ZZ3 3 97 UNivmsmr« BXfNOlS . (A 8 ANA •ook*taS*^ I R rsMIKAl ««*»?. 5SSE? - *r“«s^ = " —. nsr^ -— for dl*«iP Unory a - 84 00 1)11 18 Whenrene^ingbYPtone, previous due date. write new due date bel^ ;> \ ESSAY ON THE SCEPTICAL TENDENCY OF BUTLER’S “ANALOGY.” BY S. S. HENNELL. * LONDON: JOHN CHAPMAN, 8, KING WILLIAM-STREET, STRAND. 1859. t ^ (J&-, !?><) T^TcuX V\e. ESSAY ON THE SCEPTICAL TENDENCY OF BUTLER’S “ANALOGY.” Since its first appearance before tlie world, nearly a century and a quarter ago, tlie u Analogy” of Bishop Butler lias been acknowledged by general consent as tlie established orthodox bulwark of Revealed Religion; being held so perfect in its construction, and so impreg¬ nable in its position, that not even any outer-works of supplementary comment have been deemed necessary to add to its strength by his reverential followers. During * the last sixty years, it has indeed shared the honour of being the standard defence of Christianity with Paley’s u Evi¬ dences,” which takes up a range of argument untouched by Butler ; but while the later writer, incomparably more attractive to the generality of readers from the interest of historic treatment, from the exquisite per¬ spicuity and fascinating simplicity of his style, and from the finely well-mannered liberality of his tone, has stood for one generation at least decidedly first in popularity : still there has always been an immense support to the Christian controversialist, during the vexatious skirmish- 4 ing with critical objections, in the consciousness of the great Natural argument of Butler in the background to fall back upon. And since the younger champion has had his polished forensic weapon turned by the keener edge of German Gelehrte ,—since the profounder spirit of modern investigation, both German and English, has convicted his plausibility of superficiality,—the advocates of revelation have recurred with the more eager solici- tude to the Author of the u Analogy” to repair their shaken confidence. Notwithstanding the alien de- mand for a more u spiritual ” sort of faith than that maintained by Butler which has lately ripened within the Church, causing him to be left behind amongst the beggarly elements of carnal reason, in the practical esti¬ mation of both Tractarian and Evangelical, by the main body of Christian believers he is still considered unan¬ swered and unanswerable, strong as a giant against all the puny attacks of Infidelity. Yet, whatever may be the confidence with which the u Analogy” is regarded on the arena of controversy, a very different sort of feeling attends the conscientious study of it in the closet. There seems little risk of denial, when, appealing to the experience of all the thoughtful out of the number of the readers of this great work, the assertion be made, that the strongest impression resulting from its perusal, is the deep spirit of Scepticism which it engenders, and the absence in it of any principle capable of effectually combating that scepticism. William Pitt is reported to have said that it was Butler’s 66 Analogy” that first put it into liis head to doubt of the truth of 5 Christianity, and probably multitudes of its readers have undergone the same experience; but the fact now alluded to is, not only that it has stirred up the first serious thought upon the subject, which is necessarily attended by doubt, but that it has finished by leaving a permanent feeling of unsatisfactoriness rankling in the mind. There is a pervading tone on every page that seems to transfuse, as from the mind of the Author, a sympathetic gloom of suspicion into that of the reader, a secret consciousness of something terrible lying beyond, with which he dare not meddle. And the great power of the work, intellec¬ tual and moral, heightens this mysterious dread into even a kind of paralysing awe. The book is laid down with a sense of chilling silence in the mind. Objections are quelled, but there is nothing to satisfy; and no provi¬ sion is made for ever kindling up again the genial warmth of cordial faith. In attending to this influence and seeking to trace it to its source,—not at all in the spirit of disputatious cavilling, still less of flippant disrespect to a great book, and the memory of a Great Man,—we may perhaps find ourselves on the road to a real benefit: such a re-adjust¬ ment of the whole question treated by Butler, as may enable us, by the guiding warning of his experience, to avoid the soul-discomfiture of the weary and thorny path which he has tried before us. At all events, if we see that it necessarily led into such discomfiture, we have a moral argument against its doctrine stronger than any logic; and the applying of this test to check the latter in all its stages, may, by a reverse process, in exposing its 6 weak points, lead us to see liow the direct reasoning may be rectified. Let us place ourselves in the state of mind of a reader of ordinary Christian prepossessions, to whom the ascer¬ taining of the truth of Christianity is a matter of anxious personal concern; who, perchance, has become aware of the vast amount of learning and study required to deal competently with the questions of external evidence, and who lias betaken himself to the safer course within every man’s reach, of judging from the effect made upon his own mind by the Scriptures whether they indeed contain a divine revelation for him. He lias found doctrines that his reason is incapable of comprehending; for that he was prepared,—divine mysteries, he knows, must be expected to be out of the reach of human knowledge: but he has also come to representations of the actions of Deity that shock his moral sense:—here he must make a stand; and he has recourse to Butler to help him. He feels with an inexpressible sense of comfort, a glow of anticipation at expected relief, that here is a strong mind in earnest to rest upon; a man who has experienced and groaned over his own perplexities, and who has worked out a solutiofi to satisfy himself before he offered it to others. The ground he takes is certainly the best he could find, for he is building upon it for his own dwelling; if disappoint¬ ingly limited, it is all that he felt he could claim, and we may be sure he has neglected nothing that could further him in the drawing up of that claim: if perhaps it is a case that he is getting up, it is at least his own cause that he is pleading :—how will he bring it out ?-He fairly I i acknowledges the moral discrepancies in Scripture: that is well to begin with; he has no intention of blinking the difficulty. But he shows that in the ordinary govern¬ ment of Divine Providence there occur in daily experi¬ ence similar infractions of what in human estimation is counted just and right; and he argues, If we believe that there is a God both good and righteous, notwithstanding these infractions, ruling in Nature, why should we deny it on the same account in Revelation ?—But in Revelation these infractions are directly sanctioned, marked as it were by special Divine approbation.—And is there any¬ thing that takes place in nature without the ordination and approbation of the Creator and Governor? Except upon the principle of Maniclieeism, that God is striving against an antagonistic rival Power of Evil, He is himself the cause to whom all evil is attributable. If this diffi¬ culty have been already surmounted by natural religion, there is no new one in this respect in Revelation.—This, our inquirer feels, is a hard demand upon his faith. He had hoped that Revelation was designed expressly to clear up the difficulties found in Nature, instead of re¬ peating them in magnified proportion.—But how, Butler asks him, except by this very similarity of style, should he be able to recognize the identity of the Divine Author of both ? whose works, moreover, he ought not to expect to comprehend fully in either case. Here is the salutary trial of faith and patience; under the new dispensation of grace, as under the old of Nature, we are the subjects of probation, Divine Wisdom having ordained this as the present condition that is proper for us :—thus recurring 8 to that necessity of submitting the understanding to the supposed dictates of Divine Authority which is the uni¬ versal stumbling-block in the way of the reception of Revelation, the arbitrary decree, Thus far slialt thou reason, and no farther, against which the natural man rebels, and to which the Christian world submits with varying shades of reluctance; so that, according to the different stages at which the restriction is placed, a characteristic is afforded for all the various sects into which it is divided:—the Roman Catholic giving up his reason wholly and implicitly into the hands of his priest; the Evangelical offering it up as a living sacrifice upon the altar of faith and love; the moderate orthodox Rationalist thinking to preserve the judicious and safe via media by discreet accommodation, binding down Faith and Reason by what he considers equitable terms to refrain from mutual interference (—as if the natural faculties of the human mind were antagonistic to one another, and had no power to adjust one another to harmonious proportion without adventitious aid; as if it were necessary that God should furnish man with a dark shade to wear over his eyes in order that his ears might attain a finer perception—); while the more thorough¬ going Rationalist, who claims entire freedom for his rea¬ son at the same time that he will in no wise relinquish his hold upon Revelation, either imposes upon it perforce the task to demonstrate the reconcileability of the two, or resolutely shuts his eyes to their points of incompatibility. The disciple of Butler will not willingly seek for aid in the former direction: but when the dictum of submission 9 to authoritative decrees is thus laid upon him, will first struggle hard to know the “ reason why” reason must thus be forced to succumb. Can the Unitarian help him, who lying on the extreme verge of Christian profession, | holds the minimum quantity of the faith that is to over¬ come the remonstrant understanding ? In the main argu¬ ment of the u Analogy” the Unitarian holds common cause with Butler; in regard for morality and respect for human nature, finds him entirely one with him, and even in his exercise of reason upon revelation does not go beyond him in the matter in hand, since in relation to it Butler plainly avers, that “it is the province of Reason to judge whether the morality of Scripture contains things contrary to what the light of Nature teaches us of God” : though, indeed, he thinks he has greatly the advantage of him in bringing it to bear also upon those doctrines of Orthodoxy, which, he urges, magnify all the difficulties. How then does he, the Unitarian, deal with the question of the evil which, at all events, he cannot deny does pervade the dominion of Nature, in such apparent contradiction to that doctrine of the goodness and justice of God which is in a manner the sum total of his belief? Unitarianism in its theory makes very light of evil of all kinds. It aims to leave it as much as possible in the background, seizing upon what is indeed the ultimate essence and divinest poetry of religion, namely, the enabling man to see good in all things, but perhaps in fact falsifying it by—shall we say ?—its eager appropria¬ tion of it. There are moments of entranced feeling in 10 some of the highest moods of the mind, in which Nature loses all its shades of actual gloom, and appears as a paradise of beauty, bathed in a flood of glowing sunshine as from the beams of universal Love; when Sin can be looked upon as the mere faint shade that marks in relief the lineaments of divinelv-attributed man, the conscious lord of nature and image of his Maker; when God is truly claimed by the soul in the sole aspect of the Father of unbounded mercy, of infinite sympathy and tenderness; when all the severest discipline of life is recognized as only preparation for incomparable bliss in store for all. But the enjoyment of such moments is a privilege that cannot be represented by doctrine. As soon as it is at¬ tempted to be attached as a right belonging to certain opinions, it is endangered by the contradiction that clear¬ sighted reason brings against its claim; and it is a vain self-deception to cultivate the delicious blindness, and seek to persuade ourselves that it is even an act of wor¬ ship thus to immerse our mental perceptions in a haze of flattering delusion!—Evil, according to its seductive persuasion, ought no longer to be regarded as evil, when it can be demonstrated to be the actual parent of good: the mind is urged to fix upon alleviations and compensa¬ tions, and not to suffer its satisfaction to be dimmed by recurring to the dark question that ever remains at the root of the matter —-why was evil this appointed cause ? why should not good of a different, perhaps a higher kind, have been derived through only good, and no evil at all ? Here the mind must be content to fall back, by a circular movement, upon what is considered the esta- 11 blislied basis of the theorized goodness of God. And reason that will still be inquisitive, and not rest till it has borne onward to its mark, is unsatisfied as before.—The following passage, from a Lecture on the Atonement by the Lev. James Martineau, (originally published about twenty years ago,*) shows aptly the Unitarian position with regard to Butler’s argument. The writer, after stating the inexplicability of the natural problem, is showing how the doctrines of orthodoxy only immeasur¬ ably increase the difficulty :— “ My reply is brief : I admit both the fact [of vicarious suffering in the natural world] and the analogy ; but the fact is of the exceptional kind, from which, by itself, I could not infer the justice or the benevolence of the Creator ; and which, were it of large or prevalent amount, I could not reconcile with these perfections. If then you take it out of the list of exceptions and difficulties, and erect it into a cardinal rule, if you interpret by it the whole invisible portion of God’s government, you turn the scale at once against the character of the Supreme, and plant creation under a tyrant’s sway. And this is the fatal principle pervading all analogical arguments in defence of Trinitarian Christianity. No resemblances to the system can be found in the universe, except in those anomalies and seeming deformities which perplex the student of Providence, and which would un¬ dermine his faith, were they not lost in the vast spectacle of beauty and of good. These disorders are selected and spread out to view, as specimens of the Divine government of nature ; the mysteries and horrors which offend us in the popular theology are extended by their side ; the comparison is made, point by point, till the similitude is undeniably made out ; and when the argument is closed, it amounts to this : do you doubt * Now re-published in the volume called Studies of Christianity. 12 whether God could break men’s limbs ? You mistake his strength of character ; only see how he puts out their eyes ! What kind of impression this reasoning may have, seems to me doubtful even to agony. Both Trinitarian theology and nature, it is triumphantly urged, must proceed from the same Author ; aye, but what sort of Author is that ? You have led me, in your quest after analogies, through the great infirmary of God’s creation ; and so haunted am I by the sights and sounds of the lazar-house, that scarce can I believe in anything but pestilence ; so sick of soul have I become, that the mountain breeze has lost its scent of health ; and you say, it is all the same in the other world, and wherever the same rule extends : then I know my fate, that in this Universe Justice has no throne. And thus, my friends, it comes to pass that these reasoners often gain indeed their victory ; but it is known only to the Searcher of Hearts, whether it is a victory against natural religion, or in favour of revealed. For this reason, I consider the 1 Analogy’ of Bishop Butler (one of the profoundest of thinkers, and on purely moral subjects one of the justest too,) as containing, with a design directly contrary, the most terrible persuasives to Atheism that have ever been produced. The essential error con¬ sists in selecting the difficulties,—which are the rare, exceptional phenomena of nature,—as the basis of analogy and argument. In the comprehensive and generous study of Providence, the mind may, indeed, already have overcome the difficulties, and, with the lights recently gained from the harmony, design, and order of creation, have made those shadows pass imperceptibly away ; but when forced again into their very centre, compelled to adopt them as a fixed station and point of mental vision, they deepen round the heart again, and, instead of illustrating any¬ thing, become solid darkness themselves.” This argument may he effective against the opponents for whom it was intended, but what is its intrinsic value? Exaggerations of difficulties are foolish indeed, but where is the wisdom of ignoring them ? Certainly, to look at the bright side of things is the happiest lesson of practical philosophy; but it is equally certain that it will never answer in the end to shut our eyes to the truth. The idea of a “ generous” study of Providence, is a figure of speech that strikes the mind as well as the ear with an inappropriateness approaching to profanity. If recent lights have not really removed any of the difficulties, but only diverted our attention from them, it is a very good thing for Trinitarianism or any thing else to remind us of them. The habit of leaving dark comers unexplored is the very forming of those centres of accumulations from mental disorders whence noxious doctrines spring. Covering them over may serve for temporary necessity, but is treachery in professed ministers of thorough purity and renovation. Hence, however agreeable the panacea that Unitarianism affords, and even temporarily benefi¬ cial, as a reactionary solace, a cordial tonic to restore a healthy cheerfulness after Calvinistic gloom, the doctrine furnishes no satisfactory resting-place for a consistently thoughtful mind. Not only is it the irresistible tendency of attention to settle precisely on those spots where stands the prohibitory warning of dangerous ,—as “the tongue always goes to the aching tooth,”—but reason feels that it is illogical and delusive to ignore any part of the pre¬ mises on which so all-important a question is based.- Our rigorous disciple of Butler turns away from Uni¬ tarianism with a sigh,—perhaps with somewhat of the feeling, Get thee behind me, Satan!—and prepares him, like a Hercules strong in his choice of rugged virtue, to grapple anew with the hydra of Orthodoxy. 14 But again disappointment meets him. The closer lie examines into the reasoning of the u Analogy,” the more lie perceives that the very same ignoring of exceptions which was repugnant to his intellectual integrity in Uni- tarianism, is hut the carrying out of Butler’s own mode of arguing; that, in fact, wherever his principles are closely argued out, it becomes the only resource. The notable instance of the defence of Scripture immoralities is an evasion of this kind, which has drawn down abun¬ dance of indignant animadversion. The sophistry—not in the logic, but in the open defiance of natural principles with which the results of the logic are accepted,—is so apparent as with many readers to stamp the character of the author at once. But it must be remembered, the obviousness of the sophistry is owing not only to the clear vigour of the reasoning, but to the noble straight¬ forward candour with which the whole process of thought is laid before the reader. And whoever has studied the moral writings of Butler sufficiently to feel the deep reverence for the law of conscience implanted in human nature, with which his mind was imbued, can judge with what painful self-contradiction he must have wrought out this flagrantly-cliargeable vindication. The quotation of it must be given at length, with the interspersion which it may be ventured to make of comments expres¬ sing the sentiments it excites :— “ It is the province of Reason to judge of the Morality of the Scripture ; i.e., not whether it contains things different from what we should have expected, from a wise, just, and good Being . . . hut whether it contain things plainly contradictory to Wisdom, Justice, or Goodness ; to wliat the light of Nature teaches us of God. [How admirably distinguished ! we have no right to theorize upon Divine proceedings, but only to compare with our experience of the past; the steadiness of which gives a just reliability to our impression of its characteristics, so that our human instincts may be assumed as capable of recognizing the genuineness of the Divine stamp. ] And I know nothing of this sort objected against Scripture, unless in such objections as are formed upon supposition, that the constitution of Nature is contradictory to wisdom, justice or goodness ; which most cer¬ tainly it is not. [Upon this assertion he is dogmatic ; it is a point that lies outside his argument, upon which he has no intention of entering, and which he does not expect will meet with contradiction. ] Indeed there are some particular precepts in Scripture, given to particular persons, requiring actions, which would be immoral and vicious, were it not for such pre¬ cepts. [How much must it have cost the Author of the Sermons on Human Nature to suppose such an arbitrary change possible ! but there was nothing else for it. He persuades himself he can show a peculiarity in the cases in question which will prevent injury to the revered law of Morality in general.] But it is easy to see [—is not this an expression that suggests how difficult he had found it to satisfy himself with it l —] that all these are of such a kind, as that the precept changes the whole nature of the case and of the action ; and both constitutes, and shows, that not to be unjust or immoral, which prior to the precept, must have appeared and really have been so : [here he anticipates how much his readers will be shocked, as no doubt he had been himself, and he goes on with more urgent vehemence :] which may well be, since none of these precepts are contrary to immu¬ table Morality. If it were commanded to cultivate the Principles, and act from the Spirit, of treachery, ingratitude, cruelty, the Command would not alter the nature of the case or of the action, in any of these instances. But it is quite otherwise in precepts, which require • oidy the doing an external action ; for 16 instance, taking away tlie property or life of any. [What then are principles, but the result of constantly similar individual instances ?—He must seek deeper for the explanation : before we condemn it, let us go with him to the very root of the tie between the creature and its Creator :] For, men have no Right to either,, but what arises solely from the Grant of God : when this grant is revoked, they cease to have any right at all, in either : and when this revocation is made known, as surely it is possible it may be, it must cease to be unjust to deprive them of either. [How else ! what means of knowing vice from virtue have we except through the faculties He has given us ? He might have made us feel quite otherwise : virtue, right, are of His making,— whatever He makes them !—But what then has become of the confidence in our human instincts with which we started ? is not our natural law of morality entirely upset by this Divine infringement of it ?—How long did Butler pause and urge his stubborn too-clearly-logical brain over this dilemma, or did he shut his eyes at once and stumble into the botching conclu¬ sion—] And though a Course of external acts, which, without command, would be immoral, must make an immoral habit; yet, a few detached commands have no such natural tendency. [Oh, monstrous ! there is no difficulty in believing God to command injustice, i.e. to be unjust, only now-and-then ; there is no harm for once-and-away !—How came Butler by his conviction that the law of morality was a Divine law, except from his recognition of its immutability ? and how are principles formed except from the generalization founded upon the constancy of repeated indi¬ vidual experiences ? A clear case of Divine contradiction destroys the authority of natural morality for ever ; a clear case of Divine command to do that which the voice we took for Divine within us peremptorily forbids us to do, breaks up its basis utterly, by showing the futility of our instinctive inferences. Our moral instincts tell us that God is hating and striving against sin like our own better nature, not abetting it like our lower nature ; the idea that He should command is as abhorrent.—But then, “we 17 i know” that nothing takes place without God’s permission (the distinction between permission and command is a mere quibble). He suffers, he commands, wickedness, inscrutably to us, in the natural world, why not in Revelation ?—Is then natural morality delusive ?—Certainly, it is at decided issue with this idea of Deity whether in natural or revealed religion : arbitrary fiat is entirely antagonistic to it. No one was better able to see and feel this than Butler ; but he turns his back upon the subject he had proscribed to himself.] I thought proper to say thus much, of the few Scripture precepts, requiring, not vicious actions, but actions which would have been vicious but for such precepts ; because they are sometimes weakly urged as immoral, and great weight is laid upon objections drawn from them. But to me, there seems no difficulty at all in these precepts [!], but what « arises from their being offences, i.e., from their being liable to be perverted, as indeed they are ; to serve the most horrid pur¬ poses, by wicked, designing men ; and perhaps to mislead the weak and enthusiastic. [Surely Butler’s conscience often smote him for this assertion, and confessed it a treachery to his moral nature ! But at least he has been true to his standard. He recurs to the principle he has laid down for himself throughout; and, it appears, triumphantly :—he has succeeded in reducing this crucial difficulty to the same category with all the rest.] And objections from this head, are not objections against Reve¬ lation, but against the whole notion of Religion, as a Trial, and against the whole Constitution of Nature.” Part II. ch. III. Triumphantly, in fact, it appears, as regards the pre¬ mises on which his argument is based, though most sophistically as to its ulterior consequences. A Deity ■who commands into existence the sinner,—doomed as such by constitution and circumstance, and at the same time an object as such of His own displeasure,—may well be believed to command a solitary act of sin. The «/ one Idea is so revoltin&Iy mysterious to our human com- prehension, tliat our repugnance to the other may be easily absorbed in it:—but our principles of morality are all set loose and afloat! Butler shrank back from the perception of this result; he desired, he was determined, to hold his faith in Human Nature as firmly as his faith in God: but in endeavouring to effect the union of the two, he has brought the ideas into perilous antagonism; and in many minds into collision that will be fatal to either religion or virtue, or perhaps to both. This, then, is the predicament in which the student of the u Analogy” finds himself: where Revelation offends, Natural Religion offends equally;—is, indeed, the root of offence. To meet the straight, Unitarianism, on the one hand, has been able only to bid him shut his eyes to the exceptional evil in Nature, and then, it assures him, you may believe in the goodness of God. Butler, on the other hand, charges him not to be disturbed by excep¬ tional interruption of the law of morality, and then, he says, you may retain your reverence for the immutable authority of conscience. Here are two thorny misgivings planted in his breast, that will not easily cease to rankle. In revulsion from the first he was willing to fall back upon the remedies offered by orthodoxy; shall he seek its aid also in palliation of the latter?—But it must be orthodoxy of a more stringent kind than Butler could bring himself to acknowledge : that which boldly equals itself to the worst, and frankly assents,—The world of nature is a howling wilderness, and the heart of man is desperately wicked, and deceitful above all things : what 19 then ? God’s favour is liis only happiness, God’s grace liis only virtue. Thorough orthodoxy like this requires reason to be laid prostrate at its feet, und nature made it simply im¬ possible for so great a master of reason as Butler to adopt it. Yet he was a professor of orthodoxy, and the orthodox church has accepted him as its champion. The fact indeed seems to be that he was eminently able to keep sub silentio topics which he had already determined were irrelevant to his purpose. His mind was perfectly subdued to the curb. We know that he began with the resolution of sifting his subject thoroughly to the bottom, but he had well trained himself to forbear chafing against the limits he found necessary to prescribe to himself, during the long years that he pondered over the composition of his great work. He was practical,—saw what he could do, and did it. He could and did, at all events, silence the levity of contemporary opponents, by showing the solemn depths of the questions they were unwittingly stirring. u It is come, I know not how,” he says in his introductory Advertisement, u to be taken for granted, by many persons, that Christianity is not so much as a subject of inquiry ; but that it is, now at length, discovered to be fictitious. . . . Tlius much, at least, will be here found, not taken for granted, but proved, that any reasonable man, who will thoroughly consider the matter, may be as much assured, as he is of his own being, that it is not, however, so clear a case that there is nothing in it. There is, I think, strong evi¬ dence of its truth; but it is certain no one can, upon principles of reason, be satisfied of the contrary.” 20 This nature of his argument, ad homines of his own day, renders it, according to the usual course of things, inadequate to the needs of our own. The premisses accepted by them, are become (in great part, doubtless, owing to Butler himself,) the main disputanda with us; and the slight manner in which Butler passes over them, can only excite disappointment and vexation in the modern reader, however consistent it was with the position of the author. In aiming to prove, not that Christianity was true, but that its existing opponents could not show it to be false, he was certainly justified in taking for the basis of his argu¬ ment whatever he supposed to be recognized as estab¬ lished truth by them. But with regard to ourselves, our desire of a solid basis for conviction is ill met by the extent of debateable ground which his hypothesis is in¬ tended to cover :—that is to say, by finding him take for granted, as necessary postulates of natural religion in common with revealed, not only that there is an intelli¬ gent Author of nature, and moral Governor of the world, but also—that u the divine government of the world, implied in the notion of religion in general and of Christianity, contains in it: That mankind is appointed to live in a future state; that there every one shall be rewarded or punished respectively for all that behaviour here, which we comprehend under the words, virtuous or vicious, morally good or evil; that our present life is a probation, a state of trial, and of discipline, for that future one and moreover, u that this world, being in a state of apostacy and wickedness, and consequently of 21 ruin, and the sense both of their condition and duty being so greatly corrupted amongst men, this gave occa¬ sion for an additional dispensation of Providence” :—to all which immense assumptions, may be added the farther one, of an amount of external evidence in favour of the actual occurrence of the miraculous portion of Christianity, which the unbelievers of that day had not sufficient learning to gainsay, but which has, to say the least of it, been rendered in the highest degree question¬ able in our own. The very fact of so much being taken for granted by so deep a thinker, raises suspicion as to its validity. Can we doubt that Butler had sought for satisfaction, and failed of finding it, on the positive side of the ques¬ tion, before he thus contented himself with taking the whole ground of it upon hypothetical assumption, in order to make out a merely negative demonstration ? It was here certainly, that he felt his real strength lay ; and to the reader the choice of treatment is from the first a tacit confession of weakness in the other direction. But following him in his own mode of argument, our course can be no other than to bring his hypothesis to the test. Within itself his logic may be, and indeed appears to be, perfect; so far as his own negative result is regarded within the limits of his own premisses, it may be en¬ tirely conceded as faultless and irrefragable. Upon those “ principles of reason,” by which Butler appears to mean u reasoning” or- pure logical induction, no com¬ plaint can be made against the u Analogy.” But the real point to which every mind that requires actual satisfaction must come, is to ascertain whether the hy¬ pothesis itself can stand ; and for this, the only proof is by comparison with nature. In examining whether its consequences fall in harmoniously with the experience we have gained from the latter, we are surely employing the right reasonable mode of judging, though probably it is quite different from that contemplated by Butler, whose principle of argument is of that metaphysical kind, which the history of philosophy has shown to he very fruitful in delusion. The dealing with nature as a scheme of Providence, on which he uniformly insists, ap¬ pears, on the very face of it, a treatment that should be in¬ admissible while confessedly we are acquainted with only a most insignificant portion of the whole order of things. When Butler says (with his usual noble candour and dignified simplicity,) “It is most readily acknowledged that the foregoing treatise is by no means satisfactory, very far indeed from it: but so would any natural insti¬ tution of life appear, if reduced into a system , together with its evidence” (Part II. ch. vm.) :—he is speak¬ ing a truth that surely tells with imperative weight against the making of any attempt to form any kind of system upon knowledge so confessedly imperfect as this, as indeed likely to turn out a very idle waste of reason. Butler himself forcibly expresses this position, when he says (Part n. ch. hi.) “We fall into infinite follies and mistakes, whenever we pretend, otherwise than from ex¬ perience and analogy, to judge of the constitution and course of nature.” No one could feel more clearly than he did the absurdity of pronouncing a priori upon the 23 character of the Divine proceedings, or appeal more powerfully, and with more genuinely pious humility, to man’s consciousness of his own ignorance, as a demand upon him to wait with patience and see what God is going to do, instead of laying down rules for Him before¬ hand. Our admiration of this true u principle of reason,” may make us feel assured that it was the imperfect knowledge of nature in Butler’s day that was the main cause of his taking up a ground of argument that now seems so untenable. We may therefore feel as if we had his own sanction and concurrence in bringing his principles anew to their proper test. And first of these is that one which, as it has here been endeavoured to show, forms the root of dissatisfaction in the constant experience of the uphold¬ ers of the doctrine, namely, the principle of ignoring exceptions, which amounts in fact to the same thing as the moral approbation of the practice of mental evasion. It would seem as if the intellectual fallacy ought long ago to have made itself apparent; but when we search into the cause that has delayed the clearing of it up, we see that there has been a counter difficulty which even yet requires a long process of thought to be worked out before it can be effectually overcome. This difficulty proceeds from the supposed obligation of the mind to yield itself in blind submission to the demands of Reli¬ gious Faith; an idea which of necessity gives rise to the habit and vindication of mental evasion, as soon as the intellect has become ripe for conflict. There seems no possible way of setting the understanding and the reli- 24 gious conscience right with one another, so long as the old established notion of the rival claims of Reason and Faith continues to be held. In tlie real nature of these faculties, lies the mainspring that governs the whole question, and science has yet to set its hand to rectify it. Mr. Rogers, who has shown himself a faithful disciple of Butler by his lucid exposition of the principles of the u Analogy”, has well seen the position of the funda¬ mental difficulty, and in his well-known Essay on u Reason and Faith,” has at least set forth all the knotty intricacies of the tangled problem; but as usual he lets drop the thread in self-mockery, with all the helpless hope¬ lessness of the Sceptic,—a character indeed, that he is so fond of assuming as to make it difficult to avoid inferring that he feels it belongs to him of right, and that he is con¬ scious of believing in his own words, and in his own truth and earnestness no more than in that of any body else.—Until the real nature of the relation between these two faculties is discovered, that is, until it can be shown how the legitimate growth of each promotes the growth of the other, there must necessarily continue the old mischievous antagonism between the different parts of our nature. It would seem indeed as if the theological view were effectually working out its own confutation by the perplexity it occasions, in the vain attempt to stifle the internal warfare by external adjustment and enforce¬ ment of compromise :—the true object of Religion being uniformly held, according to this view, to consist in the subduing, to a greater or less degree, the refractory reason into submission before an authority which ought to be met with faith alone. The idea of the school of Pascal and Butler is that in the Divine education of the race, reason is purposely checked, by obstacles arbitrarily interposed, in order that faith may have space for culti¬ vation. They argue from daily experience that faith is a most desirable faculty, that no transaction of ordinary life ean be carried on without it; they see too that reason is daily making conquests out of the dominion of faith; and they think it fair to infer that Divine Providence has taken measures to prevent it from effectually swallowing up its humble but beneficial fellow-worker. Hence the u difficulties” that encounter us in every department of nature and Revelation alike, which were graciously designed in order to discipline rebellious humanity into child-like acquiescence in paternal commands. “ Implicit obedience to the dictates of an all-perfect wisdom, exercised amidst many difficulties and perplexities, as so many tests of sincerity, and yet sustained by evidences which justify the conclusions, which involve them, would seem to be the great object of man’s moral education here ; and to vindicate both the partial evidence addressed to his reason, and the abundant diffi¬ culties which it leaves to his faith. ‘The evidence of religion,’ says Butler, ‘ is fully sufficient for all the purposes of probation, how far soever it is from being satisfactory as to the purposes of curiosity, or any other: and, indeed, it answers the purposes of the former in several respects, which it would not do if it were as over-bearing as is required.’ Or as Pascal beautifully puts it:—‘ There is light enough for those whose sincere wish is to see—and darkness enough to confound those of an opsosite dis¬ position.’ ” j Reason and Faith, p. 262. Perhaps there seems little difference in the assertion, that human character is indeed formed and embellished by its struggles through difficulties, so that the trials it has to encounter may prove in the end its best blessings : and the supposition that God, intending this result, ex¬ pressly contrived the obstacles :—but, practically, we find that there is all the difference in the world ; inas¬ much as the state of mind required by the one is a spirit encouraged to resistance, because it feels that God is on its side to overcome; and the frame befitting the other is contented acquiescence. Nature indeed tells a man that it is good and wise to acquiesce when he has done his best in the struggle in vain; but she makes the contest the duty, and submission the repose earned by meritorious labour, deservedly sweet when not the indul¬ gence of indolence.—Again, the object of keeping man in a child-like disposition is counter to nature, who loves to see him grow, and whose way of making him grow is by encouraging him to depend upon the inward strength with which she has supplied him, and to look for no adventitious aid. Every wise human parent en¬ deavours in this respect to imitate nature :—but, indeed, it is only recently that bandages to make the limbs grow straight, props and leading-strings, have begun to be discarded ; it is scarcely even now perceived that nothing more is needed to enable a child to acquire the full use of all his muscles, than to let them have their unob¬ structed play. In moral training also it is beginning, though only beginning, to be felt that the true parental influence is quite other than that supposed to be anala- gous to the conduct of the Divine Father. Happily the notion is growing out of fashion that to leave children 27 in ignorance of the motive of commands issued purposely in order to promote docility, is the way to secure the most desirable relation between father and son. The disciples of the Butler school seem to assume that the Deity carries on the education of the human race some¬ what according to the ideas of a Madame de Grenlis! And equally defective with this idea of child-like obedience, must we conceive to be that of the duty owed to God as a Sovereign,—a rendering of the dues exacted in tribute, upon a principle akin to the loyalty of the subjects of a despot. Mr. Rogers observes acutely (in arguing against the complaint of insufficient evidence for theological doctrine both in nature and revela¬ tion) :— ‘ ‘ Demonstration we cannot have ; for God has not granted demonstration on that or any other subject in which duty is involved. If there had been any system which we could not but believe, which we must believe whether we would or not, no doubt the requisite evidence would have been such that scepticism would have been impossible...the word duty is the key to the whole mystery, for it implies the possibility of resist¬ ing its claims. We do not speak of its being incumbent on a man to rush out of a burning house, or to swim, if he can, when thrown into deep water. He cannot help it. If there be a Supreme Ruler of the universe, and if the position of his in¬ telligent creatures be that of submissive obedience to him, it is inconceivable that a man can ever have experience *of his being willing to perform that duty, with the sort of demonstration which you demand ; and for aught we know, it may be impos¬ sible, constituted as we are, that we should ever be actually trained to that duty except in the midst of very much less than certainty.” Eclipse of Faith , p. 489. 28 To plain apprehension this reads very like the despotic tyrant’s desire that his faithful slaves should not become too wise for subjection: nevertheless it is clearly conse¬ quential from the theological idea of duty —conformity to the Will of a Divine Moral Governor. But here again the idea shows itself at war with nature’s teaching, which is: the more , and not the less, we know, the better we can obey. Blundering ignorance that obeys in the dark, with all his good intentions, makes often more mischief than he mends; and nature gives much better wages to the skilled workman who knows precisely what is the service she requires of him. The theological idea of duty supposes that it can be done better without intelli¬ gence than with it.-Supposing that after long ages of experience man should become so convinced that misery follows sin,—or let us say, some particular kind of sin, —that he no longer feels it incumbent on him to refrain from its commitment, but cannot help it: w T ill Mr. Rogers say the consummation is so highly undesirable that it would have been worthy of Deity to interfere to prevent it, in order that the poor hankering sinner might continue to be withheld solely out of duteous regard to the behest of his Superior? But we are now come to the main stronghold of the argument of Butler, the doctrine of Probabilities, in which he appears to be as much at variance with nature as in the instances already pointed out. Let Mr. Rogers continue to be our exponent:— “And the law of our religious condition is throughout in analogy with that of the entire condition of our present life ; it 29 is probable evidence only that is given to man in either case, and ‘ probable evidence/ as Bishop Butler says, 1 often of even wretchedly insufficient character. ’ Nature, or rather God him¬ self, everywhere cries aloud to us, £ Oh ! mortals—certainty, demonstration, infallibility, are not for you, and shall not be given to you ; for there must be a sphere for faith, sincerity, diligence, patience.’ And as if to prove to us not only that this evidence is what we must trust to, but that we safely may—He impels us by strong necessities of our lower nature operating on the higher (which would otherwise, perhaps, plead for the scep¬ tic’s inaction in relation to this as well as to another world,) to play our part ; if we stand shivering on the brink of action, necessity plunges us headlong in ; if we fear to hoist the sail, the strength of the current of life snaps our moorings, and compels us to drive. Faith in that same sort of evidence which the sceptic rejects when urged in behalf of religion, prompts the farmer to cast in his seed, though he can command no blink of sunshine, nor a drop of rain ; the merchant to commit his treasures to the deep, though they may all go to the bottom, and sometimes do ; the physician to essay the cure of his patient, though often half in doubt whether his remedy will kill or save. ...God says to us in effect, ‘ On such evidence you must and shall act,’ and shows us that we safely may. Without promising us absolute success in all our plans, or absolute truth in the inves¬ tigation of evidence, he says, in either case, ‘ Do your best; be faithful to the light you have, diligent and conscientious in your investigations of available evidence, great or little—act fearlessly on what appears the truth, and leave the rest to me.’ ” Eclipse of Faith , p. 440. To tliis we may reply, that if we cannot in any case attain to absolute certainty, we may approximate it to a degree that is relatively sufficient for us; and that all the tendency of Nature’s teaching is to make us, not contented with probability, but unceasing in our efforts 30 to gain that safe ground, every step nearer to which is accompanied by incalculably increasing benefit. So far from encouraging rashness, she shows us that she hates all that gambling folly which is indeed the work of our headlong greedy lower nature, by sending sure ruin in its train; and reserving her crown of success for the wise prudence and forethought which proceed from the higher faculties—when they are not afflicted with that deplorable imbecillity against which it is the object here to raise a warning! With regard to the moral which Mr. Rogers draws, u act fearlessly on what appears the truth, and leave the rest to God” : the lesson may rather be read —if obliged to act while conscious of uncertainty, act fearfully , on your guard against the mischief that lies in wait in case you are wrong; and go on ever trying to remove the dangerous ignorance, in the blessed faith that perseverance will have its reward. But, says Butler, we ought not to look for satisfaction here, this world is a scene of Probation!—Truly, we find it abounding in trial, disappointment, and vexation of spirit; too true are all its pains and penalties: but, in spite of all, we may protest that man does sometimes overcome his troubles, and that, when he does, he has in the very act of success a delicious satisfaction which is a real, present, and sufficient reward .—Exceptis excipien- # clis :—the moral condition of mankind is far from being rectified yet. It is enough for the argument to see that nature has a reward for those who can get it. For those who can -not get the reward, of conscious possession of truth (in so far as is possible to man,) to 31 cry, It is not of much importance after all,—shall we not say, it is a most unworthy aspersion of God’s rich vin¬ tage ! Yet the following is the u practical consequence” drawn by Butler at the conclusion of his defence of Christianity, which he laments u is not attended to by every one who is concerned in it” :— “Now it has been shown that a serious apprehension that Christianity may he true [all that he claims to have established,] lays persons under the strictest obligations of a serious regard to it, throughout the whole of their life : a regard not the same exactly , but in many respects nearly the same , with what a full conviction of its truth would lay them under.” Oh! lame and impotent—oh! profoundly sceptical conclusion! In all these instances it appears that Butler has ap¬ pealed, for confirmation of his scheme of revealed re¬ ligion, to natural principles which on closer examination are found to he the reverse of capable of bearing him out. When he assumes, as the undeniable fruit of the moral experience of mankind,—that exceptions to a sup¬ posed rule are better not regarded; that it is desirable for man to content himself with probabilities; and that the practical effect of such reliance is little different from that of acting upon ascertained truth; that the course of nature is such as to suggest the idea of a Governor who commands blind obedience, or of a Father who is best pleased with uninquiring filial love, or of an Instructor by whom perplexities are expressly contrived, with a view to baffle reason, in order that it may not get the better of faith:—in all these averments, it now appears, 32 lie is utterly contradicting the real facts of nature. And wliat is the consequence ?-If it be so, does not Nature imperatively demand that the theory which she lias tried and found wanting, should be duly abandoned ? The holding on to it in spite of her remonstrance, is a daring resistance to her authority that cannot be expected to pass with impunity. According to the human reason which is our means of interpreting Nature, the due and only safe course for the mind to take under the position of possessing a theory which is thus giving way under the ordeal of experience, is plainly to lean lightly upon it, not to rest our confi¬ dence upon it. When exceptions are recognized, they should be carefully registered, as proof that we are not yet in possession of the truth, and kept in view in order that we may be reminded to seek farther for it. The exceptions to the rule of beneficence in the government of the world,—according to the light in which they ap¬ pear to our limited apprehension,—should convince us that our theory of accounting for them is still imperfect. When Christianity was found to be burdened with the same difficulties as Natural Religion, and even greater, it was evidence that there was radical deficiency in both of them, and real religious submission to the state of things required that all theorizing upon the subject should be suspended till farther light was gained. Man¬ kind already possessed conviction that the preponderating tendency was towards good:—what they had to do for their security, was to hold fast at all events to that, and not let it go in the forced attempt to believe that all is good, wliile manifest indications are pressing upon them the perception of the contrary. They have ample ground for practical confidence, both as regards conduct and feeling :—the danger of destroying the confidence lies in the making it depend upon a human theory instead of the same human experience upon which it has been already founded, and the only means of attaining to which, in yet greater measure, is the resolutely keeping our eyes open, and not in the shutting them in order to throw ourselves blindly upon our trust. Especially in a matter of such dear concern to us as the character of the Provi¬ dence that enfolds our lives, and the life of our hearts, in its sway, does it import us to forbear entrenching our faith within a theory that perchance may leave the most keenly sentient portion outside, a prey to blank dis¬ appointment ! In hastening to presume that it is a Humanly-Divine tenderness that is watching over us we are preparing a sense of cruel mockery and desertion that will destroy the solid trust we might have enjoyed, if this theory of Personality had not been insisted on to the obstruction of that other already founded upon reliable experience. Just the contrary to the remedy proposed by Uni- tarianism appears the real road towards satisfaction, for those who aim to think aright, and are not contented with the vague justness of sentiment, which is still suffi¬ cient for those who need only to act and feel :—though for them also it is of high ultimate importance that the thinkers should not lead them wrong by placing theoretic confidence, where }^et no confidence is due. Just as 34 necessary as it is in practical action and practical faith, to fix attention upon the best, and for the moment only the best, is it imperative in seeking for the abstract rule of faith , to look at everything, at the difficulties most carefully and anxiously of all. A theory in its very nature must be held in suspension, and never relied upon. It must always remain open to improvement; regarded as a register of past experience and the means of ac¬ quiring more: but never must it be enclosed all around us, so as to prevent our seeing our way onwards. While exceptions to our theory exist, it remains only a proba¬ bility; to endeavour to force ourselves to be contented with it is an ignoring of the value of Truth:—and the consequence, the fatal consequence, is the rendering of Truth as revealed by experience, subservient to our own present partial perception of Truth. By in fact taking this course, Butler found himself reduced to make the law of Morality, founded upon the former, give way to the theory of a personal administration of Providence founded upon the latter : and to a mind like his, which had fully recognized the Divine value of Experience, this was a conscious contradiction that set it altogether wrong with itself. It was a resting of the Certain upon the Uncertain, a making of that which was known to be the first, depend upon that which was felt to be the last. And by so doing he was endangering Religion, in so far as he was sapping the root of all our trust in our ex¬ periences and inferences as to the Power that governs us;—endangering the stability of the very constitution of the mind itself by the habituating it to this partial resting upon its own theory instead of seeking God's real construction of facts. Whenever this is the case, and the distortion of the human will, and perversity of its settled habit, prevents it from yielding to the imperi¬ ous demand of Nature, does it not follow as a conse¬ quence to be certainly looked for, that her Nemesis is at hand to compel the reluctant obedience ! The form the avenging Deity takes with regard to re¬ ligion, is this same drear phantom of Scepticism. It lays a cold paralysing hand upon the heart palpitating fever¬ ishly in the strained effort at a now impossible faith—bids it u believe no more !”—and leaves it hard and hollow to render back only an echo of dismal laughter at all that healthy minds know still to be true and good. But there will generally be a reactionary impulse, before yielding up the mind finally to its influence, causing it to throw itself upon the protection of Superstition. Having ab¬ jured the path of consistent reason, there seems a re¬ source in the opposite direction, in undivided allegiance to the principle of submission of the understanding. Of this convulsive effect we have abundant evidence at the present day, when the consequences of the theological struggle of the last century are become ripe and obvious. But it is already discernible where we can trace the diagnosis without danger of invidiousness and with cer¬ tain profit to ourselves:—in the illustrious man who stands at the head of the struggle, and whose personal character has rendered him as much an object of habitual reverence, as the works of his religious genius have constituted him a main pillar of our country’s Church. 36 Circumstances gave to Bishop Butler the position of a representative man; and still more the character of his mind and life, so eminently apart from worldly influ¬ ences, constitute their history a clear specimen of the working out of a principle. No where shall we find a more perfect and instructive example of the course liable to be taken by the mind under the perilous contingencies of a turning crisis of thought, when the slightest oscilla¬ tion may determine it one way or the other, for evil or for good. His intellect was of that large sort which comprises tendencies of the most opposite description, so that in himself he typified that religious contest that was to occupy so much more than his own age; and the manner in which he arranged it has been accepted for a long time as satisfactory by those who have felt in him the welcome power of a master mind to deal with their own kindred difficulties. They have fain tried to per¬ suade themselves that he did settle it for them; but the fact shows itself with notable moral effect in its conse¬ quences, that he never was able to settle the point to his own satisfaction, and that in the endeavour to persuade himself of the contrary, he fell into a dilemma of self¬ disintegration that renders his experience a warning for mankind. No one fails to recognize the massiveness of his intellectual power: there seems only a something wanting to give it determination and efficiency. He was so able to see arguments on all sides, that difficulties were peculiarly apt to press upon him; and he was so remarkably free from the animal passions and domestic inclinations which serve as determining influences to most men, that he had to reason out the nature of those practical motives which others feel by instinct, and from his deficiency of instinct, as perhaps we have seen, cal¬ culated them falsely after all. No one can doubt the largeness of his moral nature—no one, at least, who has studied his “ Sermons” as well as his “Analogy;”—but that it was still relatively inferior to his great intellect, seems equally apparent. Nothing else can account for the degree of sophistry with which he occasionally im¬ poses upon himself. A little more moral courage , per¬ haps, would have enabled him to take a ground that would have rendered his influence over his disciples as positive as it is now merely negative,—unsettling,—dis¬ comforting,—sceptical. Let us recall his personal position by a glance over the leading circumstances of his life. He was born a Dissenter (anno 1692), the son of a respectable shop¬ keeper at Wantage in Berkshire, who, observing in Joseph, the youngest of his family of eight children, an “ excellent genius and inclination for learning,”* deter¬ mined to educate him for the ministry. He was accord¬ ingly sent to the Dissenting Academy at Tewkesbury, then under the superintendence of Mr. Jones, who had the “singular fortune of having for pupils, with the view of being ordained to the Presbyterian ministry, three young men afterwards prelates of the Established Church, Chandler, Butler, and Seeker, the two latter of whom * Quotation is made here chiefly, from the Life of Dr. Butler, pre¬ fixed to Bishop Halifax’s edition of his works. 38 were contemporaries.” This triple conversion implies that something was clue to the influence of their common . 0 tutor; but we know that Butler’s mind was too powerful to have been led (except as the turning-point of the scale,) by any one who did not speak according to the tone of his own mind. When dissenters turn church¬ men, one of two motives seems to be in operation: the vulgar one of worldly promotion, or the refined one of a leaning towards the outward expression of religious feel¬ ing by artistic forms and ceremonies. The disinterested simplicity of the character of Butler raises him far above the suspicion of the former; and the alternative of the latter is confirmed by his later history: but we may well credit also that the catholicity of his mind was revolted by the sectarian narrowness which attends the zeal of dissenters in general, though less, it may be, amongst those of the Presbyterian than of any other denomination, it being the lineal progenitor of modem Unitarianism. For already during his student life he was occupied with a much deeper range of thought, as we see by his cele¬ brated correspondence with Dr. Samuel Clarke, carried on anonymously in the first instance by the modest youth of twenty-one, till the acumen and excellent temper of his remarks drew towards him the friendship of the ap¬ preciating Author. In the opening of this correspon¬ dence, on the a priori argument in the u Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God,” the young logician thus states his early experience :— 11 1 have made it, Sir, my business, ever since I thought myself capable of such sort of reasoning, to prove to myself \ - 39 the being and attributes of God. And being sensible that it is a matter of the last consequence, I endeavoured after a demonstra¬ tive proof ; not only more fully to satisfy my own mind, but also in order to defend the great truths of natural religion, and those of the Christian revelation which follow from them, against all opposers : but must own with concern, that hitherto I have been unsuccessful; and though I have got very probable argu¬ ments, yet I can go but very little way with demonstration in the proof of those things. When first your book on those sub¬ jects (which by all, whom I have discoursed with, is so justly esteemed,) was recommended to me, I was in great hopes of having all my inquiries answered.” Alas! like many a sanguine expectation of youth, this hope was, as the correspondence shows, disappointed; nor was any other means ever found to make it good, for with this merely probable argument he was still obliged to content himself, after no idle occupation of his mind up to the full maturity of his powers.—As already observed, with this great question already working in his thoughts, he was likely to feel little disposed to enter upon the petty distinctions which measure out the bounds of the different sections of the Christian world with their various shades of belief, and to be glad to shelter himself from them in the repose of an established creed, and imposed form of clerical duty, which also gave him the largest opportunity for the exercise of that practical good¬ ness which was the main employment of his irreproach¬ able life. u He entered,” says Bishop Halifax, u into an examination of the principles of non-conformity; the result of which was, such a dissatisfaction with them, as determined him to conform to the Established Church.” 40 After some opposition from liis father, he was admitted a commoner at Oriel College, Oxford, on the 17th of March, 1714. Here he formed an intimate friendship with the son of the Bishop of Durham, which laid the foundation of all his subsequent preferments, and pro¬ cured for him a situation of note, when he was only twenty-six years of age. This was the preachership at the Bolls Chapel, which he retained for eight years, in the course of which he delivered those Sermons which show his eminence in the character of a moralist. The mind of Butler seems essentially realistic: how odious to him was mere chopping of logic, without the earnest search for truth, is evident from many passages in his writings, poignant with witty sarcasm; as, e. g ., in the first paragraph of the Preface to these Sermons, he can hardly moderate his contempt for those u many persons,” who u from different causes, never exercise their judgment, upon what comes before them, in the way of determining whether it be conclusive, and holds. They are perhaps entertained with some things, not so with others ; they like, and they dislike: but whether that which is proposed to be made out be really made out or not; whether a matter be stated according to the real truth of the case, seems to the generality of people merely a circumstance of no consideration at all...For the sake of this whole class of readers,” he goes on maliciously, u 1 have often wished that it had been the custom to lay before people nothing in matters of argu¬ ment but premisses, and leave them to draw conclusions for themselves.”—Excellent champion of right rational 41 independence! how has his spirit been dishonoured by many of his servile admirers,—and unjustly maligned by many of his captious opponents! And the same love of solid reality, and integrity of purpose, was shown in his conduct in life, by the carry¬ ing out of his view of duty in the faithful discharge of his pastoral office. We need here to note this, not as a matter of common-place panegyric, but in order to ob¬ serve how the education of his mind was going on. Checked in his abstruse speculations, he took what a sound mind always instinctively feels the only method of setting itself in right order,—he betook himself stead¬ fastly to the path of active duty. And these Sermons show how wholesome was the tone of his mind under its influence. He was trying to do good to man, and the study of humanity, in harmony with the effort, was one in which a noble harvest lay all within his reach. Here he could and did employ that method of research winch his natural truth-seeking intellect had always taught him to prefer, that which led to positive demonstration , and which he had to his chagrin found baffled in his first attempts after knowledge that was not within his reach. u There are two ways,” lie says (Preface vi.),