energy or in understanding. The action of Brutus
in sentencing his son was right, because it was executing a
law essential to the freedom of his country, against persons of
whose guilt there was no doubt: it was admirable, because it
evinced a rare degree of patriotism, courage, and self-control:
but there was nothing lovable; it affords either no presumption in regard to lovable qualities, or a presumption of their
deficiency. If one of the sons had engaged in the conspiracy
from affection for the other, his action would have been lovable, though neither moral nor admirable. It is not possible
for any sophistry to confound these three modes of viewing an
action; but it is very possible to adhere to one of them exclusively, and lose sight of the rest. Sentimentality consists in




JOHN  STUART MILL.                         95
setting the last two of the three above the first; the error of
moralists in general, and of Bentham, is to sink the two latter
ehtirely" (vol. vi. p. 387).
If this distinction is good in our criticism of others,
it will apply no less to our own case. And surely if
there be any form of our personal energy which belongs
to the second head, and takes shape from the "imagination" of ethical "beauty," it is the self-approximation to an ideal standard "on its own account." In
proportion as the aim to be gains upon the intent to do,
does " sentimentality," as above defined, take place of
"morals."  With what consistency, then, can Bentham's
disregard of this aim be treated as a curtailment of
morality by full half its whole amount? It seems to
us that, in our author's scheme, this aspiration after an
inward perfection floats about without settling in its
proper place.   It is as if he felt it more than  utilitarian, and so let it have an ideal end of its own; yet
also more than aesthetic, and so charged it with the half
of human morals.   It is the old problem  of the xaSCv
and the Uyaoov, - difficult to Plato, impossible to
Bentham. *
In truth, there is nothing in the utilitarian theory,
* Mr. Mill's distinctions are usually taken with so much precision, that
we hardly venture to confess our imperfect satisfaction with his account of
the Mforal as Causative of "foreseeable consequences;" and of the -Esthetic
and Lovable as Expressive of inner "qualities."  All three, we should say,
are equally Expressive; and the essence of their effect upon us lies in what
they severally express. The Moral expresses preference among springs of
voluntary conduct: the Esthetic, inward harmony or force, involuntary as well
as voluntary: the Lovable, paramount affectionateness, moral or not. It seems
to us quite arbitrary to say that our Approbation is characterized by looking
away from the principle and down to the consequences of action. We should
say, its sympathy goes right up to the spiritual source within the character,
just as much as in the cases of Admiration and Affection.




96             JOHN STUART MILL.
however enlarged, for this self-formation to rest upon,
beyond the exigencies of our obligations to our fellowmen.  Why should a man mould himself under the
pressure of "a vague feeling and inexplicable internal
conviction"? (p. 385.)  Is it to escape the uneasiness
of disappointed aspiration?  This can be done by perseveringly neglecting the aspiration far more effectually
than by realizing it, and so advancing it to an ulterior
stage. Besides, if this were all, what else would the
pursuit be but the indulgence of a spiritual luxury,the highest refinement of egoism? Imprisoned within
the circle of myself, conscious indeed of differences
among my affections, but not warranted in treating
them as significant of any thing, I am constituted of
mere subjective emotions: I can but spin around my
own centre, and whether on this axis of preference or
on that, I equally fulfil my law of being. Plant me
alone amid a desert of negation, with susceptibilities
that are the index of nothing, and powers in communion
with nothing; and whatever ferment of elements there
may be within me, - storms of broken equilibrium and
harmonies of returning calm, - they can but constitute
some form of taste and prudence, and can never make
a duty: there is no rule of.-higher and lower that could
be pronounced valid for any second nature that should
enter on the vacant field. One half of self, - if it be
only self, - cannot claim the worship of the other, -
any more than a ventriloquist can learn any thing from
his two-voiced dialogue, or a single actor can play out
a real drama by change of dress. For obligation we
must have an authority, - for admiration, a beauty,for reverence, a goodness, -beyond self and higher




JOHN STUART MILL.               97
than self: and unless we may accept our subjective
apprehensions of spiritual excellence as significant of
objective realities, and look upon our "ideal ends" as
the openings on us of a purer Will and the communion
of a supreme Perfection, we do not see how they can
ever be more than the phantasms of a vision or lend us
any wing effectual against our own weight. Mr. Mill
himself remarks, in concurrence with Mr. Grote, the
fact that, in its primitive form, the sense of obligation
is exclusively of the personal kind.  "Personal feelings either towards the gods, the King, or some near
and known individual, fill the whole of a man's bosom;
out of them arise all the motives to beneficence, and
all the internal restraints upon violence, antipathy,
and rapacity: and special communion, as well as special
solemnities, are essential to their existence" (vol. ii.
p. 321). Is this so certainly a mere puerility of early
society, doomed to be advantageously replaced by " the
Impersonal authority of the Laws"? or is it only
the most elementary expression of an ineffaceable feature in our nature? and do "the Laws " themselves perhaps prevail not as "impersonal" and abstract, but as
representing the higher personality of the Nation, represented through the living voice of assembled dikasts?
and does conscience itself speak in more solemn tone in
proportion as it seems to reveal a Will greater than
opinion and auguster than our own?  And is it not
then possible that we may yet return, with glorified
interpretation, to that early stage, and by re-translating
duties into personal relations between the Human and
the Divine, restore to them the living power of affection
and fidelity?
7




98              JOHN STUART MILL.
The subjective principle of our author's philosophy
pervades his literary code; and very characteristically
appears in an attempt, highly ingenious and suggestive,
to answer the untiring question, "What is poetry?"
He replies, It is the spontaneous expression of feeling;
and all thoughts and words which pour out feeling, not
for influence on other's, but as in soliloquy, are in their
essence poetry: and the poetic minds are those whose
thoughts are linked by feelings, and determined into
existence by the laws of emotion. Mr. Mill's poet must
be all loneliness and intensity,- a kind of spiritual
firework going off of itself in infinite night. So isolating a definition would in no case apply to other than
lyric poetry; and our author has the courageous consistency to adopt the limitation, and to consider the
drama and the epic redeemed from prose only by the
intermixture of lyrical elements.  Did we even accept
this startling restriction, the theory, we think, makes
far too much of mere quantity of sensibility; which is
often strongly marked in minds eminently unpoetical.
But above all it is any thing rather than solitary, selfevolved feeling that constitutes the poet.  He more
than any goes forth out of himself, and mingles his
very being with the nature and humanity around him;
entering into their essence by humbling his own, and
directing on them the idealizing glance which looks in
at their eyes and reads their heart. He lives, not, to
express himself, but to interpret the world, and become
the vocal organ of the silent universe and the dumb
souls of men.
The excessive appreciation of "individuality" which
was noticed in a recent review of our author's treatise




JOHN STUART MILL.
on "Liberty," belongs to the same general   ttre..
His sympathies, - unless in the form of pity,- scarcely
seem to touch the common level of human life, or to
acknowledge any vital connection with the general faith
and conscience. His fears, his despondencies, his precautions, all look towards the social sentiment, in whose
conservative moral elements he sees little else than the
joint-stock opinions of mediocrity and vulgarity;  and
his hopes somewhat languidly and scantily fly to eminent and exceptional personalities who can see over the
heads of the crowd. The old Pagan trust in " wisdom,"
with pathetic or supercilious gaze on all below, reappears in him: and "thinkers," -" great thinkers,"
-step forth so often upon his page, and conduct their
mission with so much pomp, that the mother-wit of
modest readers grows quite ashamed and blushes to the
eyes. When, for instance, the announcement is made
that it " is becoming more and more the grand effort of
all minds of any power, which embark in literature,"
"to have something to say" (vol. i. p. 240), homely
people, who never made "the grand effort," know at
once that they have not "minds of any power," and
naturally shrink before the knitted brows of such selfelaboration.
Many of our readers, we doubt not, will have felt
a certain surprise and incredulity at finding Mr. Mill
classed with " Idealists."  The term seems to contradict
some of his best-marked tendencies, and not at all to
hit the kind of influence which his writings have exercised.  Had we classed him with "Materialists,"* we
* The word " Materialism," it should be observed, stands, with a different range of meaning, in two distinct antitheses. As opposed to Inzmaterial.




100                 JOHN  STUART MILL.
should probably have been thought nearer the mark.
And the truth is (for we must qualify a strong assertion by a yet stronger), he is both, and presents, in
different parts of his doctrine, two opposite sides, which
often practically co-exist, whether or not they are philosophically coherent. On the one hand, we have found
him  resolving all our knowledge, "both materials and
sources,"  into  Self-knowledge; denying any cognitive
access to either qualities or bodies external to us; and
shutting us up with our own sensations, ideas, and emotions. But on the other hand, though we know nothing
but the phenomena of ourselves, we are nothing but
phenomena of the world: the boast is vain of any thing
original in the mind: the sensations from which all
within us begins are the results of "outward experience:" the pretended a-priori ideas turn out a-posterniori residues: the volitions that set up as spontaneities
are necessary effects of antecedents earlier than we:
the truths we seem to win by pure deductive intelligence are but interpretations of physical induction: and
the characters we think our own are but subservient
copies of the influences around us. Our author's whole
picture of man exhibits him as a natural product,
shaped by the scene on which he is cast; and he rejects
every theory without exception which has been set up,
isnm, it is concerned with the question of the Mind's ultimate substance, and
denotes the opinion that the Mental Phenomena are referable to the same
substance which manifests the Physical; not to a different one, as the Immaterialist contends. As opposed to Idealism, the word is concerned with
another question, viz. the equal or unequal originality and trustworthiness
of our Subjective and Objective knowledge. To hold the balance even
between them is Dualism: to resolve the latter into the former is Idealism:
to resolve the former into the latter is Materialism. It is in this last sense
alone that we have to do with the word.




JOHN STUART MILL.               101
in psychology, in logic, in "morals, to vindicate the
autonomy of human reason and conscience. And thus
we are landed in this singular result: our only sphere
of cognizable reality is subjective: and that is generated from an objective world which we have no reason
to believe exists. In our author's theory of cognition,
the non-ego disappears in the ego; in his theory of
being, the ego lapses back into the non-ego. Idealist
in the former, he is Materialist in the latter.
This subjection of man to physical nature exhibits
itself in a Sensational psychology; which, while condemning Condillac's simplification of Locke as mere
verbal generalization, does but stretch the same materials upon a different loom, and weave the whole web
of our mental life out of the data of sense. The nearer
we are to sensation, the less room is there for error and
uncertainty: as we recede from it into abstractions of
the understanding and ideas of reason, the tenure of our
truths is more precarious: and consciousness, however
entitled to be believed about tactual and ocular impressions, is to be distrusted in all reports which decline to
go back thither for authentication.  In spite of AIr.
Mill's denying us all legitimate access to an external
world, no one allows so little that is original to the
mind itself, or places so little reliance on what there is.
That a belief should be provided for in the mind's own
constitution, and be inseparable from the very action of
its faculties, is an idea which he resents like an affront;
if it be so, it is a sheer tyranny of nature: there may
be no help for it; he may be compelled to believe; but
he will do it under protest, and declare that he has no
ground for it, and would escape if he could.




102              JOHN STUART MILL.
"I am aware," he says, "that to ask for evidence of a
proposition which we are supposed to believe instinctively, is
to expose oneself to the charge of rejecting the authority of
the human faculties; which of course no one can consistently
do, since the human faculties are all which any one has to
judge by; and inasmuch as the meaning of the word'evideuce' is supposed to be, something which when laid before
the mind induces it to believe, to demand evidence when the
belief is ensured by the mind's own laws is supposed to be
appealing to the intellect against the intellect. But this, I
apprehend, is a misunderstanding of the nature of evidence.
By evidence is not meant any thing and every thing which
produces belief.  There are many things which generate
belief besides evidence. A mere strong association of ideas
often causes a belief so intense as to be unshakable by experience or argument. Evidence is not that which the mind
does or must yield to, but that which it ought to yield to,
namely, that, by yielding to which, its belief is kept conformable to fact. There is no appeal from the human faculties
generally, but there is an appeal from one faculty to another;
firom the judging faculty, to those which take cognizance of
fact, the faculties of sense and consciousness. To say that
belief suffices for its own justification, is making opinion the
test of opinion; it is denying the existence of any outward
standard, the conformity of an opinion to which constitutes its
truth. We call one mode of forming opinions right, and
another wrong, because the one does, and the other does not,
tend to make the opinion agree with fact —to make people
believe what really is, and expect what really will be. Now
a mere disposition to believe, even if supposed instinctive, is
no guarantee for the truth of the thing believed. If, indeed,
the belief ever amounted to an irresistible necessity, there
would then be no use in appealing from it, because there would
be no possibility of altering it. But even then the truth of
the belief would not follow; it would only follow that mankind




JOHN STUART MILL.                103
were under a permanent necessity of believing what might
possibly not be true; just as they were under a temporary
necessity (quite as irresistible while it lasts) of believing
that the heavens moved and the earth stood still" (Logic,
vol. ii. p. 94).
The case of supposed intuitive belief which is here in
the author's contemplation is the so-called "principle
of Causality," — the maxim  that "every phenomenon
must have a cause." Were we discussing this particular axiom, we should present it under another form,
- -" every phenomenon is a manifestation of power," in
order to save it from being confounded with a very different, and by no means self-evident, proposition, —
"every phenomenon has the same constant phenomenal antecedent:" and should protest against identifying
the empirical expectation of " uniformity among natural
successions" with the necessary belief in "Universal
Causation." The first, involving a question of mere
order among perceptible events, Mr. Mill is entitled to
call "a fact in external nature," and to regard as waiting upon "evidence:" it is for the latter alone that
axiomatic authority can justly be claimed.  We have
quoted the passage, however, with no view  to this
special instance, but solely to illustrate our author's
treatment of " intuitive and necessary beliefs." WVe can
thoroughly understand his reluctance to concede their
existence, his precautions against installing mere prejudice and mental limitation into the honors of first principles, his scepticism of a pretension which has certainly
been grossly abused. But when he says outright, that
a-priori beliefs, really inherent in the mind, are totally
unworthy of trust, however imperiously they may com



104            JOHN STUART MILL.
pel submission; and when he casts about for some
appeal against them, —either from thought to " fact,"
or from faculty to faculty,- he seems to us to lose all
his logical bearings, and forget the base which he had
measured with so much care. What security can there
be for any truth, -  of "fact" or of thought, -  a
posteriori or a priori, - if the positive and primary
affirmations of our mental nature may be suspected of
making fools of us? The assumption of unveracity,
once made, cannot arbitrarily stop with the province
which Mr. Mill wishes to discredit.  He himself also
must, somewhere or other, come to an end of his
"evidence" and "proof," and be landed on principles
not derivative, but primary: and then he must either
accept their coercion "because there is no use in
appealing from it," or unconditionally rely on them as
the report of truthful faculties; and in either case is
on the same footing with his a-priori neighbor.  Be
the "proof" what it may which authenticates the belief,
it is the faculty which, in the last resort, authenticates
the proof. And whither, in the supposed cases of
intuitive belief, does Mr. Mill contemplate carrying
the appeal? He expresses this in two ways: (1) objectively; he would bring the belief to an " outward standard," to the test of "fact," "experience," "external
nature:" (2) subjectively; he would remove the trial
from one faculty to another, from the "judging " faculty
to " sense and consciousness."  But, as to the first,
have we not been already taught that we know nothing
external to ourselves? and even were it otherwise,
the knowledge would have no other voucher than the
instinctive apprehensions on which we are discouraged




JOHN STUART MILL.              105
from relying. And as to the second statement, we
have to ask, how are we to settle which, of a plurality
of faculties, sits in the higher court? and by what title
especially sense and consciousness are set in the chief
seat, yet both of them debarred from "judging" any
thing, and restricted to the reporting of our sensations
and ideas as inward " facts"?  If not qualified to
"judge," how can they revise " judgments "?  And if
they are qualified, then their testimony must be accepted, with all that it carries in it, -the counter-realities
of object and subject, and the very principle of causality
inseparable from their discovery. By denying Perception as distinguished from Sensation, Mr. Mill himself
incapacitates "sense" for bearing witness to any thing
but the sensations within us: how then can he appeal
to it for a verdict on a maxim claiming to be valid for
the universe?  He treats every thing external, - all
body and all qualities, - as mentally feigned to serve
as "unknown causes" of our sensations: but if the
objective world is just an hypothesis invented to satisfy
" the principle of causality," how can he appeal to it to
pronounce sentence on that principle itself? He either
disbelieves or believes this objective world. Does he
disbelieve it, on the ground that all our knowledge is
subjective? then his " outward standard " for testing the
causal principle is non-existent. Does he believe it?
then he does so on the strength of this causal principle
itself, and, in accepting the hypothesis, grants the
paramount necessity of " unknown causes" for known
phenomena.
The dominance of Sensation in Psychology is naturally followed by the dominance of Induction in Logic.




106             JOHN STUART MILL.
Accordingly, our author's whole treatment of this subject carries out his crusade against "the a-priorities,"
and his thorough-going determination to hunt down all
general propositions into elementary concrete facts.
All his characteristic opinions respecting the process of
reasoning are of the same type and tendency: that we
draw inferences from particulars to particulars without
passing through any generalization; that the deductive
procedure has no cogency of proof, but is simply an
interpretation of our notes of prior inductions; that the
syllogism involves a petitio principii; that geometrical demonstration is only a carrying out of false physical
measurements.  These doctrines, though deriving fresh
strength from Mr. Mill's powerful advocacy, are not
new; and they are among the standing marks of what
is called "the empirical philosophy." They depend for
the most part on a peculiar view of abstraction, generalization, and naming, which would require us, were
we to discuss it, to drag our readers into the innermost
recesses of psychology. One remark only will we make
in regard to our alleged inference from particulars to
particulars, without use of any intermediate generalization.  All advance to new  truth implies the cooperation of two conditions: viz. certain objective
data or facts, as material for the mental action; and
a certain subjective mode of dealing with these data,
-a law of the mind's action upon them.  To the first
we necessarily attend, and we consciously realize them,
thinking distinctly both of the known thing from which
we start, and of the previously unknown on which we
are landed. But the other, being the mere form of our
own life for the moment, takes effect of itself without




JOHN STUART MILL.               107
asking leave of our self-consciousness: it is not reflected
on, because it is itself our reflective act.  All, therefore, that we need explicitly state to ourselves, and set
forth as the "evidence," - or external inducement, —
of a particular conclusion, is the particular datum which
moved us to draw it: and for your belief that you are
mortal you adduce sufficient reason when you say, -
the people I have known and heard of have been mortal. But this would not act upon you as a reason at
all, were it not a law of your mind to proceed, on sufficient hint from particular cases, to the idea of a kind,
— in the present instance, human kind, - in which
the same attribute inheres all through.  It is only
because you are an individual "of a certain description " (as Mr. Mill has it), - an example of the kind,
- that you know yourself to be mortal. If, therefore,
the latent condition of the process is to be laid bare,
if the implicit principle of the reasoning is to be made
explicit (and without this there is no psychological
analysis at all), it is indispensable to state the general
mental law in virtue of which particular data conduct
us to a particular conclusion. That we do not make
the universal proposition an object of thought and
visible step to our inference (e. g. " all men are mortal," as proving that "t we are mortal") is no justification of its expulsion from the logical analysis; the very
object of which is, not to state the "evidence," but to
go behind the evidence, in reasoning, - not to be
content with the objective conditions of the process, but
explicitly to give the subjective too. From a similar
limitation of his view to the objective side of reasoning,
and an oversight of Aristotle's distinction between what




108             JOHN STUART. MILL.
the mind has Ev 8vvdtpeL and what it has 4v ~veo;elm, Mr.
Mill has laid, as we think, an unreasonable stress on
the charge of petitio principii against the syllogism.
The Aristotelians at all events have an easy retort. If
there is no deduction without petitio principii, there
is no induction without concluding a particulari ad
universale: and all our reasoning, of either kind, is in
violation of logical rules.  There is nothing in this
paradox that will frighten us, when once we apprehend
the true nature and limits of logical rules. It is evident
that we could never make a step in reasoning, if we
only reasoned; if we neither add any thing to our
premises ab extra, nor draw any thing ab intra, that
was not comprised in them before, no new thing ever
can appear. So long as the mind itself is allowed to
contribute nothing, out of its own modes of activity,
to the enlargement or the evolution of the data, these
data of themselves, objectively measured, will lie still
for ever and yield nothing: and it is the mutual play
of comprehension and extension, the metaphysical postulate of causation, and the idea of the unity of kinds,
that put the dead materials in motion, and elicit a
living advance.
If, in his aim to supplement Bentham, our author
yielded to an idealistic impulse, he remained true, in
what he retained from the great utilitarian, to the
materialistic tendencies of the school.  The inward
side of ethics is made, in every aspect, dependent on
the outward. Do we ask what determines the moral
quality of actions? we are referred, not to their spring,
but to their consequences.  Do we inquire how we
come by our moral sentiments? by contagion, we are




JOHN STUART MILL.              109
told, of other people's approbation and disapprobation,
not by any self-reflective judgments of our own. Do
we seek for the adequate sources of a man's guilt or
goodness? we are presented with an enumeration of
the external conditions which made his character, like
his health, just what it is.  Instead of the selfformation, - the evolution from  within towards an
unrealized type of perfection, -we have man treated
as a natural product, moulded by surrounding pressures
on his sentient susceptibilities. There can be no doubt
about the decisive preponderance of this latter view in
our author's writings.  Though he is willing for a
moment to borrow a light from the subjective doctrine,
and find something genial in its glow, he resolves it
in the end into an illusory brilliancy, - the mirage of
a mental atmosphere charged with earthly vapors and
disturbed with accidental refractions. Though he recognizes the fact expressed by the words "Conscience,"
" Moral Rectitude," "Principle," and insists on its importance in human nature, he allows it only actual force
(such as any superstition might win), not ethical
authority;  and, with James Mill, psychologically deduces it, with the aid of Hartley's law of transference,
from the original datum of self-love. These apparent
concessions constitute but the semblance of approximation between the two doctrines: it has never been
about the fact of a moral consciousness that they differ,
but about its value; and distrust of it is equally produced by its denial and by its disparagement.  If it
is nothing but a compendium of borrowed prejudices
and interested preferences, all starting from egoistic
pleasures, but by chemical combination wrought into a




110             JOHN STUART MILL.
passion that forgets its birth, and now lords it over
others with its "ipse-dixitism," it is idle to make a
merit of acknowledging such a "spring of action" as
this, and to imagine that, by doing so, human nature
is presented in a more respectable light.  Mr. Mill
repeatedly protests against the common identification
of the utilitarian scheme with the " selfish theory;" on
the ground that the former, in determining the morality
of actions, takes into account the consequent pleasures
and pains to other people as well as to the agent. It
certainly does so actually in Bentham's hands; and
might do so legitimately under any philosophy which
established an obligation other than prudential to consult for the happiness of others.  This, however, is
precisely what Bentham does not do: and for want of
it, the unselfish superstructure of his system is simply
imposed, without any logical cohesion, upon a completely selfish base.  By speaking of pain and pleasure
as if they were objective and impersonal quantities,
carrying values irrespective of their individual appropriation, he slips into the delusive facility of treating the
agent's happiness and that of others as interchangeable
and homogeneous magnitudes in every problem. But
in proving his first principle, — the exclusive governance of human life by pain and pleasure, - he rests
entirely on the paramount value to each man of his
own pleasures, and the impossibility that, without this
element, life could be desirable to him at all. Nor was
Bentham at all inclined, in his doctrine of human
nature, at any time to think that the question of meum
and tuum made no difference in the value of a pleasure.
" Think not," he said, " that a man will so much as lift




JOHN STUART MILL.              111
up his little finger on your behalf, unless he sees his
advantage in it!"  From his premises as they stand no
rule of life can be consistently deduced, but the selfish
one that the agent must be determined by a regard to
his own happiness; including, of course, the portion of
it that may be wrapped up with the happiness of other
people.  Bentham's own benevolence of disposition
easily carried him over from this narrow rule to that of
the greatest happiness of all persons concerned. But
even his disciples have felt it to be one of the greatest
lacunce of his system, that no scientific proof identified
the "happiness of all concerned," which was his rule,
with the "happiness of the agent," which was his
principle. It was only in so far as he was inconsequential that he emerged from the limits of the selfish
system. The defect which he left has been carefully
supplied in more recent developments of the doctrine,
-especially by James Mill and Mr. Austin. The
principle, however, resorted to for the purpose, involves
and allows no departure from  the selfish basis.  It
simply avails itself of association and interdependence,
to extend the sphere of our personal happiness so as to
include among its conditions the happiness of others.
It justifies benevolence on the ground of self-love,
disinterestedness, as the ultimate fruit of interest.  We
are far from denying the importance of establishing the
real harmony between the prudential and the social
principles in our nature, or from doubting that a real
advance towards this end is made good by the method
so skilfully applied.  But, after all, it leaves the
" pleasure to one's self" as the actual spring, and
the legitimating ground of every volition; it makes the




112             JOHN STUART MILL.
claims of others' good contingent on its identification
with our own; it recommends self-denial on the plea
of self-indulgence: and thus never really crosses the
boundary which separates interests from obligations,
but simply pushing forward the lines of prudence till
they enclose the whole ethical field, adopts the symbols
and landmarks of duty, with an altered significance.
Wre must honestly say, that this sort of recognition of
others' happiness, as "cause of pleasure to ourselves,"
seems to us still to lie within the limits of the " selfish
system:" by which we understand, the doctrine that the
idea of pleasure to oneself is the mainspring that cannot,
and need not, be absent from any act of the human
will. And though this " theory of motives " appears in
literature and life much more extensively than any systematic notions on morals, it has undeniably co-existed
with the utilitarian doctrine in all the great representatives of the school. In the pages of Bentham and
James Mill, the two theories advance, hand in hand, to
the assault on "the ordinary morality." Why, then,
if Professors Sedgwick and Whewell choose to attempt
a joint repulse of them, should this be rebuked as either
stupid or dishonorable championship?
There seems to be something irresistibly irritating to
the utilitarian mind in the bare mention of an internal
principle, known to us by self-consciousness, from
which a moral theory may be developed. Paley cannot resist a quiet sneer at "the Moral Sense man."
Bentham degrades him from the text into a foot-note;
— will not have him in the same room, but puts the
conceited fellow in the closet - and, baiting him there
with a troop of jeers, makes even that too hot to hold




JOHN STUART MILL.              113
him. James Mill considers him only less contemptible
than Sir James Macintosh. And our author, impatient, it would seem, at having to spend pains on suchi
a fool, scarcely listens to him enough to catch his
thought and answer what he means. He more than
once asserts, for instance, that "the contest between
the morality which appeals to an external standard, and
that which grounds itself on internal conviction, is the
contest of progressive morality against stationary, -
of reason and argument against the deification of mere
opinion and habit" (vol. ii. p. 472). Why so? Why
should the appeal to a common Conscience in mankind
be more egoistic and anti-progressive than the appeal
to a common Reason? Does an author, who has so
distinguished himself in Logical psychology, and whose
writings mark an era in its "progress," doubt that there
is also a Moral psychology, equally exempt from a
stationary doom? What matters it to the possibilities
of development, whether the data for our ethical judgments are found within or without, -in a comparison
of the springs, or a comparison of the results, of action?
Take which system you will, you have, in fact, to carry
your scrutiny into both spheres. Are you Utilitarian?
in spite of your "external standard," you have to estimate " intention," " temptation," and other inward elements. Are you a Moral Consciousness man? the only
thing settled for you within, is the relative authority of
the several Springs of Action; and to get at the right
act, out of several possible to the same spring, you
must go out and look at its consequences, like a Benthamite.  Of course, if there are no laws of Moral consciousness within us, and what we take for such are
8




114            JOHN STUART MILL.
only picked-up opinions without common ground in our
humanity, a morality appealing to them cannot make
scientific advance: not, however, because they are
internal, but because they are illusory.  To explode
error, on whichever side it lies, is certainly to secure
progress. But Mr. Mill's proposition we understand
to be, that on the truth of the one or the other of the
two schemes it depends, whether morals are stationary
or progressive. Such an assertion cannot appear just
except to those who fancy the Moral Faculty to be, in
the creed of its believers, a sort of oracular Pythoness
seated in the mind, to pronounce categorically on every
problem brought up for solution.
In spite, then, of the opposite tendencies co-existing
in Mr. Mill's mind, his sympathy with the Subjective
methods is not strong enough to secure a judicial
insight into their real bearings. He is in the end so
completely carried off by the objective school, that we
doubt whether, if Comte's influence could have preceded that of the elder Mill, any introspective side,
any psychological faith (at best rather shaky after its
first enthusiasm is over), would have appeared at all.
Had the two tendencies found their perfect balance and
adjustment in himself, his occasional descriptions of
them, as manifested in the history of philosophy, would
have been unimpeachably correct. Yet, notwithstanding such outward resemblance to the truth as intellectual conscientiousness and adequate reading can secure,
our author's historical illustrations, - when taken from
ancient or from modern continental philosophy, - almost always affect us like a portrait in which the
measurements and the features seem faithfully laid




JOHN STUART MILL.                 115
down, while the essential expression is missed. The
friendly intimacy, the living communion of thought, is
wanting between the artist and his subject, ere the
picture can speak to you as true.. We can illustrate
our meaning by only one example, selected simply
because it broadly generalizes the relations between
the metaphysical and empirical schools, and so enables us to dispense with much critical reference to the
particular philosophers named.
"It has always been indistinctly felt that the doctrine of
a-priori principles is one and the same doctrine, whether
applied to the i'V or the &'ov — to the knowledge of truth or
to that of duty; that it belongs to the same general tendency
of thought, to extract from the mind itself, without any outward standard, principles and rules of morality, and to deem
it possible to discover, by mere introspection into our minds,
the laws of external nature. Both forms of this mode of
thought attained a brilliant development in Descartes, the
real founder of the modern anti-inductive school of philosophy.
The Cartesian tradition was never lost, being kept alive by
direct descent through Spinoza, Leibnitz, and Kant, to Schelling and Hegel; but the speculations of Bacon and Locke,
and the progress of the experimental sciences, gave a long
period of predominance to the philosophy of experience; and
though many followed out that philosophy into its natural
alliances, and acknowledged not only observation and experiment as rulers of the speculative world, but utility of the
practical, others thought that it was scientifically possible to
separate the two opinions, and professed themselves Baconians in the physical department, remaining Cartesians in
the moral. It will probably be thought by posterity, to be the
principal merit of the German metaphysicians of the last and
present age, that they have proved the impossibility of resting
on this middle ground of compromise; and have convinced all




116             JOHN STUART MILL.
thinkers of any force, that if they adhere to the doctrine of
a-priori principles of morals, they must follow Descartes and
Hegel in ascribing the same character to the principles of
physics" (vol. ii. p. 457).
Now we fully accept the statement here made, that,
in all consistency, the metaphysical method either goes
into both worlds, - what is, and what ought to be,or keeps out of both. We further agree, that Descartes
found a function for it in both, Locke in neither. But
who the nameless philosophers are that, excluding it
from the one, kept it in the other, we are quite unable
to conjecture: and till we are better informed, we
remain sceptical of their existence. Further, we cannot acknowledge that the metaphysicians in either field
ever proposed "to discover the laws of nature" "by
mere introspection into our own minds;" if by this is
meant that they wished to dispense with " observation
and experiment," and to set up as an "anti-inductive
school." They always, and without exception, so far
as we know, found room, within each of the two
provinces, for both methods, -the a-priori and the
a-posteriori; the one being deemed proper for the detection of entities, the other for the ascertainnlent of
phenomena and their laws.  When the phenomena
were mental, the result was Empirical Psychology;
when external, Empirical Physics.  The two modes
of procedure actually sit side by side, and receive
some of their most characteristic developments in the
" Ethica " of Spinoza; the psychological parts of which
are as completely empirical as the researches of Hobbes,
and full of direct and striking anticipations of the Mill
doctrines themselves.  We are not aware that any




JOHN STUART MILL.             117
metaphysician, be he ever so "Coleridgian," can be
named, who has supposed that the proper work of
induction could be achieved by intuition. It was not
until the "Baconians" came upon the stage and acquired ascendancy, that one of the procedures endeavored totally to expel the other, and unconditionally
claim  the whole field.  The a-priori people never
dreamt, in regard to their a-posteriori neighbors, of
trying the writ of ejectment with which they now find
themselves served.  The only dispute between them
was a boundary dispute, -where exactly, on the ascending slope, the perceptible laws of phenomena
merged in the logical evolution of necessary being
(such as space), on the descending. Haunted by the
analogy of Geometry, in which sequences of pure
thought seemed to open out relations and connections
of real existence, the Cartesians undoubtedly pushed
the a-priori claim beyond its just limits, and attempted
conquests with it which it cannot make. And it is not
unnatural that, in the exultation of victory over them,
their opponents should meditate dispossessing them of
every thing. As to the result, — if there be nothing
but phenomena, these opponents will succeed: otherwise, we suppose, not. But that the result, whatever
it be, will be sweeping, can be doubted by none. The
"middle ground of compromise," by surrender of the
natural and reservation of the moral field, is, we think,
quite imaginary: and, with sincere deference to Mr.
Mlill's great authority, we doubt whether the position,
Teutonically proved untenable to " all thinkers of any
force," has ever been taken up by a single English
writer, or attacked by a single German. Reid, Stew



118             JOHN STUART MILL.
art, Hamilton, Whewell, all put limits on the resources
of the a-posteriori method: and all carry the same rule
of restriction into the natural as into the moral sphere;
for the most part, amid mutual differences, leaving the
same fundamental ideas in the field of exemption, —
Space, Time, Substance, Cause, on the one hand;
Personality, Moral Obligation, Preferential Freedom,
on the other.
The characteristics on which we have ventured to
dwell are more discernable in the occasional writings
before us than in the author's systematic works. Nowhere, however, are they so conspicuous as broadly to
challenge the eye: like all foundations, they hold what
is above them in the light, but lie hid themselves.
They have more to do, we believe, with Mr. Mill's
marked influence upon his age, with both the fear and
the admiration so strongly directed towards him, than
his direct contributions to Logic and Political Economy.  No writer, it is probable, was ever more read
between the lines: his authoritative force of intellect,
his perfect mastery of his materials, his singular neatness of exposition, marked him as a great power in the
speculative world: but, as usual, the real interest felt
was not less scientific than moral, - as to the direction
in which that power would work.  A  certain air of
suppression occasionally assumed by Mr. Mill himself,
with hints for a revision of the existing narrow-minded
morals, has increased this tendency. This suppressive
air is the greatest fault we find in him; it is his only
illegitimate instrument of power, for it weighs chiefly
on the weak: and the shade which it passes across his
face is sometimes so strong as almost to darken the




JOHN STUART MILL.              119
philosopher into the mystagogue.  Is the blame of this
demeanor thrown on the tyranny of society? If that
be all, tyranny is better broken in a land like ours by
conscientious defiance than by ambiguous submission
and argumentative complaint. It seems hardly becoming in an author who has attained the highest rank of
influence in the intellectual councils of his time, to write
as if there were something behind which, as a veracious
thinker on human life and morals, he would like to say,
but which, under the pitiable bigotry of society, must
be reserved for an age that does notqpersecute its benefactors. Such a demeanor appears to us the counterpart, among speculative men, of dogmatic self-assurance
among religious professors: and Pharisaism hurts the
humanities and the humilities as much in the " Wiser
than thou," as in the "Holier than thou."  Nor is the
effect of this manner better than its principle.  Weak
minds, as Mr. Mill observes of the theologians, are apt
to begin wondering: and a manner so provocative of
curiosity sets them thinking what these terrible secrets
can be. Such questions are sure to find answerers;
and among the busy-bodies and hangers-on of a school
a certain cant of initiation arises which fosters every
vice of the sectarian life.  We have not Mr. Mill's
positive faith in Discussion as an instrument for the
determination of moral controversies.  But still less
have we faith in Reserve and supercilious avoidance.
In taking leave of our author, we repeat our grateful
acknowledgment for most important light and aid
from him over the whole middle ground of science
which he has chiefly made his own.  Thousands of
students, beyond the circle of which he is the centre,




120            JOHN STUART MILL.
are indebted to him for the power to think more closely
and clearly, and the resolve to reach the ultimate
ground of beliefs too lightly held. His writings are
far more than the culminating expression of a particular
school of thought: they are a permanent contribution
to the intellectual training of the English mind. Could
the haunting problems of Being be silenced, whilst we
only listened to the flow and caught the rhythm of
Phenomena; could we be content to hear it said that
they are inaccessible to the human faculties, and not
think in reply that nevertheless the human faculties
may be not inaccessible to them, - no more effectual
guidance need be demanded. But so long as the laws
of "co-existence and succession" afford no refuge from
the sense and need of a deeper beauty, right, and
good, the most searching and exhaustive of scientific
intellects will not persuade men to forego the hope
of some higher philosophic genius to answer instead
of dash their aspirations.




121
NATURE AND GOD.*
THE  two brothers Humboldt, it is well known, applying each a fine genius to different pursuits, diverged  in
their convictions with regard to the supreme objects of
thought and faith.   William, in sympathy with the life
of humanity, studious of its expression in language, in
literature, in law, and in all the vicissitudes of civilization, never lost the traces of a Divine Government over
the world, and even in the superstitions of mankind
saw   only  a  barbarous  jargon  attempting  an  eternal
truth. Alexander, at home in the great Kosmos, fa* The present Relations of Science to Religion: a Sermon preached on
Act Sunday, July 1, 1860, before the University of Oxford, during the Meeting of the British Association. By Rev. Frederick Temple, D.D., Head-Master of Rugby School. Oxford and London, 1860.
The Correlation of Physical Forces. By W. R. Grove, M.A., F.R.S.
Second Edition. London, 1850.
The Mutual Relations of the Vital and Physical Forces. By Dr. Carpenter (Philosophical Transactions, 1850).
Principles of Human Physiology. By Dr. Carpenter. Fifth Edition, 1855.
The Order of Nature, considered in reference to the Claims of Revelation.
By Rev. Baden Powell, M.A., F.R.S., &c. London, 1859.
The Intellectual Development of Europe, considered with reference to
the Views of Mr. Darwin and others, that the Progression of Organisms is
determined by Law. By Prof. Draper, M.D., of New York. Communicated
to the Zoological Section of the British Association (Athenaxum, July 14, 1860).
Glimpses of the Heaven that lies about us. By T. E. Poynting. London, 1860.
National Review, October, 1860.




122             NATURE AND GOD.
miliar with the ways of Nature from her rude Titanic
workshops to her finest harmonies of life, significantly
declared himself to be of "the religion of all men of
science."  That his implication of " all men of science"
in his own negative doctrine is far too sweeping, - not
less so, indeed, than the Bishop of Oxford's counterpart assertion that "no men great in science favor Mr.
Darwin's hypothesis," — is evident not only from the
older examples of Newton, Boyle, Cuvier, and Davy,
but from many of the newest representative names,
Oersted, Herschel, Owen, Faraday.  Still, there is
ample evidence of a certain general tendency in Natural Science to foster habits of thought embarrassing to
religious conviction.  On a first view it certainly appears strange that the men most conversant with the
Order of the visible universe should soonest suspect it
empty of directing Mind; that they should lose their
first faith on the very field where natural theology
gleans its choicest instances of design: and on the
other hand, that humanistic, moral, and historical studies, - which first open the terrible problems of suffering and guilt and contain all the reputed provocatives
of denial and despair, - should confirm and enlarge,
rather than disturb., the prepossessions of natural piety.
The result, however, ceases to be paradoxical, on closer
inspection of the relation between physical and moral
knowledge.
The jealousy between natural science and religion is
of very long standing. From the time of Anaxagoras
onward, every attempt to explain by secondary causes
phenomena previously unreduced has been regarded as
an audacious wresting of some province from the gods.




NATURE AND GOD.                123
And, on the other hand, as early at least as Epicurus,
the investigators of nature began to tolerate the reference to Divine agency merely as a provisional necessity, to be superseded in each field as it was explored,
and serving only as a decent disguise for our residuary
ignorance.  The dialogue of the De Xaturd Deorumn
exhibits, in the persons of Balbus and Velleius, the
same rivalry between Theology and Physics which often
animates the Section-rooms of the British Association.
The antiquity of the controversy attests its deep-seated
origin, in causes beyond the range of the Biblical records and the peculiarities of the Christian doctrine.
The Scriptures, in the presence of the Baconian logic,
have merely encountered the inevitable fate of any inflexible litera scripta existing side by side with everwidening inductions.  A  consecrated theory of the
phenomenal universe, embodying the perishable imaginations of one age or people, necessarily blends with
every religion, however charged with essential and
inspired truth; and, as necessarily, comes to be discredited as discovery extends, till it has to be discharged
from its spiritual receptacle. The series of questions
on which the conflict has been renewed in modern times
between the closed " Word " and the opening Works of
God is as long as the chain of inductive sciences themselves; and the result has been invariable,- the patience of nature overcoming the authoritative plea of
miracle.  Copernicus, in spite of the hierarchy, has
cried with more effect than Joshua, " Sun, stand thou
still! " Ships are daily chartered to those Antipodes
which Lactantius declared to be impossible, and Augustine unscriptural, and Boniface of Metz, beyond the




124             NATURE AND GOD.
latitude of salvation. Witchcraft, so long preserved by
the Mosaic Law among our list of crimes, has disappeared from every European code; and demoniacal possession in mania and epilepsy, though in the Gospels
giving form to the miracles and evidence to the Messiahship of Christ, has been unable to hold its ground
against the exorcism  of the College of Physicians.
The common parentage of the human race, already
rendered distasteful by Prichard's suggested probability
of a black Adam and Eve, has become an open question
with the advance of ethnology, notwithstanding the
absolute dependence upon it of the whole scheme of
ecclesiastic theology. The tower of Babel faded into a
myth, as the affinity of languages was better understood.  Egypt, so long measured by the patriarchal
chronology, and cowed by the song of Moses and
Miriam, has at last taken a strange revenge upon her
fugitives, by discrediting their traditions, and exposing
the proofs of her dynasties and arts beyond the verge of
their Flood, nay, prior to their Eden. The terrestrial
cosmogony of Genesis, in spite of all the clamps and
holdfasts of a perverted exegesis, has long been knocked
to pieces by the geologic hammer. And now it would
seem doubtful whether, even with regard to the specific
types of organized beings, the idea of sudden creation
may not have to be altogether relinquished in favor of
a principle of gradual modification.
One by one, these questions may be determined and
pass away. And if this were all, a mere glance at the
past results, without appealing to the supreme security
of truth, ought to tranquillize all religious alarms: for
who that has in him any intelligent image of our mod



NATURE AND GOD.               125
ern Kosmos would think it "for the glory of God" to
have back again the little three-storied, or seven-storied
structure, in which the Hebrew and early Christian
imagination found room and time for every thing,
earthly, devilish, and Divine? Every thing has turned
out grander in the reality than in the preconception:
the heavens that open to the eye of a Herschel, the
geologic time whose measures direct the calculations
of a Lyell, the chain of living existence whose links are
in the mind of a Hooker, Agassiz, or Darwin, infinitely
transcend the universe of Psalmist's song and Apocalyptic vision. However obstinate the battle may seem
to be on each of these particular points, as it arises, the
combatants again and again fight out a peace at last:
- why, indeed, should the theologian object to find the
scene of Divine Agency larger, older, more teeming
with life, than he had thought? But all these collisions
have a significance far deeper than the special topic of
each occasion. They are signs of a more fundamental
conflict, whose essence remains when they are set at
rest; - of a real, ultimate, irreducible difference, easily
mistaken for contradiction, between the whole scientific and the whole religious mode of approaching and
viewing the external world.
Christianity, engaged in establishing immediate relations between Man and God, takes little notice of Nature; which might in fact be absent altogether without
material injury to a scheme pervadingly supernatural;
and which was actually to vanish in order to the final
realization of the Divine purpose for Humanity. The
defining lines of the religion run, so to speak, overhead
of Nature, and pass direct from spirit to Spirit: Given,




126             NATURE AND GOD.
the human consciousness of sinful need and the sigh for
holy life; given also, the Divine response of forgiveness, rescue, and communion; and the essential idea is
constituted.  The circle of thought and feeling which it
collects around it has only a negative relation to the
outward Kosmos, and finds Nature rather in its way.
Still, when compelled to look the visible world in the
face and recognize it as the depository of some permanent meaning, Christianity, like all pure and spiritual
Theism, can only regard the universe as the manifestation and abode of a Free Mind, like our own; embodying His personal thought in its adjustments, realizing
His own ideal in its phenomena, just as we express our
inner faculty and character through the natural language of an external life. In this view, we interpret
Nature by Humanity; we find the key to her aspects in
such purposes and affections as our own consciousness
enables us to conceive; we look everywhere for physical signals of an ever-living WTill; and decipher the
universe as the autobiography of an Infinite Spirit,
repeating itself in miniature within our Finite Spirit.
The grandest natural agencies are thus but servitors of
a grander than themselves: " the winds are His messengers; and flaming fire, His minister."  Using Nature
as his organ, He transcends it: the act in which he
does so is the exercise of his own Free Volition, rendering determinate what was indeterminate before: it is
thus the characteristic of such act to be supernatural:
and Man, so far as he shares a like prerogative, occupies a like position; standing to that extent outside and
above the realm of necessary law, and endowing with
existence either side of an alternative possibility. At




NATURE AND GOD.               127
both ends therefore of the scheme of Kosmical order,
are beings that go beyond it: all that is natural lies
enclosed within the supernatural, and is the medium
through which the Divine mind descends into expression and the Human ascends into interpreting recognition. The effect of this faith upon the study of objects
and phenomena is obvious enough. They will be interesting, not on their own account, but as signs of the
Thought which issues them: in quest of this, conjecture will turn inwards; and, taking counsel from the
higher moral consciousness, will come back to them and
see meanings and motives they do not contain. The
observer will be in danger of converting the universe
into the mere reflection of his own conscience and emotions; of overlooking its calm neutralities; of reading
some special smile in its sunshine and judgment in its
storms; or, when experience and culture have rendered
these simple interpretations no longer possible, of following some more elaborate, but still premature, clue
of design, and losing himself in a labyrinth of misconstrued relations. The disposition of the human soul to
seek for its own prototype and start at its own shadow
in the outward universe, is a solemn and significant
fact. But it can no more do the work of natural
knowledge, than the inspection of a foreign people's
expressive looks and gestures can supersede the patient
study of their language,- a language formed by the
working of the same feelings and ideas, yet not intelligible through mere sympathy with these. At a moment when our thirteen inches of summer rain are
episcopally explained, in diocese after diocese, as a
punishment of some unspecified sin, and are about




128             NATURE AND GOD.
to be stopped by deprecation, we can scarcely wonder
at the well-known contempt with which both Bacon
and Spinoza have visited the applied doctrine of Final
causes.
Science, on the other hand, brings to the scrutiny of
Nature quite a different order of faculty and feeling.
It lays aside, as intrusive, the inner moral consciousness
with its postulates and beliefs; and enters the field
under pure guidance of the Perceptive and Comparing
powers. It might accomplish the whole of its avowed
aim, with less embarrassed speed, if the mind could
actually be reduced to an unmoral, impersonal mechanism of intellectual elaboration; transfusing nothing of
itself into the universe, but logically working up, in
crystalline arrangements of resemblance, co-existence
and succession, the phenomena given from without.
This a priori limitation of its instruments involves a
corresponding limitation of its field; precluding it from
the whole area of free causality, and enclosing it
within the range of phenomena now determinate. For
the same reason, the order of its advance through this
field must be ever one and the same, - from sensible
particulars to related groups, from minor to major laws,
from classifications with a single base to others that take
account of many.  Beginning with the rudest raw materials of observation, - the e6zmoeeov cSzog -WgS`,- it carries
up the rules they yield into the next rank of things,
taking on some refined addition to make the expression
adequate to the case; and so on, till the formula which
shaped itself at the bottom of nature finds its way upward to the top, and humanity itself, as a scientific
object, seems to come out as a mere culminating devel



NATURE AND GOD.                129
opment of the earliest and lowest term. The hierarchy
of laws which Science constructs accomplishes the
grand end, of enabling her to predict the course of
nature.  In part, they are direct rules of empirical
and concrete succession, simply describing the order of
bodies and their appearances, as in Plane Astronomy.
In part, as in Physical Astronomy, they are rules combined out of the decomposed conditions of analyzed
phenomena. In either case, the power of prediction is
attained; and equally so, whether the rules present the
ipsissima vestigia of nature, as we believe to be
the case with Kepler's laws, or whether, by some device
of reduction and substitution, they furnish mere equivalent elements, tantamount, in all their combinations, to
the natural facts.  The Ptolemaic foreknowledge of
eclipses was manifestly due to artifices of this latter
kind: and we incline, with Adam Smith, to refer even
the Celestial Dynamics of Newton to the same head.
Be this as it may, the mere ability to reason out future
individual phenomena by strict deduction from some
equation of abstract conditions impresses us with a sense
of Fate: the logical cogency of the inferential steps is
mistaken for a material nexus among the objective
facts: and, when taken in conjunction with the uniformity revealed by inductive observation, fixes upon
the scientific fancy that nightmare of Universal Necessity, beneath which every higher faith either is suppressed or cries out in agony.  In a universe thus
regarded there is no room for any thing but determinate phenomena: and the semblance of somewhat else in
man is readily explained away, by simply throwing him
9




130             NATURE AND GOD.,
in among natural objects, studying him exclusively from
the outside, and disparaging the possibility or the validity of self-knowledge. Had he ever so free a causal
power, its phenomena also, once summoned to. exist,
must be determinate, must vary with the scope and
weight of his limiting conditions, must be no less open
than any other facts to the statist's method of averages:
so that you have only to shut the door on the inner consciousness, and restrict us to the gate where the facts
come out, in order to lose witness of the supernatural
in man, and draw him also within the meshes of inevitable Law.
The radical antithesis, then, between Religion and
Science consists in this:  that the former, proceeding
on the data of our Voluntary and Moral faculties, carries a supernatural interpretation through the universe,
and sees in nature the expression of affections and will
like our own; while the latter, proceeding on the data
of our Perceptive and Generalizing faculties, discovers
uniformities of phenomena, and accepts the conception
of necessary law not only as the key to Nature, but as
exhaustive and ultimate. Let the maxims which are
self-evident to either of these sets of faculties be applied to the sphere of the other, and the effect can only
be to discredit and dissipate the objects in that sphere.
If every phenomenon is the momentary expression of
free volition, - if the supernatural reigns everywhere
and alone, then is nature an illusion, and the demarcation is erased between Primary causality and Secondary
law.  If, on the other hand, "we know nothing but
phenomena," - if our cognitive endowments are exhausted upon " resemblances, co-existences, and suc



NATURE AND GOD.              131
cessions,- then is the Order of nature our only
reality,- its Causality, our dream; and of God, —
who is not "a phenomenon," —we cannot rationally
speak.
The most obvious way of escape from this dilemma
is, to restrain the pretensions of each class of faculties
within its own province, and protest against its ambition of universal empire. Let the moral and spiritual
intimations, it is said, have their own authority and sustain their own beliefs; they need not be meddled with,
so long as they stop at home and do not overrun the
Kosmos with their theology.  Let the observing and
inductive tendency push on, - the mensurative and deductive calculus work out its results; — they can but
give us new truth, so long as they deal only with finite
things, and do not trespass upon the sphere of Personality and Infinitude. This is the tone prevailingly
assumed both by liberal divines and by reverential or
cautious men of science; and it suffices to establish an
armistice between them which is at least an agreeable
change upon open war.  To this compromise Bacon
habitually resorted: and quite in the sense of his philosophy it is found pervading the writings of the late
lamented Baden Powell. To us, we confess, it is profoundly unsatisfactory: especially when the two separated provinces are treated, not as two independent and
incommensurate kinds of knowledge or kinds of faith,
but the one as knowledge, and the other as faith. Mr.
Baden Powell intended, we are sure, to be not less loyal
to his Christian Theism than he was to his Inductive
philosophy. When, however, after volumes of proof
that the universe discloses nothing but immutable law




132             NATURE AND GOD.
and material development, so orderly indeed as to bespeak Thought, but so inexorable as to be silent of
Character, after treating the supernatural as intrinsically
incognizable, and the moral and spiritual as entirely out
of relation to the rational faculty, he briefly relegates us
to "faith" for our grounds of religious conviction, we
certainly feel that the door is rather rudely slammed in
the face of our inquiry, and that we are turned out
of the select society of the philosophers who know,
to take our place with the plebs who believe.  It is
utterly destructive of the equipoise of authority between
the two spheres, to characterize the one as "knowledge," which involves objective certainty, the other as
"faith," which goes no further than subjective assurance. This it was which exposed Bacon to the false,
but not unnatural, suspicion of Atheism: and the painful negative impression of unsolved problems, so generally left on Mr. Baden Powell's readers, is mainly due
to the same crudeness of distinction. The truth is, he
had effectually thought out the one side of the question
which was congenial with his intellectual habits and pursuits, without gaining any corresponding command of
the other: and his imagination, left alone with the
astounding revelations of modern science, was not simply possessed but overpowered by the conception of allcomprehending and necessary laws. A more balanced
reflection would at once have shown the futility of the
distinction he wished to establish.  If by "faith" he
meant reliance on a principle as self-evident, i.e. recommended only by its psychological necessity;- if by
"knowledge," distinguished from  faith, he meant an
acquired apprehension of truth on evidence other than




NATURE AND GOD.                  133
its own; * then there is just as much " faith " concerned
in Science as in Religion; and just as much "knowledge" in Religion as in Science.  Not a step could
Geometry, Arithmetic, Physics, advance without assumptions respecting Space, Time, external Substance,
which are no less pure and absolute gifts of our pyschological constitution than the moral assurance of our
responsibility. And in Ethics, the propositions - that
it is wrong to punish an unconscious act, that extreme
temptation mitigates guilt; - in Religion, that the hypocrite's prayer is unavailing, that to the pure in heart God
is best revealed, - are known not less certainly than in
Science the place of the North from the pointing of the
needle, or the recent birth of an animal from the
mother's milk.
Even apart from the inexact and unequal balance
maintained by Mr. Baden Powell between the rival
claims, a mere compromise founded on a division of
territory is intrinsically impracticable.  The savant
cannot help advancing his lines of thought into human
and moral relations and esteeming them  amenable to
him. The theologian cannot help applying his faith
to the universe, for the supernatural is conceivable only
in relation to the natural, and the transcendency of God
involves the subordination of the world. And if a man
be at once savant and theologian, how is he to manage
the partition of his creed? One side of him denying all knowledge but of necessity and nature, the other
~ We do not propose these as satisfactory definitions of "faith" and
"knowledge:" but the terms, if treated as mutually-exclusive opposites,
appear to admit of no others. And this is the case with which we have to
deal.




134             NATURE AND GOD.
believing only freedom and God, is he to take turn and
turn about with the " Yes" and " No," and care nothing
about their discord or their harmony?  Whether as a
logical invention or as a work of art, we cannot admire
this composite figure, half philosophe, half saint; on
the left of the mid-line, a Diderot, on the right, a FeneIon.  No earnest mind can endure a life of double
consciousness, or excuse it on the pedantic plea of different faculties. Many or few, their testimony must all
converge on the unity of truth, and is falsely construed
till it does so. If the report of " the moral and spiritual powers " be trustworthy, - if there lives an Eternal Will immanent in the universe and communing with
ourselves, it is impossible to avoid the inquiry, in what
relation this Primary and Voluntary Cause subsists to
those Secondary Laws of phenomena which it is the
business of Science to define. How are the seemingly
contrary beliefs forced on us by our outward and by
our inward apprehension to adjust themselves in reconciled co-existence?
Is there any middle term which can aid the mutual
understanding between the Religious and the Scientific
view of nature? - any fundamental thought common
to both, or passing as an essential from the one to the
other?  We think there is, viz. the idea of force.
That this really is an intermediate conception, more
than physical, less than theological, will probably be
conceded on both sides.  It is less than theological:
for, in league with the epithet "material," it can quit
the Theist, and take service with the Atheist.  It is
more than physical: for the term certainly goes beyond
the meaning of the word "Law;" it expresses neither




NATURE AND GOD.               135
any observable phenomenon, nor any mere order of
co-existence or succession among phenomena. To our
objective Perception and Comparison nothing is given
but movements or changes; to our Inductive Generalization, nothing but the sifting and grouping of these
in space and time.  Such mental aggregrates or series
of phenomena complete what we mean by a Law; but
are only suggestive signs of a Force in itself iinperceptible.  As defined by Mr. Grove, the word denotes
"that active principle inseparable from matter which
induces its various changes" (p. 14). So well aware,
indeed, are the more rigorous Inductive logicians (as
Comte and Mill) of the hyperphysical character of this
notion, that they would expel it as a trespasser on the
Baconian domain; or, if it stays, strip it of its native
significance, in order to reduce it to their service.  Let
any one, however, only imagine the sort of jargon into
which, agreeably to this advice, our language of Dynamics would have to be translated; let him try to
express the several intensities in terms of Time-succession, and he will need no other proof of the utter helplessness of physics without this hyperphysical idea.
Mr. Grove most justly remarks: "The word'Force,'
and the idea it aims at expressing, might indeed be
objected to by the purely physical philosopher as representingc a subtle mental conception, and not a sensuous
perception or phenomenon. To avoid its use, however,
if open to no other objection, would be so far a departure from recognized views as to render language scarcely
intelligible" (p. 12).
It is admitted, then, that we have here a physical
postulate indispensable to the interpretation of nature,




136              NATURE AND GOD.
yet not physically known. Its objective reality is guaranteed, the suspicion of its being a "mental figment"
is excluded, by the same security on which we hold the
infinitude of Space and the impossible co-existence of
different Times, viz. its subjective necessity as a condition for conceiving objects and phenomena at all: —
a necessity, we must add, evident in the habitual language, not only of those who consciously acknowledge
it, but equally of those who, like the Positivists, affect
to believe in a ye'veFst of things without a vvcryts'. Being
thus, at the same time, real in its existence, and ideal
in its cognition, Force admits of being investigated
both physically and metaphysically: and take it up in
which aspect you will, the results are remarkable and
concurrent.
The tendency of natural science in its earlier stages
is to establish a plurality of "Forces."  Each separate
family of phenomena throws back its distinctive characteristics on the dynamic source to which they are referred: and Nature is conceived to have on stock as
many powers as she has kinds of product to display.
Thus it is that we fill out our list of mechanical, chemical,
vital, mental forces.  The only differences actually
observed lie among the phenomena: but these are
taken as exponents of corresponding differences in
the causes behind.  The very distinction and organization of the Sciences themselves proceed upon this
principle: each science taking up from among the
properties of matter some one type, and chasing it,
as it were, through the universe, and writing out the
history of its achievements. Latterly, however, especially since the application of a more refined research




NATURE AND GOD.               137
to the so-called " imponderable agents," the old lines of
classification have been losing their mechanical straightness and sharpness, and the coloring of the several
provinces has faded into softer contrast, tending to
something more than harmony.  The first effect of the
prism, in the hands of Newton, was to destroy the simplicity of light, and to disengage it in idea from heat:
the last effect, in the hands of Bunsen, has been, in the
very act of giving extension and precision to the analysis,
to twine together, in a web of wonderful relations,
the luminiferous, the calorific, and the chemical rays.
By the undulatory theory, the same calculus embraces
the measurement of sound and of light. Galvanism,
manipulated by Davy, became the most powerful of
chemical agencies. And, by both direct and converse
proofs, Oersted and Faraday have compelled electricity
and magnetism to exchange effects. The several modifications of motion produced by all these agents carry
in them mechanical momentum, and avail to overcome
cohesion and gravitation. By combining such facts as
these, Mr. Grove has shown, in his ingenious and
striking Essay cited at the head of this Article, that all
the forces comprised under the term " Physical" are so
"correlated" as to be no sooner expended in one form
than they re-appear in another, - in fact, to be convertible inter se; and therefore to be not many, but one, —
a dynamic self-identity masked by transmigration. Not
content with a dead pause at Mr. Grove's resting-place,
Dr. Carpenter, in his communication to the Royal Society, has carried the argument to a higher point, and
shown that the law extends to the Vital forces: and, in
his Human Physiology, he conducts it to its climax




138             NATURE AND GOD.
in the Mental forces. The energy of volition communicates itself to the motory nerves; these again hand over
the stimulus to the muscular fibre; by whose contraction, finally, some mechanical movement is produced:
each step of the process being marked by a waste or
consumption of the transmitting medium, but an undiminished propagation of the transmitted force. It is
not within the scope of our present design critically to
estimate this subtle speculation; but simply to record it
as the last result of dynamic generalization. The conclusion is, that the plurality of forces is an illusion;
that in reality, and behind the variegated veil of heterogeneous phenomena, there is but one force, the solitary fountain of the whole infinitude of change.
This position, however, immediately opens a further
question. If we are to reduce our numerical variety
of forces to one, which member of the series is to remain with us as the type of all? Where is the initial
point of these migrations? How are we to know the
propria persona of the power from  its disguises?
Shall we more rightly presume that the lowest term, —
the mechanical, - passes upwards and re-appears in the
form of mind? - or that the highest rather descends,
divesting itself of prerogative qualities at each step, and
appearing at last with quantitative identity alone? For
answer to these questions we must turn from the physical to the metaphysical scrutiny of the main conception.  We have seen that it is a hyperphysical idea, a
postulate of Reason, applied to nature: and to find its
essence and true type, we must disengrage ourselves
from its applications and detect its pure form in our
intellectual constitution.  Cast your eye, then, along




NATURE AND GOD.                139
the series enumerated by Grove and Carpenter, and
ask yourself in which of these forms the dynamic idea
originally necessitates itself.  Is it that you have to
supply it on seeing an external body change its place?
or, on witnessing some chemical phenomenon, as an
acid stain of red on a blue cloth? or, on noticing the
needle quiver to the North? It will be admitted that,
if we ourselves were purely passive, all these changes
might cross our visual field with only the effect of a
time-succession, -  first, one movement or condition,
then another: while, conversely, if, without any of
these phenomena exhibiting themselves before us, we
ourselves were in the active exercise of Volition more
or less difficult, the idea of Force would be provided
for. It follows that Will is the true type of the conception, identical with it as a primitive intuition; and that
its lower forms are but an attenuated transcript of this,
stripped, by artificial abstraction, of all that is superfluous for the exigencies of scientific classification.
The habitual resort of philosophers to this, when they
want an illustration of the dynamic idea, might convince them that it is more than an illustration, - that
it is the sole and exhaustive case, of which the rest are
but mutilated conceptual repetitions, and without which
there would be no others. Dr. Carpenter, with his
usual clearness in penetrating to the essential point,
seizes at once on the " sense of effort " as the ground of
all our causal thought,- as the " form of Force which
may be taken as the type of all the rest;" declares
that "our consciousness of force is really as direct as is
that of our own mental states;" and admits that, "in
this particular case, Force must be regarded as the




140             NATURE AND GOD.
direct expression or manifestation of that Mental state
which we call WTill."  But he stops short, as it seems
to us, of the true breadth and simplicity of his reduction, when he adds, — "In the phenomenon of voluntary movement, we can scarcely avoid seeing that
Mind is one of the dynamical agencies which is capable of acting-on Matter; and that, like other such
agencies, the mode of its manifestation is affected by
the nature of the material substratum through which its
influence is exerted." *  If Force is known to us from
within, if it is the name we give to self-conscious exercise of power, then that is just the whole of it known
to us at all; — not " one particular case," leaving " other
such agencies " to be learned in some different way; but
the absolute dynamical conception itself, co-extensive
with every actual and possible instance. Take away
the' consciousness of force" in ourselves, and with the
keenest vision we should see it nowhere in nature.
Endow us with it; and we have still no more ability
than before to perceive it as an object in the external
world, observation giving us access only to phenomena
as distributed in space and time. Nor, from knowing
it within, do we acquire any logical right to infer it
without, except in virtue of an axiom of Reason inseparably present in it, - that " all phenomena are the
expression of Power," — the counterpart of that power
which issues our own. This it is which constrains us to
think causation behind nature, and under causation
to think of Volition. " Other force" we have no sort
of ground for believing, - or, except by artifices of
abstraction, even power of conceiving. The dynamic
* Human Physiology, ~ 585.




NATURE AND GOD.              141
idea is either this, or nothing: and the logical alternative assuredly is, that Nature is either a mere Timemarch of phenomena, or an expression of Mind.
The physical and the metaphysical scrutiny of this
indispensable scientific conception converge, then, upon
one conclusion; —that all Force is of one type; and
that type is Mind.
This resolution of all external causation into Divine
Will at once deprives the several theories of kosmical
creation or development of all religious significance.
Not one of them has any resources to work-with that
are other than Divine: you may try what you can do
with this kind of force or with that: but you cannot
escape beyond the closed cycle where each is convertible
with Volition. To you it may not appear under its full
aspect: for "Force" is precisely NWill from which we
omit all reference to the living thought: but its objective character is unaffected by this subjective default.
WVe lament to see the question between a sudden and a
gradual genesis of organic types discussed on both
sides, - not indeed by the principals in the dispute but
by secondary advocates, - too much as if it were a
question between God and no-God.  In not a few
of the progressionists the weak illusion is unmistakable,
that, with time enough, you may get every thing out of
next-to-nothing.  Grant us, - they seem to say, - any
tiniest granule of power, so close upon zero that it is
not worth begrudging; allow it some trifling tendency
to infinitesimal increment; and we will show you how
this little stock became the Kosmos, without ever taking
a step worth thinking of, much less constituting a case
for design.  The argument is a mere appeal to an




142              NATURE AND GOD.
incompetency in the human imagination; in virtue of
which magnitudes evading conception are treated as out
of existence; and an aggregate of inappreciable increments is simultaneously equated, - in its cause to
nothing, in its effect to the whole of things.  You
manifestly want the same Causality, whether concentrated on a moment, or distributed through incalculable
ages: only, in drawing upon it, a logical theft is more
easily committed piecemeal than wholesale. Surely it is
a mean device for a philosopher, thus to crib causation
by hairs-breadths, to put it out at compound interest
through all time, and then disown the debt. And it is
vain after all:  for dilute the intensity, and change
the form, as you will, of the Power that has issued the
Universe, it remains, except to your subjective illusion,
nothing less than Infinite and nothing lower than Divine. And hence it is an equal error in the Theist to
implicate his faith in resistance to the doctrine of progressive development, - be it in the formation of the
solar system, in the consolidation of the earth's crust,
or the origination of organic species. That doctrine
would be atheistic only if the first germ on the one
hand, and the evolution on the other, were root and
branch undivine, - some blind material force that could
set itself up in rivalry to God's. Inasmuch, however,
as all forces are convertible, and that, too, not by culmination into Volition but by reduction from Volition,
they are but His mask and can never be His competitors: and if ever they seem less than Will, it is only
by a self-abnegation which is itself one of the highest
acts of Will. Why, but for the fallacious suspicion to
which we refer, should you object to recognize a law of




NATURE AND GOD.               143
progression in nature any more than in human history?
You think it Providential that Man should be conducted from low beginnings, through the struggles of a
various experience, to a civilized existence beyond the
dreams of an early world. You follow, not without a
solemn piety, the steps of a Lessing or a Bunsen tracing
the Education of our race. From the painful impression left upon you by the long and wide spectacle of
savage life, by the meanness of a thousand superstitions, by the cruelties and flagitiousness which darken
even the most brilliant and sacred eras, you fly for
relief to the thought, that these are but transitory
stages on the way to better things; -that they do
not in themselves give the true idea of the world;
that they must be viewed in connection with the ulterior
destination on which all the lines of the past converge.
You even argue that, were there nothing of this movement in advance, - were every thing human stationary
as Chinese society or periodic as the Stoic's universe,
all would look too much like Fate: it is not in a
perpetual noon, but only in a brightening dawn, that
Divine hope rises in the heart. Why, then, if it be
reverential to think thus of man, should it be atheistic
to think the same of nature?  What is kosmical development but the counterpart of human progression?
Without an ever-living movement of idea, how can we
conceive of an Eternal Mind at all? And if there be
a Divine plan through all, how is its law to be read off
and its drift deciphered, but, as every infinite series is
found, by legibly exposing some adequate segment of
its terms, and spreading its steps along the ages? We
pronounce at present no opinion on the scientific ques



144              NATURE AND GOD.
tion to which Mr. Darwin's book has recently imparted
a fresh interest.  Looking at the speculation with
rather a logician's than a naturalist's eye, we confess
that our prevailing impression, at a little distance from
the fascinations of the author's skill, is of the extreme
exility of the evidence compared with the immensity of
the conclusion.  Should, however, the doctrine of Natural Selection become as well-established as that of successive geologic deposition, we venture to predict that
works on Natural Theology will not only survive this
new shock to the idea of creative paroxysms, but will
turn it to account as a fertile source of theistic evidence
and illustration. It is matter for regret and surprise
that Mr. Darwin himself should have set forth his
hypothesis as excluding the action of a higher intelligence:
"Nothing" (he says) "at first can appear more difficult
to believe than that the more complex organs and instincts
should have been perfected, not by means superior to, though
analogous with, human reason, but by the accumulation of
innumerable slight variations, each good, for the individual
possessor" (p. 459).
Surely the antithesis could not be more false, were
we to speak of some patterned damask as made, not by
the weaver, but by the loom; or of any methodized product as arising not from its primary but from its secondary source.   All the determining conditions of
species, - viz. (1) the possible range of variation, (2)
its hereditary preservation, (3) the extrusion of inferior
rivals, - must be conceived as already contained in the
constituted laws of organic life; in and through which,




NATURE AND GOD.               145
just as well as by unmediated starts, " Reason superior
to the human" may evolve the ultimate results. In a
perfectly analogous case the products of human industry distribute themselves over the earth according to the
laws of Political Economy, all springing from the spontaneous pressure of human desires: yet who would
think it a just antithesis to say, that the ebb and flow
of wealth and arts are due, snot to any Providence of
God, but to the hunger of mankind?
At the same time, though Primary and Secondary
causation do not exclude each other, we own the difficulty of clearly adjusting their relation in our thought:
nor can we pretend that it is abated by resolving all
power into Will. In the supernatural sphere, indeed,
the communion of Spirit with Spirit, - the Divine
with the Human, - this Personal conception of power
meets every exigency; because here the relation all
depends on the free play of affection and character.
But the governance of Nature by Personal Volition is
less easy to conceive, the more we are impressed by the
inflexibility, the neutrality, the universal sweep of her
great laws.  For mere manageable clearness, if that
were all, some credit might be given to the. old Deistical
representation, of God as once contriving the universe,
and then stocking it with properties and powers which
dispensed with his further agency.  Unfortunately,
these properties and powers once installed in the kosmical executive, are too apt, like mayors of the palace,
to set up for themselves: and the more all definite idea
of a creative epoch, marked by sudden birth of the
heavens and the earth, breaklis up and distributes itself,
the less has this theory to hold it together, and the
10




146             NATURE AND GOD.
more urgent becomes the cry for an immanent and living God. The religion of the present age, in all its
newer and more vigorous manifestations, represents this
cry.  Re-acting against the usurpations of secondary
causation, wearied of its distance from the Fountainhead, it flings itself back with pathetic repentance into
the arms of the Primary Infinitude, and tries to feel
even the iron clasp of nature as the immediate embrace
of God. It is a pure and high impulse: yet, when
tranquil enough to go in search of its philosophical
ground, it must become conscious of dangers and selfvariance on this side too. It is impossible to resolve
all natural causation into direct Will without raising
questions (we say it plainly, but with reverence) of the
Divine psychology. You say, He personally issues all
the changes in the universe. Is there, then, a volition
for each phenomenon? and if so, what constitutes a single phenomenon? - each drop of rain, for instance, or,
the whole shower? or, the wider atmospheric tide which
includes the other term of the broken equilibrium? or,
the system of aerial currents that enwrap the earth, and
of which this is as much an element as the rain-drop of
the shower? or, the tissue of conditions, without which
such currents would not be what they are, - including,
at a stroke, the constitution of water and of air, the
laws of caloric, the distribution of land and sea, the terrestrial rotation, the inclined equator, the solar light
and heat?  Where, in this mighty web of relations, are
we to fix, and how to insulate, the unit of volition?
Driven, by the infinite multiplicity of phenomena, to
recognize in some form the occurrence of generic volition, you encounter the ulterior question, what, then,




NATURE AND GOD.               147
constitutes the principle of grouping for each genus,
whereby what is manifold towards us is one from Him?
Are the objects of his determining Thought concrete
things and integral beings, individuals or kinds, such as
Natural History deals with in its classifications? Or,
are they rather those functions or properties into which
we analyze bodies, - which run together to constitute
an individual, and separate to traverse a host; - so that
he thinks in the order of Science, with a volition for
each Law, - now gravitation and all that it carries, -
then, Electricity throughout its sweep? Lay out the
conception which way you will, the two divisions cross
each other. In the contemplative religion of many a
cultivated man, they doubtless come, the one or the
other, as may turn uppermost, with no sense of inconsistency. But down in subtler depths the perplexing
mystery has been felt, ever since Plato's E`6, after
vainly grappling with it, left it to the consciousness of
the world.
Mr. Poynting, in his Glimpses of the Heaven that
lies around us, assumes the Scientific order of Divine
volition; supposes the Kosmos to be thought-out, Law
by Law, in the track of Newton's, Dalton's, Oken's,
Faraday's generalizations; and feels every shadow gone
in the simple recognition of God as personally executing the whole scheme.  His book is not less picturesque
in exposition and ingenious in combination than it is
bright and joyous in tone; and to young readers, able
to adapt themselves to its somewhat fantastic form, it
gives a valuable coup-d'ceil of the newer methods of
scientific thought, though perhaps with too little discrimination of positive results from speculative inter



148             NATURE AND GOD.
pretation. For our fastidious gravity, we must confess,
the visionary and supernatural dress of the first part of
the work, — in which the author, escaped from the
body, has the world explained to him by a celestial lecturer,- is more a burden than a help.  But doubtless
we are heavy of wing: and in compassion to such infirmity, the author, in a second part of the volume,
re-appears in the flesh, and takes his stand upon the level
earth again, and gives a prose version of the "Divina
Cominedia " that precedes. From this part we gather
the theory that God's supreme end is the revelation and
spiritual reproduction of Himself in humanity; that
history, Scripture, nature, are constituted throughout
to serve as the school and discipline of our race; that
the lower ranks of organized beings are sent forth as
prefigurements, in advancing series, of man; that the
several orders of force, - mechanical, chemical, vital,
mental, - by which nature is built up, are developed
modes of atomic attraction and repulsion; which again
are resolvable, atoms and all, into a direct exercise of
Divine power in lines converging on given points
of space. An atom is a geometrical centre on which
God directs force in all radii, thus constituting an
attraction thither.  Did the radii mutually impinge
with perfect precision, they would give a statical resultant: but arriving with slight inaccuracy, they form an
eddy round the centre, and so surround it with a zone
of repulsion. Two atoms unite, when, through rotation
in opposite directions, their osculating surfaces are moving in the same; while under reverse conditions they
retreat. An atom quivering makes its lines of gravitating force quiver too; and hence the phenomena of light




NATURE AND GOD.                149
and sound, and whatever else is reducible to undulation.
By changes, often ingeniously rung, upon these elementary assumptions, the atoms are made to climb into
their place and build the world and its organisms; and
the lines to vibrate in such mode and degree as to furnish law after law in every science from physics to
physiology. The hypothesis, in its resolution of matter
into force, bears an essential resemblance to Boscovich's; and, as might be expected, breaks down at the
same point, - the attempt to step, with only quantitative help, to the qualitative phenomena of nature. All
the optical history, for instance, of a sunbeam is elaborately deduced: and the physiological changes along the
visual nerve are also set forth: and both series of propagated movements are regarded as wonderful provision
for enabling us to see. But when the question is asked,
how it is that one vibration of atoms gives the sensation of heat, another that of light, a third that of sound.
the only answer is, such is the will of God, who, " as
soon as the quivering beats on eye or spirit," " raises in
the mind the idea of light, " or of heat, &c., as it mn:ly
be. WTere it not, then, for this interposed special volition, the visual idea would not arise, and trains of
vibratory processes would be as inoperative on the eye
as they are upon the ear. There is thus no more fitness
in one of the mechanisms than in another, or in any
than in none at all, to produce its appended perception:
for this flows from a Divine act which might just as
well interchange the antecedents or dispense with them
entirely. And when we further remember that all the
prior movements are also described as God's own volitional force, we seem to lose ourselves in a gratuitous




150             NATURE AND GOD.
circuit, in which He devises and works his own complex machinery for providing his own occasions for
interposing his own volitions.  We are reminded irresistibly of Malebranche: who, in the chain of material
causes and effects, saw a scheme of nature offered to
the apprehension of Minds; and, in the constituted
faculties of minds, beheld a provision for the cognition
of Nature; yet sunk an impassable chasm between
them, and made intercommunication impossible, except
by miracles, mero arbitrio, that superseded both.
WXith Malebranche, however, the direct Divine act
was limited to the intermediation between Mind and
Matter, each of which could operate in its own sphere
though not cross over to the other. But Mr. Poynting's spinning machinery of atoms is the immediate
activity of God: the whole mental life of man, and the
ordinary exercise of his faculties, are so too; not less
than the intercourse between the one and the other.
When the objectivity of Nature, and the subjectivity
of Man, and the whole scheme of relations uniting
them, are all thrown into the Infinite together, all distinctions of being disappear, all problems vanish, and
complex tissues of adaptation seem to lose all serious
meaning and take the aspect of an empty play of
thought, evoking conditions in order to meet them.
For our own part, we confess to a very sceptical appreciation of the whole atomic doctrine, so unfortunately
mixed up by Dalton with the law of definite proportions: and cannot help regarding the idea expressed by
the word " atom" as a purely fictitious contrivance for
escaping the contradictions of infinitude, an arbitrary
stop in face of the perils of that wilderness, a logical




NATURE AND GOD.                  151
thrust of the ostrich-head into the sand. And it may
be due perhaps to this disrespectful estimate, that we
find it painful to picture the Divine agency expending
itself in rectilinear descents upon these centres, and in
eddies round them, and quiverings from them, and
a continuous evolution of nature from nothing else than
such questionable rudiments. If such things really go
on, we are not anxious to wrest them from the men
of science and their " secondary laws," in order to claim
them for the Primary.
But besides the questionable character of this atomic
starting-point, and the incongruous mixture of necessary deduction and interpolated miracle, the exposition
is open to the objection which attaches to every scheme
of mere Divine self-evolution: it is, or in the mind
of consequential thinkers it must become, Pantheistic.
WTe use this word, not as a loose term  of current
reproach, — reproach often directed against precisely
what is most pure and true in the religion of thoughtful
men, - but rigorously, to mark the absence in a scheme
of the universe of any thing or being properly objective
to God: and this feature we cannot but regard as a
fatal loss of philosophical equilibrium.  Mr. Poynting
anticipates this objection, and meets it thus:
"I have been told that some people will suspect the views
of the universe here set forth of being Pantheistic. If there
should be any such persons, let me beg them not to be frightened by their own spectral fancies. The views here given,
instead of being Pantheistic, are the antidote for Pantheism.
Pantheism is the conception of the Universe as God.
According to it, nature and human minds are all only parts




152              NATURE AND GOD.
of one Mysterious All, called God, but not thought of as a
personal Being, as having thoughts and affections like the
Christian God.
Now instead of saying that the Universe is God, I distinctly say that the Universe is only the sign and effect of
God - his word, just as our words are signs and effects of our
being. Instead of saying the mind of man is only a part of
God, I distinctly say that the very explanation of our existence is, that God desires not to multiply Himself, but that He
craves otherness - beings not Himself; but only like Himself,
sympathizing with Him, - sons and heirs, not members of his
own being.
The conception of God here presented is intensely unpantheistic, because it is intensely personal.  God is thought of
here as a being of love, goodness, thought; as, in fact, a
Father. The whole doctrine of the book depends upon the
soundness of our attributing to Him sympathies like those
which we ourselves possess." (Introduction, p. xxi.)
This emphatic disclaimer is perfectly satisfactory, so
far as the author's own faith, and the conscious aim of
his teaching, are concerned.   It is also true that,
throughout his volume, the Personality of God, and his
Transcendency beyond Nature, are never compromised;
and that the ascription to Him of emotions and conceptions akin to ours is carried even to the verge on which
reverence begins to tremble. But it is not enough that
you save the Divine personality, if you sacrifice the
Human; without relation to which lesser, as substantive moral object, the greater, left to shed affections
only on its 6wn phenomenal effects, cannot sustain
itself alive.  Our author's theory appears to us to
make no adequate provision for the personality of Man,
- to treat him merely as the highest natural product,




NATURE AND GOD.                  153
the last organism prefigured by the imperfect approaches
of other animals, and crowning the long line of homogeneous development. Mr. Poynting, indeed, himself
believes, and intends to work out the belief, that God
"craves otherness, beings not Himself:" and if this
intention be successfully carried out, our scruple is
groundless. How far the discrimination of'man from
God is adequately made,-  how far it establishes them
in real relations of Person to Person, - may be estimated by the following statements:
"How often had a poor doubting mind confessed to me,'You say that God is in contact with us, and gives his Holy
Spirit to those who ask Him. Yet I look back through all
my life, and I am not aware of any inspiration, any revelation,
any suggestion, that has not come, like all my thoughts and
feelings, by my ordinary faculties and instincts. It seems to
me that I have been left alone with my own mind, and God
has not at all interfered in its workings.' I now saw that what
we call the ordinary working of the mind itself, the law of its
faculties, the movement of its impulses, was the very flowing
of the Holy Spirit" (p. 75).
The same doubt is met with the same answer in the
Second Part: where it is said:' We have watched our minds, we have prayed and
striven, but we have been able to detect no trace of any
stirring in our spirits beyond the natural action of our faculties and instincts.
Let us, then, consider these ordinary impulses and faculties. When we feel the impulse of Benevolence, the love of
the Beautiful, the love of Knowledge, when we feel the Sentiment of Conscience approving or disapproving, when we feel
the Reason leading us on from step to step of truth we know




154               NATURE AND GOD.
not how, - whence do these impulses and movings come?
what is their fountain? Do we invent these movements?
Do we originate or direct them ourselves?  No, the movements seem to come in upon us like streams of life from a
source outside our Will. Now what is the source from which
these streams or movements come? Is there an inexhaustible
supply of Such streams, powers, impulses, shut up in secret
wells within us, and is there some mechanical contrivance for
unlocking these wells at our need, and letting these streams
flow in upon our consciousness? I reply, we know of no such
wells; we cannot, indeed, imagine them. We have never had
experience of any such contrivance. On the other hand, there
is a Cause, a real known cause at hand all around us - God
himself, the Eternal fountain of Life and Power - quite sufficient to account for the phenomena" (p. 365).
If every feeling which streams in upon me, and every
ifacultative activity that goes out from me, is thus foreign to me and is the Personal agency of another Mind,
what remains to be my own?  Where am I?  My subjective experience, my objective energies, all given
away, the whole essence is gone, and I have no longer
any pretension to rank as a Person. The only conceivable residue of humanity left, after the Holy Spirit
has thus claimed its own, is an empty capacity for the
reception and transmission of alien influences and emanations. Mr. Poynting accordingly speaks of the soul as
"an organ,- God's great organ,"- the music of which
is from the breathing and inflowing of God's Holy Spirit
(p. 310): -the very image employed, if we remember right, by Tertullian, in order to express the entire
superseding of the human personality by Divine inspiration in the sacred writers. To say that we stand related to God, as the artfully-constructed instrument to




NATURE AND GOD.                155
the skilled hand that makes it speak, is to exclude the
conditions of moral life, and make us His fabric rather
than His sons. Perhaps our author would refer us to
other passages, in which he seems to reserve the Will
as man's peculium: as in this sentence:
" Every sensation, every thought, every feeling, every motion
of every muscle, destroyed a fibril in the voluntary, or man's
part of the frame; every motion of heart, every motion of the
lungs, and each other organ connected with the preparation
and circulation, destroyed a fibril in the involuntary, or God's
part of the frame" (p. 158).
Will, however, cannot stand alone, to make a person, when every thing else has been alienated. It fails
of the very conditions of its exercise, unless surrounded,
within the same individuality, by the data, and aided by
the light, of other faculties, forming with it the proper
nature or constitution of the living self. To will, without affection to desire, and reason to compare, is impossible: the style, so to speak, of affection, and the style
of reason, are just as personally characteristic, as the
style of willing: and to banish the two former into
the Divine Personality, while retaining only the third
for the human, is at once to " confound the persons"
and " divide the substance." In proof of the impersonal
and alien nature of our Reason, Conscience, Benevolence, &c., our author appeals to their involuntary
character, and asks whether "we originate and direct
them." He may test the value of the argument by
putting the same question respecting God's Reason,
Benevolence, Holiness, &c.  Are these products of His
Will?  Did He "originate" or "invent" them?  And




156             NATURE AND GOD.
if not, are they foreign to Him? On the contrary, they
are of His innermost essence; forming the spiritual
background of pre-requisites to Volition; more than all
else defining His real and ultimate Self, precisely because not effects of His Will, but beyond Him to create or to destroy.  In short, if it is Will that goes to
make personality, it must carry with it, not its products
alone, but its indispensable conditions. And these are
just the circle of impulses and faculties which our
author forbids us to appropriate.
We think, then, that Mr. Poynting has not adequately
guarded his doctrine on this side; and has left, in strictness, but one Person in the Universe.  Let us add
that, in this, he stands associated with a great and holy
company, and with them yields only to the excess of a
noble affection.  It has ever been the tendency of
intense and paramount devotion to take nothing to
itself, and give every thing to God. Minds engaged
in habitual contemplation of the Infinite seem to become conscious, not of littleness only, but of nothingness in the Finite: and the vain attempt to hold the
two in co-existence ends in passionate casting ot
the Finite away. They pass by meditation into a
certain speculative form of Christian self-abnegation;
and feel, with Augustine, that, ethically, Humanity
has no standing before God; with Malebranche, that,
intellectually, it has no light but His; with Tauler,
that, spiritually, its only strength is to pass, exposed
and weak, into His hand; with Spinoza, that, substanti-vely, it vanishes into a mode of His reality. Transiently, every religious man, it is probable, touches one
or other of these dizzy verges of thought, where the




NATURE AND GOD.               157
spirit trembles between the supreme height and nothingness. And there are seasons in the history of every
church and nation when, in re-action from a temper
of false security and pragmatical self-assertion, it is
well for the consciousness of a people to be snatched
away, and planted for a while where it may look into
the solemn space and feel the awful breath. But the
permanent equilibrium of human thought is not there.
The sense of Duty returns; the strife of Reason starts
afresh; the toil of the Will resumes its tools; — and
the latent assurance of personal faculty and of real
freedom to use it, feeling its natural root, grows up
into the light again; and pushes its green terrestrial
margin ever further upon the overpowering expanse
of Divine Necessity. Augustine converts the world:
but Pelagius is its counsellor day by day. And we
hold it indispensable to any tenable theory of Religion,
that finite natures, and especially the human personality, should be secured in their real rights, and so
interpreted as to remain, in some intelligible sense,
objective to God.
This condition, it is evident, no theory can fulfil
which represents God as evolving the universe " out of
Himself." He is then both its substance and its phenomena; and it is in no way differenced from Him,
except by His transcending it. A blunt way of avoiding this consequence was resorted to by the more
Judaically-minded Fathers of the Church in their doctrine of " creation out of Xothing; "-a doctrine
which, holding its ground so far as material or fabricated nature is concerned, yielded, at the higher stage
of human and spiritual existence, to the Alexandrine




158             NATURE AND GOD.
notion of the extension of the Divine Logos: and thus
made way for the distinction between a mere creature
and a son of God.  This blank "Nothing," - whatever philosophers may say against it,- was at least
effectual for cutting off all obligations to antecedent
material, whether within or without the Eternal substantive Being, and compelling the recognition of the
world as something other than God. To this grand
Hebrew distinction, a true instinct led the Church to
cling through all the seductions of Gnosticism: and
though the formula embodying it may give way, philosophical Theism cannot afford to surrender the distinction itself in any re-action towards Greek and German
modes of thought. Our age professes itself weary of
the old mechanical Deism, and cries out for the Immanent and Living God.  It is well: but, even for
Immanency itself, there must be something wherein
to dwell; and for Life, something whereon to act.
Mind, to think out its problems, - unless those problems are a dream, —cannot be monistic, —a mere
subjective infinitude, - its tides and eddies all within.
What resource, then, have we, when we seek for something objective to God?  The first and simplest, in
which accordingly philosophy has never failed to take
refuge, is Space.  Inconceivable by us except as coextensive and co-eternal with Him yet independent of
Him, it lies ready, with all its contents of geometrical property, for the intuition of his Reason. And to
Thought, which thus comes out of its eternity, and
engages itself upon determinate relation, we cannot
help ascribing the cognition of Time, with its attendant, N'umber. Thus, the circle of quantitative data is




NATURE AND GOD.              159
complete, and the ground of all mensurative and deductive intellect is there.  Will this, then, suffice?
Can we follow out the Kosmical problem to its end
upon this track? The experiment has been too tempting for philosophers to resist; and again and again
they have worked in this vein, and tried to exhibit the
universe as a deduction, thought-out "more geometrico" from axioms of Eternal Reason; to dispense
altogether with creative volition, as the source of
order; and to connect even physical qualities and phenomena by a conceivable chain of logical necessity with
the self-evidence at fountain-head.  But though in
these attempts the most has been made of quantitative
methods and conceptions, - though, for instance, Extension has been set up as the essence of Body, in the
same way as Thought is the essence of Mind, - it has
proved impossible to avoid resort to other conceptions,
— as Substance, Attribute, Cause. Still, with these
purely metaphysical and a-priori ideas added to the
mathematical, it was supposed possible for Reason to
evolve the world by following out the steps of a demonstration.  The Necessity of things was coincident
with the Necessity of thought: the nexus of Nature's
development was the nexus of logical sequence: cause
and effect were identical with premiss and conclusion:
creation of being was discovery of truth: and final
causation was the attainment of a Q. E. D. To complete the organism of such a system has been the vain
ambition of many a keen and spacious intellect: and in
the Ethics of Spinoza and the Dialectic of Hegel the
pretension has, in modern times, twice culminated and
twice fallen.  The principle of their failure is this:




160             NATURE AND GOD.
they did not, - for, in truth, they could not, - keep
their promise of borrowing nothing from experience
and observation, and working every thing from ontological self-evidence. Physical postulates lurk in their
metaphysical axioms: and however ready we may be to
admit the a-priori necessity of such ideas as "Substance" and " Cause," and so far to let them stand on
the same list of primary entities with "Space,"- as
Real yet not empirically Known, Ideal yet not mental
fictions, - still there is this difference;- that they are
intrinsically relative notions, each of them member of
a pair, and that the other and correlative term —
"Attribute" antithetive to Substance, " Effect" or
"Phenomenon" to Cause — is simply physical and an
indispensable condition of its companion. Under the
cloak therefore of stately metaphysical axioms, as they
march in plenipotentiary array, concealed entrance is
given to material assumptions: and in the subsequent
logical progress, it is just these inductive principles
which cunningly slip out and lay the plank across many
a chasm that were else impassable. Thus, the unsatisfactory results of these bold attempts, their inevitable
slip out of their pure Monism, may well confirm our
reasonable presumption, that nature cannot be treated
as a geometrical or logical necessity; that, were God
alone with the inner Laws of Thought and the outer
data of Quantity, no universe need ever have been;
and that to evolve the result intelligibly, we must go
beyond the assumptions of the mathematics and metaphysics. In other words, there must be something else
than Space objective to God.
Whether it is rationally conceivable that God should,




NATURE AND GOD.               161
-so to speak, — supply ITi'mself with objectivity,
by a "creation out of nothing," - or whether, as Sir
W. Hamilton contends, the conception is absurd and
self-destructive, we need not pause to inquire. The
idea is in any case discredited by modern science. It
arose from an interpretation of the Mosaic cosmogony:
it belongs to the doctrine of the six days and the sudden "beginning" of their work; and loses all support,
even from the imagination, as soon as the creative
process is deprived of starts and catastrophes, and
construed into a slow perpetuity of change. An instantaneous summons of a Kosmos out of nothing
seems to require as its product a world perfected at
once, in simple answer to the call; as the idea is
enounced, so must it be realized; and nothing could
be more incongruous with the ecclesiastical notion of
absolute origination than that, in response to the Creator's fiat there should appear, for instance, a red-hot
earth, requiring millions of years before its human and
historic purpose could even open.  The measure of
its ulterior progress inevitably becomes the measure
of its earlier emergence. But if we must pronounce
this conception superseded, there is only one resource
left for completing the needful objectivity to God; viz.
to admit, in some form, the coeval existence of matter,
as the condition and medium of the Divine agency and
manifestation. We freely allow that this is an assumption, resting on quite other grounds than those which
support our belief respecting Space.  But it is an
hypothesis which neither religion nor philosophy, beyond the pantheistic circle, has been able to avoid;
which, at one extreme, Hebraism admits in its Chaos;
11




162             NATURE AND GOD.
and, at the other, Hellenism in the taetQov, dcv4yx, TO ta
ov, of Plato, and the viy of Aristotle.  Our mental
constitution itself, indeed, seems to contain a provision for the belief: just as every phenomenon, necessitating the idea of Causation, carries us to God; so
every attribute, necessitating the idea of Substance,
refers us to Matter. And all the physical indications
point unambiguously the same way.  Stupendous as
the chronometry is which the Geologist places at our
command, its utmost stretch into the Past brings us
apparently no nearer to a lonely God: nature is still
there, with no signs of recency, but still in the midst
of changes that have an immeasurable retrospect.
May we not, then, fairly say that the burden of proof
remains with those who affirm the absolute origination
of matter at a certain or uncertain date?  Failing
the proof, we are left with the Divine Cause and the
material Condition of all nature in eternal copresence
and relation, as Supreme subject and rudimentary object.
This position, however, needs some obvious limitations. We do not mean, of course, to claim perpetual
existence in the past for the particular material objects
we see around us: or, for any of the kinds of beings
now extant: or, even for all the properties which matter now exhibits: for, prior to the appearance of organization, for instance, the physiological qualities and
actions were not assumed. Stripping off, as we retire
backward, the more refined, as being the more recent,
modes, and endeavoring to reach the simplest skeleton
of the constitution of matter, we meet with a familiar
distinction which may prevent us, in taking what logi



NATURE AND GOD.              163
cal necessity requires, from taking more than it requires. We refer to the distinction which the attacks
of a purely sensational philosophy and the neglect of a
purely deductive only tend to confirm between the Primary and the Secondary qualities of Body. The former
are those which are inseparable from the very idea of
Body, and may be evolved a priori from the consideration of it as solid Extension or Extended solidity. The
latter are those which we could not thus evolve by
reflection, but which, having no necessary implication
with the definition of body, must be learned, like all
contingent things, from experience.  To the former
class, for instance, belong Triple Dimension, Divisibility, Incompressibility; to the latter, Gravity, Softness or Hardness, Smell, Color, &c. As the former
cannot absent themselves from Body, they have a reality
coeval with it, and belong eternally to the material
datum objective to God: and his mode of activity with
regard to them must be similar to that which alone we
can think of his directing upon the relations of Space,
viz. not Volitional, to cause them, but Intellectual, to
think them out. The Secondary qualities, on the other
hand, having no logical tie to the Primary, but being
appended to them as contingent facts, cannot be referred to any deductive thought, but remain over as products of pure Inventive Reason and Determining Will.
This sphere of cognition, a posteriori to us, - where
we cannot move a step alone but have submissively to
wait upon experience, is precisely the realm of Divine
originality: and we are most sequacious where He is
most free. While on this Secondary field His AMind
and ours are thus contrasted, they meet in resemblance




164             NATURE AND GOD.
again upon the Primary: for the evolutions of deductive Reason there is but one track possible to all intelligences; no merum arbitrium can interchange the false
and true, or make more than one geometry, one scheme
of pure Physics, for all worlds: and the Omnipotent
Architect Himself, in realizing the Kosmical conception, in shaping the orbits out of immensity and determining seasons out of eternity, could but follow the
laws of curvature, measure, and proportion. And so,
in the region of the demonstrative sciences, to us the
highest that mere intellect attains, where most we feel
our thought triumphant and seem to look down on
dominated nature, there is His Mind the least unconditioned, and there alone comes into experience of
necessity.
There is, then, on the one side and the other of this
boundary-line, a ground in Nature for the action of a
purely Intellectual Divine power, evolving consequences
by necessary laws of thought; and for the action of a
purely Voluntary power, weaving in what is absolutely
original, and executing the free suggestions of design.
And there is a justification for both forms of religious
philosophy;-that which attempts the " a-priori road,"
which detects Divine vestiges in the mysterious significance of Space and Eternity and Substance, or in the
diagrams which suit alike the terrestrial and celestial
mechanics, - which feels it a solemn thing that One
and the same Reason pervades the universal Kosmos;
— and that which, on the track of experience, recognizes marvellous combinations, and delights in the surprises of beauty and design. The only fault of either
method lies in its self-exaggeration and intolerance of




NATURE AND GOD.                16a5
the other. When, however, we come close to the question, in what way the Volition of God applies itself to
the objective material on which it works, the difficulty
still recurs: does it move in the lines of nature's general laws and forces, so that each one of these has as it
were a volition of itself: or, does it alight upon the
concrete and living results in individualized, especially
in conscious, and supremely in moral, beings? If we
take the first side of the alternative, we throw the aims
of God into the order of the Inductive analysis of
nature, and seem to withdraw all realized things and
persons from his contemplation: we engage him in
weaving worlds and creatures to which, except as compounds of a thousand lines of skill, he is indifferent.
If we take the second side, we relieve indeed this moral
anxiety, but, in rendering each integral being the object
of a distinct and unitary purpose, we throw out of
intelligible gear the several laws which science shows
to be confluent in that one nature, and seem, in claiming them also for the Will of God, to send the volitions in cross directions.
We do not deny that these conflicting modes of
thought are hard to reduce into complete harmony;
or into harmony at all without selecting one of them as
of superior authority and entitled to exercise a regulative influence over the other. Were we never to look
beyond physico-theology, we believe the controversy
between the two would be perpetual; the naturalist,
and every sympathizing observer of individual objects and kinds, being so prevailingly impressed with
adaptations of organism and life as to see the final
causes there; the student of the physical sciences, on




166             NATURE AND GOD.
the other hand, being so possessed with the conception of grand imperial laws that override all single
integers of being, as to deem  all concrete design
subordinate or doubtful, and engage the Divine interest
chiefly upon the method and tissue of the universal
order. The indications of purpose which Paley finds
in the fitness of the eye for its special use, Baden Powell
rather sees in the symmetry and uniformity of the great
optical laws, which still speak of Mind, though they
sweep over tracts of time and space where vision cannot be.  The scale must be turned and the verdict
gained by appeal to the Miioral sources of religion
within us. Volition, in its very nature, is at the disposal of Character: and the character of God, - the
order of affections in Him, - the ends that are highest
in regard, - we learn, not from the tides, the strata, or
the stars, but from the intimations of Conscience,
and the distribution of authority in the hierarchy of
our impulses.  The perfection which is our ideal is
but His real; the image of Him thrown upon the sensitive retina of the soul by his own essential light.
The moment we refer to this interpreter, we know that
if intellectual tastes are good, personal affections are
better, and reverence for goodness the best of all: we
can no longer dream that the sense of symmetry, the
delight in beauty of thought or things, can have paramount disposal of the Divine Volition: we must recognize as supreme with Him the Love towards personal
beings capable of sympathy with his nature, of trust in
his direction and free aspiring to his likeness. If the
moral order of the universe be the  e~tilraroo TA.os,
the physical must stand to it in the relation of an




NATURE AND GOD.               167
instrument: general laws are for the sake of particular
beings: and the order of nature, whatever other ends
it may embrace, has primary reference to the personal
agents on its scene, who, in the endowment of freedom,
occupy a position above nature. Does this reduction
of the scientific laws to a secondary place withdraw
them from God and convert them into his deputies?
Not in the least: they are secondary, not in nearness
to his Person, but in rank within his Thought: and
there is in this nothing to interfere with his execution
of his own design, and letting his Will be the only
Force. The volitional character of the several modes
of natural power does not require that they be willed
upon their own account, so that they carry in their
aspect the features and movements of the Divine character. As the methods of his activity they variously
traverse, in their classification, the grouping of his
purposes. He is immanent in Nature: but his real life
is known only beyond Nature.  To believe the first
alone of these clauses is Pagan, to believe the second alone is evangelical; Christian philosophy must
blend them both.
There is, however, a limit beyond which we find it
difficult to carry out, with satisfactory clearness of
conception, the doctrine of God's immediate agency in
nature. The secondary qualities of matter, the " physical forces " of the world, may readily be regarded as
mere disguises or mere signs of Himself. But living
beings can hardly be conceived as simply the nidus
of power not their own, - the organism theirs, the
function, not. We cannot follow Descartes in treating
them as mere automata. Their whole distinctive sig



168             NATURE AND GOD.
nificance lies in their being separate centres of at least
incipient individuality; and to represent them as only
media of a Divine incarnation is offensive alike to
science and to religion. Here, then, it seems impossible to dispense with the idea of delegated power,
detached by one remove from the universal source,
and lent out for a term of life to work the conditions
of a distinct existence.  The instincts and spontaneities of animals constitute a true Divine guidance,
adjusted as they are in accurate relation to their external position, and restrained within definite limits of
possibility: but this very method and preconception
imply an abstinence for the time being of direct and
momentary volition, and a consignment of the whole
phenomena, in group or system, to a determinate "nature" or " constitution."  The difference is perhaps,
after all, incident only to our point of view, and would
disappear could we contemplate the world "under the
form of eternity." We live down from moment to
moment; we deliver forth our volitions one by one
in linear detail; we have experience enabling us to
interpret generic acts of Will inclusive of complexity
of relations and a persistence in time: and cannot present to ourselves the Divine power running into fixed
types, or trace the deep-rooted unity of these seeming
islands in the sea of things with the continuous continent of the Infinite Will.  Be it remembered too, that
there are two kinds of union with God,- dynamic and
moral; and that moral union requires dynamic separation; which accordingly widens as we ascend in the
scale of being, till a true Self, - a free Personality, -
appears, sufficiently beyond the verge of Nature to give




NATURE AND GOD.              169
an answering look to the very face of the Most High.
At this culminating extreme we have a real trust of
independence, - subjectivity perfected, - causality realized. At the other and initial extreme where the material datum lies, we have passive potentiality,- mere
objectivity, causality not yet begun.  Between this
infranatural commencement and supernatural end, the
Creative agency moves, to build and animate the mighty
whole which we call Nature; at each advance receding
from the bare receptivity of matter, and approaching,
through the spontaneous vital energies, the actual individuality of personal existence. In this great cycle,
Matter is the negative condition of Divine power;
Force, its positive exercise; Life, its delegation under
limits of necessity; Will, under concession of freedom.
And if we may venture to speak of a yet higher stage
which evades the reach of words, - that saintly posture
of the soul which Scripture designates by the term
Spirit, may we not say, it is the conscious return, by
free identification, of every delegated power into harmony with its Source? And so, the dynamic removal
finds its end in moral unity.
But these questions deepen and widen under our
hand; and we must close them. We have endeavored
to throw a line or two across the gulf which unhappily
divides the savans from the theologians of our day.
Whether any communication will pass along them we
do not presume to say. But of this we are sure; —
that the alienation they seek to remedy can be but transitory, having no foundation in the nature of things,
arising only in the crossing lights and illusory darkness
of human fancy. Inasmuch as Deductive Science rep



170            NATURE AND GOD.
resents the Order of God's intellect, Inductive Science
the methods of his agency, Moral Science the purpose
of his Will, the blending of their voices in one glorious
hymn is as certain as the Oneness of his nature and the
symmetry of his Universe: and it must be a very poor
Science and a very poor Religion that delay by discord
the approach of that great harmony.




171
SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.*
IF we intended to review either of these books, we
should not name them both. Each of them has a
scope too vast for the span of our critical measurement.
The Reviewer's steps are short and few, and would
soon be lost in Mr. Maurice's five centuries of Metaphysics; still more in following Mr. Spencer's genesis
of the universe from chaos to the Crimean war. In
the historical work, suffice it to say, the student will
find a faithful guide to the deeper literature and life
of modern Europe; copious in knowledge, catholic in
judgment, genial in spirit; betrayed, perhaps, here
and there into  some waywardness and  disproportion
by an impatience of psychology, and a distrust of all
"human  notions" that have  become  systematic  and
exact; but essentially true to the genius of great representative writers even in the most opposite times.
In the speculative book of First Principles, we have
* First Principles. By Herbert Spencer, Author of " Social Statics,"
"The Principles of Psychology," &c. London: Williams and Norgate.
1862.
Modern Philosophy; or, a Treatise on' Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy from the Fourteenth Century to the French Revolution; with a Glimpse
in to the Nineteenth Century. By the Rev. Frederick Denison Maurice, M.A.
London: Griffin, Bohn, and Co. 1862.
National Review, Oct., 1862.




172      SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.
a kind of prose Lucretius; an attempt to show, both
by inductive generalization from admitted laws, and by
a-priori inference from the ideas of Matter and Force,
how the Kosmos, natural and human, has evolved
itself, and, on the assumption of a homogeneous nebular stuff to begin with, must have become what we find
it to be. To those who are versed in scientific literature, the mere statement of the thesis will characterize
the work. Enterprises of so bold a sweep recommend
themselves only to minds that have unbounded confidence in logical architecture, and can venture, with
a few well-shaped abstractions at the base, to build
and arch to any height. They are uncongenial with
the cautious temper of the practised observer: and
differ in their vastness and vagueness from those special
vaticinations in which, more by glance than by experiment, a Newton, an Oken, or a Goethe may decipher
the style of nature.  They are neither the perceptive readings of a genius intimate with the world,
nor a bond fide generalization taking up into itself
without fear or favor all the threads of ascertained
order; but a framework of hypothesis, constructed
from the metaphysical terms in which science is obliged
to speak, and filled-in ad libitum with such picked
phenomena from every field as may symmetrically fit.
In such a scheme, the masses of fact presented, though
occupying the main area, are of subordinate moment
to the lines of thought: and Mr. Spencer himself, we
are convinced, would have attained no trust in his
Kosmogony, had he not, in the true spirit of a logical
enthusiast, felt his footing sure on his a-priori ground.
But for this, the enormous disproportion (oppressive




SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.       173
enough even on Mr. Darwin's limited field- the mere
"Origin of Species ") between the weight of the conclusion and the tenuity of the induction must have
overpowered him; and he must have doubted the use
of dressing-up a few score of plausible appearances
with a whole universe of phenomena out of the reckoning altogether. For our own part, we must confess
that this new book of Genesis appears to us no more
credible than the old.  While its doctrine is too big
for physical proof, it is of the wrong kind for metaphysical. We should as soon think of giving an apriori receipt for a pudding, as for a solar system or
a jelly-fish. If mere intellectual force could conquer
an intrinsically unmanageable task, it would yield to
the prowess of our author. With the resources of
a scientific culture he unites a severe logical habit, an
originality of combination, and a precision of expository method, to which no reader can be insensible;
and which want nothing but a securer set of first
principles to justify the somewhat positive tone of selfreliance characteristic of him, as of most system-building intellects.
Passing by, however, the substantive matter of both
Mr. Maurice's history and Mr. Spencer's Kosmogony,
we fix attention on a single fundamental problem,
which has a pervading influence on both works, and
receives from  them  contradictory answers.  What is
the highest legitimate object of Reason in man? Is he
precluded from passing beyond the finite order of
"co-existences and successions," which Science scrutinizes and defines? or, is he capable of apprehending
the Infinite Cause behind, of which Religion speaks?




174      SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.
Mr. Maurice not only believes that knowledge of
Divine Reality is possible, and is given, but looks
upon the whole course of human history and thought
as its witness and illustration. Mr. Spencer not only
rejects as failures all attempts hitherto to cross the
confines of phenomena, but undertakes to prove that
the human mind has no organ for cognizance of the
Supreme Cause: so that Religion resolves itself into
the acknowledgment of an inscrutable background, in
front of which all the luminous shapes of knowledge
have their play. While the one writer sees in the
working of devout wonder and the sense of an eternal
living thought the mainspring of all intellectual search,
the other deplores the darkening influence of sacred
ideas upon the human understanding, and opposes
Science to Religion as the known to the unknown —
the perceptions of day-light to the dreams of night.
We have no doubt that Mr. Spencer represents, in
this doctrine, the prevailing sentiment of living scientific men, and the tendency which for some time to
come will gain force against all resistance. It is a
necessary price which we must pay in re-establishing
the distinction and just relation between the sphere of
phenomena and that out of which phenomena come;
between also the faculties in us which apprehend the
one, and those which are organs for the other. We
have not yet escaped a period, co-extensive with the
history of Christianity, during which, from blindness
to this distinction, religion has identified itself with
interpretations of nature now known to be false; and
it must suffer the re-action against a discredited prophet
unable to make good his w'ord. Compare the picture




SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.       175
of the universe in the imagination of a Herschel, a
Lyell, a Darwin, with the same scene as disposed in the
thought of Isaiah, of Paul, of Chrysostom: look at
the celestial architecture of the Apocalypse, and then at
what the telescope reveals: think what is implied in the
mere conception of a " Solar system," and the changed
classification from " Heaven and Earth" to' Suns and
Planets:" remember that with the disappearance of
the supernal halls from the sky, and of the abyss with
its infernal chains from the subterraneous strata, a host
of inhabitants are dislodged, and fallen angels and
imprisoned spirits and tormenting fiends lose themselves in the cold void: and can you wonder that, on
the one hand, Augustine would hear nothing of antipodes, or Rome of the Copernican idea, or the Dean
of York of the geological; or, on the other, that those
who had dissolved the fictitious palace of the Most
High should suppose they had discovered a mere darkness or a blank within? The modern redistribution
of the kosmical bodies in space undeniably involves
a total break-up of conceptions previously guaranteed
by sacred authority.  So, too, with regard to the,
origin of the universe in time. What has become of
the date which many of us learned at school: "B.C.
4004, Creation of the world"?  Limit the term
"world" as you will, suppose it to say nothing but
of this planet; still, with what amazement must we
now look back on the practice of entering its birth in
the annual register, like the battles and budgets and
debates that make up a Times New-Year's Day retrospect! Into what magnitude has that "chief event
of a year" opened before us! Walking through a




176      SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.
geological museum, and estimating its intervals by
what unit of time we please, we not only discover the
"Creation of the world,"- like a Chancery suit, —
to be "rather a process than an event," but are constrained to give it an asymptote for its measure,
arriving at our own position from out of an indeterminate immensity.  Instead of being the flash of
a moment, or a week, from which the great periods
of national vicissitude on the world may be sharply
reckoned, it breaks into indefinite duration, and they
shrink into a point.  Yet they, too, have rebelled
against the limits we had allowed them; and human
history, while dwarfed by physical, asks, with every
new discovery, for larger room and more numerous
centuries in our imagination. After every allowan6e
for uncertainty in the earliest vestiges of humanity,
the concurrent evidence of Egyptian archeology, of
the laws and affinities of language, of comparative
religion, and of the stone implements, if not more
positive remains of man, found in not the most recent
deposits, must be held to imply an indefinitely more
remote beginning and more gradual development of
our race upon the earth than we had been taught to
believe.
The alteration thus introduced into our modes of
conception is the same throughout. Larger space,
longer time, slower movement, finer gradation, than
we had dreamed of, have everywhere to be admitted.
Among objects, nothing isolated; in events, nothing
sudden; a web of infinitely extended relations, in
which this is part of the same mesh with that; a history of infinitely divisible changes, in which to-day




SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.        177
is born of yesterday, and the shifting shadows glide
and never leap; —these are the new aspects under
which modern knowledge presents the system  of the
world.  And though it still leaves vast lacunc where,
if you insist on it, you may find room for things unique
and lonely, and starts of existence per saltumr; yet,
as these gaps are being steadily filled in, and look just
like older chasms where similar fancies lie in ruin and
now visibly grassed over, there arises an increasing
presumption against exceptional crises of surprise.
Hence, on the whole, we are passing over to the idea
of evolution, rather than creation; of a creeping
upwards, little by little, in place of a leap out of
nothing; of the lower type of phenomenon preceding
the higher, and the better coming out of the worse.
Nor can any well-informed man seriously doubt that
in this idea the order of genesis is more truly represented, than in that which it replaces.
What is the meaning, what especially the religious
bearing, of this change? It is essentially an assertion
of neglected rights on the part of Nature; —that
sphere of unconscious growth, which has always been
recognized as copresent with Man and God, the beings
of conscious thought and power; but has not always
received the attention due to an immeasurable empire
and an everlasting law.  Christianity in particular
was, from its very essence, so absorbed with the immediate relation between Man and God, as to look upon
the universe as the mere theatre of their alienation and
re-union, - the visible stage of a moral drama,- the
scene built up, above, below, for the solemn tragedy
of human probation and Divine Justice, and reflecting
12




178      SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.
in its lights and glooms the changing phases of the
plot. It was but the tabernacle raised for the abode
of spiritual beings, —the heavens "a tent" for the
Eternal " to dwell in,"-the earth a hospice for the Mortal to lodge in; sprung from the fiat of yesterday,
dissolved by that of to-morrow, and meanwhile pliant
alike to the steady purpose or the sudden occasions
of the Almighty Will.  However true and needful
was this claim of transcendent reality for Moral relations and living Minds, it doubtless made too little
of the kosmical system, usurped its rights and misconceived its ways; and scarcely left any adequate interest
attaching to the patient scrutiny of its facts and laws.
For such tranquil pursuits we need an absence of passionate problems and the presence of a durable world:
and we cannot imagine in a Tertullian the researches
of an Aristotle, or transfer to a Carlstadt the reasonings of a Galileo. At last, however, in re-action from
the exclusive ascendancy of the Christian idea, Nature
resumes her place —it may be, more than her place;
shows her uniformities spreading everywhere through
space and time; pushes her claims far up into the
being of man himself; and requires us to think again
what it is that irremovably belongs to God.
The answer to this question appears to us simple:
Science discloses the Method of the world, but not its
cause; Religion, its Cause, but not its method: and
there is no conflict between them, except when either
forgets its ignorance of what the other alone can know.
When, for instance, the old book of Genesis announces God as the Cause of all, it speaks the language
of pure Religion, which cannot be traversed or met,




SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.        179
except behind the field of mere phenomena. When it
relates that it took six days to make the universe, and
recounts what was done on each; how, first, Day and
Night, then Heaven and Earth, then Land and Sea,
were parted from each other; how, between the creation of vegetable and animal life, the greater and lesser
lights were set aloft; how the water and the air were
peopled before the solid ground, and man came last
of all to rule the other tribes and live upon the fruits of
the field;- in all this, it essays the language of Science, and is open to correction from every fresh reading
of the order and method of the world. And so, when
the modern book of Genesis wants years by the million
for every day of that Creation-week; when it deals
with spaces in which ten thousand of those "firmaments" would be lost; when it alters all the elements
and transposes all the order, and distributes to be done
for ever what had been gathered up to be despatched
at once; when it substitutes a perpetuity of birth and
death in things for an outburst of creative labor succeeded by eternal rest; —in all this, it also speaks
what Science has a right to say, though it compels all
the prophets to retract and apostles to sit still and
learn.  But if, on the strength of this right, it goes on
to say, "these ways of nature are all in all, and behind
them there is nought for man to apprehend," it usurps
a function not its own, and affirms that which lies not
less beyond its competency than was the Newtonian
astronomy beyond that of the Hebrew kosmogonist.
No discoveries of method touch the question of causation. Whether the way of procedure be this or be
that, be such as we now think, or such as once was




18()     SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.
fancied, or such other as may hereafter be conceived,
is indifferent to the background of Reality, which
throws the procedure forth. As religion has no voice
about the order of phenomena, conversely, the order
of phenomena has nothing to say about religion: they
sit perfectly clear of each other: nor is any delusion
more absolute than the notion that the one can ever
contradict the other.  Causality, with which alone
religion in this relation has to do, is not amenable to
the same faculties that take cognizance of method, 
those by which we perceive, compare, arrange: it
cannot be heard, smelt, or seen: no lens can fetch
it into view; no generalization reach further than its
effects; no classification grasp more than its outward
expressions.  It is no object of sense; or of inference
from any combination of the data of sense: and a
merely observing, sifting, discriminating mind, however keen its perceptions, however delicate its feeling
of resemblance and difference, could never come across
it.  It may — nay must - be thought: it may be
named: but it is added on by the intellect to the experiences of perception; not drawn by the intellect out
of them. It is by an inner necessity of Reason that
we refer all phenomena, single or grouped, disposed
into this picture or into that, scattered in negligence,
or reduced by induction, to an originating Power:
and precisely at this point it is, where Science has
already come to an end, that Religion begins, and
undertakes to speak of that which remains when the
account of phenomena is closed.
Seeing, then, that the two spheres have no contact,
or contact only at a point, it is not less futile to im



SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.       181
agine atheistical encroachment from physical knowledge
than to be afraid lest the tangent should cut a slice
out of the circle. The more we discover, the more
phenomena will there be crying out for their Cause.
Is their field widened every way? so much the more
august must his universal presence be. Is their succession immeasurably older? so much the sublimer
what we conceive of his duration. Is their symmetry
more exact and their cycle more determinable? so
much the surer the order of his thought.  Is the
method of their issue, not by paroxysms of omnipotence,
but by perpetual flow of power stealing to the roots of
things? then does the Genesis cease to be historical,
and we are at it ourselves; and may read it no longer
in the preterite, but in the progressive tense; saying
not that once he did create, but that now and always
he is creating the heavens and the earth.  If the
Theist was ever right, according to the measure of his
day, assuredly nothing has been found out to put him
in the wrong. If the poor little universe that overarched the tents of Abram, and had been there only
for a few generations, made its claim felt to be of
origin Divine, it certainly has not forfeited that claim
by prefixing to its age the reaches of geologic time,
deepening around it the heaven of Newton, and suspending itself in the balances of Clairaut.'But was the Theist ever right?' it may be asked.
Granting that science makes his case no worse, and
can never acquire a title to contradict him, still we
may inquire what, intrinsically, is his case? What
can we say, and on what warrant, respecting that
invisible sphere of Power behind phenomena?




182      SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.
That something may be truly said about the Cause
of things has been rarely questioned, since the New
Academy ceased to parade its doctrine of universal
nescience.  Men have spoken in terms different enough:
but, far from saying "we cannot tell," have variously
affirmed, (1) Nature has a Divine Author; (2) Nature has no Divine Author; (3) Nature is Divine,
and its own Author: and these several doctrines have
been discussed upon common principles and on objective grounds, in perfect assurance that somehow or
other the controversy was rationally terminable, and
truth attainable. If there was any thing on which, in
this matter, Theist, Atheist, Pantheist demonstrably
agreed, it was surely this, - that the problem on which
they all engaged was amenable to thought, and might
be solved. Else, why plunge into it, and pronounce
upon it? Without the assumption that knowledge is
possible, the very attitude of quest is impossible. Yet
Mr. Spencer, analyzing the doctrines of these three
men, and discharging all their mutual discordances,
finds them all concur in this, - that the object of their
search is hopelessly out of reach, in a darkness beyond
the limits of thought itself. It is a bold feat of eclecticism to sift out any common "soul of truth" at all
from the two contradictory propositions of Theist and
Atheist: but to make it consist in precisely what each,
by its very existence, excludes, —to draw a declaration of nescience from two positive professions of
knowledge, implies an almost Hegelian dexterity of logical cross-examination. We must say it seems to us
a burlesque application of the questionable mhxim,
every human belief has a "soul of truth," - to take




SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.        183
up not only inconsistent opinions, but positions of
which one must be true and the other false, and by
pretending to dissolve their variances, precipitate the
residuary "soul."  The process cannot be soundly
carried through.  Between " Yes" and " No" there is
nothing common. If you discharge their differences,
one of them disappears.  If you save any thing from
both, the falsehood and contrariety are uneliminated
still. You may choose, but cannot compromise, between them: and if there be a delusive show of some
joint element, it can only be gained through sophistical manipulation of the propositions, inserting by
implication what is required to be got out again by explication.  We could allow something to our author's
argument, if he turned it round and rested it on the
real dissidence, instead of the pretended concord, of
ontological beliefs; if, with Bossuet in his Variations
of Protestants, he said,'the truth is in none of you;
for truth is one; and you are all at sixes and sevens,
and have not a shred of unity to show.' But to bring
into court three differing men, each sure that he knows,
and tell them,'the truth is in all of you; for you all
mean to say, that you are quite in the dark,' is a strange
combination of paradox and reproach.
The position which is thus curiously gathered from
the critique of opposite opinions,- viz. that the Supreme Cause is incognizable, — is not left, however,
without support from more direct and positive reasoning. On this we must say a few words. The hardy
old-fashioned Atheist used to say outright,'There is
no God,' and forthwith to set his faculties and yours at
work upon the problem, to get to the bottom of it.




184      SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.
Of late, - thanks to Sir WV. Hamilton, - we have
fallen upon a more refined and idealized form of the
same doctrine, a purely subjective atheism, which leaves
with the Divine Reality permission to be, but withdraws
from us the power to know; and says, -' Apprehensible by us there is no God.' The trial of the case
is thus removed from the outer court of existence,
where we seek the limits of real being, to the inner
tribunal of psychology and logic, where we investigate
the limits of human reason.  There is certainly a
modest look in thus apparently contracting the problem
within a narrower circle and.bringing it home to the
familiar seat of our self-knowledge: and it has a sound
of meekness to say,'We pretend not to make our line
the measure of things as they are; beyond its end
there is the unfathomable still: only we find that it
stops short of God; and if he be, it is in the abyss
we cannot reach.' Yet we greatly doubt whether the
seeming simplification is not sophistical, and the humility a self-deception. The limits of thought are not
in effect easier to determine than the limits of being:
and the battles once fought on the field of Metaphysics
are renewed, one by one, and fought over again on the
field of Logic: nor have Locke and Kant, with their
critique of faculty, closed a single question previously
opened by the contemplation of existence. The haunting old realities, Space, Substance, Essence, Cause,
are not got rid of by stopping in our own chamber and
refusing to go forth among them: they re-appear in
their shadows on the floor and their reflections on the
wall; and in the dress of a-priori thoughts awaken
the same faith or scepticism which they had provoked




SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.       185
on the field of necessary being. Suppose it, however,
to be otherwise: suppose the cognitive limits accurately
defined: suppose the line separating the possible light
from the irremovable darkness incontrovertibly drawn.
What then? in order to fall on the right side of the
line, an object must comply with certain conditions:
and conversely, before you exclude it, you must be
able to deny those conditions. But how can you do
this of an object quite unknown? by what right do you
prejudge a hidden reality, and so give or refuse it
predicates as to assign its place? Is it not plain that,
in declaring it absolutely inscrutable, you assume it to
be partially known? and that, like children in some
blindfold game, you have taken a peep at it before
letting it go into the dark and professing that you
cannot see it at all? It is but the semblance of intellectual humility, which must thus presume a knowledge
in order to disclaim it.
The doctrine of religious nescience has been rendered so familiar by Mr. Mansel, as to belong to the
common stock of contemporary thought, and to make
any full exposition of its grounds unnecessary. It
assumes that God, if acknowledged at all, must be
entitled to the epithets "Absolute" and "Infinite" on
the one hand, and " Cause" on the other. Supposing
this to be admitted, several contradictions arise between
the parts of the admission; and some positions to
which thought is incompetent altogether.  To be "Absolute," for instance, means, to be out of all relations:
to be "Cause" means, to stand related to an effect:
and the same object cannot be both. Again, "Infinite " Being is unexclusive being, to which nothing can




186      SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.
be added and no new predicate attached: "Causal"
Being is transitive and productive, passing to conditions not occupied before, and adding to the stock of
existence, or functions of existence, chargeable upon
it. The epithets are therefore incompatible. 3Moreover, the very nature of Thought itself imprisons us
within the circle of relative things: for it carries in it
a necessary duality, and consists in marking off and
distinguishing, - object from subject, body from space,
attribute from substance, prior from posterior, and
individuals, classes, and qualities inter se.  Apart
from a field or term of comparison, any-thing proposed
for thought becomes no-thing, and only a vacancy
remains: nor is the vacancy itself appreciable but by
standing over against the self that looks into it.  If
then to think is, on the one hand, to note the confines
of things, it can never pass beyond the finite: and if
it is, on the other, to discriminate their contents and
properties, it can never pass beyond the relative. The
Absolute and Infinite cannot therefore present itself
to the intellect at all.
So the warrant for the doctrine of religious nescience
is simply this: that God is "absolute;" and we can
know nothing but the relative.
Of one point, however, Mr. Spencer declares, we
may be sure; and that, upon the highest guarantee, -
the same a-priori necessity of thought which enforces
the nescience itself,- viz. that the Absolute exists in
reality, though denied to apprehension.  For, were
it otherwise, there could be no relative; relativity itself being in its term cognizable only by contrast with
the non-relative, and forming a duality with it. Take




SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.        187
away its antithetic term, and the relative, thrown into
isolation, is set up as absolute, and disappears from
thought. It is indispensable therefore to uphold the
Absolute in existence, as condition of the relative sphere
which constitutes our whole intellectual domain. Be
it so: but, when saved on this plea, - to preserve the
balance and interdependence of two co-relatives, —
the "Absolute" is absolute no more; it is reduced to
a term of relation: it loses therefore its exile from
thought: its disqualification is cancelled: and the alleged nescience is discharged.
So, the same law of thought which warrants the
existence, dissolves the inscrutableness, of the Absolute.
What, after all, then is the amount of this terrible
nescience, victoriously established by such a flourish
of double-edged abstractions?  Let not the dazzled
observer be alarmed: with all their swift dexterities,
these metaphysical whifflers draw no blood: if they do
more than beat the air, they cleave only ghostly foes
that need no healing and are immortal. It all comes
to this; that we cannot know God out of all relation,
apart from his character, apart from his universe, apart
from  ourselves, - vacuum  within, vacuum  without,
and no difference between them, but everywhere a
sublime equivalence of being and of blank. Privation
of this knowledge we suffer, not in our capacity of
ignorant creatures, but in our capacity of intellectual
beings; intelligence itself consisting in not having
cognition of such sort: so that, if we had it, we should
cease to understand, and pass out of the category of
thinking natures altogether.  If any one chooses to




188     SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.
imagine that this would be a promotion, and to feel
himself aggrieved by his exclusion from it, far be it
from us to disturb so transcendent a grief: but from
the common human level his dream of privilege is
indistinguishable from the reality of loss, and his ambition of apotheosis seems tantamount to a longing for
death. God other than "Absolute," God as related
to nature, to humanity, - as embracing and quickening
the finite world, as the Source of all order, beauty,
good,- in every aspect which distinguishes the Living
from the Existing God, - we are not by the hypothesis debarred from  knowing.  This is enough: and
every step beyond this would be a step out of knowledge into ignorance, a lapse over the brink of reason
into unreason. We protest against these relative apprehensions being left to us with an apology, and disparaged as "regulative knowledge," — a kind of pious
frauds put upon our nature, — falsehoods which it is
wholesome for us to believe. Their relativity is a
ground of trust, and not of distrusrust; presenting precisely that union of the Real and the Phenomenal,
Being and Genesis, the One and the Many, the divorce
of which, in the interest of either, has falsified almost
every philosophy. True, God so regarded, will not,
in the rigorous metaphysical sense, be absolutely infinite. But we know no reason why he should be;
and must leave it to the schoolmen who worship such
abstractions to go into mourning at the discovery.
The doctrine of nescience is further defended by
appeal to Spinoza's principle, that to predicate is to
limit, -" Omnis determinatio est negatio."  Whatever
you affirm of any subject introduces a boundary into




SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.         189
its nature, and shuts the door on a possibility previously open. How then, it is asked, can the Infinite
be the object of thought? To think is mentally to
predicate: to predicate is to limit: so that, under the
process, the Infinite becomes finite: and to know it is
to destroy it. If so, however, the Infinite can have no
predicates,- none of the marks, that is, or characters
of existence, and will be indistinguishable from nonbeing. To deny it to Thought, yet save it to existence, - as Mr. Spencer proposes, - is thus impossible.
If it is an incognizable, it is also a nonentity. What
is intrinsically out of thought is necessarily out of
being.
Or will you look at the Infinite from the affirmative
rather than the negative side; and instead of guarding
it from what it must not be, consider what it must
comprise and be? Then we shall give just the opposite
account of it: ceasing to say that it can have no predicates, because no limits, we shall demand for it all
predicates, because all phases and possibilities of being.
To the Infinite, as unexclusive, every thing affirmative
belongs; not only to be, therefore, but to be known;
to subsist within the sphere of intellect as well as in
every other sphere. To claim it for Being, yet withdraw it from Thought, is thus again impossible. If
it is an entity, it is not an incognizable. The Infinite
which is real in existence is possible in cognition.
We cannot see, therefore, the slightest logical advantage in the new subjective atheism over its broader
objective counterpart. The denial, for all minds, of
any possible knowledge of God, is tantamount to the
denial, for him, of real being.  Not only do the two




190      SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.
negations appear to us morally equivalent, with only
a tinge perhaps of more reluctant dreariness in that
which is at present in vogue; but they are inseparable
without metaphysical contradiction.   Mr. Spencer
must, it strikes us, concede either more to ontology
or less; either fall back on the maxim, "All we know
is phenomena;" or go forward from his assurance that
the Infinite Cause is to admit some possible apprehension of what it is. The law of thought which is his
warrant for the simple existence does not stop there,
but has something to say of the nature too: it is
either good for nothing, or good for more than he
accepts. Reserving this point for the present, we may
exhibit the doctrine in still another light, before taking
leave of its metaphysical aspects.
Every relative disability may be read two ways. A
disqualification in the nature of thought for knowing
x is, from the other side, a disqualification in the nature
of x for being known. To say then that the First
Cause is wholly removed from our apprehension is not
simply a disclaimer of faculty on our part: it is a
charge of inability against the First Cause too. The
dictum about it is this: "It is a Being that may exist
out of knowledge, but that is precluded from entering
within the sphere of knowledge." We are told in one
breath that this Being must be in every sense "perfect,
complete, total — including in itself all power, and
transcending all law" (p. 38); and in another that
this perfect and omnipotent One is totally incapable of
revealing any one of an infinite store of attributes.
Need we point out the contradictions which this position involves? If you abide by it, you deny the Abso



SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.      191
lute and Infinite in the very act of affirming it; for, in
debarring the First Cause from self-revelation, you
impose a limit on its nature. And in the very act of
declaring the First Cause incognizable, you do not
permit it to remain unknown. For that only is unknown, of which you can neither affirm nor deny any
predicate: here you deny the power of self-disclosure
to the "Absolute:" of which therefore something is
known; —viz. that nothing can be known!
It is matter indeed of natural wonder that men who,
in standing before the First Cause, professedly feel
themselves in face of the impenetrable abyss of all
possibilities, should take on themselves to expel that
one possibility, that the Supreme Reality should be
capable of self-revelation. Among the indeterminate
cases comprised in their inscrutable abyss they cannot
help including this,- that the Mysterious Being may
be Conscious Mind. Let them deny this, and their
profession of impartial darkness becomes an empty
affectation: they so far exchange their attitude of suspense for one of dogmatism. Let them admit it: and
how, with the possibility of God, can they combine an
impossibility of revelation? May it be that perchance
all minds live in presence of the Supreme Mind, source
of their own nature and of the nature that surrounds
them, yet that he cannot communicate with them, and
let them know the affinities between the human and the
Divine?  Is there a possibility of kindred, yet a
necessity of nescience? Who is this Uncreated that
can come forth into the field of existence and fill it all,
yet by no crevice can find entrance into the field of
thought? that can fling the universal order and beauty




192      SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.
into light and space, yet not tell his idea: to a single
soul? —that can bid the universe into being, yet not
say, " Lo! it is I"? So little credible do we find this
combination, that, when we hear men insisting on the
dumbness of the Everlasting Cause, we cannot imagine
but that the religious interpretation of the world has
already ceased to be open to them; and that, however
they may assume, with Mr. Spencer, a neutral attitude
towards the spiritual and the material conceptions of the
Ultimate Reality, the controversy has in effect, though
perhaps unconsciously, died out for them by prejudgment.
To assure me that some familiar conception is totally
impossible, and goes dead against the "first law of
thought," is the polite metaphysical way of saying
"you are a fool;" and the frequency and gusto with
which your men of formulas resort to this euphemism
are highly amusing; and with the timid and self-distrustful win doubtless a temporary success. Nobody
knew, till Hamilton and Mansel told him, that whenever he talked of things beginning or ending, of time,
of space, of power, all his terms were "inconceivable,"
and all his propositions "contradictions."  This was
discouraging: and now Mr. Spencer steps in with a
new opprobrium.  He has discovered a set of pseudoideas, a species of mental impostors, that do somehow
turn up in the mind, but have no proper business there,
and must be cast out into limbo, or wherever else their
settlement may be. They include, as might be anticipated, all the elements of ontological belief, usually
referred to an a-priori source. They are charged with
falsehood, for no other reason that we can discover




SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.        193
than that, being symbolical transcripts of sensation,
according to the exigencies of our author's psychology,
they refuse to acknowledge their parentage, and put
on quite independent airs. And they are distinguished
from true ideas, -- as generally the "inconceivable"
from the " conceivable," in this, that they do not, like
the latter, come before the imaginative or representative faculty.  After assuming this test of "true and
false," of "clear and obscure," of "thinkable and unthinkable," - and it is the test which Hobbes has
bequeathed to his followers, - it is all plain-sailing out
of the a-priori seas. If, among our mental stores,
phenomenal perception, and what grows out of it, may
alone be held valid as knowledge, the ideas of reason,
with regard to real and ulterior being, are condemned
without a hearing as ignorance.  Repudiating these
one-sided assumptions, we maintain the equal validity
of our phenomenal and our ontological apprehensions.
That all consciousness and thought are relative, is
not only true, but a truism. That this law visits us
with disability to transcend phenomena is so little true,
that it operates as a revelation of what exists beyond.
The finite body cut out before our visual perception,
or embraced by the hands, lies as an island in the
emptiness around, and without comparative reference
to this cannot be represented: the same experience
which gives us the definite object, gives us also the
infinite space: and both terms, - the limited appearance and the unlimited ground, — are apprehended
with equal certitude and clearness, and furnished with
names equally susceptible of distinct use in predication
and reasoning.' The transient successions, — for in13




194      SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.
stance, the strokes of a clock, - which we count,
present themselves to us as dotted out upon the line
of permanent duration; of which, without them, we
should have had no apprehension; but which, as their
condition, is unreservedly known. Time with its one
dimension, Space with its three, we are compelled to
regard as infinite; not in the mere subjective sense,
that our thought of them suffers no arrest; but in the
objective sense, that they in themselves can have no
beginning or end. In these two instances of relation,
between a phenomenon given in perception, and an
entity as its logical condition, the correlates are on
a perfect parity of intellectual validity.  You may
disparage the underlying ground as "negative:" and
negative it is so long as your attention only uses it to
pitch on the phenomenon it carries: but this order is
reversible at will: and the moment you change the
focus of your thought and bring the containing field
into your view, your representation of space is not less
positive than that of body. Plus and minus are themselves relatives, and change places according to the
starting-point and direction of your measurement.
"The darkness," says Malebranche somewhere, " strikes
upon our perceptions as well as the light: it effaces,
no doubt, the glare of colors; but produces in its turn
effects of its own." You may decry the ideas of the
" infinite " and the " eternal" as not " clear: " and clear
they are not, if nothing but the mental picture of an
outline can deserve that word. But if a thought is
clear, when it sits apart without danger of being confounded with another, when it can exactly keep its own
in speech and reasoning, without forfeiture and without




SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.       195
encroachment, - if, in short, logical clearness consists,
not in the idea of a limit, -but in the limit of the idea, —
then no sharpest image of any finite quantity, - say,
of a circle or an hour, - is clearer than the thought of
the infinite and the eternal.  Or, finally, will you
perhaps admit these to their proper honors as mere
thoughts, - positive thoughts, clear thoughts, - but
deny to them  the character of knowledge?  This
course is open to you on one condition; that you restrict the word " knowledge" to the discrimination of
phenomena from one another, and refuse it to the discrimination of them from their ground; and say, for
instance, "I know the moon to be different from the
sun; but I do not know it to be different from the space
in which it floats:" or, " I know Casar's life and date
to be other than Seneca's; but I do not know either
from the eternity in which it appears." Can any thing,
however, be more arbitrary than such a definition?
more repugnant to common sense and common language? nay, more self-destructive? for only as differenced from their common ground can things ever be
known as differenced from one another: erase the
primary differentiation, and all others are for ever kept
out of existence. We have no guarantee for any except
in the assumed veracity of our perceptive and logical
faculties: and that guarantee we have alike for all.
We conclude then, on reviewing these examples of
Space and Time, that ontological ideas, introducing us
to certain fixed entities, belong no less to our knowledge than scientific ideas of phenomenal disposition and
succession. The two types of cognition are different
in this: that the one gives to our apprehension the




196      SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.
unchangeable constancies of the universe, -whatever
is, not what will appear, — and so supplies no aftersight, no foresight, but simply insight: while the other
gives us the order and the lines of change; and so
enables us to reproduce the past in thought and anticipate the future. Both kinds of discernment have the
same warrant: both are alike indispensable to the harmony of Reason with itself and with the world: neither
can affect independence of the other: and the attempt
to glorify exclusively the characteristics of either is
a mere professional limitation of mind, whether in the
priest of Nature or the priest of God. The charge
of nescience, advanced on the plea of the relativity of
knowledge, is double-edged, and cuts both wa/ys.
True it is that the Infinite, discharged of all relation to
the Finite, could never come into apprehension; as,
without body, we should not know the truth of space:
and that, in the attempt to deal with it absolutely,
thought, overleaping its own conditions, is baffled and
perplexed. But it is no less true that the Finite, discharged of all relation to the Infinite, is incognizable
too; as, without the comprehending space, bodies
could not mark out for us their determinate figures and
positions: and that, in spite of every vow to ignore all
except phenomena, Science is obliged to resume into
itself certain metaphysical elements, were it only as
the vehicle of description for its own work. On either
hand, these are unfruitful propositions. What is the
use of telling me that an "Absolute" which came into
no relation would be inapprehensible? It is only saying that an unmanifested Infinite could never be found
out; that an everlasting silence would be totally inau



SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.       197
dible. Vapid words, in a universe full of visions and
of voices!
What we have said with regard to Space and Time
applies equally to the case of Causation. Here, too,
the Finite offered to perception introduces to an Infinite supplied by thought. As a definite body reveals
also the Space around, and an interrupted succession
exhibits the uniform Time beneath, so does the passing
phenomenon demand for itself a Power behind: the
Space and Time and Power not being part of the thing
perceived, but its condition; guaranteed to us, therefore, on the warrant, not of Sense, but of Intellect.
They are all on the same footing: we think them all
by the same necessity: we know them all with the same
certainty. Mr. Spencer freely allows that we are obliged
to regard every phenomenon as the manifestation of
some Power; that "we are obliged to regard that
Power as Omnipresent" (p. 99); that "we are no
more able to form a circumscribed idea of Cause than
of Space or Time, and we are consequently obliged to
think of the Cause which transcends our thought as
positive though indefinite" (p. 93); that we have a
right to trust this demand for originating power; and
that on this reposes our indestructible belief in an
ultimate Omnipotent Reality. Here already are several
predicates assigned which hardly consist with the proclamation that the Primary Existence is wholly unknown:
that Being, it seems we may say, is One, Eternal,
Ubiquitous, Omnipotent, manifested as Cause in all
phenomena. Is there not more explicitness here than
could be expected from an entity absolutely latent?
But this is not all.  Our author further identifies the




198      SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.
First Cause with what appears in Science under the
name of " Force," and is tracked through the metamorphoses of physical, chemical, vital, and other phenomena. The dynamic principles that we carry into our
interpretation of nature, that Force is persistent through
all expenditures, and one under every disguise, - are
in truth but the transformed expression of the axiom
of ultimate Causation. The primary and secondary
agencies being thus merged into one, and conjointly
made objects of a-priori apprehension, the next question naturally is, - what in the last resort means this
word " Cause "? Pursued backward to its native seat,
as a form of the intellect itself, what type does the
thought present?  Mr. Spencer truly says, "the force
by which we ourselves produce changes, and which
serves to symbolize the cause of changes in general,
is the final disclosure of analysis" (p. 235): he admits
that we cannot match our own voluntary effort against
an external force, and regard them as susceptible of
a common measure, without assuming them to be like
in kind (pp. 58, 254): and as "no force save that of
which we are conscious during our own muscular efforts
is immediately known to us," while "all other force
is mediately known," it is clearly the inner volition that
serves as prototype of all exterior power, and defines
what the intellect intends by the word Cause. Now
combine these several propositions.  One power we
immediately know. That power is Will. Others, if
assumed by us, must be assimilated to this. But behind every phenomenon we must assume a power.
And all such powers are modes of one and the same.
And that one is identical with the First Cause and




SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.        199
Ultimate Reality of Being. The inference is irresistible, that by a fundamental necessity of thought we
are constrained to own an ever-living Will, a Personal
Agent, as Author and Administrator of the universe.
This is precisely what the Theist maintains; and includes all that he can gather from the bare contemplation of physical nature, apart from the moral experiences and the spiritual history of humanity. Collected
from so limited a ground, the ground too least rich in
phenomena of the highest expression, it is but a meagre
and imperfect form of faith. But still it dissipates the
theory of nescience. It vindicates some distinct apprehensions of the " Supreme Reality." And drawn as it
is directly from the statements of an author who controverts it, it is a matter of some curiosity to see how
he evades the apparent cogency of his own premises.
He forsakes the line of proof by a very simple device.
The likeness between our own force and that which
operates around us, though a necessity, is also, he
conceives, an illusion of thought: and so we must
give up our first natural belief that the universe is
at the disposal of a Mind, the Divine counterpart of
ours. There is no other conception open to us in our
apprehension of outward causality: and yet this conception fails, and betrays us into absurdity.  How so?
Because it implies that the weight which I lift with my
muscles must, in order to pull against me, be furnished
with muscles too: and whatever teaches me that the
objects about me are not alive destroys the assumed
resemblance between the inner and the outer world.
The case is thus stated:




200       SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.
" On lifting a chair, the force exerted we regard as equal
to that antagonistic force called the weight of the chair; and
we cannot think of these as equal without thinking of them as
like in kind; since equality is conceivable only between
things that are connatural. The axiom that action and
re-action are equal and in opposite directions, commonly exemplified by this very instance of muscular effort versus
weight, cannot be mentally realized on any other condition.
Yet, contrariwise, it is incredible that the force as existing in
the chair really resembles the force as present to our minds.
It scarcely needs to point out that the weight of the chair produces in us various feelings according as we support it by
a single finger, or the whole hand, or the leg; and hence to
argue that as it cannot be like all these sensations, there is
no reason to believe it like any. It suffices -to remark that
since the force as known to us is an affection of consciousness,
we cannot conceive the force existing in the chair under the
same form with endowing the chair with consciousness. So
that it is absurd to think of Force as in itself like our sensation of it, and yet necessary so to think of it if we realize it
in consciousness at all" (p. 58).
There would be something in this reasoning, if
the muscles were the Personal Agent disposing of the
chair, and their sensations the power he put forth.
The causality, however, does not lie in them, but behind them; they are themselves obedient to a mandate
from within; and their sensations, which occur only in
the execution of the act, do not even begin till that mandate has given the signal. WTere the muscles altogether
insensible, the power at head-quarters would not on that
account be disqualified for action, or be unconscious
of itself. We may entirely discharge out of the accoant
the whole of this merely ministerial apparatus, with




SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.        201
all its supposable varieties. It is not this which even
the simplest individual, - be it that small "child" so
much dandled by the psychologists, or the everlasting
"peasant" preferred by bachelor philosophers, or the
"fetish-worshipper" in favor with Mr. Mill, - attributes to the external objects acting upon him: and
his discovery that they do not possess it disabuses him
of no previous idea.  What he plants in idea behind
the phenomena that strike him is similar, not to his
muscles which obey, but to his Will which bids: and
of this idea, though it has a history to go through in
correspondence with his culture, no progress of reason,
we feel assured, will ever disabuse him. At last, as
at first, -because by a necessity of thought which
runs through all experience, - he has to think of
Causality as meaning Will, and to borrow all his
dynamic language, -  attraction," "repulsion," "tension," "percussion," "active," "passive," "weak,"
"strong," "overcome," "resist," — from  familiar instances and conditions of Will.  If not, there must
be some point and some process for unlearning his
original postulate, and substituting some other idea
of power. Yet this can never be. For, confessedly,
it is beyond the competency of experience, however
refined, to disclose any thing but laws: the mystery
of force evades the penetration of the observer, and
therefore has no presence among the materials of inductive generalization: Science did not give it, and
Science cannot take it away: it lies on another field,
where the correction or corroboration of phenomenal
knowledge can never meet it. Born as a pure intellectual datum, it remains among our intellectual re



202      SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.
serves, withdrawn not only from every actual, but
from every possible contradiction:- an indestructible
and unalterable postulate, inherent in the very organism
of Reason itself. Does this require us then, as our
author insists, to " endow the chair with consciousness,"
and, with Kepler, to set a separate spirit on each
planet for its guidance? By no means. The theory
of Living Causality involves no such puerilities; is no
more negligent than Materialism itself of the lessons
of scientific generalization: only it puts upon them
a somewhat different interpretation.  On the fundamental fact to be construed there is sufficient agreement.
Undisciplined Man looks on all moving and impressive
things as animate; starts at the spirits in the wind,
the rushing water, and the forest gloom; and feels
upon him a host of awful eyes in the watching lights
of heaven. Civilized Man goes among these things,
and tabulates them all; takes meteorological notes;
draws up nautical almanacs; calculates when the timber will become available as coal; and in a few weeks
reduces even a new comet to rules, and publishes its
road, in the Times newspaper. Wherein consists the
essence of this change? Will you say, " Nature which
we supposed alive at the beginning, we have found at
last to be dead"?  We should rather reply, " Nature
which in our childhood seemed charged with the caprices
of a thousand spirits, has become, for our maturity,
organ of the faithful thought of One." The widening
circuit of law, the merging of anomalies, the evergrowing tissue of analogies, do not touch the inner
nature of causality: they are but the spread of unity
where plurality was before. So long as the provinces




SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.        203
of the visible world, and the corresponding sets of
phenomena, struck our perception one by one, they
needed for their explanation a god a piece: when two
were fused together, the separation of their causes
lapsed as well: and when, by the apprehension of
some universal law, the great kosmical conception,
embracing heaven and earth in a common order, assumed consistency, the miscellaneous crowd of spirits
necessarily disappeared, in favor of the One Mind
that manifestly thought out the whole.   By this
change, the provincial departments of nature, formerly
invested with independent life, fell into subordination;
— became simply instrumental; — and, when taken
apart for separate contemplation, could reveal method
only, not causality, which had now retired into the
unitary background.  The notion of distinct laws,
mechanical, chemical, vital, —mere modes of causal
procedure, — succeeded to that of distinct personal
agents, and furnished lines of demarcation, often
entirely new, between field and field of nature: but as
this notion does absolutely nothing either to supersede
or to satisfy the axiom of causation, the personal agents
expelled by it leave a function unfulfilled. That function, vacated by their many wills, is taken up and
absorbed into One; the singleness of the world expressing the singleness of its Cause. The early identification then of Causality and Will can never be disproved,
and is never lost: the spiritual element is not discharged by any discovery of Laws: dislodged from this
or that detached seat, it simply ceases to be scattered
and becomes concentrated: and as Science weaves phenomena into unity, Religion blends the Divine Powers




204      SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.
into One. We are told it is " Fetishism" to look on
the world as instinct with Living Mind. If so, it is at
least that imperishable element-which Fetishism has in
common with the highest Theism. We are told, it
is the effect of Philosophy to exorcise every spirit from
the universe, and reduce it to an aggregate of unconscious laws. If so, it is at least that effect of Philosophy which it shares with mere stupefying Custom;an infirmity of technical habit, — not any vision of
what is special to its field, but an acquired blindness
to what remains beyond.  There is doubtless a different reading of the world present to the mind of the
man of Science, and to the soul of the Poet and the
Prophet; the one spelling out the order of its phenomena; the other, the meaning of its beauty, the
mystery of its sorrow, the sanctity of its Cause. But
seeing that it is the same world which faces both, and
that the eyes are human into which it looks, we can
never doubt that the two readings have their intrinsic
harmonies, and that the articulate thought of the one
will fall at last into rhythm with the solemn music of
the other.
On full survey of the logical conditions of this great
problem, it seems to us that Mr. Spencer has alighted
on the least tenable of all the possible positions. We
can understand the Positivist with whom laws are ultimate, and who turns causation out of doors into
metaphysic night. We can understand the Theist, who
says that, on whatever ground you know the First
Cause to exist, on the same ground you know that
Cause to be a free Mind. But we cannot understand
the intermediate position, which allows a field to




SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.         205
Ontology, but condemns it to perpetual barrenness;
which admits and demonstrates the 0zt G'6zt, but meets the
z[l eWt with only negations and despair. To prepare
the way for this paradox, both the Theistic and the
Atheistic doctrines are charged with contradictions which
they do not contain. The self-existence, for instance,
which the latter ascribes to the universe, and the former
to God, is declared to be "rigorously inconceivable,"
because "to conceive existence through infinite pasttime, implies the conception of infinite past-time, which
is an impossibility" (p. 31). We cannot answer for
the consciousness of others: and in the face of this
frequent assertion we hardly like to speak for ourselves.
Yet after repeated reflection we cannot at all detect
this alleged " impossibility."  To form an image of any
infinitude, - be it of time or space or number, - to go
mentally through it by successive steps of representation, — is indeed impossible; not less so than to traverse it in our finite perception and experience. But to
have the thought of it, as an idea of the Reason, not of
the phantasy, and assign that thought a constituent place
in valid beliefs and consistent reasoning, appears to us
not only possible, but inevitable: and the large part it
plays in mathematical science alone suffices to vindicate
its worth for the intellect.  So far as this difficulty
goes, "self-existence" appears to us perfectly susceptible, and equally susceptible, of intelligible predication
regarding the universe and regarding God.  Not that
the two assertions-the Atheist's and the Theist's -
remain at all upon the same footing beyond the circle
of this particular criticism, and are equally free from
other difficulties attaching to the claim of self-existence.




206      SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.
Mr. Spencer treats the two cases as parallel throughout,
and charges it on Theists as a gross inconsistency that
they demand for their Ultimate Reality the very attribute which they forbid the Atheist to affirm of his.
"Those who cannot conceive a self-existent universe;
and who therefore assume a creator as the source of the
universe; take for granted that they can conceive a selfexistent creator " (p..35). " If we admit that there can
be something uncaused, there is no reason to assume a
cause for any thing" (p. 37). Far from admitting
this indiscriminating doctrine, that self-existence may go
either everywhere or nowhere, we submit the distinction
that while, by the laws of thought, phenomena demand
causation, entities dispense with it: and it is, we presume, in obedience to this law, that our author himself
plants his "Absolute Reality " behind the scenery and
changes of the world. It is not existence, but entrance
upon existence and exit thence, that must be referred
to an originating power.  And inasmuch as the universe resolves itself into a perpetual genesis, a vast
aggregate and history of phenomena, the Theist is perfectly justified.in treating it as disqualified for selfexistence; and in passing behind it for the Supreme
Entity that needs no Cause.  This distinction is no
invention of mere theology: it is recognized in other
fields. No one asks a cause for the Space of the universe: and it depends on the theory we may form of its
Matter, whether that too is excepted from the category
of originated things. But everywhere the line is drawn
upon the same principle; that entities may have selfexistence; phenomena must have their Cause.
It is an old reproach against gross forms of religion,




SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.           207
that they teach worshippers to suppose God " altogether
such a One as themselves." This reproach is now
a favorite weapon, used by the nescient philosophy,
against those who worship a Divine nature in any
respect such a one as their own: — against all therefore
who see above them any Divine object at all; for
plainly, in the total absence of common attributes, no
apprehension, no reverence, no sympathy, no suspicion
of existence even, would be possible. Unless man is the
monopolist of mind in the universe, and it culminates in
him, higher intelligences, however they transcend him,
must resemble him up to the extreme limits of his
thought; and to take the rudimentary experiences of
spiritual faculty in himself as his base of conception for
the Universal Mind is no more presumptuous than from
his paper diagrams and calculations to construe the
geometry of the heavens, and lay down the orbits of
the stars. It is singular that an author who both insists
on the necessary belief of a First Cause, and declares
that the only causation we know is our own, should also
write as follows in derision of the theologians:
" If for a moment we made the grotesque supposition that
the tickings and other movements of a watch constituted
a kind of consciousness; and that a watch possessed of such a
consciousness insisted on regarding the watchmaker's actions
as determined, like its own, by springs and escapements; we
should simply complete a parallel of which religious teachers
think much. And were we to suppose that a watch not only
formulated the cause of its existence in these mechanical
terms, but held that watches were bound out of reverence
so to formulate this cause, and even vituperated, as atheistic
watches, any that did not venture so to formulate it; we




208        SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.
should merely illustrate the presumption of theologians by
carrying their own argument a step further" (p. 111).
Standing as it does for a "theologian," this is  of
course meant to be a great fool of a watch. Yet, till
it gets excited and begins to "vituperate,"  its  "first
experiments in thinking" do not seem  so much amiss.
For do they not contrive to hit somehow upon the exact
truth?   Give  the  "springs  and  escapements" their
" grotesque " change of meaning and function; let them
cease to be " mechanical," and become vital and mental;
let the watch, in virtue of them, be able to think and
will, and raise questions of causality: and then, when
it guesses its own origin from a being similarly gifted
with rational and voluntary powers, does it not pitch
upon the fact? Had it not a watchmaker? and was he
not furnished with just the conscious faculties which
had been newly awakened within itself? The endowments by which he made it, are they not like those by
which it found him out? To us, we must confess, the
" springs and escapements " of our author's satire seem
a little out of order; and the logical " ticking " of the
watch less at fault than the reasoning which makes fun
of them.*
If of such type be the presumption of theologians, it
is at least a happy presumption, in that it solves its
* The watch is so evidently in the right, that it is not easy to explain
where the point of the illustration is supposed to lie. If the absurdity be
meant to consist in this, that the watch attributes to its maker, not simply
faculties, but in addition organs like its own, the " simile " breaks down in
its application: for no theologian ascribes to God any thing analogous to the
human organization, - of muscles, brain, nerves, &c.; or fails to guard
expressly against any intrusion of "parts and passions " into the idea of
him.




SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.        209
problem truly. To carry out the illustration a little
further, suppose, as the first fruit of their much thinking, a dispute and jumble of cross-tickings among the
watches; and that one, - attached to the " know-nothing" party, -faced full upon our first reasoner and
said:'Do not tell me about a watchmaker: such
person is impossible, except in the dreams of your
miserable egotism.  Some Cause certainly you and
I must have had: but if every creature is to set up
a Maker like itself, where shall we be?  You and I can
do a little thinking, no doubt; but that is because we
have wheels; it is a kind of ticking they have.  We
can also choose this way or that; but only because
there is an elastic thread in us that goes tight and loose
by turns. We fancy ourselves living, and seem to go
of ourselves: but if you attend to the winding-up that
happens to us, you will see it is only a mechanical force
turning itself into vital. So, for us to be alive and
knowing, there is no need for the Cause of us to be so.
No, no: your watchmaker-theory is too mechanical for
me: watch-evolution is better, as far as it goes.  "I
suppose we grew." But of the Real Cause the only
thing I know is, that it cannot be a watchmaker: it
cannot be in any respect like us: it cannot think: it
cannot will: it cannot live: and to believe any thing
of the sort is " transcendent audacity."' Is this nescient
watch entitled, merely by its humor for negations, to
the praise of eminent modesty, and also to the prerogative of high rebuke?  To drop the illustration, does
a profession of ignorance, does an immunity from
theological belief, confer a right to stigmatize the faith
of others as " impieties "?
14




210      SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.
Such censure, however, does the sensitive zeal of
Mr. Spencer administer to us for irreverent speech in
our pages  regarding the Supreme Cause; — speech so
irreverent as to cast into the shade the presumptuous
fellow who lamented that he had not been consulted at
the making of the world. What is the sacrilegious
violence, - the Titanic scaling of the heavens, - that
calls down this lightning of reproof?  Simply the
utterance of these three thoughts: that, though Sense
may vary, Reason must be uniform in all beings: that
the uncreated nature conceded universally to space it
was difficult to deny to matter in its Primary Qualities:
and that, as Mind must be one, so must Righteousness
be one, whether in Heaven or upon earth. As our
author himself maintains that Matter can have no
genesis and suffer no destruction, it cannot be the
second of these positions that offends him. The first
declares precisely what the most calm and cautious of
modern savans, Oersted, wrote a treatise to establish,
-the Unity of Reason throughout the universe; the
ubiquity of space and time securing the relations of
measure and number everywhere; and all other knowledge being entangled with this constant element.  The
third declares the corresponding Moral principle, -
the Unity of Goodness, - the persistency of Right, -
the identity of Real Excellence, from sphere to sphere
of character.  Is it "audacity," is it "irreverent," to
apply these principles to the Highest of Spiritual Natures?  Then it is "audacious" and "irreverent" to
own him as Mind, or speak of any Divine Righteousness at all: for to do so is to assume a constant essence
* See the Essay on Nature and God, p. 121.




SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.       211
embodied in these words. Mr. Spencer's conditions
of pious worship are hard to satisfy: there must be
between the Divine and human no communion of
thought, no relations of conscience, no approach
of affection, no presence of Living God with living
soul: to the jealous prophet of an empty "Absolute"
these things are all " impieties."   And the "true
religion" which condemns them consists in "the consciousness that it is alike our highest wisdom and our
highest duty to regard that through which all things
exist as The Unknowable" (p. 113).  When we ask
against whom, what dear object of sacred loyalty, our
grievous irreverence has been committed, the name of
this blank abstraction is given in.  Far be it from us
to deal lightly with the sense of Mystery. It mingles
largely with all devout apprehension, and is the great
redeeming power that purifies the intellect of its
egotism and the heart of its pride. But you cannot
constitute a Religion out of mystery alone, any more
than out of knowledge alone: nor can you measure
the relation of doctrines to humility and piety by the
mere amount of conscious darkness which they leave.
All worship, being directed on what is above us and
transcends our comprehension, stands in presence of
a mystery. But not all that stands before a mystery
is worship. The abyss must not be one of total gloom,
— of neutral possibilities, - of hidden glories or hidden horrors, we know not which, -of perhaps the
secure order of perfect Thought, or, equally perhaps,
the seething forces of a universe fatefully and blindly
born. Such a pit of indeterminate contingencies will
bend no head, and melt no eye, that may turn to it.




212      SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH.
Some rays of clear light must escape from it, some
visions of solemn beauty gleam within it, ere the
darkness itself can be "visible" enough to deliver its
awfulness upon the soul. Without positive apprehensions of a better than our best, - of a Real that dwarfs
our Ideal, -of a Life, a Thought, a Righteousness,
a Love, -that are the Infinite to our Finite, - there
is nothing to revere, nothing to decide between despair
and trust. To fling us into bottomless negation is to
drown us in mystery and leave us dead. True reverence can breathe and see only on condition of some
mingling and alternation of light and darkness, of
inner silence and a stir of upper air.  Nor do we
believe that any of the appropriate effects of "true
Religion" can outlive the simple trust in a Personal
Ruler of the universe and human life.




213
MANSEL'S LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.*
THE Canon of Salisbury must have entertained a
strange idea of the exigencies of the orthodox Christian
faith, when he provided it, by bequest of his estates,
with a fresh defence every year till the day of judgment. To the Aberdeen merchant whose munificence
evoked  Archbishop  Sumner's Records of  Creation
and Mr. Thompson's Christian Theism, it seemed
sufficient if a new buttress were added, or a new
approach were opened, to the edifice every forty years.
Even at this rate the pure gospel must become coated
over, like the focus of a labyrinth, with excessive protection, or be accessible, like an Egyptian sanctuary,
through an endless propyleum. But if Oxford is to
widen its zone of " evidences" just forty times as fast,
and annually drive back the lines of "heretics and
schismatics," it is alarming to think how the little
oratory of true worship will lie in the midst of a Russian empire of demonstration; with certain proof of one
text at least, that scarcely will " the world itself contain
* The Limits of Religious Thought examined in Eight Lectures, preached
before the University of Oxford, in the year 1858, on the Foundation of the
late Rev. John Bampton, M.A., Canon of Salisbury. By Henry Longueville
Mansel, B.D., Reader in Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy at Magdalen
College; Tutor and late Fellow of St. John's College. London: Murray,
1858.
National Review, January, 1859.




214            MANSEL'S LIMITS OF
the books that have been written." To judge, however,
from the seventy years or so that have elapsed since the
foundation, the Bampton Lectures are not unlikely to
melt into oblivion at one end as fast as they come into
existence at the other. In proportion to the number
of eminent names that appear in the series, including
Heber, Milmnan, Whately, Hampden, and Thompson,
it is remarkable how few of the volumes can be regarded as permanent enrichments of our theological
literature. The nomination to the lectureship seems
to oppress the natural forces of even strong minds; to
reduce genius and learning to commonplace, if it does
not tempt them into heresy.  In a few exceptional
instances, - as Bishop Hampden's volume on the
Scholastic Philosophy, — the series illustrates the painful cost at which reputations are won in theology; in
many more it shows the facility with which they may
be lost. Among the recent annual occupants of St.
Mary's pulpit have been two accomplished logicians,
Provost Thompson and Dr. Mansel; but the Lectures
on the Atonement. had no trace of intellectual identity
with the lucid and comprehensive Outline of the Laws
of Thought; and now the acute and well-read author
of the Prolegomena Logica gives us, on the greatest of
subjects, a book which, in spite of its careful elaboration
and literary skill, will probably convince no one but
himself, and be felt by many of his best readers to
unsettle the very bases it was written to establish.
There are two ways in which you may conduct a
process of religious persuasion. You may appeal directly to the sources of spiritual conviction in the human
mind, and endeavor to awaken the mood and present




RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.              215
the thoughts, from which belief in Divine things becomes conscious and distinct.  Or you may think it
needless thus to begin at the beginning, and, taking the
matter up at a later stage, may seek to ward off and
remove objections by which the springs of faith have
lost their action. The former method is creative and
sympathetic; the latter is corrective and antagonistic.
The one develops what is latent; the other suppresses
what is obtrusive. The one rests in affirmation; the
other negatives denial. By the rules of logic these two
methods ought to be equivalents in validity; and in the
treatment of any subject purely intellectual they would
actually be so.  But religious faith, once broken by
logical doubt, no logical refutation, it is probable, ever
restored; so long as its inner ground remains unenlarged, so long as no new field of moral consciousness
is opened, the mere dialectic discussion of data grown
ineffectual must remain, we believe, without result.
This, indeed, is only a consequence of the essential
difference between a philosophy and a religion.  In
the apprehension of our Divine relations the logical
faculty has but a secondary function, - to justify, to
reconcile, to organize, to unfold certain given convictions; and is misapplied in the attempt to evoke or
re-instate what is not there. Hence it is that, in many
a mind, a mass of sceptic clouds, charged with thunders
of denial, will cling steadfast to its cold heights against
your keenest blasts of argument; and then, by some
unnoticed change in the climate of the soul, will silently
disperse. And hence also it is that men who have got
rid of their own scepticism are so seldom able to shake
other people's. To their old companions in doubt, they




216            MANSEL'S LIMITS OF
seem to have deserted their camp by a mere spring of
caprice; and they are themselves disappointed, when
they would account for their altered position, that they
cannot trace the approach to it by a more intelligible
path.  They find themselves using- to the disgust of
their associates - the very same evidences which used
to affect them with ennui or contempt; and from the
refutations which once appeared demonstrative some
secret cause seems to have drawn all the pith away.
The removal into a higher region of belief is seldom
effected by retracing the logical staircase which brought
us to a lower; but rather by flinging away some detaining weights, and passing with spontaneous ascent
into congenial altitudes.
From insensibility to this fact, theologians greatly
overrate the power of mere critical refutation directed
against heretical doubt. They fancy that it must undo
in the sceptic the process which it seems to render
impossible to themselves; and when a book like Butler's Analogy appears, they regard the orthodox case
as complete, and its triumph secure, except with the
wilful or the stupid. The clerical pride in that ingenious work, the constancy with which its arguments are
reproduced, the exultation with which its dilemma is
presented to every opponent, curiously contrast with
its utter inefficacy upon the minds it was intended to
influence, and show how wide the chasm which separates the systematic divine from the troubled hearts he
has to help out of their perplexities. Who ever heard
of a Deist turned into Christian by reading the Analogy? or of a Christian brought by it into higher conceptions of his religion? Its whole force is expended




RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.             217
in baffling simple Theism, or any Christianity that
assumes it, and compelling you to take either more
than this or less than this, - to go on to orthodoxy or
fall back on atheism.  Equally admired as a logical
feat by sceptics who strain at a gnat and dogmatists
who swallow a camel, it hurts and browbeats every
intermediate feeling; and even where it carries the
intellect, does so by perplexing the moral sense, and
reducing reverence to lower terms.  That this fatal
tendency belongs to the very essence of the argument,
will appear from the barest sketch of its structure.
It is altogether an argumentumn  ad hominem, addressed, on behalf of ecclesiastical Christianity, to the
believer in simple Theism. He is taken up on his own
ground; and nothing more is asked from him at the
outset than he is accustomed to allow, - that the world
and human life evidence the existence and exemplify
the moral government of an Infinite and Holy God.
Go with me this one mile, says Butler, and I will
compel you to go twain; resting with me at last in the
assurance that the scheme of Redemption, as orthodox
men understand it, has the same Author as the scheme
of Creation.  For not a questionable feature can you
name in my theology which has not its exact counterpart in yours. It is needless for me to deny or explain
the difficulties; it is enough that I retort them, and
show that you also are in the same case. Do you
object to the miraculous origin of Revelation? —I
remind you of the miraculous origin of Nature. Are
you repelled by the mystery of the Incarnation?- It is
no darker than any other union of the Infinite with the
Finite, of spiritual freedom with physical necessity.




218             MANSEL'S LIMITS OF
Are you shocked at the notion of hereditary corruption?
- What say you, then, to the natural entail of disease
and character?  Is it incredible that the punishment of
the guilty should be ransomed by anguish to the innocent?-I refer you to the whole history of human life,
where all redemptions are vicarious, and the best men
pay in sacrifice and sorrow for the deliverance of the
worse. If, in the face of these difficulties, you can hold
to your Natural Religion, why should they disturb your
acceptance of a Revelation to which they still adhere?
If the two schemes come from the same Author, what
more likely than that they should exhibit the same
features?
This argument, it is evident, far from relieving any
perplexity, lets it lie in order to balance it by another.
It duplicates the sense of painful embarrassment, by
detecting the same repulsions in the sceptic's residuary
belief which have already determined him to partial
unbelief. So far as the reasoning succeeds, it is not by
lightening objections in the ecclesiastical scale, but
by weighting them more heavily in the theistical; and
the only new feeling it can give to an opponent is this,
that however ill he may think of other people's God, he
has no reason to think better of his own.  If he is
driven to accept a scheme of doctrine on this ground,
he surrenders his higher sentiment to a lower necessity,
and betrays the devoutness of his faith from shame at a
logical reproach.
The cogency of this reasoning appears to us not less
questionable than its piety.  Granting even that every
ugly feature found in the received "' scheme of redemption " may be refound in the "scheme of creation," we




RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.               219
submit that it occupies a totally different place in the
two, - constituting the very text and substance of
the one, and only, as it were, a foot-note in an appendix
of the other.  In the constitution of the world, those
parts and arrangements which perplex our sense of the
Divine justice and goodness are insignificant exceptions
in a grand and righteous whole; and the gloom they
would occasion, did they stand alone, is lost in a "more
exceeding glory." They do not speak the essence and
spirit of the system; they are the silent enigmas that
lie out of relation to it; and are superable by faith only
from their relative unimportance. It is otherwise with
the doctrines by which the creeds offend the moral sense
and the natural pieties:- the hereditary curse of sin and
ruin; — the eternal punishment of helpless incapacity;
- the conveyance of an alien holiness by imputation,
and the transfer of an infinite penalty from an offending
race to a saving God; - these are no exceptional incidents in the orthodox scheme, but its organic members,
its very plan and life, the only thing it has to offer in
exemplification of the character of God. These are not
the "difficulties" of its "revelation," but the whole of
it; if these are not revealed, -its advocates will tell
you, - nothing is revealed; and a theology that omits
them wants " the essentials" of the Christian faith.
Thus the darkness, the negations, the sorrows of Natural Religion are made, not simply to re-appear in this
Christianity, but to constitute it and be the only soul it
has; while the illuminated side of theism suffers eclipse
and falls into shadow as a " non-essential." This inversion in the proportion of light to gloom on passing from
the one system to the other appears to us utterly to




220             MANSEL'S LIMITS OF
vitiate the conclusion from their Analogy; indeed, in
strictness, to destroy the Analogy itself.
Nor is this the only fallacy involved in Butler's reasoning. His fundamental maxim, that "Revelation and
nature, having the same Author, may be expected to
exhibit the same features," may be admitted, until he
adds, " and therefore to contain the same difficulties."
There is, we suppose, some limit to the resemblance
which may be reasonably looked for between the two
systems. No one's anticipations would be satisfied by
their being perfectly alike, - each, in its disclosures,
an exact fac-simile of the other.  And if so, - if the
presumption be irresistible in favor of some difference
in the midst of the visible affinity, -where should we
fitly seek for the lines of divergence? Surely the very
antithesis, " Natural " - "Revealed," is an index to
the true seat of contrast. Precisely what Nature hides,
is Inspiration given to unveil; it is where the one is
silent that the other has to speak; and only in so far as
the first leaves us in the dimness of perplexity does the
second vouchsafe its light. The " difficulties," therefore,
of unaided Theism  are exactly what we should not
expect to find over again in a religion sent to our
rescue; and just in proportion as we do so, does the
gift forfeit its character as a "Revelation," and remain
undifferenced from our prior darkness. To insist that
the universe and the gospel come from the same Author,
and to forget that they contemplate different ends,
supplementary of each other, is to do violence to all
laws of rational presumption.
WVe are far from saying that there is any thing inconceivable in a partial revelation, which shall leave many




RELIGIOUS THOUGHT,              221
obscurities not cleared up: nor dare we prescribe, by
any a-priori rule, how much must be given, and how
much left.  We only say that it is the essence of
revelation to dissipate darkness; that whatever it does,
be it little or be it much, must be of this kind; that,
though it may let old perplexities lie unsolved, it contradicts its nature if it introduces new ones; and that
as its very idea and aim is to give the key and method
of the Divine administration to those who were in
danger of missing its spirit amid conflicting details,
the antecedent probability is extreme in favor of a luminous simplicity, and against its reproducing the identical riddles on which it takes compassion.
We well know that to question Butler's perfection is,
in the eyes of churchmen, little short of the sin against
the Holy Ghost. We can honestly say that it is not
without trying hard to believe in him, and not without
admiring recognition of his merits as an ethical thinker,
that we find his theology, as expressed in his great
work, oppressive to the religious feeling and unsound
in its logical elaboration.  This being the case, it is
not surprising that Dr. Mansel's book gives us just the
same experience: for it is essentially an adaptation of
the same argument to the altered conditions of modern
philosophy.  The chief difference is the following.
Butler concerned himself with the outward constitution
of things in both the spheres which he compared,with the actual laws and arrangements of the world
on the one hand, the organic facts and system of
redemption on the other. For every thing apparently
objectionable in the latter he was ready with some corresponding ill look in the former; and having set the




222             MANSEL'S LIMITS OF
deformities in equilibrium, there he left them to cancel
each other. How far they are real or not is indifferent
to his reasoning, which dwells only on their parallelism,
not on their intrinsic validity. He no further accounts
for them than by referring to the small measure of our
present faculty as applied to the immensity of the Divine
scheme; and supposes that they would disappear, even
from our view, were our horizon enlarged, and a wider
survey obtained over the relations of things.  Dr.
Mansel, on the other hand, rests nothing on the objective analogy of natural and supernatural arrangements, and every thing on the subjective incapacity of
the intellect for dealing with either: his plea is, not
that God has set similar puzzles in the world as in the
gospel, but that man brings the same logical disqualification to both.  It matters not, therefore, in his argument, what the particular adjustments of nature or
doctrines of Scripture may be: change them ever so
much, on this side or on that, they would suit us no
better.  Our difficulties are not in the things, but in
ourselves; — not matters of degree, brooding heavily
here and vanishing there, and variable with our opportunities; but, being carried about with us in the very
structure of our faculties, are constant for every possible system, and never short of irremediable contradiction. That the rationalistic critique of the orthodox
faith is successful in finding insuperable inconsistencies,
is not denied; but you have only, it is said, to
apply the same logical experiment to any religious
philosophy whatsoever, and it will equally disappear
under the process. Thought lies under a fatal disability with regard to Divine things, and is doomed




RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.              223
to frame its religion out of hopelessly incompatible
beliefs.
There is something very tempting to a reasoner in a
principle of this kind, — the discovery of a subjective
incompetence.  It does great execution on very easy
terms. It saves all trouble of external reconnoitring
and comparison of evidence, and serves for every case
alike. It despatches all enemies with one instrument:
a sort of unicorn polemic that, like the beast in the book
of Daniel,  pushes " impartially against all the cardinal
points. Dr. Mansel, accordingly, by a single operation, clears the field of all opponents at once; he has
only to wave his metaphysical wand, and pronounce his
universal incantation, and they turn into phantoms, and
disappear into his appendix;-a miscellaneous prisonhouse, where all evil spirits are reserved for judgment.
There would seem to be some little difference between
the springs of doubt in ethical minds like Theodore
Parker's or Francis Newman's, and in mystical, like
Bruno and Schelling,- between the akosmism of
Spinoza and the atheism  of Comte, - between the
historical scepticism of Strauss or Baur and the speculative dialectic of Hegel, - between the business-like
rationalism of the Socini and the impersonal theology
of Schleiermacher: and he indeed must be a fortunate
divine who has found an answer that will serve for all.
The danger of such a comprehensive refutation always
is, lest it should inadvertently include yourself. It is
difficult to set so large an appetite to work, and stand
yourself out of reach of its voracity.  And we have
serious fears that Dr. Mansel must sooner or later fall
a victim to the hunger of his own logic.




224            MANSEL'S LIMITS OF
The mighty spell which is to paralyze all heretical
critics at a stroke is no other than Sir William I-Iamilton's principle, that the Infinite cannot be known,
because to know is to discriminate, and what is discriminated is finite; or, again, to state the matter in
another form, that the Absolute cannot be known,
because to know is to apprehend relations, and what
is related is not absolute. The rule may be expressed
in the terms of various other antitheses: that thought,
as such, can deal only with that which is conditioned,
and which is plural; and must therefore find unconditioned and unitary being inaccessible. This inability
to think or apprehend, except by relation and difference, is assumed to be a human limitation of faculty,
a provincial incompetency, a negation of mental light
and power. And the realm from which it excludes
us is precisely, we are told, the religious realm: for
God is that infinite, absolute, unconditioned unity, the
knowledge of whom contradicts the very nature of
thought.  Hence there can be no philosophy of religion. Every attempt to construct such a system has
to substitute spurious counterfeits of the genuine Divine
essentials: for positive " Infinitude," the simply Indefinite; for the "Absolute" per se, the mere groundterm of a Relation; for the " Unconditioned," the
conditioning antecedent. Not only are these ambitious
impostures in contradiction with the legitimate originals
(the "indefinite," for instance, being susceptible of
increase, while the "Infinite" is not); but they are
themselves only illusions, —negations of thought rather
than thoughts,- the mental background on which our
positive conceptions rise and display themselves. No




RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.              225
ingenuity can avail to rescue us from this inherent
disqualification: no spasmodic spring can carry us over
the chasm that parts our intellect from all divine knowledge: no cautious steps and steady eye can find a
bottom to the cleft between. A critique of religion is
impossible to a mind which is condemned by its constitution to a faith composed of contradictions.
In order to show the different forms in which these
inevitable contradictions crop up, our author reviews,
first, the metaphysical systems which form themselves,
like Spinoza's and Hegel's, by evolution from the supreme terms of thought, - the Infinite, the Absolute,
the Causal, — as their data, and endeavor from this
ontological beginning to find a deductive path into and
through the phenomenal world of nature and humanity:
and then, the Psychological systems which, inversely,
commence from the laws of human consciousness, -
the sense of dependence, the belief of origination, the
feeling of obligation,- and attempt thence to explore
a passage into the hyperphysical and divine world. In
the former, the finite can never attain to its rights or at
all emerge from the pantheistic whole; nor can any
predicates be attached to the Infinite: for, on the
principle that omnis determinatio est negatio, it parts
with its essence by gaining an attribute, and, unless it
is to lose its affirmative reality, must for ever remain
the blank of Being.  In the latter order of systems,
on the other hand, we can never escape from the finite:
if we wait for logical stepping-stones to the other side,
we shall wait for ever, and have no resource but to
lodge in an atheistic world; and if, rather than this, we
convey into a presumed Infinite our ideas of Person15




226              MANSEL'S LIMITS OF
ality, Intellect, and Character, we do but deny the
essence we mean to enrich, and in the same breath
affirm limitation and disclaim it. The self-destructive
nature of the fundamental conceptions of rational
theology is thus exhibited:
"These three conceptions, -the Cause, the Absolute, the
Infinite, — all equally indispensable, do they not imply contradiction to each other, when viewed in conjunction, as
attributes of one and the same being? A Cause cannot, as
such, be absolute; the Absolute cannot, as such, be a cause.
The cause, as such, exists only in relation to its effect; the
cause is a cause of the effect; the effect is an effect of
the cause. On the other hand, the conception of the Absolute implies a possible existence out of all relation.  We
attempt to escape from this apparent contradiction, by introducing the idea of succession in time. The Absolute exists
first by itself, and afterwards becomes a Cause. But here we
are checked by the third conception, that of the Infinite.
How can the Infinite become that which it was not from
the first? If causation is a possible mode of existence, that
which exists without causing is not infinite, that which becomes a cause has passed beyond its former limits. Creation
at any particular moment of time being thus inconceivable,
the philosopher is reduced to the alternative of pantheism,
which pronounces the effect to be mere appearance, and
merges all real existence in the cause. The validity of this
alternative will be examined presently.
" Meanwhile, to return for a moment to the supposition of
a true causation. Supposing the Absolute to become a cause,
it will follow that it operates by means of free-will and consciousness. For a necessary cause cannot be conceived as
absolute and infinite.  If necessitated by something beyond
itself, it is thereby limited by a superior power; and if necessitated by itself, it has in its own nature a necessary relation




RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.                  227
to its effect. The act of causation must therefore be voluntary; and volition is only possible in a conscious being. But
consciousness, again, is only conceivable as a relation. There
must be a conscious subject and an object of which he is
conscious. The subject is a subject to the object; the object
is an object to the subject; and neither can exist by itself as
the Absolute. This difficulty, again, may be for the moment
evaded, by distinguishing between the Absolute as related to
another and the Absolute as related to itself. The Absolute,
it may be said, may possibly be conscious, provided it is only
conscious of itself. But this alternative is, in ultimate analysis, no less self-destructive than the other.  For the object
of consciousness, whether a mode of the subject's existence
or not, is either created in and by the act of consciousness, or
has an existence independent of it. In the former case, the
object depends upon the subject, and the subject alone is
the true absolute. In the latter case, the subject depends
upon the object, and the object alone is the true absolute.
Or, if we attempt a third hypothesis, and maintain that each
exists independently of the other, we have no absolute at all,
but only a pair of relatives; for co-existence, whether in consciousness or not, is itself a relation" (p. 47).
The general conclusion which Dr. Mansel draws
from  this Streit der Facultaten  is hardly what the
premises would lead us to expect.   Our idea of the
"Infinite," being merely negative, would seem to be
the index to no positive reality. Our idea of "Personality," being a mere reflection of our limited consciousness, is declared to be incapable of application to a
nature not finite. Yet we are assured (p. 89) that it
is "our duty to think of God as personal; and it is our
duty to believe that He is infinite," though the two
conceptions contradict each other. The notion of " In



228            MANSEL'S LIMITS OF
finitude" is at once "inadmissible" in theology, and
yet "indispensable." Nor is this humiliating necessity
of compounding a faith out of contradictories at all
peculiar to our Religion.  All the fundamental postulates of thought,- Time, Space, Substance, Power,
-are in the same plight; introducing us to entities
which we cannot harmonize with our experience of
phenomena. In all these cases nothing is left to us
but to accept the ontological ideas as true relactively to
us, - given forms of our thought, - but to beware of
regarding them as valid for things in themselves, or for
any point of view beyond our own. Whether they do
or do not represent realities as they are, we cannot tell:
but as we are imprisoned within them, they are regulative truth for our minds, though having no claim to
the character of speculative truth, imaging what lies in
the outer daylight of the universe beyond our dreams.
Our readers will at once recognize in this sketch a
revival of the principles of Kant; who, by resolving
into subjective conditions all our ontological and perceptive assumptions, left the intellect in idealistic insulation, and blew up every bridge by which thought
could pass to the mainland of real Being. Dr. Mansel,
however, is more thorough-goingY still.  Kant, it is
well known, recovered in his treatise on the Practical
Reason the ground he had abandoned in his analysis
of the Speculative: and authorized the resumption, as
presuppositions of conscience, of the very faiths, in
moral freedom, responsibility, and absolute divine law,
which no dialectic was able to guarantee. Our author
complains of this as an inconsequence; and carrying
his own scepticism steadily through, involves Morals




RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.                      229
with Theology in the same sentence of mere subjectivity, rendering their ideas inapplicable, except in condescension to our incapacities, to any sphere beyond the
human.* We may indeed — perhaps must - speak
of an Absolute Morality: but the phrase involves a
contradiction in terms; for the moment we try any
ethical conception upon an Infinite nature, it is swallowed up and disappears. Emotion and change, such
as are inseparable from disapproval or compassion,
from either free forgiveness or conditional reconciliation, and from openness to prayer, are incompatible
with immutable self-identity: yet, on the other hand,
the alternative suppositions, of an ethical neutrality or
an optionless and necessitated justice, no less impose
limits on the perfection of Being. On this side also,
our author contends, all religious belief is necessarily a
tissue of contradictions, protected only by the existence
of equal contradictions in any scheme of unbelief. The
conclusion from the whole is, that, in our natural
Theism, we must hold to both of the incompatible
terms, the existence of the Infinite that can have no
predicates, and the truth of the Finite predicates he
cannot have; and that, bringing this state of mind
to the scheme of Redemption, we are in no condition to
* It is with great diffidence that, speaking from memory alone, we call
in question a statement respecting Kant, repeatedly made or implied by so
studious and careful a writer as Dr. Mansel. But we know of no authority
for the following representation, and cannot persuade ourselves that Kant
has anywhere exposed himself to so reasonable a criticism: " Kant unquestionably went too far, in asserting that things in themselves are not as they
appear to our faculties; the utmost that his premises could warrant him in
asserting is, that we cannot tell whether they are so or not" (p. 348). Dr.
Mansel produces no citation, and affords no means of verification. Certainly,
if Kant ever said such a thing, he not only "went too far," but fell into
variance with the whole spirit of his philosophy.




230            MANSEL'S LIMITS OF
cast the first stone at its seeming inconsistencies, but
are bound to content ourselves with estimating its
evidences, without attempting a critique of its doctrines. Taken at their worst, they are as good as
ours.
This line of thought, we must confess, appears to us
even painfully precarious.  Suppose, for argument's
sake, that we grant the premises, and say, with Sir
W. Hamilton, that only the Finite can be given us in
thought; that the Infinite is for us only a negation, -
a subjective inability to think; and that relative conceptions, on such a subject, are equivalent to ignorance.
How far do these assumptions bear out Dr. Mansel's
conclusion, that we must throw ourselves on Revelation? They establish conditions which make all revelation impossible.
Let us allow for the moment that, by the constitution of our faculties, we have (as our author says) a
legitimate belief in the existence of the Infinite, but
a total inability to attach any predicates to this subject.
How can such a Being, so cut off from all possible
access to our minds, reveal himself to us? As well
might you say that Silence can make a speech. An
existence without predicates is a non-existence: as Dr.
Mansel himself admits, "pure being is" to us "pure
nothing" (p. 328). That negation should send a message to nescience appears not readily conceivable; nor
can we imagine in what the "evidences" of such a
communication could consist.
But do the premises really guarantee to us even the
bare existence of the Infinite?  We cannot see how.
The only ground for this faith which Dr. Mansel ever




RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.               231
presents is, "that our whole consciousness is compassed
about with restrictions, which we are ever striving to
pass, and ever failing in the effort" (p. 121). But
the bird in the cage and the captive in his cell learn
nothing, by their vain efforts, of the world beyond. It
is a marvellous thing to affirm that every incompetency
implies an Infinitude. Our mental limits are evidence
of no more than that the intellect is less than the
intelligible. If, moreover, we are capable of discovering, with Hamilton and Mansel, that this "Infinite,"
which we are to endow with "existence," is but a
subjective negation, the mocking shadow of our own
impotence, we lose every ground for holding to its
objective reality. The very discovery itself consists in
nothing else than the detection of untrustworthiness
in the belief.  What does it amount to but this,that our cognitive faculties are constructed without
provision for any thing beyond phenomenal knowledge,
— that we are made exclusively for the finite, not for
the infinite? And this is only to say that, whether
there be an Infinite or not, is a question beyond our
affirmation or denial.
Turn the matter which way you will, this much is
certain: to a mind disqualified in its structure for a
"Philosophy of the Infinite," there can be made no
Revelation of the Infinite; in older form of phrase, if
natural religion be impossible, through incapacity in
the subject, so is supernatural.  Religious ignorance
arising from defect in the attainable evidence, or from
an undeveloped state of the faculties, may be remedied
by supplementary information or an awakening discipline. But if the very instrument of intelligence carries




232            MANSEL'S LIMITS OF
its own darkness with it, and is fated ever to turn its
blind side to God, then it stands similarly related to all
possible media of expression, and there are no terms on
which Divine light can be had.  Where the receptive
power is at fault, it is vain to multiply and intensify
communication: as well might you hang a blind asylum
with chandeliers, and expect that, though the daylight
was useless, the brilliancy at night would tell. If there
are no predicates of God assured to us by Reason, or
only such as contradict each other and open the way to
opposing possibilities; if we have only such knowledge (?) of Him as either may or may not represent
Him as He is (p. 146); if we can affirm nothing
of Him that might not with equal reason be denied;
-there are no discriminative marks by which He and
His agency may be recognized: for the unknown has
no characteristics. Our incompetency extends therefore further than Dr. Mansel contemplates, — to the
signs and evidences of Revelation, as well as its contents; and the paralysis of Natural Religion is the
suppression of Revealed.
Our author's logic, then, in mowing down its thistlefield, inconsiderately mows off its own legs. He cuts
away the only supports on which religious thought can
rest or move; and nothing short of an unqualified ontological scepticism is in agreement with his premises.
We cannot in the least discover why, on his principles,
we are to believe either of the two contradictories
which he requires us to hold in combination, -that
God is infinite, that God is personal.  He disparages
the sources of cognition from which we receive these
propositions, yet keeps their allegations on his books.




RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.              233
If the witnesses are untrustworthy, why let their testimony fix the main points of the case?  The " infinite"
being unmeaning for us, and the " personal " unmeaning
in God, what title can they show to joint hold on our
belief? No intellectual intuition, no consciousness, no
legitimate inference, can assure us of either; where,
then, are their credentials? To these questions we find
no reply except that disbelief, if we choose to try it,
will bring no logical gain. This is a good argument
for a Pyrrhonist, who would maintain us in indeterminate equipoise, but is inconvertible to the purposes
of the Christian philosopher and divine. The habit of
dealing with derivative steps of thought is not favorable
to a firm grasp of the primary data; and we cannot
help thinking that Dr. Mansel's own mind is not clear
with regard to the ultimate roots of religious belief.
He cleverly pursues and breaks the track of many a
system of erratic metaphysics; but, fascinated with the
hunt of delusion and incompetency, he pushes the rout
too far, and, as it seems to us, rides over the brink of
the solid world, and falls into the abysses.
And now, having argued the matter from our author's premises, we must confess and justify our discontent with them. We cannot admit the doctrine of the
religious incompetency of the human faculties; and
the wide concurrence in it of schools apparently opposite, -of Mill and Comte, of Hamilton and Mansel,. will hereafter, we conceive, be looked upon as no
less curious a phenomenon than the ovation with which,
in the last century, the Critical Philosophy was carried
off along the most divergent paths of thought. Undeterred by the fashion of the day and the influence of




234            MANSEL'S LIMITS OF
authoritative names, we do not hesitate to believe
with Cousin, that there is a legitimate "passage from
psychology to ontology," and to protest against the
paradox that human intelligence, in its highest exercise, can only mock us with impossibilities and contradictions.
To put the matter into the shortest formula, let us
say, we admit the relative character of human thought
as a psychological fact; we deny it as an ontological
disqualification. All acts of the mind, whether creative or apprehensive, are undoubtedly discriminative, a
procedure from a less to a more determinate state.  As
self-conscious, they carry with them the distinction
between subject and object; and as directed upon this,
and not on that, they cut out a definite from an indefinite. To conceive, to know, to reflect, is in every case
to deal exclusively with difference and relation; mental action is dualistic, not monistic.  So far we are
agreed.
Is, then, this relativity an incompetency or a qualification for thinking? a cognitive limitation, or a cognitive power? Our author, following Sir W. Hamilton,
treats it as a provincial restriction imposed upon our
nature, barring us from escape into the realm of real
rather than seeming knowledge, and under the show of
science dooming us to nescience.  Is there any plea for
such disparagement and distrust beyond the argument
which, in parallel case, Hegel wittily attributed to
Kant:' It cannot be true, because we think it"?
What reason is there to suppose that in natures higher
than ours there is another sort of knowledge in which
nothing is differenced, and even the knower is not




RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.              235
separated from the known? And if such a condition
of being existed, would it legitimately rank as more
intelligent or less intelligent than ours? And again,
where is the field of otherwise possible knowledge from
which this relativity excludes us? Drop the limit, and
what new reaches of being do you bring within the
intellectual horizon?  Nothing surely can be more
arbitrary than to treat the very essence of a faculty
as the negation of faculty, and complain of the eye as
enabling us to do nothing but see, and condemning us
to see only what is visible. That we cannot think
except by differencing, means only that we cannot
know where there is nothing to be known, or that we
cannot use a function without having it. If intelligence
consists in distinguishing, how can distinguishing be an
incompetency to understand? And does the "competency" of the most perfect intellect consist in this, -
that it dispenses with differences, and sees all things
to be equally true, and truth itself identical with falsehood?
But, it will be said, this relative character of knowledge at all events limits you to the finite, and precludes
access to God as Infinite. On the contrary, we submit
that relative apprehension is always and necessarily of
two terms together: if of sound, then also of silence;
if of succession, then also of duration; if of the finite,
then also of the infinite.  It is the  eSzrov ipe~vo; of
Spinoza, of Schelling, of Hegel, of all monistic speculative systems, that they set up in isolated supremacy
one of two inseparable data of thought, and then endeavor to educe the other out of it; and Dr. Mansel
falls, we think, into the same snare. He strains after




236            MANSEL'S LIMITS OF
an Infinite that shall exclude the Finite; an Absolute
that shall emerge from all Relation; a Causality that
shall be pure of all conditions. If Theism were staked
on his finding such things, his despair of it would be
natural enough. For these conceptions, which he denies to be on speaking terms, are in each case Siamese
twins, between which any affectation of estrangement
cannot fail to be highly inconvenient. They come into
existence before our thought together, and have their
living meaning only in pairs; one of the two giving
us the constant and ontological ground, the other the
phenomenal manifestation. The attempt to think away
the finite from the presence of the infinite, or vice versa,
must inevitably fail; and of the two schemes to which
the attempt gives rise, viz. that which says " entities only
can be known," and that which says "phenomena only
can be known," both are to be unhesitatingly rejected.
Two other possibilities remain, viz. the Idealism which,
treating all "relation" as a subjective economy of ours,
pronounces that we know neither; and the Realism
which, taking relations in the mind as exponents of relations out, decides that we know both. It is on this
last alone that, in our view, a sound philosophy can
take its stand.
The position taken up against this doctrine rests on
the distinction between positive and negative ideas.
Of the finite, it is said we have a positive idea; of the
infinite, except as the negative of this, we have none
at all: the one, therefore, is the exponent of an objective reality, the other is only a subjective incapacity.
The term which is given to us by experience is reliable:
its concomitant, which is supplied in thought, is an




RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.             237
empty form. In every case of relation between presumed entity and perceived phenomenon, - Space and
position, - Time and succession, - Substance and
quality, - Infinite and finite, - the more ambitious
term is unaccredited,- a mere metaphysical impostor;
putting on the airs of demonstration and universal
validity, and pretending to hold good for all possible
worlds; but, by this very mark, betraying its close
confinement to our own mind as the mere shape and
shadow of our faculty. So far does Dr. Mansel carry
this Kantian Idealism, that he pronounces all judgments
insecure and personal in proportion as they are selfevident, and, like the exact sciences, exhibit the characteristics of Universality and Necessity (p. 203).
Now we will not enter here on the question whether
those pairs of ideas are or are not valid beyond the
enclosure of our nature; that falls into the general
controversy with the Idealist. But this we venture to
affirm, that, valid or invalid, the two terms of each pair
must stand or fall together; and that, except by an
arbitrary coup-de-tete, one cannot be taken and the
other left.  Both are given to us, —e.g. a limited
figure and the boundless Space from which it is cut out,
— in one and the same mental act, and are equally
secured by the veracity, or vitiated by the unveracity,
of our intellectual constitution.  There can be no objection to call the one "positive" and the other "negative," provided it be understood that each is so with
regard to the other, and that the relation is convertible;
the finite, for instance, being the negative of the infinite,
not less than the infinite of the finite. If more than
this be meant, if the word "negative" is immovably




238            MANSEL'S LIMITS OF
fixed on the ontological term, as a disparagement of its
trustworthiness and an assertion that it is obtained by
mere thinking-away of sterling elements, then we dispute the doctrine as false alike to psychology and to
logic; and with Dr. M'Cosh, whom our author unsatisfactorily criticises (p. 333), contend for a "positive"
idea of the infinite. The attempt to resolve this idea
into that of the "indefinite," does but mock the feeling
of every precise thinker. That is " indefinite," to which
we know no end; that is "infinite" which we know to
have no end. The belief in the one is attainable by
simply thinking limits away; the belief in the other
rests on the positive deposition of our own faculties,
which must be either taken at their word or dismissed
as cheats.
It is perfectly true that of the Infinite, whether of
Space, Time, or other mode of Being, we can form no
mental representation; and that, when we try to do
so, we can only resort to a vain stretching of the finite
till we are tired and give it up. We suspect that this is
what is meant when the idea is identified with a mere
inability to think; for certainly many of the "contradictions" charged upon it are simply cases of baffled
imagination. But it is no objection to either the reality
or the legitimacy of a thought, that it is not of a kind
to be brought before "the mind's eye."  We believe,
though we cannot conceive, the infinitude of space and
time: and these beliefs take their place and perform
their proper intellectual function in processes of rigorous scientific reasoning; not only without vitiating the
result, but with indispensable aid to its true evolution.
If this is not a "thinking" the infinite, - this letting




RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.              239
it into a procedure of thought with operative power on
the final product,- we know not what thinking is.
We confess a total insensibility to most of the alarming perplexities which our author endeavors to fix on
the Idea of the Infinite.  They all arise out of the
spurious Spinozistic demand, that this idea shall be
kept out of relation to any thing, and the false assumption that, unless this is done, the idea is sacrificed.
Except in personal argument with opponents making
this demand, there is no reason for giving way to it.
No religious truth or moral interest requires us to
identify God with any infinitude but that which stands
in ontological relation to the finite.  When we are
asked whether, in creating the world, God increased
the quantity of being, and are reminded that, if He did,
infinitude received addition, and if He did not, the finite
world is nothing at all, —the consequences do not in
either case distress us as might be expected: an Infinitude that supplies its own completion was potentially
without defect; and a world that manifests an Infinitude other than its own atones for its nonentity. As
well might you ask whether the sun, on first appearing,
added any thing to the extension of the universe; because, if he did, it was not infinite before; if he did
not, he could have no size. These puzzles (which, be
it remembered, remain after Revelation precisely what
they were before) arise in great measure from the
application of quantitative ideas to qualitative existence, and the attempt to solve all problems of genesis
and change by the formulas of addition and subtraction. In order to be added together or to limit one
another, objects must be homogeneous and must be




240             MANSEL'S LIMITS OF
magnitudes; and to speak of " quantity of being? in
the abstract, or to discuss such a combination as God
+ World, appears to us not less unmeaning than to
ask about the temperature of duration, or to debate
whether sleep + dream is larger than sleep alone. In
forgetfulness of this principle, our author pronounces
the co-existence of the Divine attributes inconceivable
without contradiction, because involving a plurality of
infinitudes, side by side. If the attributes were not
each sui generis, and if they wanted room, the remark
would be true.  But if, according to Spinoza's rule,
"thinking is not bounded by body, or body by thinking," there is no need for heterogeneous attributes to
become finite in order to co-exist.
These things being borne in mind, it is truly astonishing to find Dr. Mansel treating as perfectly parallel
mysteries the co-existence of Attributes in the Divine
substance, and the co-existence of Persons in the Divine Unity. For the cases differ precisely in that which
turns the scale from possibility to impossibility. No
two attributes of the same substance are alike; there
is no tangential relation between them; therefore no
mutual interference.  But with personalities it is
otherwise; as so many distinct subjects they are generically the same, with differences only attributive; and
are therefore mutually exclusive and limit each other.
It is only by attenuating the conception of personality
till it melts away into that of attribute or function, that
this doctrine becomes at all presentable in thought;
and so, to the very relation which our author adduces
as the counterpart of its contradiction, we habitually
resort to relieve it of its mystery. In like manner,




RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.              241
Dr. Mansel's remark that the doctrine of the God-Man
is neither more nor less perplexing than any other
co-existence of a finite object with the infinite overlooks
the real seat of the difficulty, which lies not in the
relation of magnitude between the two natures predicated, but in the fact that both of them are Personal
essences, - the second Person in the Godhead and the
"perfect man" Jesus, - and therefore, by the rule
of mutual exclusion in such cases, incapable of union
in the same subject. It is a bold paradox to assert
that the tormenting and intricate subtleties of the Eutychian and Monophysite controversies concerned a matter no harder to understand than the co-existence of
the finite Moon with the infinite Space.
On the whole, then, we cannot follow Dr. Mansel
in his scepticism respecting the natural springs of religion in the human mind; and if we could, we should
feel that the possibility of revelation was gone too.
We have entire faith in the veracity, and in the consistency, of the reports given in by our highest faculties;
and think it possible, even within our segment of a
life, to trace their convergence towards one Divine and
Holy Reality.  The causal instinct of the intellect, the
solemn suspicions of the conscience, the ideal passion
of the imagination, the dependent self-renunciation of
the affections, are all, we believe, so many lines of attraction to the same Infinite Object.  And however
numerous the aspects under which that transcendent
Being may present Himself to the different sides of our
nature, we see no reason to doubt their consonance, or
to despair of the noble and pious attempt to exhibit
them in harmony. Nor do we think it should be a
16




242             MANSEL'S LIMITS OF
congenial task, for a divine versed in philosophy, to
enlist his skill in the defeat of this attempt, - in widening the discrepancies, reducing the approximations,
and making the most of the failures of the religious
reason.  We have no tenderness towards the metaphysical pantheism, - from Spinoza to Hegel, - which
Dr. Mansel criticises in his earlier lectures.  But we
should give it up to him with more satisfaction, did he
not, in his doctrine of the Infinite, appropriate its chief
feature, and so, in the very act of putting it to death,
transfer to himself its most fatal weapon. The effect
of his essential sympathy with these systems in their
conception of the problem to be proposed, shows itself
especially when he ceases to contend with them, and
addresses himself to the moral difficulties of faith, the
doctrine of forgiveness, the grounds of prayer, the possibility of character in God. His treatment of these
great subjects makes us forget the philosopher and
recognize the divine: inventing imaginary difficulties,
and removing them by fictitious solutions; implying
slighter acquaintance than in the previous discussions
with the literature of the subject; and missing, as it
seems to us, the essential bases of ethical theory.
The general spirit of this book is scholarly and liberal; and probably the deviations from this tone are
involuntary and intellectual merely.  But there are
examples of controversial unfairness, which, though
sanctioned by usage, we deeply lament to see.  In
notes giving some account of the works of Strauss and
of Baur, Dr. Mansel thinks it allowable to bring together, as an anthology of absurdities, all the extreme
results and most amazing hints which the Hegelian




RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.              243
dialectic of these writers supplies, without noticing the
fact that their philosophy is an insignificant accident,
which, if entirely removed or replaced by a different
scheme, would leave the mass of their historical criticism unaffected. The consequence is, that these notes
present a gross caricature, and leave an impression
utterly false of two writers, both of whom, in spite of
great aberrations of ingenuity, have produced an ineffaceable impression on Christian theology; and one has
furnished contributions of extraordinary value to the
solution of the grandest of historical problems. How
decidedly we are opposed to their main theories, our habitual readers well know; and from their philosophy we
stand at a greater distance probably than Dr. Mansel.
But no orthodoxy can consecrate the spirit of polemic
detraction, or excuse a scholar from recognizing scholarship and a Christian from  observing justice.  A
writer, however, who thinks (p. 247) that Christianity
is all lost, if once you admit the slightest human element in the teaching of Christ, belongs to a stage of
theological opinion at which genial admiration and
judicial estimates of modern critical learning are hardly
possible. Few things, indeed, are more striking in this
volume than the contrast between the acuteness and
refinement of its metaphysics, and the purely popular
and elementary character of its biblical ideas.




244
CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.*
IT is rare to find an Englishman, not a graduate in
Arts, who believes in the existence, -  or even the
possibility, — of what are called the "Mental and
Moral Sciences."   The average national intelligence
looks on them as the showy shams of Academic discipline, and is as suspicious of their solidity as "of Mr.
Gladstone's.   The Scotchman, on the other hand, -
by ordination  of nature  and University  charter, -
takes kindly to these studies; discusses their problems
everywhere, at church, on the platform, even in the
public-house; and, migrating South of the Tweed, reintroduces them, from time to time, into our literature
and life.  In their pure form, however, he would hardly
succeed in gaining our ear for them.  But, himself
catching the infection of our scepticism, he adapts them
to the level of our belief, surrenders their distinctive
characteristics, assimilates them to physical knowledge,
and reduces them from their autonomy to a mere province of the "Natural Sciences:" and then, for the first
time, when he has construed all that is "mental" in the
* The Senses and the Intellect. By Alexander Bain, A. M. London,
1855.
The Emotions and the Will. By Alexander Bain, A. M., Examiner in
Logic and Moral Philosophy in the University of London. London, 1859.
National Review, April, 1860.




CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.          245
phenomena into physiology, and all that is "moral"
into the chemistry of ideas, we begin to suspect his
doctrine of something better than metaphysic moonshine.  Both the elder Mill and Mr. Bain owe their
English laurels to the remarkable skill with which they
have negotiated away the claims of the native Scottish
philosophy, and saved or sacrificed their science by
putting it under protection of a stronger power.  In
saying this, we refer, not so much to their doctrines as to
their method; and especially to the preconception from
which they set out, as to the nature of their study and
its relative place in the scheme of human knowledge.
What is "Psychology"? Nobody would think of
putting it among the Physical Sciences, or would hesitate to admit that it stands, in some sense, at the remotest point from them. Nor would the most enthusiastic
disciple of Faraday or Liebig pretend that it dealt with
phenomena reducible to Chemical Law; though perhaps he might claim a less distant relationship to them
than that of the mere Natural Philosopher, and might
even reserve, on behalf of his favorite pursuit, some
contingent reversionary right of interest in them. To
judge from the habitual language of medical literature, the Physiologist considers himself to be treading
close upon the heels of the Mental Philosopher, and to
be heir-presumptive, if not already rival claimant, to
the whole domain.  Between the facts of life, as
manifested through the lower grades of organized existence, and the facts of mind, special to our race, he
recognizes no ultimate distinction, and confidently looks
for evidence of essential identity. And whatever be
the destination of Intellectual Philosophy, draws with




246       CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.
it that of Ethics and Religion: for, once within the
enclosure of the distinctive human faculties, it is impossible for the inquirer to insulate the Reason, whilst
relegating Conscience and Faith to quite another field.
In this view, therefore, the study of humanity constitutes only the uppermost stratum of scientific Natural
History: it deals with certain residuary phenomena
left on hand when the lower organisms have been
exhausted: and its separation is no less provisional
and artificial than that of any one branch of zoology
from  any other.  It is thus the crown and summit
of the hierarchy of Natural Sciences; emerging from
physiology, as physiology from chemistry, and chemistry from physics; and differing only, as each superior
term differs from the subjacent, in the greater complexity and more restricted range of the attributes it
contemplates.  Psychological studies, prosecuted with
this preconception of their position, will naturally borrow, as far as possible, the resources of the nearest
science, will seek explanation of human facts in the
simpler animal analogies; and in proportion as these
fail, will feel baffled, and anxious to reduce the variance
to the lowest point. To bring the higher phenomena
under the rule, or close to the confines of the lower;
to exhibit them as woven in the same loom, only of
finer web and more complicated pattern, - will be the
instinctive aim of researches begun from this side. Nor
will the aim be wholly unsuccessful in regard to the
border phenomena, - of Sense, Propension, and Habit,
which retain us in affinity with other living kinds.
If it incurs the risk of failure and harm, it will be at
the upper end, among the extreme human character



CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.          247
istics: where, to say the least, it is strongly tempted
to repeat upon psychology the same violence of which
Comte complains as committed by the physicist on
chemistry, and the chemist on physiology,- a coercive
assimilation of ulterior to prior laws.
There is certainly a captivating simplicity in this
pyramidal arrangement of all our possible knowledge
around a single axis; with the base broadly laid in the
universal properties of matter, and the apex rising to
the solitary loftiness of Man and even crowned with his
highest symbol,- the cross. It seems to promise that,
by merely repeating our steps and not growing dizzy, we
shall surmount all our ignorance, and find Thought and
Love, as well as Force and Matter, beneath our feet.
At the same time, it seems to warn us, that the special
endowments of our own being are utterly inaccessible
to our apprehension, till we have ascended through tier
after tier of previous sciences. The promise and the
warning, if reliable, are of superlative importance. Is
it true, then, that, simply and only by ascending the
stair of natural knowledge,- by persistent prolongation of its familiar processes,- we reach the stage of
Mental and Moral Science?  Is that stage really to be
found along the same line of method, only ranged
around its furthest segment?  Wle utterly disbelieve it:
and venture to affirm that no refinement of growth in
the other sciences has any tendency to blossom into
knowledge of the Mind; and that such knowledge,
instead of being doomed to wait till the alleged prior
terms in the series have been built up, begins with
them at the beginning, proceeds with them pari passu, and can no more be put before or after them than




248       CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.
the image in the mirror before or after the object it
reflects.
The ground of these assertions is simply this:Mental Science is Self-knowledge: Natural Science,
the knowledge of something other than Self. Their
spheres are of necessity mutually exclusive; yet so
related that, like all true opposites, they come into
existence together. Wakened up by some phenomenon
from the sleep of unconsciousness, we discover two
things at once, viz. ourselves as recipient and the phenomenon as given: we are in possession of an external
fact and an internal feeling; and have already had our
first lesson in both physical and mental knowledge.
Every event, in like manner, has its outer and its inner
face, and is apprehended by us as existing and as felt;
contributing an element, in the one aspect, to our
familiarity with nature, in the other, to our acquaintance with our own mind.  The same relative fact
which, in the external space, is called Light, when
brought home to us, is called Vision: and whilst Optics
take charge of it in the former case, it belongs to Psychology in the latter.  Not a single predicate attaching
to it is common to both sides of the relation: on the
one, it is cause, — it is in space,- it has dimension
and local movement: on the other, it is effect, - it is
in time, — it is a feeling, exempt from the laws of
size and measurement. This divarication of the phenomenon into two opposite directions is inherent in the
cognitive act itself, and goes wherever it goes, constant
as focus to focus in the ellipse: and this it is which constitutes the indestructible antithesis between physical
and mental science, making them twins in their birth




CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.          249
but without contact in their career. In the play of
life, - the action and re-action, - between ourselves
and the surrounding scene, attention may pass outward, and forgetting itself, may look at this or that;
or may turn inward, and forgetting the world, may
count the beads of thought and note the flush of feeling: and the results, of natural knowledge in the first
instance and psychologic in the second, are absolutely
parallel and co-ordinate, and can never be transposed
into linear subordination. Self-consciousness has one
realm to construe; Perceptive observation, another.
Could we always forget ourselves, and use our faculty
upon objects without knowing it, we should still be
competent to the "interpretation of nature:" could we
always forget the world, and scan the inner history
alone, we should still be competent to register the laws
of thought.  The necessary duality of all intellectual
action happily excludes this extreme, and preserves
some approximate equipoise between the two momenta
of our knowledge: but it is none the less true that they
are perfectly distinct, however concurrent; that interchange between them is impossible; that, though they
hang and balance from the same beam, the weights
which are heaviest in the one have no effect upon the
other; and that the attempt to treat them as homogeneous can but upset and confound the conditions of human
intelligence. What is shown to us by the outer daylight of objective discovery must always be other than
that which we see by the inner light of self-knowledge:
and could the rays of either fall upon the other's field,
there is nothing there which they could fetch out of
darkness.




250       CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.
We submit therefore that a dualistic grouping of
the Sciences, in place of a monistic, is prescribed
by the fundamental conditions of Intelligence itself;
that without a firm and absolute reliance on the postulates and resources of objective experience, Natural
knowledge can make no way; that without equally
firm and absolute reliance on the postulates and resources of self-consciousness, Mental and Moral philosophy must remain impossible; and that whilst neither
can question, not either may borrow, the language and
methods of the other.  So long as we look at the
extreme cases of contrast in the two series, - Astronomy, for instance, and Psychology, - this statement
will perhaps challenge little objection: star-gazing taking us out pretty far, and thought-analyzing keeping us
pretty close at home. There are however several intermediate departments of knowledge which seem to give
us insight into the workings of the human mind, not by
introspection, but distinctly by the study of external
data. Jurisprudence and Politics, History, Philology,
and Art, all engage themselves upon visible and tangible products of the past, and have no less objective a
look than Botany and Geology themselves; yet all issue
in deeper acquaintance with humanity: they appear to
be physical in their procedure, and moral in their result.
Nevertheless, they do not disturb, they even confirm,
the principle of our dual arrangement. What are the
"external phenomena" with which they deal?  Laws
and States, — the embodiment of the social Conscience;
Language,- the crystallization of human ThougTht;
Poetry, Painting, and Sculpture, - the witnesses of
human Ideality; Action and Suffering,- the outcome




CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.          251
of human Life and Passion.  For the purpose of our
present argument, it is an abuse of terms to call these
"external" facts.  They are so, in the sense in which
tears are drops of water, or a ship's colors a few yards
of cotton rag: but their whole essence lies in the internal meaning of which they are the record and the sign,
in the invisible and spiritual facts of which they compel
the very elements to take charge. And all such simply
expressive phenomena speak to us only to the extent
of our sympathy, and through the medium of our selfconsciousness: did they not hold up the mirror to our
inner life, and enable us better to read ourselves in their
reflex image, they would tell us nothing, and would drop
from the catalogue of human studies. Here, and here
alone, does the maxim hold, that "like only can know
like," - that the cognitive process requires community
of nature between the knower and the known.  In
physics, it is rather the opposite rule that prevails,of contrariety between subject and object:- at all
events I need not, in order to estimate color, have my
faculty prismatically painted; or, to appreciate acids,
be sour myself; or, to examine the magnetic laws, be
personally liable to dip. But, if I am to know humanity, human I must be; and all its memorials, so far as
they are not dumb to me, are but the extension of my
self-conscious being.  In this distinction we have the
true dividing-line between the departments of Science
and Literature, and the principle of their profound
difference of operation on the minds exclusively occupied with either. It would take us too far from our
proper path to work out this hint at present: it is
intended only adequately to carry out the dual arrange



252       CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.
ment of our intellectual pursuits, and justify the appropriation of all the "literva humaniores" to the side of
self-knowledge.
Mr. Bain's book opens with an account, lucid, exact,
and compendious, of the nervous system in man. In
its proper place, beside the volumes of Bell, of Quain,
of Sharpey, of Carpenter, nothing could be better: and
in a practical manual for students, especially when they
are to be examined by the Author himself, we do not
question the utility of such an exposition. It is a serviceable key to much that would else be obscure in the
language of psychological writers: and just as a musician- may reasonably feel some curiosity respecting
acoustic laws, so is it natural that an interest in
mental processes should extend itself to their organic
antecedents.  But, tried by any strict test of logical
right, the disquisition is, in our view, altogether foreign
and intrusive: and we prefer the practice of the older
writers, - Reid, Stewart, and Mill, - who take up their
subject no earlier than the conscious phenomena, and
leave the medullary conditions entirely out of view. It
is not that we doubt the physiological importance of the
modern cerebral researches, or feel any thing but regret
at their hitherto scanty achievements. But if they were
ever so successful, - if we could get to look at all that
we want, - if we could turn the exterior of a man's body
into a transparent case, and compel powerful magnifiers
to lay bare to us all that happens in his nerves and
brain, -what we should see would not be sensation,
thought, affection, but some form of movement or other
visible change, which would equally show itself to any
being with observing eyesight, however incapable of the




CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.            253
corresponding inner emotion. Facts thus legible from
a position foreign to the human consciousness are not
mental facts, are not moral facts, and have no place in
the interior of a science which professes to treat of
these, and reduce them to their laws. All that could
be done with such outwardly perceived phenomena,
at their point of nearest approach to the pyschologist,
is to note down their order of succession, in parallelism
with the corresponding order of the series known to
self-consciousness. Supposing two such co-ordinated
trains to be established, we may admit that the physical, if the better ascertained and distincter in its terms,
might help us, like the clearer column of a bilingual
inscription, to identify or discriminate the parts of the
other. But it cannot be pretended that our acquaintance with the nervous system supplies us with any secondary ratios of this kind by which the primary can be
construed into truer order.  The cerebral phenomena
are in an immeasurably darker state than the mental,
and are even indebted to these for every hypothetic.clue
by which the fancy of physiologists could find a way
through their relations.  The grand discovery itself
(still not undisputed) of separate motory and sensory
nerves only follows at a vast distance, in respect of certainty and perspicuity, the conscious difference between
action and receptivity.' Dr. Hartley's theory of Vibrations was not, in our judgment, a more questionable
incumbrance on his doctrine of Association, than Mr.
Bain's correcter physiological exposition on his subsequent intellectual analyses. While it throws not a ray
of real light into them, it tinctures them with a language of materialistic description, at once unphilosophi



254        CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.
cal and repulsive.  When we are told of the "'high
charge of nervous power" needful for " susceptibility to
delicate emotions," — of the " numerous currents of the
brain" involved in " wandering of the thoughts,"- of
the " full development of a wave of emotion " from " the
cerebral centres," - of the " eminently glandular" nature of " the tender affections; " —when it is observed
that "Irascibility may draw to itself a large share of
the vital sap; "- and that " the tender emotion usurps
largely a great portion of mankind, being so alimented
by the natural conformation of the system as to maintain its characteristic wave with considerable persistence," and that "this gives great capacity for the
affections," especially with " requisite support" from
" the structure of the glandular organs; " *-we lose
all sense of psychological truth, and no more know ourselves again than if, on looking in the glass, we were to
see an anatomical figure staring at us. There is no
more occasion for such phraseology, than for an artist
to paint his Madonna with the skin off. It is recommended neither by scientific precision, nor by illustrative
good taste. The one only excellence of psychological
description is to speak truly and searchingly to our selfconsciousness: and of vital sap, and high charges, and
powerful currents, and diffusive waves, we certainly are
not conscious: nor do we know of any writer resorting
to this style of exposition, without forfeiture of all fineness and sharpness in his delineations of spiritual facts,
and quite degenerating from the purity of Berkeley, the
neatness of Stewart, the severity of Kant, the transparency of Jouffroy.
* The Emotions and the Will, pp. 32, 193, 230, 94, 233, 232.




CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.          255
We have said that the psychological difference between active power and the passive susceptibilities of
Sense was familiar to mental philosophers, and was
treated as fundamental, long before the physiological
separation of motory from sensory nerves. Of the vast
majority of writers the remark is so true, that this distinction is seldom absent from the leading divisions and
even titles of their works.  But there is one important
class of exceptions.  The Sensational psychologists
have steadily resisted the claims of this distinction; have
denied its ultimate reality, and by various ingenuities
resolved it away; have contended that activity means
only muscular movement, and that this is both set
a-going and made known exclusively by sensation.
From  this sole source, followed by the clinging together of connected movements and the vestiges of
contiguous sensations, they have explained all the phenomena of human nature. Of all the difficulties of
this undertaking, no one has been more pressed upon
them, and more in vain, than that of extracting from a
primitive passivity the various forms of energy and struggle. At last however the conviction, which has so long
stood out against psychological appeal, is yielded to
physiology: and Sir Charles Bell having detached the
nerves, Mr. Bain separates the functions, of action and
sensation. He admits as original, along with the susceptibilities of sense, a spontaneity of movement,- a
start into energy without any prefix of feeling: and this
is the capital new feature, — certainly a marked improvement, - which he has added to the resources of
his school. In order to turn this spontaneity, - quite
random at first, - into volition, he assumes an inherent




256       CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.
tendency to persistence in every muscular adjustment
which procures a pleasure or relieves a pain: in virtue
of which this class of movements, once hit upon, disengage themselves from the heterogeneous mass of possible combinations, and fall into the track, and come
under the command, of regulated associations.  This
mode of deriving the voluntary from the involuntary
phenomena is essentially the same with that of Hartley
and James Mill: and, though carried out with much
fuller elaboration, and addressing itself more carefully
to the grand nodus of the problem, - the process of
deliberate preference and decision, - will probably convert no one who has been left unsatisfied by the previous
expositors. The real novelty lies higher up: in freeing
the first involuntary movements from their dependence
on any sort of feeling, and so creating a fund of spontaneity to set off against the stores of sensation, and
make acquaintance with them.
This doubling of the established data of his school,
by the introduction of a term distinctly antithetic to
sensation, seemed to us at first to offer the means of
reconciliation with the opposite philosophy. Nothing
could look more like a surrender of the monistic for
a dualistic principle. But, we regret to say, the promise is for the present illusory.  The reason is this.
Though Mr. Bain grants us a spontaneity, he plants it
where we have nothing to do with it, any more than if
our limbs were spasmodically stirred by a galvanic
touch. In his zeal to cancel Hartley's prefix of a sensational stimulus, he forgets to leave any attendant consciousness at the fountain-head at all, and makes the
movement come, psychologically, out of nothing. The




CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.           257
first thing we feel is the series of muscular sensations
in the execution of the act: there it is, accordingly,
that our conscious life begins, and the prior word of
command for the initiation of the act took place outside. The dynamics of the case are thus quite numb
and foreign to us: and our experience still dates from
the earliest sensation, and includes no counter element.
So far as our mental history is concerned, this novelty
of Mr. Bain's is therefore inoperative, and lapses back
into that mere emphasizing of the muscular feelings so
familiar to the readers of Dr. Thomas Brown. Could
he only have burst through the enchantments of this
paralyzing sensational circle, we believe him to have
been on the eve of an important advance. By simply
drawing his " spontaneity " and its force within the limits of consciousness, instead of leaving it beyond the
threshold, solutions arise of problems otherwise unmanageable.  On one of these we will dwell for a few
moments, - the origin of the beliefs respecting Externality and Space.
It is admitted on all hands, - or, at least, we shall
freely concede it to our author's philosophy, - that if,
like Condillac's sentient statue, we simply stood still
and felt this and that sensation of smell, taste, or
sound, we should have no knowledge of an outward
world.  The conditions of this belief first enter in
connection with the muscular system; in the exercise
of which we gain our apprehensions of objects distinct
from ourselves, of their dimensions, forms, positions,
and of the circumambient field in which they lie. So
far we are agreed. But now comes the question, how
are the muscles qualified to give us this special instrur17




258        CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.
tion? and by what process do they impart it?  Brown,
Mill, Bain, all concur in their answer. First, we gain
the idea of linear extension by muscular feelings of
various range, as in the slight or greater closing of the
fingers, or sweep of the arm, or exploring a wire: part
of a given series of sensations not being the same to us
as the whole, or a less part as a more considerable, we
have differences for every degree of continuance; and
these are so many lengths. Next, we have but to give
this idea numerical increase, i.e. conceive of co-existing lengths, whether by joint action of a plurality of
fingers, or by combining the movements of one over a
surface, as of a pane of glass, - and we are introduced
to superficial extension.  And lastly, by letting our
fancy go out with its length-idea on all radii from any
point, we win at once the conception of Space; or
again, by embracing a solid object between the two
hands, we discover co-existing surfaces separated by
lengths, and complete our triad of dimensions. Thus
our idea of Extension is built up, bit by bit, one dimension at a time; and the last to come, in the order of
our knowledge, is geometrical solidity.
Every thing, in this exposition, depends on the
soundness of the first step; the others, being little
else than contrivances for multiplying lengths, disappear of themselves if the lengths are yet to seek.
How, then, are they got? Merely, it is said, by our
experiencing in the muscles a train of sensations, coming to an end, now sooner, now later; this variation in
the protraction of the series being the gist of the whole
matter, and giving us our qucesitum  of length.  If
so, however, any succession of feelings susceptible of




CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.          259
similar variation would do as well: a melody heard,
now complete, now broken off; a cycle of odors, at one
time half administered, at another cut short near the
beginning, would meet all the prescribed conditions,
and ought to furnish us with the Knowledge of Extension. The liability to more or less abbreviation of the
sensational thread is no peculiarity of the muscular
sense: and to pitch upon this circumstance as giving us
our comparison of lengths is fatal to the exclusive claim
which is set up for this class of feelings.  What can be
more inconsistent than, first, to single out the locomotive organs as alone competent to the phenomenon, and
then to refer the phenomenon to something in them
which is no speciality of theirs at all? Do you fly then
to the distinctive quality of their feelings, rather than
their mere interrupted succession? Different, of course,
the muscular feelings are from smells, as tastes also or
sounds are from both; but so long as they are only
sensations, delivered upon our consciousness one after
another, they win no advantage, for purposes of objective disclosure, over their companions. Even could we
know them by ever so perfect an introspection, they
would be found in us, not out of us, and would not help
us to step beyond the subjective world: their succession
would be in duration, not in space, and would give us
the sequent parts of time, not the synchronous parts of
linear extension. Ring the changes as you will upon
mere Sensation, these difficulties will shut you in. The
only reason why the passive reception of odors would not
reveal the outward world is, that it does not go beyond
sensation; and so long as you stop at that stage, the muscles will serve you no better than the pituitary membrane.




260       CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.
In what, then, really consists the prerogative distinction of the muscular system? It has an obvious and
important peculiarity. In our experience of smell, hearing, &c., the first thing that happens is the sensation,
which arrives at us out of the unknown, and wakes us
up in an unexpected way; and any cognitive act, when
we are in a condition to have one, follows on the sensitive phenomenon. But the muscular sensations occur
in executing an act already ordered by mandate from
ourselves; the signal for them is passed before they
arise, and this mental prefix, name it as you will, prevents our being taken by surprise with the phenomenon,
and provides an incipient cognitive element at the fountain-head. This inverse order of procedure in the locomotive faculty redeems it altogether from the category
of the Senses. It starts from a point that is no more
"Sensation" than the cognitions in which the proper
Senses terminate; call it volition, or call it spontaneous
energy, it is the putting forth of personal causation.
This is a function beyond the province of mere Sense.
A Sense cannot make efforts; nor are its phenomena
causes, but effects. Not even, we believe, are sensations an essential feature in the executive stage of the
operation; if the muscles were made of india-rubber,
or paralyzed in their sensory nerves, their system, we
conceive, would not be disqualified, provided it obeyed
the mandates from head-quarters, for giving us knowledge of an objective world. This knowledge breaks on
us from the collision of our own conscious force with
impeding resistance: and so long, as the two extremes
retain this relation, the intermediary members may be
many or few, sensible or insensible, without hindering




CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.           261
our discovery of the antithetic Subject and Object: the
one here, the other there; the one Causal hence,
the other Causal hither. By removing the dynamical
commencement of this experience out of consciousness,
and beginning our psychological history lower down, in
the sensations of the executive muscles, Mr. Bain appears to us to have missed the true germ of our ideas
of Personality, of Space, and of Causation.
No doubt, the accurate measurement of our force
against variable resistances, and of the several intervals
between objects, is largely dependent on the proper
muscular sensations, which are invaluable as a scheme
of graduated signs.  But the things measured and
signified, - apart from the appreciation of their degrees, -are cognizable through an energy behind the
muscles.  The collision of that energy of ours with
the counter-energy of the world, as attested by Sensation, reveals to us, by the crossing lines of direction,
the contrast of the Self and the other-than-Self, and
gives us, as Categories for all phenomena, the two
centres of Personality and Externality. The antithesis
of these mutually excluding terms carries in itself both
a geometrical opposition of Place, and a dynamical
opposition of Force. Instead of our having to go to
school for a long experience, in order to be trained
into these ideas, our whole experience constitutes itself
around these apprehensions, as its three grand axes;
and of the two sides of each pair, neither has any
advantage over the other: the outer and the inner both
are given in the same act, and known by the same selflight, or rather reciprocal light; and there is no more
propriety in saying, that we know the external world




262        CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.
only through our own feelings, than in saying that we
know our own feelings only through the external world.
To know at all involves both terms: and the attempt to
establish a subordination between them, and resolve
objective cognition into subjective consciousness of our
own phenomena, is nothing else than, in the very act
of patronizing experience, to destroy its fundamental
postulates, and open the way to every idealistic dream.
The following passage is therefore, in our view, far
from satisfactory:
"As our belief in the externality of the causes of our sensations means, that certain actions of ours will bring the sensations into play, or modify them in a known manner, this belief
is easily furnished to us by experience; it is no more than our
experience entitles us to entertain.  Having felt, again and
again, that a tree becomes larger to the eye as we move;
that this movement brings on at last a sensation of touch; that
this sensation of touch varies with movements of our arm,
and a great many other similar coincidences; the repetition
of all this experience fixes it in the mind, and from the sight
alone we can anticipate all the rest. We then know that our
movements will bring about all the changes and sensations
above described, and we know no more; but this knowledge is
to us the recognition of external existence, the only thing, so
far as I see, that external existence can possibly mean. Belief in external reality is the anticipation of a given effect to a
given antecedent; and the effects and causes are our own
various sensations and movements."  (The Senses and the
Intellect, p. 373.)
According to this, to see the sun in the heavens is to
believe that, if we could only keep on walking long
enough, we might burn our fingers; to descry the lark
aloft, is to recite by muscular sympathy the beating of




CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.           263
its wings since it left its nest; to think of any distant
space is to run over our locomotive sensations in reaching it, and the opportunity of thrusting out our arm
when we have got there.  Emptiness means simply
scope for muscular exercise; and the Infinitude of
Space imports only potential gymnastics for us under
all conceivable circumstances.  This kind of " analysis" of our ideas seems to us, we must confess, a cruel
operation, —a cold-blooded dissecting of them to
death. The disjecta membra given as their equivalents, and strung together in succession to replace the
original whole, defy all identification. Look down an
avenue of trees, and consider whether, in appreciating
its perspective, you are engaged upon the mere imagination of touches, or the computation of fatigue?  Watch
a lighthouse from a ship's deck, by night, laying its long
line of beads towards you upon the waves, and say
whether the thing denoted by this "visual sign" has
any thing to do with either your legs or your fingerends. Can you believe that even to a blind geometrician diagrams and areas present themselves, not as
simultaneous existences beyond his personality, but as
possible series of tactual impressions in himself? or,
that when James Mitchell, the blind deaf-mute, amused
himself with picking stones out of the brook, ranging
them in a circle on the grass, and then assuming the
centre as his own seat, the figure of his environment
did not lie in his dark imagination complete at once?
For our own part, we utterly distrust this whole doctrine, which construes back the grand synchronous unity
of Space into trains of muscular successions in our
Sense, and interprets the objective world into cohesive




264        CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.
relations among our subjective phenomena.  How completely all externality disappears in the Ego, when this
psychology is fairly carried out, will be evident from
the following passage, in which the existence of light is
made contingent on the visual feelings, and the whole
language of outward being and causation is treated as
an empty product of " abstraction:"
"We seem to have no better way of assuring ourselves
and all mankind that with the conscious movement of opening the eyes there will always be a consciousness of light, than
by saying that the light exists as independent fact, with or
without any eyes to see it. But if we consider the case fairly,
we shall see that this assertion errs, not simply in being
beyond any evidence that we can have, but also in being a
self-contradiction. We are affirming that to have an existence
out of our minds which we cannot know but as in our minds.
In words we assert independent existence, while in the very
act of doing so we contradict ourselves. Even a possible
world implies a possible mind to perceive it, just as much as
an actual world implies an actual mind. The mistake of the
common modes of expression in this matter, is the mistake of
supposing the abstractions of the mind to have a separate and
independent existence. This is the doctrine of the Platonic'ideas,' or' forms,' which are understood to impart all that is
common to the particular facts or realities, instead of being
derived from them by an operation of the mind. Thus the
actual circles of nature derive their mathematical properties
from the pre-existing' idea,' or circle in the abstract; the actual
men owe their sameness to the ideal man. So instead of looking upon the doctrine of an external and independent world as
a generalization or abstraction grounded on our particular
experiences, summing up the past, and predicting the future,
we have got into the way of maintaining the abstraction to
be an independent reality, the foundation, or cause, or origin,




CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.            265
of all those experiences."  (The Senses and the Intellect,
p. 376.)
This is the old pitfall, where philosophy, too boldly
stepping on its solid-looking, sensational ground, has so
often tumbled through into a bottomless Idealism.  We
are not to say, it seems, that light exists as an "independent fact." Then it exists either as a dependent
fact, or not at all. If the former, it is dependent on
vision, that is, on its own effect, which is absurd. If
the latter, then vision exists by itself; that is, effect
without the cause, perception with nothing perceived.
Our author plainly confounds the two inverse kinds of
"dependence," - logical, in the order of knowing,real, in the order of being; —the causa cognoscendi
and the causa essendi.  The knowledge of light is
dependent on vision, its effect; the being of vision
is dependent on light, its cause: whose relative "inde
pendent existence" is so far from being " contradicted,"
that it is directly implied, by its dependent logical position:- the two things being indeed but one and the
same relation read from opposite ends. Our author, it
is true, affirms that " we cannot know light, but as in
our minds."  But how so?  Because, we presume, it
is known by seeing it, and that is an act of the mind.
Yes, certainly; the seeing: — but, on that very account, not the things seen: for the cognitive act,
instead of implying coalescence and identity, is conditional on separation and mutual exclusion, of the
knower and the known, and can reveal neither except
as over against the other. Were it otherwise, - were
all that we know to be on that account seated at the
cognitive point, - knowledge and being must coalesce,




266       CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.
and could never look each other in the face: nothing
could be known as existing: and nothing could exist as
known. The intellectual power itself would constitute
a disqiualification for intelligence. If there really were
external objects, and a faculty in us for their apprehension, Mr. Bain's argument would still apply: if where
they are known, there we must presume them to be,
our cognizance of them as external ought to be treated
as false; its truth would be a proper ground for disbelieving it; and the perfect knowledge of a thing would
be its absolute disproof.
A psychology which allows us cognizance only of the
thread of our own feelings is obliged to account for
the objective look and substantive pretensions of some
portions of our knowledge, by making up aggregates
of feelings, and assuming that their chemical union
gives them the fallacious aspect of being more than feelings, - of being elsewhere than in ourselves, - of being one instead of many. The grand instrument of
this metamorphosis, we need hardly say, is the Association of Ideas, - or, more properly, of actions and
mental states; among which, either contiguous terms,
or resembling terms, have a tendency to revive each
other. This is a veritable and universally recognized
psychological law: and to the great merits of his
school in vindicating its importance and extending its
application Mr. Bain has made large additions in his
copious and elaborate exposition. Without the originality of Hartley (whose work, after every deduction,
still stands in the highest rank of psychological literature), and without the severe precision of James Mill,
our author opens a fuller storehouse of illustration, and




CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.           267
spreads out its contents in a more telling and agreeable
way. He is master of all the dexterities of this law,
and prepared to show the utmost that can be done
with it.  Whether it is not overtasked is perhaps a
natural question with even the most trustful reader.
Its requirements are so modest, and its achievements
so grand, that it is apt to be suspected for the very
scale of its apparent victories.'Given the rudiments
of any brute,' —so it seems to state its problem, -'to construct the perfection of any angel.'  The five
senses and ganglionic spontaneities are briskly stretched
upon the Jacquard-loom: the cards, perforated according to theory, are hung upon the beam: and after a few
chapters of cheerful weaving, the divine form is finished
off; and you have the satisfaction not only of admiring
it, but of knowing exactly what its reason, love, and
goodness are made of, and how put together.  The
doctrine, appealing as it does chiefly to the earliest
experience, and making rapid use of the years of infancy, rests, to a dangerous extent, on a conjectural
psychology. It has already got over all its difficulties
before the age when reflection can put it to the test:
and when called in question by the mature and practised
self-consciousness, glibly answers that it is too late in
the day to bring up any inner evidence against it; that
its wonders are all wrought within us, and can no longer
be unravelled; that we have been so transformed by it
as not to know ourselves, and to be decipherable only
by its light; that what we take to be the simplest
mental states it knows to be superlatively complex;what, the primary truths of reason, to be the ultimate
tricks of language;- what, the native insight of con



268       CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.
science, to be the artificial imposition of social opinion.
It is always difficult, for want of recognized criteria, to
criticise hypothetical history; as, for want of common
substance, to fight a duel with a ghost. Being, however, to no small extent, at one with this doctrine, we
may perhaps hope to explain a scruple which checks our
complete assent to it.  For the sake of distinctness we
limit ourselves to a certain point.
All the langrage of the. doctrine is framed on the supposition that, a number of elements being given, and
laid detached before the mind, it cements them together
in groups and trains, in ever-increasing complexity.
The mental history is, in this view, a perpetual formation of new compounds: and the words, "Association,"
"Suggestion," "Cohesion," "Fusion," "Indissoluble
Connection," all express the change from plurality of
data to some unity of result. An explanation of the
process therefore requires two things; —a true enumeration of the primary constituents, and a correct
statement of their laws of combination: just as, in
chemistry, we are furnished with a list of the simple
elements, and then with the principles of their synthesis.  Now the latter of these two conditions we
find satisfied by the Association psychologists: but not
the former. They are not agreed upon their catalogue
of elements, or the marks by which they may know the
simple from the compound. The psychologic unit is
not fixed; that which is called one impression by Hartley is treated as half-a-dozen or more by Mill: and the
tendency of the modern teachers on this point is to
recede more and more from the better chosen track
of their master. Hartley, for example, regarded the




CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.               269
whole present effect upon us of any single object,
— say, an orange, — as a single sensation; and the
whole vestige it left behind, as a single "idea of sensation." His modern disciples, on the other hand, consider this same effect as an aggregate from  a plurality
of sensations, and the ideal trace it leaves as highly
compound.  The "idea of an object," instead of being
an elementary starting-point with them, is one of the
elaborate results of repetition and experience; and is
continually adduced as remarkably illustrating the fusing power of habitual association. Thus James Mill
observes:
"It is to this great law of association that we trace the
formation of our ideas of what we call external objects; that
is, the ideas of a certain number of sensations, received together so frequently that they coalesce as it were, and are
spoken of under the idea of unity. Hence, what we call the
idea of a tree, the idea of a stone, the idea of a horse, the idea
of a man. In using the names, tree, horse, man, the names of
what I call objects, I am referring, and can be referring, only
to my own sensations; in fact, therefore, only naming a certain
number of sensations, regarded as in a particular state of
combination; that is, concomitance.  Particular sensations
of sight, of touch, of the muscles, are the sensations to the
ideas of which, color, extension, roughness, hardness, smoothness, taste, smell, so coalescing as to appear one idea, I give
the name, idea of a tree." *
To precisely the same effect Mr. Bain remarks:
" External objects usually affect us through a plurality of
senses. The pebble on the seashore is pictured on the eye as
form and color. We take it up in the hand and repeat the
* Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, vol. i. p. 71.




270        CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.
impression of form, with the additional feeling of touch.
Knock two together, and there is a characteristic sound.
To preserve the impression of an object of this kind, there
must be an association of all these different effects.  Such
association, when matured and firm, is our idea, our intellectual
grasp of the pebble. Passing to the organic world, and plucking a rose, we have the same effects of form to the eye and
hand, color and touch, with the new effects of odor and taste.
A certain time is requisite for the coherence of all these qualities in one aggregate, so'as to give us for all purposes the
enduring image of the rose. When fully acquired, any one
of the characteristic impressions will revive the others; the
odor, the sight, the feeling of the thorny stalk, - each of these
by itself will hoist the entire impression into the view." (The
Senses and the Intellect, p. 411.)
Now, this order of derivation, making our objective
knowledge begin with plurality of impression and arrive
at unity, we take to be a complete inversion of our
psychological history.   Hartley, we think, was perfectly right in taking no notice of the number of inlets
through which an object delivers its effect upon us, and,
in spite of this circumstance, treating the effect as one.
Had he explicitly drawn out the principle which implicitly guided him, it would have assumed perhaps
something like this form:'That each state of consciousness, whether awakened through more or fewer
channels, is, during its continuance, originally simple;
and can resolve itself only by change of equilibrium.'
No psychological law appears to have higher evidence
than this; and, little as the range of its consequences
has been perceived, there are probably few who would
dispute it when stated in a general form. Were it not
true, the feeling of each moment, determined as it is by




CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.             271
innumerable conditions in our organism, not one of
which could change and leave our state the same, would
seem to us, or must once have seemed, infinitely intrieate. But the constancies of our system, however numerous, never disclose themselves till they break up;
the functional sensibilities of the organic life first report
their character when they go wrong; the muscles,
blended in a state of rest, detach themselves by the
permutations of motion, and acquire, as in learning
the use of a keyed instrument, more and more delicate
discriminations of feeling and action; and if the special
senses less obviously converge upon one psychologic
point, it is only because their relations are perpetually
shifting inter se, and disappointing our experiments of
the requisite statical conditions. But even now, after
life has read us so many analytic lessons, in proportion
as we can fix the attitude of our scene and ourselves,
the sense of plurality in our impressions retreats, and
we lapse into an undivided consciousness; losing, for
instance, the separate notice of any uniform hum in the
ear, or light in the eye, or weight of clothes on the body,
though not one of them is inoperative on the complexion of our feeling. This law, once granted, must be
carried far beyond Hartley's point.  Not only must
each object present itself to us integrally before it shells
off into its qualities, but the whole scene around us
must disengage for us object after object from its still
background by emergence and change; and even our
self-detachment from the world over-against us must
wait for the start of collision between the force we issue
and that which we receive. To confine ourselves to the
simplest case: when a red ivory-ball, seen for the first




272       CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.
time, has been withdrawn, it will leave a mental representation of itself, in which all that it simultaneously
gave us will indistinguishably co-exist. Let a white
ball succeed to it; now, and not before, will an attribute detach itself, and the color, by force of contrast, be
shaken out into the foreground. Let the white ball
be replaced by an egg: and this new difference will
bring the form into notice from its previous slumber.
And thus, that which began by being simply an object,
cut out from the surrounding scene, becomes for us first
a red object, and then a red round object; and so on.
Instead, therefore, of the qualities, as separately given,
subscribing together and adding themselves up to present us with the object as their aggregate, the object is
beforehand with them, and from its integrity delivers them
out to our knowledge, one by one. In this disintegration, the primary nucleus never loses its substantive character or name; whilst the difference which it throws off
appears as a mere attribute, expressed by an adjective.
Hence it is that we are compelled to think of the object as having, not as being, its qualities; and can
never heartily admit the belief of any loose lot of attributes really fusing themselves into a thing. The unity
of the original whole is not felt to go to pieces and be
resolved into the properties which it successively gives
off; it retains a residuary existence, which constitutes
it a substance, as against the emerging quality, which
is only its phenomenal predicate. Were it not for
this perpetual process of differentiation - of self from
the world, of object from its scene, of attribute from object, no step of Abstraction could be taken; no qualities
could fall under our notice; and had we ten thousand




CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.           273
senses, they would all converge and meet in but one
consciousness.  But if this be so, it is an utter falsification of the order of nature to speak of sensations
grouping themselves into aggregates, and so composing
for us the objects of which we think; and the whole
language of the theory, in regard to the field of synchronous existences, is a direct inversion of the truth.
Experience proceeds and intellect is trained, not by
Association, but by Dissociation, not by reduction
of pluralities of impression to one, but by the opening
out of one into many; and a true psychological history
must expound itself in analytic rather than synthetic
terms.  Precisely those ideas,-of Substance, of Mind,
of Cause, of Space, —which this system treats as infinitely complex, the last result of myriads of confluent
elements, are in truth the residuary simplicities of consciousness, whose stability the eddies and currents of
phenomenal experience have left undisturbed.  The
same inversion of the real mental order has exercised,
we think, an injurious influence on the whole Logic and
Philology of the Association philosophers; the organism of speech requiring, for its due interpretation, to
be read downward from its wholes into its parts; and,
without this, being hardly capable of construction upwards from the atoms of predication to its life.  We
cannot at present expand these hints; but they will
suffice to show the wide sweep which a fundamental
psychological truth or error cannot fail to have, and
how the whole configuration of philosophy may be
affected by even a slight want of precision in its first
lines. Mr. Bain often approaches very near the important principle (as it seems to us) of the Unity of
18




274        CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.
original consciousness; speaking, for instance, of "the
concurrence of Sensations in one common stream of
consciousness, in the same cerebral highway" (The
Senses and the Intellect, p. 359); and in the following passage not only recognizing, but enforcing, the
necessity of differentiation by change:
" Were it not for the primitive shock that difference gives,
there would be no basis for the intellect. All colors would be
alike; sounds would not be distinct from touches or smells,
and there would be no cognition possible in any sense. The
feeling of difference, therefore, is the first step; the impressing of that, under the plastic property of the mind, into an
enduring notion is the next. We begin by being alive to the
distinctive shocks of red and green, of round and oval, small
and large; by and by, we attain to the fixed notion of a rose
on its stem; thence we go on combining this with others, until
the mind is full of the most variegated trains of imagery.
The laws of association follow up, and do not necessarily
imply, or contain in themselves, the primordial sense of difference, which is the most rudimentary of all the properties of
our intellectual being. Analysis can descend no deeper, explanation can go no farther; we must make a stand upon this,
as the preliminary condition of all intelligence, and merely
seek to place its character in a clear and certain light." (The
Emotions and the Will, p. 626.)
Whilst insisting, however, on the indispensableness
of change of impression, Mr. Bain apparently thinks
this condition sufficiently provided for by the mere
co-existence of sensations through a plurality of Senses;
the power of discriminating which he attributes to the
Intellect as an ultimate and fundamental prerogative:
"The basis or fundamental peculiarity of the Intellect is
discrimination, or the feeling of difference between consecutive,




CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.              275
or co-existing impressions. Nothing more fundamental can
possibly be assigned as the defining mark of intelligence, and
emotion as such does not imply any such property." (The
Emotions and the Will, p. 614.)
"Consecutive impressions" involve change; but "coexisting impressions" do not: and if the discriminative
power is equally related to both, it is not dependent
on the occurrence of change. And conversely, if it demand change, it can do nothing with mere co-existing
impressions. This last position we believe to be the
true one; and we cannot assent to Dugald Stewart's
statement: "Although we had never seen but one rose,
we might still have been able to attend to its color,
without thinking of its other properties." *  Mr. Bain,
in concurring with this opinion of Stewart's, and attributing plurality to the original effect of a single
object, appears to us to forget his own doctrine as to
impossibility of any sense of difference without change,
and to let slip a psychological clue already familiar to
his hand.
We have lingered near the incunabula of the opposite psychologies in the hope that, by scrutiny of their
development at its initial stage, some approximate lines
might be found for them to prevent their rapid divergence. The only hope of improved mutual understanding lies at the beginning.   To discuss the ulterior
questions into which they run is a far easier and more
attractive task; but, at the same time, utterly useless,
till the logical preliminaries are determined - a mere
race from different starting-points over incommensurable
* Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, part ii. chap. iv.
sect. 1.




276       CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.
fields. The enormous differences which open out as the
two methods pursue their way suffice, for those who
know them, to throw an interest around the finer distinctions at the commencement. If the dualistic method
be admissible, we obtain at the fountain-head, unless
our ultimate constitution be unveracious, direct authority
for a few primitive cognitions, accurately corresponding
with the most rooted and universal beliefs of mankind
— viz. the substantial existence of ourselves as knowing
Subject, and of the external world as known Object;
the reality and infinity of Space as the seat of the latter
with its contents, and the reality and infinity of Duration as containing the successions of the former; the
origin of all phenomena from a causality not phenomenal.  In such judgments, accepted as the inherent
postulates of all intelligence, we have a few first truths
to render experience possible, and to form a basis for
reliable knowledge. If the monistic principle holds, if
the only thing accessible to us is our own phenomena,
if they are but transformed sensations, if, moreover,
they are phenomena of nothing and nobody, - it is idle
to speak of cognition at all; there is neither outer world
to be known, nor any "we" to know it: the inner
history alone is fact; and it can furnish no rational
propositions, except about the groupings, the successions, or the resemblances inter se, of the feelings and
ideas composing it.  Body means the experience of
certain muscular sensations; Space, the experience
of their absence; Infinity, the conception of their
possibility; and what we say of these can be only
autobiographical, without validity beyond. Causality
denotes the constant priority of one of our states to




CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.            277
another.  Belief means an association of ideas and
feelings, strong enough to stir muscular sensations.
Perception is a very misleading word; pretending to
refer some sensation to an object that gives it, but
properly referring it only to the group that has it.
Personality is the sum-total of all the feelings in any
one conscious life up to its present moment,- in common language, rather aristocratically limited to human
beings; and to say,'I committed this sin,' is to tack
on a new phenomenon at the end of a train and lengthen
its thread. There can be no first truths; for we form
no judgments till we have got language, and must have
the parts of speech before we can predicate any thing;
and then any stiff association of ideas, however arbitrary, is ready to set up for self-evidence. The propositions which assume this look are about nothing except
empty abstractions of the mind's creation, yielding only
an illusory certainty; and it is a rule that a Science, to
be demonstrative, must be hypothetical; and, to be
pure, its hypotheses must be false.  The steadiness
with which the thorough-paced Hartleyan walks through
these startling paradoxes, - the rigor with which he follows out their lines, with a pleasant sense of beauty and
discovery, - we cannot but regard as curiously expressive of the mind logical rather than psychological. The
skill and ingenuity are often marvellous; but to a very
large extent are expended, not in interpreting, so much
as in explaining away, your actual consciousness; in
converting it into some strange, uncomfortable coin,
declared to be its change in full; in apologizing for the
imperfect evidence of their equivalence, and showing
that it could not well be greater, considering all that




278       CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.
they have had to go through. Just as Mr. Darwin,
on finding fossil species disinclined to help him, fixes on
them an ex-parte character, and urges that his genuine
witnesses must have disappeared and become indistinguishably worked up into the very grain of the world;
so does the Association psychologist feel no discouragement from the refractory look of mental facts as
they are, whilst he can plead that the rudimentary forms
are compelled by the very hypothesis to vanish, and lie
mingled invisibly with the containing strata of the mind.
There is obviously a limit beyond which this kind of
plea cannot be carried without withdrawing the doctrine
it is meant to benefit from all rational test: and the
extent to which it is urged, measures the degree in
which conjecture takes the place of the vera causa.
Now, when it is remembered that almost every one of
the distinctively human phenomena presents a crux
interpretum to this school; that the points at which
suspicion of psychological tampering arises include the
Ideas of Space and Time, the ground of the Mathematics; of Substance and Causality, implied in Physics; of Personality and Obligation, the conditions of
Morals; of Right, the basis of Law; of Beauty, the
essence of Art; of Supreme Goodness, the inspiration
of Religion; that whilst Memory and Conception and
Habit are fairly explained, Belief and Volition are
analyzed out of their identity; the disproportion becomes striking between the assured value of the doctrine
and its cost. At-every one of these points, Mr. Bain's
exposition has, to our feeling, the peculiar character of
ingenious unreality which is so common in all the later
writings of his school, and which so markedly distin



CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN.          279
guishes the subtle misconstructions of Brown and Mill
from the faithful half-analysis of Locke. We find ourselves entangled continually in mere quasi-psychology,
which does not in the least speak to any thing within;
but shows how, under certain enumerated conditions,
an equivalent to the actual state of mind might be produced. This is more especially the case in the second
volume, where the author's description of the moral
phenomena seems to us to be drawn from some quite
imaginary human nature; and to have no relation to
the real experiences and faiths of tempted and struggling men. Highly significant of his method in this
respect is his habitual discontent with the language in
which men have embodied their ethical feeling and
thought. The great question of Moral Liberty is got
rid of by a wholesale objection to every one of its leading terms: "Freedom" is inappropriate; " Necessity"
is an incumbrance; " Self-determination " is a bad name
for motive pleasures and pains; " Choice" can mean
nothing but the ending of suspense in a single line of
activity; and so on.  These terms "have weighed like
a nightmare upon the investigation of th-e active region
of the mind."   Does the suspicion never cross Mr.
Bain that to cancel the vocabulary of moral thought and
feeling is to discharge the phenomena from his philosophy? We refrain, however, from following him at
present into this great field; his elaborate treatment of
which would require an independent discussion.




280
REVELATION; WHAT IT IS NOT AND WHAT
IT  IS.*
As there is a substance, we believe, which not only
burns in water, but actually kindles at the very touch
of water, so there certainly are insatiable doubts, which
not only resist the power, but seem to kindle at the very
centre of Christian faith. There is one question which
we should have supposed set at rest for ever in the
mind of any man who believes either in the revelations
of conscience or those of Scripture, — the question
whether or not it is permitted to man to know, and
grow in the knowledge of, God. If that be not possible, we, for our part, should have assumed that religion
was a name for unwise, because useless, yearnings in
the heart of man; and the Revelation - whether natural or supernatural — which professes to satisfy those
yearnings, simply a delusion. Yet so numerous and
closely twined are the threads of human faith and seep* What is Revelation? A Series of Sermons on the Epiphany; to which
are added " Letters to a Student of Theology on the Bampton Lectures of
1Ir. Mansel." By the Rev. F. D. Maurice, M.A. Cambridge: Macmillan,
1859.
Preface to the Third Edition of Mr. Mansel's Bampton Lectures on the
Limits of Religious Thought. London: Murray, 1857.
Characteristics of the Gospel Miracles: Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge. By F. B. Westcott, M.A. Cambridge: Macmillan.
National Review, July, 1859.




REVELATION; WHAT IT IS NOT, ETC.    281
ticism, that probably half the Christian world scarcely
knows whether to think God Himself the subject of
Revelation, or only some fragment of his purposes for
man; while professed apologists for Christianity are
often, like Mr. Mansel, far firmer believers in the irremovable veil which covers the face of God, than in the
faint gleams of light which manage to penetrate what
they hold to be its almost opaque texture. And, as we
have intimated, this doubt is not only not extinguished
by the Christian Revelation, but it seems in some cases
even to feed on its very essence.  Mr. Mansel seems to
regard the Christian revelation almost as express evidence that God is inscrutable and inaccessible to man,
in that it only provides for us a "finite" type of the
infinite mystery, and presents to us in Christ not, he
thinks, the truth of God, but the best approximation to
that truth - though possibly infinitely removed from it
-of which "finite" minds are capable.  In other
words, he believes in the veil even more intensely than
in the revelation: nay, he seems to think this profound
conviction - that the veil is inherent in the very essence
of our human nature, and indissoluble even by death
itself, unless death can dissever the formal laws of
human and finite thought — likely to enhance our reverence for the voices, so mysteriously " adapted" to
finite intelligence, which float to us from behind it.
"In this impotence of Reason," he says, "we are compelled to take refuge in faith, and to believe that an
Infinite Being exists, though we know not how; and that
He is the same with that Being who is made known in
consciousness as our Sustainer and our Lawgiver."
And again, in the preface to his new edition:




282                  REVELATION;
" It has been objected by reviewers of very opposite schools,
that to deny to man a knowledge of the Infinite, is to make
Revelation itself impossible, and to leave no room for evidences on which reason can be legitimately employed. The
objection would be pertinent, if I had ever maintained that
Revelation is, or can be, a direct manifestation of the Infinite nature of God. But I have constantly asserted the
very reverse. In Revelation, as in Natural Religion, God is
represented under finite conceptions, adapted to finite minds;
and the evidences on which the authority of Revelation rests
are finite and comprehensible also. It is true that in Revelation, no less than in the exercise of our natural faculties, there
is indirectly indicated the existence of a higher truth, which,
as it cannot be grasped by any effort of human thought, cannot be made the vehicle of any valid philosophical criticism.
But the comprehension of this higher truth is no more necessary either to a belief in the contents of Revelation, or to a
reasonable examination of its evidences, than a conception of
the infinite divisibility of matter is necessary to the child
before it can learn to walk."
The fact of Revelation, as it is conceived by Mr.
Mansel, is, then, a mere adaptation of Truth to human
forms of thought, whether it come through conscience
or through Scripture; in both cases alike it is the
formation in our minds of a "representative idea," or
type, of God, not the direct presentation of the Divine
Life to our spirits, which he believes that we could not
receive and live. By conscience the vision of a holy
but finite Judge, Lawgiver, Father, is borne in upon
our hearts, namely, through the consciousness of our
dependence and of moral obligation; by Scripture the
historical picture of a finite law, a Providence adapted
to finite minds, and lastly, a finite but perfect Son is




WH-AT IT IS NOT AND WHAT IT IS.       283
presented to our eyes. Thus certain messages have
issued from the depths of the infinite mystery, which
have been mercifully translated for us into the meagre
forms of human thought: some of them are spontaneously welcomed by human consciences; others, attested
as they are by superhuman marvels, and not inconsist-.
ent with the revelations of the conscience, are accepted
as convincing by human reason; and both alike help to
teach us, - not what God is, - but how we may think
of Him with least risk of unspeakable error. By these
necessarily indirect hints; as the truest of which our
nature is capable, Mr. Mansel entreats us to hold, and
to guide our footsteps; calling them "regulative truths,"
by which he means the best working hypothesis we
are able to attain of the character and purposes of
God. They are the only palliatives of that darkness, to
which the blinding veil of a human nature inevitably
dooms us. Revelation, we are told, cannot unloose the
"cramping" laws of a limited consciousness; it cannot
help the finite to apprehend the infinite; but it can do
something to guide us in our blindness, so that we may
not unconsciously fall foul of the forces and laws of that
infinite world which we are unable to know; it can give
us a "conception" of God, which is quite true enough
as a practical manual for human conduct. But, to use
Mr. Mansel's own words, " how far that knowledge represents God as He is, we know not, and have no need
to know."
With this theory of Mr. Mansel's we have already
dealt in part.*  WTe should rejoice that it had been
given to the world if only for the reply which it has
* See page 213.




284                REVELATION;
called forth from Mr. Maurice, - a reply which is not
merely an embodiment of a completely opposite conviction, but the insurrection of an outraged faith, the
protest of a whole character against a doctrine which
pronounces that all the springs of its life have been
delusions, and which tries to pass off human notions of
God in the place of God. Books generally go but a
little way below the outer varnish of men's individual
culture; and it is not a little delightful to meet with
any that has all the various life and complexity of the
mind itself. The somewhat thin and triumphant logic
of the Bampton lectures, the evident preference for
analyzing the notions of man rather than returning to
the study of the realities from which those notions were
first derived; the dogmatic condemnation of human
Reason to be imprisoned as long as it remains human
in "the Finite;" and finally, and most of all, the
gospel of God's inaccessibility, - might in any case
probably have drawn from Mr. Maurice a solemn protest; but when all these instruments are used avowedly
in defence of Christianity, and Christ is himself put
forward, not as the perfect Revelation, but as the least
inadequate symbol of the divine nature, we do not
wonder that the tone of Mr. Maurice's reply is, if
always charitable, often sad and stern. Mr. Mansel
preaches that the sphere of Reason is the field of
human things; Mr. Maurice, that every fruitful study
of human things implies a real insight into things
divine.  Mr. Mansel holds that the human mind is
"cramped by its own laws;" and that divine realities,
therefore, so far as they can be the subject of its
thoughts at all, must be stunted, or, as the phrase is,




WHAT IT IS NOT AND WHAT IT IS.               285
"accommodated" to the unfortunately dwarfed dimensions of the recipient: Mr. Maurice holds that the
mind of man is "adapted" to lay a gradual hold of
the divine truth it is to apprehend, and to grow into its
immensity; instead of the divine truth being " adapted"
to the little capacities of the human mind. Mr. Mansel holds, as we have seen, that Christianity tells us
just enough to keep us right with a God whom we cannot really know; Mr. Maurice, that the only way we
can be so kept right is by a direct and,.in its highest
form, conscious participation in the very life of God.
In attempting to discuss, with the help of our authors,
the true meaning and objects of a divine Revelation, we
shall not again travel over the ground which we have
before disputed with Mr. Mansel. His position, that
the so-called laws of human thought are'laws' in the
sense of arbitrary restrictions on intellectual freedom,
and not qualifications for real knowledge of any thing
deeper and wider than our own minds, we have already
sufficiently examined. We saw every reason to think
that the phenomena which induced him  to despair of
our capacity for any divine insight were phenomena
inherent in all intelligence, human or divine, because
describing the very essence of intelligence.* To this
ground, therefore, we shall not now return; but assuming at once that there is nothing in the essential character of human thought to betray its own a-priori
* Mr. Mansel, in his new preface, quotes our observation, that " relative
apprehension is always and necessarily of two terms together; if of sound,
then also of silence; if of succession, then also of duration; if of the
finite, then also of the infinite;" and replies: " This is true as regards the
meaning of the words, but by no means as regards the corresponding objects.
If extended to the latter, it should in consistency be asserted that the concep



286                      REVELATION;
incapacity for venturing into every region into which
human wants force us to gaze, let us take up the argument at once in its direct bearing on our communion
tion of that which is conceivable involves also the conception of that which
is inconceivable; that the consciousness of any thing is also the consciousness of nothing; that the intuition of space and time is likewise the intuition
of the absence of both."  Mr. Mansel has here supplied us with an excellent
illustration of the truth of our special position as to Finite and Infinite Space.
No doubt the general law of relative apprehension, as applied to language,
would require only that we should apprehend equally the meaning of the
relative terms, and not the corresponding objects. To understand what I
mean by " conceivable," I must understand what I mean by " inconceivable;" and perhaps the case of " sound " and " silence " is, as applied to the
knowledge received by a special sense, a discrimination of the same kind.
We insisted on this universal law, that the whole force of apprehension really
consists in discrimination, only because Mr. Mansel seemed to us to represent
this relativity of human thought as an imbecility requiring apology to those
higher intelligences which, as he seems to suppose, can apprehend all things
without discriminating one thing from another. But this general relativity
of human apprehension was not the main fact referred to in the passage from
which Mr. Mansel quotes. We were referring more particularly then to
special pairs of relative apprehensions, which are not merely united together
in logical significance, but which, as thus united, carry with them a conviction of objective reality, or in other words, which carry belief. In the case
of " succession " and "duration," change " and " cause," " Finite Space"
and "Infinite Space," the tie is not logical, but real. No one can conceive
"succession" without postulating infinite duration, nor awake to the consciousness of duration without an actual succession. No one can think of
finite space without postulating infinite space, nor awake to the consciousness of infinite space without an actual experience of finite space. No
one can think of a " change" without postulating a " cause," nor ask- for a
"cause " without consciousness of a " change."  The' conceivable " and the
"inconceivable" are mere logical correlatives, in which neither term carries
any belief. " The conceivable " is not a district cut out of a Whole described
as "' the inconceivable," as Finite Space is with respect to the Whole of
Infinite Space. The very word "finite" bears in itself testimony to the
positive meaning in infinite, and therein alone differs firom " definite," which
would be fully adequate to express all that is expressed by " finite," if there
were no more than an unsuccessful attempt to lay down a limit - if there were
not an absolute denial of a limit - in the word Infinite. In the special cases
referred to, then, the correlative is not formal and logical, but a real correlative in belief. We must say we cannot even understand what thinkers so
accomplished as Sir W. Hamilton and Mr. Mansel mean when they talk of
"Infinite" and "Infinitesimal" as purely negative ideas, implying only




WHAT IT IS NOT AND WHAT IT IS.                  287
with God, and see whether Mr. Mansel has really any
adequate ground for the assumption which his opponent, we think truly, regards as destructive of the very
spring of faith, — that though able to convince ourselves that God does exist, the mere "infinitude" of
his Nature renders it impossible for us to hold converse
with Him. Passing as rapidly as may be over these
somewhat artificial earlier difficulties, we shall reserve
Mr. Maaurice's help for the more positive and constructive part of our inquiry.
On what, then, does Mr. Mansel base his assumptions? Mainly on this, that if we really do hold direct
and conscious converse with God, we should find the
results of that converse, and of aptitude for it, inscribed
on our mental constitution. "A presentative revelation
implies faculties in man which can receive the presentation; and such faculties will also furnish the conditions
of constructing a philosophical theory of the object
presented." With the first part of this sentence every
one must agree; if God can be present, as we believe,
to the human mind, there must be faculties in us which
enable us to  discern  that presence.   But the latter
assertion, that such faculties will also enable us to construct "a philosophical theory of the object presented,"
failures to think. Almost every one knows that mathematicians practically
use these ideas,- distinguishing even between various orders of infinitude
with accurate results. The merest schoolboy knows, for instance, that an
infinitely small line, though of course impossible to picture, is a reality, and
so different in kind from a point, that it can be shown geometrically to contain as many points as the longest line in Nature. Is this all a jargon without
meaning, though it is a demonstrable certainty? As applied to " personalities," which are neither capable of increase nor diminution, the terms " Infinite" and " Finite" have either no meaning, or a totally different one; and
hence much of Mr. Mansel's confusion.




288               REVELATION;
seems to us a most amazing and gratuitous assertion.
A philosophical theory is possible when we stand above
our object, not when we stand beneath it. The learner
has faculties by which to learn; but if what he studies
is inexhaustible, he will never have a "philosophical
theory" of it. Principles, no doubt, he will reach;
certain truths to mark his progress he will discover; he
will know that he understands better and better that
which he can never comprehend; but a theory of the
whole he can never attain unless the whole be within
the limited range of his powers. Hence we entirely
deny Mr. Mansel's assumption, that direct converse
with God implies faculties for constructing "a theory"
of God. This is the fundamental error of his work.
He admits no knowledge except that which is on a level
with its object. Nothing is easier than to prove that no
plummet of human Reason can measure depths of the
divine mind; nothing falser than to suppose that this
incapacity shuts us out entirely from that Mind, and
proves it to be the painted veil of "representative
notions" of God, and not God Himself, who has filled
our spirits in the act of worship.
We hold, then, that this is Mr. Mansel's first, and
perhaps deepest, error.  He sees that we have no
"theory" of God which is not presumptuous and selfcontradictory, and he argues therefrom that we have
no knowledge. Surely he might have learned better
from the simplest facts of human life. Have we any
"theory' of any human being that will bear a moment's
examination? Yet is our communion with our fellow
men limited to a consciousness of our own notions of
them?  Are not " fixed ideas" of human things a sign




WHAT IT IS NOT AND WHAT IT IS.    289
of a proud and meagre intellect? Yet Mr. Mansel
practically denies all knowledge of divine things, except
knowledge through "fixed ideas."  He mistakes that
which hides God from us for that which reveals Him.
"Notions," "fixed ideas," of God, no doubt, and very
poor ones too, we have in abundance; but instead of
being the media of our knowledge, they are more often
the veil which every true moral experience has to tear
aside. When we turn to Him with loving heart and
conscience, we find half the crystallized and petrified
ideas, professing to represent his attributes, dissipated
like mists before the sun. To know is not to have a
notion which stands in the place of the true object, but
to be in direct communion with the true object. And
this is exactly the most possible, where theory,' or complete knowledge, is least possible.  We know the
" abysmal deeps" of personality, but have no theory of
them. We know love and hatred, but have no theory
of them. We know God better than we know ourselves, better than we know any other human being,
better than we know either love or hatred; but have no
theory, simply because we stand under and not above
Him. WTe can recognize and learn, but never comprehend. It is therefore idle to argue that knowing faculties imply the means of " constructing a philosophical
theory," when every case in which living beings share
their life and experience with us adds to our knowledge and to our grasp of principles; whereas we can
construct "theories" about only the most simple and
abstract sciences.
But this point granted, Mr. Mansel takes his next
stand in favor of a merely " notional" theology on the
19




290                REVELATION;
infinite nature of God. Admit, he says, that we cannot adequately comprehend our relations with finite
realities, still such knowledge as we have of them may
be direct, because our knowing power bears some definite proportion to the object known. But knowledge
of an infinite being should either imply or generate, -
so he reasons, — infinite ideas in your own intellect.
Have you such ideas? If so, produce them. If not,
admit at once that what knowledge you have of such
beings is not direct, not first-hand at all, but at best
only by representative ideas - miniature copies of the
Reality on an infinitely reduced scale. The object to
be known is unlimited; the intellectual receptacle a
very narrow cell. There can be no room there for that
which it professes to hold; if, therefore, any thing which
gives a real notion of that object actually has managed
to squeeze in, it can only be a minute image, a faint
symbol, an "adaptation" to the poverty of human
nature.  Only a finite fraction of the infinite Reality
could be apprehended by a finite intelligence at best;
and that, of course, would give far less conception of
the whole than a representative idea, reduced proportionately in all its parts to suit " the apprehensive powers
of the recipient." Such is, as far as we understand it,
the nature of Mr. Mansel's objection. " In whatever
affection," he says, "we become conscious of our relation with the Supreme Being, we can discern that consciousness only by reflecting on it under its proper
notion."  Mr. Mansel does reflect on it, through many
lectures, under several "notions," which he at least
conceives to be "proper;" and finding them all what
he terms finite, he ends by telling us that the human




WHAT IT IS NOT AND WHAT IT IS.           291
mind can only apprehend a finite type of God, and yet
is compelled to believe that God is infinite: whence he
argues we can have no direct knowledge of God at all,
but can only study a limited symbol of Him, which He
Himself has mercifully introduced into our minds, and
reproduced in an objective and more perfect form in the
incarnation of Christ. And if, still dissatisfied, any one
suggests to Mr. Mansel that knowledge of God, like
knowledge of human things, may be partial, but yet
direct, and progressive, in short, a real and growing
union of our mind with his, - he replies:
"The supposition refutes itself: to have a partial knowledge
of an object is to know a part of it, but not the whole. But
the part of the infinite which is supposed to be known, must
be itself either infinite or finite. If it is infinite, it presents
the same difficulties as before; if it is finite, the point in
question is conceded, and our consciousness is allowed to be
limited to finite objects. But in truth it is obvious, on a
moment's reflection, that neither the Absolute nor the Infinite
can be represented in the form of a Whole composed of parts.
Not the Absolute, for the existence of the Whole is dependent
on the existence of its parts; not the Infinite, for if any part
is Infinite, it cannot be distinguished from the Whole; and if
each part is finite, no number of such parts can constitute the
infinite."
Now what does all this prove?  This, and this only:
that if we take the words " Absolute " and " Infinite"
to mean that He to whom they are applicable chokes
up the universe, mental and physical, and prevents the
existence of every one else, then it is nonsense and
clear contradiction for any one else, who is conscious of
his own existence, to use these words of God at all.




292                REVELATION;
Surely this might have been said without so much circumlocution.  And what does Mr. Mansel thereby
gain? Simply, as far as we can see, that he has established the certain non-existence of any Being in this
sense " absolute" or " infinite."  Mr. Mansel denies
this, and says, "No, I have only proved that a philosophy of the Absolute and Infinite is impossible to man."
But if we ask, Why not to God also, and to all rational
beings who do not believe in any philosophy of selfcontradictions and chimeras? he will immediately turn
upon us and say, "Because, after all, you must admit
that there is an'Absolute' and an'Infinite,' and that
these terms ought to apply to God. It is our incompetence to conceive that involves us in all these selfcontradictions. If you are going to deny the existence
of the'Absolute' and'Infinite,' you will get into as
much trouble in another direction as if you admit and
try to reason upon them.  Suppose there is no Infinite
and Absolute, and we must assume the universe to be
made up of finites, and to be itself finite; which is the
more inexplicable alternative of the two?"
Now, in reply to this reasoning, we must say very
explicitly that it is a mere playing fast and loose with
words.  Mr. Mansel first wants the words "Infinite"
and "Absolute " to exclude all limitation or order of all
sorts. Every thing like essential laws of mind or character, - every mental or moral condition or constitution, self-imposed or otherwise, under which the Divine
mind could act,- he calls a limitation, and excludes
from the meaning of the words. When he has proved,
what is exceedingly easy to prove on such an hypothesis, that we can only speak of the Infinite in self



WHAT IT IS NOT AND WHAT IT IS.         293
contradictions, he says, "Well, then, here is an end of
the Absolute and Infinite. Clearly we are unable to
grasp this; but the only alternative is the'relative'
and'finite;' an alternative still more inexplicable."
And now, by "finite," we must remember, he means,
not that which acts under given conditions, — under
the limitations, say, of a Perfect Nature, infinitely rich
in creative power, though of ordered Creative Power,
issuing from the depths of an Eternal Holiness and
Eternal Reason, - but limited in every direction; conditioned everywhere, not by the life-giving order of
Character, but by the helplessness of external bonds.
We have no hesitation in saying that between unlimited Infinitude, understood in that sense in which Mr.
Mansel professes to think that less imbecile mental constitutions than. ours would find no contradictions, and
the absolutely cramped and fettered Finitude, understood
in the sense in which there is no realm of unlimited
development and free creation at all, - between these
extremes, we say, the whole universe of mind, from the
Divine to the human, is necessarily comprehended.
The one alternative, which Mr. Mansel does not deign
to admit into his religious dilemma even hypothetically,
-that of unlimited energy, conditioned by definite
laws, moral and spiritual,- is that which the Revelation of conscience and the Revelation of history alike
reveal to us as the actual standard of perfection.
The sense in which the "Absolute" and " Infinite" are
really self-contradictory terms, is the sense in which
we try to make them proof against every limitation;
and they are so in that case for the very simple
reason, that the absence of all positive characteristics




294                REVELATION;
is, as Mr. Mansel has himself admitted, not only as
great, but really a far greater limitation than the presence of those characteristics would be. A vacuum is
certainly not limited, like a human being, by any specific mode of life; but it must be said to be still more
limited by the absence of all modes of life whatever.
On the other hand, the sense in which the Conscience
and Reason of man eagerly assert the reality of an "Infinite" and "Absolute" Being, is not in the least the
sense in which they are self-contradictory terms.  TWe
are forced to believe in a being whose moral and intellectual constitution is, not vaguer and less orderly, but
infinitely distincter and more rich in definite qualities
and characteristics than our own; but whose free Creative Energies, as determined by those characteristics, are
infinitely greater also. The mental constitution which
impresses Order on the operation of Power is not, we
are taught alike by conscience and inspiration, a true
limzitation on life, in the sense of a fetter; but is rather
in itself a proper fountain of fresh life, and a conservation of Power which would otherwise neutralize
itself.  Our incapacity to conceive the "Infinite" and
"Absolute," in the sense in which they repudiate all
conditions, turns out to be a positive qualification for
conceiving them as names of God. We want them as
describing attributes in which we can trust, and we can
only trust in the attributes of a perfectly holy, and
therefore, in some sense, defined Nature.
WVe may be fully satisfied, then, as the great revelation of all experience, that the real fulness and perfection of character which we vainly strive to express
by the word "infinite" is not gained by the absence,




WHAT IT IS NOT AND WHAT IT IS.        295
but by the expansion and deepening, of those defined
moral qualities which Mr. Mansel wants to persuade
us are to be considered mere limitations of nature.
When, for instance, he applies the word " infinite," in its
physical sense, to the divine personality, and asks if it
does not exclude all other beings, because any other
really free will must impose a limit on the operation of
the divine will, -we ask if there would not be far
deeper limitation in the denial to God of the possibility
of that divine love which can exercise itself only on
free wills.  That only can be considered a real limitation which chokes the springs of spiritual life; and all
self-imposed limitation on absolute power which is the
condition of a real exercise of the spiritual or higher
springs of life is the reverse of real limitation.  This is
the lesson of every human responsibility. Is not every
new duty, social or moral, a limitation of some kind
- an obligation to others which at least in some direction appears to impose a limit on us, and yet which
enlarges the whole scope of our nature? And is it not
equally clear that a divine solitude would be more limited by the necessity of solitude, than by the freedom
of the beings who are learning to share the divine
life?
Mr. Mansel will say that all this is playing into
his hands. He had desired to persuade us that all
direct knowledge of God was impossible, because we
cannot tell what is limitation and what is not; in other
words, we can form  no adequate "conception" of
fulness or perfection of life. What seems to us limitation, may be, not limitation, but a mode of divine
power; what we reverently think of as belonging to




296               REVELATION;
God because it is included in our notion of power, may
not really belong to Him, but be, in fact, a human
limitation.  Assuredly this is so. We have already
admitted that if adequate or exhaustive notions, not
of God only, but of any living being, were needful to
us for direct knowledge, we should have no direct
knowledge of life at all. But we have been protesting
against Mr. Mansel, not for saying that we have no
adequate conception of God, but for saying that we
cannot be conscious of his presence with us, conscious
of the life we do receive from Him, conscious of what
He really is, in the same, indeed even in a far higher,
sense than that in which we are conscious of what
human beings are. Wre cannot tell whether this or
that would be a limitation on the divine essence; but
we can tell whether love and righteousness and power
flow from Him into us. Does this give us no knowledge of God? Does this give us no communion with
Him? "No," says Mr. Mansel; " for love,' and'righteousness,' and'power,' can be received into your minds
only in finite parcels, which give no approximation to
a knowledge of their infinite fountain." Here, afgain,
we come upon that delusive and positive use of the
word "infinite"' which, in spite of Mr. Mansel's protest
that "infinite" has only a negative meaning, runs
through his whole book. He says we do not know
what "infinite" means, and therefore cannot know that
the "finite" is like the "infinite."  We know God's
love, and are obliged to believe that it is immeasurably
deeper than we can know; and Mr. Mansel wishes to
persuade us that this last faith may change the whole
meaning of the first, that the very depth and truth




WHAT IT IS NOT AND WHAT IT IS.    297
which we assert ourselves unable to gauge ought to be
a source of doubt whether we know the reality at all.
A life comes into a man, the depths of which he cannot
sound; and his very conviction that he has not the
capacity to comprehend its fulness is to empty it of all
defined meaning! Surely Mr. Mansel must see that
"infinite" is a mere hollow word when used in this
way. The conviction we express by that word is simply that what we know to be restraints on our highest
and fullest life do not exist in God; but this conviction,
instead of leading us to fear that righteousness and
love change their nature in Him because He is " infinite," fills us with certainty that they do not. In short,
righteousness and love are qualities which, if we are
competent to know them really at all in any single act
of God's, we know to be the same in all acts; and all
that we mean by calling them infinite is, that we have
more and more to learn about them for ever, which will
not change and weaken, but confirm and deepen, the
truth gained in every previous act of our knowledge.
M. Mansel's notion, that because our knowing capacity
is limited and God inexhaustible, we can never know
directly more than such a fraction of his nature as
would be rather a mockery than a personal revelation,
is a mere physical metaphor. Our capacity for knowincg may be limited either so that partial knowledge is
delusive (as of one corner of a figure) if taken for the
whole; or so only that it is true in kind, and extends to
the whole, but utterly inadequate in depth. The latter
is of course true of all direct knowledge of a personality, which we know to be one and indivisible. What
we do not know is, then, mainly, the immeasurable




298               REVELATION;
range and inexhaustible depth of that which in a single
act we do know. Or if there be other characteristics
as yet wholly unknown, we know them to be in harmony; because belonging to the same perfect personality with those we do know.
In brief, we may sum up our differences with Mr.
Mansel on this head by saying, that if "infinite " is to
mean the exclusion of all definiteness of nature and character,- then we do know, and he himself admits that
it has no application to God, if only because it would
itself be a far greater limitation than that which it
excluded; that if, on the other hand, it be admitted to
be consistent with a defined character and constitution,
and to mean rather " perfect," — then that we certainly
have not an abstract idea of what this is, but have positive faculties for gradual conscious recognition of such
a Perfect being when manifested to our Conscience and
Reason, and an inextinguishable faith in his perfection
even as unmanifested. Finally, that if it be maintained that what we can thus recognize is as nothing
when compared with what is beyond our vision, we
may admit it, provided only that what we do know is
direct knowledge, and knowledge of God, not of a part
of God; and that it carries with it not merely a hope,
but a certainty, that the inexhaustible depths still unrevealed will only deepen and extend, instead of falsifying, that knowledge at which we have arrived.
We have dwelt somewhat long on what seem to us
the most transparent sophisms, because it is on them
that Mr. Mansel relies for his assertion that our knowledge of God cannot be direct; that Revelation cannot
reveal Him, but only a finite type of Him, more or less




WHAT IT IS NOT AND WHAT IT IS.    299
different from the reality — how different no one can
dare to say. Such a position destroys all interest in
the Revelation when it comes. If it be only a working
hypothesis, to keep us, while confined in the human,
from blindly and unconsciously dashing ourselves against
the laws of the divine; if it merely says, "Take this
chart, which necessarily alters the infinite infinitely to
make it finite; but nevertheless, if you steer by it, it
will save you as much from the rocks as if it were
true," - we do not believe any body would care much
for Revelation at all. We should say, "Show us fresh
realities, and whether they be finite or infinite, we will
attend; but as for these magical clues, which only
promise to keep us right, without showing us how or
why, we would rather be wrecked against one really
discovered rock, we would rather founder in the attempt
to sound on our own'din and perilous way,' than be
constantly obeying directions which are mere accommodations to our ignorance, and which will leave us, even if
we obey them strictly and reach the end of our voyage
in safety, as ignorant of the real world around us as
when we began it." Yet Mr. Mansel's great plea for
Revelation, as he understands it, is, that it provides us
with regulative though not with speculative truth,that it gives us wise advice, the wisdom of which we
can test by experience; though furnishing nothing but
guesses at the true grounds of that advice.
Now if any one is disposed to admire the apparent
modesty of this conclusion, and to acquiesce in it as the
true humility of mature wisdom, he will do well to study
in Mr. Manrice's profound volume the evidence that
every living movement of human thought, religious




300                REVELATION;
or otherwise, cries out against it. All regulative truth,
all truth, that is, which has a deep influence on human
action, all truth in which men trust, is founded in the
discovery of ultimate causes, not of empirical rules.
The distrust of empirical rules in science, in art, in
morals, in theology, is all of the same root.  It may
be safest to act on probabilities where there is no certainty; to act by empirical rule where the principle of
the rule is undiscovered; to follow a plausible authority
where there is no satisfying truth; and by such rules,
no doubt, in the absence of all temptation to disreyard them, men are occasionally guided when they
cannot reach any basis of fact. But, as Mr. Maurice
very powerfully insists, there is no single region of life
in which these "regulative" and approximate generalities exercise any transforming influence on the mind.
The smallest probability will outweigh the greatest if
it fall in with our wishes; the empirical rule suddenly appears specially inapplicable to the exceptional
case in which it becomes inconvenient. The plausible
authority is disputable where its recommendations are
irritating or painful.  It is quite different where we
have reached a fresh certainty, a new cause, a new
force, a new and self-sustaining, truth, a new fountain
of actual life. Actual things and persons we cannot
ignore; we may struggle with or defy them, but we
cannot forget to take them  into account.  For the
lottery-prize we will pay far more than it is worth,
the number of blanks scarcely affecting the imagination; the danger of detection never checks the bondfide impulse to crime; a single certain suffering which
will be independent of success or failure, - the anguish




WHAT IT IS NOT AND WHAT IT IS.        301
of conscience, which success rather intensifies, — will
outweigh it all. Exactly in proportion to the exclusion
of hypothetical and the presence of known and tested
elements is the really " regulative " influence exerted on
the human will.  Believe with Mr. Malnsel that Revelation gives us a more or less true notion of God, and
it will cease to kindle us at all. Recognize in it with
Mr. Maurice the direct manifestation of God to the
conscience, and the life thus manifested will haunt us
into war, if it do not fill us with its peace. If faith
give no certainty, it is not " regulative," but itself speculative; if it does not satisfy the reason, it cannot
overawe the will.  Mr. Mansel appears to regard the
phrase " satisfying to the reason" as applying to that
sort of knowledge which can answer every query of
human curiosity. He tells us that the influence of mind
on matter is a regulative truth, of which we cannot
give the least account, - and not, therefore, satisfying
to the Reason. In this sense, clearly, no living influence in the universe is satisfying to the reason; for we
cannot reason any thing into life. But this is a totally
different sense from that in which he invites us to surrender our desire for a reasonable knowledge of God,
as distinguished from a regulative message from Him.
Reason in the highest sense does not pursue its questions beyond the point of discriminating between a real
and permanent cause or substance, and a dependent
consequence or a variable phenomenon. It asks " why"
only till it has reached something which can justify its
own existence, and there it stops.  True Reason is
satisfied when it has traced the stream of effect up to
a living Origin, and discriminated the nature of that




302                REVELATION;
Origin. It is not the impulse of Reason, but, as Mr.
Maurice has finely said, the disease of Rationalism,
which continues to make us restless questioners in the
presence of those living Objects which ought to fill
and satisfy the Reason, — inducing us to ask for a
reason deeper than Beauty before we can admire, for
a reason deeper than Truth before we can believe,
for a reason deeper than Holiness before we can love,
trust, and obey. But no true Reason is, or ought to
be, satisfied with an echo, a type, a symbol, of something higher which it cannot reach. If it find transitory
beauty in the type, it turns by its own law to gaze on
the Eternal beauty beneath; if it find broken music
in the echo, it yearns after the perfect harmony which
roused the echo. Reason might be defined to be that
which leads us to distinguish the sign from the thing
signified, - which leads us back from the rule to the
principle, from  the principle to the purpose, from
the purpose to the living character in which it originated, -which, in short, will not be satisfied with any
image, but cries after the Original.
If this be Reason, then, to satisfy Reason is to find
out truly regulative truth; for what is it which, in the
passion and fever of life, truly transforms and chastens
human purposes?  Surely nothing but the knowledge
of realities, —sensible realities more than spiritual
abstractions, — spiritual realities most of all; mere
things painful or delightful far more than any abstract
ideas; men far more than things; men present more
than men absent; but men absent more than the dream
of an absent God, because we have lost our faith in
God altogether when we have lost our faith in his




WHAT IT IS NOT AND WHAT IT IS.         303
direct presence with us. We need scarcely take more
than one example of what Mr. Mansel calls regulative
moral truth.  It will be quite sufficient to test the
utterly hollow and unregulative character of the gospel
which he can alone deliver to his disciples. He tells us
that our human morality, like our human objects of
faith, is an adaptation to our condition; though it
surely must resemble, with quite inconceivable differences, the divine morality from which it has been
epitomized for us. What is his illustration? One so
extraordinary, that it is difficult to believe he was not
trying to prove that such reduced and " adapted " rules
and types can have no regulative influence on the
human will. He is arguing that there is not, and cannot be, "a perfect identity," or even "exact resemblances " between the morality of God and man, - that
actions may be " compatible with the boundless goodness of God which are incompatible with the little
goodness of which man may be conscious in himself."
The case he takes is the duty of human forgiveness.
It is the duty of man, he says, to forgive unconditionally a repented sin.  People who  argue that God
cannot be less good than man, assume that God must
do likewise. The fallacy lies, he maintains, in forgetting that the finite form of human duty essentially alters
the moral standard in the mind of God. This he
proves as follows:
"It is obvious, indeed, on a moment's reflection, that the
duty of man to forgive the trespasses of his neighbor rests
precisely upon those features of human nature which cannot
by any analogy be regarded as representing an image of God.
Man is not the author of the moral law; he is not, as man,




304                  REVELATION;
the moral governor of his fellows; he has no authority, merely
as man, to punish moral transgressions as such. It is not as
sin, but as injury, that vice is a transgression against man; it
is not that his holiness is outraged, but that his rights or his
interests are impaired. The duty of forgiveness is imposed
as a check, not upon the justice, but upon the selfishness of
man; it is not designed to extinguish his indignation against
vice, but to restrain his tendency to exaggerate his own personal injuries. The reasoner, who maintains'it is a duty in
man to forgive sins, therefore it must be morally fitting for God
to forgive them also,' overlooks the fact that this duty is binding
on man on account of the weakness, and ignorance, and sinfulness of his nature: that he is bound to forgive as one who
himself needs forgiveness; as one whose weakness renders
him liable to suffering; as one whose self-love is ever ready
to arouse his passions and pervert his judgment."
We scarcely ever met with a passage in any thoughtful writer which seems to us to contain deeper and
more disastrous misreadings of moral, to say nothing
of Christian truth, than this. To us the profound and
deadly falsehood lies exactly in that which constitutes
its value to Mr. Mansel —the assumption that man's
duty to forgive is not grounded in his likeness, but in his
unlikeness, to God. But it is not to this point we wish
to call attention, but to the worth of such a truth as
regards its power to regulate human conduct. If there
be anywhere a duty hard of performance, it is the
duty of human forgiveness. If there be one which
the ordinary nature of man spurns as humiliating, and
almost as a wrong to his whole mind, it is that duty.
Ground it in the very nature of God, in the holy living
will which, ever close to us, ever able to crush, is ever
receiving fresh injury, and yet, even in inflicting the




WHAT IT IS NOT AND WHAT IT IS.           305
supernatural anguish of divine judgment, is ever offering anew both the invitation and the power to repent,
- and you open the spirit to a reality which cannot but
awe and may melt it, in the hour of trial. But ground
it with Mr. Mansel on the old, worn-out, lax sort of
charity which is indulgent to others because it is weak
itself, and it will be the least regulative, we suspect,
of regulative duties. Mr. Maurice's exposure of the
hollowness of this foundation is too fine to omit:
"' The duty of forgiveness is binding upon man on account
of the weakness and ignorance and sinfulness of his nature.'
But what if the weakness, ignorance, and sinfulness of my
nature dispose me not to forgive?  What if one principal
sign of this weakness, ignorance, sinfulness of my nature is,
that I am unforgiving? What if the more weak, ignorant,
and sinful my nature is, the more impossible forgiveness.
becomes to me, the more disposed I amn to resent every injury,
and to take the most violent means for avenging it? It is my
duty to forgive, because I am' one whose self-will is ever ready
to arouse his passions and pervert his judgment.' To arouse
my passions; to what? To any thing so much as to acts of
revenge? To pervert my judgment; how? In any way so
much as by making me think that I am right and other men
wrong, and that I may vindicate my right against their wrong?
And this is the basis of the duty of forgiveness! The temper
which inclines me at every moment to trample upon that
duty, to do what it forbids! The obvious conclusion, then,
has some obvious difficulties. Obvious indeed! They meet
us at every step of our way; they are the difficulties in our
moral progress. Forgiveness is' to be a check on the selfishness of man.' Where does he get the check? From his
selfishness. It is the old, miserable, hopeless circle. I am to
persuade myself by certain arguments not to do the thing
20




306                  REVELATION;
which I am inclined to do. But the inclination remains as
strong as ever; bursts down all the mud fortifications that
are built to confine it; or else remains within the heart, a
worm destroying it, a fire consuming it. Whence, O whence,
is this forgiveness from the heart to come, which I cry for?
Is it impossible? Am I to check my selfishness by certain
rules about the propriety of abstaining from acts of unforgiving ferocity? God have mercy upon those who have only
such rules, in a siege or a shipwreck, when social bonds are
dissolved, when they are left to themselves! All men have
declared that forgiveness, real forgiveness, is not impossible.
And we have felt that it is not impossible, because it dwells
somewhere in beings above man, and is shown by them, and
comes down as the highest gift from them upon man...
And whenever the idea of Forgiveness has been severed
from this root, - whenever the strong conviction that we are
warring against the nature of God and assuming the nature
of the Devil by an unforgiving temper has given place to a
sentimental feeling that, we are all sinners, and should be
tolerant of each other, - then has come that weakness and
effeminacy over Christian society, that dread of punishing,
that unwillingness to exercise the severe functions of the
Ruler and the King, which has driven the wise back upon
older and sterner lessons, has made them think the vigor of
the Jew in putting down abominations, the self-assertions
of the Greek in behalf of freedom, were manlier than the
endurance and compassion of the Christians. Which I should
think too, if, referring the endurance and compassion to a
divine standard, I did not find in that standard a justification
of all which was brave and noble in the Jewish protest
against evil, in the Greek protest against tyranny. Submission or Compassion, turned into mere qualities which we are
to exalt and boast of as characteristic of our religion, become
little else than the negations of Courage and Justice. Contemplated as the reflections of that Eternal Goodness and




WHAT IT IS NOT AND WHAT IT IS.         307
Truth which were manifested in Christ, as energies proceeding from him and called forth by his Spirlt, -submission to
personal slights and injuries, the compassion for every one
who is out of the way, -become instruments in the vindication of Justice and Right, and of that Love in the fires of
which all selfishness is to be consumed."
We have done our best to explain why we utterly
disavow Mr. Mansel's interpretation of Revelation, as
a message intended to regulate human practice without
unfolding the realities of the divine mind. It is a less
easy task, but not less a duty, on the part of those who
are gravely sensible of the emptiness of such an interpretation, to give some exposition of the deeper meaning which the fact of revelation assumes to their own
minds.  We hold that it is an unveiling of the very
character and life of the eternal God; and an unveiling,
of course, to a nature which is capable of beholding
Him.  It is not, in our belief, an overclouding of
divine light to suit it for the dimness of human vision,
but a purification of human vision from the weakness
and disease which render it liable to be dazzled and
blinded by the divine light. It is, in short, the history
of the awakening, purifying, and answering, of the
yearnings of the human spirit for a direct knowledge of
Him. It proceeds from God, and not from man. The
cloud which is on the human heart and Reason can
only be gradually dispersed by the divine love; no
restless straining of turbid human aspiration can wring
from the silent skies that knowledge which yet every
human being is formed to attain.  Coming, from God,
this method, this "education of the human race," as
Lessing truly termed Revelation, has been unfolded




308                REVELATION;
with the unfolding capacity of the creatures He was
educating to know Him. Its significance cannot be
confined to any special series of historical facts; but
it is clear that the Divine government of the Jewish
race was meant to bring out, and did bring out, more
distinctly the personality of God, while the history of
other races brings out more clearly the divine capacities of man. Hence the co-operation of different nations
was requisite for the fulfilment of the Revelation.
Centuries were required for the complete evolution even
of that special Jewish history that was selected to
testify to the righteous will and defined spiritual character of the Creator.  Centuries on centuries will be
required to discipline fully the hurnfn faculties that are
to grow into the faith thus prepared for them. The
blindness of the greatest men, of the highest races, of
wide continents, cannot shake our faith that this purpose will be fulfilled; for the term of an earthly life is
adequate at best for its conscious commencement, and
only under special conditions even for that; nor are
there wanting indications that both in the case of men
and nations the longest training and the dreariest
periods of abeyance of spiritual life, are often preparations for its fullest growth. By tedious discipline,
by slow Providence, by inspirations addressed to the
seeking intellect of the philosopher, to the yearning
imagination of the poet, to the ardent piety of the
prophet, to the common reason and conscience of all
men, and by the fulfilment of all wisdom in the Son of
God's life on earth, has the Divine Spirit sought to
drive away the mists that dim our human vision.
Through its wants and powers alike human nature has




WHAT IT IS NOT AND WHAT IT IS.        309
been taught to know God. Its every power has been
haunted by a want till the power was referred to its
divine source, its very wants have become powers when
they have turned to their divine object. If this, then,
and nothing short of this, be Revelation, a living and
direct unfolding of that divine mind in which, whether
we recognize it or not, we "live and move and have
our being," - an eternal growth in our knowledge of
the eternal Life, - we ought not to rest satisfied with
showing that Mr. Mansel's reasons for disputing the
possibility of such a wonderful truth are unsound, - we
ought also to show by what criteria we judge that this
is the actual fact, the great reality, on which all our
love of truth and knowledge rests.
The first stage in any revelation must be, one would
suppose, the dawning knowledge that there is a veil
" on the heart" of man, and that there is a life unmanifested behind it. In Mr. Mansel's, as in our view,
this is a knowlege which can be gained by man; but
he makes it the final triumph of human faith and
philosophy to recognize and acquiesce in it; while we
hold it to be the very first lesson of the personal
conscience, the very first purpose of that external
discipline which was intended to engrave the Divine
personality on Jewish history, to teach that such a
cloud may ever threaten the mind and conscience, but
that it can be dispersed.
What, indeed, is the first lesson of the human conscience, the first truth impressed upon the Jewish
nation, but this, that a presence besets man behind and
before, which he cannot evade, and which is ever giving
new meanings to his thoughts, new direction to his




310. REVELATION;
aims, new depth to his hopes, new terror to his sins?
Where, then, if this haunting Presence be so overpowering, if it follow us as it followed the deepest minds
among the Jewish people, till it seem almost intolerable,
where is the darkness and the veil which Revelation
implies? Just in the fact that this presence does seem
intolerable; that it is so far apart from that of man,
that, like a dividing sword, it makes his spirit start;
that he seeks to escape, and is, in fact, really able to
resist it; that he can so easily case-harden his spirit
against the supernatural pain; that instead of opening
his mind to receive this painfully-tasking life that is
not his own, he can so easily, for a time at least, set
up in its place an idol carved out of his own nature, or
something even more passive than his own nature, and
therefore not likely to disturb his dream of rest. This,
we take it, is the first stage or act of revelation,
whether in the individual conscience, or in that special
history which is intended to reveal the conflicts between
the heart of a nation and the God who rules it. It
is the discovery of a presence too pure, too great, too
piercing for the natural life of man, - the effort of the
mind, on one pretence or another, to be allowed to
stay on its own level and disregard this presence, - the
knowledge that this must end in sinking below its own
level, - the actual trial and experience that it is so,the reiterated pain and awe of a new intrusion of the
supernatural light, - the reiterated effort to "adapt"
that light to human forms and likings,- the reiterated
idolatry which all such adaptations imply, whether
physical, as in the Jewish times, or intellectual, as in
our own, - and the reiterated shame of fresh degrada



WHAT IT IS NOT AND WHAT IT IS.        311
tion. If this be, as, we believe, the human conscience
testifies, whether as embodied in the typical history of
the Jews, or in the individual mind, the first stage in
that discovery which we call Revelation, what becomes
of Mr. Mansel's theory, that Revelation is the " adaptation " of the "infinite " to the " finite," of the perfect to
the imperfect, of the absolute morality to the poor capacities of a sinful being? If so, -why this craving
of the nature to be let alone, - this starting as at the
touch of a flame too vivid for it, —this comfort in
circumscribing, or fancying that we can circumscribe,
the living God in some human image or form of
thought, and worshipping that by way of evading the
reality? Does the human spirit ever quail thus before a
mere notion?  If God Himself is inaccessible to knowledge, should not we find it extremely easy to adapt
ourselves to any abstract or ideal conception of Him?
It is the living touch of righteousness, even though
human only, that makes us shrink; not the idea of
righteousness, which, as all theologies testify, is found
pliant enough. But if it be a righteous life and will,
not merely the idea or idol of a righteous life and
will, that stirs human nature thus deeply, and' finds us,
as it found the Jews, afraid to welcome it, awestruck at
the chasm which divides us from it, fearful to surrender
ourselves to its guidance, ready to adapt it in any way
to us, unready to adapt ourselves to it, - if, we say,
we know it to be a living will that thus checks, urges,
and besets us, Mr. Mansel's theory as to the narrow
limits of human knowledge would scarcely induce him to
deny that it is God Himself; for there is nothing in his
theory which is not almost as much contradicted by any




312                REVELATION;
living spiritual converse between the human spirit and a
spirit of perfect holiness as by direct converse with God.
This first stage of Revelation, which we have called
the Jewish, may be said to discriminate the divine
personality of God more sharply from his own works
and creatures than is possible or true in any subsequent and maturer stage of his unfolding purpose. It
is, in fact, the first stage in the divine "education"
of the individual conscience, as well as of the human
race; and is so vividly reflected in the national history
of Israel, only because that is the only history in which
the appeals of God to the corporate conscience of a
whole nation are recorded as fully as the actual national
deeds in which those appeals were complied with or
defied. In the history of other nations the divine will
for the nation has been at once far less vividly interpreted, and, even when adequately interpreted, far less
carefully recorded; it has been allowed to gleam forth
only fitfully through the often uneducated consciences
of national heroes; while in the case of the Jews,
we find a succession of great men, whose spirits were
more or less filled with the divine light, in order that
the world might see in at least one national history
some continuous record of the better purposes of God
for the nation, as well as of the actual life by which
those purposes were partially frustrated or fulfilled.
This, we believe, is the only peculiarity of Jewish
history, - that a race of prophets was permitted to proclaim, -with varying truth of insight, no doubt, but
still with far clearer and more continuous vision of the
divine purpose than any other nation has witnessed, -
what God would have had the people do and abstain




WHAT IT IS NOT AND WHAT IT IS.       313
from. To the nation itself this was not always a gain;
probably that which was evil in it would not have
grown into so stiff and hard a subsistence but for the
power inherent in divine light to divide the evil from the
good (for the vision of a purpose too holy for the life
of a people issues in greater guilt as well as greater
goodness); but for the world at large no doubt it has
been and is an immeasurable blessing, - strictly speaking, a Revelation, - to see written out, parallel with the
national life of a single people, the life to which God,
speaking through the purest consciences of each age of
their history, had called them. But the phase of Revelation which we see in Jewish history is simply, on the
scale of national life, what the first discovery of God
by the individual conscience is in individual life. In
both cases there is a contrast presented between God
and man, between God and nature, sharper than
belongs to any other stage of his unfolding purposes.
The separate personality of God is engraved on Jewish
history with an emphasis which indicates that to the
Jew there seemed scarce any common life between
God and man, - any bridge between the supernatural
will and the easy flow of Nature. And is it not thus
engraved on the individual conscience when first man
becomes aware that the natural veins and currents of
his character tend to a thousand different ends, whither
the brooding Spirit of God forbids us to go, -or
whither if we do go, it haunts us with throes of supernatural anguish till we turn again? Is it not simply
the discovery that the actual bent of our whole inward
constitution is not divine, -the despair of seeing how
it is ever to become so, — which makes us, like the




314                REVELATION;
Jew, separate the divine Spirit so sharply from his
living works and creatures, that for a time we doubt
whether the nature within us can be used by God at all
— whether, much rather, its forces must not be wholly
cancelled, before the will can be set free?
But this sharp contrast between the personality of
God and the nature of man, and in lesser degree
of the external universe, is not and cannot be final.
And if the Jewish history witnesses that the Will of
God is the starting-point of a new order, that the
forces of human nature must be brought into subjection
to that, if they can be used by God at all, - then the
history of a hundred other nations, more especially
of the Greeks, and in later centuries of the Teutonic
races, does testify with equal explicitness that natural
life is essentially divine, and requires at most remoulding by the Eternal Spirit,- a remoulding which is so
far from cancelling, that it brings out the true nature
in all its freshness, — in order to become the fitting
organ of a Supernatural Righteousness. In other words,
while man takes his stand on the level of his own
motives and affections, and shrinks from  the transforming influence of the Spirit of God, these motives
and affections are the veil which needs taking away;
but if he will permit himself to be raised above that
level, and will open his heart freely to the supernatural influence at which he trembles, then it will not
be against the voice, but by the voice of his own
spiritualized motives and affections, that God Himself
speaks. The veil itself becomes transparent; the glass
that was dark, luminous. Accordingly the revelation
to conscience, which is more or less Jewish, and sets




WHAT IT IS NOT AND WHAT IT IS.        315
all the fibres of the natural life quivering like an aspenleaf in the wind, is necessarily partial and temporary.
Even in the highest of the prophetic strains there is
perhaps an undervaluing of nature, and human nature
in its natural manifestations,- a disposition to anticipate something like a revolution rather than a regeneration in its constitution, to represent direct praise of
God as better and more worthy than the indirect praise
implied in its perfect natural development. Could
God's Self-Revelation have been stayed at that point,
we doubt whether Gentile nations, — the Greek for
instance, - could ever have embraced it.  Deep sensibility to the divine beauty of all human faculty and
life was so deeply wrought into the very heart of
Greece, that the Greek only recoiled at the Hebrew
vision of a God before whose presence human faculty
seemed to pale away like starlight in the dawn. Nor
could the Hebrew faith itself have lived on permanently in that phase. Already, before the Jewish era
came to a close, the danger of idolatry with which
Jewish faith was first threatened, -the danger that
God would  be confounded with  his works, -had
merged in the danger that He would not be recognized
as living in his works. There is an exactly parallel
movement in the history of the Revelation of God to
the individual conscience.  When first
"Those high instincts before which our mortal nature
Doth tremble like a guilty thing surprised"
come upon us, we feel that man is nothing, and God
every thing; but soon human nature re-asserts its dominion; and if there be no full reconciliation between
the two, either the "high instincts" become ossified




316               REVELATION;
into dogma, and the mortal nature runs a fouler course
in their presence than it would in their absence, or
they fade away again altogether.
There is a natural and legitimate revolt in man against
any Supernaturalism which does not do full justice to
nature: and the opposite risk of a deification of nature,
such as Greece and the Gentile nations were prone to,
produces perhaps less fearful, certainly less unlovely
results than the error which divorces nature from God,
and by disclaiming in the name of piety any trace in
Him of the life of the world, strips that world bare of
all trace of God. Judaism taught us for ever that
Nature must be interpreted by our knowledge of God,
not God by our knowledge of Nature; but it was only
the perversion of Judaism which completely dissolved
the tie between the two. The Greek shuddered, and
with reason, at the sacrilege of ignoring the breath of
divine life in the harmony of the world; but it was but
a perversion of Hellenism when the Pantheist sought
to identify the two, - to multiply his delight in natural
organisms until their influences fell into a kind of musical harmony in his mind, which he called the Divine
Whole. Both of these opposite tendencies are equally
perversions. And both alike witness to the expectation
in the human mind of some Revelation of the true tie
between the life of God and the life of his creatures,the yearning to know, not only what God is in his
essential character, but what seed of his own life He
has given to us, and what power it is by which that
seed may be guarded through its germination from the
extinction or corruption with which it is threatened.
Accept with the Greek the capacity for a divine order in




WHAT IT IS NOT AND WHAT IT IS.        317
man and the universe; accept with the Jew the reality
of the "Lord's Controversy" with man; and how are
the two to be reconciled? how is the supernatural righteousness to avail itself of the perverted growths of
human capacity? how is the "Lord's Controversy" to
be set at rest?
This was a question which the Jewish Revelation
never solved for the questioner, — except so far as it
taught him that God could conquer the most rebellious
nature. But even then he recognized the Supernatural
will as triumphing over the poverty of human and natural life, rather than as revealing itself actually through
and in the divine springs of that life. The "Controversy" was solved for him rather by the power of God
over nature than by the power of God in nature. But
what was it that the Gentile nations craved? Some
new conviction that the supernatural was not at war
with the constitution of nature, but the eternal source
of it; that the gradual growth, the seasonal bloom, the
germinating loveliness of the natural and visible universe, culminating in the wonderful life of man, is itself
not a veil but a revelation, a harmony of voices addressing us from the Divine life, and claiming our allegiance
to One higher than themselves. They too saw, what
the Jew had been taught, that in fact this was not
really so, that there was a jar, a discord somewhere;
but if they saw far less clearly whence came the power
which could command the discord to cease, they saw
far more clearly that, if it could cease, the true nature
would be restored and not conquered, vindicated and
not extinguished, strengthened not exhaled.
The human condition of this revelation, as of all




318                REVELATION;
other Revelation, is born with the human mind. The
Supernatural and Righteous Will, who besets and
confronts on every side the unruly impulses of our
lower self, is revealed to the Conscience, and without
the Conscience could not be revealed at all. But
besides this, there is another experience of man's which
renders him capable of another revelation. Quite apart
from the conscience and the sense of guilt and the law,
- quite apart from the living WTill, who looks into our
hearts and searches out their evil, - there is, we suppose, in every man a more natural and genial experience
of the spontaneous growth and unfolding, or it may be
only the effort to unfold, of the true nature as it ought
to grow, — a gentle spontaneous resistance to the
shapes into which our faults and imperfections force or
try to force it, - the effort of the true man within us to
grow into his right and perfect state in spite of the
resistance of frailty, incapacity, and sin. WYhat we are
now speaking of is not an experience merely of the
moral life, but of the whole nature. Does not every
man feel that there are unused capacities of all kinds
within him, gently pressing for their natural development? -that a living tendency urges us to grow, not
merely in moral but in physical and intellectual constitution, towards the individual type for which we were
made?- that the various frictions of evil, moral or
merely circumstantial, which prevent this, when it is
prevented, distort the true divine growth, and leave us
less than what we might have been? It'was this experience which the religion of Greece has preserved so
vividly, -— the faith that, beneath the deformity of real
life, there is a formative plastic power that is ever




WHAT IT IS NOT AND WHAT IT IS.        319
urging us towards our truest life; beneath ungainliness,
a growth, or effort to grow, of something more harmonious; beneath ignorance, a growth, or effort to grow, of
the true understanding; beneath impurity and evil, the
growth, or effort to grow, of the true moral beauty.
It was, we believe, to this experience in every man's
mind, - an experience which cannot be called moral
so much as the true instinct of life, - that the unveiling of God in Christ appealed, and which fitted the
Christian revelation to include the Greek as well as
the Jew. There at last was the harmony of the Supernatural and the Natural, — the divine effort at harmonious growth which seemed to be in every man,
unfolding from the germ to the full fruit without the
canker or the blight, and yet at the same time revealing
to all of us exactly what the Supernatural vision reveals
to the conscience, the absolute will of good, the divine
anger against sin, the infinite chasm between evil and
good, the power and holiness of God. What was this
life, in which the unity of God and man was at length
vindicated? Did it not utter in clearer accents the
awful Will which had spoken within the Jew? Did it
not image in living colors the perfect nature which
had stirred so gently and breathed so deep a sense of
divinity into the finer- folds of Grecian life? Was it
not at once the answer to that craving for a true vision
of the moral nature of God which had haunted the
Hebrew conscience, and the answer to that craving
for a true vision of the undistorted life of man which
had haunted the Grecian imagination? True, it was a
vision of the Father only as He is seen in the Son, of
the filial and submissive'Will, not of the original and




320                REVELATION;
underived Will; but as it is the perfection of the filial
Will to rest in the NWill of his Father, the spiritual
image is perfect, though the personal life is distinct.
And this was, in fact, exactly what answered the
yearning of the Greek for an explanation of that
living germ of divine life within him. Was it not a
perfect nature, filial like his own, - the very nature
into which he was capable of growing,- that had thus
been pushing against the weight of deformity, stirring
the sources of natural perfection, and warning him
that his mind was growing in wrong directions, and
not blossoming into the beauty for which it was designed? He was ready to recognize as the divine
Word, which had grown into perfect humanity in
Christ, the very same higher nature which had been
in him but not of him; which had filled his mind with
those faint longings after something that he might have
been and was not; which was still stirring within him
whenever a new blight, or a new failure, or a new sin,
threatened to divert him still further from the destiny
to which he knew he was capable to attain. The secret
Will of God was, according to the longing of the
Jews, first fully manifest in Christ; the secret hopes
of man were, according to the " desire of all nations,"
there first fulfilled.
If Christ, then, was to the Jew mainly the Revelation of the Absolute Will as reflected in the perfect
filial will; to the Greek mainly the revelation of that
perfect human nature which had been so long stirring
within him, we might expect to find acts in which he
especially revealed the living Ruler of the Universe,
and acts in which he especially revealed the inward




WHAT IT IS NOT AND WHAT IT IS.        321
influences which were to restore order to the human
heart; -acts in which he manifested the Father, and
acts in which he unsealed the eternal fountains of purity
in human life. Mr. Maurice, in answering Mr. Mansel's assertion that the Abselute is beyond human vision,
calls attention especially to the former class. He intimates that in the miracles and the parables, for instance, we have Revelations of the spiritual source of the
physical world. Mr. Wescott's thoughtful little book
pursues the same track with regard to the miracles only.
The tenor of both writers is the same. There had been
ever in man an awe at the mighty powers of the physical universe, and the apparent recklessness with which
these powers acted. The Jew, who loved to see in
God the source of all power, still hardly dared to refer
these crushing forces to the same national Providence
which had guarded and governed his race with a personal care so express. The Greek thought them in
their awful undeviating order far more sublime than he
could have done had he held them to be exercises of
a mere Supreme Will. But yet he would willingly
have connected them with an order, spiritual as well as
physical, such as he recognized in the destinies of men.
Christ, by manifesting the power which controlled and
upheld them, and yet manifesting it with a healing
and life-giving purpose, answered both these cravings.
"These powers," the miracles said, "which seem so
physical, so arbitrary, sometimes so destructive, - which
sometimes appear to be wielded by an evil spirit, - are
in the hands of one who would heal men's miseries,
restore their life, moral and physical, purify them
from disease, and hush the storm  into a calm: if it
21




322                 REVELATION;
ever seem otherwise, be sure that the seeming destruction has a life-giving purpose, the physical disease a
deeper healing influence; that the tempest is a bringer
of serener peace, the blindness a preparation for diviner
light.  The order of the universe has a spiritual root;
the purpose of love which changes, is also the purpose
of love which directs it. He who can bind and loose
the forces of nature, has thus revealed the eternal
purposes in which they originate."
So again, Mr. Maurice, in a sermon of great beauty,
claims for the parables that they were intended to
reveal the spiritual significance which had been from
the first embodied in the physical processes of the universe, - that the analogy between the light of the body
and the light of the spirit, the sowing and reaping of
the external and of the spiritual world, and the other
analogies in what we usually call Christ's "figurative"
language, are not really metaphorical, but exhibit the
perfect insight of the divine mind of the Son into the
creative purposes of the Father.  If it be true that
the creator of our spirits is the creator of our bodies
also, we might only expect that he who revealed the true
life of the one, would know and exhibit its close natural
affinities with the life of the other. Is not the physical
universe as a whole meant to be for man the vesture of
the spiritual universe? Is not all the truest language,
therefore, necessarily what we call figurative; and only
false when the spiritual is interpreted by the physical,
instead of the physical by the spiritual?
"But if there is this correspondence between the organs
of the spirit and the organs of sense, if experience assures
there is, does not that explain to us the meaning and power of




WHAT IT IS NOT AND WHAT IT IS.            323
the parables? May not all sensible things, by a necessity of
their nature, be testifying to us of that which is nearest to
us, of that which it most concerns us to know, of the mysteries of our own life, and of God's relation to us? May it
not be impossible for us to escape from these witnesses?
They may become insignificant to us from our very familiarity with them; nay, we may utterly forget that there is any
wonder in them. The transformation of the seed into the
full corn in the ear may appear to us the dullest of all phenomena, not worthy to be noted or thought of. The difference
in the returns from different soils, or from the same soils
under different cultivation, - the difference in the quality of
the produce, and the relations which it bears to the quality
of the seeds,- may be interesting to us from the effect such
varieties have upon the market, from the more or less money
we derive from the sale; not the least as facts in nature, facts
for meditation. The relation between a landholder or farmer
and those who work for him, between a shepherd and his
sheep, all in like manner may be tried by the same pecuniary
standard; apart from that, they may suggest nothing to us.
Thus the universe becomes actually' as is a landscape to a
dead man's eye;' the business in which we are ourselves
engaged, a routine which must be got through in some way
or another, that we may have leisure to eat, drink, and sleep.
Can any language describe this state so accurately and vividly
as that of our Lord in the text? Seeing we see, and do not
perceive; hearing we hear, and do not understand."
This revelation, however, through Christ, -by his
life, by his miracles, by his parables, by his resurrection and ascension, - of the Supreme Will, would not
have fulfilled as it did the "desire of all nations," had
it not also revealed that living power in man by which
human nature is wrought into his likeness. To know
God has been, in all ages, but an awful knowledge,




324                REVELATION;
until the formative influence which is able to communicate to us his nature is revealed also. And accordingly, Christ no sooner disappears from earth than all the
Christian writings begin to dwell far more on the new
strength he had revealed within them than on his
outward life.  The interior growth of divine nature
thus revealed might be called new, because now first
they recognized it as a divine power, as a power they
could trust, as a life that would grow by its own might
within them if only they did not smother it and were
content to restrain their own lower self from any voluntary inroads of evil. This power had been there, no
doubt, in all men and all times; the germinating life of
an inward spirit of involuntary good had never been
a stranger to man; it had always pushed with gentle
pressure against the limits of narrow minds and narrow
hearts and of positive evil, — not, indeed, with the
keen and piercing thrusts of divine judgment, but with
the spontaneous movement of better life striving to cast
off the scale of long-worn habit. But now this power
was not only felt, but its origin was revealed. It was
that same divine human nature which had been embodied in the earthly Christ that was stirring in the hearts
of all men. It was he, whose life had been so strange
and brief a miracle of beauty, to whom they might
trust to mould afresh the twisted shapes of human
imperfection, to push forward the growth of the good
seed and the eradication of the tares within them. The
same life which had shed its healing influence over the
sick and the sinful in Galilee and Judea, was but
the human form of that which fostered the true nature
beneath the falsehoods of' all actual life, and worked




WHAT IT IS NOT AND WHAT IT IS.        325
within the disciples as they preached their risen Lord.
It was not they, but " Christ that worked in them."
Here was the true explanation of the unity of the
human race, the common life which was the source of
all that was deep and good; as separative influences
grew out of all that was profoundly evil. They were
all members of Christ; his nature was in them all,
drawing out the beauty and chastening the deformity,
breathing the breath of universal charity, and kindling
the flame of inextinguishable hope. This was a power
to trust in, the image of the Father's will, because
breathing the very spirit of that will; and fuller of
hope than any vision of a holy king commanding an
allegiance which they could not bend their stiff hearts
to pay, or conquering their moral freedom without acting on the secret springs of their humanity. They had
known this power in themselves before; but they
had not read it aright, because they had not estimated
aright its source and the certainty and universality of its
operation. They had not before known it as directly
manifested in him who opened the eyes of the blind,
and cleansed the leper, and stilled the storm; who
forgave sins, and wrestled with temptation; and finally
passed through the grave, and trouble deeper than the
grave, without being "holden" of it, because his will
was freely surrendered to his Father.
Here, then, was a revelation not simply of the Absolute nature of God, but of the formative power of
Christ that is at work to cancel distorted growths, and
even mere natural deficiency in every human heart.
But it was to do more than this, - it was to take away
sin itself from those who could bring themselves to trust




326                REVELATION;
their hearts freely to his influence; — to reveal to them,
in short, the great divine law that, as through the unity
of human nature "if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it," so through the same unity a new
life may spread into even the weakest and corruptest
member. It was to reveal it as the highest privilege of
this great central human life to purify others when once
their will begins to turn towards him by entering into
the very heart of their evil and reaching the very core
of their inward misery; so that while new life returns
to them, the shadow of pain inseparable from the perfect knowledge of human guilt falls back on the spirit
of the great Purifier. This was the revelation of the
true nature in man; a nature that not only, as the
Gentile nations felt, asserted the primitive truth and
goodness properly belonging to every human creature,
but that is capable of restoring that truth and goodness,
cancelling the sinful habit, melting the rigid heart,
emancipating the sullen temper, by the mere exertion
of its spontaneous fascination over any spirit which
once surrenders to its control. And this, accordingly,
is the great subject of Christian writers after once
Christ had left the earth. It was to them a new discovery that the restorative power in every heart was
not the power of their own wills, which they knew to
be limited at most to a rejection of evil acts, but the
very same power which had grown up into a perfect
humanity in Christ, and only required an act of continuous trust to claim them for its own. To trust in such
a power was not hard, to stifle the active rebellion of
their own wills was possible; but to purge the turbid
fountain of their human life, had that also been required




WHAT IT IS NOT AND WHAT IT IS.        327
of them, as both Jew and Gentile had often dreamed,
was mere impossibility. To know who it was who was
working in them, was to multiply infinitely the regenerating power of his life.
Such, then, we hold to be the essence of the divine
Self-Revelation of God. Into the question of its exact
relation to the historical narrative in the Bible, slightly
touched upon both by Mr. Mansel and Mr. Maurice,
we cannot here enter.  While accepting gratefully the
many new and brilliant lights which all Mr. Maurice's
writings, and this last perhaps most of all, have cast on
the deepest subject into which the human heart can
enter, we should perhaps differ most from him in his
biblical criticism. A mind so rich in meditative wisdom
as his, so ready to snatch a religious truth from the
strangest confusion of historical incident, seems scarcely
able to appreciate the kind of impression which inconsistent and sometimes inconceivable statements, supported by no appreciable evidence, -such, for instance,
as that of the star which is said to have guided the
Magians to the manger at Bethlehem, -make on ordinary students with regard to all historical details,
indeed to all the historical elements of Revelation.
Mr. Maurice is as deeply persuaded as we are that
the fullest and freest criticism will work out the most
happy issues. For ourselves, we feel little doubt that
such criticism will show a large admixture of untrustworthy elements in the narrative of both Old and New
Testament; and that if it prove so, the mere emancipation of the intellect from what seems a purely
literary superstition as to the truth of the Bible narratives, will probably bring far more gain to the spiritual




328    REVELATION; WHAT IT IS NOT, ETC.
freedom of man, and do far more to direct attention to
the spiritual evidences of all divine truth, than any
other result could educe. We believe Bibliolatry has
been, and is likely long to be, the bane of Protestant
Christianity. Spiritual realities would indeed be recognized as spiritual realities by few, had they had no
perfect manifestation in the actual works and Providence
of God, — had not the desire of the heart been embodied in the desire of the eyes. But that no minute
history was needful of the earthly life of him who can
interpret his own meaning, and who came that he
might draw the veil from eternal power and truth, and
not to fascinate men's eyes and hearts to one single
illuminated point of space and time, - is sufficiently
proved by the absence of all records of his life which
can be called minute, or which do not rely on the faithfulness of memory even for their outlines.  Human
vanity, eager to guarantee its own immortality, carries
laboriously about all the paraphernalia for setting down
every word and action before its transient life is spent.
He who is solving the agonizing problems of ages,
speaking to the depths of the human spirit in generations on generations yet unborn, and uttering "the
things which have been kept secret from the foundation
of the world," can afford to dispense with the minute
history of his life, when he has power to turn every
human conscience into a new witness of his truth, and
every heart into a new evangelist of his glory.




329
PERSONAL INFLUENCES ON OUR PRESENT
THEOLOGY: NEWMAN  COLERIDGE- CARLYLE.*
"THEOLOGY," says Mr. Macaulay, in his mischievous
way, "is not a progressive science." It may, however,
be retrogressive; and it is sure to repay flippant neg* The Arians of the Fourth Century; their Doctrine, Temper, and Conduct, chiefly as exhibited in the Councils of the Church, between A.D. 325
and A.D. 381. By John Henry Newman, M.A., Fellow of Oriel College.
Second edition, literally reprinted from the first edition. 8vo. London: E.
Lumley. 1854.
Callista; a Sketch of the Third Century.  By Dr. J. H. Newman.
12mo. London:'Burns and Lambert. 1856.
The Defence of the Archdeacon of Taunton, in its complete form. Royal
8vo. London: J. Masters, and J. H. and J. Parker. 1856.
Notes, Theological, Political, and Miscellaneous. By Samuel Taylor
Coleridge. Edited by the Rev. Derwent Coleridge, M.A. London: Moxon.
1853.
Charges to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of Lewes, delivered at the
ordinary Visitations in the years 1843, 1845, 1846. By Julius Charles Hare,
M.A., Archdeacon. Never before published. With an Introduction, explanatory of his position in the Church with reference to the Parties which divide
it. Cambridge: Macmillan and Co. 1856.
The Doctrine of Sacrifice deduced from the Scriptures. A Series of
Sermons by Frederick Denison Maurice, M.A., Chaplain of Lincoln's Inn.
Cambridge: Macmillan and Co. 1854.
St. Paul and Modern Thought: Remarks on the Views advanced in
Professor Jowett's Commentary on St. Paul. By J. Llewelyn Davies, M.A.,
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Incumbent of St. Mark's, Whitechapel. Cambridge: Macmillan and Co. 1856.
Passages selected from the Writings of Thomas Carlyle. With a Biographical Memoir. By Thomas Ballantyne. Post 8vo. London: Chapman
and Hall. 1856.
National Review, October, 1856.




330           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
lect by lending its empty space to mean delusions. To
its great problems some answer will always be attempted: and there is much to choose between the
solutions, however imperfect, found by reverential wisdom, and the degrading falsehoods tendered in reply by
the indifferent and superficial. Even in their failures,
there is a vast difference between the explorings of the
seeing and the blind. We deny, however, that Christian theology can assume any aspect of failure, except
to those who use a false measure of success.  It is not
in the nature of religion, of poetry, of art, to exhibit
the kind of progress that belongs to physical science.
They differ from it in seeking, not the phenomena of
the universe, but its essence, - not its laws of change,
but its eternal meanings,- not outward nature, in
short, except as expressive of the inner thought of
God: and being thus intent upon the enduring spirit
and very ground of things, they cannot grow by numerical accretion of facts and exacter registration of
successions. They are the product, not of the patient
sense and comparing intelligence which are always at
hand, but of a deeper and finer insight, changing with
the atmosphere of the affections and will. Instead of
looking, therefore, for perpetual advance of discovery
in theology, we should naturally expect an ebb and flow
of light, answering to the moral condition of men's
minds: and may be content if the divine truth, lost in
the dulness of a material age, clears itself into fresh
forms with the returning breath of a better time.
With hope thus moderate, in no confidence that the
millennium is due at present, but certainly in no despair
of larger visions than to-day's, we propose to glance at




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.           331
the newer characteristics of English theology; to trace
their origin and deviation from the data of the antecedent generation; and to indicate any common point towards which their several lines of direction may seem
to converge. Few thoughtful men, who have lived
through the greater part of the present century, can
fail to be more or less aware of a vast change in the
religious ideas and spirit of the time, — a change surely
to a higher mood of faith, and even of doubt. A rapid
survey of its social conditions, and of its chief authors,
living and departed, may help us to appreciate its magnitude and tendency.
Prior to the peace of 1815, the disposable activity
of the English mind was bespoken for the most part by
the excitement of European politics. What religious
movement there was arose out of the contagion of
"French principles," or the recoil from them; and was
so subservient to the antagonism of parties in the state
as to acquire no independent or scientific character.
The disaffection of Ireland, and its threatened invasion
by Napoleon, gave an anti-catholic direction to the zeal
of the day, and enabled the "Clapham sect," favored
by the prejudices of the king and the influence of Mr.
Perceval, to attain a position disproportioned to its
merits. After the close of the war, the numbers and
social importance of this party continued to increase.
There were large arrears of domestic politics to be dealt
with; and the prominence held by the Catholic question
for twelve or fourteen years made a watchword of the
"Bible-cry," placed the " Evangelicals" in the van of
the " Protestant interest," and Irish zealots in the van
of the Evangelicals. This temporary leadership was




332           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
not favorable to their permanent power. A fatal taint
of political agitation infected the system; and once
committed to the keeping of Hibernian rhetoric, it was
spoiled for the quiet depths of the English mind.
One by one the elements of the political struggle
succeeding to the war were discharged. The disabilities were swept away; the House of Commons was
reconstituted; the municipalities were reformed; slavery was abolished. These great enterprises of action
and resistance being over, and the strain of conflict
withdrawn, attention was free for more reflective interests, and an inner movement began to replace the
outward.  The several religious parties, disengaged
from their civic campaign, were sent home to their
spiritual husbandry, and thrown upon their intrinsic
resources of genius and character. The time, ever so
critical for church and doctrine, had come at last, -
the time of searching thought and quiet work. Other
charity than would serve upon the hustings, -a deeper
gospel than was known at apocalyptic tea-tables, -a
piety stimulant of no platform cheers, became indispensable in evidence and expression of the Christian
life. Especially at the centres of intellectual light, -
the Universities, where the speculative faculties are
trained, - were the reigning systems sure to be tried
by the severest tests. Who could abide the day of
reckoning?  WVhat party, formed amid the tastes and
admirations of the previous age, could prove itself
equal to the larger problems of a new time? Discharged from the work of middle-class agitation, and
scrutinized by academic eyes, what had Evangelicism
to show?  Its men of genius? —if it has higher names




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.          333
than WTilberforce and Martyn, we never heard them.
Its literature?-its favorites were Hannah More and
Robert Montgomery. Its divinity? —it attained the
altitude of Scott, Romaine, and Sumner. Its art?the accomplishments of a modern day-school go beyond
it. WVith faint appreciation of scholarship, and entire
dislike of philosophy, it seemed studiously to repel the
approaches of intellectual men; and accordingly had
been illustrated by the devotion of no great mind. Its
preachers, imperceptive of the English standards of
good taste and reverence, could hardly be distinguished
from Dissenters. Its creed, an endless chain of inflexible links, could only revolve in the same technical
groove, and could apply itself to no resistance that lay
out of its meridian. The cold-blooded rapture with
which the most dismal pictures were drawn of this redeemed world, and a divine economy sketched which
tortures every moral affection, plainly showed that the
scheme was no longer realized, and had passed from an
inner life to an outward opinion. The ecclesiastical
doctrine of the party was moreover purely Erastian,
and left no intelligible barrier to separate the Anglican
Church from the crowd of Nonconformists at home,
and the unepiscopal Protestants abroad.  These features had been little noticed while the merits which balanced them were still fresh; while the race of idle and
worldly clergymen was disappearing before the new
earnestness; while great philanthropic enterprises were
led by the followers of Simeon; while the fact remained
conspicuous, that there was a Christianity to be recovered for the land, and that these men had stepped forth
to do it. But in the third decade of this century their




334           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
" first works" had grown familiar; their weaknesses had
become fixed; their type of character had cleared itself
of its accidents and taken shape. It caught the fastidious eye of Oxford; and ere long, beneath that fine
perception all the blemishes were brought out. A
series of criticisms began, at first cautious and respectful; but gradually assuming a wider range and an intenser spirit, they assailed the Evangelical party with
every weapon of antipathy which could be drawn from
the armory of imagination or logic, Scripture or history. The weariness and distaste felt at Oxford towards the Church-Calvinists supplied the first impulse
to the Tractarian movement; and it was chiefly with a
view to displace them that a new theology was advanced.
As its lines were filled in, and it acquired consistency
and depth, a positive inspiration of genuine faith supervened and left all party passions behind. The great
agent in this work was John Henry Newman; without
an estimate of whose genius and influence only twothirds of the theological history of contemporary
England could be written. In him and the Oxford
ecclesiastical re-action we have our first source of the
modern development; not exactly first in time, or perhaps even in importance, but most conspicuous and bestdefined, and therefore most tempting to begin with.
The sister University became the oficina of no
"Tracts;" and so no one talks of a "Cambridge theology."  There is such a thing, nevertheless;  at least
there is a theology, perfectly distinct and characteristic
of the age, formed by Cambridge men, and born with
the impress of Cambridge studies, though not elaborated on the spot.  Coleridge taught at Highgate; but
VV-V-~~~V   Vn   tD zD"




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.          335
he poetized and learned at Jesus College half a century
before: and the men through whom chiefly his Platonic
gospel has passed into the heart of our generation,
Julius Hare and Frederick Maurice, acknowledged the
same alma mnater. To those who are familiar with
the writings of these eminent teachers, it will not appear
fanciful if we trace the origin of the school to intellectual revolt against their academic text-books, Locke and
Paley. Empirical psychology and utilitarian ethics are
the permanent objects of Coleridge's hostility; and
their removal is with him the prior condition of any
morality or religion at all. It was reserved for Professors Sedgwick and Whewell, at a later time, to
dethrone upon the spot the two established potentates in
philosophy. But the murmurs against them had long
been gathering. Their school had not stood still, and
in its advance had become encumbered with able but
inconvenient allies; betraying, in Bentham and James
Mill, the tendencies full-blown which it had been often
reproached with secreting. Long before the Genius of
the place, starting at the shadow of its own philosophy,
recoiled and took shelter with an elder faith, the sensitive and religious mind of Coleridge had not only found
refuge there for himself, but opened an asylum for other
wanderers, and lighted up a chain of posts to show the
way. The movement, commenced in re-action from
inadequate metaphysics, never rested till it found the
legitimate repose of a satisfying theology. In naming
the accomplished Chaplain of Lincoln's Inn as the most
distinguished representative of this type of religious
thought, we do not overlook the marked individuality
which assigns to him a place of his own. But this




336           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
very freedom and freshness in the disciple will be found
characteristic, as of Plato's so of Coleridge's disciples.
Mr. Maurice may well protest against the absurd classification which, under the common designation of
"Broad Church," ranks him in the same series with
Whately, Powell, and Williams, —men whose first
principles and whole method are the most precise contradictories of his own, however congenial with him
they may be in resistance to unchristian narrowness and
unworthy fears.  But he has always affectionately
claimed his affinity with the author of the Aids to Reflection, and cannot be displeased if we seek him, with
Julius Hare, in the parlor of the Highgate sage. In
the philosophical re-action proceeding thence to penetrate the whole substance of Christianity, we find the
second element in the modern development.
It would be a curious problem of literary geography
to trace the stream of French intellectual influence
which has passed through Edinburgh, to effect its infiltration into the English mind.  Certain it is that the
action of continental culture on North Britain has been
more immediate and conspicuous than on South; and
in return, the writings of the "Scottish school" have
met with a recognition in Paris and Geneva which they
never obtained in England. The genius of the country
inclines, on one side, to the Gallican type of Reformed
theology; on the other, to the material sciences in
which Paris, on the whole, has borne the palm. Playfair, Leslie, and Dugald Stewart, in their mathematical
and physical expositions, have the peculiar impress of
French neatness and precision. David Hume, scarcely
English in his style, was still less so in the easy play




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.           337
of his logic, and the careless completeness of his Pyrrhonism. And the answers which his own countrymen
gave to him were precisely such as the metaphysical
orthodoxy of the Faculte des Lettres approved and
reproduced. Again and again may be noticed a certain
sympathetic or concurrent change in the speculative
temperature of Edinburgh and Paris.  During the
depression of France after the Restoration, the re-action
against the opinions and tastes of her revolutionary
period was everywhere strong in Europe; and met in
Edinburgh with no check from any fascinating system or powerful mind. The phrenology of Gall, the
criticism of Jeffrey, the rhetoric of Brown, could not
assuage the deeper thirst now beginning to be felt.
Something else was needed than a new form of the
discarded materialism, and freethinking, and sensationalism of the last age. In truth, Scottish logic and metaphysics had run dry, and by resort to them was no
baptism of regeneration to be found. While many still
wandered there in hope, there came out of the desert a
Scottish vates, who had descried an unexhausted spring,
and led the way to it by strange paths.  Thomas
Carlyle gave the first clear expression to the struggling heart of a desolate yet aspiring time, making a
clean breast of many stifled unbeliefs and noble hatreds;
and if unable to find any certain Saviour for the present, at least preparing some love and reverence to sit,
"clothed and in right mind," for the Divine welcome,
whenever it might come. Is the reader surprised that
we keep a niche for the author of Heroo- Worship in
our gallery of theologians? Be it so. The officials of
St. Stephen's were also surprised at the proposal to put
22




338           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
Cromwell's effigy among the statues of the kings.  We
will only say, that whoever doubts the vast influence of
Carlyle's writings on the inmost faith of our generation,
or supposes that influence to be wholly disorganizing,
misinterprets, in our opinion, the symptoms of the time,
and is blinded by current phraseology to essential facts.
With this conviction, we must treat the literary reaction represented by him as the third element, completing the modern development.
To these three movements, distinguished by the
names of Newman, Coleridge, and Carlyle, must be
mainly ascribed the altered spirit, in regard to religion,
pervading the young intellect of England. In proceeding to notice them one by one, we must be content
with a slight glance at their most salient features.
And we must wholly pass by many secondary, though
far from  unimportant, streams of separate influence
which have swelled the confluence of change.  The
operation of Arnold's life, - of Whately's writings, -
of Channing, -of the younger Newman, —of Theodore
Parker, - of Emerson, - on the temper and belief of
the age, has in each case been considerable.  But we
limit ourselves to the prophetae majores. Moreover,
it is only on the fresh powers, cutting into original
directions, and making roadways of thought where
before was the forest or the flood, that we propose to
dwell. Whilst these have been working their way, of
course the old tendencies have not quitted the field, or
lost their hold. The elder orthodoxies, the elder scepticisms, of established type, are still alive; and now
and then, during the last thirty years, have put forth
startling re-assertions of their vitality. In Comte the




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.           339
physical, in Strauss the historical, negation of theology,
may be said not only to re-appear, but to culminate.
And each of these, again, has its group of related phenomena: the Logic of Mill, the hypothesis of the Vestiges (and, we would add, the greater part of the replies),
the Psychology of Herbert Spencer, and the propaganda of Secularism, tracing the course of the Positivist tendency; while the freer hand which scriptural
criticism everywhere displays, its more open feeling for
the human element in the gospel, —qualities which,
most conspicuous abroad, are yet familiar to us in Bunsen, Stanley, and Jowett,- indicate a direction from
which the Leben Jesu has rendered it impossible to
recede. These, however, are but the newest steps on
beaten tracks of thought. Since the age of Bacon
(nay, for that matter, from the days of Socrates), we
have known that to seek only natural law, was the way
to find only natural law; and since the time of Semler,
there is no excuse for surprise if the critique of Scripture persists in demanding some modification of our
faith. To lay down the true bridge from inductive
science to the living God,- to settle the relation between the human and the divine factors in the process
and monuments of revelation, - these are not new difficulties; nor is it an original device to fall into despair
at them, and declare that the problems can be worked
only on their finite side. Comte and Strauss, therefore,
we disregard, at present, as mere continuance-phenomena, — rather clenching the past than opening the
future. They do but modify the equilibrium of given
conditions: and our purpose is to describe the dynamic
elements which have introduced unexpected movement.




340           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
The marvellous results of the High-Church re-action
have nearly effaced the remembrance of its local and
personal beginnings. It was busy at Oxford long before the first "Tracts" appeared; under an aspect,
however, which gave little promise of the -Newman-ia
(to borrow a witticism of Whately's) afterwards developed. Some thirteen years before the Tracts were
advertised, two undergraduates had an epistolary controversy together on the subject of baptismal regeneration; and the correspondent who took the evangelical
side was John Henry Newman. The doctrine, therefore, was in vogue ere its appointed advocate was converted. In truth, Dr. Charles Lloyd, who filled the
chair of Divinity (Regius) from 1822, and the see of
Oxford from 1827 till his death in 1829, was, throughout this period, obnoxious to the Evangelicals as the
avowed representative of an opposite school, to which
also Hawkins, Pusey, and Keble belonged. But the
"Catholic" tendency of this group of friends was
marked by other symptoms than the later Tractarian.
Dr. Newman has remarked, that "the same philosophical elements" will "lead one mind to the Church of
Rome; another to what, for want of a better word,
may be called Germanism." *  He is pleased to add,
that the determination towards the Tiber or the Rhine
will depend on the person's "sensibility or insensibility
to sin." Perhaps, also, a little on his knowledge or
ignorance of the German language and literature;
without some access to which, "Germanism" would
seem to be impossible, and therefore, in the given case,
Romanism inevitable.  The Prae-Xewmanites at Ox* Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, p. 71.




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.             341
ford were not unfurnished with modern, in addition to
ancient, scholarship; and, accordingly, were known
to look with hope and favor on the aims of a scientific
theology, and to be quite above the conventional disparagement of German research to which a blind cowardice resorts. Indeed, Dr. Pusey's first publication,
dedicated to Bishop Lloyd, was a defence * of the
"Theology of Germany" against the strictures of Mr.
Rose in his Cambridge University Sermons.  This
little book, which, we believe, has long been suppressed,
bears curious witness to the deflection of the Oxford
movement from its original path. The author explains
the extravagances of Rationalism by the absurd "stiffness" and intolerable "orthodoxism" which preceded
and provoked them: he welcomes the aid of Kant and
Schelling in transition to a higher faith: he treats the
dangerous crisis as over, and the healthy renovation of
theology as in progress. Nor are his particular judgments of men and books less remarkable than the general
course of his argument. Of Lessing he speaks (p. 51)
with warm affection, as'"probably more Christian,"
despite his scepticism, than his orthodox opponent Goze;
and (p. 156) as, "perhaps rightly, preferring Pantheism
to the then existing systems."  He recognizes (p. 177)
De Wette's "really Christian faith," obscured though it
might be by adherence to the philosophy of Fries.
Schleiermacher receives (p. 115) the highest praise.
Bretschneider is justified (p. 154) for attempting, in
the Probabilia, to bring the Johannine question to an
issue. And it is strange to hear (p. 80) from the
* An Historical Inquiry into the probable Causes of the Rationalist Character lately predominant in the Theology of Germany. By E. B. Pusey,
M.A., Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. 1828.




342           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
nominal father of " Puseyism," that the " gratia ministerialis," —the efficacy of the sacraments and offices,
though administered by evil men, - is " an absurd and
pernicious fiction." That a book abounding in such
estimates should be laid by this particular author at the
feet of an Oxford bishop and Regius Professor; and
that the successors to that divinity chair should be first
Dr. Burton and then Dr. Hampden, are clear indications of a theological tendency, present and powerful
in the early years of the anti-evangelical movement, but
superseded and discharged at a later stage.
In 1829, Bishop Lloyd made his mortal exit. Superfluous German and defective " sensibility to sin " having
thus withdrawn to other scenes, there was room for
" the same philosophical elements," with proper " sensibility" and no German, to enter from the other side,
and, slipping to the front, lead on whither that happy
set of graces tends.  For a while it seemed doubtful
which of the two paths the Oxford High Church was to
take - Germanism or Romanism - theological advance
or ecclesiastical retrogression: and the events of that
year curiously show how little either section of the
party understood its own instincts and could take its
proper attitude. It was the memorable year of Catholic emancipation and Sir Robert Peel's rejection at
Oxford. At that election we find Dr. Pusey among
the strenuous supporters, Dr. Newman among the vehement opponents, of the minister and his Relief-bill:
the former reputed to be "one of the most liberal members of the University," the latter in close "union with
the most violent bigots " of " the No-popery party; "*
* Life of Blanco White, vol. iii. p. 131.




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.           343
the future Anglican in the camp of the liberals — the
future Romanist in that of the Orangemen! Yet Newmllan had already betrayed the tendencies which ere long
possessed him entirely, and become separated by them
from his former associates of the same school. Not
only had his private opinions opened out, from 1823-6,
into something like " full-blown Popery," * buthe had
evinced on their behalf that unrivalled power of personal influence which few sensitive minds can resist,
and which carries with it a restless passion for its own
exercise. He was, indeed, foiled in his first conflict
with the Evangelical party, and in his first attempt to
dictate a policy to his own; but his was not a power
which depended on external success; it was a spiritual
ascendency, yielding like the air to local strokes of
force, but remaining circumambient and elastic still.
The minute-book of the Oxford Auxiliary Bible Society
probably records the earliest public evidence of his
alienation from his undergraduate faith. Already remarkable for the force and fervor of his preaching,
and not yet an object of theological suspicion, he had
been appointed third secretary to the society in 1826,
on the suggestion of Dr. Symons (present Warden of
Wadham  College), and with the approval of Dr.
MI'Bride (now Principal of Magdalen Hall), and other
distinguished supporters of the Low  Church.  No
sooner had he accepted the office than an anonymous
circular appeared on the breakfast-table of sundry
clergymen of the place, lamenting that the society was
in the hands of the low party; urging the importance
of effecting a change, and pointing out a rule which
* See F. W. Newman's Phases of Faith, p. 11.




344           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
conferred a vote on every clerical subscription of half-aguinea. It was soon whispered that this paper was not
unknown to the new secretary; though one at least of
his near friends felt secure in denying his connection
with it, and was proportionately disturbed to find it
really his production. The design, thus commenced in
secret, soon threw off all disguise. The draft of the
annual report, drawn up in the usual unctuous style
by the first secretary, Mr. Hill (Vice-Principal of St.
Edmund's Hall), came before the committee for discussion. The new secretary moved some two hundred
and fifty amendments, which would have struck out
all the Scripture adaptations and " gracious" jargon
from the document, and turned it into such English as
he might use. He lost his amendments, — his office, —
and all further confidence from the Evangelical party.
The loss, however, of his tutorship in Oriel, involving as it did a breach with Dr. Hawkins (the Provost),
was more significant in relation to the subsequent course
of Anglicanism. In conjunction with two out of three
co-tutors (the elder Froude and Mr. [afterwards Archdeacon] Robert Isaac Wilberforce), he had requested
that the Oriel men might be distributed into four separate sets; and that of these, one might be assigned to
each tutor as his pastoral charge. The request was
refused by the Provost, on the reasonable ground that,
by the proposed arrangement, the students would fall,
in each case, under the exclusive power of one man's
mind, instead of experiencing, as was intended, the
influence of the whole tutorial body. The disappointed petitioners resigned; and from that moment the
preacher at St. Mary's, checked in his operations




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.            345
within his college, laid himself out for religious action
beyond its walls, and raised his Church and Littlemore into a power of the first order in the history
of English religion.
The death of Dr. Lloyd removed his chief external
check at a time when his internal resources for influence
were fast maturing. The Divinity chair and the episcopal office were no longer united; and scientific theology lost the shelter of the mitre. The subtle intellect
and resolute will of John Henry Newman were left without a rival: not indisposed to crush as dangerous the
explorations of German criticism, which probably suggested nothing but scepticisms to his outside gaze; and
impelled to organize, out of the safer materials of
patristic and ecclesiastical literature, where he was at
home, a scheme of doctrine with clear passages between
the parts, with commodious stowing-place for every
doubt, and foundations buried out of sight. We presume it must be ascribed to the influence of his friend,
that Dr. Pusey never followed up the direction on
which he had so well entered in his "Inquiry" concerning Rationalism; and that a few years later (in 1836)
he was ready, in his turn, to employ against Dr.
Hampden the very same unworthy weapons which he
had wrested from the hand of Mr. Rose. When he had
succumbed, all ambiguity as to the course of the movement ceased.  The assault on Evangrelicism from the
side of free learning was silent; the guns spiked,
the batteries abandoned.  All was to be done from the
entrenched positions of Past Authority, and the communications surrendered with the open road of Future
Truth.  Though some cautious years had still to pass




346           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
ere the full bearings of the new system were displayed,
the absence of divided command accelerated its development, and simplify its history. The preacher of St.
Mary's was undisputed choregus: and the analysis of
his personal theology preserves the essence of the whole
re-action.
Whence arises that strange mixture of admiration
and of distrust, of which most readers and hearers of
John Henry Newman are conscious? Often as he carries us away by his close dialectic, his wonderful readings of the human heart, his tender or indignant fervor,
there remains a small dark speck of misgiving which
we can never wipe out. The secret perhaps lies in this,
- that his own faith is an escape from an alternative
scepticism, which receives the veto not of his reason,
but of his will.  He has, after all, the critical, not the
prophetic mind.  He wants immediateness of religious
vision.  Instead of finding his eye clearer and his foot
firmer the deeper he sinks towards the ultimate ground
of trust, he hints that the light is precarious, and that
your step may chance on the water or the rock in that
abysmal realm. The tendency of the purest religious
insight is ever to quit superficial and derivative beliefs,
and seek the primitive roots where the finite draws life
from the Infinite. The awfulness of that position, the
direct contact of the human spirit with the Divine,
the loneliness of communion when all media of church
and usage are removed, do not appall the piety of
noblest mood.  With Dr. Newman the order is reversed. IHe loves to work in the upper strata of the
minds with which he deals, detecting their inconsistencies, balancing their wants, satisfying them with the




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.              347
mere coherence and relative sufficiency of their belief,
but encouraging them to shrink from the last questionings. With himself, indeed, he sometimes goes deeper,
and descends towards the bases of all devout belief;
but evidently with less of assurance as his steps pass
down. The ground feels to him less and less solid
as he penetrates from the deposits of recent experience
into the inner laboratory of the world; and it is only
when he stands upon the crust, and takes it as it is,
that he loses the fear lest it rest upon the flood. His
certainties are on the surface, and his insecurities below.
W'ith men of opposite character, often reputed to be
sceptical, doubt is at the top, and is but as the swaying
of water that is calm below, and sleeps in its entire
mass within its granite cradle. He seems to say within
himself, " There is no bottom to these things that I can
find; we must therefore put one there; and only mind
that it be sufficient to hold them in, supposing it to be
real." He deals, in short, with the first truths of religion as hypotheses, not known or knowable in themselves, but recommended by the sufficient account they
give of the facts, and the practical fitness of belief
in them to our nature. He denies the existence for
our mind of any thing cvvo6aeztov, and treats even our
highest persuasions as a provisional discipline, wholesome for us to retain, whether they be harmless errors
or eternal truths. Nor is this radical scepticism merely
implied at second-hand: it receives direct and repeated
statement as a philosophical principle. In his History
of the Arians,* the author explains the distinction
drawn by the Fathers between  eoloyToa and oiXopoVOta,
* Pages 43, 44.




348           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
between absolute and relative truth in regard to God.
An "economy," we are told, is a representation not corresponding with the real nature of things, but reduced
into adaptation to our faculties, and substituted for the
truth in condescension to our incapacity.  It is not
simply the broken view which alone we cair seize of
transcendent realities, given for apprehension but not
yet apprehended; it is a "pious fraud," - a benevolent
cheat, - directly put upon us by the Creator himself,
to stand as the moral equivalent of a missing verity.
Now, what does the author include under this class of
representative illusions?  Does he, like the Fathers,
confine the application to the doctrine of the Incarnation and historical manifestation of God in Christ, as
opposed to his inner and Absolute Essence?  Far from
it. He reduces to the same head the revelation to us
of moral laws; and the suggestion, by sensible phenomena, of an external material world; and the
aspect of design and purpose which the cosmical
order assumes in the eyes of "the multitude." Are
these things, then, —these porphyry pillars on which
our very life is raised, —nothing but appearance,"shadows," "beguiling the imaginations of most men
with a harmless but unfounded belief"? So does our
author regard them: and in his idealism saves nothing
whatever, so far as we can find, from the realm of fantasy. Alike in the world of sense and in the temple
of the spirit "man walketh in a vain show." In this
way the very antithesis from which he starts disappears:
he gives such an extension to the system of economy as
to swallow up the theology altogether, and to present
God to us as never and nowhere doing any thing but




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.              349
C' simulating" on our behalf.  Not only are we kept at
a distance from all realities; but the representations
amid which our minds are imprisoned are, or may be,
false representations; — false in the same way and
degree as the assertion that the Mosaic dispensation
was unchangeable, though all the while it was destined
to be abolished. Alas! have we here no key to our author's fondness for an esoteric and exoteric presentation
of doctrine? —for a mystical as well as a literal exegesis?-for a disciplina arcani?-for doubling the
aspect and expression of all that is offered as truth? If
the universe and God set the example of being scenical,
what shall hinder religion from becoming histrionic?
The hypothetical nature of even the most fundamental propositions in theology,- their dependence on
assumptions which not our vision but our blindness
compels us to make, - is strongly asserted in the following paragraph of the fourteenth University Sermon;
on the Theory of Developments in religious doctrine:
"It is true that God is without beginning, if eternity may
worthily be considered to imply succession; in every place,
if He who is a Spirit can have relations with space. It is
right to speak of His Being and Attributes, if He be not
rather super-essential; it is true to say that He is wise or
powerful, if we may consider Him as other than the most
simple Unity. He is truly Three, if He is truly One; He is
truly One, if the idea of Him falls under earthly number.
He has a triple Personality in the sense in which the Infinite
can be understood to have Personality at all. If we know
any thing. of Him, - if we may speak of Him in any way,
if we may emerge from Atheism or Pantheism into religious
faith, - if we would have any saving hope, any life of truth
and holiness within us, - this only do we know, with this only




350            PERSONAL' INFLUENCES
confession we must begin and end our worship, — that the
Father is the One God, the Son the One God, and the Holy
Ghost the One God; and that the Father is not the Son, the
Son not the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost not the Father."
(p. 353.)
To a faith thus contingent on certain prior assumptions there could be no valid objection, if the assumptions themselves are regarded as unconditionally
sure. But the fatal thing is this, that every one of them
is regarded by the author as an "economy "-as referable
not to our knowledge but to our nescience- as rather
a zetov  6ev6oS than a genuine " first truth."  Reason
would as soon suspect as trust them; —nay, it is
reason that traces them  to their seat in our feebleness
and incapacity, and enables us to put the case of their
being false. If, in a fit of caprice, you choose to
throw them all away and substitute their opposites, no
one can show rational cause against you, or dispute the
philosophical adequacy of your new hypothesis. Both
doctrines, atheism and theism, our author more than
once intimates, are theories that will hold water.  "It
is indeed," he says, "a great question whether atheism
is not as philosophically consistent with the phenomena
of the physical world, taken by themselves, as the doctrine of a creative and governing Power."*  In preferring the religious interpretation of the universe, we
seize an hypothesis at a venture, impelled by the presumptions of a good heart.
On every account we object to this statement of the
ultimate grounds of religion. The author concedes far
too much to the atheistic doctrine; and by treating it
University Sermons, chiefly on the Theory of Religious Belief, p. 186.




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.            351
as an hypothesis puts it to a wrong test: for the question is, not whether its premises, if true, will cover
the phenomena; but whether its premises (e.g. its
notions of Force, Causation, Law) are true, or, on
the contrary, confused and self-contradictory.   He
establishes a false variance between the rational and
the moral faculties of the soul, and in consequence
between philosophical and religious evidence; so that
we are made to lose a truth by the one and then recover
it by the other. Speculative Reason sends us to the
Gazette, but Practical Reason steps in with copious
assets and discharges every claim.  We dislike to be
made the sport of these experiments between imaginary
rivals:. we object to being drowned in the sea of speculation, just that the Humane Society of practical principles may rub us into life again.  The intellectual
and the moral functions of our nature have one and
the same inspiration,- gain their vision by one and the
same light; and it is only by a trick of artificial abstraction that faith can be said to suffer ruin from the
one and receive rescue by the other.  The postulates
of morals stand, in their own right, as first principles
in philosophy. But the essential fault of our author's
foundation lies in his Idealism.  That the existence
and perfection of God, -that the conflict of moral
law with lower nature, —should be no more certain
than the reality of an outward world, we may contentedly allow, provided that outward world be left to us as
an immediate object, positively given to our knowledge
by a veracious faculty. This, however, is precisely
what Dr. Newman refuses to us. He treats the notion
of a material universe as an " unfounded belief," neu



352            PERSONAL'INFLUENCES
tral at best as to truth or falsehood. Our moral faith,
our religious faith, he sets on the same footing with our
natural realism; and then slips that realism away as a
harmless beguilement, "simulating" yet masking the
inaccessible fact.* The logical consequence is evident
- is probably meant to be evident; for sceptical desolation is found to be the best preparative for the shelter
of an authoritative church.
The relation of faith to reason is traced by Dr. Newman with a fineness and general truth of discrimination
that remind us of Butler.t He rejects the rationalist
conceptions of faith, as either the purely intellectual act
of believing on testimonial and other secondary evidence, or the purely moral act of carrying out by the
will what has been acccepted by the understanding.
The former confounds it with opinion; the latter with
obedience. He does not narrow the term to the Lutheran dimensions, to denote a reliant affection towards
a person, and imply a grace peculiar to the Christian
and Jewish dispensations. It is a moral act of reason,
believing, at the instigation of reverence and love,
something which goes beyond the severe requirements
of the evidence. In matters of pure science, where
we have to do with mere nature, the mind simply follows the vestiges of proof. But in concerns of man
and God we necessarily carry into every process of
judgment antecedent presumptions which color our
whole thought, and interpret for us the external signs
given to direct us. To a cold intellect these presumptions will be wanting; and it will construe the spiritual
* Arians of the Fourth Century, pp. 44, 45. University Sermons, p. 350.
See especially University Sermons, ix. x. xi. Essay on Development,
ch. vi. ~ 2.




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.               353
as if it were physical. To a bad heart they will be
dark suspicions; and it will believe its own shadow.
To an affectionate, faithful, humble mind they will be
clear trusts; and it will "think no evil," and "hope all
things."  It is in this yielding of the reason to the better suggestion-this casting of one's lot with the higher
possibility, that faith consists. Obedience to conscience
partakes therefore of the nature of faith;* and implies,
wherever found, a seed of grace and an offer of salvation. The great heathen world is thus brought within
the compass of a divine probation; and faithful men,
true to their gifts and guidance, are scattered through
all lands and ages. It is characteristic of the judgments of faith, that they are immediate and intuitive,
detached and unsystematic; whilst those of wisdom are
mediate and reflective- the explicit and connected contents of implicit acts of trust. Wisdom is therefore
the end of that Christian culture of which faith is the
beginning,t the Et6iztM  of morals, as opposed to mere
d1j60; 60da.  It springs from  the exercise of Reason
on the data of Faith. The same Reason, exercised on
the data of Sense and Perception, constitutes the scientific intellect; whose scrutiny, thus working in alio
genere, can never alight upon moral discoveries, or
replace what has been let slip through non-acceptance
of the presumptions of Conscience.  Here lies the
great mistake of Protestants, who begin with inquiry,
expecting to end with faith —" grapes from  thorns,
and figs from thistles." Catholics, on the other hand,
begin with faith, and develop it by inquiry;  rever
* University Sermons, ii. pp. 19 et seqq.  t Ibid. xiii. p. 288.
t Loss and Gain, p. 103.
23




354            PERSONAL INFLUENCES
ently taking the divine instincts, and drawing out their
hidden oracles into the symmetry of a holy philosophy.
In this view the very materials of religious knowledge
are present only to the tact of a pure heart; and our
author is quite self-consistent when he affirms, in language curiously coinciding with his brother's, that the
moral sense —the "spiritual discernment" - is the legitimate judge of religious truth; the intellect having
only to prepare the case and watch it with negative and
corrective function.*
In its broad features; its linking of moral with religious reverence; its separation of conscience from
understanding; its distinction between implicit and explicit truth, -this theory of faith contrasts favorably
both with the evangelical no-theory and the rationalist wrong theory.  Did the author never quit its
systematic statement, or, in quitting it for concrete
application, never transgress its terms, we should thank
him. for removing old errors without remonstrance for
introducing new.  When, however, we turn from his
disquisitions to his tales, and observe the use to which
he puts his doctrine in practical life, we start back in
dismay, and ask ourselves whether what we had so
much approved in thought can issue in what we must
utterly disapprove in action?  In the sermons we seem
to understand the statements, and with full heart assent
to them that "faith must venture something;" that in
order to finish by knowing, you must commence by trusting; that self-surrender in the dark to conscience clears
up into open-eyed wisdom. Nor should we seriously object to the exhortation, "Believe first, and conviction
* University Sermons, iii. pp. 40, 44, 45.




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.           355
will follow," so long as we may construe the "belief"
to mean simple reliance on instinctive impressions of
the good and true, and the "conviction," a reflective
apprehension of their ground; and may therefore read
the lesson thus: "You must do the right before you
can know it." First, however, an uneasy wonder stops
us when we are told that in early times men became
Christians, not because they believed, but in order to
believe; * and that the characteristic doctrines of the
Gospel were not offered to them till after they had
bound themselves to the church by baptism. Next, the
real meaning of these ill-favored general statements
becomes shamefully apparent in a particular instance in
Loss and Gain, where the hero, a puzzled Protestant,
unsatisfied with English church-parties, but an entire
stranger to the Romanist system and worship, is passionately urged by a recently "perverted" friend to
take his hat and walk straight away into confession and
adoption. He does not at the moment yield to the
advice; but a little later he follows it, without any
great advance in his mental preparation, and before
ever witnessing a service in a Catholic church.  Thus
is the word "faith " degraded to the sense of "trying
the experiment of an unknown religion, and obeying it
at hazard;" and has no further reference to conscience,
which stands quite neutral towards a church not yet
appreciated. There is still, however, a lower step to
be taken. Dr. Newman does not attempt to disguise
the shock given to the moral feeling and taste of newcomers by many things inseparable from Romanism.
How does he counsel them to deal with their distress?
* Arians, p. 78. Loss and Gain, p. 343.




356           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
To respect it as a sacred sign? to follow their own
highest perception at all risks?  No; but to suppress
and smother it; to consider that they must not expect
to get through without dirt, and to hope that things
will look cleaner when the eye has become used to
them.  And this, prok pudor! he also calls "faith;"
having at last turned it right round, and brought it
to mean the contradiction of conscience, -the placid
swallowing of what is offensive to the moral sense. In
short, he makes it convertible with mere " taking on
trust," without regard to the felt quality of the thing
taken.  Whether you yield to what commands, or to
what scandalizes, your natural reverence, you equally
satisfy the conditions of our author's "faith."   The
word thus becomes an engine that will work either in
advance or in reverse: whether you believe your conscience or disbelieve, it keeps you on the pious track.
The practice of professing a creed " in order to believe " has long been a favorite with the casuistry of
Oxford. Arnold, troubled with doubts about the doctrine of the Trinity, was recommended by his friend
Keble to take a parish, and avow the doctrine several
times per week, and multiply the meshes of his entanglement with it. Every Oxford tutor, we believe, could
quote instances in which scepticism of greater extent
has been met with similar advice. Without discussing
the pleas advanced in defence of such counsels, we will
test their character by an imaginary case, exhibiting
the conditions in the simplest form. In a religious and
highly accomplished family, connected on all hands with
the church, an erring son, let us suppose, becomes
enamored of the "doctrine of circumstances;" and




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.           357
passing through the mere fatalistic stage, settles into
resolute and open-eyed atheism.  No nobleness of
character or confusion of thought beguiles him (as happier natures are beguiled) into the illusion that moral
distinctions remain when divine realities are gone: and
his life exhibits no violent inconsistency with a creed
which disclaims responsibility. Among his numerous
clerical connections, one, we will suppose, is captivated
with the new formula, that men are to become members
of the church not "because they believe, but in order
to believe:" and, acting on this rule, addresses him to
the following effect: "You say you disbelieve the existence of a God; but you are in no condition to judge,
for you have never tried the hypothesis of theism.
Your first step must be to grant it for experiment's
sake, to act as if there were a God, and become a
quasi-Christian. Join the church; diligently profess
the creeds; take the sacrament; be constant in your
prayers; expostulate with the heresies of others; and
in due time belief willfollow." It is easier, perhaps,
to conceive such counsels offered than to imagine them
accepted.  For completeness' sake, however, let us
suppose their influence for the moment to prevail. A
sudden transformation is visible. The atheist looks up
his prayer-book, and is seen twice a day at church:
he audibly says, "I believe in one God, the Father
Almighty, &c.;" he bows to the east at the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ; he hears the warning from
the altar to " search his own conscience" "not after the
manner of dissemblers with God," and answers it by
boldly partaking at "the holy table."  He plays the
Pharisee towards pure and pious friends, needing his




358            PERSONAL INFLUENCES
rebuke for their "neological" tendencies.  His fictitious
zeal at last outstrips the pace of his spiritual counsellor; to whom he points out certain worldly-minded
friends as requiring to be brought to a " sense of their
condition."   The clergyman declining so delicate an
office, the spell of his influence is broken; his hopeful novice throws up with disgust "the hypothesis of a
God," relapses into the atheism which had never really
left him for an hour: and " Richard is himself again."
That we have not misconceived the natural issue of
this sort of experiment, critics of human nature will
perhaps allow. That the experiment itself is a legitimate offspring of the parent maxim, the logical reader
will hardly question. But between logic and life, it
will be said, bridges are scarce; and, in practice, these
extreme cases never find the means to cross. Those
who speak thus can have had little access to the inner
history of the present age. When the time comes for
its sincerest biographies to appear, the truth will often
prove "stranger than our fiction."
The theory of Christianity which Dr. Newman's
writings present deserved better at his hands than to
be given as an hypothesis and an "economy." Stript
of perverse adjuncts, and checked at its points of deflection, it assumes the aspect of a religious philosophy,
combining, with an unusual sense of proportion, the
chief truths of Christian morals and faith. In its results
it concurs, of course, with the Catholic doctrines; but it
brings them out in fresh connections and with reference
all round to the rival teachings, from the midst of which
the expositor himself has emerged into them. The briefest notice of the main features must content us.




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.            359
The human soul cannot lose its essentially moral constitution.  Free and responsible still in the heathen
notwithstanding the fall, and in the Christian though
brought under grace, it has never sunk below the
capacity, and never rises above the obligation, of obedience. The sense of duty is intrinsically the highest
authority, - the ultimate ground of all ecclesiastical
pretensions.  The "objective authority" of the church,
which is peculiar to revealed religion, would have nothing to rest upon, were it not for the prior " subjective
authority" of conscience, which belongs to natural religion. The dispensations of God are not, therefore,
restricted to the Hebrew course of history: they are
universal as the human conscience, and every man has
his trust of light and grace.  Even special revelation
must be regarded as probably given at different times to
all nations; no tribe being without traditions of supernatural events.  The distinction in favor of the Jewish
race is simply that with it alone have the facts been preserved by authentic records and media. And as the
inspiration of God is not restricted by limits of place,
so neither does it die out with time. He speaks to us
still, and enables us to add to our store; not, indeed,
by taking any new point of departure, but developing
and applying the divine data,- by resolving the vision and concrete thought of the Son of God into the
component ideas and living truths which it yields to
holy reflection.
In its very nature religious truth is self-evidencing,
- evolved from the mind rather than deposited on it:
and the care of the teacher or the church must be
directed less to any intellectual elaboration of proof




360           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
than to prepare the temper and posture of the receiving
soul, and waken into consciousness the elementary experiences of reverence and faith. Christianity itself is selfevidencing, and by its inherent power makes way where
no books of evidences could carry it. Indeed, all its
doctrines are really given, and have actually been
found, in natural religion.  Only they came to wise
and good heathens on the vague authority of a divine
principle, instead of a divine agent.  The one grand
gift of the Gospel to the human mind is that, by the
Incarnation, it has determined the personality of God,
and His relations of character and afection towards
man.  This, and not what is called the "doctrine of
the Cross," is the specialty and living kernel of the
Gospel.
Christianity, however, is not adequately described as
a revelation of truth; or even as a saving transaction:
rather is it (inclusively, indeed, of these) a divine
Institute in perpetuity for helping man to "cleanse
himself from  sin."   His fallen nature, though not
ruined or bereft of its free-will, is in a state of moral
infirmity, requiring supernatural aids; and these the
Christian economy provides.  First, the Son of God
became incarnate, "non amittendo quod erat, sed
sumendo quod non erat," reconciling infinitude with
personality, and purifying the nature He adopted and
through whose experiences He passed. Next, the sacrificial merits of this act are distributed by a perpetual
re-incarnation in the Eucharist, and, with modifications,
by the other sacraments, as vehicles of grace.  But
again, the spiritual purification which is thus freely
given to faith for past evil does not close the contin



ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.            361
gencies of the future. Only in proportion as the grace
of faith leads to works and love, is it effectual for the
time to come: so that the retrospect on Redemption
does not close the prospect of Retribution, and within
the Gospel there is still a Law. Baptism, which
washes out all prior sin, cannot be repeated: and subsequent transgressions must be cleansed away either by
the penances and absolution of the church, or by the
expiations of purgatory. Throughout his doctrine our
author provides a responsible place for the human will,
and constructs a true " moral theology." His antithesis
between grace and nature shows itself, not by opposing
faith to morality, but by importing into morals an
interior contrast between the tastes of the natural and
of the religious conscience; the latter going beyond the
mere human rectitudes, and producing ascetic virtues,
-regarding life as penitential and expiatory, if not
endowed with positive and blessed promise to selfsacrifice.
On the mere Romanist appendages to this scheme,
-the Invocation of saints, the Mariolatry, the Apostolic Succession, &c.- we mean to say nothing. They
are chiefly remarkable for having raised up in their
defence the obnoxious but highly important "doctrine
of development."  In the absence of any plausible
support from Scripture, it became necessary, if they
were to be retained at all, to widen the source of
doctrine, and give an interpreting and determining
power to the church.  In order to reconcile Protestants
to this, it was maintained that for them too, not less
than for the Catholics, the letter of the Bible was insufficient, unless read by the reflected light of later ecclesi-~-~-NJ-~-V VLVVV~ -




362           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
astical decisions. Neither the doctrine of the Trinity,
nor the usage of Infant Baptism, could be gathered
from  the sacred writings alone.  Such questions as
those respecting an intermediate state and the remission
of past-baptismal sins are raised, but not solved, by the
Gospels.  Nor can Scripture determine its own canon,
or its own inspiration.  To set it up as a self-sufficing
objective authority, is to apply it to a purpose for which
it is not intended or adapted. On the other hand,
traces abound upon its page that it has been composed
on the principle of development, that is, with a view to
an ulterior determination of many things which it leaves
indeterminate.  The statement of the Logos-doctrine
in the proem of St. John's Gospel is but the germ in
which the true doctrine of Christ's higher nature lies:
and till successive heresies had started the questions dormant within it, and given occasion for a verdict on them,
the right solution could not disengage itself from the
possible wrong ones.  The prophecies quoted from
the Jewish Scriptures in the Christian seem inapplicable, till we are furnished with the double meaning or
non-natural sense; and to bring this fully out required
the experience of a later time, when the necessary tendency of literal and historical interpretation to Arian
rationalism had been made evident in the exegetical
school of Antioch, and the connection of the mystical
method with orthodoxy and piety had displayed itself
in the catechetical school of Alexandria.  From  all
these symptoms it is gathered, that the Christian system, not excepting its primary principles, is only implicitly given in the canonical books; that the seed of
truth, once consigned to human souls as its receptacle,




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.            363
more and more clearly evinced its nature and discriminated its species by the growths into which it opened;
that the tact of the church in recognizing the genuine
characters, and in rejecting the spurious or mixed,
became finer with continued exercise, and the aid of
prior definitions; that instead of testing the later by
the earlier, we are to interpret the earlier by the later,
and import the explicit doctrines of the fourth and fifth
centuries into the rudimentary expressions of the first.
Protestants must either denude their creed to its mere
embryo, or let it assume the proportions of full-blown
Romanism.
The state of this controversy is curious. The assumption on both sides is, that either the Bible or the
Church is impregnable, and achieves all our protection
from error for us: the only question is, which of the
two it is. To put this to the test, each party tries to
discredit the favorite refuge of the other. Dr. Newman
does not scruple to discharge a volley into the intrenchment of Scripture, in order to show the Protestants
that it may be made too hot to hold them, and " compel
them to come in" to his stronghold. They reply by a
hot fire at his church-bastions, to convince him that
they may be knocked about his head. Is it surprising
if both are pretty well riddled; if neither is found to
be designed for the purpose to which it has been
applied; and if a change of the whole ground should
be the clearly indicated result?  By no documentary
process, no construction of title-deeds, be they canonical
or ecclesiastical, of the first century or the fourth, can
you draw forth the oracular system which you seek.
Rail off what plot of history you will, the human, with




364           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
all its liabilities, will be there. Wander where you
will on its unenclosed spaces, the divine, with its eternal teaching, will not be absent. For discriminating
the true from the false, the accidental from the essential, in morals and religion, whether drawn from the
special Christian data, or from the entire life of humanity, something more is needed than to draw an
arbitrary line round a select group of books, or a
favored series of centuries.  "Objective authority"
in religion there doubtless is; but vested in a Person
who is eternal, and not therefore a fixture of chronology; speaking to us through all the media of His life
in humanity, and not therefore separable from the
"subjective authority" of conscience, or discoverable
without it; and though uniquely manifested in the
"Word made flesh," yet owned by us even there only
through the same Word in hearts already tinctured with
the Christian consciousness.
Looking back on the whole influence of Dr. Newman's personality and writings, we see in it a great
preponderance of good. Bishop Thirlwall has justly
acknowledged that the Oxford movement has given rise
to more valuable writings in theology than had appeared
for a long time previous to it. And though it arrested
the pursuit of critical theology for a while, the postponement was amply compensated by a newly-awakened
attention to the whole history of Christianity, and a far
more searching look into the moral and spiritual conditions and effects of faith in the human soul. The
prosecution of the critical theology will be resumed with
larger, humbler, yet freer spirit, now that some deeper
root has been found for Christian obedience and belief




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.           365
than an authority wholly external and contingent on a
literary tenure. A sense of the universality and perpetuity of Divine grace, - of the sanctity of common
duties and self-denials,- of the grandeur and power
of historical communion and church-life, - of the true
place of beauty and art in worship,- has deeply penetrated into the newer religion of England; - chiefly, it
is true, among the classes within reach of academical
modes of thought and feeling, but through them affecting the administration of parishes and manors out of
number. For the re-union of religious and moral ends,
- for the reconciliation of human admirations with holy
reverence, - for the consecration of the near and temporal, - many a heart owes a debt of unspeakable
gratitude to the literature of the Oxford school. The
one grand sin which we must set off against these
merits, is a certain want of unconditional and ultimate
trust in their own principles. Their system has too
often the appearance of being constructed on purpose as
a refuge from doubts they dare not face. Their intellectual men have been fond of playing with fire, and
flinging about brilliant scepticisms, eating into the very
heart of life, for the chance of inducing flight into their
protecting fold.  It is hard for a proselyte of terror to
become a child of trust: and the brand of fear deforms
the forehead of this party. "To obey," they say, " is
easier than to believe: so we will begin from the conscience, that we may end with assurance."  Good:
but see that you obey out of the belief you have, instead
of with a view to a belief which you have not. Conscience has a right to you through and through, and
must be sered without tels: and vainly do you




366           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
mount her sacred steps on knees of painful penance, if
the thought of your heart be to escape from the outer
exposures and threatening skies of doubt, into the shelter of a ready temple and the sympathy of a mighty
throng.  The deepest form of scepticism is seen in the
mind which is in haste to believe; which resolves, by
some violent spring, to make an end of darkness,
whether the light attained be God's or not; which is
not content to follow precisely and only where He
shows, and cannot rest upon the trustful word, " ly
soul, wait patiently for Him."  Something of this unfaith lurks in the spirit of the new Catholic party. They
recognize the ambassadorial credentials of Conscience,
and show you on its casket of secrets the very signet of
the Kingo of kings:- on opening the despatch-box, you
find they have stuffed in all the creeds.  The selfdeception involved in this is not always unmixed with
artifice. All such policy is a half-conscious attempt to
suborn God's Spirit on behalf of our own desires and
prejudices, and against the doubts and scruples which
may be truly His.
Transferring ourselves now from Oxford to Cambridge, we acknowledge at the outset that the place has
much less to do with the party, in the case of the philosophical movement led by Coleridge, than in that of
the eccesiastical represented by Newman. Yet it was
before the University of Cambridge that Julius Hare*
first produced the fruits of his meditations at the feet of
the poet-philosopher: and it was in Trinity College
chapel that he preached the sermons which mark most
* Sermon on "the Children of Light," preached before the University in
1828.




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.                367
clearly his theological position.*  The Highgate sage
had gone to his rest at the very beginning of the Oxford
movement (in 1834), and left his disciples to deal with
the phenomenon according to their own lights.  Mr.
Hare had visited the Eternal City, and witnessed there
some things which indisposed him to trifle with the
honest heart of Protestantism.  "I saw the Pope," he
used to say, "apparently kneeling in prayer for mankind: but the legs which kneeled were artificial; he
was in his chair.  Was not that sight enough to counteract all the aesthetical impressions of the worship, if
they had been a hundred times stronger than they were? t
He saw at once the part that he should take; and in his
first sermon, preached before the clergy of the diocese
of Chichester, he vindicated, from the words, " Lo, I am
with you always, even unto the end of the world," the
living presence of the invisible Word in His own Person against the sacerdotal delegation claimed, and
virtually substituted, by the Tractarians. Profoundly
Lutheran in his conception of " faith," and jealous of all
interposed media between the Church and her Divine
Head, he resisted at the outset the dangers of an official
theocracy with an absent God. The offence given to
some hearers by this sermon made him hesitate for a
time to accept the office of Archdeacon of Lewes.  But
in overruling his objections, Bishop Otter rightly interpreted the character of his mind; of which the recent
* Sermon on "the Law of Self-sacrifice," 1829; and Sermon on "the Sin
against the Holy Ghost," in 1832.
t See Introduction, page xxvi. (understood to be by Mr. Maurice) to the
Visitation Charges of the Archdeacon of Lewes, in the years 1843, 1845, 1846;
a charming sketch of Hare's character and position, as rich and wise as it is
affectionate.




368            PERSONAL INFLUENCES
sermon was only a partial expression; and which,
though impulsive and unsystematic, had too many open
and susceptible sides, too rich a culture, and too real a
spiritual depth, to restrict its sympathies to any exclusive party.
In fact, the polemic attitude for the moment assumed
towards the Anglicans by no means expressed the characteristic of his school. A much deeper and earlier
antipathy had called it into existence, and shaped it into
form.  Coleridge, as all his readers are aware, was in
early life a preacher among the Unitarians. Though
never having a permanent pastoral charge among them,
he was once on the point of settling as a minister at
Shrewsbury: and, in withdrawing, he assures the congregation that, while he prefers a freer mode of life,
" active zeal for Unitarian Christianity, not indolence or
indifference, has been the motive of my declining a local
and stated settlement as a preacher of it." *  His early
poems, and the name of his eldest son, attest the fervor
with which he embraced the philosophy of Priestley and
Hartley, as well as the "Psilanthropism" of the sect.
By the side of the French atheism of the day, these
opinions wore a conservative aspect towards Christianity; in the presence of the political " Church-and-King"
vulgarity, they seemed generous to liberty; in the total
oblivion of deeper speculation, and the absolute dominance of physical method, they satisfied the demand for
compactness and system in philosophy. But only the
dearth of other waters, and the parching of that desert
time, could detain him  at this spring.  His natural
* Letter, dated Shrewsbury, Jan. 19, 1798, to Mr. Isaac Wood, High Street,
Shrewsbury. Christian Reformer for 1834, p. 840.




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.             369
thirst was ever feeling its way to more congenial fountains. His speculative creed had never penetrated the
unconscious essence of the man, but lay as a texture
about him, without growing into the fibres of his heart.
In 1796, he records, in a private letter, his experience
under sore affliction: "My philosophical refinements
and metaphysical theories lay by me in the hour of anguish as toys by the bedside of a child deadly sick." *
Never, in short, was the genius of a man more out of
its element. An infirm will, a dreamy ideality, a preternatural subtlety of thought, and intense religious
susceptibility, were thrown among a people eminently
practical and prosaic, impatient of romance, indifferent
to intellectual refinements, strict in their moral expectations, scrupulous of the veracities but afraid of the
fervors of devotion. The strength and the weakness
of each party were vehemently antipathic to those of, the
other: and their inevitable divergence once begun,
the alienation became rapidly complete. Coleridge was
a born Platonist, who could not permanently rest content, with Locke, to seek all knowledge in phenomena,
or, with Paley, all good in happiness: and on the first
opening of his cage of experience, he darted out, and
took to his metaphysic wing.
It was Kant who first lifted the bar and set him free;
and who, with Schelling, inspired him to seize that border territory between psychology and theology, which
had long been declared a dream-land. If anywhere
the relationship can be really witnessed between the
human spirit and the divine, it must be on the awful
* Letter to Mr. Benjamin Flower, Editor of the Cambridge Intelligencer.
Monthly Repository for 1834, p. 654.
24




370           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
confines of the two; and by taking stand on the ground
of our highest consciousness, we may perhaps be able to
pass to and fro across the line, and find the breadth of
any common margin there may be, and note where, on
the one hand, it sinks into pure Nature, and on the
other, rises into the absolute God.  Here, then, he
worked in both directions, - upwards and downwards,
- till the two tracks met: with results which, so far as
our present object is concerned, may be briefly indicated.
Dr. Newman has himself drawn attention to a remarkable concurrence between his own conceptions and
Coleridge's, respecting the sources and limits of natural
religion in the human mind.*  They agree in seeking
the germ of devout belief in the experiences of conscience; in recognizing the essentially religious character
of morality; in making faith the prior condition of spiritual knowledge, and vindicating the maxim, Credo, ut
intelligam. Newman, however, represents the moral
feeling more as a blind instinctive datum to be accepted; Coleridge, more as cognitive power, looking on
reality with open eye.  And further, with Newman
there is no other original spring of divine knowledge;
while Coleridge allows us an intellectual as well as a
moral organ for the apprehension of God. Beyond and
above the Understanding, which generalizes from the
data of perception, gathers laws from phenomena,
frames rules from experience, traces logical consequence
and adapts means to ends, he enthrones the Reason,
which seizes a different order of truths - viz. the
necessary and universal, — in themselves inconceiva* University Sermons, ii. p. 24, note.




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.             371
ble, in their absence contradictory; and in a different
way —viz. intuitively and immediately, not mediately
or through a process.  The former ( Verstand) has the
field of Nature (that which is born, - the originated
and transient) for its object, and belongs to our natural
part as its seat; and is therefore not peculiar to us, but
shared by other animal races, - whose so-called "instinct" is not specifically distinguishable from adaptive
intelligence. The latter ( Vernunft) has the realm of
Spirit (the super-natural, to which the predicates
of time and space are inapplicable) for its object, and
for its seat in us our spirit or supernatural part. Htad
we, in combination with our sentient capacity, only understanding, though in ever so eminent a degree, we
should remain mere living things, - with an honorable
place in the records of natural history, but leaving the
registers of morals and religion still blank and clasped.
The Reason by which a higher life becomes possible
divaricates into two functions, - the cognitive and the
active; the former giving the roots of all our Ontological thinking, - the ideas of Cause, of Unity, of
Infinitude, &c.; the latter furnishing the postulates
of all Moral action, -rthe ideas of Freedom, of Personality, of Obligation. Both the speculative and the
practical reason have a voice in our primary religious
faith. But the former, alone and by itself, would give
us merely an ontological "One," a Spinozistic Absolute,
- the residuary God of the a-priori demonstrations:
necessitating, no doubt, a self-subsistent Infinite of which
atheism can render no account, but leaving us unassured
how far predicates of character may be transferred to its
mysterious subject. Hence the chief application of




372           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
speculative reason in theology must always be critical
rather than creative; to slay in single combat each successive foe that may arise; but not to proclaim for
whom it is that the champion stands, and for ever keeps
the field. On the other hand, the practical reason or
conscience reveals to us the Holy God, who is the proper and positive object of our faith; who is doubtless
more or less clearly apprehended in proportion to the
purity of our discerning and reflecting faculty, but who
lurks suspected or half-perceived in the darkest hearts;
- if no otherwise, at least in their fears and compunctions: for " remorse is the implicit creed of the guilty."
The will, as empowered to carry out the ideas of
Reason in the realm of Sense, - to make Spirit of avail
in Nature, —is by its very function super-natural, and
cannot be entangled as a constituent in the very system
which it is to influence from above.  Only the divinelyfree can achieve that passage. A footman will run
your errand across the town; but it needs a winged
Iris or a sandalled Hermes to bear the messages of gods
to men. It is precisely in the freedom of the will that
a person is distinguished from a thing, and becomes a
possible subject of moral law. And so is it in the
recognition of a good other than the sentient, of an
authority transcending all personal preference, of a
right over us and our whole cargo of "happiness," actual and potential, that the sense of Duty and the
conditions of morality begin.  Hence Edwards and
the necessarians, Priestley and the materialists, Paley
and the Epicureans, depict a universe from which all
moral qualities and beings, divine or human, are excluded: and whether reasoning down from God as




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.           373
absolute Sovereign, or up from man as simply sentient,
miss whatever is august and holy in its life.
From the distinction drawn between nature and
spirit, it follows that there cannot be such a thing
as "natural religion." All religion must be spiritual,
springing as it does exclusively within the supernatural
element of us. Nay, more; all religion must be revealed, if by that word we mean, " directly given by
Divine communication," as opposed to mediate discovery of our own. For what and whence are those
primary ideas of conscience which constitute or presuppose our deepest, though not our fullest, faith? Are
they of our own making?-of our own finding? Have
we any thing to do with their genesis?  Do they not
report to us of the necessary and eternal? And are
they not the presence with us of that Eternal, whereof
assuredly nothing temporal and finite can report? Is
there not profound truth as well as piety in the couplet:
"None but Thy wisdom knows Thy might:
None but Thy Word can speak Thy name!"
The reason in us is not personal to us, but only the
manifestation in our consciousness of the infinite reason,
presenting us with its supernatural realities, and intrusting to our will their divine rights over our world. It is
thus the common ground of the divine and the human,
the essential base of their communion, the Logos which
is at once the objective truth and the subjective knowledge of God.
These results have thus far been reached psychologically, by beginning with the data of the human soul
and tracing their indications upward. But, to meet it,




374           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
Coleridge also descends, by an ontological track, from
the Absolute One to His expression in the finite, - a
Platonic Logos or Son of God; to whom we are to
refer at once the physical kosmos, the divine process in
history, and the intimations of reason and conscience.
Through this mediator, found alike at the foot of our
speculative dialectic and at the summit of our moral
analytic, do God and man meet and sustain living relations.
But St. John identifies this Logos with the historical
Christ; in whom, therefore, the Infinite reaches not
only finite, but concrete and personal manifestation.  It
is the glory and joy of our humanity that He took it into
Himself; and conquering sin in it, purified it, and gave
it a seed of higher life. Through uttermost self-sacrifice, He reconciled its deepest sorrows with complete
perfection; redeemed it and drew it to God; and made
manifest in time the eternal facts of His infinite love,His personal union with our nature, - and the law of
self-sacrifice as the deliverance of His universe.
If we rightly understand the theologians of this
school, they do not intend, when they speak of the divine assumption of our nature, to limit their reference
to the individual life of Jesus of Nazareth. The Son
is united not with this or that particular man only, but
with humanity itself as a type; and constitutes, as He
ever has constituted, the ground and life of all its good.
The blending of the two natures is not a biographical
but an " eternal" fact, belonging to the essence of their
relation. The particular Incarnation of the evangelical history " reveals and realizes " the universal truth;
to which all its exceptional and marking features, —




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.            375
miraculous birth, agony and crucifixion, resurrection and
ascension, - stand related as symbols to the reality, -
as passing phenomena that tell the tale of an eternity.
They are, indeed, more than this; because they are not,
- as symbols may be, — mere signs or instruments of
suggestion; but are homogeneous with the thing signified, and integrated with it as its highest momenta.
Following out this interpretation of the redemptive
operation of the Son, we may conceive of it in two ways 
as in reality always going on, although unrecognized;
and as at length revealed in a plenary Incarnation, so
as to be henceforth turned out from the unconscious
to the conscious state.  This last change is in itself a
spiritual revolution of the highest order, — like the
burst of a universe only felt, and by inches, before, on
the eye touched by the finger of Christ. By ceasing to
be latent, - by being given to our faith, - the redeeming agency is at once raised to a higher power. Now
that we know who it is that pleads and strives with our
evil nature, we can freely go to meet Him, and He may
act from within our will as well as from without. His
life-giving energy is quite another thing, - since not a
thing at all, but a person, - not even a "better self,"
but a Divine other-than-self; and confers upon the soul
a " new birth." From the life of nature, conscious of
only Self disturbed by an impersonal law, we emerge
into the life of the spirit, set free by faith, and admitted
to personal communion of trust and love. The transition into the "new birth" is the chief element in the
redemptive act of the Son. The continuous power of
holier life in the heart thus regenerate is the sign and
function of the Holy Spirit. Both these, - the crisis




376           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
of change and its spiritual sequel,  are indeed full of
mystery on their objective or Divine side. But from the
subjective or human side it is easy to perceive how
the consciousness of a Divine Person blended with the
humanity of each of us, and the source in it of whatever
is higher than we, may be really a new seed of life within
us, giving us a holy living Object in place of a repulsive ethical abstraction, and awakening all the powerful
affections that ever seek a Personal Centre of repose.
From the whole complexion of this scheme it will be
gathered, that the Original Sin countervailed by redemption is not birth-sin (which would be natural disease,
not moral evil); and that the redemption is not an extinction of punishment, but a deliverance from sin. It
is not that God is paid off, but that man emerges "a
new creature."  The "evil ground" there is in the
human will, — the downward gravitation of self,the need of a Diviner to draw us to any good by the
sacrifice of self, — are simple facts accessible to every
man's self-knowledge. And we are well aware that,
co-existing with our free agency, they are not our malady, but our fault.  Coleridge and his school everywhere denounce the Calvinistic doctrines of hereditary
depravity and of penal satisfaction, as turning man
from  a person into a thing, and denying to God all
moral attributes. The primary conditions of any true
theory of redemption are, that the whole operation takes
place on humanity; and that it both finds and leaves
man a free agent. Neither of these conditions is complied with by any form of the Calvinistic scheme.
Some of the peculiarities of Coleridge most familiar to
theologians, —his tetrads and pentads, his doctrine of




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.            377
Church and State, his denial of the documentary inspiration of the whole Bible, -we pass by; not from any
slighting estimate of their importance as parts of an
organic whole, but in order to insulate the one character, - of religious Realism, - which is the inner
essence of the system itself, and the living seed of its
development in the school of Mr. Maurice.  It is
chiefly from inapprehension of this character, and from
the inveterate training of the English mind in the opposite habit of thought, that so many readers complain
of obscurity in the writings of the Chaplain of Lincoln's
Inn. We do not deny that his meaning is at times difficult to reach; for it is apt to be delayed too long by
his scrupulous candor of concession, his modest shrinking from self-assertion, his preference of the sympathetic
to the distinctive attitude. But we venture with some
confidence to assert, that for consistency and completeness of thought, and precision in the use of language,
it would be difficult to find his superior among living
theologians.  It is the old question, - what do you
mean by a clear or distinct thought? Do you mean a
mental image or representation of something, like your
conception of a perceptible object or of a finite portion
of space or time? Then certainly you will not cease to
complain of Mr. Maurice's indistinctness; for he speaks
and thinks of Spirit, and Righteousness, and God, as
realities without mental picture and yet closely known;
and he treats the notions of Infinitude and Eternity as
something else than "negative ideas," -the finite and
the temporal with all the meaning emptied out. If, however, by " clearness of idea" you mean, not "the idea
of a limit," but "a limit to the idea," -if your condi



378           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
tions are satisfied, provided thought does not run into
thought, but each keeps its own place and function with
exactitude, -then you might as reasonably charge indistinctness on Mr. Mill or Archbishop Whately as on
Mr. Maurice. Many parts of his doctrine we are unable to follow with assent; but we see no excuse for
the absurd distortions of his peculiar Christianity, with
which the party-organs of Church and Sect have long
abounded. Critics who have read any one of his practical or historical essays, with some feeling of its clear
and life-like charm, ought surely to know that if his
theology seems difficult to them, it cannot be from his
want of practised thought and literary skill, and must
arise from their not having at present found his latitude.
Coleridge, commencing in re-action from a scheme of
materialistic necessity, gave great prominence to his
assertion of free-agency. Not till he had effectually set
humanity on its feet again, did he proceed to identify
the intimations of its moral reason with the indwelling
life of the Divine Word.  Mr. Maurice is caught up
by this last thought, and has become its organ to the
present age; and so intensely does it possess him, that
we fear his losing sight too much of the prior truth from
which the start was made, and reducing man into a
mere prize, to be contended for between the Satan and
the God within him. Pushing the claims of a diabolical being far into the evil phenomena of our nature, and
those of a Divine Being over the whole of the good, he
thins away the space for the free human personality till
it becomes at times quite evanescent.  This is a danger
ever incident to the wish of humility, that nothing




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.            379
should be claimed for self, - that all should be referred
to God. But it must be restrained from reaching its
ultimate limit; or else the ground of morals sinks again
away, and, in pantheistic guise, universal necessity absorbs us all once more.  We say, "in pantheistic
guise;" for, be it observed, the two personalities- the
Human and the Divine - must ever appear and disappear together: they are the two terms of a relation
which wholly vanishes on the merging of either; and
though, with safety to both, there is room for considerable variety in the theory of their respective functions,
yet should an eye of reverential caution be kept (especially in our day) on the limits of the problem where the
foci fall into each other.  If, however, Mr. Maurice
has too nearly approached this danger, it is under the
inspiration of a truth than which there is no greater.
The assumption of humanity by the Eternal Word may
be construed from above downwards, so as to illustrate
the character and agency of God; or from below upwards, so as to throw light on the spiritual experiences
of man.  In the former view, it gives to our trust and
worship One whose chosen life is in our spirits, who
moulds us into unities not our own, - of family, of nation, of church,- who is not wearied by our perverseness, but, still pressing His righteousness upon us, is
ever redeeming what else were lost. In the latter view,
a singular sanctity is imparted to the inner facts of our
own existence and the invisible springs of the world's
history.- All that we inadequately call our ideals, the
gleaming lights of good that visit us, the hopes that lift
again our fallen wills, the beauty which Art cannot represent, the holiness which life does not realize, the love




380           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
which cannot die with death, —what are they?  Not
our higher, but a higher than we — the living Guide
Himself, pleading with us and asking for our trust.
The actual and concrete, on the other hand, which falls
so immeasurably short of these fair types, - the false
fact that lies ashamed beneath the true vision, — that
is our poor self; in which is nothing but failure, disappointment, and negation. One simple and only thing
is asked from us: to cease trusting this delusive self
and go freely into the Hand that waits for us,- to exchange the tension of volition for the quiet of unreserved
surrender,- to pass from the chafing mood of " works"
to the still heart of "faith." The great original sin of
our nature is, that we reverse this order, - that we rely
on ourselves and are afraid of God, and accordingly
seek, by some act of ours, to buy Him off and be rid
of His terrors and persuade Him to let us alone.
Whether men endeavor to propitiate Him by relinquishing something that they have, or to serve him  by
something that they do, they mistake their position, and
measure themselves off against Him as if they had proprietary rights which they could abandon in His favor,
or some availing righteousness which could satisfy His
moral perception. They aim at acting upon Him: and
He is wanting to act on them; and will persist till they
drop their gifts, and know their failures, and freely
come to Him as they are to be moulded by His thought.
It was to bring about this removal of distrust towards
God, to reveal the law of self-abnegation as Divine and
supreme, that the Word became flesh, and passed
through its grievous incidents, and entered into sympathetic pity for its sins and fears. The most alienated




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.           381
feeling, once apprehending this manifestation of Divine
adoption, could hold out no more. Such an Incarnation, bringing to a focus the perpetual truth of the
" God with us," is not a humiliation of the divine nature so much as the glory and joy of the human, and
discloses to us not a fallen world but a redeemed, with
whose resistance the " Spirit of holiness" will not for
ever have to strive. It harmonizes with "the belief
that man is not an animal carrying about a soul, but a
spiritual being with an animal nature, who, when he
has sunk lowest into that nature, has still thoughts and
recollections of a home to which he belongs, and from
which he has wandered." *
The same mode of thought by which the individual
life is thus turned into a sanctuary exhibits human society as in its essence a theocracy; and wins for the
experiences and polity of the Hebrew race, as particular
embodiments of a universal method, a meaning which
Lessing's hints ought long ago to have elicited.  Not
that we mean to press at all closely the analogy between the doctrine of the "Prophets and Kings of the
Old Testament," and the " Thoughts on the Education
of the Human Race."  They are alike in this: that
they pull down the fences which had detached the Hebrew life from the great territory of human history, and
find a universal function for even what is most exceptional in it. In their mode of procedure, however, they
differ: Lessing seeking in the career of the Jewish
people the rudiments of an unfolding idea; Maurice,
the witness to eternal truths, -the manifestation by
time-samples of infinite realities and unchanging rela* Hare's Charges, Introduction, p. xxi.




382           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
tions. And this difference touches a characteristic of
the living divine, which more than any other makes him
a perplexity to his contemporary critics.  So strong in
most Englishmen is the "natural man," as habitually
to assume, till they discover whither the maxim leads,
that " all we know is phenomena;" or rather they turn
all they know into phenomena, and contemplate nothing
"under the form of eternity."  Even their theology is
no exception.  They dramitize it; drawing it out into
an economy or plot, with different scenes, and progressive action, and crises of terror and of rescue, and a
grand catastrophe to wind up the whole. Now the elements and incidents of this plan Mr. Maurice takes out
of series, and redistributes in synchronous (or rather in
timeless) relations. States of humanity which we are
apt to represent as successive, and to string together as
passages of an historical process, he treats as always
co-existent in all men,- as abiding attributes or affections of their being.  "Original sin," for instance, is
not, in his view, a prior condition giving way to " reconciliation" as a posterior; but both exist together in
all men. And so too Divine states, which we are commonly taught to dispose chronologically, cease with him
to be separate. Christ the Saviour is usually believed
to have first come at the " advent," and to be identical
in date with Jesus of Nazareth. But, in Mr. Maurice's
view, there never was a time when our race was not
equally the abode of His "real presence."  "Man, according to his original constitution, was related to
Christ;" * who was in the heathen world while they
were bowing to gods of wood and stone, and in Saul
* The Doctrine of Sacrifice. Dedicatory Letter, p. 21.




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.             383
while yet the persecutor. The conversion on Damascus' road, and the whole historical gospel, did but reveal
a Divine person that had never been absent from our
humanity.  There was not- first, a lost Heathendom;
and then, to replace it, a redeemed Christendom: but
always, and throughout both, One who was and is
redeeming; and many, alas, in each, who resist this recall of them from their outer darkness. This abolition
of time-conditions, and redisposal of the same facts as
essential and permanent realities, gives the true key to
our author's most difficult writings.  The transmutation
it effects in the doctrine of " eternal punishment " is but
one example of its marvellous power of rejuvenescence
applied to a theology grown decrepit in routine.
The great strength of this school lies, we think, in its
faithful interpretation of what is at once deepest and
highest in the religious consciousness of men; and its
recognition, in this consciousness, of a concrete and
living Divine person, instead of mere abstractions without authority, or the dreams of unreliable imagination.
And we may well be grateful for a scheme which establishes a uniform  constitution of our nature and our
world, in steady relation to supernatural realities,
broken by no revolutionary jerks or local exemptions;
and which, therefore, opens a welcome to a scientific
ethic, and metaphysic, and history. Nor is its strength
merely that of fair promise and earnest appeal. So
long as it advances on the ground of religious philosophy, it appears to us to make its footing good: and the
first questionable step is, perhaps, at the point where
it enters history, and hands itself over from Plato
to St. John. The identification of the eternal Logos




384           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
with the historical Christ is at present left to rest upon
external authority alone, - and that too the authority
of a single evangelist. A thoughtful learner in this
school might be brought by some Alexandrine Coleridge
into a faith like Philo's in the Divine Word, and set
within the spiritual forecourt of this gospel. HIe might
next, on testimonial grounds, be led to receive the
whole evangelical series of external facts from Bethlehem to the Mount of Ascension.  And yet these two
termini of his belief might remain in painful discontinuity: and we do not see that the links of relation have
hitherto been adequately supplied. If the whole stress
is to be laid on the doctrine of the fourth gospel, the
question becomes an anxious one, how far the evangelist's thought has taken its complexion from the Master's discourses, —how far infused it into them.  For
surely, without re-opening the discussion of authorship
at all, the complete equalization of tone in this gospel
between the discourses and the narrative, rendering it
often impossible to mark the boundary between them, is
a fact of the utmost moment, — in itself accounted for in
either way: and if the discourses are as unlike those
in the other gospels as they are like the personal composition of St. John, the hypothesis most assuring to
us respecting their historical character is at an undeniable disadvantage. Shifted from the authentication of
Christ himself to that of even "the beloved disciple," the
Incarnation of the Logos in Jesus (in the sense required
by the theory) would rest on too doubtful a support:
for who could say whether we had to do with the revelation itself, or only with the mould of thought into which
the disciple threw it?




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.             385
That this difficulty has not been more felt by the
Coleridge divines is due, we believe, to the pre-occupation of their minds with intense convictions, thirsting
for that which assimilates with them or gains a glory
from them. Broad providential lights on history, genial
hopes of a less selfish human world, they open to us
by their wisdom and their life. And there are parts
of Scripture, the Pauline Epistles eminently, and the
Prophets in no slight degree, where a darkness readily
breaks away at the approach of their characteristic
thoughts.  Mr. Maurice's Unity of the New  Testament abounds with happy combinations possible only
to a fine spiritual tact. But exegesis has work to do
in which other gifts are of more avail than moral perception and religious insight: and then it is that these
writers, like their favorite catechetical school of Alex.
andria, appear to us signally to fail.  Who does not
smile at Mr. Maurice's explanation of the first chapter of Genesis?  And where, in addition, critical judg
ment and dexterity are required, the result is still
worse, —as in his treatment of the genealogies of
Jesus. No deficiency in the furniture of scholarship
causes this phenomenon. It is simply that biblical and
historical criticism never succeeds, except in striking
out partial lights, when it engages minds deeply tinctured with any metaphysical or spiritual enthusiasm.
The eye, accustomed to the eternal realities, loses the
quick and flitting glance that best seizes the expression
of nature and the phenomena of time.
After all, the real force of this school is independent
of scientific imperfections.  They are believing men -
afraid of no reality, despairing of no good, and resolute
25




386           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
to test their faith by putting it straightway into life.
They set to work to realize the kingdom of God in Soho
Square and other nameable localities; and in their step
towards this end there is as free, confiding, joyful movement, as if with their eyes they expected to see the
great salvation. There is more of the future, we suspect, contained in their gospel than in any talking
theology whose cry is heard in our streets.
Hence we feel ourselves to be falling back a step,
when we turn from the preacher of Lincoln's Inn to
the prophet of Chelsea. The influence of the latter,
vastly the more intense and widespread, appears to us to
have reached its natural limit, and taken up the portion
of believers allotted to it. As a revolutionary or pentecostal power on the sentiments of Englishmen, it is
perhaps nearly spent; and, like the romantic school of
Germany, will descend from the high level of a faith
to the tranquil honors of literature. So long as Mr.
Carlyle spoke with any hope to the inward reverence of
men, and in giving voice to their spiritual discontents
made them feel that they were emerging from mean
scepticisms into nobler inspirations, he was a deliverer
to captives out of number. But the early voice of hope
has become fainter and fainter, first passing into an
infinite pathos, and then lost in humorous mocking or
immeasurable scorn: and men cannot be permanently
held by their antipathies and distrusts, and cease to look
for any thing from a rebellion that never ends in peace.
He gets us well enough out of Egypt and all its filthy
idolatries; but, alas! his Red Sea will not divide, and
the promised land is far as ever, and the question
presses, whether "we are to die in the wilderness?"




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.            387
For a just estimate of Mr. Carlyle as an historian and
man of letters the time is not yet come. But his specific action on the religion of the age (of which alone
we speak) already belongs in a great measure to the
past, and is little likely to offer new elements for appreciation.
It is difficult now to transfer ourselves back into the
age, not yet faded however from living memory, when
Boileau and Kames were great canonists in the world
of letters, and criticism occupied the mortal form of
Dr. Blair. Of what stuff the young souls of that age
could be made we cannot imagine, if they  really
found nutriment in solemn trifles about the unities and
proprieties, - the choice of diction, - the length of
sentences, - the nature of tropes, - and the rhetorical
temperature required for interjection and apostrophes.
~Mr. Carlyle, among other contemporaries, certainly rose
with indignant hunger from such a table of the gods,
symmetrically spread with polished covers and nothing
under them. In mere analysis of the machinery of expression or even thought, in rules for the manufacture
of literary effects, he could find no response to the enthusiasm kindled in him by his favorite authors. The
true ambrosia of the inner life was turned into dry ash
by the legislators of belles lettres: and he was courageous enough to ask for the missing and immortal element.
The same external direction had been taken by philosophy, and produced the same consciousness of a miserable
void.  The searching scepticism of Hume showed the
dreary results to which the mere analysis of "experience " compendiously led. And the devices of utilitarian
cuisine for putting pleasure into the pot and drawing




388           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
virtue out betrayed the loss of the very idea of morals.
The very things which this desiccating rationalism flung
off, were to Mr. Carlyle just the essence and whole
worth of the universe: and to show that beauty, truth,
and goodness, could not thus be got rid of, while impostors were hired to bear their name; that religion is not
hope and fear, or duty prudence, or art a skill to please;
that behind the sensible there lies a spiritual, and beneath all relative phenomena an absolute reality, - was
evidently, if not his early vow, at least his first inspiration.  Surely it was an authentic appointment to
a noble work: and on looking back over his quartercentury, no one can deny that it has been manfully
achieved.
By what providence Mr. Carlyle learned the German
language, in days when the study of it was rare, we
cannot tell. But through it he evidently was enabled
to " find his soul;" and gained confidence to proclaim
the faith which was stirring from its sleep within, and
at once woke up at the sight of its reflected image without. That revolt against rationalism which Dr. Newman apparently used, and directed for preconceived ends
and in the service of an "economy," presents itself
in Mr. Carlyle with all its veracious freshness. The
same positions that approve themselves to the Oxford
Catholic as suitable hypotheses, and to the Highgate
philosopher as rational axioms, are seized by the living intuition of the Scottish seer; -that wonder and
reverence are the condition of insight and the source of
strength;- that faith is prior to knowledge, and deeper
too; - that empirical science can but play on the surface of unfathomable mysteries; — that in the order




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.           389
of reality the ideal and invisible is the world's true
adamant, and the laws of material appearance only its
alluvial growths. In the inmost thought of men there
is a thirst to which the springs of nature are a mere
mirage, and which presses on to the waters of eternity.
Extinguish this thirst by stupefaction of custom,- reduce thought to work without wonder, - and several
delusions, both doleful and ridiculous, will speedily
obtain high commissions in human affairs. The true
marvel of Origination being lost, a "cause-and-effect
philosophy" will esteem every thing solved when it has
shown how each nine-pin in the universe knocks down
the next. The spiritual germ and essence of humanity
being forgot or denied, "a doctrine of circumstances"
will discuss the prospect of furnishing to order any required supply of poets, philosophers, or able administrators, - like so many varieties of farm-stock.  The idea
of a God-given freedom being dismissed with the phantoms of " the dark ages," a calculus of " motives " will
be invented for finding the roots of every human problem, and raising any given sentient man to any required
moral power. The genuine ground of all communion
with the Infinite having sunk away within us, all sorts
of logical proofs, and logical disproofs, will quarrel together about primitive certainties that shroud themselves
from both. In all these complaints, the substantive concurrence of our author with Mr. Coleridge is conspicuous.
And though, in his Life of Sterling, the humor has
seized him to ridicule the "windy harangues" and dizzying metaphysics of the Highgate soirees, there was a
time when he had no little faith in the same methods as
well as large agreement in the same results. In his




390           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
earlier essays, he too expounds the distinction between
" Understanding" and " Reason," and sets up the latter
as the organ for apprehending the ideal essence, which
is the true real of things. He speaks with reverential
appreciation of Kant's doctrine, both metaphysical and
moral; and with hope as well as admiration of the
several iesthetic theories developed from similar beginnings. In short, he manifestly put an early trust in
the philosophical method to which Coleridge remained
faithful to the last. And not less manifestly did he
soon break away from this path in despair; and with
characteristic vehemence thenceforth inveigh against the
propensity to seek it as an illusion of disease. In 1827,
lie defended the Kritik der reinen Vernunft against
ignorant objectors, as reputed by competent judges to
be' distinctly the greatest intellectual achievement of
the century in which it came to light;" and dwelt with
approval on the rule that, in quest of the highest truth,
we must look within, and thence work outward with the
torch we have lit. Yet in 1831 he broached, in his
Characteristics, his celebrated doctrine of "Unconsciousness:" which teaches that all self-knowledge is a curse,
and introspection a disease; that the true health of a
man is to have a soul without being aware of it, - to
be disposed of by impulses which he never criticises, -
to fling out the products of creative genius without looking, at them. In a word, the reflective thought on which,
in the former year, he had relied for the purest wisdom,
had in the latter become the sin and despair of humanity. What can have befallen in the interval?  Had the
author meanwhile tried the metaphysic springs, and
after due patience found them, not simply "saints




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.            391
wells," with no healing in them, but poison-fountains,
that made the sickly soul yet sicklier? We do not
believe it: for there is nowhere any trace that the first
clue of entrance into the German philosophy had been
followed up; and on the other hand, every indication
that Mr. Carlyle's denunciation of metaphysics is the
mere judgment of an intuitive genius on methods of
reflection, which, however helpful to slower and more
formal minds, it is not given him to take. Had he
been able to retain and pursue his first hope, —had
he taken the severe path of philosophical discipline,
and surrendered himself to its promise of deliverance,
- we hardly think that we should ever have heard that
passionate cry of despair, which proclaims the distinctive
glory of man to be his irremediable woe, and asserts
that, in finding himself, he for ever falls from heaven.
The preacher of this doctrine had already started problems within himself, to which no answer (as his own
word declares) could be found but by faithful questioning within: and it is a serious thing to go thus far, and
yet not abide long enough to hear the reply.  But instead of this, he flings away the very problems with a
shriek, as the fruit by which paradise is lost; repents
of all knowledge of good and evil; claps a bandage
round the open eyes of morals, religion, art; and sees
no salvation but in spiritual suicide, by plunging into
the currents of instinctive nature that sweep us we
know not whither. This tragic paradox has, indeed,
a generous source, and is even thrown up by a certain wild tumultuous piety.  It springs from a deep
sense of the hatefulness of self-worship, and the barrenness of mere self-formation. It is a stormy prayer




392           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
for escape from these; only with face turned, alas! in
the wrong direction-back towards the west, with its
fading visions of Atlantic islands of Unconsciousness,
instead of forwards to the east, where already the
heavens are pale with a light, instead of a darkness,
not our own1.
Though this despair of the highest objective truth
could not fail, in the long-run, to produce pathetic and
tempestuous results, yet for a while the mere deliverance
from the negations of the empirical schools sufficed for
a gospel: and the new sense of divine mystery and
meaning, behind all that met the common eye, was
little else in effect than a revelation.  A certain consecration fell on what had been quite secular before: and
with this peculiarity, that its influence spread as an underground beneath the foundations of objects and pursuits previously disconnected, and became a common
conductor of fresh reverence into them all.  Literature,
art, politics, natural knowledge, seemed to sit less apart
from religion. Heave off the utilitarian incubus from
above, and secret affinities begin to be felt at the roots
of their life.  When it is no longer "the sole aim" of
poetry "to please," of science to "get fruit" for the
storehouses of comfort, of government "to protect body
and goods," of sculpture and painting to minister to
luxury, —they obtain ideal ends, which in essence
melt and merge together; and all of them -beauty,
truth, and righteousness -culminate in the reality of
God.  Whatever the theologians may say, the age
owes a debt of rare gratitude to the man who, above
all others, has awakened this new sense within its soul,
has touched with a strange devoutness many a class




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.           393
which book and surplice had ceased to awe; has taken
the impertinent self-will out of the movements of pencil,
pen, and chisel; and made even Mechanics' Institutions
ashamed of their incipient millennium of " useful knowledge."  The influence of Mr. Carlyle's writings, and
especially of his Sartor Resartus, has been primarily
exerted on classes of men most exposed to temptations
of egotism and petulance, and least subjected to any
thing above them, — academics, artists, litterateurs,'strong-minded" women, "debating" youths, Scotchmen of the phrenological grade, and Irishmen of the
Young-Ireland school.  In the altered mood of mind
which has been induced in these various groups within
the last five-and-twenty years we acknowledge a conspicuous good; and could even hear, with more of
sadness than of condemnation, the passionate words
that once burst from the lips of a believer: "Carlyle
is my religion!"
The unity, however, which our prophet's mystic
sense discerns among our human "arts and sciences" is
too great: and we must reclaim from him a distinction
which not even the fusing power of his genius can do
more than blur and conceal. Not in the human and
moral world only, but quite similarly in the physical,
does he see the expression of the Infinite and Divine.
Both are alike symbols of the one spiritual essence,
which is hid from the blind, and revealed to the wise, in
all.  He does not, like Coleridge, separate nature and
spirit into two realms, quite differently related to Him
who is the source of both, —the one His moulded
fabric, the other His free image, -but treats them indiscriminately as the vehicles of His manifestation, and




394           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
phenomena through which the Divine force pours.
This is not, indeed, done by sinking humanity into a
mere object of natural history; rather by raising the
objects of natural history up to the spiritual level, adding significance to them, instead of taking it from us.
But still, man is not permitted to remain quite sui generis: he is simply the highest of the countless emblems
woven into the universal " garment of God." The texture is one and homogeneous throughout:-in one
sense all natural, as a determinate product in time; in
another, all supernatural, as mysteriously issuing from
eternity. The same comprehensive formula,- the appearance of the Infinite in the finite, - serves everywhere, and equally describes "the lily of the field" and
the Redeemer who interpreted its meaning.
Did we want to turn human life into a mere school of
Art, there might be nothing very fatal in the looseness
of this doctrine.  An impartial conception of some
Divine idea in every thing may clear away the film of
sense, and open to view the life of much that else were
dead. To rend away the veil is the grand condition for
enabling the eye to see: whoever does this, may talk as
he pleases of the realities behind; they will vindicate
themselves.  Yet even for truth of representation, and
infinitely more for faithfulness of character and action, a
distinctive reverence for man as more than natural, as
the abode of God in a sense quite false of clouds and
stars, as intrusted with himself that he may surrender
to a higher, —is indispensable.  For want of this,
Mr. Carlyle loses all ground of difference between the
natural and the right, - the out-come of tendency and
the free creations of conscience. He is tempted into ex



ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.           395
cessive admiration of mere realizing strength, irrespective
of any higher test of spiritual worth.  Whatever can
get upon its feet, and persist in standing on this world,
is vindicated in his eyes, and exhibited as a sample of
the "eternal laws:" while that which has nothing to
show for itself except that it ought to be, - righteousness that knocks in vain at the door of visible "fact,"
- meets with no sympathy from him, and is even jeered
for its foolish patience in still sitting on the step with
unremitting prayer. True, he does not admit the rights
of possession till after a pretty long term, and knows
how to treat the " shams" and upstarts of to-day, the
" flunkey" powers that usurp more venerable place,
with withering scorn:-still, however, for a reason
which would equally condemn an aspiration transcending human conditions, viz. because they are at variance
with the laws of the actual, and are sure to be disowned
by the baffling solidity of nature.  Against the fickle
multitude of momentary facts and popular semblances,
he sides with the conservative aristocracy of natural
laws; but recognizes no divine monarchy with prerogatives over both. The kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of nature being identical, neither transcending the
other, but being related only as inner meaning and outward expression, no margin is left for an ideal other
than the long-run of the actual, - for an " ought " beyond the "can," -for a will of God surpassing finite
conditiohs.  Hence Mr. Carlyle's habit of resolving all
ethical evil into " insincerity " and " unveracity," — surely
a most inadequate formula for the.expression of even
commonplace moral judgments.  Extend these terms
ever so much, - use them to denote unconscious as




396           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
well as conscious self-variance, - nay, include in them
also defiance of nature and outward possibility, --
still, what far-fetched circuits must be taken before you
can bring under such a definition the sins of envy, covetousness, resentment, and prudent licentiousness' The
root of this delusive conception of human goodness lies
in the pantheistic assumption, that to fly in the face of
natural forces is to withstand the highest that there is;
and its fruit, when fully ripe, cannot fail to be an indifference to many a natural sin,- a lowering of the ideal
standard of conscience, and a derision of baffled yet
trusting righteousness.  Every reader of Mr. Carlyle
can remember painful instances of entire abdication of
all moral judgment on atrocious actions and abandoned
men, -a Mirabeau and a September massacre: nay,
even ridicule of the whole distinction of moral and immoral applied to actions, as "the blockhead's distinction;" and many a hint that the difference lies only
in the customariness (mores) of one practice as compared with another. Did it never occur to him to ask
whether it is the human usages that make the moral
sense, or not rather the moral sense that makes the
human usages?
Yet this questionable doctrine, often provoked into
expression by some senseless prudery or ungenial rigor,
is very far from representing the author's real and deepest mind. Flashes of purer light meet you not rarely,
especially in his earlier writings. Who can forget how,
in the hour of uttermost desolation, amid the wildest
storm of unbelief, the sheet-anchor of the unhappy Teufelsdr6ckh was the " infinite nature of Duty;" and
in this form  never, in his utmost extremity, did the




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.            397
Divine presence desert him? And are we not told, in
many changing tones, that in obedience and reverence
alone can any true freedom be found? that we are to
recognize God in the higher life within us, as opposed
to the pleasure-life? that we can find Him only by selfrenunciation? In these ingenious days, when no one
proposition is-so rude as to contradict any other, some
disciple of the "many-sided" poet, or some proficient
in the "dialectic process," may be able to harmonize
such sentiments with the assertion that "man cannot
but obey whatever he ought to obey." At present we
do not pretend to have reached the "higher unity" in
which appeals to our freedom coalesce with the assertion
of universal necessity.
To pull up the fence between " nature" and " spirit"
within us is to throw the Understanding and the Character into the same field. We are therefore prepared
for the celebrated paradox, that intellect and goodness
always go together; so that, of mental insight and
moral soundness, either may be taken as the measure
of the other.  If by "intellect" and "insight" is meant
exclusively what Coleridge calls "reason," this statement not only ceases to be a paradox, but becomes
almost a truism: for it is the chief function of this
power to make us conscious of moral truth and obligation; and the consciousness fades when faithlessly
neglected. But if these terms refer to what Coleridge
calls " understanding," - if the possession of this endowment constitutes a claim  upon them, - then the
doctrine is conspicuously false: for the "adaptive intelligence," being an animal faculty, is entirely separable
from moral conditions; actually exists without them in




398           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
many tribes of creatures; and in man simply rises to a
quickness of generalization and a skill in the use of
means which imply nothing respecting the wise estimate
or the faithful pursuit of ends. Low passions and selfish impulses are quite capable of enlisting on their
behalf all the resources of this mental gift; their partnership with which gives us the idea of a satanic nature.
Mr. Carlyle, we believe, means to say, that this sort of
"understanding" he will not acknowledge as intellect;
it is a mere "beaver" or "fox" faculty, not to be noticed
among the distinctions of man. Not till you have got
beyond mechanical ingenuity and lawyer adroitness do
you enter on the proper human territory; within which,
capacity and character go together. This interpretation,
throwing us upon Coleridge's upper region, reduces the
maxim to an intelligible truth. But will Mr. Carlyle
consent to take it with all its fair consequences? Will
he, without flinching, read the truth both ways, —inferring either term of this constant ratio ("intellectual"
and "moral ") from  the magnitude of the other?  We
know that, where he discovers (as in Mirabeau) great
force of mind, he is ready to plead this in bar of all
objections against character, and to insist that, in spite
of appearances, such brightness of eye must carry with
it soundness of conscience. But will he turn the problem  round, and abide by it still?  When he finds,
deep hid in the retreats of private life, a goodness eminent and even saintly, a moral clearness and force great
in their way as Mirabeau's keen-sightedness, will he
accept the sign in evidence of mighty intellect? Will
he say that, notwithstanding the meek and homely look,
high genius must assuredly be there? We fear not:




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.             399
at least, we remember no instance in which the inference
is set with its face this way; whilst it is familiar to all
his readers as an excuse for admiration startling to the
moral sense.  In truth, this maxim, more perhaps than
any other indication, expresses the pagan character of
our author's mind; his alienation from the distinctively
Christian type of reverence, rather for the inner sanctities of self-renunciation than for the outward energies of
self-assertion. His "hero-worships" certainly present us
with a list far from concurrent with the "beatitudes:"
nor can we fancy that he would listen with much more
patience than a Lucian or a Pliny to blessings on the
meek and merciful, the pure in heart, the ever-thirsty
after righteousness. For him too, as for so many gifted and ungifted men, the force which will not be
stopped by any restraint on its way to great achievement,-the genius which claims to be its own law,
and will confess nothing diviner than itself, - have an
irresistible fascination. His eye, overlooking the landscape of humanity, always runs up to the brilliant peaks
of power: not, indeed, without a glance of love and
pity into many a retreat of quiet goodness that lies safe
beneath their shelter; but should the sudden lightning,
or the seasonal melting of the world's ice-barriers, bring
down a ruin on that green and feeble life, his voice,
after one faint cry of pathos, joins in with the thunder
and shouts with the triumph of the avalanche.  Ever
watching the strife of the great forces of the universe,
he, no doubt, sides on the whole against the Titans
with the gods: but if the Titans make a happy fling,
and send home a mountain or two to the very beard of
Zeus, he gets delighted with the game on any terms and
cries, " Bravo I"




400           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
The Sartor Resartus finds the manifestation of God
in the entire life of the universe; in visible nature; in
individual man, and especially his higher mind; in the
march and process of history; and in the organic development of humanity as a whole. The author's tendency,
however, has increasingly been to retreat from all other
media of Divine expression upon his favorite centre,
the genius and energy of heroic men. So much has
he gathered-in his lights of interpretation upon this
focus, as to incur the charge of setting up the personality of individuals as the single determining agency in
the affairs of the world, and forgetting the larger half
of the truth, that all persons, taken one by one, are but
elements of a great social organism, to whose laws of
providential growth they must be held subordinate.
History cannot be resolved into a mere series of biographies: nor can the individual be justly estimated in his
insulation, and tried by the mere inner law of his own
particular nature. It would be a melancholy outlook
for the world, if its courses were simply contingent on
the genius and life of a few great men, without any
security from a general law behind that they should
appear at the right time and place, and with the aptitudes for the needful work.  And, on the other hand,
were the life of nations to be expended in nothing else
than the production of its half-dozen heroes; were this
splendid but scanty blossoming the great and only real
thing it does, there would seem to be a wasteful disproportion between the mighty forest that falls for lumber and the sparse fruit that would lie upon your open
hand. There is need, therefore, of some more manifest
relation between individual greatness and the collective




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.            401
life of humanity; and to save us from egoism, from
fatalism, from arbitrary and capricious morals, we must
learn to recognize a divine method of development in
both,-primarily, in race and nation, and with authority over the secondary functions of personal genius.
That Mr. Carlyle's "hero-worship" requires to be
balanced by a supplementary doctrine of society and
collective humanity, he would himself perhaps be disposed to allow. But what is this supplement to be?
Is it merely to teach that the individual is to hold
himself at the disposal of the whole? to correct his
conscience by the general tradition or the permanent
voice of humanity; to sink his egoism, to temper it by
immersion in the universal element, and become the
organ of the progress of the species? Far be it from
us to deny that there may be men susceptible of inspiration from such a faith, - capable of dying for such
abstractions as a "law of development," of being torn
limb from limb out of regard for " the whole."  Still
less would we disparage by one word a heroism all
the nobler for the faint whispers that suffice to waken it
into life. Yet we cannot help feeling that in these impersonal ideas, - of "collective society," "law of the
whole," "destination of mankind," &c. — there is a
want of natural authority over the conscience, and,
missing the conscience, over the personal impulses of
individual men. In the mere notions of "whole and
part," of "organism  and member," of "average rule
and particular case," there resides no moral element,
no rights over the will: and if ever they seem to carry
such functions, it is only because a deeper feeling lurks
behind and lends them the insignia of a prerogative not
26




402           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
their own. In a world of mere "general laws," it
would ever remain a melancholy thing to see living
heroes and saints struck down at the altar of "historical tendency" by some shadowy dagger of necessity.
Love, enthusiasm, devotion, need some concrete and
living object; if not to command their allegiance, at
least to turn it from sorrow into joy. And you have but
to translate your "progress of the species " into " Kingdom  of Heaven," and the problem  is solved.  The
ever-living God stands in Person between the "individual" and the " whole,"- by His communion mediating between them, - stirring in the conscience of the
one, and constituting the tides of advancing good in
the other, - and so engaging both in one spiritual life.
Surrendering immediately to Him, instead of to the ultimate ratios of the world, faithful men fling themselves
into Omnipotent sympathy, and find deliverance and
repose. They have a trust that relieves them of every
care; and can leave themselves to be applied to the
great account and problem of the world by One who
is in the midst, and from the first, and at the end, at
once. Through Him, therefore, as the common term
of all righteousness, must the collective humanity win
its due rights and reverence from Each. The private
conscience ceases to be private, the public claim to be
merely public, when both are to us the instant pleadings of His living authority. In obeying them, we yield
neither to a mixed multitude of our own kind, whose
average voice is no better than our own, nor even to
our mere higher self; but to the august Revealer of
whatever is pure and just and true. In enforcing its
traditions and inheritance of right, the Nation or Society




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.            403
of men is not proudly riding on its own arbitrary will,
but recognizing the trust committed to it and serving as
the organism of eternal rectitude.
It is for want of this deliverance from Self at the
upper end, that Mr. Carlyle, resolute to break the ignoble bondage on any terms, proposes escape at the lower
end; and, preaching up the glories of "Unconsciousness," sighs for relapse into the life of blind impulsive
tendency.  With him, we confess the curse; we groan
beneath its misery; but we see from it a double path, —
backward into Nature, forward into God, - and cannot
for an instant doubt that the Self-consciousness which
is the beginning of Reason is never to recede, but to
rise and free itself in the transfiguration of Faith. Deny
and bar out this hope, and who can wonder if the
sharpest remedies for man's selfish security are welcomed
with a wild joy; if any convulsion that shall strip off
the green crust of artificial culture and lay bare the
primitive rock beneath us, appears as a needful return
of the fermenting chaos? How else are the elementary
forces of instinctive nature to re-assert their rights and
begin again from their unthinking freshness?  In some
such feeling as this we find, perhaps, the source, in Mr.
Carlyle, of that terrible glee that seems to flame up at
the spectacle of revolutionary storms, and to dart with
mocking gleams of devilry and tender streaks of humanity over a background of "divine despair." Indeed
we could not wish for a better illustration of the two
paths of escape from Self, - back into Nature, forward
into God,- than the contrast of Carlyle and Maurice
in the whole coloring and climate of their spirit: the
sad, pathetic, scornful humor of the one, capricious




404           PERSONAL INFLUENCES
with laughter, tears, and anger, and expressive of manful pity and endurance, alike removed from fear and
hope; and the buoyant, serene, trustful temper of the
other, genial even in its indignation, and penetrated
with the joy of an Infinite Love.
The three schools of doctrine at which we have thus
rapidly glanced occupy the most distant points in the
English religion of the present age; or, at least, in
the new fields of tendency which it has opened. It may
seem a vain quest to look for any thing common to the
whole. Yet when they are interpreted by their inner
spirit, rather than by their outward relations, one
thought will be found secreted at the heart of all - the
perennial Indwelling of God in Man and in the Universe. This is the distinct gain that has been won by
the spiritual consciousness of the time; and that already
enriches fiction and poetry, art and social morals, not
less than direct theology. In the preceding criticisms
we have said enough to show that we are not indifferent
to the mode and form of doctrine in which this thought
is embodied. But however threatening the mists from
which it has to clear itself, it is the dawn of a truth,a blush upon the East, - wakening up trustful hearts
to thanksgiving and hope. We know well the anger
and antipathy of all the elder parties towards every
phase of the new sentiment. We are accustomed to
their absurd and heartless attempt to divide all men between the two poles of their logical dilemma, - either
absolute Atheism, or else "our" orthodoxy. But these
are only symptoms that the new wine cannot go into
the old bottles. They do but betray the inevitable
blindness of party-life, - the increasing self-seeking,




ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY.           405
the loss of genial humility, the conceit of finished wisdom, which mark the decadence of all sects. Precisely
in the middle of this pretended alternative of necessity,
- far from "Atheism " on the one hand, and from most
"orthodoxies" on the other, - stand at this moment
the vast majority of the most earnest, devout, philosophic Christians of our time; men with trust in a Living
Righteousness, which no creed of one age can adequately define for the fresh experiences given to the spirit
of another. To them, and not to the noisy devotees
and pharisees of party, do we look for the faith of the
future.




406
THEOLOGY IN ITS RELATION TO PROGRESSIVE KNOWLEDGE. *
THE College which resumes its work this day professes
to impart a special training for the Christian Ministry:
and the Christian Minister is one who, in discipleship
to Jesus Christ, aims to guide the reverence, to ennoble
the conscience, and sustain the piety, of men. To treat
such an office as the object of a particular discipline.,
not simply for the character and affections, but for the
intellect too, takes for granted, what has not always
been admitted, that Theology is, in some sense, a
Science and admits of being methodically taught. This
assumption would be false, if religious truth were simply
a natural intuition, or a supernatural inspiration, in each
individual mind. Just as Aristotle, in order to save
Ethics for scientific treatment, dismisses the hypothesis
that virtue is either a native faculty or a given feeling,
and insists that it is a formed quality and developed
order of preferences in the mind;  so, if our " schools
of the prophets" are to have any justification, we
must be prepared to show, that religion contains matter
for teaching, and is neither inborn like eyesight, nor
* An Address at the Opening of the Session 1865-6 of Manchester New
College, London, October the 9th, 1865.
t Eth. Nic. II. v.




THEOLOGY IN ITS RELATION, ETC.        407
an arbitrary visitant like a trance or dream: for, in
the one case, training would be superfluous, and, in the
other, impossible. All teaching is communication from
mind to mind: it implies that one mind may know more
than another, and the same mind more at a later time
than at an earlier.  And, using the inequality as
instrument for the progress, it further assumes that
teacher and taught, instead of being abandoned to lonely
inspiration, -" words that cannot be uttered,"-have
a common medium of thought and mutual intelligence,
and can meet, when they speak together, upon the
same real objects. As every Medical school takes for
granted, by its very existence, that the animal body is
real, and its physiological constitution permanent and
cognizable; as every Law school takes for granted that
human society is constant, and throws its self-regulating
forces into a machinery but little variable; so does a
Theological school assume that God and his relations
to man are objective realities, perpetually there and
approachable by human faculties.  Two things therefore, with regard to the nature of religion, are denied
by every such institution as this: (1) it is not a mere
natural instinct; (2) it is not a mere supernatural
grace. And two things about it are affirmed: (1) it
presents something real and permanent for the intellect
to hold by; (2) it has its undetermined and progressive lines, on which it is the business of the teacher to
move and mark the fixed points as they emerge.
Without this mixed composition, of the constant and
the variable, it may be doubted whether, intellectually,
religion would retain its interest at all. WXere it nothing but a scheme of shifting conceptions, unrelated to




408         THEOLOGY IN ITS RELATION
any thing beyond our personality, - the mere shadow
of ourselves flung on the universe without, -it might
remain, like any other illusion, a curious object of
psychological analysis, but would lose all serious place
in human life. Were it, on the other hand, a scheme
of absolute knowledge, so determined and rounded off
as to be, like its Object, "without variableness or
shadow of a turning," it might no doubt be recited
afresh to each generation, like the alphabet or the
numeration table, and so far be made the business of a
school: but however new to the learner, it would be old
to the teacher, and become wearisome as a routine, unquickened by the real life of his mind. So repugnant
is this to both the intellectual and the spiritual nature,
that no effort can render it possible for long. Thought
is alive, and cannot rotate like a machine; and, in its
eagerness for movement, carries every science with it,
if not into advance, into aberration, - at any rate into
change. Still more are reverence and affection alive;
and, while faithful to the same object, they are unable
to rest without transporting it into a new air and
investing it with fresh lights: so that a religion forbidden to improve betakes itself to degeneracy, rather
than become petrified, and, instead of growing upwards
into statelier proportions, breaks into lateral deformities, as the only vent for its vitality. What, for
instance, are all the outrages on sense and history
committed by the prophetic or allegorical interpreter,
but an attempt to adjust a fixed text to a moving
world, to find room within the narrow frame of the ancient letter for the grand lines and various groups of
the modern picture? These cannot be left out of the




TO PROGRESSIVE KNOWLEDGE.           409
scheme of faith, since they have found their way into
the scheme of things: and those who seek for God,
not in his own universe, but in a document about it,
are obliged to stretch and distort the record to make
room for what is not there. Even in the most stationary theologies, the real interest lies in the expansion of
old truth to embrace and consecrate the newest births
of time.
The mode, however, of dividing the constant from
the variable elements in a religion is not always the
same; and in the intellectual training of Christian
teachers, it makes the greatest difference which of two
principles we adopt as our rule.
The first assumes that the things to be taught are a
determinate stock of truths given in perpetuity, susceptible of no increase, secured against all abatement.
These are the divine constants; filling the whole sphere
of religion; and throwing out all the variables into the
secular sciences and arts; amid which religion is to find
its application without any re-action upon its theory.
Let us consider what direction is naturally impressed
upon theological education by this assumption.
The primary aim will be to teach methodically the
fixed scheme of positive religion, and secure on every
side its hold on the student's mind. Nor is it by any
means a scanty intellectual culture that may subserve
this end. For the Protestant (to whom we must limit
our view) the scheme is embodied in Scripture. Now
to be master of Scripture is to be at home in two languages, most unlike each other, and long, silent upon
the earth; to have an eye and ear for their dialectic
variations in time and place; to trace the literary life of




410         THEOLOGY IN ITS RELATION
the Hebrew people from its dawn to its decline, and of
Christendom in its obscure beginnings; to be familiar
with the history of the Eastern world till it became a
province of the West. These resources are needed for
entering into the interior of Scripture. But no ancient
book is rightly appreciated, unless its external history
is surveyed, and the witnesses examined to its origin,
its travels, its transmission, the uncertainties of its text,
and worth of its translations: -researches, the extent and complexity of which are sufficiently attested by
the immense critical apparatus they have placed at our
disposal. From the moment when the Scriptures were
snatched from sacerdotal keeping and delivered over, as
the new-found oracles of God, to the venerating scrutiny
of reading men, the development of sacred learning was
large and rapid; and, though for a time suspended by
the excitement and desolation of religious wars, still
showed, in Limborch and Le Clerc, how little the
intellectual impulse given by Calvin and Beza had spent
its force. The refinement and security which modern
scholarship has gradually attained, and the compendious
form into which the results of vast research are now
reduced, are unfavorable to the reputation of those
earlier masters of sacred criticism: the light handbook
gives us what we want at a glance, and their heavy
folios are left to gather the dust upon our shelves. But
whoever has occasion to consult them will be disposed
to wonder at the vast strides of approach already made
towards the standard of learning in our own day;
especially when he remembers to how great an extent
the scholar of the sixteenth and even the seventeenth
century had to be his own lexicographer and gram



TO PROGRESSIVE KNOWLEDGE.          411
marian, to make his own index and concordance, to
work out his own archaeology, to construct his own
maps and tables of dates, and go to the sources of
history for himself. These disadvantages, which would
excuse a much greater inaccuracy than we actually find,
drove the man of learning out over an immense field,
and gave him a range of erudition and a grasp of judgment which may well astonish the more special students
of later times.
The proportions in which the religious and the simply intellectual impulse contributed to the great works
of Protestant erudition, it is impossible to determine.
TWere it not that, at the revival of learning, precisely
similar phenomena appeared on the field of secular
literature, and Joseph Scaliger and Henry Stephens
rivalled the greatest prodigies of theological industry,
we might be tempted to say that nothing short of an
overpowering reverence for the Bible as the word of
God, could sustain the laborious patience of the old
divines, or invest with any living interest their verbal
criticisms and technical disputes. Perhaps the spell put
upon the imagination in the two cases, by the undiscovered wisdom and beauty of Pagan literature, and by
the spiritual depth of the sacred books, was not so dissimilar as we might suppose, and would stir the mind
to the same efforts, and produce analogous results.
But, when the first flush of wondering impulse had
passed away, secular and sacred learning were doomed,
by a single cause, to take different directions, and acquire a character ever more distinct. The Scriptures
were assumed to be a continuous oracle, an unbroken
authoritative record, homogeneous for all the purposes




412         THEOLOGY IN ITS RELATION
of religious guidance, a divine book in which the everliving Author, wielding the human secretaries as his
organs of communication, discloses all that is known of
his will and moral government. If a critic were to
treat the Iliad of Homer, the Cyropaedeia of Xenophon,
and the history of Thucydides, as belonging to one
another, and all as components of the philosophy of
Aristotle, the results could scarcely be more fatally
grotesque.  No doubt, the sanctity attributed to every
line secured an eager and prolonged scrutiny of the
text, word by word: but the gaze was too close, and
the imaginary light was too intense, for clear and
comprehensive vision.  An exaggerated  significance
was seen in the simplest phrase; narrative was construed into type, and myth mistaken for history; a
Hebrew ode was made to yield evangelic dogma; and
whether the Elohist or the Jehovist told the story of
Creation, whether Job affirmed of God or his friends
denied, whether the Preacher taught Epicureanism or the
later Isaiah the law of humiliation, whether Matthew
presented Christ as miraculously conceived, or Paul as
the pre-existing spiritual Adam, or John the evangelist
as the Incarnate Logos, —it was all alike authoritative: -the various elements fused into one uniform
alloy, and re-issued, as shekels of gold, to serve for
coin of the temple. In the presence of such preconceptions, it is evident that all historical method, all
recognition of natural growth of religious ideas, all critical appreciation of contrasted doctrines, all discharge
of local and personal errors from the imperishable
essence of divine truth, must remain impossible: and
scholarship, kindled at first, but dizzied at last, with




TO PROGRESSIVE KNOWLEDGE.          413
the'monotonous glory it sees upon the page, settles into
blindness' and distinguishes nothing.  There is an
immense accumulation of theological erudition; but,
under this spell, it lies dead and dark, and yields none
of the brilliant results of the corresponding secular
learning. There is not within it the free, sincere and
healthy movement on which elsewhere the veracious
instinct of the intellect insists; it is held in hand and
marched about, as if to check an enemy. Are there
weak places exposed and threatened? its masses are
ordered up to close and hide them. Can an impression
be made of reserved strength? its ranks are opened to
show it and scare assault away. This is not the spirit
of the true scholar; who, knowing no enemy, can leave
unguarded any holy places already held, and go forth,
as pilgrim and explorer, to find new ones that shall
enlarge his homage and consecrate fresh points upon
the world.
Not even the most rigid theologian, however, can
live exclusively with what he regards as the constants of
religion. Fix these as he may, he finds himself in a
changing scene, with the variables of which he is in
immediate contact; and the relations between the immutable data of his creed and the shifting conditions
of human life have to be re-adjusted, as new ideas and
wants arise. To qualify himself for this, and become a
proficient in applied religion, he must know how the
world is going on, follow in the track of the advancing
sciences, listen to the tones of the younger literature,
and breathe the air of other men's thought. He cannot
act as trustee of the deposit committed to him, unless
he looks around him and sees how it is to be adminis



414         THEOLOGY IN ITS RELATION
tered in the altered temper of the generations as they
rise; what doubts it has to meet, what repugnance to
encounter; by what fresh paths of approach it must
reach minds now transported into uncalculated latitudes. Theological education, therefore, however severely conservative, is far from deserving the reproach
of indifference to the march of the phenomenal sciences.
Its own purpose can never be fulfilled without a comprehensive knowledge, revised and filled in from time
to time, of whatever the historical critic, and the
inductive philosopher, and the speculative thinker, may
profess to have achieved. But, under such an inflexible system, the student's specialty is this; through his
wide range he sees nothing in its simply natural light,
judges nothing by its own proper evidence, but carries
with him a criterion foreign to the field; his stock of
constants he uses as regulative, determining without
appeal what shall be taken and what be left; all that
falls in with them he appropriates and works in to
modernize his creed; all that conflicts with them  he
discards and blackens as profane. By thus importing
the postulates of a divinity-school as the measure of
inductive truth, a hopeless breach is created between
the logic of theology and that of science, and a war
begun which is the more miserable, because the parties
to it, always within reach of irritating challenge, move
upon different lines and can never fairly meet.  It is
needless to say how this method spoils every thing it
touches, scholarship, natural knowledge, religion, and
produces the temper most alien to the genius of them
all. Is it not a melancholy fact that every modern
science has had to make good its footing, not only




TO PROGRESSIVE KNOWLEDGE.           415
against sluggish incredulity and prejudice, but against
misguided piety? that the very Sun could not find his
right place in the heavens, or Man prove, by bits of
pottery and flint, his long tenancy of this earth, without a clamor of devout fear and futile contradiction?
Is it right that we should always know beforehand,
irrespective of the evidence, what reception every physical or ethnological theory which makes large demands
on time, every critical verdict which lowers the date or
renames the author of a Hebrew book, will meet with
from the clergy?  There must be something wrong in
a system which disturbs the quiet of eternal truth by
dissolving in it a fermenting mass of decaying opinion;
and whoever can precipitate the precarious foreign
admixtures, and leave the fountains of faith pure and
clear, brings the truest healing to the moral and spiritual life of men.
In order to provide for this function, and escape the
evils just described, the College for which I speak today follows a different rule in drawing its line between
the constants and the variables in religion. The principle is this: the things about which we teach are given
in perpetuity; but the things to be taught about them
are open to revision in every age. God, in his relations to the universe and to ourselves; Man, his individual and social nature, his responsible position, his
history, his destination, - are the ultimate  objects
which we here aspire to know; and, as media of this
knowledge, on the philosophical side, the intellectual,
ethical and spiritual phenomena of the mind; and, on
the historical, the manifestations of Divine Life in the
past of our humanity, and primarily in the person




416        THEOLOGY IN ITS RELATION
and work of Jesus Christ, with whom it culminates,
and from whom dates a new birth of inextinguishable
faith and aspiration, a new glow, unexhausted yet, of
pity and of hope. The form and spirit of an intellectual training conducted on this principle it is not difficult to trace.
It is sometimes supposed, that where so much is left
open to revision, the continuity of belief must be
broken, and no permanent roots be struck to feed the
growth and mature the fruits of religious character.
Each teacher, it is imagined, relying on his lonely
fancies, and dignifying them with the name of intuitions, will begin his quest de novo, and think out
his scheme of doctrine, as if he were floating by himself in space; owning no authority, and deriving no
strength from his partnership in the heritage of humanity. Nothing can be more erroneous. No doubt
it must always rest with the individual reason and conscience to pronounce the personal verdict of true or
false; but the pleadings on which they decide are
fetched from the gathered stores of Christian and
heathen wisdom, and epitomize the thought expended
on the oldest and deepest problems; and, when seeming to flow immediately from a single mind, are rendered possible there only by a traceless myriad of
influences infiltrating into it from earlier time.  The
whole Past must rain upon the uplands, and the clouds
hang on the invisible peaks, of history, to make the
smallest rill of thought that winds'through our own day.
Even in the philosophical treatment of natural Ethics
and Religion, where, as in all deductive reasoning, we
seem to be independent of what predecessors have found,




TO PROGRESSIVE KNOWLEDGE.           417
and to draw conclusions that would be at home in any
age, the appearance is illusory; for that very human
nature from whose phenomena we reason and whose
affections we interpret, has expanded into new and
richer forms, and presents, in its circle of Christian
experience, data unknown before. And in historical
theology, the very semblance of any breach with the
past is simply impossible. No man can extemporize,
or spin out of himself, a critical knowledge of ancient
languages, literature and life; he is here absolutely
dependent on forerunners for his whole outfit of original assumptions and beliefs, and must start on his own
explorings from the point at which they have deposited
him. The slow and gentle way in which alone the
shadows can ever break from off the ancient world, and
a little light steal in, now from the pages of a recovered book, now through the propyleum of a dug-up
temple, and then from some happy flash of philological
combination, sufficiently secures us, so long as we are
simple and trustful, without fear and without guile,
from any but silent and insensible changes of historical conviction. In such matters, the shocks all come
from our insincerities and delays on the one hand, and
from the re-action of irreverent extravagance provoked
upon the other; feverish paroxysms being the inevitable retribution of long reticence and suppression.
In order to fall in with the peaceful course of theological change, to hold by what is undisturbed, and
detach it from the doom of the rest, the student must
be well brought up to the point already reached, the
point at which he pitches his tent and raises his altar,
till he is ordered to move on. This involves the
27




418        THEOLOGY IN ITS RELATION
whole apparatus of knowledge required, in the former
case, by the stationary defender of the faith; together
with an important addition, viz. an acquaintance with
the history of theology, in the largest sense; not only
with the ecclesiastical stages by which accepted dogma
was formed, but with the inverse critical processes by
which it has been partially dissolved, and removed from
the faith of scholarly men. One who is pledged to hold
a compacted scheme of belief as divine, can never recognize it as growing or declining with the changing
seasons of our nature, at one time the creation, at
another the victim, of human reason. He is obliged,
therefore, to ignore its history, however indisputable it
may be; to treat as an image fallen from heaven, some
idol of doctrine which, if you are familiar with its first
age, you may see gradually moulded under the pressure
of the time; and to insist that it still stands as adamant, though in the dry intellectual air all its tenacity
is gone, and observers wonder when the clay is to crumble into dust. Even within the memory of our own
generation, how many are the determinate points of
change, which it would be simply stupid not to register
as past events in the history of opinion! What has
become of the date which stood in our school-tables,
"Creation of the World, B.c. 4004"? and what of
the next, "The Universal Deluge, B.c. 2348"? Into
what undreamt-of distance has Egyptian chronology retreated! yet how many such steps must we repeat, ere
we alight upon the first vestiges of man! and how
many more, to exhaust the relics of life and death upon
this world! We have learned to recognize the composite structure and comparatively low date of the Penta



TO PROGRESSIVE KNOWLEDGE.           419
teuch; the progression of religious doctrine through
the Old Testament; its variety in the New; the mixture of unhistorical elements in both, and of human
opinions long ago corrected, and expectations never
fulfilled. In what state of mind would the scholar be
who did not know these things? or the reasoner who
should suppose that they left all as it was before? All
that is real, indeed, all that is Divine, —God in his
perfection, Christ in his filial sanctity, and for humanity
the eternal law of Duty and Self-sacrifice, -they and
similar changes without end, sweep past and leave
more majestic than before. But he only can feel the
serenity of this assurance, to whose trust no constants
are essential beyond the irremovable realities.
Even he, however, must, from time to time, take
careful account of the course of discovery in its bearings on the common heritage of faith, with a view to
guide and resettle the piety of others. For this end,
something more is needed than a knowledge of what
has already been done, affecting theological belief: he
must know what is still doing, -the inquiries that
are hovering and preparing to alight, - the thoughts
that are in the air, -the weather-signs that drift upon
the clouds: for these, interpreted by the law of the
past, will often give a serviceable presage of the future,
and prevent the misplacement of sympathy and effort.
If he have the tact of a tender and pious heart, he
will use this foresight of the probable direction of
thought, not loudly to prejudge what is yet on trial, or
to hurt a reverence which time, if it does not entirely
spare, may gently train another way; but to avoid lin



420         THEOLOGY IN ITS RELATION
gering too long upon a precarious spot, and silently
to withdraw men's worship to ground for ever sacred.
But, beyond this noiseless preparation for changes that
may not be far, he will guard his mind against any
interest of religious partisanship in the pending problems of science or criticism.  Removed alike from
boastful elation at their progress and from blind repugnance to it, he will give his religion no regulative
power over his scientific judgment: so that, from the
tone of his devotion and the cast of his affections, you
shall not be able to tell beforehand what he thinks of
the origin of species, or the antiquity of man, or the
date of Daniel or the authenticity of the fourth Gospel; but he will surrender himself simply to the facts
as they appear in evidence; frankly going with every
conclusion fairly won; pausing in every suspense; resting on what is undisturbed; deeming it the office at
once of reason and of faith, not to bespeak the universe
that ought to be, but humbly to accept the universe that
is, and find room in it for reverence and trust.
That this enlargement of the variables in theology,
so as to include the whole sphere of phenomenal knowledge, is alone consistent with the true temper of the
philosopher and the scholar, will hardly be questioned.
But how will it affect our religion?  Does it not put
Revelation at hazard? Is piety safe, when so much to
which it clings is set afloat?
I reply, our rule sets nothing afloat, but only provides how we shall demean ourselves towards that
which, by the decree of nature and of God, is afloat:
and the rule is simply, not to deal with it, whilst it is




TO PROGRESSIVE KNOWLEDGE.             421
in motion, as if it were fixed. Certainty is not ours to
create or to annihilate; we cannot make it, by pretending it; we do not destroy it, by letting its absence
speak for itself.  If piety has been brought, as is too
probable, to cling to many doubtful and perishable
things, so far it is assuredly unsafe; but will you remedy this by declaring the doubtful to be sure, and the
perishable immortal? or, by giving the affection its
true Object, and carrying it to an eternal rest? If
Christendom, sickly and feeble with its long disease
of dogma, has got to put its trust, not so much in the
living God and his own real ways, as in certain opinions about him and reports of his acts, it is a healing
process to disengage its soul from  the detaining veil of
human notions and propositions, and deliver it straight
into personal divine relations. An unreserved repose
upon reality, an acceptance of it as better than any
semblance and having absolute right over our ideas, is
the genuine piety of the intellect, without which there
is no sacredness in its exercise, no struggling refractions, no tender tints of trust and sacrifice, to mellow
its dry light.
All "Revelation," by the very force of the term,
must be a disclosure of things as they are.  Every
corrected conception of things as they are, sustained
by scientific evidence, either concurs with the presumed
revelation, or it does not.  If it does not, a human
error is eliminated from  an aggregate which we had
charged entirely on God, and what is his own stands
purified: the natural has gained a light, and the supernatural has lost a darkness. If it does concur, then




422        THEOLOGY IN ITS RELATION
what was before known as revealed is now also known
as natural: we see for ourselves what had been taken
on the testimony of those who knew better; and our
apprehension is unspeakably cleared and deepened.
The truth no longer hangs detached, plainly seen
indeed, but apart from its tissue of relations; it has
found its'footing and settled upon its own ground.
Revealed religion, so far as it is not fancied but real,
must always be undergoing this conversion into natural: if' it gives us the master-thought of God, the true
key to which the unopened recesses of the inner and
the outer world will yield, it can hardly fail to find, or
by developing to add, the experiences which conform
to it and evidence it.  Whatever, being found in
Scripture, is refound in nature and in life, becomes an
independent possession of humanity; and, except that
the history of truth is only second in importance to
truth itself, the very Scriptures might so far suffer
again their mediaeval disappearance, without loss of
the treasure they had given to the world.
And, if the theologians could but look with a calm
eye upon the past, they must see that, wherever the
strife is over and the field is still, every advance of
knowledge has been a gain to religion, won at the
expense only of deforming fictions.  As our petty
schemes of the world break in pieces and fall away,
diviner ones construct themselves and make us ashamed
of our regrets.  Who would now, in the interests of
piety, wish to have back the childish little kosmos
of the Hebrew legends, or the three stories of the
Pauline heaven? or dare to say, that, in supersed



TO PROGRESSIVE KNOWLEDGE.           423
ing them, Copernicus and Newton blasphemed? Who
would choose to have no kosmos at all till six thousand
years ago, or fling a stone at a Herschel or a Lyell for
letting in light and showing life within that dark immehsity? The age of the world, as it deepens, does
but prolong its testimony to God, and make it worthier
of his eternity: its scale, as it expands, does but place
us in a temple more august, and nearer to his Infinity.
Does any one, whose mind has been enlarged by
ancient history and whose heart has listened to the old
mythologies, want to have his sympathies reduced
again to the "chosen people," and the divine communion with our race, so various and pathetic in its
early struggling tones, restricted to that only channel?
And if from the person of Jesus Christ the artificial
dress of Messianic investiture, and some disguising
shreds of Jewish fable, drop away, who that can fix
an appreciating eye on the emerging form, will not say
that it is diviner far, embodying in its grand and
touching lineaments the essence and spirit of a new life
of God in our humanity? This experience, this reinoval to a higher point of faith, is from the first the
invariable result with the scholar who works most
freely, because quite trustfully, at these problems: as,
after long delay, it comes to be the result with all at
last. The intermediate disturbance of religious calm,
-the pious dismay on the one hand, the petulant irreverence on the other, -befall chiefly those who do not
intimately commune with such researches, but, looking
on, judge them by external and inapplicable standards, and not by their inner and essential relations.




424      THEOLOGY IN ITS RELATION, ETC.
Whoever, in these things, has gone deep and touched
ground, is not afraid of falling into a bottomless abyss:
and hence the moral importance of that thoroughness
of study which we strive to cultivate here. For, may
we not say, the essence of the large and liberal spirit
lies in the absence of fear and the promptness of
love?
THE END.
Cambridge: Printed by John Wilson and Son.