11111111111 L/ t^en^e-a- vy front if;e Stfc-ttt^ (Strman, ©trition, bg SOPHIA TAYLOR. FIFTH EDITION. EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET. 1879. PEEFACE TO THE FIEST EDITION. flURS is an apologetic age. Two views of the world stand opposed one to the other, and contend together for the sway of the modern mind. It is, then, the task of the advocates of the Christian view to show, in the presence of modern thought, and by the resources of modern intellectual culture, that it, and it alone, is the satis factory solution of the problem of all existence, of human life and its enigmas, of the human heart and its inquiries, — to prove that Christianity is truth, truth ever young and always fresh, universal truth, and therefore equally adapted and equally satisfying to all ages and all degrees of civilisation. A similar thought was the theme of Pascal in his Pense'es. What he sketched in broad outline and left unfinished should be carried out by us, his successors, with the resources and according to the necessities of our days. It will be easily recognised that the following Lectures have grown out of Pascal's Pense'es. My vocation as well as my inclination has for a vi Preface to the First Edition. long period occupied me with apologetic subjects ; and whether in my lectures or studies, I have never left this point of view out of sight. Academical lectures on such matters gave rise to public ones for a wider circle of hearers, which excited an unexpected interest, and led to a request for publication, entailing the obli gation of allowing them to appear. The evening hours which were devoted to these Lectures will ever be a grateful remembrance to me. They are here presented almost as they were delivered. The only difference which will be found is, that being now not limited by time, I have in some instances divided them more according to their subjects, and in others have here and there enlarged them. In the Notes which follow I have added illustrations and literary references, which, being partly calculated for a narrower circle of readers, may serve either to justify or explain what has been said, or lead to further inquiry. ' It is not the office of a lecturer to give merely his own thoughts. His lectures should furnish not so much fresh scientific researches, as state the authenti cation afforded by those already extant. The Notes will show to what authors I have been most indebted. The unity of the course lies in the fundamental thought which prevails throughout ; and this funda mental thought is the thought of my life. Much as I may have borrowed materials from others, I have given in this a portion, perhaps the best portion, of what is my very own, for God will have personal organs of truth. Preface to the First Edition. vii To Him, then, I commend, in this form also, that which was spoken. May His blessing accompany it upon the path it is about to take, upon which may it find acceptance from old and gain new friends to Christian truth. Leipsic, April 25, 1864. PEEFACE TO THE FOUETH EDITION. The extremely favourable reception which my ' Apologetic Lectures ' have found in widely extended circles even beyond the limits of Germany — they have been to my knowledge already translated into five languages — has entailed upon me the duty of carefully revising this new edition, and of correcting it where this seemed necessary. The arrangement of the book, being the necessary result of its funda mental idea, remains the same. Its details, however, I have considerably enlarged and improved. The section on Man especially has received additions which seemed to be required by the discussions of the day ; and the description of Heathenism has been re-written, as I found it insufficient. It is upon the Notes, however, that I have bestowed especial labour, and have particularly sought to make the view therein taken of modern apologetic literature more complete. The present time is happily rich in apologetic works, and in this department of labour the Roman Catholic vies with the Protestant Church. Among the productions of Protestant theologians, besides the excellent introduction of Tholuck to his Vermichten Schriften, 1839, two vols., Stirm's Apologie des Ghristenthums in Briefe fur gebildete Leser, second edit. 1856, deserves especial notice. It treads, Preface to the Fourth Edition. ix indeed, in the old path of establishing, in the first place, the authenticity of the Scriptures, and after wards taking up the actual questions themselves, instead of following the more current method .of discussing them at once ; but it well and clearly exhibits a rich abundance of apologetic thoughts and matter, and has essentially contributed either to furnish or perfect the material which the apologists of the day employ themselves in manipulating. The small but very useful popular work of Ziethe, Die Wahrheit und Serrlichkeit des Christenthums, seven lectures, 1863, forms a sequel to the former. The warmth of the French mind lends a peculiar charm to the seven discourses on the Eternal Life delivered at Geneva and Lausanne (1863) by Naville, to which he has now added the discourses on The Heavenly Father (1865). Much warmth — but perhaps some what too much rhetoric — distinguishes the lectures on Christianity by Dalton, entitled Nathanael, second edit. 1864. The lectures, too, of Auberlen and others at Basle, in vindication of the Christian faith, received, in the demand for a second edition, 1862, that testimony of appreciation which they deserved. Among works on single subjects, Fabri's Briefe gegen den Materialismus, second edit. 1864, — a work of acknowledged merit, — has afforded me special assist ance in the matter of materialistic questions. And in the section on the moral effects of Christianity, abundant material was furnished me by the excellent work of Schmidt of Strasburg, La, socieU civile dans x Preface to the Fourth Edition. I'ancien monde romai/n et sa transformation par le Ghristianisme (1853). Many other works — by Held, Diisterdieck, and others — might here be named, but that I would limit myself to the mention of such as I have specially used or had respect to in these Lectures. To the above-named I add certain works of Roman Catholic theologians, among which the bulky volume of Bosen, Bos Christenthum und die Eimspruche seiner Oegner, second edition, Cologne, 1864, a laborious work, but one too much pervaded by a tone of one-sided reasoning, deserves especial mention. Its method and manner were, however, too little in harmony with my work to afford me an opportunity of making use of it. This, too, was still more the case with the Philosophical Studies on Christianity, four vols., by the French advocate Aug. Nicolas, which have had the most extensive circulation, and have, to my knowledge, passed through fourteen editions in France since their first appearance in 1842, and four in the German translation of Silv. Hester. If they are wanting in accurate arrangement and critical acumen, they are yet distinguished by an ardent enthusiasm, a lively perception, and an extensive acquaintance with ancient and modern literature, which has frequently made them a treasury for apologetic writers. It is to be lamented that Nicolas should have subsequently devoted his talents and learning to the cause of an extravagant adoration of the Virgin, and an unjust controversy with Pro testantism. I have often had occasion to refer, in Preface to the Fourth Edition. xi the Notes, to the Philosophical Studies. Hettinger's Apologie des Ghristenthums, though the result of independent study and extensive reading, is neverthe less very evidently similar to this French work. Its first vol., DerBeweis des Ghristenthums, 1863 (which has just reached its second edition), is an excellent book, as valuable for the atmosphere of ardour by which the whole is pervaded, as for the thorough manner in which the separate facts are discussed. If the reader is almost overloaded with the many quo tations which this bo6k contains, its value, in an apologetic point of view, is but the more increased. Even in the first edition of my Lectures, I acknowledged the essential service which this work, appearing shortly before my own, had rendered me. With so much similarity of subject and treatment, it could not fail that, apart from individual passages, the two works should in many respects coincide. I have endeavoured in this edition to make my references to this work complete, wherever it seemed needful ; and I take this opportunity of again expressing my pleasure at this friendly meeting with a theologian of the other Church, in a sphere in which it concerns us both to defend with united arms our common possessions against a common foe. The numerous references to modern apologetic writers in the Notes to this book may be deemed wholly or partly unnecessary, it being more customary in such works as are not, properly speaking, devoted to scientific purposes, to refrain from such references. xii ' Preface to the Fourth Edition. But my aim was not merely to render to each the honour which was his due, but also to show by quotations the rich abundance of the common property already collected, that each might apply it after his own fashion, and convert it to his own use. The question here is not the fame of the individual, or the jealous conservation of his own share. Such little ness of mind corresponds neither with the magnitude nor the purpose of the task. Let the weapons have been forged or collected by whomsoever they may, everything depends on how they are wielded. How long the conflict in which we are engaged may yet last, or what may be its issue, it is impossible to determine. But that it will be decisive of the future of our nation is certain. We have no cause to fear for the truth itself, of which we are the advo cates, nor that it will ever lack friends upon earth. But whether the public life of nations will continue under the influence of that truth is by no means absolutely certain. Let us at least do what is incumbent upon us, and fulfil our duty to our age and country ! I am certain that to many the present conflict will bear the fruit of a conviction that it is Christianity which delivers the lives and minds of men and nations from their falseness, and elevates them to truth. And I venture also to hope that God may grant that this little book may help in bringing many a seeker to this conviction. To Him, then, it is again commended. Leipsio, October 2, 1865. PEEFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION. It is with gratitude to God that I send forth this book for the fifth time; and now as the first part of an apology for Christianity. For I hope, during the course of this year, to be able to carry out my long-cherished resolution of adding to these Lectures on the Fundamental Truths of Christianity a second series, which will treat of the Saving Truths, properly so called, which are grouped around sin and grace. I have again reviewed, improved, and supplied deficiences in the whole work, and especially in the Notes. The literature of the subject is too copious for me to attempt to furnish a complete statement of it. I mention only the meritorious and valuable apolo getic periodical, Beweis des Glaubens, which appears at Giitersloh ; the powerful and original testimony of Stutz, Die Thatsachen des Glaubens, Zurich 1865, which is the more valuable as the production of a man of science ; and above all, the lectures, rich both in matter and talent, of G. v. Zeschwitz, 1866. May these Lectures continue to decide inquirers, to guide wanderers, and to strengthen believers ! Leipsio, Jan. 16, 1867. PEEFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION. Immediately after two editions had appeared in rapid succession of the second series of these Lectures, in which the Saving Truths of Christianity were dis cussed, a new edition of the first part was required. I accept this as a token that God may still make use of my labours in the service of His kingdom. In the midst of those sorrows of this life which no man is suffered to escape, it is one of the consolations where with His grace comforts us, that we are permitted to serve Him by the work of our hands. May He then continue to make such further use of this book as may seem good to Him. I have made but few alterations in the text ; in the Notes, however, improvements and additions will be easily detected. I accompany this book with greetings to my old friends, and to those new and unknown friends whom it has gained me. Leipsic, March 16, 1868. PEEFACE TO THE SEVENTH EDITION. Since my last edition, apologetic literature has been enriched by the addition of Delitzsch's System der Christi. Apologetik, an addition which lays all friends of Christian truth under great obligation to its esteemed author. Much as I was tempted to make use of this work in improving these Lectures, I yet thought it better to make no further alterations, and to confine myself to some additions to the Notes. May they then in this form continue to promote the interest of God's kingdom so long as He sees good ! Luthardt. Le_psio, Nov. 1, 1869. After the publication of this Seventh Edition of Dr. Luthardt's Lectures on the Fundamental Truths of Christianity — forming Part I. of an Apology for Chris tianity — a third and enlarged edition of Part II. — on the Saving Truths of Christianity — was given to the public in 1870, and the Series completed in 1872 by Part III. — on the Moral Truths of Christianity. In Note 1, Lecture I. of the latter work, the author xvi Preface to the Seventh Edition. says: — 'The Apologetic Lectures on the Funda mental Truths of Christianity' were delivered at Leipsic in the beginning of 1864, and appeared in print during the spring of the same year. The seventh edition came out in 1870. Of the various transla tions I have seen — as yet seven in number — I have been especially pleased with that into Modern Greek by Dr. Myrianthus, teacher of theology at the theolo gical school in Jerusalem, printed at the press of the Holy Sepulchre. The list of subscribers attached to it contains pretty nearly the whole hierarchy of the Greek Church. The second series, of Lectures on ' The Saving Truths of Christianity ' was delivered in the beginning of 1867, and the third edition appeared in 1870. The present course is for the most part based upon the prelections on theological morality which I have been for a long series of years accustomed to deliver in the University of this place. Parts II. and III., uniform with the present work, are also issued by the same publishers. CONTENTS. LECTURE I. THE ANTAGONISTIO VIEWS OF THE WOKLD IS THEIR HISTOBIOAL DEVELOPMENT. PAOE The Subject proposed — Christianity a new View of the World — The Ancient Church — The Middle Ages — The Reformation — The Development of the Negative Spirit — Socinianism — English Deism — Naturalism in France — Illumination in Germany — Rationalism — Pantheism — Materialism — Pre vailing Opinions — Theistic and Cosmical "Views contrasted, . 1 LECTUEE II. THE CONTRADICTIONS OF EXISTENCE. The Problem— The Relation of Man to the World— The Ano malies of Knowledge — -Of the Sentiments — Of the Will — Of all Existence — Death — Perception of Truth a Moral Act — The Answer of Christianity 26 LECTURE III. THE PERSONAL SOD. The Importance of the Question, Is there a God? — Intuitive Conviction of the Existence of God; its Universality — Atheism — Proofs of the Existence of God : from Nature ; from its Existence ; from its Adaptation to its Purpose ; from History ; from our Idea of God ; from Conscience — Result — The Nature of God — Pantheism — Pantheism criticised ; its practical Consequences ; it contradicts Reason, Conscience, the Demands of the Heart, 42 xviii Contents. LECTURE IV. THE CREATION OF THE WORLD. PAGE The Conflict between Natural Science and the Religious View of the World — The Idea of Creation — Pantheism and Material ism — Materialism criticised — Astronomy and its supposed Opposition to Christianity — The Position of the Earth — Geology and its Discoveries — Geology and the Bible — The Uncertainties of Geological Science — Point of View for form ing a right Judgment, and Harmony in Essentials, . . 74 LECTURE V. The Scriptural View in general — The Transmutation Theory of Darwin — The Unity of the Human Race necessary both from Religious and Human Reasons — Varieties of Race — Man as a Union of Body and Soul — The Body — The Soul — Psycho logical Materialism criticised — Scriptural View of the Nature and Destiny of Man — Man as a Recapitulation, in a more exalted sense, of the World — Personality of Man — His conscious Thought — His free Will Man's Position in the World — The Higher Destiny of Man, UO LECTURE VI. The Universality and Necessity of Religion : it is rooted in the Nature of Man — Its Abode, Man's Inner Spiritual Life — Religion viewed as Faith, and the Nature of Faith ; its Manifestation in Prayer — The Position of Religion — Con nection of Mental Culture with Religion — Religion the Foundation of National Life — Religion and Political Life — Its Importance with respect to the present highly civilised Age, 148 Contents. xix LECTURE VII. REVELATION. FAG II Necessity of Revelation considered with respect to our Reason and our Will — Sin — Testimony to its Universality — Scrip tural Account of its Origin — Its Consequences : Moral Schism in our whole Existence, and our Incapacity to obviate it by our own Strength — Possibility of Revelation — Miracles and the Laws of Nature — Certainty of Miracles - — Their Relation to Revelation — The Genuineness and Truth of Revelation; Testimony of the Apostles — Fact of the Resurrection ; Testimony of the whole Church ; Testimony of our own Heart — The Self -witness of Truth — Its popular Power — the Relation of Revelation to Reason, inasmuch as it surpasses the limits of Reason ; is opposed to erring Reason ; is in harmony with the inner Truth of Reason — Reason the Organ for Revelation, 176 LECTURE VIII. HISTORY OE REVELATION — HEATHENISM AND JUDAISM. Historical Nature of Revelation — Vocations of various Nations — The Nation of Religion, and the Nations of Civilisation — Heathen Religion — Heathen Morality — The Philosophical Morality of Heathenism — Its actual Morality — The Voices of Prophecy among the Nations — Heathenism searching after God — Judaism and the Religious Vocation of Israel — The great Fundamental Ideas of the Jewish Religion — Prophecy and its History— Jesus in Israel — The Judgment of Israel — Christianity, 220 LECTURE IX. CHRISTIANITY IN HISTORY. The Historical Situation at the Entrance of Christianity into the World — The Universal Empires : the Babylonian, Persian, xx Contents. , PAGE Grecian/ and Roman — Mental Progress — Jesus Christ the End of Ancient and the Beginning and Power of Modern Times — Victorious Progress of Christianity in the World's History— The Power of the Christian Spirit — The Universal Character of Christianity, and its Testimony to Jesus Christ, 258 LECTURE X. THE PERSON OP JESUS CHRIST. The Question of the Present — Oppositions in Ancient Times ; in Modern Times — Strauss and Renan — The Gospels ; Testi mony of the Ancient Church — The Portrait of Jesus, the Self - witness of the Gospels j the Trustworthiness of their Narra tive — Attacks upon the Gospels — The Gospel Description of the Person of Jesus, of His Youth, of His Public Ministry — The Saviour's Life a Revelation of Divine Love even to Death — The Miraculous Person of Jesus ; His Holiness and Harmony ; His Consciousness of Fellowship with God ; His Miracles ; His Sayings ; His Self -witness — The Son of Man ; His universal Position with respect to the World ; His Testi mony in regard to His Future — The Son of God and His absolute Fellowship with God — The Testimony of Christ's two Institutions, Baptism and the Lord's Supper — Recapitu lation, 283 NOTES. Notes to Lecture I., 337 Notes to Lecture II., 343 Notes to Lecture III., ... ... 350 Notes to Lecture IV., 359 Notes to Lecture V., 375 Notes to Lecture VI., . . .... 388 Notes to Lecture VII., 394 Notes to Lecture VIII. , 406 Notes to Lecture IX 414 Notes to Lecture X., 420 APOLOGETIC LECTURES ON THE FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS OF CHRISTIANITY. LECTUEE I. THE ANTAGONISTIC VIEWS OF THE WORLD IN THEIR HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT. j|HE task which I propose to myself in the lectures I am about to deliver before you, my respected hearers, is to state to you those general truths on which Christianity is founded, and to justify them in the presence of modern thought. The Christian view of the world is in these days opposed by a non-Christian view ; and a separation in the whole current of opinion in the modern world, leading to a rupture which could not but have a fatal influence upon the future, is in creasingly imminent. Under such circumstances it is the duty of every advocate of Christian truth to do his utmost to maintain the connection of intellectual life. Christian intellect has in our days undoubtedly attained a degree of enlightenment and power rarely before witnessed. We need only observe the earnest- 2 Lect. I. — The Antagonistic Views of the World. ness with which theological studies are prosecuted, or compare the sermons of the present day with those of the past, or the great activity manifested in the various provinces of Christian usefulness, and the self-sacrificing labours of home and foreign missions, with those of former times, to be convinced that the Christian intellect is indeed a power. But the non- Christian intellect is also such a power as it never was before. We have, indeed, already seen times in which Christianity met with the most positive denial. Vol taire ruled the educated minds of his age, and was able to indulge the hope that in a few decades Christianity would be extinct. Such a hope could in the present day be entertained by no reasonable man ; and yet the non-Christian intellect is a mightier power now than then. And this for two reasons. The force of church customs then still formed a barrier against the gain- sayers, and brought Christianity itself intact through the times of scepticism. But this barrier of the form of sound words is ever more and more yielding to the torrent of modem times. Again, former attacks were desultory, modem ones are systematic. The spirit of French infidelity is more stormy and tumultuous, but not so dangerous as the German. When a Eenan writes a Life of Jesus, it is clever, piquant, popular ; but it is a romance, an interesting novel. Works of fiction are the favourite literary productions of the day; and what could be imagined more interesting than a novel, whose hero is Jesus Christ, an amiable revolutionist, a model enthusiast and fanatic sur- The Subject Proposed. 3 rounded by women who love His person more than His work, by disciples who force Him to play the part of a worker of miracles, etc. ? But what is the result ? — A few years and the book will be forgotten, while the heavy artillery directed thirty years ago against the faith of the Church by David Strauss, and since then by his intellectual successors, has caused far greater confusion among the ranks of the faithful than these French skirmishers can effect. Since the French attacks in the days of Voltaire, the refutation of Christianity has passed through a school, the philosophical school of the German mind; it has been formed into a systematic view of the world, and earnest attempts have been made to set this up in the place of Christianity. And this view, stripped of its philosophic garb, and uniting itself with the other tendencies of the age, has passed into the general opinions not only of the educated, but in a coarser and clumsier form into those of the labouring classes also. It is the duty of every one to be rightly informed concerning these antagonistic views, that he may take up a conscious position with respect to them. Nothing is more unworthy than to prejudge a cause of which we are ignorant, and yet there is nothing more common in religious matters. In every other case it is admitted that, in order to arrive at a judg ment in any suit at law, we must know the acts upon which such judgment must be based. Christianity is put upon its trial, and judgment is passed ; but how 4 Lect. I. — The Antagonistic Views of the World. many among those who are so eager to pronounce it are acquainted with the Bible, and the doctrinal writ ings of the Church, which are its chief acts ? Surely, of all questions which can agitate, an age, the reli gious question must be that which most deeply and most nearly concerns us. In such a question it is not just to decide upon mere authority, and to allow the position we are to occupy tb be pointed out to us by others. Nor can it be right to remain indifferent. In no question is indifference so inadmissible, or so unworthy the dignity of man, as in the question of the great religious antagonisms. Nor is it anywhere more impossible to keep clear of both sides, and to choose the middle course. For these antagonisms are exclusive. In other cases it may often be expedient to seek truth in a middle course ; in this we must choose one side or the other. The language of one is, There is a God ; of the other, There is no God. Can it then be said, truth lies between the two? There are no greater contrasts than the Christian and non-Christian views of the universe. Goethe says in his Westostlicthen Divan, and the saying has since been often repeated, ' The most special, the unparal leled, the deepest subject in the history of the world and of mankind, and that to which all others are sub ordinate, is the conflict between faith and unbelief (l). Two utterly opposite principles determine these views, and every individual is compelled to take up a positive position with respect to one of them. The principle, however, which he adopts will fashion his whole being Christianity a New View of the Universe. 5 and colour his whole life. ' Everything depends upon what principle a man embraces, for both his theory and practice will be formed in accordance therewith' (2). Let us then endeavour to bring before our minds the great antagonism in its historical development, that we may clearly understand what the question really is which is stirring up the vast moral contest now going on around us, and in which every one of us is playing his part ! When Christianity came into the world, it came into it as a new view of the world. Its first object, indeed, was the preaching of the cross, the word of reconciliation, the gospel of the grace of God in Christ Jesus, the doctrine of repentance and faith as the way of salvation and eternal life to man. Christianity is primarily the doctrine of salvation. But this doctrine of salvation includes, and is founded on, a certain view of the world, and this view was an entirely new one. Its way, indeed, had been prepared, and points of contact furnished bypreviousknowledge,by philosophy, and still more by man's conscience and his instinctive sense of truth; but in its essence it was absolutely new. Even its very first and fundamental principles, the unity of God and the unity of the human species, could not but produce an entire revolution in the world of mind. For these were entirely new notions. How differently, indeed, must the world be regarded when looked upon as the work of a Creator, as the free and loving act of a Father, who orders and main- 6 Lect. I. — The Antagonistic Views of the World. tains all things by the power of His wisdom and love; to whom the most remote is not too remote, nor the least too small; who has not merely His individual favourites among mankind, but equally cherishes the whole race in His heart; who cares not merely for the most minute interests of their external life, but seeks above all things the salvation of their souls, and desires above all the affection of their hearts ! These were utterly new notions, notions of which the old world had known nothing. Moreover, that God had made of one blood all nations of the earth ; that all were brethren, and ought to be united by one common bond of love ; that the stranger was no stranger, but a neighbour ; that we should look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others ; that our life should be a life of service and of sacrifice for others ; that selfishness is the radical sin of human nature ; self-surrender, love, the radical virtue, — whose imagination had such ideas as yet entered . And finally, that one single idea ruled the fate of nations and states as well as of individuals ; that there was a single history of the whole human race, commencing from one beginning, proceeding to one end, and that end the kingdom of God; that there was to be a kingdom of God upon earth, into which all were to be gathered, in which all were to be absorbed; and that this kingdom of God was already established in Him who formed the central point of history, the termination of the old, the beginning of a new era; who was not merely its Christianity a New View of the Universe. 7 herald, but its founder, the manifestation of God Himself, the manifestation of the life, the light, the love of God in history in and towards man — Jesus Christ, in whom all the lines of former history meet, from whom all the lines of subsequent history proceed, who is also the central point of attraction to individual souls, in whom each individual, as well as the whole aggregate of humanity, attains his destiny, and thus becomes a member of that great kingdom of God which is founded upon justice and grace, upon the deepest and firmest moral basis ; — what a light has all this cast upon history, upon God's dealings with nations, upon His dealings with individual souls ; and how has it gathered the greatest and the least, the aggregate and the individual, into one marvellous unity ! (3) Not the very greatest of philosophers, not the most comprehensive, not the most soaring mind, had as yet formed even a conjecture of these truths, far less had thought out, recognised, and expressed them, and, moreover, succeeded in making them the universal view, a popular matter, a power over heart and life (4). Verily, Christianity brought into the world a new view of the world. With us these are now current notions : the things which were then new, surprising, and unheard of, now form the elementary propositions of Christian opinion. Yet these thoughts have lost nothing of their great ness ; they are the same now that they ever were, as true, as sublime, as enlightening, and as enkindling. It is we who have lost the lively impression of their 8 Lect. I. — The Antagonistic Views of the World. greatness, sublimity, and beauty ; we have become accustomed to them, and they have thus become too customary to us. Such is the fate of all great truths. It was but natural that this new view of the world should not immediately prevail. It had to overcome an obstinate resistance before it obtained the victory. It is true that this resistance was not offered by any system of opinion. The world of ancient thought was dissolved. The process of decomposition had begun with the rise of philosophy in the sixth cen tury before Christ. For philosophy had sgt."*teelf to work upon traditionary religious notions, and had substituted for the intellectual forces which had hitherto governed society, the world of ite own ideas. Ancient philosophy, indeed, had sought to fill the place of religion itself. It was no merely speculative theory, but was practical both in nature). and tendency. Great statesmen passed through its school" as a pre paration for their practical labours. It dealt in moral and political as well as in scientific probleins. But its power was never a_^popular one. Always somewhat aristocratic, and .confined to a small circle, it was incapable of taking the place of religion, for, in the place of those Jflflfcs which religion requires, it was capable^of supplying nothing but thoughts of its own devising (5), jind soon resolved itself into the most opposite t-^clencies. Hence its chief result was the establishment of a doubt of all truth, the over throw of all conviction and certainty. And yet man could not dispense with certainty. The Ancient Church; the Middle Ages. 9 Hence philosophy was accompanied by all sorts of secret doctrines ; and the more mysterious these were, the more desirable. The old religion and its myths were allegorically explained, and transformed into symbols of ethics and wisdom. A whole world of views and notions had accumulated as the result of the previous development. But it was a world of ruins. Leading minds collected these fragments of former times, and sought to form them into a new structure. Laborious intellectual efforts were devoted to this restoration of heathen opinions. The Neo- Platonism of Alexandria was an experiment in which imagination and profundity united to construct an edifice which, in fulness of thought, should far surpass the Christian, and by its profound philosophy should conquer the meagre doctrines of these ' barbarians,' as Christians were called. It was indeed a wondrous compound. All religions and all nations were forced to contribute to it. But it remained only a splendid experiment. It was advocated by men of conspicuous and noble minds. General education, with which heathen opinions were most closely inter woven, lent it its support, and yet the experiment failed ; the Christian view prevailed over the heathen, and has since ruled the civilised world. Th,e intellectual powers of Judaism and heathenism, thus conquered by Christianity, took their revenge, indeed, by seeking to make their influence felt within the Church, and upon the very soil of Christianity, in the form of heterodoxy. The special object of their 10 Lect. I. — The Antagonistic Views of the World. attack was the doctrine of Christ's person, which they sought to misinterpret in either a Jewish or a heafitten sense. By the Judaizing spirit the significance of this doctrine was limited by lowering the dignity of Christ's person to that of a mere prophet, by the heathen spirit, by evaporating His historical reality into a mere idea ; either His proper divinity was denied, or His true humanity impugned, and justice was done neither to the unity nor to the distinction of the two natures. In all this it was no single dogma, but the very essence of Christianity itself which was attacked, for this is involved in the person of Jesus Christ. Either the Jewish or the heathen spirit was ever penetrating from the extra- Christian into the Christian world, and was under a Christian form ever carrying on the old conflict. But even this antagonism within the Church to the full truth of the Christian view was overcome, and the exclusive supremacy of the latter established. The Middle Ages were the period of this exclusive supremacy. As the outer world of Christendom was gathered to the Vicar of Christ and the German emperor, the two supreme powers of the whole earth, the sun and moon which shed their light upon all earthly life, so also did the world of mind form itself into a compact unity. The heathen mind did indeed practically make its influence felt, but it was obliged to bow to the authority of the Church, and to the ecclesiastical view and treatment of all subjects. The Middle Ages are the eras when a single view of the universe prevailed. It is this which forms Italian Humanism. 11 their charm and their greatness. In the great poems and works of art of this period we encounter this single view. This never happened again in any sub sequent age. Reason was the handmaid of faith, and philosophy of theology. In the Summa, the great theological work of Thomas Aquinas, the greatest doctor of the Middle Ages, the heathens Aristotle and Plato appear as witnesses to Christian truth; so also in the "great cathedrals, those most characteristic representatives of the age, everything, even the most heterogeneous, the very world of goblins and demons, contributed to the great yet simple edifice. And all this for the glorification of the Church, that supreme power on earth which held in one compacted unity the whole fabric of human society. Such were the Middle Ages, the era of the supreme sway of Christianity over the world and its opinion. Yet the heathen spirit was but repressed, not anni hilated ; and it soon reappeared the more openly and the more strongly. The revival of the ancient world in the Classical Studies, pursued with such passionate ardour in Italy at the close of the Middle Ages, revived also the spirit of heathenism, harboured it in Rome itself, and upon the throne of the Romish bishop, and threatened the world with a new heathenism, unless the Reformation had averted this danger. This was one ofthe greatest, though one ofthe least known and least acknowledged; of the services rendered by the German Reformation to western Christendom in general. 12 Lect. I. — The Antagonistic Views of the World. We are apt, in contemplating the revival of learn ing in Italy, to be dazzled by the splendour of the enlightenment which it introduced. It assumes, how ever, a different appearance upon closer observation. Assuredly the arts and sciences flourished in Italy, in the Medicean era, as they had never done before, as they have never done since, and adorned life with an unwonted refinement of manners and education. But the foundation of true morality was wanting. Classical studies resulted in a hitherto unheard-of licentiousness of life and motive. Count Picus of Mirandola, indeed, was a brilliant exception. His saying, 'Philosophy seeks truth, theology finds it, religion possesses it,' is almost the history of his life. But bis was an isolated case. The most distinguished advocates of classical learning reproach each other with sins which cannot be spoken of. Poggius wrote jests (facetiae) which can scarcely be equalled for vulgarity and immorality, and which yet went through twenty editions in thirty years. The heathen spirit, under the form of refinement and scientific interest, ruled at the Medicean court. The Platonic academy at Florence put the Platonic philosophy in the place of Christianity, and Savonarola strove with ardent zeal against heathen immorality and heathen belief, as defended by the highest prelates. He introduces one man as saying to another, ' What do you think of our Christian belief? What do you take it to be ? ' And the other replies, ' Well, you seem to me a thorough dunce ; faith is only a dream, a matter The German Reformation ; Sooinianism. 13 for sentimental women and monks.' Nor was this the judgment of preachers of repentance alone ; even a Macchiavelli openly says : ' Truly we Italians are pre-eminently irreligious and wicked.' ' Because,' adds he, ' the Church in the persons of its advocates sets the worst example.' With the refinements of antiquity, its unbelief and its sins revived. Those exhibited by the clergy surpass description, and are severely denounced by even papal officials such as Guicciardini. At the court of Rome there was great taste for the fine arts, but very little theology or Christianity, when such words as these could be put into the mouth of the supreme head of Christendom : ' How much the fable about Christ has profited us is sufficiently known to all ; ' and also that other saying, that a man would be better off in disbelieving the immortality of the soul. Matters had indeed gone so far, that it was thought necessary, at the Lateran Council of the year 1513, to inculcate afresh the doctrine of the immortality of the soul (6). It was a blessing for the whole Church that, in contrast with the refined heathenism, of Italy, the German Reformation exhibited, in Luther, a moral earnestness of conscience and faith, and in Melancthon a union of classical cultivation and Christianity. This had its effect even in Italy, and infused into the opposition to the Church a moral and religious earnestness. The Reformation repulsed the negative spirit, and forced it into a relation of concession to wards religious faith ; and it has needed more than 14 Lect. I. — The Antagonistic Views of ihe World. three centuries to arrive again where it then stood, — enriched, indeed, by the fruits of the development of which it has meantime been the subject. Let us now consider this movement of the negative spirit from the more religious position into which it was thrown, towards the confessed negativism of modern heathenism. The phenomenon which first presents itself, and that with which this movement begins, is Soci/nian- ism. A series of uneasy spirits appeared about the time of the Reformation, who opposed the orthodox view of the Trinity. This anti-Trinitarian movement re ceived its clearest, most comprehensive, and influential expression from the Italian, Faustus Socinus. In 1574 he gave up a respectable and comfortable position in the Medicean court, and betook himself to Germany and Poland, where he became the central point of the so-called Unitarians (deniers of the Divine Trinity), who formed a Socinian Society in Poland and Transylvania, and thence extended their influence over western Europe. Socinianism does not deny either revelation or the supernatural; it adheres to the authority of the Scriptures, but makes its own subjective notions the standard of all religious truth. In its view the essence of Christianity consists in the doctrine of immortality, and it was for the sake of this that Christ both lived and died. But it denies the deity of Christ, affirming that this doctrine is not found in the Scriptures. ' It English Deism ; Naturalism in France. 15 is more credible,' says Wollzogen the Socinian, ' that a man should be an ass, than that God should be a man.' It admits, however, that Christ was no ordinary man ; that He was the son of the Virgin, perfectly holy, just, and godlike, and therefore exalted to be the ruler of the world, and to receive divine honour. It regards His prophetic and kingly offices as essential, expunges His priestly office, and views His death as undergone for the confirmation of His doctrine, and not as an atonement for sin. Socinianism is a union of the supernatural element with rationalistic opinions. The English Deismoi the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries made a still further advance on the path of negation. It was an attempt to set up so-called natural religion in the place of positive Christianity. Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1640), the first of a series of deistical writers, was followed by many others, as Toland, Tindal, Woolston, Bolingbroke, etc. It was not a frivolous, but an earnest and moral spirit which originated this movement, whose object was to reduce Christianity to general moral and religious principles. The existence of God, the duty of worshipping Him, virtue and piety as His true service, the duty of repenting and forsaking sin, and faith in a divine retribution, partly in this life, partly in the neprt; : these five principles are, according to Lord Herbert, ' the chief pillars of pure religion.' ' Whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.' When Lord/Herbert had completed his work On 16 Lect. I. — The Antagonistic Views of the World. Truth as distinguished from Revelation,1 he was filled with doubt whether its publication would con tribute to the glory of God, and threw himself upon his knees to entreat His guidance. ' Give me a sign from heaven, or if not I will suppress my book !' 'I had scarcely uttered these words,' says he, ' when a distinct, yet gentle sound, unlike any earthly one, came from heaven. This so supported me, and gave me such peace, that I considered my prayer as heard.' Marvellous indeed ! That God should be said to have given a direct sign in attestation of a work which denies all direct revelation ! So we are not to believe that God manifested Himself in Christ, because we are to believe that God manifested Himself to Lord Herbert of Cherbury ! But a further advance was soon made : all that is matter of revelation in the Scriptures was attributed to the self-seeking invention of the priesthood, and the moral character of scriptural personages attacked. The great excitement produced by these attacks is evident from the multitude of replies they called forth. To Tindal's work alone, Christianity as Old as the Creation, more than one hundred answers appeared. But other religious movements in Eng land, and especially the rise of Methodism, soon cast this^movement into the background. We find, then, here a denial of revelation; but God, virtue, and immortality are still left. 1 The full title of this book is, De Veritate prout distinguitur a Sevelatione a verisimili, a possibili et a fa'so. French Naturalism. 17 The naturalistic tendency assumed an entirely different form in France. There it was frivolous, immoral, and denied the existence of God. Upon the soil of an Epicureanism, which made sensual prosperity the supreme law of existence, sceptical opinions were formed, which, advocated by a number of influential writers, helped to prepare for the Revolution. Rousseau, indeed, had religious feeling, advocated faith in God, and repeatedly acknowledged the sublimity of Christianity, of the Holy Scriptures, and of Jesus Christ ; but he destroyed all sense for what actually existed by his dream of a state of nature, in which alone he could see a remedy for all the evils of human society, and which, neverthe less, has never been realised, nor can ever be possible. Voltaire, whose wit ruled his age, and to whom Frederick the Great wrote, ' There is but one God, and there is but one Voltaire,' satirized and abused both Christianity and the Church, and hated Christ; his frequently repeated saying was, ecrasez I'infame, — and he ventured to predict His fall from the throne of His dominion over men's minds within some few decades. The French Encyclopedia of Diderot and D'Alembert, whose influence was a very extensive one, was founded upon an ordinary and sensualistic theory, and advocated a corresponding disposition. A circle of gourmands collected around the German Baron Holbach.and produced among other materialistic works the noted Systeme de'la Nature (1770), which affirmed the exclusiveness of matter : ' Man is but B 18 Lect. I. — The Antagonistic Views of the World. matter ; thought and will are affections of the brain ; faith in God, as well as the admission of the existence of the soul, rest upon a dualization of nature, upon a false distinction between matter and spirit; the freedom of man can as little be asserted as his immortality ; self-love and interest are the only prin ciples of action, and human society is based upon a system of mutual interest.' The negative tendency could recede no further. It had started with the denial of Christ's divinity ; it had arrived at the denial of spirit in general ! The motive power, in its later manifestations, was not reason but inclination. Inclination was the foundation of opinion. ,In Germany, this movement came more slowly, but more thoroughly, to maturity, and was therefore the more dangerous. Far more moral earnestness existed here than in France, hence the positive spirit offered a far more energetic resistance. Hermann Reimarus, a native of Hamburg, indeed, transplanted English Deism, in all its keenness and bitterness, into German soil in the so-called Wolfenbuttel FragmentsTpublished by Lessing. His polemics were directed not only against the Scrip tures, and the morality of scripture characters, but even against the person of Jesus Himself. The plan of Jesus was only a political one ; His cry on the cross, 'My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?' did but express His despairing lamentation over its failure. But His disciples, even at the twelfth hour, German Rationalism. 19 transformed His political plan into a religious one, and Jesus into a religious Messiah. This was, however, too strong meat for the times, and these attacks called forth a general protest. French infidelity had indeed taken root at the court of Frederick the Second, and communicated itself to the higher classes. But it was limited to these, and too much of their old honourable steadfastness still existed in the mass of the people to allow it to penetrate to them. The spirit of the age was more in accordance with the illumination move ment than with the direct denial of Christianity. The heavy form of mathematical demonstration with which the school of Wolf sought at first to sup port, but afterwards to supplant, Christian faith, was exchanged for the lighter drapery of popular philosophical reasoning, while the teaching of the Church was prudently confined to generalities. Re ligion and morality were wanted, but not mystery. Only what was clear was considered true, and that only was clear which was upon the surface, not that which must be brought from the depths. Such were the ruling principles of the age. Mendelssohn proved the existence of God, and the immortality of the soul ; and on these doctrines men built for themselves the edifice of their religious faith. Theology allied itself to the spirit of the age, and proclaimed the agreement of revelation and reason. Kant, the philosopher of Konigsberg, indeed, overthrew this dogmatic edifice, by proving, in his Criticism of Pure Reason, that all thought is but 20 Lect. I. — The Antagonistic Views of the World. subjective, that consequently we know nothing of God and of the supersensuous in general with objec tive certainty, and hence cannot philosophically prove the existence of God, etc. He showed in his Criticism of Practical Reason, that there is only a moral certainty in conscience and its claims. God, immor tality, retribution, are claims of conscience, and on this foundation he builds his moral world. It is the absolute duty of every one to obey the moral law. The categorical imperative, thou must, must hold the sceptre. This is the morality of man. ' A morality truly,' as Schiller answers him, ' for slaves, but not for the freeborn children of the family ' (7). Religion is only so far valuable as it subserves this morality of law. Religion is but a handle for morality, — the Christian religion is certainly the best ; and Christ, as the Church describes Him, the ideal of morality. How far the Jesus of history realized this ideal, we are unable to determine. He could scarcely have been identical with it. But we need not keep to the historical, but to the ideal Christ, i.e. to the ideal of moral perfection ; and this we should seek to realize in our own lives. Rationalism, which reduces Christianity to the standard of sound human reason, grew out of these elements. For a long time it reigned in the pro fessor's chair and in the pulpit, and still maintains a strong position in general religious opinion. In some respects morally admirable, it is in the highest degree bigoted, and, if we might be allowed the expression, Pantheism.; Materialism. 21 somewhat Philisterish (PhiUsterhaftes1). It teaches that there is a God, but a God who leaves the world to itself, with the exception of seeing that it goes on according to the laws He has imposed upon it. There is not, nor can there be, either miracle, prophecy, or direct revelation : God cannot interpose directly. Christianity is not a revelation properly so called ; Jesus Christ no miracle, but only the wisest and most virtuous man that ever lived, and by means of His teaching, which He sealed with His blood, the bene factor of mankind. If Socinianism left somewhat ,of the supernatural in the person of Jesus, Rationalism entirely strikes it out, and reduces all to morality. It leaves, however, a personal God, moral freedom, and the immortality of the soul. Pantheism, however, abolishes these three funda mental truths of religion and morahty. Pantheism is the necessary successor of Rationalism. It was impossible to remain stationary at a God who has but an external influence upon the world. ' What God were He who acts but from without, Just making all in circles twirl about . A God, creation's hidden springs should move Himself in all, all in Himself should love ; That they who in Him live, and move, and are, Should never miss His power, His aid, His care ' (8). God is cosmical life itself, or the universal reason in things. He is not essentially separate from the world. 1 A cant term applied by students to tradesmen and others not belonging to the University. 22 Lect. I. — The Antagonistic Views of ihe World. God and the world are only two different expressions for the same thing, two sides of the same world, the inner and outer side of the same object. Thus all religion is abolished ; for there can be no personal re lation to such a God, because He is Himself impersonal, and has no personal relation to us. There may be a certain religious disposition, in which the individual may rise to generalities ; but no faith, no love, no hope, no prayer to such a God. And thus morality also is virtually abolished. For there is no such thing as free-will. Everything happens from pure necessity. No man can free himself from its power. He only thinks himself free, — ' he thinks he pushes, he him self is pushed.' The more acute any one is, the more will he perceive how all actions are caused by circum stances. Hence neither is there moral responsibility, retribution, or life after death, but an absorption of individual into general life. Such notions were connectively expressed by Spinoza (a Portuguese Jew in Holland, 1677), and they have been reagitated by philosophy in our days. They received some modification at the hands of Hegel, but are fundamentally what they ever were. They have been followed out to their results in religion and theology by David Strauss. The denial of the supernatural runs consistently throughout his so-called Doctrine of Faith, which concludes thus : ' Another world is indeed, in all its forms, the only enemy, and in its form of a future life the last enemy, which speculative criticism has to attack, and Prevailing Opinion. 23 if possible to overcome.' He has since spoken with even greater asperity. Materialism took the place of Rationalism. Feuer- bach marks the transition : ' God was my first, reason my second, man my third and last notion.' In these words he shortly and graphically describes the downward progress of his philosophic reasoning. He means, however, man in his empirical, sensuous reality. His philosophy becomes the knowledge of this sensuous man, is converted into anthropology. All religion is self-delusion — an error of the human mind. The idea of God is only that idea of man which man makes objective to himself, and condenses into the notion of a separate being, upon whom he accumulates his own qualities in exaggerated proportions ; consequently he thinks of himself when he thinks of God. ' Man created God after his own image.' In man, moreover, the senses are everything; they are all reality, all truth. Upon these philosophical maxims Materialism is founded, and believes it can establish them by its facts. There is no spirit, no soul ; the agency of matter is everything. Such is its wisdom. The development here attained is complete, and further progress impossible. We have reached the mud of Materialism. Prevailing opinion, then, is a compound of all these various elements, which, appearing in succession, have successively occupied and vacated the mind of the present generation, and left behind them traces of their existence. First one, then another element 24 Lect. I. — The Antagonistic Views of ihe World. will be the more prominent. Multiform, however, as present opinion is, it has nevertheless one general tendency, one general principle. Wherein, then, does this consist ? Guizot (9) describes it as the denial of the supernatural. And certainly the question of the supernatural is the question of the day. Renan somewhere says we must not meddle with the super natural, we must get rid of it altogether. Thus the natural order of things is final. We might say that the general feature of present opinion is the making the world, the Cosmos, into a principle. The world, however, has two sides, — matter and spirit. Hence at one time greater emphasis is laid upon spirit, and at another upon matter ; the tendency is now more idealistic, now more realistic ; sometimes more sublime, sometimes more ordinary. But the Cosmos is still the principle. It is this which becomes progressively prominent during the historic development. Deism suffered a God to exist, but plunged Him into a state of quiescence ; Pantheism confounded Him with the world ; Materialism entirely denied Him ; while, on the other hand, the world, the spirit of the world, the life of the world, the matter of the world, were in succession exalted (10). It is herein that its antagonism to the Christian view consists. With this, God is the principle of all things, — the principle of the world, of man, of his spirit, and of his matter. The Christian view of the world is decidedly theistic. The question then is, whether God or the world is to be the principle and Prevailing Opinion. 25 centre of all things, and consequently of our reasoning. It is this which constitutes the eminently practical importance of this contrast. It is decisive of the whole tendency of our thoughts. The pre-requisite, however, and determining motive of different opinions is not so much a different philosophy, a different set of notions, as a different state of feeling. It is the inclination and tendency of the heart which finally determines the opinions ofthe mind. For an opposite course of life must result According as a man finds his satisfying portion in the world, or in the personal and living God. LECTUEE II. THE CONTRADICTIONS OP EXISTENCE. HERE are two great views of the uni verse diametrically opposed to each other. Each is an attempt to solve the great problem of existence, and to give an answer to the question of questions. The problem is the world, is man himself. The existence which surrounds us, and which we share, is the question. We see a realm of spirit and a realm of nature. Whence is the world of spirit and of nature ? What laws prevail in it ? And why and for what purpose does this world exist ? This universal existence is a question which comes before us, and from which we cannot escape. If it be answered, The world which surrounds us is a series of gradations terminating in man, man is made the answer to the question, What is the world ? But is not man himself the greatest of all questions ? Is he not the most contradictory of beings? His relation to the world is a contradiction, his relation to himself contradictory ; he is a born contradiction. And not only his natural existence, but still more his moral being is full of contradictions. This question The Enigma of Existence. 27 will not let us rest. We cannot cease from seeking its answer. In all time it has been sought. All philosophy, all religions are attempts at an answer. The interest is not merely an intellectual but an ethical one, — an interest not merely of the mind, but of the conscience. It is the heart's deepest necessity to obtain light on this matter. Let us then consider the problem with a view to discovering where the answer lies. We are placed in the world. The existence oi the world is a ques tion which presses upon the mind. Whence is it? No thinking man can escape this question. Pan theism answers : It is from itself; matter is eternal, it has formed itself into the world; being is the foundation of existence. But whence this being? Pantheism answers : From itself. In other words, Pantheism can give no answer. Must we then leave off inquiring because Pantheism is obliged to leave off answering ? But not only is the origin of the world a problem, its actual existence and the course of its history are full of enigmas. Does the law of necessity govern it, or does freedom prevail therein ? Is it governed accord ing to law, moral laws, or arbitrarily ? Appearances point now to the former, now to the latter. Who can behold with indifference this varying machinery of existence ? Yet who can furnish the answer ? And, finally, why is all this ? This inquiry after the why and wherefore is the chief of the questions pressing upon the mind of man, and that of which 28 Lect. II. — The Contradictions of Existence. it can least of all divest itself; the question most worthy of his attention, and yet that also which he is least capable of answering. Why does anything exist? Why is there not nothing? Has being a purpose, an end, a destiny ? Pantheism speaks only of cause and origin, but not of end and purpose. But this question of the why and wherefore will not be silenced. It is the question of the intellectual interest, the highest object of research, the peculiar expression of thought. Man must cease to think when he ceases to inquire after the wherefore of existence. The origin, existence, and purpose of the universe, then, is the question placed before the mind of man. It may be answered : Man is the answer. Is man really the answer? Perhaps he is to the question, Wherefore ? But to the question, Whence ? Strauss, indeed, is of opinion that the mind of man, ' as the unconscious mind of nature, created' the world, ' ordered the relations of the stars, formed earths and metals, arranged the organic structure of plants and animals' (l). But every reasonable man will say that this is folly. Again, if man is the answer to the question where fore, is he not himself the question of questions ? Even ihe relation of man to the world is an intrinsic contradiction. The eighth Psalm sets this forth : ' When I consider the heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained ; what is man that Thou art mindful of him, The Relation of Man to ihe World. 29 and the son of man that Thou visitest him ?' The sentiment expressed by the Psalmist is the contrast between impotence and greatness, between the exalted and the abject. Man, in the presence of the universe, is an atom, a vanishing point, a cipher. And yet he has the strongest feeling of independence and eleva tion in the presence of the world. He cannot but fear every moment being swallowed up by the universe, and sinking in this great ocean of heaving forces and masses ; and yet he proudly lifts himself in his own consciousness above the universe. How im potent is man ! ' There is no need,' says Pascal (2), 'for the whole universe to arm itself to annihilate him ; a breath, a drop of water is enough to kill him. But even if the universe should annihilate him, man would still be the greater ; for he knows that he dies, but the universe knows not that it annihilates him.' 'It is thought which constitutes the greatness of man.' But is this thought also a power with respect to the world ? Man has a feeling of freedom, and yet he everywhere sees himself restrained, dependent, limited by the most insignificant and most material forces. He is made subject to necessity, and yet endowed with a feeling of freedom. How shall this contradiction be reconciled ? The relation of man to the world is verily an intrinsic contradiction. But man is also one himself. What an ocean of contradictions are united in him ! — the contradictions of knowledge, of feeling, of will, of all existence. There is in man a hungering after knowledge, after 30 Lect. II. — The Contradictions of Existence. truth, after certainty. And yet there is nothing but uncertainty. What Goethe says in Faust is no rash exaggeration. There is in each of us something of this insatiable hunger after knowledge, this longing to ' Recognise the hidden ties That bind creation's inmost energies ; Her vital powers, her embryo seeds survey, And fling the trade in empty words away.' 1 Yet are we also compelled to add : ' That we in truth can nothing know, This in my heart like fire doth burn. ' 'We are always groping at problems,' gays Goethe. 'Man is a dark being; he knows lit<_!feof the world, and least of all of himself (3). Th^re is in all of us this craving after knowledge, a erasing which seeks its satisfaction far beyond the limits of what is necessary for this earthly and corporeal existence. We desire to knowjaot merely for )_he sake of the practical results which may be useful to us. To limit the instinct of knowledge to thes^rVould be to degrade our nature. ' Long before physics were heard of, or chemistry had arisen, the wise/of all ages had inquired concerning the origin .<-& its answer must also come from the whole man. It is not only the power of thought and the faculty of perception which must decide upon it. These do not constitute the whole man. A deep, a moral decision is involved therein. Not the head alone, but the heart and the conscience also must concur in this answer. For God is more sensible to the heart and the conscience than to the understanding. If God is the funda mental principle, certainty of His existence is not, in the first instance, the business of the reflecting powers, but was previously a matter of intuitive feeling. For fundamental principles rest upon intuitive conviction, dogmas upon inferences. And there is nothing of which man has so intuitive a conviction as he has of the existence of God. The denial of God is the denial of a conviction which we bear within our minds, and hence a mental aberration which should be impossible. The ingenious and sagacious natural philosopher, Lichtenberg, depicts this aberration in his well-known prediction : ' This world of ours will become so refined that it will be as ridiculous to believe in God as it now is to believe in ghosts. And then,' be continues, ' the world will become still more refined ; then we shall believe only in ghosts. We shall ourselves become as God ' (l). 44 Lect. III. — The Personal God. The Scripture says, moreover (Ps. xiv.), ' The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.' An intuitive conviction of the existence of God dwells within the human mind. We can by no means free ourselves from the notion of a God. We cannot think of ourselves, we cannot think of the world, without involuntarily connecting therewith the idea of God. Our thoughts hasten past the visible and the finite towards a supreme, invisible, infinite Being, and cannot rest till they have attained their goal. We are obliged to think of God. Consciousness of God is as essential an element of our mind as con sciousness of the world, or self-consciousness. The idea of God is an intrinsic necessity of the mind. ' When the mind rises, it throws the body upon its knees,' says Lichtenberg. And Epictetus, the heathen moral philosopher, says : ' If I were a nightingale, I would, by singing, fulfil the vocation of a nightingale ; if I were a swan, by singing, the vocation of a swan. But since I am a reasonable being, mine is to praise God.. This is my calling. I will fulfil it ' (2). The highest thought of which man is capable is God, and this is a necessary thought. Does, not, then, its in trinsic necessity force upon us the conclusion that its subject-matter has an actual existence apart from our selves ? Such an inference is indeed inevitable. To think of God, means to be certain of His existence. We cannot help thinking of God, and we cannot think of Him otherwise than as existing ; it is a necessity of our reason. Certainly this consciousness Its Universality. 45 of God needs development ; but so also do all the intuitive truths and convictions which we bear within us. Even self-consciousness must needs be developed. But is it therefore acquired, or otherwise received from without ? And this is also the case with the consciousness of God, which is, a priori, a necessary element of our mental life. For this reason too it is universal. ' There is no people so wild and savage as not to have believed in a God, even if they have been unacquainted with His nature,' says Cicero (3). This classic saying expresses nothing but an undeniable fact. The experience of centuries has corroborated it. Since Cicero's days, more than half a world has been discovered, but reverence for God and religion have everywhere been found. No people is without a consciousness of God. Atheists have had an interest in discovering a nation of atheists, but their efforts have been in vain. The negroes of Africa, the dark New Hollanders, the wild Indians of America, have all been acquainted with a higher Being. Wherever human beings have been found, there too has religion been found. Even where the contrary was at first supposed to be the case, this supposition has been found to be the result of superficial observation. Infinitely diverse, indeed, have been the external forms of. religion, and in many places only faint traces or hideous caricatures of it have been found. Still, even in the midst of such deformity, its original features may be recognised. And though a nation or race may have sunk to an 46 Lect. III. — The Personal God. almost brutal savagery and stupidity of mind, and may thus seem to have entirely cast off the nobility of human nature, even then the remembrance of God has not been utterly extinguished. That, however, which is thus universal, that wherein all agree, can not be false — was long since Cicero's well-known argument (i). For its reasons must lie in man's very nature. The truth with which the apologists of the first centuries again and again encountered the heathen was : We bear in our own souls testimony to God, we cannot help knowing Him and being conscious of His existence (5). This conviction of the existence of God may indeed be denied, even by those who cannot free themselves from it. But in this case a man persuades himself that what he cannot help knowing is the only thing he does not know. Atheism is not a necessity of the reason, but an act, and in fact an arbitrary act, of the will. The reasons usually advanced in its favour serve only to conceal its real origin. And how seldom do they surpass the argument of the Hindoo, who disputed with a missionary the existence of God on the ground that he could not see Him ! Where upon the latter replied that neither could he, the missionary, see his opponent's understanding (6). A conviction of the existence of God dwells, indeed, in each of us, but we must on our part allow this conviction to have fair play. It is not a knowledge founded on proofs which force the consent of the understanding, but a knowledge of inward persuasion Atheism ; Evidences of ihe Existence of God. 47 to which the will bows. Belief in God is not a science, but a virtue. Its certainty does not grow from, but precedes reflection. It is not the understanding which convinces the heart, but the heart which convinces the understanding; just as in moral truths it is not the proofs of the reason which convinces the conscience, but the conscience which convinces the reason. The conviction that there is a God dwells in our heart, and hence also in the thoughts of our reason. ' It has pleased God,' says Pascal, ' that divine verities should not enter the heart through the. understanding, but the understanding through the heart. For human things must be known to be loved, but divine things must be loved to be known.' And Lichtenberg thinks it questionable ' whether mere reason, without the heart, ever lighted upon God. It is after the heart knows Him that the reason also seeks Him ' (7). It everywhere seeks for Him, and for traces of Him, in nature, in history, in the mind itself. It is the most exalted employment of the human mind, and the chief proof of its dignity, to follow up these traces of God, that the understanding may attain that certainty which the heart already intuitively possesses, — a certainty entirely independent of that which the thoughts demand, — a certainty not derived from, but rather communicated to, the mind. Evidences of ihe existence of God have at all times been brought forward. They abound even in the pre- Christian philosophy of Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. Christian theology and speculation have but adopted 48 Lect. III. — The Personal God. and extended them. They are not intended to prove to us that with which we are not yet acquainted, but to justify our intuitive conviction to our reasoning faculties, by directing us to the traces, scattered on all sides, of that God whom we already perceive and know in our hearts. All nature around us proves the existence of God. ' The heavens declare the glory of God : and the firmament showeth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth know ledge. There -is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard' (Ps. xix.) This thought runs through the whole Bible, and finds an echo in our hearts. The \$ight of nature involuntarily arouses within us the feeling of" the -infinite. Claudius, in his Chria, puts into the mouth of one of the illuminati the words : ' Whether there be a God, and what he may be, philosophy alone can teach, and vi ithout philosophy there can be no thought of God.' I ' Good,' says the master. ' Yet though no man carf say of me with a shadow of truth that I am a phjdosopher, I never go through the forest without thinking who makes the flowers grow ; and then a fair.c and distant notion of a great unknown One comes over me, and so reverently, yet so joyfully, does rr.y heart thrill, that I could wager that I am then thinking of God ' (8). Everything around us breathes of God. ' In Him we live, and move, and.Js.ave our being.' ' Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit ? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?' As the invisible soul creates a visible expression on Evidences of God's Existence from the World. 49 the countenance of a man, so does nature — which is, as it were, the countenance of God — betray the hidden spirit which dwells within it. Unless, however, we bring with us the notion of God, we shall find nature but dumb. Nature is like a written document con taining only consonants. It is we who must ourselves furnish the vowels which shall enable us to decipher it. But, on the other hand, the tones within our hearts need also the aid of nature's kindred tones to become articulate speech. Certainly nature alone cannot reveal God. He is hidden behind that law of necessity which rules in nature (9). Nature con ceals as well as manifests God. She is a veil, but a transparent one. All things conceal a mystery which they tempt us to uncover, and the ultimate mystery is God. But to be found, He must be sought ; to be sought, He must be known ; to be known He must be loved. They who have no wish to know Him, do not find Him in nature, whiqji, on the contrary, rather furnishes them with occasions of scepticism. 'As all things speak of God to those who know Him, and discover Him to those who love Him, so do they also conceal Him from those who are ignorant of Him' (10). First of all, the very existence of ihe world proclaims and proves that there is a God. There is a world, there must therefore be an author of the world, is a conclusion which involuntarily forces itself upon all. And so unmistakably do we encounter in the world the invisible nature of God, His eternal power 50 Lect. III. — The Personal God. and Godhead, that the Apostle Paul declares those to be without excuse who do not recognise Him in His works (Rom. i. 19, 20); an assertion which even the heathen philosophers of Greece and Rome have maintained (ll). And rightly so ; for it is a necessary inference. There is a world. How did it originate ? Of itself? They who know of nothing higher than and beyond the world make it its own creator. But how can it be its own creator ? Where is its creative force ? Every force we discover is a finite force : no single force, then, is creative. Is it, then, the sum total of forces? No accumulation of the finite can produce the infinite. Each force is limited by other forces. No accumulation of limited forces can produce one which is only a limiting and not a limited one. All the causes which we see in action are second causes ; no single one is the ultimate, the supreme, the originating cause. No accumulation of second causes can produce the first cause. Hence we must seek the one supreme force, the great First Cause, through whom this world of finite things and forces exists, beyond all finite things, forces, and causes. Our reason, our instinct, our consciousness, demand this. All things which surround us point from and beyond themselves; each is but a finger-post directing us onward past nature to the supernatural. And this supernatural which we seek beyond the world, to which the world directs us, what is it but God, the personal God, the personal power of the world? (12). ' I asked the earth,' says Augustine, in Evidences of God's Existence from the World. 51 a splendid passage of his Confessions (x. 6) ; 'it said, I am not He ; and all that therein is made the same acknowledgment. I asked the sea and the depths, and all that move and live therein, and they answered, We are not thy God, seek higher. I asked the winds, but the air, with all its inhabitants, answered, I am not thy God. I asked the heavens, the sun, the moon, the stars, and they answered, Neither are we the God whom thou seekest. And I said to all things that surround me. Ye have told me concerning my God, that ye are not He ; speak then to me of Him. And they all cried with loud voices, He made us.' Yes ; all things have a language which we can under stand, and that language is their testimony to God the Creator. The evidence deduced from the existence of the world has been expressed by various formularies. The motion manifested in the world requires a supreme motive power; the effects produced, an ultimate author ; merely possible existence, which also may cease to be and once was not, demands a necessary cause ; — such have been the ways in which philosophical reasoning has ever, even in pre-Christian times, developed and required the existence of God from the existence of the world. This series of in ferences has recently been continued, and it has been said that life actually existing points backward to an eternal life before itself. Organic life had a begin ning upon earth, and hence requires One who pro duced this beginning. Again, the duality of the 52 Lect. III.— The Personal God. world, as consisting of matter and spirit, demands a God. For matter and spirit being essentially unlike, and each the opposite to and limitation of the other, each is consequently finite, and neither could have originated the other. Material nature cannot bring forth personal spirit, nor can the spirit of man produce material nature. It is folly to suppose consciousness to have originated from matter; it is madness to suppose the material world to have been formed by the human spirit. In short, the existence of the world requires the existence of God. Again, what kind of life would that be which should be swallowed up in this flood of finitad«? There must be an eternal life beyond- the changes of time, beyond the current of evahts, — an eternal Being, the cause and origin of all things. Our heart as well as our reason demands an ultimate, supreme, eternal One, — God. i Nor is the world's adaptation^ purpose a less striking evidence of God tfian its exisWce. Even the ancient world delighted to contemplate"a_id describe God as the designer and arranger of the world, and the artist of the Cosmos (13). And certainly the world is a Cosmos, an harmonious whole, a wondrous edifice of truly congruous parts, in which the least is connected with the greatest, the greatest with the least, the most remote is a necessary part of the whole, and each must serve another with admirable reciprocity. Nothing is superfluous, nothing injudicious. It is, indeed, possible to degrade this argument of purpose by From Adaptation of the World to its Purpose. 53 carrying it out into trifles; and this has been done to a degree which provoked the well-known sarcastic reply, that, according to this view, God caused the cork-tree to grow in Africa on purpose that we might make our stoppers from it. But neither the abuse of this argument, nor the sarcasm it has provoked, can turn aside the direct evidence furnished by this harmony and mutual relation of the whole and its component parts ; and the more deeply the mind of man penetrates into the design manifest in creation, the more perfectly his ear is attuned to perceive the harmony of the whole — the more grandly will that full majestic chorus of the universe, formed by the infinite multitude of voices belonging to the things of heaven and earth, burst upon his senses. Whence did this harmony originate? If we say from chance, what is this but an attempt to explain a fact by an unmeaning word ? Chance can sport with things, and bring about strange coincidences ; but it is devoid of reason, and cannot produce that mutual de pendence which is the work of reason, and which shows that an objective reason, an unmistakable intelligence. governs all things. We do not merely believe this, — which we cannot help doing, — but our belief is corroborated by actual experience. This belief it is which gives a spur to investigation, while investigation furnishes confirmation to belief. It was only the belief that intelligence guided our solar system which enabled Kepler to make his great discoveries ; and Linnaeus confessed of his world of Botany, that he 54 Lect. III. — The Personal God, had seen therein traces of God. It requires intelli gence to perceive the mutual connections and adapta tions in the world : could it have needed no intelli gence to form them ? (l4). Nor is it possible to substitute the laws and forces of nature for God. Natural force is a power, which, working blindly, produces a result ; but it is not an intelligence, which, acting freely, arranges a connec tion. Natural law is the rule which determines the course of things, but not the wisdom which appoints their end and order. It is impossible to suppose an unconscious intelligence, for this is a contradiction in terms; or to speak of unconscious ideas, for ideas require the conscious and reasoning principle which produces them (15). If one shipwrecked upon a desert island were to find a geometrical figure traced upon the sand, would he not thence infer the existence of a human' inhab itant, and feel his heart filled with joy and thank fulness to God for the fact ? (16) But the world is more than a geometrical figure ; and should not our souls be filled with joy and gratitude that we can so plainly see a higher and divine Intelligence pre siding over it? To deny this Intelligence is not merely an error of the understanding, but a fault of the heart. Even the pre-Christian world could perceive the presence of design in nature ; but it is the privilege of Christian times to recognise the divine government in history, and to follow its traces with increasing From History, — From the Idea of God. 55 admiration and joyful elevation of heart. For it was Christianity, on the whole, which, by means of the notions of the unity of the human race and the unity of God, first attained to the idea of a united, connected, and progressive history of mankind. This idea, which was unknown to the pre-Christian world, has become current with us, and is a notion very kindred to the genius of the Western mind. It furnishes, moreover, one of the sublimest subjects of human contemplation. What is more intricate, multiform, and anomalous than the history of the different nations of the earth ? At the first glance it seems an inextricable coil of men and actions. At the next it appears a continual repetition, a rising and falling of nations, a flourishing and decaying of states, a constant recurrence of the same events under different forms. But on closer observation history is found to be a wondrous tissue of all these variegated threads, — a tissue ever lengthening and continually advancing according to fixed moral laws. Justice controls it, moral government presides over the whole, as it advances step by step to an appointed end. It is in the writings of the Apostle Paul pre-eminently that we find the first traces of this universal view of the history of mankind. But it 3oes not need a large amount of Christianity to appropriate and carry it out. Even a Lessing could understand and teach that history is to be regarded as the education of the human race ; while more than one of our great historians have recognised Jesus of 56 Lect. III. — The Personal God. Nazareth as that great turning-point in time, in which all preceding generations meet, from which all subsequent generations proceed, as the key to the enigma of the world's history. Johann v. Muller especially declared, that this consideration first afforded him an explanation of history (17). In fact, whatever we may think of Jesus Christ, we cannot deny Him this position in history. Even philosophers who, like Fichte, have acknowledged no personal God, even that conscious and decided non-Christian Strauss, maintain a moral government of the world. But this is only another word for God. For an uncon scious government, according to moral laws, is simply impossible. We need not, however, plunge into the sea of history and follow up its enigmas, to find out God : every individual may discover His leading, governing, providing hand in the events of his own life, if he does not wilfully close his eyes, if he will but believe what he sees and experiences, how often to his own shame ! For it is an experience which all may make, that God deals with each one individually, and leads him exactly in accordance with his special needs. As we find God in the world, in its existence, its design, its history, so too do we find Him in our own mind. We find the idea of God within us, as we also find within us other ultimate truths. We did not produce in our own minds the ideas of the Good, the True, the Beautiful, etc. ; we simply think them. Evidenceof God's Existence fromthat of Conscience. 57 They are not our work, but the work of truth itself. Objective reason produces them. It is this that is reflected in our mind, this whose divine light is broken into various colours by passing through the medium of our understanding. But what is objective truth, and where is it? The highest idea we have is the idea of God. In it are comprised all other ideas. It is the truth of truths. It was not ourselves who produced it, but objective reason produced this idea in our reason. We think ol God simply because He exists. God Himself is the author of our idea of God. The fact of our intuitive idea of God is the proof of His existence. Such was the argument of Cartesius, and we cannot but agree with him. Nor is the nature of the fact less a proof than the fact itself. For our thoughts are occupied not with a mere idea, but with an actual God. We can think of Him no otherwise. It is a necessity to our reason to think of Him thus. Not to think of Him as a. reality, is equivalent to not thinking of Him at all. Hence, from our own thinking of God, we necessarily infer His existence. Such is the famous ontological proof of Anselm (is). Kant, indeed, objected that there is no inference from thought to existence, no bridge out of the world of thought into that of reality, and argued that, as the idea of a hundred crowns could not prove their existence, or include their possession, so neither could the idea of God prove His existence. But we must distinguish between mere arbitrary 58 Lect. III. — The Personal God. notions or imaginations, and such ideas as are a- necessity to the reason. Necessary ideas are the ex pression of a reality. If there were really no bridge between such thought and existence, our thought in general would be utterly unconnected with things existent, and there could be no such thing as objective truth and certainty for the mind. If this necessary thought deceives us, all our thoughts deceive us, and our mind may as well rest from its efforts, for all its thinking is vain. But, God be praised, this is not the fact. There is a connection between a necessary idea and a real existence. For the very thing we think of is existence, and it is reality with which the thoughts of our reason are occupied. . Kant denied this inference, but, at least, admitted and even proved another, viz. the inference from the moral consciousness. God is a postulate of the moral sense, a demand of the conscience. There is nothing we feel more certain of than con science. To deny it is to overthrow the foundation of all certainty, and to annihilate therewith the whole moral constitution of the world, which rests upon it. To explain conscience as the result of the training of the mind is both a foolish and a vain endeavour. It may err, it often has erred. But does it follow that it is generally an error and a deception ? The most sublime truths are just those that are most liable to abuse. It needs development, but does it follow that it is acquired and not original ? Does not the mind in general need development ? But is it thence to be Evidenceof God's Existence fromthat of Conscience. 59 inferred that it does not exist ? If we should attempt to deny it, the fact of its existence would contradict us. And so, if we should attempt to deny conscience, the fact of its existence would contradict us. No man can deny conscience with a good conscience. Even while we are trying to deny it, it makes itself felt by its inward reproofs ; and we cannot deny it without belying ourselves. Conscience is assuredly a fact. But conscience is also an authority. All bow before its power. We may disregard its behests, but we are obliged to listen to its reproving voice. We may harden ourselves against its reproofs, but we cannot succeed in annihilating them. Conscience is independent of the will. It is not at our disposal. We do not com mand it, but it commands us. We do not correct and direct it, but it corrects and chastises us. We are not over, but under it. It is not under our power, but has power over us. It follows that it does not originate in our will or our reason. It is no product of our own mind. It is the product of a moral spirit above and beyond ourselves, whose voice speaks to us through the conscience. Conscience is the supreme and ultimate court of appeal, the highest moral criterion in all cases. Hence it is the product of the supreme mind of the Supreme Lawgiver, of the absolute moral will. The fact of its existence proves that of God. The subject-matter of conscience is also a testimony to God ; for this includes its testimony that the moral law is the will of God, and that our will should be 60 Lect. III. — The Personal God. subjected to the will of God. Hence even Cicero says : ' It has always been the persuasion of all truly wise men, that the moral law was not devised by men or introduced by nations, but is an eternal law, to which the whole world must conform. Its ultimate basis is God, who commands and forbids. And this law is as old as the mind of God Himself. Hence the law upon which all obligation is founded is truly and pre-eminently the mind of the Supreme Divinity ' (19). Kant proves the existence of God from the necessity of a reconciliation, and therefore of a supreme recon ciling power, between virtue and fortune, duty and inclination, which are so often found in opposition to each other. Some find in this argument a low view of morality, and maintain that it is a higher moral stand-point to follow virtue for its own sake, and neither to expect nor wish for any special reward (20). But the truth upon which Kant's reasoning is founded is the idea of justice. There is such a thing as justice, and therefore as retribution, — unless, indeed, we consider it a proof of supreme wisdom — ' Ohne Wahl vertheilt, die Gaben Ohne Billigkeit, das Gluck. ' But this is impossible. Our deepest moral conscious ness revolts at the thought. The highest state of existence is that in which the inward truth and the outward reality are in harmony with each other. This earthly existence is full of contradictions between truth and reality. We cannot but require that these contra- Result; The Nature of God. 61 dictions, which often so painfully stir our moral con sciousness, should find a solution in some state of harmonious moral existence. It is a hope and a faith of which we cannot divest ourselves. By all these different paths, then, we arrive at God, and are constrained to own that our whole being demands God as the truth and object of our existence. In no earthly circumstances can we find either rest or full satisfaction, for God is our rest. In no other thought can we bid our minds repose, for the thought of God can alone satisfy our thinking mind. We are unable to set before our moral effort any end which can satisfy our will, for communion with God can alone allay the cravings of our moral nature. God is the truth and object of our whole existence, and no less so of all existence external to ourselves. In all exist ence external to ourselves we see an image of God, — a mirror in which His one essence is parted and divided into various rays, which all direct us to their original. In all the relations of life we see tendencies towards a higher relation ; and even the very highest forms of human existence point to a Supreme Being far above themselves. They would serve us as steps to mount up above themselves towards God. God is the truth and object of universal being. Our earthly life does not attain either its true purpose or its highest consecration till we perceive God's presence, and re cognise God's image therein. Whatever may be our worldly possessions, this and this only is, strictly speak ing, our own. < Hence to deny God is not only to 62 Lect. III. — The Personal God. act in direct opposition to our reason, — for our reason demands God, — but to plunge ourselves into the extremity of poverty ; for it makes the whole world dead, cold, and empty, and deprives all that is around us of its soul and its truth. In short, God exists because His existence is necessary, because without Him nothing else could exist, and because, even if anything did exist without Him, it would be without value and without reality. Our deepest conviction is, that there is a God. This direct consciousness is implanted in every mind. It is a universal fact — a fact pertaining to the human race as such. It is true that it is Christianity which has restored to man the consciousness of this component part of his mind. Consciousness of God was like a choked-up well, which Christianity dug out afresh. But it only dug out what already existed. It was, as it were, a reminder of a great but forgotten or misunderstood truth of the mind. It was in this sense that Paul preached before the Areopagus (Acts xvii. 23) that unknown God whom the Athenians ignorantly worshipped ; whom, in their inmost hearts, they were unconsciously seeking and intending, and whom the whole heathen world still unconsciously seeks and intends. It was in this sense that the apologists of the first centuries reminded the heathen of their direct consciousness of God, and convicted them of an unconscious faith in Him, breaking out under the influence of inward emotion into invocations Pantheism. 63 and appeals. ' 0 human soul,' exclaims Tertullian, ' who art by nature a Christian ! ' It is then certain that God exists. But what is God? Who can describe Him ? God is ' a boundless, fathomless ocean ' — who can comprise His infinity in words ? God is a mystery — who can express His secret nature ? But God manifests Himself to man's consciousness, so that he has at least a presentient acquaintance with the hidden Godhead. He has, moreover, revealed His inmost nature in Christ Jesus, so that in Him we may, as it were, look into the heart of God, and know what He is to us. God is the power of all being ; for He is the eternal life, self-originating, and self-sufficing. He is His own eternal act ; hence, also, the origin and end of all created things, and the Lord of the world ruling in all and over all. God is the Holy One, who is perfectly self-consistent. He is unobscured light and perfect goodness ; hence, also, the origin of all moral order, the creator of our own moral consciousness, and the only portion which can satisfy our moral being. Finally, God is Love, who has eternally purposed that we should be His own, and should find in Him peace for our souls. Creation teaches us God's power, our conscience testifies to His holiness, but His love was first truly shown in Jesus Christ. The heathen world had a prescience of the power of God, scarcely a notion of His holiness, but no idea of His love. We owe the knowledge of His love entirely to Chris- 64 Lect. III. — The Personal God. tianity. And yet this is the knowledge which we most need ; for so long as we are acquainted merely with the power and holiness of God, the gulf which separates Him from us is not filled up. His power shows us our impotence, His holiness our sin. And the self-knowledge we thus obtain keeps us at a dis tance from God ; it humbles us before Him, but it keeps us at a distance. ' In Christ we have a God whom we approach without pride, and before whom we humble ourselves without despair,' says Pascal. And again : ' The knowledge of God without that of our misery makes us proud ; the knowledge of our misery without the knowledge of God leads us to despair ; the knowledge of Christ combines both, for in Him we find both God and our own misery ' (21), because we find the love which has reunited us to God. This is the knowledge which revelation teaches us, and our heart and conscience say, Yea and Amen. But Pantheism says, No. Pantheism denies the God of Christianity, and sets up something else in His place. The pantheistic question is, indeed, a philosophic one, and it is not the intention of these lectures to pursue philosophical inquiries. But it is also a ques tion of supreme practical importance, and cannot as such be entirely passed over. I shall therefore discuss it as simply and as briefly as possible (22). The forms of Pantheism are various, yet it has but a single fundamental notion; and this fundamental notion from which all these forms proceed is, that there Pantheism. 65 is at the root of the infinite variety of this world, and its individual phenomena, a common principle which ¦ constitutes its unity, and that this common principle is God. This is, however, no conscious, personal 'God ; it is but the common life which lives in all the common existence which is in all, or the reason in all things. We only call it God. This God has no independent being ; He exists only in the world ; the world is His reality, and He is only its truth. This Pantheism existed in pre-Christian times. It is the foundation on which were raised the religions of heathenism, those religions of a fanaticism for nature ; it produced the dreamy and imaginative views of the Indian philosophy; it founded also a philosophic ; school — the Eleatic— in Greece, but the great philo sophers Aristotle and Plato taught a personal God. Spinoza has been its most influential advocate in Christian times. And after it seemed to have been for a long time buried in oblivion, Lessing recalled attention to it in his since well-known Discourse with ¦ Jacobi (23). It was then revived by Schelling, and carried out by Hegel, since which time it has frequently, and indeed far oftener than is known or suspected, formed a part of and entered into generally entertained opinions. ' The foundation of all that exists,' .taught Spinoza, ' is the one eternal substance which makes its actual -appearance in the double world of thought, and of matter existing in space. Individual forms emerge •from the womb of this substance as of ever-fertile 66 Lect. III. — The Personal God. nature, to be again swallowed up in the stream of life. As the waves of the sea rise and sink, so does indivi dual life arise, to sink back again into that common life which is the death of all individual existence.' 'Eternal absolute being,' said Schelling in his earlier period, ' is continually separating in the double world of mind and nature. It is one and the same life which runs through all nature, and empties itself into man. It is one and the same life which moves in the tree and the forest, in the sea and the crystal, which works and creates in the mighty forces and powers of natural hfe, and which, enclosed in a human body, produces the thoughts of the mind ' (24). ' The absolute,' says Hegel, ' is the universal reason, which, having first buried and lost itself in nature, recovers itself in man in the shape of self-conscious mind, in which the absolute, at the close of its great process, comes again to itself, and comprises itself in unity with itself. This process of mind is God. Man's thought of God is the existence of God. God has no independent being or existence ; He exists only in us. God does not know Himself; it is we who know Him. While man thinks of and knows God, God knows and thinks of Himself and exists. God is the truth of man, and man is the reality of God.' Consequently man becomes God. It cannot be denied that Pantheism is founded upon a great idea, an exalted sentiment; and that this idea, this 'sentiment, is moreover a true one, Its Practical Results. 67 viz. that there is a unity in existence, a connection between our life and the universal life around us. The life of nature awakens within us sympathetic feelings, and calls forth a corresponding disposition, which is itself a testimony to the relationship existing between the mind and nature. It is its own laws which the mind recognises in the world of nature and of mind, and we find therein an objective reason homogeneous with our subjective reason. But is this collective life which surrounds us, and that province of the objective spirit which is reflected in our spirit, the ultimate, the supreme, the very God? It is the error of Pantheism that its thought and feeling are fixed upon and limited by this middle ground, instead of piercing through it to the great First Cause of all things, to the absolute reason, to God. The refutation of Pantheism is to be found, first of all, in its practical results. Pantheism annihilates religion. For its God is not a personal God to whom I can occupy a personal relation, whom I can love, in whom I can trust, to whom I can pray, whom I may approach' and address as my friend ; but only the power of necessity beneath which I must bow, the universal life in which I may lose myself. Pantheism abolishes the very postulates of morality ; for all the distinctions of good and evil are but different manifestations of one absolute prin ciple. Consequently they cease to be actual moral contrasts. What we call evil is in truth as necessary as what we call good ; how then can we condemn what 68 Lect. Ill— The Personal God. is necessary ? (25) Pantheism destroys hope. For as the flower fades in autumn, never to blossom again, so is man swallowed up in the stream of existence, to be found no more ; all is over with him (26). The flower may be placed in the herbarium, and a man may live in the remembrance of posterity ; but all is over with him. It is but your egotism, replies the pantheist, that makes you unwilling to come utterly to an end ; since however it is God Himself who has placed such ' egotism ' in our hearts, it cannot but be truth. These results are themselves a sufficient refutation of Pantheism. But it may be objected : This is a clumsy refutation ; we should not judge by results, but by the thing itself. Traly it is the thing itself which is seen in its results ; but let us lose sight of them, and prove that Pantheism is its own refutation. For it is a triple contradiction : it contradicts our reason, our conscience, and our heart. It contradicts reason, for it speaks of God and yet denies Him. The God of Pantheism is the Infinite One, but this Infinite One has actual existence only in that which is finite, which is equivalent to saying that the infinite itself has no actual existence. For how can the infinite be identical with the finite? If the finite is its reality, it is not its essential reality, and hence not the infinite itself. Thus Pantheism, at the same time, both admits and denies the infinite. Again, how should the finite be equal with the infinite? We are told that by dying its finity is It is Opposed to Reason. 69 annulled. But only to give place to something also finite. Hence we never get beyond things finite into the world of the infinite. The infinite is nowhere to be found. The God of Pantheism is the general, constantly changing into the particular and the individual. By what law ? Spinoza answers, ' By a divine necessity.' But what a saying is this ! Universal substance does not independently produce particular forms; for universal substance acts accord ing to the law of necessity, but individual formation is based also upon the law of freedom ; hence these two opposites must be combined to account for what actually exists (27). The God of Pantheism is either nature producing mind, or mind producing nature. Nature, however, is unconscious, mind conscious; how, then, can that which is itself unconscious pro duce that which is conscious ? It is an old rule of logic, that the effect can contain nothing which did not pre-exist in the cause. Now, consciousness is with respect to unconciousness absolutely new ; how, then, should the latter be the cause of the former? According to Hegel, the God of Pantheism is absolute thought. Because man knows and thinks of the absolute, i.e. God, God knows and thinks of Himself. But how can my consciousness of God be God's self- consciousness ? And if man's consciousness of God is not a reality corresponding to the Absolute, and if the latter is nevertheless, as Hegel requires, subject, it must have a higher reality than is found in the human mind, must be a higher subject than the 70 Lect. III. — The Personal God. human subject, — a supermundane subject, a super human consciousness, a self-conscious, personal God, above all mundane existence. A tendency to per sonality runs through the whole world. From the very lowest grades of existence upwards, life struggles to attain personality, and becomes personality in man. Whence, then, this tendency to personality in all life, if it is not a universal law ? and whence this law, if the principle of the world is an impersonal one ? The whole human race combines into the single organism of the kingdom of God, which, in its turn, seeks its personality, that thereby it may attain its climax in the absolute personality, in God, the crown and summit of every created object (28). Reason, then, demands the personality of the Absolute, and Pantheism is in opposition to reason. Nor is this system less opposed to conscience. Our conscience demands the supremacy of moral law, and the supremacy of moral law demands a personal God. For He alone can be the supreme lawgiver, He alone the supreme judge. The conviction that the moral law must rest upon a more than human, that is, upon the supreme and divine authority is universal. Civil law, indeed, may be the product of the human will, of a changeable will. But the moral law is eternal, and has an eternal origin, a super human Author. It is upon this circumstance alone that its inviolable authority depends. God alone can be the supreme lawgiver ; He alone can be the supreme judge. We require a. supreme justice, which, unlike It is Opposed to Conscience. 71 human justice, cannot err, which the guilty cannot elude. There must be an ultimate court of appeal, to which the guiltless may resort, from which the guilty cannot escape. Is it said, Conscience is the lawgiver and judge? we adduce, in reply, those cases where conscience is neither the one or the other. It may be obscured, weakened, stunted, mutilated; it may be silent, or we may turn a deaf ear to its dictates. Where, then, is the justice which is the fundamental law of human life? Grant that it is nothing but conscience, it must then be an infallible, inexorable, unavoidable conscience — that is to say, an absolute conscience — God, the supreme conscience of the world. Our conscience demands a God, but our heart demands Him no less. We are made for devotion, faith, love, hope, happiness. Can the world be the object of our faith and love ? The world is ever transitory and changeable ; how* are we to find peace therein ? Faith and love are personal relations ; we were made, then, for personal relations. Is man to be the supreme object of our love? The sister of Pascal tells us of a paper which her brother always carried about with him, upon which was written the words : ' It is wrong that any one should have an attachment to me, however voluntary; I could but disappoint those in whom I should call forth such a feeling, for I am no one's aim, and am able to satisfy no one. Am I not about to die ? And then even the object of attachment would be dead.' And in the Pensees he thus expresses himself : ' It is false to say 72 Lect. III. — The Personal God. that we deserve the love of others, and it is unjust to» desire it ' (29). Certainly the power of loving each other is the best and highest attribute of human beings, but this best and highest attribute is but. prophetic of something still better and higher. And where love is real, what we love in man is more than man. That which Heloise loved in Abelard, which cultivated and embellished her mind, and taught it to soar aloft, was not Abelard, but something more than Abelard. All earthly love jpoiji£s beyonjLitself: So> exalted a being is man, that the I<5ve of God is alone worthy of Him, and can alone satisfy his heart. But love is a personal relation. Love td God demands a personal God. If we do away with the personality of God, we do away with all that is heist and noblest in human nature, with faith, love, and hope; and we get in exchange resignation, — not m eek and patient that mute, cold it must, which bows not to love but to power.; whjeh when it closes its eyes, plunges into eternal . death, to the extinction of our best attribute, our rjgtfsonal being. Pantheism annihilates human personality, by annihilating the personality of God. Its God, being himself no real and essential life, is not the God of the living, but of the dead ' (30). V In short, Pantheism is the absolute contradiction to our inmost nature, our inmost truth, our inmost crav ing ; it is a contradiction of our reason, our conscience, and our heart. He who admits there is such a being submission to the will of God, but resignation which submits because The Heart Demands One. 73 as man is constrained to admit that there is a God ; and he who admits that there is a God is constrained to acknowledge the personal God. He who says, I am, must also say, 0 God, Thou art ; and the whole bent of his mind will be determined by this admission. LECTUEE IV. THE CREATION OF THE WORLD. j|HE view we entertain of God will determine our view of the world. If God is a liv ing and personal God, then the world was made by Him, and creation was^a free act of His power, wisdom, and love. Such is the foundation of the Christian view of the world. As soon, however, as we enter upon this subject, we are met by the objections raised by physical science and a naturalistic view of the world, against the religious, and especially against the biblical view. Thesev have given rise to a series of inquiries and doubts, which occupy and often inordinately>4J£Sfeu.iek»the minds of many. The contftfccToetween the physical sciences and ihe religious view of ihe world is a product of modern times. It stands connected with the great advances lately made in physics, chemistry, astronomy, and geology. Since the disclosure of hitherto unknown worlds, the resolution of distant nebulae into systems of stars by the telescopes of Herschel and Rosse, and the discoveries made in the world of infusoria by Ehrenberg, who found, for example, that a single cubic Conflict between Science and Religion. 75 inch of tripoli contained as many as forty thousand millions of the siliceous fossil shells of the Galionelli, — new notions have been entertained of this visible world, and a consciousness of higher powers has, as may easily be conceived, taken possession ofthe human mind, which now believes that neither space nor time are any longer closed against it. The knowledge thus obtained has begun to be formed into a naturalistic view of the world, which is imposing in its appeal to facts, and its claim to tangible evidence ; for that which is tangible naturally makes a great impression upon the mind. On the other hand, religious faith is not wont to limit its influence to one province of the intellectual life ; it would leaven every thought of the mind, and bring all into harmony with itself. Now it is contrary to the very nature of the mind to tolerate within itself views diametrically opposed to each other. Hence a schism has frequently arisen in modern intellectual life, and a consequent uncomfort able feeling of hesitation and uncertainty whether or what concessions should be made to restore, if possible, the lost harmony of the world of mind. Schleiermacher already feared the results of scientific discovery, not merely for the sake of theology, but for Christianity in general. ' I fear,' writes he to Liicke in 1829 (Theol. Studien und Kritiken, ii. 489), ' that we shall have to learn to dispense with much which many are accustomed to regard as indissolubly united with Christianity. I do not speak of the six days' work, but of the notion of creation : how long will it 76 Lect. IV. — The Creation of ihe World. be able to hold out against a view of the world founded on scientific conclusions, which no one can escape ? And our New Testament miracles, for I speak not in the first instance of those of the Old : how long will it be before they fall again, but this time before far more dignified and well-founded premises than formerly, in the days of the inflated Encyclopaedists ? What is to be done, then, my friend ? I shall not live to see those days, but may lay myself down to my last sleep in peace. But what do you and your contemporaries intend to do ? Will you entrench yourselves behind these outworks, and let yourselves be blockaded by science? The bombardment of derision would do you little harm. But the blockade — the starving out by science, which, because you thus entrench yourselves, will be forced by you to raise the standard of unbelief? Is it thus that the knot of history is to be severed, and Christianity to be allied with ignorance, science with unbelief ? ' So Schleier macher. Well, he has gone to his rest, and so has Liicke, to whom he thus wrote; but we are here, and have the work to do which they left undone. What are we then to say ? Is the danger really as great as he described it, and as many now seem to think ? When the Israelites had reached the borders of the promised land, they sent spies before them to obtain information concerning the country and its inhabit ants, and to bring them back an account of it. These returned dispirited, and discouraged the hearts of the The Idea of Creation. 77 rest by their report. Two only, Caleb and Joshua, retained their courage, and exhorted them to advance, trusting in God and their cause. And in His own time God acknowledged the courageous, and put the timid to shame. Thus, too, did Schleiermacher make a short excursion into the territory of science, and bring back with him a desponding heart (l). Are we therefore to allow ourselves to be discouraged ? Things have not, I think, come to such a pass. There has scarcely been a strife in the world but it has arisen from the removal of boundaries, and many a complication might be arranged merely by a strict maintenance of boundaries . . . 'Schiedlich friedlich.' Our first concern and most necessary task, then, is, strictly to mark out and maintain the boundary-line between the two provinces in question. The main thing will then have been gained. Religion and theology deal with truths concerning which science knows nothing, and which she has therefore no right to deny; while, on the other hand, science deals with a circle of knowledge with which religion has nothing to do, and to which theology has nothing to say, and even when the two are dealing with the same subject, it is with two entirely different sides of it. Religion tells us that God gives us our daily bread ; science teaches us how the corn grows from the earth. Why should any one say that because the one takes place, the other does not ? Religion and science have both their rights, but each within its own domain. A recognition of the boundary-line between their 78 Lect. IV. — The Creation of ihe World. respective provinces is the way to maintain peace. Uncertainty concerning this matter may indeed arise, and disputes may consequently ensue. But such disputes should rather be arranged by a more strict definition and maintenance of the borders, than re garded as causes of war. Such an arrangement may cost us much time, and need both labour and patience. It may also happen that we shall be obliged to leave some questions, for the present, unanswered. But we may look to the future for the decision we are yet incapable of making. Such a question is that of creation itself, the first of the questions which must now occupy us, and one in which the strict separation of the two provinces is specially important. It is also the question whose answer will determine our view of other questions. It lies, however, within the province of rehgion. For the idea of creation belongs to religion, and not to natural science. The latter may, indeed, give us infor mation concerning its external history ; still it is not science but religion which must teach us the fact that God created the world. Of this fact, science, from its own resources, is able to tell us nothing. For however far she may travel backwards, and pursue her investiga tions of the origin of all things, she is at last arrested by matter, by life, and by law. Whence this matter, the life that animates, the law that governs it, science is utterly unable to inform us. For she always assumes the existence of matter, and all her labours begin therefrom. The question concerning the origin Pantheism and Materialism, 79 of matter, leaving the region of sensible reality, passes into that of either speculation or faith. At this point, then, natural science ceases to be natural science, and becomes either philosophy or religion. Whether we admit matter to have been created by God, or look upon it as self-existent and eternal, or whether we do not concern ourselves with it at all, is equally a matter of indifference, so far as natural science, which starts from the existence of material being, is con cerned. Hence in this question there neither is, nor can be, any conflict between science and faith. If a conflict does take place, it is one between two opposite views of the world, which are both, as views originally accepted from other sources, matters of faith, whether that faith be a religious or a philosophical one. What seems at first sight a conflict with science, is rather a conflict with the philosophy which her votaries accept (2). What, then, is this conflict ? The world is a fact. Whence is it ? It must be either self- existent, or the work of a creator. The latter is the doctrine of Scripture. ' The notion of creation, properly so called, is nowhere found in the ancient world, apart from revelation and Scripture. Either the world was made to rise from eternal matter, as the philosophy of the West supposed, with the addition perhaps of a divine intelligence, whose office it was to fashion the already existent substance ; or it was made to flow forth, as it were, from divinity, as Eastern fancy imagined (3). Both these notions, 80 Lect. IV. — The Creation of the World. however, are antagonistic to the true idea of God. This requires the existence of the world as an act of divine freedom. If the world, however, be this free act of the almighty will of God, it was made ' out of nothing,' i.e. its existence does not presuppose the existence of matter ; but matter, of which the world was formed, was itself first created by God. It is undoubtedly true, that of nothing nothing is formed, for all that is formed presupposes a something exist ing ; and this something, at last, presupposes only the will of God. The origin of existence, however, surpasses all our powers of conception. The origin of life is still an impenetrable mystery. How any thing comes into existence, no man is able to declare ; nor is this a knowledge to which we shall ever attain. How, then, shall we fully conceive how primitive matter, in general, came to exist ? (i). It is not by means of the senses, but by faith, that we understand, as the Epistle to the Hebrews (xi. 3) tells us, that the world was framed by the spiritual power of God's word. The creation of the world, then, is an article of religious faith, and one of far-reaching religious influence. For it is because we are the creatures of God that we are destined and fitted to stand in rela tion to Him ; in other words, the whole superstructure of personal religion is built upon the doctrine of creation. If the world had an origin, it has also an appointed consummation, and a central point of its history, in Jesus Christ ; hence all true and genuine understanding of the development of history rests on Pantheism and Materialism. 81 the doctrine of creation. Truly it is a doctrine of all-pervading and practical importance. Its opposite is the teaching of Pantheism and Materialism. Pantheism teaches a constant, self-effecting transi tion of the absolute, or of the idea, into reality. But these are mere words, for there is not a pantheist who is capable of telling us how it is that the idea becomes reality. There is no bridge between the two, but only a leap, and, indeed, an impossible leap, in taking which, pantheistic philosophy of the school of Hegel breaks its neck. The result of pantheism is Materialism, i.e. the teaching according to which material nature is all in all, and that which alone can be properly said to exist. Materialism denies the existence of spirit, the absolute and divine as well as the created and human. From matter alone, and the power of motion connected therewith, it attempts to explain the existence of the world and of man. With respect to the former it may be called physical, with respect to the latter psychologic materialism, and it is with the former that we have chiefly to do. This Materialism is already well-stricken in years; it was incorporated even in the Greek philosophy, though as yet it was found in only a simple and natural form. The enigmas of nature have ever excited that instinct of research implanted in the human mind. The origin of things was inquired into and sought after — among others by the Ionic philosophers — in nature itself and 82 Lect. IV. — The Creation of the World. its elements, in water, or air, or in a primitive chaos. Others, however, the so-called Atomists, as e.g. Democritus, put in the place of matter, atoms, i.e. minute indivisible portions of matter, which, though indeed in themselves unalterable, yet by their various combination and distribution through space produced the various phenomena of the world. If it were asked what had thus set these atoms in motion, and thus combined or separated them, the answer was, necessity or chance. The deeper philosophic mind of Greece, indeed, perceived that in order to explain the intelligence manifested in the world, it was ne cessary to admit a supreme intelligence, which, if it did not create, at least fashioned the universe. The great philosophers of Greece, from Anaxagoras down wards, advocated this idea. Epicurus, however, re turned to the atomic theory, and taught that the world and all its forms originated from the fortuitous concurrence of atoms. Hence he inferred that the senses are the true and most certain instrument of knowledge, and that the aim of life is not the fulfilment of a moral task, but happiness, i.e. pleasure, though a noble and moderate pleasure. In these maxims were already contained all the elements of modern Materialism. When Christianity and its view of the world conquered and governed the human mind and its world of thought, materialistic opinions were for a long while laid aside, and it was not till modern times that they again prevailed or obtained many adherents. The opposition to all that had been historically and Pa/atheism and Materialism. 83 especially that had been ecclesiastically developed, which prevailed in France during the past century, issued in the consistent Materialism of a La Mettrie and the Systeme de la Nature. There is nothing but matter, no spirit separate from matter — such is its fundamental maxim. The movement of our days which devoted itself to a one-sided care for material interests contributed to the prevalence of these opinions, which have found in L. Feuerbach, K. Vogt, Moleschott, Biichner, etc., numerous and inconsiderate, and in other scientific investigators more prudent and thoughtful advocates. According to these it is not, in spite of the philosophic proofs furnished by Feuerbach, a scientific theory, but a decidedly practical movement which is in question. It is wished — at least by decided and avowed materialists — to abolish the intellectual, and especially the moral and religious foundations upon which the present stability of society depends. Above all it is to the Church that the right of existence is denied, and to the undermining of her foundations that Materialism devotes its efforts, as was avowed, e.g. by K. Vogt, in St. Paul's Church, when he declared, with that reck less boldness to which he has accustomed us, that there must come a time in which the thing called the Church must vanish from the earth. These materialists, then, teach that matter is every thing, and that there is nothing else : it is eternal and imperishable, ' the primary cause of all existence ; all life and all forms are but modifications of matter : ' 84 Lect. IV. — The Creation of ihe World. it is only form which is perishable and mutable ; atoms enter now into this, now into that combination, and thus carry on a continual process of change among the innumerable and various forms under which matter is apparent to the senses. ' The same carbon and nitrogen which the plants derive from carbonic acid, humic acid, and ammonia, become successively grass, clover, wheat, beast, and man, to be again re solved into humic acid and ammonia.' This is ' the cyclical marvel.' So teaches Moleschott in his Cycle of Life, p. 84 ; in other words, he esteems it his ultimate destination some day to become manure (5). According to this teaching, then, matter is the first thing. But whence is this matter ? We are merely told that it exists. But this is not answering but forbidding the question. It is said, matter is eternal. How is this known? It is allowed that this is a necessary premise, since without it a creator must be admitted, an admission which materialists do not choose to make. But how can the property of ab solute eternity lie in the nature of matter? Force is combined with matter. Whence, then, is force? Matter can neither proceed from force nor force from matter, for the two are of very different natures. Nor can force proceed from itself, for it has no independent existence, but is united to matter. Materialism seeks to explain the enigma of existence, and begins with two enigmatical inexplicable quanti ties. Matter is said to consist of an infinite number of atoms, i.e. of indivisible portions of matter. Pantheism and Materialism. 85 Whence did Materalism obtain its atoms? From experience? Nay, for they are imperceptible. An atom never has been, and never can be seen. But, says Vogt (Kohlerglaube und Wissenschaft, p. 107), ' the limits of sensible experience are the limits of thought.' And yet atoms lie beyond the region of experience ! These atoms, it is further said, concur in various formations. According to what law? The law, it is replied, of elective affinity. Can, then, atoms, devoid as they are of all properties, possess elective affinity? And even if they can, whence does the motion of these atoms arise? For matter is that which is in itself motionless, and whose every change requires an external cause. It is said that motion arises from the law of attraction ? What, then, gave rise to the latter? and what is it that has made motion so regular and methodical that it is ever producing forms, harmonious in themselves, and always conforming to their original type ? At this point we are constrained to demand a higher force to place bodies in the relation of mutual attraction, and an intelligent will to regulate the various forms which matter assumes according to law and order (6). But the materialistic view is utterly annihilated by the fact of organization. If none but merely mechanical combinations were found, we might be contented to accept a force merely mechanical. But what produced organisms ? Utterly futile has been the attempt to refer them to a merely physical process (7). Whatever conceptions we may 86 Lect. IV.— The Creation of the World. form of atoms, they are insufficient to explain or ganization. There is an essential difference between the formation of a crystal and the formation of an organized being. That which distinguishes an or ganism is the vital interaction of its component parts, and the mutual relations into which it enters with the bodies which surround it, by which pro cesses a constant alteration of its condition is kept up. With organic existence a new world not only of causes but of purposes is opened to the contemplation. It is the highest view of nature to recognise in it the law of adaptation to purpose. And this leads to a Supreme Intelligence. The Pantheism of Spinoza and modern natural science have begun to wage war against this idea of ' Teleology,' and it is said to be a ' delusion of that ephemera, puny man,' to attempt to judge of infinite nature according to his notions of purpose (s). But the law of design is a law of our mental consti tution, and hence we seek and find it also in things external to ourselves, and we everywhere encounter it as well in the minutest details as'in the general. Every organism is founded on an idea. This idea existed prior to its realization ; indeed, the whole realm of organized nature is governed by its idea. It was owing to the prevalence even in details of the governing idea of the whole, that Cuvier was able, from a few single bones, to determine the structure of the primeval animals. This idea works for the future. The eye is made for light, the ear for sound, etc. But the eye is formed in darkness, and the ear in Origin of Organic Life. 87 silence. As soon, however, as they are formed, they immediately enter into relations with light and sound. We have here a designing agency pointing past all external causes, back to a fashioning and designing mind. And this prevalence of idea, which we meet with even in the minutest details, does it not also extend its sway over the whole? The whole world is founded upon one thought : there is a plan and a progressive realization from the lowest grades through ever higher up to a highest end, so that the long development is governed throughout by the idea of the highest grade. The last exists before the first, the whole before the individual, i.e. as idea; and thus the power of a single idea governs the develop ment of the whole and of each individual. How is this fact to be explained if we admit only matter and force, or nature acting unconsciously, and not the creative power of the Intelligence that fashioned the world ? And even if we could imagine such a view sufficient to account for the present agency of nature, how shall we explain the origination of organic life in general? Can organic life be produced by the inorganic, the hving by the lifeless ? StrausSj indeed, to escape the view of the creation of man, makes man originate as, according to his notion, the tapeworm did, ' which is often some twenty feet long,' viz. by the so-called generatio cequivoca, i.e. by independent origination from mere matter, without the intervention of a living being. Strict natural science, however, knows nothing 88 Lect. IV. — The Creation of the World. of this 'superstition' of a generatio cequivoca. That which lives is produced only by the living. But it is said, In primeval times all this was different. Then, matter possessed the power of spontaneous generation; now, the power of the superannuated world is exhausted (9). These are, however, but dreamy fancies. Organisms arise only from organ isms ; life is produced only by that which lives. We may appeal for ever to the chemical and physical forces, and represent nature to ourselves as a vast chemical laboratory ; but in spite of the vast progress made by chemistry during the last thirty years, it has not yet produced, nor ever can produce, a single animate cell (10); and Faust's Wagner has still to wait for the homunculus to come forth from the chemical retort. Granting that nature is the great chemical laboratory, capable even of producing life, we still say, Where is the chemist to work in this laboratory ? (11) In short, Materialism is like thin ice, which, break ing at every step we take upon it, cannot serve as a foundation whereon to construct a view of the world (12). But, it is replied, even if Materialism is done away with, the Christian view of the world is overthrown by the facts of astronomy and geology. It has been repeatedly said that astronomy is a refutation of Christianity, that the Copernican system made the Christian view utterly untenable, and that more modern discoveries have but confirmed this ver- Astronomy. 89 diet. The Christian view, we are told, makes this world the centre of the universe ; for in it is placed man, the end of all creation ; in it did the Son of God become incarnate, to effect a redemption whose results are co-extensive with the universe, the future destiny of which is connected with that of man and his world. The Copernican system, on the contrary, teaches that the earth is but a vanishing point in the universe, one of the smallest satellites of one of the least important suns; that infinite space is filled with solar systems, compared with which our own is insignificant. In the Milky Way alone there are more than twenty million suns ! and the Milky Way itself is but an island in the great ocean of the universe ! The most remote distances are filled with worlds. And then these dis tances ? Though light travels at the rate of 200,000 miles per second, that of the nearest fixed star (viz. Centaur, more than twenty billion miles off) takes nearly four years in reaching us, that of the most dis tant part of the Milky Way 8000 years, and that of the most distant visible nebulas at least twenty million years. So at least it is asserted. A railway train, travelling day and night at the rate of thirty-two miles per hour, would take three hundred and forty- two years and three months to reach the sun ; and since the nearest fixed star is 269,420 times more distant, we could not reach it in less than ninety-two million years. How, then, can the earth — this grain of sand in the sea of the universe — be regarded as its centre ? We cannot but recognise with Schiller, 90 Lect. IV. — The Creation of ihe World. in his poem ' The greatness of Creation,' the infinity of the universe : ' Thou sail'st in vain — Return ! Before thy path, Infinity ! And thou in vain ! Behind me spreads Infinity to thee ! Eold thy wings drooping, 0 Thought, eagle swooping ! — O Phantasie, anchor ! — The voyage is o'er j Creation, wild sailor, flows on to no shore ! ' 1 Christianity, it is said, must stand or fall with the old Ptolemaic system. This, however, has fallen be fore the Copernican. The delusion of many thousand years has been overthrown by it, — a splendid triumph of the human intellect, and a sublime proof that truth must at last prevail. The old theologians knew what they were about when they defended themselves against it ; the Romish Church was but consistent in condemning the propositions of Galileo, and forcing him to recant them. But in vain. What, then, is our reply ? Certainly the Coperni can system is truth, and a triumph of intellect. But is it incompatible with Christianity ? Copernicus at least was not of this opinion. His tomb in the church of St. John bears an inscription which may be trans lated as follows : — ' I crave not the grace which Paul received, Nor the favour with which Thou didst indulge Peter : That alone which Thou bestowedst upon the thief on the cross, That alone do I entreat. ' Kepler and Newton, too, those giants in the realm of science, were humble and zealous Christians (13). 1 Bulwer Ly .ton's translation. Astronomy. 91 But, it may be said, these great founders of modern astronomy had not as yet perceived the consequences of their important discoveries; we must therefore bring forward actual reasons. Our first reply, then, is, that quantity is not ihe standard of quality. Does not the smallest space often include the greatest marvels ? If the telescope has shown us that our world is but a grain of sand to the universe, the microscope has shown us a new world in almost every grain of sand (14). The importance of an object does not depend upon its external magni tude. Quantity and quality often stand diametrically opposed to each other. Such an idea is expressed in the eighth Psalm, in which man is represented as a vanishing point compared with the great bodies of the universe, and yet described as God's chosen in strument. The minutest organism ranks above the largest inorganic mass, the rose in the valley above the lofty mountain of naked granite, the mind above the whole material universe, and consequently that locality in which mind attains maturity above those most extensive regions which serve but as the preliminary stages of its development. Our earth affords the most striking corroboration of this argu ment. It was certainly intended to be the abode of man, and not of whales; and yet two-thirds of it consist of water. Of the remaining third, moreover, a. large space is rendered uninhabitable by cold, heat, sand, and marsh, or is at least so constituted that it seems as if nature would, as Herder says of the 92 Lect. IV.— The Creation of ihe World. country of the Exquimaux, test man's capability of development under the most unfavourable circum stances. And why, too, must he share even his own portion of the world with beasts of prey and reptiles, who dispute its possession with him ? Truly it is not by the external test of quantity that im portance must be judged ! ' The quantity of space is absolutely immaterial to the manifestations of mind, which often chooses to enclose its greatest marvels in the smallest possible space.' The small human body is not unworthy of the spirit which can nevertheless compass a world ; nor is the earth, though comparatively small in the universe, unfit for God to manifest Himself therein. Or : ' How many quadrillions of miles must a planet have in bulk to do fitting honour to an incarnation of the Almighty?' (15) But we may also urge that, so far at least as we are able to judge, our earth does, not indeed externally and mathematically, but essentially and with respect to its condition, actually occupy & central position in our solar system, so as to form, though not its mate rial, yet certainly its vital centre. For no other body of our system is so adapted as the earth to be the abode of organic life. We are able to institute a comparison in this respect between the earth and the other planets ; for not only do the same laws prevail in the latter as in the former, but their component matter is, as astronomy and physics teach us, similar to that of our world (ie). On the other hand, organic, Astronomy. 93 as well as mental and spiritual life, requires the pre-existence of certain external conditions, which are either entirely absent in the other planets, or exist there in a degree far below the perfection in which they are found on our earth. In the first place, the density of the sun is so great, and the attraction of gravitation so much (28| times) greater in conse quence, that, as Madler says, ' our Samsons transported to the sun would, if its incandescent state did not at once exclude all possibility of habitableness and organic life, be but infirm and miserable weak lings ' (17). The farther, however, we depart from the sun the less are the general conditions of matter adapted for an existence like that of the human race (18). Omitting Neptune, the most distant of the planets, we find that in Uranus, distant from the sun eighteen hundred millions of miles, the light received from that luminary must be so slight, that the eye must be constituted like that of the night-owl to be able to see anything in its obscure twilight. It might, indeed, have pleased God to form the eye after such a model; but even then the sun would there appear so small,- — scarcely three times as large as Jupiter appears to us, — that it would be almost lost among the other stars. And since the light of the sun has but a three thousandth part of the power and brightness which it possesses upon our earth, there could be there but a scarcely perceptible distinction between day and night, between morning and even ing, and all things would be constantly enveloped in 94 Lect. IV. — The Creation of ihe World. a monotonous obscurity. In such a world poetry must be absent, and true sentiment impossible. Since, also, the inclination of the axis of Uranus toward the sun is ninety degrees, its northern pole must be under the sun during one-half of its year (=42 terrestrial years), and its southern during the other ! The condition of the seasons in Saturn, indeed, is more advantageous (by reason of its axis having an inclina tion of forty degrees), and the sun would here appear larger than he does in Uranus ; but it is highly pro bable that this planet consists only of water, ice, and snow, and thus furnishes no space on which beings similar to man could exist ; its density, moreover, is only one-tenth that of the earth, about double that of cork, no other planet having a mass in which the attraction of cohesion is so slight. The ring, too, which surrounds it casts a shadow some millions of miles in length upon the wintry half of Saturn during the space of fifteen terrestrial years, so that its inha bitants would have to emigrate every fifteen years. Jupiter has a nearly perpendicular axis, and hence no change of seasons, without which we are unable to imagine a genuine corporeal existence, with its appro priate duties and employments. And if the motion of the belts which surround him is — as has been conjectured, though not certainly ascertained — an alteration in the clouds of his atmosphere, we must infer the existence of storms travelling at the rate of from seven to eleven thousand feet per second, while the most violent storms known upon our earth have Astronomy. 95 only a speed of sixty feet per second, so that scarcely anything could exist in such a storm-lashed region. The asteroids, being but shattered fragments of a larger planet, and of so small power of attraction that such muscular exertion as would here suffice to lift the foot would there carry us up above the highest buildings, may well be omitted. Upon Mars existence would be the most endurable, but only because it more resembles the earth, without equalling it. The con dition of Venus is very similar to that of the earth ; but having seventy-two degrees of axial inclination, the change of seasons is extremely abrupt. It has also been inferred from the cloudlessness of its atmo sphere that it has no water, and is hence unadapted to organic life. Mercury, whose surface is only about a ninth that of the earth, is far too small for man ; ' his fatherland must be greater.' It is only in the earth that we see the idea of the planets realized. The others are but successive gradations thereunto : the earth is the planet par excellence, the teleological centre of the planetary system, and, so far as we are able to judge, the only body of the solar system adapted to the development of the higher grades of organic life. Of the stellar world beyond the limits of our system, we know scarcely anything. We may assume that our world belongs to an independent system, bounded by the bright regions of the Milky Way, with a centre which Madler fixes in the group of the Pleiades, and indeed in the star Alcyone. Our system 96 Lect. IV. — The Creation of ihe World. lies in that region of the stellar world which is most barren of stars, and is situated like an island in the ocean — not indeed in its very centre, but still near to it, occupying a position in ' the market-place, as it were, of this vast city of worlds ' (19), and one not unlike that of our earth with respect to the solar system. Beyond our stellar system lie other worlds, but who can explore them or fix their limits ? We may indeed venture on conjectures, but this is all. The immensity of space disclosed by astronomy has, in modern times, been paralleled by the immensity of time required by geology (20). If this parallelism be a just one, we may ask whether, as the innumer able ages of the various geological formations find their appropriate end in man, the immeasurable space of the universe may not also bear a similar reference to his dwelling-place ? As is the relation of man to time, such will be the relation of his abode to space. Why should not, then, a history, affecting in its results the whole universe, have found therein its appropriate locality ? If the sovereignty of God was here called in question, must it not be here also asserted ? and if here a revelation of mercy was needed, must it not here also take place? Besides, that which was here transacted was transacted for the whole universe, and was determinative of its destiny, because it was an act of God, which fundamentally affected all things. It is the inward import of this event, and not the outward extent of the space in Geology. 97 which it was enacted, that should be estimated. Astronomy cannot contribute from her own resources towards such a view ; while, on the other hand, not only has she naught to object to it, but she con firms it, and affords the strongest presumptions in its favour. , Let us now turn to Geology. And first let its facts be asserted. The earth was not at once fashioned in its present form, nor tenanted by the living beings now inhabiting it, but was gradually formed. This is the most certain fact of geology. For whether we regard the earth — according to the Plutonian theory — as at first an incandescent sphere, whose surface hardened during a gradual process of cooling, and became covered with water; or — according to the Neptunian theory — embrace the notion that the primitive condition was a watery one, from which it crystallized, and began to separate itself; its primitive state is still that of a chaotic mass, which but gradually resolved itself into its constituent parts, and was covered with vegetable and animal life, which advanced from lower to higher organisms, till at length the formative agency terminated in the appearance of man (21). The order of the successive formations of rocks and strata has been determined partly by the place in which they have been deposited, and partly by the fossils they contain, which furnish abundant evidence of progressive development. The primitive rocks 98 Lect. IV. — The Creation of ihe World. contain no fossils. These first appear in the so-called Transition rocks, to which belong especially the coal formations. In these are found the earliest speci mens of organisms, — the crustaceous trilobites, bivalve mussels, plant-like radiata, insects, fish, reptiles, etc. But that which chiefly characterizes this period is its extraordinary vegetation. A whole world of plants consisting of gigantic equisetse, tree-like ferns, and especially of club mosses, whose rank and luxurious vegetation covered the marshy ground, lies interred in the Carboniferous strata (22). The immense space covered by this vegetation is shown by the vast extent of the coal-fields formed therefrom by the saturating power of water. The eastern coast of England alone contains 338,500,000 cwts. of coals. Add to these the great coal districts of the Saar and Ruhr, and those of America, and the still more extensive fields lately discovered in Russia ! How abundant in vegetation must have been the world which is here buried ! Its animal remains, on the contrary, are but scanty. — The Carboniferous period is followed by 'the Triassic formation (the variegated sandstone, muschelkalk, and variegated marls), the Jurassic and the chalk formations, — all included under the name of the Secondary formations, in which fossil plants are also found, while animal remains are far more nume rous. These are chiefly inhabitants of the water, and amphibia, viz. molluscs, fish, reptiles, especially saurians, and a few birds. Mammalia do not appear till afterwards, being confined chiefly to the so-called Geology. 99 Tertiary period, and progressively approximating to extant species. Bears, hyenas, horses, tapirs, and the like, are the chief representatives of the still existing species of this period, of which the vast forests which have been converted into peat are the buried memorial. The Tertiary is divided into the diluvial and alluvial periods, during the latter of which the earth assumed its present form, and received its present inhabitants. Apes, and finally men, are not found till this last period. Such is a very general sketch of the discoveries brought to light by geology ; and we are constrained to acknowledge not only the diligence, perseverance, and penetration of geological investigators, but also to admit that the history of the crust of the earth laid down by geology may be regarded, in its main features, as an ascertained fact. To this, however, the biblical narrative is said to stand in palpable antagonism, to be the expression of the childish view of primeval times, which makes God, like an earthly architect, construct one part after another, and add piece to piece till the whole is completed, while science presents us with an entirely different picture. Here progressively ascending forms are brought forth, from the womb of nature, by the power of inherent forces and laws ; while periods, infinitely extended periods of many millions of years pass away before the earth attains its present degree of perfection. Of all the great changes of the several periods, with their varying fauna and flora, we hear nothing from Scrip- 100 Led. IV. — The Creation of the World. ture. This contradiction, it is urged, cannot but be recognised. If, then, it is inferred, even the first page of the Bible contains so evident an error, is it worth while to turn over its subsequent pages ? Are, then, geology and the Bible really so anta gonistic and irreconcilable ? If we perceive something in an old and tried friend, or hear something about him, which we cannot under stand, do we immediately conclude that we have been mistaken in him, and condemn him ; or suspend our judgment till a subsequent period shall perhaps furnish us with the requisite explanation ! Such an old and tried friend is the Bible to every one of us. If, then, we there meet with enigmas and contradictions which we are not able to solve, shall we not rather humbly await the explanation of the future than condemn it with hasty rashness? For are we certain that we understand it aright when we believe a certain sense to be inevitably attached to it ? May not some other be the correct interpretation ? When Copernicus pro duced his system, it was thought necessary to oppose it in the interest of the Bible. This opposition is now silenced, and the Bible is as true in the eyes of believers since Copernicus as it was before him. They have perceived that it is its office to teach not astro nomy, but the way of salvation ; and that it speaks of the motions of the heavenly bodies popularly and ac cording to outward appearance, — this being the only language intelligible to the generality of men, and that still in everyday use. Hence, one misunderstanding Geology and ihe Bible. 101 after another may attach to our view of the meaning of the Bible, and may vanish as time advances, with out impairing its intrinsic value. And as, therefore, on the one, we should not be prejudiced against our Bible, so neither on the other, need we entertain needless and anxious mistrust of the researches of science, nor conceive ourselves obliged to suppress them by the external authority of the words of Scrip ture. It is a necessity of the human mind, it is also the will of God, that man should inquire and investi gate. History teaches that he cannot cease from doing so, even when forbidden ; and no less does it teach us that there is an actual advancement in know ledge. If investigations are but conducted in a spirit of humble candour, the blessing of God will not be denied to them. God prospers the sincere. Man's path, in his search after truth, lies indeed through error. This cannot and need not be denied. The most profound investigators in the province of natural science have ever been the most ready to acknow ledge that much which is now esteemed certain may sooner or later be proved to be erroneous. Only the shallow look upon passing opinions as settled truths ; and it is a desperately immoral abuse of science, to forge its actual or supposed results into weapons for attacking religion. Science itself, and its true advo cates, are guiltless of such a deed, which is only attempted by those who walk in its paths merely for the sake of the ambush they may afford against revealed truth. 102 Lect. IV. — The Creation of the World. The better we become acquainted with geological investigations, the more do we stumble upon hypo theses, unsolved problems, and discrepant views. Even though there is some exaggeration in the saying of Lichtenberg, that of the fifty hypotheses which he could enumerate concerning the formation of the earth, nine-tenths belonged rather to the history of the human mind than to the history of the earth (23), yet all must admit with what rash precipitancy one attempted explanation has been even after a few years supplanted by another, and the great uncertainty and diversity of the views which prevail even in fundamental ques tions. To bring forward only a few of the most im portant : While Cuvier maintains that the conforma tion of the earth's crust — the dislocations of the various strata, the elevations and depressions, the heights and depths of the earth's surface — can only be explained by the theory of violent terrestrial revolutions brought about by other forces than those at present in operation, and whose succession evidences that conformity to design which denotes the hand of a Creator, — a theory which has been widely diffused, and has been further carried out and confirmed, especially by Agassiz, — the school of Lyell, on the contrary, whose authority is now followed by most, teaches that the same laws and causes now in opera tion were so from the very beginning, and therefore demands immense periods for the accomplishment, by means so gentle and gradual, of the many and great changes whose memorials are found in the bosom of Geology and the Bible. 103 the earth. Others, on the contrary, unable to find any grandeur in these immeasurable durations and continuous causes, demand speedy and violent cata strophes, and quick developments, similar to those which take place in the case of the individual man during the few months before and after birth, in which more progress is made than is subsequently effected in whole years, nay, decades (24). While some, as Darwin and his followers, insist upon the develop ment of the multiform organisms around us, by gradual alterations during immeasurable periods, from one or few fundamental forms, till the ascending scale terminates in man, others see in such a notion only an ' arbitrary ' and ' unscientific ' hypothesis, to which sufficient confirmation is not afforded by facts, and teach that, on the contrary, new forms have been introduced in the province of organic life (25). A few years ago it was declared to be an established fact that the great deluge, which, according to the result of geological researches, was anterior to the present condition of the earth, preceded also the appearance of man, and had nothing in common with the deluge narrated in the Scriptures, and alluded to in national traditions, but receiving no corroboration from science : it is now believed that the discoveries in the gravel beds of Abbeville and other places, and that of the bones at Aurignac and elsewhere (26), oblige us to admit the existence of man at the time of this former flood ; so that these traditions receive confirmation, and only need to be referred to an earlier period. 104 Lect. IV. — The Creation of the World. Concerning this period there is still so much hesita tion, that, while Cuvier is contented with five or six thousand years, Waitz, on the contrary, in his learned work on the Anthropology of Nations, vol. i. p. 336, gives us the choice between thirty-five thousand million and nine million years for the existence of man upon the earth? These examples sufficiently show how far geologists themselves are from having arrived at generally received conclusions on those very points in which their science comes in contact wMi the Bible. Till these are, however, arrived at no definite comparison between science and the Bible can be instituted, and every precipitate" attempt at harmon izing them may easily do more harm than good. We shall therefore confine ourselves to t|hat which alone is possible in the present state of science. And, first, everything depends jspon attaining a right point of view. It cannpfc be too frequently repeated, that the Bible is no# a manual of astronomy or geology, but the recordrTipon which our religious faith is based-^H*»t~-it is not its office either to answer scientific inquiries, to spare us the trouble of scientific research, or even to facilitate scientific investigation, but to satisfy the religious interest. Hence, where it speaks of the creation of the world, it gives not a scientific, but a religious account of it ; and we should do well not to seek in it that which it should not be expected to contain. The first of its truths is, that the world was created by God. Geology begins with a chaos, a heaving Geology and the Bible. 105 fermenting chaos. Of the origin of this chaos, geology can tell us nothing. Scripture goes farther back than the chaos of geology, and tells us that God created the first matter itself, from which the world, with all its order and beauty, gradually emerged. This is a fact upon which geology does not even touch, which, as lying beyond the boundaries of science, she can neither confirm nor deny from her own resources ; but it is a fact of supreme interest and fundamental importance to religion. Secondly, Scripture tells us that life upon earth, the world of plants and animals, had a beginning, and that by the co-operation of the powers of nature, and the creative energy of God. God said, ' Let the earth bring forth,' ' Let the waters be gathered to gether,' and, 'God created.' Science also tells of a commencement of organic life, and disclaims — at least enlightened science does — all power of explain ing its' origin otherwise than by. admitting a higher and a creative Power. Thirdly, the Bible teaches us that the world was formed in a gradually ascending series, advancing from the general to the special, from the imperfect to the perfect, from the unfree to the free, making ever nearer approximations towards man, till it reached in him the purpose and climax of its formations. This, too, is a fact of rehgious importance, as manifesting that man, as the purpose of God's creation, was also God's peculiar and last, and therefore his first thought — that God had, throughout, respect to man and to his 106 Lect. IV. — The Creation of the World. relation thereto. Of this, as a purely religious matter, science neither knows nor can know anything ; but she confirms in the most striking manner the premise upon which this conclusion rests, viz. the gradual advance made in the forms of organic life towards humanity; and in proportion to the increase of her investigations is the increase of this confirmation. When Scripture says that the earth was first covered with water, and describes the hills and dry land as then emerging, and as subsequently covered with vege tation; tells us that the waters were filled with fish, and the air with birds ; that land animals followed, and that the act of creation concluded with man, — this is — in broad features and general outlines, in which only the leading circumstances are brought forward, and accessory particulars omitted — the same process of development which geologic investigation discloses (27). Exception has indeed been taken to the fact, that the creation of light should have been made to pre cede that of the sun, and that the sun itself should be described as made subsequently to the earth. But such general knowledge as science has acquired con cerning these questions — and such knowledge is at best but conjectural — favours, to say the least, the possibility of the scriptural account. Now, indeed, light comes to us only from the sun ; but it is ac knowledged that bodies may become luminous under various circumstances, such as the rapid and intense chemical combinations of two elements, or by the liberation of electricity. We know not the nature of Science and Scripture. 107 this primeval light, but we do know that light is possible without the sun. Concerning the formation of the heavenly bodies, there is but the one theory, laid down by the great Herschell, and further carried out by La Place, with reference to our solar system, — the so-called nebular theory, according to which enormous separate spheres of vapour were formed from the immense mass of gas-like fluid spread out in the obscurity of space, which were afterwards fashioned into globes; our solar system having been such a gaseous sphere, within which first the external, then the internal planets, and last of all the sun, were formed, so that the sun certainly became a solid body sub sequently to the earth. Of the fixed stars and their formation nothing can be said. All this, then, is in perfect harmony with the Scripture account. One thing alone does science imperatively demand, viz. the concession of extensive periods, that she may not be confined to perhaps six days of twenty- fours hours each, which is simply impossible. It may suffice to refer, e.g. to the great coal-measures, formed from a vast world of vegetation by the satur ating power of water, and occupying, e.g. in North America alone, according to H. Rogers, a space of 6250 square miles, or reaching in the Saarbruck dis trict from nineteen to twenty thousand feet below the level of the sea (28) ; and to the peat-fields of a later period, a colossal fossil cypress trunk, found in Tran sylvania, where thirteen layers of peat are piled one upon another, being estimated by Hartig to be 3100 108 Lect. IV. — The Creation of ihe World. years of age (29). We cannot and must not entertain the notion that God, having created them at once, only impressed upon them the appearance of gradual formation, so that our mvestigation might be deceived and deluded by our being able to persuade ourselves that they must have arisen gradually. And certainly, when we consider these and other circumstances, we do need, if not the billions of years in which the school of Lyell deals so liberally, yet still extremely long periods, and this it is which geology demands. As to how we are to understand the demiurgic days, even orthodox theologians are not unanimous, days being spoken of before the sun. Whether they express extensive periods, one day with the Lord as a thou sand years, and hence designate not days according to human computation, but days measured according to the proportions of the universe ; or whether we are to regard the day only as a form in which the subject is clothed for the sake of bringing it nearer to the human imagination, which might not be otherwise able to grasp those acts of creation, — this much is certain, that the chief matter in question in the work of each day, is not the day, but the work. For the interests of religion are concerned not in the time, but in the fact ; that is, in the fact that God created the world by the power of His own will, in free love ; that He fashioned it in an ascending gradation of separate formations up to man, to reach in , him the end of His creative work, and to enter into a bond of spiritual communion with him. Science and Scripture. 109 If the whole world was made with a view to man, it is not something alien to us, but meets us with a life akin to our own, and awakens in us sympathetic emotions. We can but feel that it teems with a life which is incomplete without us; that we are the answer to its enigma. Hence all the voices of nature find an echo in the breast of man, and man is the tongue of creation. The universe is reflected in his spirit, and he is the expression of its mystery. Should not, then, the language in which he utters what his spirit perceives be an ascription of praise to the world's Creator . LECTUEE V. MAN. 1CRIPTURE teaches us that the world was made by God ; that it was the free act of His power, wisdom, and love ; and that God had man in view when He created the world. It was not for the plants or the animals, but for man that God was concerned. He was the peculiar thought of God, the divine idea ruling the whole creation, the realization of the essential will of God. This notion is expressed by Scripture when it represents God as taking counsel with Himself, and this counsel as resulting in the formation of man. Herein is also involved the fact, that something new was introduced with man ; that he differs specifically from the other corporeal beings by whom he is surrounded ; that they are but preliminary to him, that he is the ulti mate purpose and climax of creation, and consequently its end. It is thus that man appears in Scripture. Modern science, however, has raised many objections to such a view. The chief of these have concerned the antiquity, the origin, and the unity of the human race. Antiquity of Man. Ill 1. The question concerning the antiquity of man is at present exciting the liveliest interest (l). Ac cording to Scripture, the antiquity of the human race is estimated at about six thousand years, while modern science computes it by hundreds of thousands. And certainly, if Lyell is right in asserting that the pre sent form of the earth was produced with infinite slowness, by forces at present in operation, and that man belonged to an earlier period of the earth's for mation; or Darwin, in maintaining that man was produced only by the extremely gradual improvement of lower forms, we shall be constrained to remove the origin of our race to an extremely remote era. Such an inference is said to be corroborated by a series of . new discoveries, and it is now considered as good as settled that man lived upon the earth contemporan eously with such animals — cave bears, cave hyenas, mammoths, etc. — as have been hitherto referred to the Tertiary period, a period preceding the era dur ing which the last formation of the earth took place. The recent discovery of Aurignac on the northern slope of the Pyrenees has been a specially important one. A burying-place has been here excavated con taining seventeen human skeletons, rude weapons and ornaments, together with traces of a primeval funeral feast which had been held there. With these, however, were found bones of the above-named extinct animals, thus leading us back to an age in which man must have still shared the earth with these beasts of prey. The question, however, is whether we have to 112 Lect. V. — Man. move the existence of man backwards, or that of these animals forwards. Is the human race more ancient, or these races of animals more modern ? The answer cannot be doubtful; it is furnished by the pile- buildings (2). Since the winter of 1853-54, when the remains of ancient dwellings built on piles in the midst of the water were first discovered in the Lake of Zurich, every year has furnished fresh discoveries of a similar kind. They afford us a glimpse of the most ancient civilisation of which we have any knowledge upon our continent. Stone and bones were the materials wherewith the first inhabitants of Europe fashioned their weapons and utensils. Other nations, Celts, seem afterwards to have appeared, who, by means of. their brazen arms, became masters of the original inhabitants. When did those inhabitants of the pile- buildings live? Recently the discoveries of brass, and even of iron, in these buildings have increased. Hence, they still existed even in the times of the Romans. The Greek historian Herodotus informs us of buildings on piles in Thrace so late as B.C. 500 ; in Ireland there were such in the Middle Ages ; while in Borneo, on the Euphrates, etc., dwellings are thus constructed even at the present day. The use of stone weapons, moreover, reaches far down into the age when metal was used. Even at the battle of Hastings, in 1066 A.D., the Anglo-Saxons had stone points to their spears and arrows. Since, moreover, traces of an intercourse with the Baltic (Amber), and with Asia Antiquity of Man. 113 (Nephrite), have been found even in the most ancient pile-buildings, we may conclude from all these circum stances that we must not extend the so-called age of stone farther back than from one to two thousand years before Christ. Therefore it was not till after the period in which the Bible places the deluge that these first inhabitants of Europe emigrated from Asia. That they did come from Asia is clearly shown by the fact that the utensils found in these pile-build ings are made of a very hard stone, Nephrite, only found in Asia, and which is even now sold at a high price by the Chinese to the Maories of the Southern Ocean, whose chiefs carry axes of this stone as a mark of distinction.Another method of obtaining the hundreds of thousands of years supposed to be needed for the antiquity of the human race has been tried, and the era of the human remains found in certain alluvial deposits has been inferred from the time required for their deposition under existing circumstances. Thus, in a layer of cypress wood at the mouth of the Mis sissippi has been found a skull, to which, according to geological computation, an antiquity of 57,000 years is attributed. Nothing, however, is more uncertain than these geological computations. A short time since a vessel with many antiquities was discovered in a peat bog in Sundewitt, on the eastern coast of Schleswig. According to geological calculation, it must have been many thousands of years old, while certain coins found in the vessel showed that it sank H 114 Lect. V.— Man. • at the earliest A.D. 300 to 400. The rates of alluvial depositions are so various that they mock all such calculations, and so long as this view is without surer proofs than they can furnish, it may be regarded as an entirely uncorroborated hypothesis. It is, more over, highly significant that the traditions and the historical consciousness of nations do not reach farther back than two and three thousand years before Christ. Would this be possible if the human race were a hundred thousand instead of six thousand years old ? "This was Cuvier's argument (3), and it has not yet been refuted. All investigations have served to confirm the fact that man was the latest of all creatures. He is not, however, merely the conclusion of his world, he is at the same time the commencement of a new world. With him begins the world of mind and consciousness. This assigns to man a position with respect to all other creatures which places an essential distinction between him and them. 2. In opposition, however, to this, a theory has been set up in modern times — the so-called transmutation theory of Darwin and his school — which places man in such immediate relationship with the creatures next preceding him, — viz. the higher races of animals, — as to make the difference between him and the brute creation not an essential but a fleeting one. For, according to this theory, it was from one or a very few fundamental forms that the whole ascending series of vegetable and animal organisms was, during incal- Transmutation Theory. 115 culably long periods, and by progressive changes, gradually developed, until it reached man, who repre sents the highest stage of development in this scale of organic life. This genealogy of our species, passing through the animal world, reaching back to the hum blest vegetable, and making apes perhaps the imme diate ancestors of the human race, may not perhaps be quite according to our taste ; but such questions, we are told, are not to be decided according to our taste, for there is much in our organization also which may not be quite in conformity with our notions. We are assured that no essential difference can be found between the formation of the human body, not even in the organization of the brain, and the animal organism ; that even man's mechanical instincts are shared by the brutes ; that the whole difference con sists in a certain higher capability of development in the brain, by means of which man becomes self- conscious, and therefore, so to speak, possessed of himself (4). Have we, then, got so far as to need seriously to discuss the question whether there really is any essen tial difference between a man and a brute ? Is not the fact that such a question can be started itself the most striking proof of such a difference ? So great an aberration of the human mind would be impossible, unless the mind were so elevated, and so free in its intellectual life, as to be capable of sinking to such a folly. The scientific question is the question of diversity 116 Lect. V. — Man. of species, i.e. whether essential and fixed diversities exist between the various forms of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. The Bible places this thought in the fore-front of its narrative, when it says ten times in the history of the creation that God made the creatures each ' after his kind.' The Darwinian hypothesis cannot but deny this diversity of kind ; for otherwise the great ascending series of most widely differing plants and animals could not have succes sively originated from one germ. All the great investigations, however, of modern natural science are based upon the assumption of the essential diver sity of species which observation shows us that nature jealously maintains, securing the original species from degeneration by the barrenness of hybrids. As far as our knowledge extends, the different species have ever been invariable. The animal mummies of the Egyp tian sepulchres, the representations on the most ancient monuments, do not show the slightest diverg ence from the present forms. The camels and dromedaries portrayed on the ruins of Nineveh are such as might be drawn to-day. Nor do the dis coveries in the strata of the earth afford the least support to that gradual transition and ramification of species which the Darwinian theory requires. Hence even adherents of Darwin, such as Huxley and his translator Bronn, have been obliged to admit the in sufficiency of the evidence he adduces. But apart from all questions of natural science, which must be left to the decision of its professors, how can it The Moral Objection. 117 possibly satisfy any thinking mind to be told that the immense variety of organized beings arose from a supposed primitive cell through purely external causes and blind chance ? And how, upon such a principle, are the conformity to law and the necessity which prevail in this series of organisms to be explained ? But still more important than this consideration is the moral side of the question. And this is the point of view from which we desire chiefly to regard the matter. And here I would use the words of a child instead of my own. Perhaps the anecdote related of the late King of Prussia may not be unknown to you : he was accustomed, during his stay at Rugen, to amuse him self with children, and to examine them by showing them all sorts of objects, such as stones, fruits, etc., and asking them to what kingdom (animal, mineral, or vegetable) they severally belonged, till at length, pointing to himself, he said, ' And to what kingdom do I belong?' Upon which the child who was questioned replied, ' To the kingdom of heaven.' This is the difference. Man belongs to the kingdom of heaven, animals do not. It is this which constitutes the spe cific difference between them. Man knows his God and Lord, and prays to Him. Man has a religion, and his thoughts and will should be dedicated to God ; his life should be a service of God. The existence of the animal is only sensuous. Man, though corporeal, leads a spiritual life ; though temporal, has relations with eternity ; and ought while yet on earth to have his conversation in heaven. 118 Lect. V.— Man. -The view we are opposing advocates indeed a truth, the connection of all that exists — the system of being. But this truth is also the notion of Scripture, and of its view, from which we learn that all that preceded man was but a series of preliminary gradations towards him, that man was not made until these preliminary gradations had arrived at him, and that thus the whole terrestrial creation attains its unity. In this up ward progress towards man, Scripture, however, sees a creative act of God, instead of a mere natural development. 3. According to Scripture, man was created as a unity, thence to arrive at multiplicity. The scriptural view is founded on ihe unity of the human race. To this notion various objections have been made ever since the era of English Deism, and the view of several centres of creation has recently been embraced. Our deepest interests demand the unity of the human race. First, upon religious grounds. Man is the thought of God. But God would not have men to exist after the manner of plants and animals ; He would not have a multiplicity of single human indi viduals, but man, mankind as one single organism. The one great family of mankind — such is the object of the race, and of its history ; but only so if it pro ceeds from a single source. And on this ground alone could the history of mankind have a single centre. We say of Jesus Christ, that He is the one Mediator of the whole human race ; that He is the Son of man, comprising and representing humanity in Himself; Unity of ihe Human Race. 119 that He is the turning-point of history, all former history terminating in Him, and a new history begin ning with Him. But He cannot be its mediator and representative, nor can His work and person be the one salvation for all, nor sin be an evil inherited by all, unless the unity of the entire race be admitted. But it is also required upon purely human grounds and considerations. There is an intuitive feeling inherent in every breast that all men are related to each other, that they are brethren : the claims of the family tie are everywhere felt. It is true that this feeling was first brought to conscious vitality by Chris tianity ; but this only recalled to man's remembrance something which he really knew already, though he did not consciously acknowledge it. Upon this con sciousness of belonging to one family rest all the mutual piety and kindness of man to man, — all that true humanity which knows no difference between man and man, but recognises in each a brother. Nor is any true understanding of history possible till we admit the unity of the human race, and the conse quent unity of its history. I see not how these things are to be understood,- — and they are the essential interests of our intellectual and moral life, — if we accept, e.g. with Agassiz, a multiplicity of human centres of creation, and believe that men arose con temporaneously or successively in various parts of the earth, ' as pines do in forests, grasses in meadows, bees in trunks of trees, herrings in shoals, buffaloes in herds ' (5). As if the case of man was exactly par- 120 Lect. V. — Man. allel with that of plants and animals ! This doctrine of Agassiz is but a return to the old notion of Autoch thones, i.e. of the origination of the various nations in the several countries in which they are found, — a view whose natural consequence was that abrupt separation of nations which Christianity abohshed by teaching the single origin and commencement of the human race. Hence it is no indifferent question which is here treated of, but one in which the interests of humanity are no less concerned than those of rehgion. In our days, indeed, this question, though it has not yet lost its importance, has been cast into the background by the interest excited by those concern ing the antiquity and origin of man. Since the era of English Deism especially, varieties of race have been adduced as an argument against unity of species. And it is the difference in the form of the skull and of the facial angle, varying from 90° or 80° to 70°, that has been chiefly dwelt upon (6). All other differences are connected with and depend upon these ; are not accidental peculiarities, arising from merely accidental outward circumstances, such as heat, etc., but have a common connection with each other. Hence certain kinds of peculiarities are ever found in union, and thus are formed the various types of mankind. The question consequently is : Does mankind constitute one or several species ? In other words, do the various races of men hold the same re lation to each other as the various races of horses ; or are they as distinct from each other as the horse and Unity of the Human Race. 121 the ass ? Valid arguments have been brought for ward, upon purely scientific grounds, in favour of the unity of species of the human race ; the most import ant of which is, that the hybrids produced by the intermixture of animals of different species — as, e.g. of the ass and the horse — are always barren. Mules cannot be propagated, and this would apply univers ally to human hybrids. Hence the different races of mankind do not form different species, like the horse and the ass, but only different varieties, like the various breeds of horses, which may be crossed at pleasure (7). The differences of these varieties of the one human race are but of an external kind. They relate only to the hair, the colour of the skin, and the form of the skull; and these are mere externals, which circumstances might alter, and which they can be proved to have done. What a difference there is, for example, in outward appearance, between the modern and the ancient fair-haired Germans ! The modern Magyars, too, are as different as possible from their ancestors the ancient Huns, who have been depicted to us as so frightful, that we may well sup pose the present Magyars to have no resemblance to them. It is only ' in some remote parts of Hungary that one meets with the ugliness which was peculiar to the Huns ' (8) . It is, besides, a fact, that civilisation alters even the bodily structure. Intellectual improve ment produces corporeal improvement, as, on the other hand, man may degenerate even in his bodily struc ture. Nor has climate less effect upon man than upon 122 Lect. V. — Man. the domestic animals (9). With all this is connected the fact, that no characteristic of any single race is either essential to that race or exclusively its own, but that the transitions are fleeting, and contrasts only reached by means of intermediate degrees. ' Neither a definite form of skull and pelvis, nor the colour of the hair and eyes, nor any other specific character istic, belongs exclusively to any single race ; while in one and the same race, and in one and the same nation, the greatest differences often exist. The German- male skull differs from the female in niagnitude (100-97 in horizontal circumference, and 10090 in the size of the cavity and weight of the brain), and still more in its typical distinction, in a far greater degree than the skulls of different races do from each other ' (10). All these slight differences, however, are in reality much less than those found between animals of the same species, as, e.g. horses auijldogs, etc. The internal structure of the body has Jfteen found to.be in every case perfectly identieS!*>T)ifferenJ- as whites and negroes may be from each other in other re spects, they exhibit an entire' agreement in this. And finally, their mental organization is everywhere similar. Everywhere we find the J,ime dispositions, the same mental qualities, the "safc&passions ; all men under stand each other (11). i\_u do not stand, indeed, on the same intellectual level ; but while ' the differences between animals and men are, in physical respects, qualitative and specific, those existing between the races of mankind are simply quantitative ' (12). That Unity of the Human Race. 123 such differences should exist as to cause one race to occupy a higher rank, in both a corporeal and intellec tual view, than that filled by another, is but natural, since mankind is an organism requiring variety both of endowment and vocation. But even these differ ences are fleeting. The example of a Toussaint rOuverture is sufficient to prove the intellectual endowment even of the negro; and who supposes Shakespeare's Othello to be an impossible character? From a merely scientific point of view, then, we must at least concede the possibility of the unity of the human race ; while a series of the most famous natural philosophers, such as Haller, Linnaeus, Buffon, Cuvier, Blumenbach,1' Rud, Wagner, Andr. Wagner, A. Von Humboldt, have admitted it. Even those who do not look upon it as a fact, such as Waitz and Pertz, do not at least deny its possibility. The objection which they entertain to this principle, viz. that the exist ence of the human race would then have hung upofi so slight a thread as the life of a, single man — a dispro portion between means and end such as they nowhere else find paralleled in nature (13) — is of no weight with those who believe in a Divine Providence, which would certainly watch over its most exalted creature. But all we demand from natural science is an admission of the possibility of this view. To prove its actual existence is the business of philology. And compara tive philology is at least approaching this result. To mention only one, but a great example : the unity of the origin of the Indo-Germanic nations has been 124 Lect. V. — Man. placed beyond all doubt by the identity of the con struction of their respective languages, and the exist ence of a great mass of common roots (14). Historical investigations, also, have shown us a remarkable co incidence in the traditions of nations dwelling at the remotest distances from each other. Scriptural tra ditions of primitive times are re-echoed in the legends of the North American Indians (15). America and the South Sea Islands must have interposed great geographical difficulties in the way of diffusion. But just where these difficulties are greatest, viz. in the South Sea Islands, we find linguistic and physical relationship. And with regard to America, a lively intercourse is still kept up between the tribes of Northern Asia and North America, across the Aleutian Archipelago, that bridge of islands between the two continents. The moral objection has been made that this view infers the marriage of brothers and sisters, and makes the history of mankind begin with incest. But this is to overlook the fact that the primitive family repre sents not merely the family, but also the race. Hence it consisted not merely of the circle of relationship, but at the same time comprised within itself all those differences which, in the course of development, were sundered and diffused, and which are the pre requisite of a perfect marriage. Hence we have not to limit feeling in the case of the first family to the feeling of brotherly and sisterly affection. If that family represented mankind, it bore within its bosom, Man a Union of Body and Soul. 125 that variety of feehng which enters into the ties of acquaintanceship, friendship, and marriage. These were all, from the very first, implanted by the Creator in the human breast, and were to be gradually deve loped. It was only in proportion as the family developed into the race that these could be distin guished according to their diversity. Not till then could that severance between fraternal and conjugal love appear, whose chasm cannot now be overleapt without violating a law of nature. When, however, it is objected that mankind could not, in so short a time as Scripture presupposes, have become so widely diffused, — as, for instance, between Adam and Noah, and between Noah and Abraham, — this objection is, first, a comparatively subordinate one, since, as relating merely to a chronological ques tion, it is a matter of indifference, as far as the essen tial interest is involved, whether an interval of one or ten thousand years is required ; and secondly, it may be refuted by the calculation of the possibilities of propagation, which shows that the descendants of a single pair might, in the course of even sixteen cen turies, amount to a billion (16), while the present number of the human race does not surpass thirteen hundred millions. The domestic animals imported into America have multiplied enormously from single or few specimens (17), 4. According to the scriptural view, man is ihe union of body and soul. The body is an essential part of his entity — he is a corporeal, spiritual being. 126 Lect. V. — Man. That we are corporeal beings is a fact of direct experi ence ; that we possess a soul, a spiritual power in our life, is a matter of direct feeling. Scripture describes ihe body as that which first exists, which is funda mental. And it is still so in the case of every indi vidual human being. With respect to his body, man belongs to the corporeal world, and forms its com pletion. His body is the recapitulation of material nature, whose various provinces are here repeated in a higher grade, and united in a perfect hving organism. It is characteristic of the scriptural view, that while it does not make the body thj^very essence of man, it yet regards it as, an essential component of his entirety. It, thus occupies the middle ground be tween the view which esteems the body as all in all, so that life after death is degraded, a.: in Homer (is), into a melancholy and shadow-like existence, — a view whose necessary consequence is the motto, 'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die ' (19) ; and the spiritualistic view of Plato, which regards the body as a prison and a fetter, to be freed from which, and trans posed into a state of pure existence, forms the happi ness of man, and is a consummation which cannot take place too soon,"— a 'iloctrine whose proximate con sequence is the stoical wisdom of suicide. According to the biblical view, the body is essential to man's completeness ; therefore, also, to his complete well- being, whether present or future. As the interrup tion of corporeal existence, or the loosening of the union between body and soul in certain conditions, is The Body. 127 a morbid state of existence, and an interruption of the true well-being of man, so is their entire separation and the reduction to a purely spiritual existence by death in a certain sense the most diseased state of man, who does not re-attain true health till the restoration of the true harmony of soul and body. The body is not, however, merely essential to man ; it is also of fundamental importance. The entire spiritual Hfe is rooted in this corporeal soil, and uses the bodily organism as its instrument. The spirit has no independent agency ; it acts only through and in the body. It can manifest itself only by means of its necessary instrument, the body. Hence every disturbance of the body will produce, by reaction, a corresponding disturbance in the mode in which the mind- is accustomed to manifest itself. What we call mental disease, because the mind's mode of manifest ation seems disturbed, is, in fact, a bodily disorder. It is the disorder of its corporeal instrument which makes the mind appear disordered. When the strings of the instrument are out of tune, though the piece of music be correct, and the player perform it with the greatest accuracy, its execution will produce but discord. It is thus that we must understand the intellectual dulness of old age. It is the bodily organism which refuses its office, and the mind, thus hindered in its external manifestations, retires into its own secret world, and very little of it can be seen through the veil of the body. It has not really 128 Lect. V. — Man. shrunk or dwindled away ; all that is at fault is the external manifestation and instrumentality of the bodily organism. Such importance, then, does the scriptural view, which, by its recognition of the truth of materialistic modes of thought, shows itself to be by no means spiritualistic, give to the body. 5. But it certainly speaks no less decidedly of ihe soul, the independent spiritual principle in man, and not a mere function of the bodily organ ; that also by which man stands in relationship and connection with God. The simplest observation has from of old led to this doctrine. For man offers two different aspects for contemplation, — the one the external, the sensuous, the apparent ; the other the inner world of thought and feeling, leading beyond the realm of sense, and causing us to perceive the connection of man with a super-sensuous world of mind, whose centre is God. The doctrine of the existence of the soul is a neces sary premise of all religion, of all morality, nay, of every exalted and intellectual view of human life. If man has no soul, human life is equally without a soul, — without the soul of poetry, the soul of every exalted emotion, the soul of the fellowship of hearts, of moral consciousness and moral efforts, and finally, of life in and for God. In short, the whole world is but a flower-grown cemetery. We have, however, the direct assurance of our feelings that we do possess a soul, i.e. an independent principle of spiritual life, interwoven, indeed, most intimately with the bodily The Soul. 129 principle, yet neither identical with it nor its* mere manifestation. But it is said that this is all a delusion, and that there is no other life than material life. You un doubtedly remember the animated contest on this matter, called forth by Rud. Wagner's attack upon materialistic opinions, and Karl Vogt's reply, about nine years since, a contest which still continues to exercise both minds and pens (20). Let us pause awhile to consider this psychologic materialism ! The notion of the soul is a universal one. It is found among all nations and in all stages of civilisa tion. It is therefore a necessary and not an acci dental notion. Whence, then, is it derived, if it is not the expression of a corresponding reality? There is nothing of which we feel more certainty than of the existence of the soul. We are as certain that the soul exists as that God exists. Utterly vain is the attempt to deny it. My very doubt and denial do but manifest the power of thought within me, and therefore the spiritual principle which thinks. But as the attempt to deny God, whom we cannot help knowing, has ever been made, so also has the attempt to deny the soul's existence. And this denial has been made the starting-point of an entirely material view of the world. This view, which was revived towards the close of the last century, was one already known to the ancient world. It is founded upon sensualism, i.e. upon that philosophy which makes the perceptions of the 130 Lect. V. — Man. senses' the foundation of all truth, and lays down the general maxim, that only sensible reality and truth, and hence only sensible perception, is the source of all knowledge of truth. Ludwig Feuerbach gave to these opinions a consistent philosophic form. The advocates of Materialism within the province of natural science have but re-echoed Feuerbach's pro positions, and scarcely one can be found in the writ ings of all these scholars which had not previously been denounced by him. The general principle of these opinions is the denial of the super-sensuous, as Virchow, e.g. acknowledges, when he says (Archiv. f. Pathol. Studien, ii. p. 9) : ' The natural philosopher knows only of bodies and bodily properties ; whatever is beyond these he calls transcendental, and regards transcendentalism (i.e. the super-sensuous) as an aber ration of the mind.' Hence it is inferred that what we call to mind is but the agency of matter ; that the so-called soul is only a collective term for the sum total of nervous processes, — ' a dust-heap, as a physio logist called it, which is dispersed again just as it was swept together,' and is itself really as material and mortal as the organ of which it is the function ; that thought is the product of the brain, the quality of the brain, determining the nature of the thoughts. The negro has a less perfectly formed brain, and hence' less intelligence. In the child the brain is as yet unde veloped, therefore his thoughts are so also ; in the aged it has dwindled, therefore his thoughts have done the same ; in women it is of less circumference The Soul. 131 and weight, hence also their thinking powers do not equal those of men. A disease which affects the brain affects also the reason. A diseased brain is a mental malady. When animals have been deprived of single portions of the brain, they have lost there with parts of their intellectual faculties, and therefore of their souls, which are, as it were, taken away piecemeal (21). Hence, what we call thought, soul, mind, is only a product of the brain, just as bile is a product of the liver, etc. The brain secrets thought, the phosphorus in the brain is that which thinks. ' No phosphorus, no thought.' Hence everything depends on the quality, and the quality upon the nourishment of the brain, — that is, upon the food in general. ' As a man eateth, so is he.' ' Man is the sum total of parents, nurse, place, time, air, water, sound, light, food, and clothing; his will is the necessary result of all these causes, and bound to natural law. Thought is matter in motion, a displace ment of the material of the brain ; even consciousness is nothing but a property of matter. Sin is that which is unnatural, and not the choosing to do evil ' (Moleschott). ' In fact, there is no such thing as sin, and therefore no justice in punishment.' ' To under stand everything, means to excuse everything.' Thus morality ceases to exist, and ethics are transformed into a bill of fare (22). There are, indeed, individual advocates of Mate rialism who reject its ultimate results. Such men as Virchow and Burmeister think they can combine 132 Lect. V. — Man. moral freedom and responsibility with this doctrine. But though such inconsistency does honour to their hearts, it does not therefore cease to be an inconsist ency. As long as a belief in the super-sensuous is. regarded as an aberration of the mind, every attempt to escape the results of the materialistic principle is but vain (23). These opinions are more widely spread than is sup posed. They coincide with the inclinations of the times. It cannot be denied that utilitarianism, whose motive-power is selfishness, is the ruling principle of the age. Now Materialism being the scientific justi fication of such a principle, it is not marvellous that they are so well agreed. Materialism sets out from the two fundamental notions, that all knowledge originates from sensuous perception, and that what we call mind, etc., is an agency of matter (2i). Both these propositions are, however, but frivolous assertions. If all thoughts are said to be the product of impres sions on the senses, then there are no such things as thoughts in general, but only conceptions. Never theless, we have thoughts even concerning those things which are not objects of sense ; we have ideas which have nothing to do with aught material, which are of a purely intellectual nature; nay, we have thoughts of the absolute, in which we entirely leave the world of things and sense. We form judgments and conclu sions which show an independent mental faculty ; nay, we exercise a criticism upon what is sensibly Psychologic Materialism Criticised. 133 evident, and thus have within us convictions which are opposed to the sensible impression. Besides, we do not only think of those things which are objects of sense ; we think also about our thoughts themselves, which are certainly anything but evident to the senses. Hence thought is not a mere result of im pressions on the senses, but also of an independent mental principle. Materialism says, in the next place, that what we call mind, soul, reason, etc., is a, product of ihe brain ; that the quality of the mind depends upon the quality of the brain ; that the soul is only a function of the corporeal organism. Well, then, — it has been rightly answered (25), — in this case all thought is necessary, and I am as incapable of changing my thoughts as of altering my brain. Then, too, we must cease from all efforts to make a man alter his opinions, or bring him to a better mind, for he cannot think otherwise than the material brain in his head thinks. It is very difficult, therefore, to see why materialists should give themselves the trouble of writing books to per suade us to embrace their views, if we cannot possibly think in opposition to the dictates of our brain ! They surely ought to use some very different means to bring us to better thoughts. But, we would ask, is not logic the same to all men, and under all ciecumstances, in all climates, and amidst all modes of life, etc., and therefore an act of thought independent of the quality ofthe brain ? Are not truth and knowledge independ ent of age, and of the development or shrinking of 134 Lect. V. — Man. the brain ? Are not religious and moral truth the same at all seasons of life, and is not an acquaintance with them equally possible to all ? Nay, we know that in extreme old age, and even at the point of death, when the brain has utterly shrunk, and is beginning to refuse its office, the most remarkable elevation of mind may take place (26) ; and special importance has been in all ages attributed to dying words, — an evident proof that the soul is not one and the same with the function of the brain. Certainly the brain is the organ of thought, the instrument of the mind. But every instrument re quires a player, otherwise, though all harmonies should be contained in its strings, and it were capable of expressing every musical idea, it would be but silent. Materialism confounds the necessary condition of activity with its cause. The brain is the necessary condition of mental activity, but not its cause, not the mental principle itself. The error which has crept in, and lies at the foundation of this doctrine, is that the organ of mental activity is made the cause of mental life itself. Because I can only think by means of my brain, therefore it is inferred that it is my brain itself that thinks. ' A fallacy ' which Liebig, in particular, has pointed out in his Chemical Letters (27). Vogt, however, exclaims, ' Only show us the soul ! ' Well, let him, too, show us his Reason. Because no microscope can show us the mind, is that any reason it should not exist ? How do we know that the world of the microscope is the whole world ? Why should Psychologic Materialism Criticised. 135 the microscope be the medium of our acquaintance with the mind ? Is there no attachment, fidelity, or friendship among men, no affections or sentiments, because the scalpel of the anatomist can detect none of these imperceptible powers in the human body ? What right have we to make sensuous perception the standard of all things ? (28) It is one of the legitimate efforts of the day to found all theories upon facts, and it is this which has given rise in France to a special philosophy, the so- called Positivism of Auguste Comte (29). But this movement has its followers everywhere, though with out this name. Facts alone are acknowledged, and the fanciful theories and the abstract speculations of an earlier period are universally rejected. The realm' of fact, however, extends beyond such as are evident to the senses. There are facts which are no less certain than those which are matters of sensible experience ; and there are three facts which are utterly destructive of materialistic opinions, — the facts of mental, of moral, and of religious consciousness. The first fact is that of thought, and especially of self-consciousness. If all thought is but the brain's own product, how does it set itself thinking? The brain is but an organ ; who puts this organ in motion ? To do this a power is needed, which is not itself of a kind appreciable by the senses. This motive-power must be of a kind corresponding to its effect, i.e. it must be of a mental kind. The highest effect pro duced by this mental power is self-consciousness. How 136 Lect. V. — Man. can this be designated a mere action of the brain, when it is rather a mental act of man, entirely un paralleled in the whole remaining terrestrial creation ? Something answering to reflection and judgment is found even among animals ; but self-consciousness, that most purely mental act by which man separates him self from all that is about him, and comprehends and thinks of himself in his oneness with himself, is specific; it is an absolutely new principle, and one which raises man far above all other living beings. And this self- consciousness remains the same under all changes, whether external or internal, which may happen to man. It is absurd to call that which is an abstraction from all matter a product of matter. The second fact is moral consciousness ; for my conscience, or moral consciousness, is as much a fact as my body. It is not a result of persuasion, educa tion, or cultivation, but an inward moral voice, which perceptibly echoes every moral testimony from with out. Wherever a human being is found, we find in him this moral consciousness. It may be obscured or perverted, yet it still exists ; it is still the foundation in the midst of all its perversion. Nor is religious consciousness — that inward attrac tion of man towards a higher power, reflected and attested by his consciousness — an attestation which can neither be refuted nor avoided wherever man exists, — less a fact of his mental life. And even if it be declared an error, the fact of its existence must be acknowledged, and its possibility accounted for. Nature and Destiny of Man. 137 It is, however, an impossibility if nothing exists but what is a product of matter. It is on these three facts that the whole higher life of man depends. Materialism, however, denies this higher life, and gives us in exchange a brutalization of humanity, thinking it but proud presumption on the part of man to exalt himself so far above the brute creation (30). 6. How different is the scriptural view of the nature and destiny of man ! Scripture beholds in man a recapitulation, in a more exalted sense, of his world, i.e. of this earthly creation. Man has ever been called a microcosm ; and true as this is in a physical, it is still more so in a spiritual and intellectual sense. Life pervades all nature, but it attains its highest degree of perfection in man. Man appears as the aim of all its preceding gradations, and hence also as their determining law. Man is the pre-existent idea upon which they were all based, and which, after approximating to him in a constantly ascending series, at length finds in him its realization. Hence all the lower grades are, as it were, stored up in man. The first half of the divine work of creation closed, as the Scripture informs us, with the vegetable world. In it nature first attained organic form and develop ment. The plant at the close of the first half answers to man at the close of the second; his body, that high est sensuous organism, is the more exalted counterpart of the first growing organism, the plant. Even man's 138 Lect. V.— Man. body shows his high destiny. Its wondrous structure everywhere testifies that he is destined to the most exalted kind of earthly life, — to mental life ; and the presence of mind is everywhere impressed upon his outward form. Proudly erect, he steps forth upon the earth as its ruler. His feet rest upon the ground, but his head is lifted towards heaven ; and his glance reaches far into distance, sweeping over a widely ex tended surface of the earth, and up to the hurrying clouds. Upon his countenance rests the invisible mind, and gives it its ever- varying expression; thought reigns upon his arched brow, and feeling plays about his changing mouth, while from his eyes is spoken the secret of a hidden life. This spiritual life manifests itself even in the separate members of the body ; and it has justly been observed that his very hand betrays the king of the earth. Of all the corporeal forms of earth, there is none whose structure can bear even the most distant comparison in marvellousness and importance with the human body. Man, with the life which stirs within him, and produces the various activities of his corporeal existence, is the recapitu lation in a higher degree of all growing corporeal life. In the animal kingdom a new world — viz. that of sense and instinct, of feelings and desires — appears. And this whole world of sense, this life of sensation and instinct, is also found harmoniously blended in man. Those qualities which in the animal world are divided and portioned out singly to individuals, His Personality. 139 are in man united in one compendious whole. He is- the more exalted counterpart of the animal, — raised- however, to the sphere of mental freedom. All his senses, instincts, and feelings, how sensuous soever may be their nature, are spiritualized and ennobled, freed from subjection to necessity and passion, and exalted to the sphere of liberty. They have lost nothing of their strength and vitality, though they have ceased to be rulers and have become subjects. On the con trary, it is their very subjection to the power of the mind which ennobles and transfigures them. But man is the more exalted counterpart of the animal world only because there is also in him a still higher principle, raising him far above the highest phase of animal life. Man has a reasonable soul, i.e. personality (31). This is somewhat specifically new in the whole circle of organic life. A world of mental endowments and powers is united in man, which, on the one hand, have their roots in a- sensuous organism, on the other, unite in an inward point, in which this collective life forms an internal unity with itself in the Ego. That fulness of gifts and powers which surround, as it were, this Ego, forms its collective organism, the many-membered instrument handled by the Ego. The Ego is the ruler who, as a free pleni potentiary and autocrat, disposes thereof. In the Ego, man is with himself, and from it he manifests himself.. The essential manifestations of this Ego are conscious thought and free will. Man possesses thought. And in possessing thought 140 Lect. V.— Man. he is a partaker of that which is divine. The animal has sensations, notions, impulses, etc., but thought, properly so called, belongs to man alone. It is thought upon which all existence is founded ; for it is the eternal thoughts of God which have found their self-realization in the world. Hence it is after the divine likeness that man, too, has thoughts which he is enabled to realize. And it is because he has thought that he has also language. For the fact that he speaks is the outward manifestation of the fact that he thinks. Thought is the inner language of the mind, which becomes incorporate in words. Animals do not speak because they do not think. Their speech is only a general expression of sensation, because their soul-life does not go beyond feeling, while that of man extends to thinking. Man's think ing, however, has not merely individual signification, but he carries in his thoughts general truths. Logical truths are universally valid. In them man raises him self above individual to collective mental life, lives his own mental life in connection therewith, reasons con cerning it, and expresses its essential laws in logical truths. But man not only thinks of these formal laws of general mental life, but also of its material truths — the general ideas of the true, the good, and the beautiful. Man knows and thinks of the world of ideas, whose origin is in God, and which has been realized in this sensible world, — a sign that not merely this, but a higher world is his home. He thinks of eternity ; he thinks of God, — a sign that he is destined His Free Will. 141 for eternity, for God. Thus the thought of man ranges from the lowest grades to the very highest, while it remains at the same time with itself, and combines into a unity with itself. Man thinks of himself, and thus makes his own existence a fact of his consciousness. In this consciousness man assumes himself; it is an act in which he imitates creation, and manifests that man is made in the image of God. Man has thoughts, — thoughts of the Highest, and thoughts of himself. This is one aspect of his like ness to God. The other is, that he has free will. The animal has instinct, man has will ; in other words, it is not anything apart from himself, not a mere influ ence from without or from his own nature, which determines him, but his acts proceed ultimately from himself. He has within himself a certain point of freedom, upon which no external agency, no emotion of his own nature — no, not even the strongest and most passionate, no effect of his individual peculiarity, no power of custom, can encroach, and so determine a man to will or to act that he can do no otherwise. Much as he may be influenced by outward circum stances, inward emotions, or impelling motives, it is man's own resolution which makes the final decision. His power of voluntary action proves his freedom, which remains the same even when he allows himself to be guided and determined in his actions by motives and circumstances. For it is not these motives and circumstances which will for him, so that his willing and doing aire but the form in which the law of neces- 142 Lect. V. — Man. sity is fulfilled ; but it is by an act of his own free self-determination that he accommodates his will to circumstances, instead of withdrawing it from them. The ultimate cause of his actions is his decision ; it is not that he must, but that he will ; and there is no such thing as being obliged to will (es gibt kei/n Wollenmussen). In individual cases he can even not will; he can will otherwise than he does; he can choose. To will means to exercise a free decision ; and this freedom implies the power of being able to decide otherwise, — the power of choice. It is upon this that all responsibility and moral accountability depend. I can leave undone what I do, I can do what I leave undone ; my act is my own free choice. Herein man resembles God. For the highest thing that can be said of God is, that He is His own master. So also is man, who is made in God's likeness, his own master by means of his will. Now the thing chiefly needed in this free will is strength of will (32). It is not enough to have thought, to be rich in intellect ; we need also strength of will. Impotence of will is a misfortune ; and when it is characteristic of an age, or of a race, it is a public mis fortune. ' It is only in the will there is help.' For will is the power of action, and action alone is truly life. Strength of will must be educated and developed ; and this is doubly necessary in times like ours, when ' paleness of thought ' makes the life sickly, and when constant critical reflection fastens like rust upon the metal of the will, and takes from it all its sharp- Man's Free Will. 143 ness and power ; or when the pursuit of ever- varying intellectual enjoyments dissipates it, and deprives it of that concentration which it needs for energetic action. But mere strength of will is not sufficient ; we need independence of will, — a will which neither surrenders nor exposes itself unresistingly to influences from within or from without, to the tendencies of the age, the opinions of the day, or even the force of its own nature. A man must be himself, and must will to remain equal and true to himself — in other words, he must have character ; for character is decided, deeply marked self-consistency in will and deed. The main thing, however, is the moral quality of the character, that that truth of man which is God-like should be manifested and expressed thereby. It is this which makes character truly moral, and even God-like, Character may exist in the wicked as well as in the good. We may wonder at the former, but we can love and trust only the latter. An idea is realized in the moral personality and character, and the highest idea which man can realize is God's idea of him. This conformity to God is truth of character, and herein is human personality perfected. Man, then, thus constituted of body and soul, a spiritual corporeal organism and a free personality, occupies a twofold position. He stands in relation to God, he stands in relation to the world. With respect to the world, he is its Lord ; with respect to God, he is His image. He forms the bond of union between two worlds, — 144 Lect. V. — Man. this world of sense, and the higher world, which is beyond the province of the senses. He is a recapitulation of the world, a microcosm, a little world in himself; but a compendium superior to the world, the world in a personality, and therefore its free lord and master. Even his outward appear ance proclaims his dominion. Man's actual condition is indeed often one of pitiable mutilation ; but his original features, though disfigured, may yet be recognised, and these betray the king. It is true that we are dependent upon the powers of nature, weak and impotent before these mighty forces ; but in the midst of all our weakness and dependence, we have the consciousness of internal freedom ; though conquered, we triumph in spirit ; and though cast down to the dust, we soar in spirit beyond the stars. Man is the lord of all things. He is their lord, first, by his knowledge; for knowledge is a sign and exercise of authority. By my knowledge of anything I am inwardly master thereof, and make it both my property and my subject. By his knowledge, man occupies a prophetic position in the world. His mind penetrates into the nature of things, and investigates their ultimate causes. He transposes the things of this world — the things perceived by the senses — into mental images, in which the truth is separated from the husk with which it was encompassed ; he passes beyond the limits of the senses into the world of mental ideas, the fundamental types of things sensible, and thus seizes on the eternal truth contained in the His Dominion. 145 perishable. This knowledge is at present obscured, and remains but partial during life ; but even in the fragments we at present possess, the prophetic mind is seen hastening upon the wings of thought, with a motion more rapid than that of light, along the tracks of this world, and soaring out of time into eternity. There is nothing which is unapproachable by his knowledge, nor should anything be excluded from it. It would be a mistaken care for Christianity and salvation to attempt to limit man's love of knowledge, or to set bounds to its acquirements. It is not knowledge, as such, which puffeth up ; but knowledge unaccompanied by a truly humble, self-renouncing love of truth. The whole world was given to man that he might rule it, and the first manifestation of his dominion over it is his knowledge of it. But the second form of his dominion is, that he should actually subject bis world to himself. To his knowledge is united power. The knowledge of his mind must become the rod of power in his hand, com manding even the most secret powers of nature to submit themselves to his will, and binding them like well-trained steeds to the chariot in which he makes his triumphal procession through the whole earth, neither pausing nor resting till he has passed through its remotest steppes, and tamed even the most resist ing powers of nature, Thus do his reason and his will govern the world, his knowledge and power subjugate it. And this world, which by the power of his know ledge and the force of his will he thus conquers, enters 146 Led. V. — Man. at the* same time into his inmost being, is reflected in his imagination, and re-echoed in his feehng. It dwells within him as a world of images, a world of sounds, a world of emotions and feelings. The whole external world finds an echo in the little world within, and is reproduced in the various forms of artistic delineation, — in painting, music, poetry ; and, as the world's intellectual reflection, illumined, beautified, spiritualized, transfigured, surpasses the outward world of reahty. In his imitative efforts man resembles his Creator, and reproduces in portraiture that world which the great Architect first created. It is by this multiform agency of knowledge and power that man fulfils his earthly vocation. But man belongs not to this world alone (33). His spirit dwells on the borders of a better world, which projects into this life, and has other laws than those of our natural life. Our destination is not accomplished in this hfe, nor does it attain its end in culture and its progress. We have a still higher des tination, in which alone our soul can be truly satisfied, — a destination which directs us beyond time and space, which directs us to God. It may be said that the question of a higher world, the question of the supernatural, is the question of the age. The tendency of the age is to deny it. Such rich domains of this visible world have been opened up to us, that we are seduced into thinking that it is all that exists, all that we need. But the denial of another and better world is a degradation of man. It robs him of his highest His Relation to the World and to God. 147 glory ; t for this consists in penetrating into that spiritual world, of which God is the Lord, and Jesus Christ the revelation. Such a denial is a misconcep tion of man's essential nature. For it is our essential nature that we have eternity within us, and are created for eternity. It is this eternity which we ought to carry into and impress upon this perishable world, that it may become a vessel filled with eternal treasures. It is our highest dignity that, though placed in this transitory world, we are destined for an eternal one — that is, for God. Prophets and kings of this visible world, we are at the same time priests of the eternal world; for it is our sublime and glorious part as priests to consecrate all that we prophetically know and royally rule — all those mental images and emotions of our inner world which with creative agency we fashion into forms, sounds, and words of beauty — to Him after whose likeness we were made, and for whose glory we were created. Man's true fetation to the world is found in his relation to God. We bear His features, we boast of being His offspring; if man is a minor world, he is at the same time a minor God, — God's representative upon earth, to offer up himself and the world to God, and to be the living bond between God and the world. In other words, man's highest destination and his true life is religion. And the destination of religion is to be the soul of this earthly life. LECTUEE VI. RELIGION. flELIGION is a universal fact. It is found among all nations. However perverted, alienated, degraded^ there is still every where a common impulse, a universal instinct, which seeks its satisfaction and manifests, itself in reh gious forms and ceremonies. ' You may see states,' says Plutarch, ' without walls, without laws, with out coins, without writing; but a ipeople without a god, without prayer, without religious exercises and sacrifices, has no man seen' (lV^For a consciousness of the existence of God evaf-ywhere exists, and man cannot think of Godjmhout attributing to himself some kind of relation towards Him ; and this is religion. The ivtiiversality of religion is a proof of its intrinsic, necessity. It is not a notion which men may ha^e or may be without. They cannot help having religion. It is not the invention of individuals, which others may have let themselves be persuaded into. It can as little be called an invention as eat ing, drinking, sleeping, or talking. It is a thing- natural, intrinsically necessary, rooted in man's very Religion Rooted in the Nature of Man. 149 nature. As surely as the idea of God is rooted in man's nature, so surely does this idea presuppose a real relation to this God whom man knows, from whom and to whom he knows himself to be, and whom he acknowledges as the reason and aim of his existence ; and this is religion. Religion is an inalienable, intrin sic possession of man. The very existence of man pre supposes the religious craving, the seeking after God. God and man cannot remain apart from each other, cannot maintain indifference towards each other: they struggle towards each other from an intrinsic necessity, they exist for each other ; for God will be the God of man, and man is to be a man of God. There is in God an inward tendency towards man; for He willed that man should exist : man is the first and last thought of God, the resolution of His will, the beloved of His heart. There is in man an inward tendency towards God ; for he proceeded from the will of God, he was made by and for God. The will of God, as it is the reason of his existence, is also the law of his life, and the aim of his efforts. God is the deepest need of man, his highest aim, and that for which he is incessantly striving. Man must strive. To live is to strive. He who does not strive has ceased to live. But man must not only strive ; his striving must be directed towards the highest object of which he can form a conception. In the greatness of the end which he sets before himself consists the greatness of man himself. Only the highest aim of his efforts, the highest object of his thoughts, of his will, of his heart, is quite 150 Lect. VI. — Religion. worthy of man, or capable of affording him satisfac tion. God is this highest object. The whole life of our soul, all the powers of our mind, do not find their aim, their truth, till they find God. In Him the heart finds its happiness, the reason its truth, the will its true freedom. The heart is ever disquieted in the world ; it cannot find its rest in things transitory ; it can only find repose in a great heart, — in God. Our reason ascends from the particular to the general, to the absolute, to the highest reason, to the highest truth. This highest object of which we think, which in thinking of we seek, must be analogous to the thinking mind, not a thing, not an abstraction, but itself a thinking mind, an absolute Ego, — God. 'Give me a great thought,' says Herder frequently, 'that I may live upon it ' (2). The greatest thought, and that on which we truly live, is God. The will strives after freedom, after moral freedom. It seeks it in moral perfection, in the realization of the moral law ; and does not find its freedom, and therefore its truth, till it finds it in the union of the finite will with the supreme will, — with God. In short, man strives after the infinite, but the infinite has reality in God alone. Man is for God, and tends towards Him. Communion with God is the truth of man, religion his true life. Without religion he cannot be truly called man. Religion is rooted in our very nature. There is a tie between us and God, — a tie of relationship. We are His offspring. As the voice of blood forms among men a bond of fellowship, so is the tie of relationship Religion. Rooted in the Nature of Man. 151 between us and God an attraction which draws our souls upwards to Him. When the noise of external life is silenced, when the inward voices are hushed, and our minds turn within, we feel this attraction. It draws us all involuntarily towards the supreme and the infinite ; and we all have within a craving to sur render ourselves to this Supreme Being, that in Him we may first find our true selves, but purified and freed from every evil quality. It is a craving for love, for personal love, for fellowship, for intimate familiar intercourse, — a craving after God, an attraction towards Him. As the eye seeks light, and as it is both its nature and necessity to seek it, so do our thoughts seek the light of eternal truth, ' the sun of our souls,' our heart's eternal love, — God. As the master law of attraction pervades all nature, so does a law of mental, moral, and spiritual attraction proceeding from God, the Sun of the universe, pervade the world of mind. As iron tends towards the magnet, as rivers empty themselves into the sea, as the stone is attracted to wards the earth, so is the soul drawn to God, its origin, its home. We may restrain the tendency of things, but we cannot abolish the law of attraction. We may oppose and obstruct our souls and their search after God, but we cannot eradicate from our hearts the attraction towards God; it remains a law of our being. The heart may err, may deceive itself, may choose that which is not God, — the mean, the perishable, — nay, even that which is opposed to God; yet, after all, it is really intending God, it is craving after Him, and 152 Lect. VI. — Religion. will not find happiness till it finds Him (3). This tie between God and us, this attraction of the soul towards Him, is the foundation of all religion, all positive reli gion, all revelation. Such is the basis of religion in man ; we pass on to its dwelling-place in his inmost soul. Religion is a direct, an intrinsic fact of human life. To convince the irreligious generation of his days of this truth was the act of Schleiermacher, — an act most fruitful in results. And it is certain that religion is present in man's inmost being, prior to all reflection, to all religious thought and feehng. It is the hearth on which the inward fire is kindled ; its place is in the very centre of man's being. It is im possible to fix upon any single mental faculty and designate it as the abode of religion, which is rather found where all the intellectual and spiritual faculties combine to form a direct unity. Religion is a matter of knowledge ; for to know God and Christ is eternal life (John xvii. 3). And naturally so ; for that which is the concern of our inner life, and of supreme interest, must be also a matter of knowledge. But religion is not merely a subject of knowledge, since it would then consist merely of doctrines which may be known, and would not be a life which must be lived. Knowledge does not make a man pious, nor does orthodoxy con stitute him a believer. It is a matter of the will ; for it must be a moral act, and Jesus Himself describes a willingness to do God's will as the path to truth (John vii. 17). Nor does anything become of true Nature of. Religion. 153 value to us till the consent of the will bestows import ance upon it. But religion is not a mere willing and doing, it is also a matter of feeling ; for it is the happiness (Gal. iv. 15), the joy of man, — peace and joy in the Holy Ghost (Rom. xiv. 17). But neither is it this alone ; it is at once knowing, willing, and feeling, because it is the matter of the whole inner man, of the root of his personal life, whether we call this mind, nature, or, as Scripture designates it, the heart. For the Bible transfers the abode of religion, and the presence of religious life, to the heart. The word must pierce the heart (Acts ii. 37) ; the heart must be open to the word (Acts xvi. 14) ; the heart is the organ of faith (Rom. x. 10). This inner life, which we call religion, assumes different forms in different cases : with some it takes more the form of knowledge, with others more that of will, with others more that of feeling ; but under all its various aspects, its nature, where it is genuine and true, is ever one and the same (4). This religion, then, which is thus the matter of our inmost soul — what is it ? and wherein does its essence consist ? We cannot but reply that its primary form is faith. All religion is faith ; for faith is that mental act in which my whole inner being, my knowledge, feeling, and will, combine in uniting themselves to that which is the object of my faith. Scripture defines faith as 'the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen ' (Heb. xi. 1). Hence faith is not a 154 Lect. VI— Religion. mere opinion or view, but an assured confidence, and that of things beyond the reach of the senses. The objects of faith are ever invisible ; for what a man sees is not a matter of faith, but of vision. But what is not seen, and yet believed in, is not merely admitted and esteemed to be true, but becomes a matter of the firmest persuasion. And this persuasion is not arbi trary or imaginary, but is inwardly confirmed. All faith rests upon such confirmation ; not, indeed, upon a demonstration addressed to the intellect, but upon direct inward conviction, by means of which I have a direct perception of the matter in question, and receive an irresistible impression thereof. This inward con viction and experience is the foundation of all true faith. If I am so persuaded of the friendship and love of a fellow-man as to feel secure of it, in spite of all that may be said by others, and even in spite of appearances to the contrary, what other reason have I for believing in it than that I have received an inward impression which has produced this direct and con fident assurance ? It is upon this inward experience that my faith is founded. And this is the case also with religious faith. For the object of religious faith, though invisible and beyond the grasp of sense, is as much a reality as the love or friendship of a man. I am therefore as capable of being inwardly affected by it, and of a direct experience and feehng of its influence and effects. That which has become in this direct manner my own inward possession, I may, and indeed must, then be able to justify by reasonable argument ; but Faith, Love, and Hope. 155 faith does not ultimately rest upon such justifications and proofs, but is a direct matter of the inner life. In this directness, feeling, knowledge, and will combine. For as, in the matter of human love or friendship, I first feel, i.e. inwardly perceive, that some one loves me, and my heart is touched thereby, so also is religious faith just as direct a perception and emotion produced by the eternal world, and by God Himself, and therefore a feeling. But with this feeling is combined at the same time a direct knowledge. Much that concerns the object of my faith may still remain concealed and unknown, but its inmost and peculiar nature is directly evident to me, and becomes a part of my knowledge when I inwardly perceive and am moved by it. And this is a knowledge in which full persuasion and firm assurance are inherent, because it is a knowledge based upon experience. What, then, I accept by means of such knowledge and assurance, becomes at the same time a matter of my will. For it is an act of my will that I heartily combine with what I believe, and make it a part of my inner life. Faith is a free act. Faith is, in one aspect, involun tary ; he who believes cannot help believing : it is, so to speak, inflicted upon him ; he is vanquished, he is forced to believe. But, again, it is an act, and his own act, that he believes ; for, as Fichte says, faith is the will's determination to let knowledge have its legitimate effect (5). Faith is not based upon a demonstration which so compels my assent that I can no more help believing than in the case of 156 Lect. VI. — Religion. mathematical axioms, but upon a moral conviction, which makes me willing to believe. And he who is unwilling to believe can by no means be brought to do so : God has taken care that he should ever find seemingly sufficient reasons and excuses for his lack of faith, which hide, even from himself, that deepest cause of his unbelief, his unwillingness to believe. Faith is a free, because a moral act ; yet not an act of mere inclination and caprice, but one whose cause is found within a man's heart, for it is based upon the inward conviction of our moral nature of the truth and reality of what we believe. Love and hope are united with, and included in, this faith. For faith's appropriation does not take place without love's surrender. All hearty appropria tion requires surrender to that which we appropriate, whether such appropriation result from faith or know ledge. All true knowledge requires that we should both love and be engrossed by the object of knowledge. I cannot fully beheve in and accept the love of another, unless there is the surrender of love within my own heart. So neither is religious faith unaccompanied by love. Love is the present life of religion. And this present life is accompanied by hope's assurance of the future ; for God is a God of the future, and I cannot rejoice in present communion with Him with out being happily certain of enjoying it in the future. Love and hope combine with faith in the one har monious whole which we designate the religious life. The essential manifestation of this life is prayer. Prayer. 157 Of all created beings on earth, man is the only one who prays. Prayer is the concern of man alone, but of man universally. There is no one thing more natural, more universal, nothing which he can less avoid than prayer. The child is, as it were, self- taught to practise it ; and the invisible world to which prayer gives it access is, as it were, its familiar home. The old man, when he feels lonely in the world around him, withdraws into prayer. Prayer flows. spontaneously from the childish lips which can as yet scarcely lisp the name of God, and from the dying lips which can hardly any longer pronounce it. Wherever man exists, there are certain seasons and certain circumstances when he will, with heartfelt emotion, lift up his eyes, fold his hands, and bow his knees in prayer. Among all nations, the unknown and the renowned, the civilised and the barbarous, we meet at every step with acts and forms of invocation. None are without prayer, for none are without religion (6). Prayer did not first arise by the care of men ; prayer is not a subject of instruction, but the heart's direct and involuntary expression, immediately and naturally involved in the relation of man to God. For this relation is not one devoid of intercourse, and prayer is the expression of this intercourse. It was in Israel, indeed, in the soil of revelation, that it came to perfection. Here only had it that childlike con fidence of heart -communion with God of which Scripture furnishes so many and so powerful examples, 158 Lect. VI. — Religion. — examples which must remain models for all ages. But even the heathen world was not without prayer, for it was not without consciousness of God, and of belonging to Him. If its life was not a life of prayer, as that of the pious in Israel was, yet prayer was a custom which prevailed in, and encircled all the acts both of public and private life, and the higher the nation ranked, the more did it practise this cus tom of prayer. It should put us to shame to see how, among the Greeks and Romans, no public act was undertaken without sacrifice and prayer, and how none ofthe transactions of private life were left un con secrated thereby. Poets, philosophers, and statesmen equally exhort to prayer, or practise it, and the customs of the people were in harmony with this fact. When Telemachus, the son of Ulysses, came to Pylos with his suite to visit Nestor, the first word which Pisis- tratus Nestorides addressed to the newly arrived guest was an invitation first of all to pray to the gods, for 'Mortals stand all in need of the gods.' Homer also expresses the religious feeling of his era. Xeno phon, moreover, relates of Socrates that he gave the precept ' of beginning ever}' work with the gods, since the gods are the masters of the affairs both of peace and war.' It is well known, and evident from many passages of his writings, how great was the import ance the pious Xenophon himself attached to prayer. Plato likewise designates it as the best and noblest act of a virtuous man to live in continual intercourse with the gods, by prayers and vows, and in all that he does, Prayer. 159 in his least as well as in his greatest acts, first to invoke the gods. Nor were the statesmen of Greece and Rome less frequent in the use of prayer. Pericles, the great Athenian statesman, so renowned for the power of his intellect, never began to address an audience without first praying to the gods. Cornelius Scipio, the great Roman general, when once he had assumed the toga, never undertook any affair of importance without having passed some time alone in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. And as Demos thenes, the most celebrated of Athenian orators, in his great orations was wont first to address the gods, so is it also related of Cato and the Gracchi, and of all the orators of Rome, that they always began their orations by invoking the gods. This was, moreover, only the expression of the custom ofthe whole nation ; 'There is no religious maxim more established in public and domestic life than that everything must be begun with the godhead, that is, with sacrifice and prayer.' Every public act, every march, every battle, every assumption of a public office, every judicial pro ceeding, every national assembly, every political treaty, etc., in short, all and every transaction of political life was consecrated by prayer. And this was equally the case in all the more important events of domestic life, marriage and birth, the beginning of adolescence, a prosperous return from a journey, or preservation from danger. So, too, all the festivities of the people, their dramatic spectacles and athletic contests, all received a religious consecration by prayers and sacri- 160 Lect. VI. — Religion. fices — in short, every act of life was pervaded by religion, and supported and surrounded by prayer (7). It must be confessed, indeed, that prayer among the ancients was in reality rather the conscientious fulfil ment of a religious duty ; that at first, also, it con sisted more of supplication than thanksgiving, and was generally united with a certain claim to have the petition granted. But prayer for moral benefits is not entirely absent ; and prayer, under whatever alienation from its rightful objects, is still an expres sion of the religious life. With religion, prayer itself declined, and its decline was the forerunner of ex ternal dissolution. For with prayer the true soul of the religious hfe departed. The heathenism of the present day can hardly any longer be truly said to be a praying religion, so much has prayer become an external mechanical act, — an indictment against the petitioner himself. Yet, even in this degenerate state, it is still a testimony to man's need of prayer. What, then, is prayer? It is the indication of intercourse with God. He who prays departs from the world which encompasses him, leaves the disquiet and noise of that external life which is ever tossing restlessly around him, and enters into himself. We live so much out of ourselves, in prayer we resort to ourselves, enter into the inmost depths of our being, into the inmost sanctuary of the soul. We then lay aside our handiwork, our thought-work, and retreat into privacy and silence, to find repose, to get breath ing time, to be really with ourselves ; yet to be with Faith Manifested in Prayer. 161 ourselves only for the sake of being with God, for God is present in our being's depths. God is with us, and we with God, in our soul's inner sanctuary. The outer man is in the world : the inner man ought to be in God, and God in him. We enter into ourselves that we may betake ourselves to God, may bring our selves and all that affects us before God. Prayer is love's yearning to pour out everything into the bosom of God. It is the act of trustful surrender, which leaves everything in His hands. Nothing is too insignificant to bring thus before God, if it has but become of real importance to us. Our secret relation to God proves and expresses its vitality in this inter course of prayer. Without this it is but dead. Sur render to God in prayer is an intrinsically necessary expression and proof of love. In prayer we resign ourselves and all that interests us to God. This is the highest kind of giving. But this highest kind of giving is at the same time the highest kind of receiving ; for while in prayer we forsake this perish ing and transitory world, we enter the eternal world and breathe its atmosphere. Prayer is this secret breathing of the soul. This breathing of the air of eternity is as necessary to the life of the soul as breathing the air of the earth we live in is to that of the body. This world of God, however, is a world of peace and strength, and prayer diffuses a spirit of peace over our life. The soul rests in prayer. Then are the storms and passions of the heart silenced ; the unrest of its cares and anxieties, of its sufferings, 162 Lect. VI. — Religion. and even of its joys, ceases. And thus fresh vigour and cheerfulness arise within us. As the bracing air of the mountains fills us with a sense of renewed power, so do we in prayer breathe an atmosphere of divine encouragement, and come forth from the inner sanctuary of communion with God to enter with new alacrity into external life, with its tasks, its duties, its burdens, and its griefs ; but in such wise that while still in the midst of the troubles and turmoil of our daily work, our hearts dwell in the Sabbath and sanctuary of prayer. Life is a compound of prayer and work. It is not as though these were two separate agencies in merely external combination or mutual alternation ; they must ever be united with and in each other. The one does not exclude but requires the other, as the inner and outer man, as soul and body. Prayer requires work, and work requires prayer. Work must be the outward and visible form of prayer : prayer must be the soul of work, the soul of life in general; no isolated and external act added to another isolated and external act, but the ever-present background of every action, that which vitally pervades and supports our every thought and deed, whence all must originate, and towards which all must tend, that our whole conduct may become an embodied prayer. It is by prayer that life on earth is connected with eternity, is sunk in it, grows out of it. The greatness of prayer con sists in the fact that it transposes this life of time into the sphere of eternity, fills it with eternal value, Faith Manifested in Prayer. 163 and brings it into direct communication with God Himself. Hence there is nothing which more exalts and honours man than prayer. On one side, indeed, it is man's abasement before God, but on the other it is also his elevation towards God ; for is it not truly an elevation for man to address God Himself, the Supreme, the absolute mind — to attract Him towards his particular interests, to lay his concerns before Him — nay, to influence His decisions? For when St. Paul says, ' We are workers together with God,' he means that we perform our part in the works of God. This we do by means of prayer. But how can these things be ? None can tell this. These are invisible combinations which utterly escape our observation. Yet, though we cannot track out the ways upon which God and man meet, the fact remains — its reality is entirely independent of our knowledge. By prayer we influence God's acts and decisions ; nay, we may even dare to say, that by prayer men participate in the divine omnipotence, and have a share in God's government of the world. For prayer is a power in the world, which it pleases God to take up into the mingled web of His government ; and the love of God places this power at the bidding of even a silent sigh, which is produced by Himself. Nor is it too bold to say, with Vinet, ' God will call the sigh a prayer, and prayer power : and the power of God will, if I may venture to say it, bow before the power which He has placed in a sigh, which is from Him self (8). 164 Lect. VI. — Religion. Kant, indeed, thought prayer ' a slight paroxysm of madness ; ' for any one caught at prayer by another is ' perplexed and confused, as if found in a condition he had cause to be ashamed of, since, though alone, his occupation and gestures are such as become no one who has not some one present beside himself, which, however, is not the case in the supposed example ' (9). This is not to be wondered at, for no one can appre ciate prayer who is ignorant of a real personal relation to God ; and Kant, though he acknowledges a per sonal God, admits of no true relation to Him, but puts in its stead obedience to the moral law. But as truly as there is a living personal God, and a real and personal relation to Him, so truly is prayer both natural and necessary, and religion, or a religious man, without prayer, simply impossible. And if Kant demands obedience to the moral law in place of religion, it may be replied, that though religion neither can nor ought to exist without morality, reli gion is not itself morality. The two exist in combi nation : where the one is wanting we shall certainly not find the other, as St. John expresses it in his First Epistle, in which he thus points out and reminds us of the connection between religion. and morality in general (iv. 20) : ' He that loveth not his brother, whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from Him, that he who loveth God, love his brother also.' Now the love of our neighbour or brother is unquestionably the soul of morality, and love to God Religion and Morality. 165 the soul of religion. The two are inseparable. But for this very reason the two are not one and the same. Kant's great error consisted in converting religion into morality. And it is still a very widely diffused error, a result of rationalistic opinion, to make morality the main part, at least, of religion, and to regard its other part, viz. doctrine, as the less essential and less important ; while, in fact, doc trine is no more religion itself than is morality. Morality is perfection of character, man's conformity to the divine image ; religion, on the contrary, is vital, personal union with God, a real relation to Him, by means of which we dwell in fellowship with Him, and refer all things to Him. If we call morality the fruit of religion, the latter must at least be regarded as the root. Morality cannot be severed from religion, for when God is no longer its foundation and source, it perishes ; its authority, power, and vitality are de stroyed. In individual cases, indeed, it may be severed, as a branch which, after being cut off, may for a time retain its verdure, but its sap being gradually exhausted, it dries up and withers, as morality does if deprived of the vital supplies flowing from religion. We have seen, then, that faith and love to God are the essence, and that prayer is the manifestation ' and expression of religion; let us now consider the position religion occupies in life. Religion has often been supposed to be prejudicial to natural life, its tasks and interests, because it directs us to an invisible world, and withdraws our attention 166 Lect. VI. — Religion. from this, in which, nevertheless, we live, and in which arc our callings and duties. But this is not the case. Religion is, on the contrary, the strength even of our earthly life ; for, being a real intercourse with God, in whom is the spring, the root, and aim of our whole being, it opens up to us the deepest source of all our vital powers, and diffuses its fertilizing streams over our whole existence, even over this its earthly and temporal part. Thus religion is a strength even to our natural life. It does not stunt, but develops life. Among certain religionists it may, indeed, seem to do so ; but this is not the fault of religion itself, but of these its profess'ors ; it is not its use, but its abuse that produces such an effect. Certainly religion entails the renunciation of all that is sinful in natural life ; for, being life in God, it denies all that is ungodly in life. , But our natural life itself, as God created and would have it to be, and as in itself a real good and a fulness of blessings, it does not deny, but assents to, and perfects its development. Religion is, as it were, its forcing power (Triebkraft). It is like the warmer -summer sun, which brings forth the more lovely flowers, while at the same time it sheds over all the products of this earthly life the perfume of a higher consecration, by referring them all to God. It is an actual historical fact that human life owes to religion its best and fullest development. Religion is the most ancient kind of life of which we have any historical knowledge ; for the farther back we go, the more do we find that such records of the human mind Connection of Mental Culture with Religion. 167 as we possess are connected with religion. Religion is the fruitful womb from which the whole intellectual life of mankind has been developed. All higher human culture is the daughter of religion, — a grown up one, indeed, as she should be, for she has her own special task, and vocation ; but the tie of filial piety unites even a grown-up and independent daughter to the mother. And we should regard that daughter as deserving severe moral reprobation who was wanting in filial duty towards the mother whose fostering care she imagined herself no longer to need, and should feel certain that, with such sentiments, no blessing could rest upon her life. An exactly parallel case is the relation of mental culture to religion. It now pursues its own peculiar path independently. And rightly so. But it is guilty of moral injustice, and no blessing can rest upon it, if it contemptuously severs that spiritual bond of piety by which it is bound to religion. Religion ought not to exercise an external sway over the realm of mental culture, nor to pre scribe its limits, measure, or scope, but should treat it as now of full age. The internal influence, however, and the vital connection existing between them, should never cease. This historical connection of mental culture with religion may be traced in every department. The most ancient history of civilisation is essentially a history of religion. At first, civilisation actually con sisted in religion. The guardians of religion were the guardians and vehicles of education. The sciences, 168 Lect. VI. — Religion. jurisprudence, astronomy, history, were the business of the priests. The arts grew up and were cherished in the service of religion. Architecture was from the beginning the queen of the plastic arts; the others depended upon her, and it was but gradually that they attained a separate and independent existence. It was in the service of religion that architecture was chiefly fostered. The mighty rock temples and pagodas of India, the magnificent pillared structures of Greece, the lofty cathedrals of Christendom, what are they but speaking witnesses to thisy'relation of service ? And the same is the case/with the other plastic arts. The sculpture of Greece took the gods and their sublime forms for its subject, before it passed over to the representation of profj^; hfe. The best and richest produce of paintirin-eg aound within the Christian Church, in religioife -fifing, whence all other branches, and especj[n(j as "• I ^ighest branch of this art, historical painti#-t ^Qes ^ Vsen. Music was first employed in the s righteousness reigns upon earth, guilt no longer oppresses the conscience, passion no longer enslaves the reason and will, and we our selves are no longer either ashamed or afraid to appear in the presence of the Holy One. We call Possibility of Revelation. 193 this our ideal, the kingdom of God. It is the recon ciliation of all contradictions, the end of history, its motive and accelerating power. This kingdom of God is not the natural result of events. We cannot gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles. The kingdom of God must be an act of God Himself, the result of His revelation. The final reason, then, for the need of revelation is found in the moral rupture of our being, in sin, if we are to be rescued therefrom. 3. Many objections have, indeed, been raised to the possibility of revelation. But these may easily be obviated. There is, in fact, but one valid one, and that is : There is no God. They who deny the existence of a living and personal God cannot concede the possibility of revelation. Various, however, are the reasons which are sought, that this real and only reason may be concealed. To those, however, who believe in a living and personal God, the possibility of revelation is but the simple result of His existence. For how should He who is life be devoid of motion — He who is love be silent ? Such a fact would be in contradiction with His nature. How evident so ever might be the proofs of His existence, such an inconsistency could not but shake our faith. So little, indeed, is revelation inconsistent with the nature of God, that it is rather its absence which would be so (16). It is a strange objection which is made, when it is asserted that we form a worthier notion of God and 194 Lect. VII. — Revelation. His perfections by supposing it unnecessary for Him to improve upon His creation of a world by supple menting it with a revelation. As if the improvement of God's works, and not rather the wants of us poor sin ful men, were the matter in question,- — of us, whom God must first approach with His grace and truth, that we may come to Him. Or when it is thought that by revelation the human mind is condemned to a mere passivity unworthy of it, and inconsistent with its nature, which is an active one, and requires self- exertion. On the contrary, the fact is, that what is truly best, even the best thoughts, are given to us ; while our part is to receive them and to work them out, when they rise like stars upon the horizon of our mental life. If in all things we are first receivers and afterwards spontaneous agents, this is more especially the case when the highest kind of truth and communion with God are in question. In short, whether we look at God or at ourselves, we are constrained to admit that revelation, far from being impossible, is rather consistent with the exist- once of God and of ourselves, with our nature and necessities. 4. But even though all this should be admitted, there still remains one stumbling-block insuperable to modern thought, and that is miracles (17). He who says revelation, says miracles. But miracles, it is asserted, are impossible. The ancient world admitted the possibility of miracles, and therefore held them to be genuine, and believed in them. We know that Miracles and the Laws of Nature. 195 they are impossible. The ancient world felt itself obliged to explain supernaturally many things which it was unable to explain naturally, and thus betook itself to the admission of the miraculous. We have penetrated far more deeply into the secrets of nature, and have a far more extensive knowledge of its laws and forces. The modern mind has cast a light upon that mysterious primeval forest of miracle, and banished its obscurity; and that which is not yet clear will soon become so. The modern mind requires that everything should occur naturally. Miracles are a contradiction to the modern mind, which cannot but declare miracles, and consequently revelation, impossible. It certainly is a requirement of the mind to think of everything in its natural and necessary association. Is, then, everything comprised within the province of necessity? is there not also a province of freedom? Man lives, indeed, under the law of necessity, so far as he is a natural being, so far as he is an object of natural history. But is man only a natural being? is he not also a personal and moral, and therefore a free one? Is he only a physical object? is he not also an ethical one ? And the province of ethics is above that of physics. If, then, man is free because he is a personal and moral being, is not this true of God above all other beings ? Is God, then, so bound by His own natural laws as not to be at liberty to act? We must deny God Himself if we deny that He can work miracles. Even Rousseau 196 Lect. VII. — Revelation. expresses himself so strongly on this matter, that I should not like to adopt his expressions without, some qualification. ' This question,' says he, namely, whether God can work miracles, ' seriously treated, would be impious if it were not absurd ; and it would be doing too much honour to him who should answer it in the negative to punish him ; it would be suffi cient to keep him in custody. But who has ever denied that God can work miracles ? ' He proceeds, indeed, to say that, ' to establish the genuineness of a miracle, we need to understand the laws and forces of nature in their full extent ''(18). And it is an objection often advanced against the possibility of miracles, that we cannot attain to a certainty of their genuineness. But this appeal to unknown laws in order to escape an admission of the miraculous, would be really what Kant calls the principle of a lazy reason. . We all know well enough that there can be no unknown law of nature whereby a dead man can become alive again. Why, too, should negative criticism take the trouble of disputing a whole series of scriptural narratives, if the genuineness of a miracle can in no case be authenticated, and every one may be attributed to certain unknown natural laws ? A belief in the supernatural is indeed the foundation of all religion (19). Miracles are just as reasonable as religion, or as this belief. Do we not believe that the world was created ? And what is creation but the first miracle ? For is it not truly miraculous that anything should arise not caused by existing natural Miracles. 197 laws and forces, or at least not fully caused by them, but including something entirely new, introduced into the order of nature without being its effect ? And this is in the highest sense true of creation. Nor is it less so of the redemption of mankind, or of the inward renewal of an individual by the power of divine grace. For in all these cases there is a new fact, which is not the mere product of pre-existing causes. The power of such free and miraculous action exists in the very nature of God ; and this is a fact which we all involuntarily acknowledge. We pray. And what is this but believing in miracles ? For we thus show that we believe God to be a free agent, not necessarily bound to the existing order of things, but directing them according to His will. For we might as well cease from prayer, and from all hope of obtaining our requests, if only that is to happen which must happen, and not that which God chooses shall happen. We commend ourselves, we commend our friends, to the protection of God ; we invoke Him in distress, we pray to Him for the removal of an evil, we entreat for the recovery of the sick, we hope for the help of God, etc. And what does all this mean, but that we believe in a living God, who can do what He will ? Certainly His will is not an arbitrary one, but the result of higher purposes ; yet He does what He does because He will, not because He must. And this is natural to God, for, as Jean Paul says, ' miracles on earth are natural events in heaven ' (20). Can He be said to be hindered by the course of nature ? Matthias 198 Lect. VII. — Revelation. Claudius once said (iii. 29) : ' Whether the prayer of an agitated soul can affect or effect anything, or whether the nexus rerum (i.e. the natural course of events) does not allow this, as some doctors think, I will not contend. I have every respect for the nexus rerum, but cannot help thinking of Samson, who left the nexus of the two gates of Gaza quite unbroken, and yet carried them to the top of the hill ; in short, I believe that the rain falls when it is dry, and that the hart does not pant in vain for the water-springs if any one does but pray heartily and think rightly.' But it is said, Do not miracles abolish the laws of nature ; and is this conceivable after they have once been instituted ? Is not God, then, the God also of nature's laws ? What are they but the act of His free will? Can He not subordinate them to a higher will and purpose ? But miracles do not abolish natural laws, they only withdraw individual occurrences from their control, and place them under a higher will and a higher force. We may find several analogies to this in a lower sphere. If my arm hurls a stone into the air, this is contrary to the nature of the stone, and not an effect of the law of gravitation ; but a higher force and a higher will are introduced, producing effects which are not the effects of lower forces. And yet these powers and laws are not abolished thereby, but continue to exist. And so, in the case of miracles, a higher causality interposes, and produces effects which are not the effects of the natural order of lower caus alities, but which afterwards conform to this order (21). Miracles. 199 The ultimate purpose, moreover, of this higher caus ality is identical with the highest moral aims of existence. To contribute to these is the best and noblest office of nature. If, then, miracles coincide in this office, if their motive is a moral and not an arbitrary one, they are not contrary to nature and her destination, but in the highest sense comformable therewith. The highest moral aim, however, is that of divine love. It is divine love which takes power into its service ; it is the redemption of mankind which carries on its new and higher history upon the soil of creation ; it is in the salvation which is in Christ Jesus that the reason and justification of miracles, because of revelation, are to be found. He. who believes in Jesus Christ believes also in miracles. For Jesus Christ is a miracle. He is not a mere product of natural antecedents and conditions. How much soever we may account for by natural causes, there yet remains to every one who appre ciates the person and history of Jesus as they really were, even though he should not believe in Him in the orthodox sense, but should only see in Him per haps a religious genius, or something of the kind — there yet remains, we repeat, even to such an one, an inexplicable residuum, which cannot be regarded as a mere product of natural antecedents and conditions, but which leads beyond the limits of natural causes to the supreme source of all higher life, to God Himself, and must be regarded as a new and direct act and gift of God. And this is the proper notion of 200 Lect. VII— Revelation. a miracle, viz. that it is a free act of God, not originating from any co-operation of the pre-existing powers of nature, but proceeding from God, and entering into connection with them. The order of nature is not violently interrupted thereby, but receives something which is most intrinsically adapted to it. When we say Christ is a miracle, are we saying that He is an act of arbitrary power? By no means. History both demanded and assumed Him. History had reached the point at which it required the person and deeds of Jesus Christ. Yet history could not produce, but must receive them. Jesus Christ was a moral necessity, yet not a natural but a super natural fact. The supernatural, however, becomes natural, because it is a requirement of the natural. Natural life produced the demand, but not the supply. The supply was an immediate act of God; but inasmuch as it was the supply of a want, it was in perfect harmony with nature. Hence miracles are no interruption of the order of nature, but rather its completion. But if this applies to Jesus Christ, it applies also to all revelation. For Jesus Christ is not isolated in history ; He makes no abrupt entrance upon its scene, but is the goal of a long course of previous history, whose final result He is. We call this history : sacred history, revelation. Christ is the governing idea of the whole ; for it is He who is aimed at from the very first. Hence it partakes, equally with His appearance, of the character of the miraculous. And Miracles and Revelation. 201 all preceding and subsequent miracles find their justi fication in the fact that they are connected with Him, that they form parts of that one revealed history of which He is the centre (22). Such are their moral conditions. And it is herein that the miracles of the Bible are distinguished from all others. There is in them an entire absence of that fantastic, fabulous, or arbitrary element which is found in all other (so-called) miracles. We need only compare our gospels with the apocryphal gospels, or the life of Jesus with that of Mahomet, to be con vinced that they are as far removed as the east is from the west from such fictitious events. The critical acumen of Niebuhr was, as is admitted, inferior to that of no man, and he has done away with only too much of the ancient history of Rome ; yet he acknowledged, 'with respect to a miracle in the strictest sense of the word, it needs but an unprejudiced and searching investigation of nature to perceive that the miracles here related are anything but absurd ; and a comparison with the legends or so-called miracles of other religions is all that is requisite to enable us to perceive what a different spirit dwells in them ' (23). In short, miracles are not arbitrary acts, but morally necessary, as forming a part of revelation. What, then, is their true relation to revelation ? In the first place, they are the most popular form of authentication ; they ever have been, and ever will be, demanded as a palpable proof that a higher power 202 Lect. VII. — Revelation. manifested itself in this history, and was aiming in it at the salvation of our souls. They are, besides, the external representation of the thing itself : miracles are a translation of subjects purely spiritual into the hieroglyphics of nature. Nature is a world of sym bolism. Miracles are the highest kind of symbolism. The blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the lepers are cleansed, etc., is the answer sent by Jesus to the Baptist. Jesus did not come into the world for the sake of healing the blind, the dumb, the lame ; but the miracle of the Spirit, the miracle of the spiritual and inward renewal of man, was to be represented to dim-sighted mortals in the typical language of external acts. And, finally, miracles are an essential element of revelation itself. Jesus Christ is the miracle, for He is the revelation. We believe not merely because of miracles, we believe in the miracle that He is ; and the miracle which he Him self is, was necessary, if we were to be saved. And this is to say that it was also possible. A miracle is possible because revelation is possible. Revelation is in accordance with the nature and will of God, who is life and love, and with our nature and necessities. 5. But how are we to discern whether revelation is genuine and true ? All religions appeal to revela tion. How, then, does the Christian religion prove that it alone, above all others, is really founded thereon ? We are not now about to institute a comparison be tween Christianity and Judaism or Heathenism. We shall speak subsequently of this matter. Our present Testimony of the Apostles. 203 inquiry is : What is our authority for believing that Christianity is a genuine revelation, and that it is truth ? Let us then summon the various witnesses to Chris tian truth, and hear their testimony (24). We have the testimony of the Apostles. Their writings are per vaded by a spirit of sincerity. They meant, at least, to relate the truth. Indeed, they could have had no interest in doing otherwise. Nor could those who deal in falsehoods speak as they do. Their sober- mindedness is also very evident. They are not a multitude of blind fanatics and enthusiasts ; they are men of sound sense and strong nerves. Renan may call Mary Magdalene a ' personne exalte'e,' because he cannot understand such devotion to the person of Jesus Christ ; but even he is forced to confess that the Galilean fishermen were sober-minded men : -and the modern attempt to transform St. Paul into a nervous visionary is simply absurd (25). Now St. Paul says, in the first place, that he himself wrought miracles. When writing to the Corinthians, he appeals for the corroboration of his apostolic authority most emphati cally to the fact that ' the signs of an apostle,' i.e. miracles, were wrought among them (2 Cor. xii. 12, and also Rom. xv. 18, 19) (26). Then the apostles declared with one mouth, ' We are His witnesses.' ' That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, declare we unto you.' And St. Luke, who was not an eye-witness, assures us that he had 204 Lect. VII. — Revelation. ' perfect understanding of all things from the very first,' and writes to Theophilus that he might know the certainty of those things wherein he had been instructed. Now the central point of their united testimony is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is no fact of history of which more abundant evidence exists than of this. Renan, indeed, asserts that we owe this fact to the highly-wrought (exalte'e) imagination of Mary Magdalene. ' Oh ! divine power of love,' he ex claims ; ' sacred moments, in which the passion of one whose senses were deceived (hallucine'e) gives to the world a God raised from the dead.' But we say that these are blasphemous words, and utterly unworthy of an historian. For the historical fact is not to be disposed of by such smooth rhetoric. We know that the disciples expected anything rather than this event. The death of Jesus had left them inconsolable and hopeless. And when the tidings were brought to them that He was risen, they could not, they would not believe it. ' Certain women of our company,' said the two disciples going to_-Emmaus, ' made us astonished, which were early.-at the sepulchre ; and when they found not His body, they came, saying that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that He was alive. And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said ; but Him they saw not.' So unprepared to allow themselves to entertain fresh hopes did the nar rative of the women find them, that it rendered them The Resurrection of Christ. 205 almost more inconsolable. Not till Jesus bore His personal testimony were they convinced. And nothing less than His own repeated and palpable appearance was needed to assure all the disciples, to assure Thomas, of the fact of His resurrection. Nor did He appear merely to individuals ; He was seen by many, and at last by five hundred at once, of whom many were still living when St. Paul wrote his first Epistle to the Corinthians (1 Cor. xv. 5-8) ; and it was to the testi mony of these living men that he appealed. Thus all possibility of deception, hallucination, diseased vision, etc., is done away with. The resurrection has been called a fact of the consciousness, for the sake of hav ing a word to conceal the perplexity which the event itself inspires. Even the sharpest of critics is obliged to admit the fact of Christ's resurrection. ' Nothing but the miracle ofthe resurrection,' owns Baur, ' could disperse the doubts which seemed about to cast faith itself into the eternal night of death ' (27). To all this testimony St. Paul adds the corroboration of his own eye-witness. For nothing else could have^ made of him, the enemy of Jesus and the persecutor of His Church, a disciple and an apostle ; nothing else could have caused him to find peace for his soul in his path of hatred towards Christians (28). By no tricks of explanation can this fact be got rid of. It is too potent for such a process. It cannot be said he only fancied he saw Jesus, for nothing was further from his mind. And with such a disposition as he then enter tained towards Jesus, he would rather have defended 206 Lect. VII. — Revelation. himself against such an appearance as a delusion. He submitted to it because he was obliged to do so in spite of his opposition. If he could have helped acknowledging it, he never would have done so. It cannot be said in reply that the Maid of Orleans also believed she heard the voices of her saints. Truly she did; but it was because she wished it, because she lived in them, because they were interwoven in her very being. But in the case of St. Paul, what he saw was in direct opposition to all his thoughts and wishes. And he was no enthusiastic girl. No man ever did so great a deed as he did. The foundation of the Western Church is his work ; it is the super structure built upon his conversion, upon the appear ance of the risen Redeemer to himself. Will it be asserted, can it be seriously asserted, that the greatest event, the event most fruitful in blessings in the world's history, was the result of the strangest delusion that ever happened to a human being ? No. If any one event of history is certain, it is our Lord's resurrection. And it is this which is the seal and attestation of divine revelation. May I not, in the next place, bring forward as wit nesses for Jesus Christ the innumerable company of confessors who have sealed their faith by death ? We need but read the accounts of their martyrdoms to be convinced that we find here nothing of fanaticism, or obstinacy, or proud contempt of death, but the most peaceful assurance and joyful faith, desirous, whether by life or by death, to glorify Him to whom the heart's Testimony to the Truth of Revelation. 207 affections had already been given. But it is not merely the Church of the martyrs, but the whole Church at all times which is a witness for Christ. The existence of the Church itself, which, as Lessing says, surpasses all other miracles, — the fact of its existence, the spirit which animates it, the effects it produces, the spiritual forces by which it is pervaded, and which demonstrate its exalted origin,- — all are proofs of the revelation of God in Christ Jesus ; for it is upon Him that the Church is built. The adversaries, too, of Christ, their opposition to Christianity, that summoning of all their forces, which has at all periods proved in vain, — even these, are constrained to bear testimony. And above all is that nation which dwells among and around us, while their home is in a foreign land, the nation ofthe dispersion, the nation under an old unexpiated guilt, — that most marvellous of nations, marvellous in the time of its prosperity, marvellous now in the times of its adversity, — a witness for Christ. The prince who formerly asked his chaplain to furnish him with evi dence of the truth of Christianity, but to do so briefly, for he had no time to spare, received as an answer the word, ' The Jews, your Majesty ! ' (29) But we have yet another kind of evidence added to these, and setting its seal upon them all, — the internal evidence, the joint testimony of our own conscience and of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. This is the testi mony of the truth itself; and the very highest kind of evidence is always that which truth bears to itself. When the word of Christ draws near to us, and 208 Lect. VII— Revelation. enters into our hearts, a voice awakes within me, — the voice of our own conscience, saying, Yea, verily this is the truth thou art seeking, and hast been so long seek ing without finding. Then all our slumbering notions, our vague aspirations, our heartfelt longings for peace and reconciliation, revive within us, saying, Yea, this is what we wanted ; this is what we were seeking and craving after without knowing it. Man is a question ; the word of Christ is its answer. Man is an enigma ; the word of Christ is its solution. Man is a contra diction, a heap of contradictions ; revelation is the abolition of these contradictions. In an algebraical equation of three known quantities and one unknown, viz. x, the value of x being found, the correctness of the solution is proved by its perfect accordance with the other quantities. And the case here is exactly parallel. The word of Christ satisfies the equation of our nature ; it is the solution of the x, of the un known quantity within us. Our nature produces the demand, but revelation gives the supply, and the perfect harmony of the two bears witness that revela tion is truth. And in proportion as we receive within us the word of revelation, do we appreciate this harmony, and thus become experimentally assured of the truth of reve lation. The Spirit witnesses to our spirit that it is truth. This is that internal self-witnessing of truth which is its highest evidence, — the evidence of life and experience. For it is ever the highest proof of truth to be self-evident. The paralytic, says Lessing, Evidence of the Truth of Revelation. 209 who has felt the beneficial results of electricity, will be but little affected by the various opinions and doubts of the learned concerning electricity, but will persevere in maintaining that he has himself experi enced its effects. This will be his sufficient evidence that it is a reality and a power (30). And the case here is similar. The effects produced by truth are the proof of its genuineness. But in order to receive this proof, we must surrender ourselves to truth. Ex ternal events can be externally proved, mathematical propositions mathematically demonstrated ; but moral truths can be only morally, i.e. inwardly, proved. It is to the conscience that they prove themselves ; and this is the self-evidence of the truth of revelation. An acquaintance with this kind of evidence can be attained by every one, without reference to the degree of education. And this fact is an essential element of the self-evidence of revelation ; for truth must needs be popular. That which cannot be popular is certainly not the highest kind of truth, for all men without distinction are created for truth, and have a craving for it. Hence it must be patent to all. The ancient philosophers, who sought to replace by their systems the unsatisfying religions of their day, often declared that their teaching was not adapted to the multitude, but only to the aristocracy of mind. And this is true in a still higher degree of modern philo sophy. Christianity, on the contrary, is for all; for God will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Christianity has made 210 Lect. VII. — Revelation. the sublimest truth the most popular matter, and a power of every-day life, and raised even the most uneducated to an incomparably higher level than that on which the most highly cultivated of the ancient world formerly stood. He who has received into his heart the truths of Christianity — and this is what every one can do — knows more than Plato, and is wiser than Socrates. 6. But it is said, How can Christianity, how can revelation be true, when it is contrary to reason ? Certainly revelation goes beyond reason, and cannot but do so ; for, as Lessing says, ' What is the meaning of a revelation which reveals nothing ? ' If revelation be possible and necessary, it must, in the eye of reason, be rather a proof of its truth than an objection against it, to find it contain things surpassing its comprehension. They who would eliminate all such matters from their religion might as well be without one ; for what is a revelation which reveals nothing ? The taking captive the reason to the obedience of faith is the result of the very notion of revelation, •or rather the reason is a willing captive; its sur render is but its confession of its limitation, as soon as it is assured of the genuineness of revela tion (31). This confession of limitation is, however, indis pensable. The very greatest minds are just those which have least scrupled to make such a con fession. Socrates, the most celebrated of the wise men of Greece, designated his knowing that he Relation of Revelation to Reason. 211 knew nothing, as that wisdom which he possessed above others. And a Newton, when dying, called the labours of his life only a playing with the shells on the sea-shore, while the great ocean of truth lay still undiscoverable before him. Of Goethe, moreover, that most comprehensive intellect of our nation, it is universally known that this confession of limitation was characteristic of his whole mode of thought. Do we understand ourselves ? Do we understand nature by which we are surrounded ? ' Man,' says Goethe, ' is an obscure being ; he knows not whence he comes nor whither he goes ; he knows little of the world, and least of all himself.' ' We are all walking amidst mysteries and marvels,' says he in another place ; and in Faust : ' Inscrutable in broadest light, To be unveiled by thee she (.._. nature) doth refuse ; What she reveals not to thy mental sight, Thou wilt not wrest from her with bars and screws.' ' The world is full of enigmas.' ' Nature always con tains something problematical, which human faculties are incapable of fathoming.' Who has ever under stood the mystery of life ? ' To comprehend our origin, our life, is utterly denied us.' What right have we, then, to make the narrow boundaries of our understanding the standard of the actual and the possible ? ' You learned gentry thus your lore display : What you can't reach you think is miles away ; 212 Lect. VII. — Revelation. What you can't understand is naught to you, And what you don't expect cannot be true. That which you weigh not, you esteem but light ; What you don't coin is worthless in your sight ' (32). All knowledge rests ultimately on faith. I must at last believe in my own soul, and in the perceptions of my mind. Besides, every science is founded on certain principles which are matters of direct admis sion, and cannot themselves be first proved. For every such admission is a matter of faith, and ' every philosophic system is built upon such fundamental admissions. Even infidelity is a matter of faith ; for we have no direct nor simply homogeneous intuition of the principles of things, and therefore no absolute certainty ' (33). All depends on what fundamental admission takes possession of a man's mind with the impression of infallible truth. There is no knowledge from which faith is absent ; for all knowledge rests upon the postulate of something believed. Even Materialism, which admits only matter and force, rests upon belief, a belief in this invisible power of force ; for it does but infer its existence from its effects. ' Our own existence, and that of all things around us, must be believed, and can in no other way be made out,' says Hamann (34). It is an acknowledged fact, that the deeper any one goes in his search after knowledge, the more humble and modest he becomes, for he only the more perceives the limits of his attainments; while, on the other hand, the more superficial any one is, the more arrogant is he wont to be, for he just so much the more thinks he has Relation of Revelation to Reason. 213 fathomed and understood everything. Hence more pride of knowledge is generally found in youth than in age. Youth knows far less of those problems, which appear the more incapable of solution the more we seek to solve them. Pascal says : ' The last step of reason is to perceive that there are infinitely many things which surpass her ; and if she does not attain this knowledge, she is weak indeed ! ' ' If we first understood what reason is,' says Hamann, 'all discord between it and faith would cease ' (35). The highest attainment of wisdom, then, is the knowledge of our limitation. And if this applies to all matters, it does so most entirely in the province of religion and with respect to God. For this is the province of the highest truth, of truth properly so called. Even if we were to travel over the whole world, we could not find in it the truth for which we are seeking. There are in deed many so-called truths, but there is but One Truth which is really such, which can solve the enigmas of our life, and disclose the mysteries of our existence. This truth is no growth of earth, its pedigree reaches beyond and above this world. We all feel that just where the boundaries of our know ledge lie, just where mystery begins, lies that which we desire to know, that which we want, that which decides our lot. Man has ever sought to penetrate this world of mysteries, but revelation alone has given us any information concerning it, and faith is the only organ by which we can have any knowledge of it. 214 Lect. VII. — Revelation. We can nowhere wholly dispense with faith, for all visible things are pervaded by an invisible mystery. How, then, can we dispense with it in questions of religious knowledge ? These can only be grasped by faith, and all our acquaintance with them is based upon faith. If, moreover, direct certainty and inward strength are peculiar to every kind of faith that is worthy the name, religious faith is the firmest, surest, and most voluntary of all ; for it concerns the last and highest matters in which we live and move, and therefore alsq those best and highest motives and reasons in which all others combine and are consum mated. ' No foundation can be so firm, no motive so influential, no reasons so binding, no results so far- reaching, as belief in these things ' (36). Now it is natural that this religious belief should go beyond our reason, for it deals in those higher truths which we are incapable of discovering by means of our natural understanding. God far surpasses the limits of our natural reason. Hence, too, religious faith, whose subject-matter is God, must necessarily go beyond these limits. ' Human reason and divine reason,' says Goethe, 'are two very different things'(37). And Leibnitz : ' He who, in matters relating to God, believes nothing but what his own reason can fathom, dwindles the idea of God.' Lord Bacon, too, , has these words : ' We must enlarge our mind to the magnitude of divine mysteries, not limit them to the narrowness of our understanding ' (38). And if this applies to God, generally speaking, it Relation of Revelation to Reason. 215 does so in a twofold degree to those counsels for our redemption which were in the Divine Mind, unknown to any but to Himself and His Spirit. ' For as no man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him, even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.' This counsel of God is the silent secret of His heart, until He Himself reveals it; and then He reveals to us something utterly new, something which it never entered into the heart of man to conceive, something forming no part of our thoughts, and far surpassing them ; something, there fore, which we must let ourselves be told, which we must believe, and which goes beyond our reason. But, it is objected, is not revelation also contrary to our reason ? And it is this which is the obstacle. It cannot certainly be denied that revelation not merely goes beyond our reason, but that in many particulars it also stands opposed to our natural ideas. But this is not of itself conclusive against revelation ; the ques tion rather is, On which of the two sides is truth to be found ? It is an integral part of our natural ideas that we must attain perfection by our own moral efforts ; and that in proportion to our progress in the way of moral effort, have we to expect a commensurate reward. When revelation, then, tells us that we have no merit at all before God ; that the fundamental error of man is his claim thereto ; that he thereby entirely forfeits God's approval, and makes his salvation im possible ; that we can only live by grace, etc. — this is certainly contrary to our natural reason. When our 216 Lect. VII. — Revelation. own notions present to us only a God of power and majesty, unapproachable by human thought ; and re velation acquaints us with a God who humbled Himself and came to us, who shared our earthly lot to save us, — this is certainly contrary to our natural reason. If we had had to invent a religion and a revelation, we should have invented something quite different. We should never have thought of so humble a revelation, beginning with a child in a cradle, and concluding with a death upon the cross. We should have chosen as its locality either Greece or Rome, and not have planted it in that corner of the earth, and in that nation, upon which the contempt of mankind rested. In all this there certainly is an opposition between revelation as it really is, and human reason. And the apostle em phatically asserts that, to the merely natural under standing, the gospel, i.e. revelation, is foolishness. There is nothing more paradoxical to the reason than revelation, than Christianity (39). But the question is, On which side does truth lie ? If our natural reason were quite rightly ordered, certainly revelation ought not to be found in opposition to it. But is our natural reason still rightly ordered ? If man has been the subject of a moral perversion, which none can deny, it would be taking but a mechanical view of man to imagine that there is one province of his intellectual life which has been unaffected thereby. But if it is wholly affected and corrupted, we cannot but say that revelation could not be true, unless it were found in opposition thereto. Now the main corruption even of Relation of Revelation to Reason. 217 our thoughts is pride ; and hence the main stumbling- block and paradox which we find in revelation is the humility of God, and His requirement of humility on our part. ' The sublime paradoxy of Christianity delights in revealing, and at the same time in con cealing, the Highest, the Absolute, in the most in significant forms ; so that it is only by the deepest submission and humility that receptive minds can enter into His sanctuary, while the non-receptive, the self-satisfied, and the proud are moved to opposition and enmity ' (40). Hence this opposition is a proof in favour of, and not against Christianity. If it had been a revelation which made everything depend upon our own work and merit, it would please us, for it would nourish our pride ; but then it would not be true. Because, however, it makes everything depend upon the condescension and grace of God, it displeases, for it humbles us ; but for this very reason it is true. ' All those contradictions,' says Pascal, ' which seem as if they would keep me farthest from the knowledge of religion, have most powerfully drawn me to it ' (41). Hence, in spite of this contradiction, it has always stood its ground ; and ' the only science which is contrary to general reason, and to the nature of man, is the only one which has endured throughout all ages ' (42). Our very disinclination to yield to it is an evidence in its favour. ' Recognise, then,' says Pascal, ' the truth of religion in its obscurity, in our indifference to becoming acquainted with it' (43) ; and in another place y18 Lect. VII. — Revelation. he says that ' if the Jews of the time of Jesus had all assented to His claims, that very circumstance would render Him an object of mistrust, for it would be suspicious testimony ; and the unbelief of the Jews ought itself to be a reason for our belief in Him ' (44). In short, the opposition of revelation to reason, i.e. to proud and self-exalting reason, the necessity it lays upon us of renouncing this reason, is but an evidence in its favour. ' There is nothing so consistent with reason as this abnegation of reason (45). We must know how to doubt when necessary, to maintain an opinion when necessary, and to submit when necessary ' (46). Behind this proud and self- exalting reason is found reason's hidden truth, even a secret feeling and con viction that we are made for God, and tend to God, and an inward moral consciousness that we are sinners, and in need of mercy. And with this reason revela tion is in harmony. In this sense it is true that revelation is not merely beyond and contrary to reason, but also that it is in agreement with reason. Reason opens the great case to be investigated ; revelation prosecutes it by furnishing the answer. ' Reason is the human preface to divine revelation' (47). It some times happens that a preface promises more than the book itself performs; but revelation fully performs what reason announces. If revelation agrees with reason, reason, on the other hand, is the organ for the perception of revela tion. And certainly reason is sufficiently skilful and exactly adapted for this perception. As is the relation Relation of Revelation to Reason. 219 in which the eye, made for light, stands to the sun, so is the relation in which reason stands to divine revela tion. But to see the light, the eye must be opened ; and to perceive the sun, a right position must be occu pied with respect to it. And so too must we unclose our reason, and bring it into a right position with respect to revelation, if it is to be enlightened thereby. Moreover, we must be willing to have it enlightened. It often happens that an object may be before our eyes without our seeing it, that a sound may reach our ears without our hearing it, because our attention is not directed towards it, because we do not yield our selves to the impression. So too shall we fail in attain ing a knowledge of revelation unless we surrender ourselves thereto. This surrender of knowledge is love. All true knowledge is a loving absorption in its object. Only love of the truth understands truth. Love is not blind, as has been said, but sees correctly, and in fact alone sees correctly, for it alone sees the nature of things and their hidden truth. It is with the heart that we truly know, and especially that we truly know God and His revelation. As Pascal so finely says : ' Things human must be known to be loved ; things divine must be loved to be known ' (48). He who walks in this way of love will not fail to perceive that revelation is of all things that which is most in harmony with reason, — nay, that it is itself the highest reason, the reason's truth. LECTUEE VIII. THE HISTORY OF REVELATION HEATHENISM AND JUDAISM. j|EVELATION has gone through a history. It was not complete at once, but was subjected to that law of development which prevails over everything that has life on earth. If revelation was to form a component part of history, and to dovetail with the progress of the human mind, it must of necessity be placed under the law by which that mind was ruled. Why, it has often been asked, with the intent to raise an objection to Christian doctrine, if the sin of the first man brought so much misery upon the human race, and rendered, as the Church teaches us, so great a sacrifice necessary, did not God abolish this misery, and restore mankind to their lost communion with Him immediately after the fall? The answer to this objection lies in this law of development. God began to reveal redemption immediately, but this revelation appeared under the law of history. Hence, though supernatural in its nature and origin, it became natural in its actuality, because it entered into combination with the history of mankind and of the human mind. The End of History. 221 Revelation has a history, because there is history in general; there is history, because there is an end in view; there is an end in view, because there is a God; and eternal love, because there is also provi dence, which rules the destinies of man, and guides them towards the end appointed by divine Love. If there were no such end, human life would be the saddest and most wearisome thing in existence. We are all persuaded that history is no mere spectacle of intricate mazes, or self-repeating transitions, but a progress. Nothing is more certain to modern thought, nor more demanded by it, than progress. But there can be no progress when there is no end in view. It is not we who have set this end before ourselves, but it is the thought of that eternal Love which arranges all that concerns us, and which alone can bring it to pass. This end we emphatically call the kingdom of God ; the realization of the highest moral and reli gious task and destiny of mankind, the realization of our moral and religious ideal. We have such an ideal in our minds, we long for it; and it will, it must come to pass. The secret of History, that which makes history a sublime subject of contemplation, is to pursue, or at least to form a conjecture of, the ways by which God is leading us to this end. It bestows a higher meaning and dignity, even upon individual life and its small doings, to be able to say, that even our actions, be they ever so insignificant, do, if they be but laudable, contribute to the accom plishment of the high moral task of mankind, and 222 Lect. VIII. — History of Revelation. shall be interwoven by God into that great web of history whose final result is the kingdom of God, — the kingdom of truth, righteousness, and perfection. For this purpose God employs the means of natural life, the infinite variety which He has caused to exist therein. To this variety belong the peculiarities and special vocations of the several nations. Each nation has its special task in conducing to the general history of the human race ; but this task has a more promi nent importance, and exerts more decided influence on the course of history, in the case of some nations than of others. The natural vocation of mankind is the progress of culture. Hence there are nations of culture, specially gifted nations, the propagators of the several great tasks of culture. Thus the Greek was the nation of artistic and scientific culture ; Rome the nation of legislation, etc. But the soul and source of all culture is religion. Hence there was also a nation of religion, namely, Israel. As then culture, so also religion should be the concern of the whole race. Greece and Rome were entrusted with culture, that they might make it the concern of mankind. So also was religion located in a single nation, that it might thence overspread the whole earth. Here, in this nation of religion, had revelation its home and history. This history of revelation occupies manifold relations to the history of culture, without inter mingling with it. But these relations were prepara tory to the translation of religion into the soil of culture. To effect this translation was the task of Vocation of the Nations. 223 Christianity. It was Christianity which made religion and revelation the concern of the whole world of culture. Then were united the two great provinces which had hitherto been separate, — the revelationless history of the world of culture, and the history of revelation in Israel. Thoroughly to work each into the other is the task of the Christian ages. Hence there could be no greater hindrance to human pro gress, and no heavier misfortune could befall the human race, than a breach between these two pro vinces of culture and religion. The heathen nations were not without religion, but they were not the bearers of a religion for the future ; their vocation lay in another department. Their religions were ' religions which grew wild,' as Schelling, after St. Paul's simile of the wild olive-tree (Rom. xi.), calls them ; they were not revealed reli gions. Yet they were not therefore withdrawn from divine direction. Even the heathen religions ran the course prescribed to them by God, and served 'to educate the human race ' for revelation, for the longer they existed, the more they showed the need of reve lation. If revelation went through a history in Israel for mankind, mankind went through a history in the heathen world for revelation. These religions were to lead the human mind past themselves, and thus to prepare for the reception of revelation. This would not have been possible unless there had been in them those elements of religious truth which at the same time served as positive preparations for the whole full truth. 224 Lect. VIII. — History of Revelation. The Apostle Paul, indeed, says of the heathen that they were without God in the world (Eph. ii. 12). Certainly they had not God Himself, and this is the deep reason of the lamentation by which, though misconceived, the whole heathen world is pervaded. But yet they were not utterly devoid of cojg__oct_on with God. God had a tie to them, and ,they had a tie to God. The former existed in the /truths which lay at the roots of their religions, tha! latter in the religious feeling which was found ev«n among them, and which for centuries ruled the lifife of tbe ancient world. But both that objective alnd this subjective side of religion passed through at history, and that history was a process of progressive self-dissolution, leading down on the one hand Into the slough of atheism or superstition, yet "on tl__e^. other producing at the same time that noble spirit of anticipation, "of at least of dissatisfaction, in ynich the close of the old world opened the door to/the spirit of the new. Let us take a brief glano/e at these two sides, and their historical developme There are elements f>{ truth at the root of all religions. Even their/irrors are but distortions of a hidden truth. But f(6r this, the religions of heathen dom would 'no. L_jave endured so long, and would, not still endure. F(ir it is not pure falsehood which can win and satisfy Ihe human mind; let man sink ever so low, he will/never utterly annihilate the feeling for truth which/ is in him. Individuals may succeed in deadenijng their feeling for truth, but nations will The Heathen Religions. 225 never be capable of wholly stifling it. The truths which lie hidden in heathen religions had their origin in primitive revelations, which were the common pos session of the whole human race before it separated into different nations. These were the inheritance which the nations took with them into foreign lands from their common home, upon which to live after they had departed therefrom. There is everywhere a consciousness of God expressing itself in worship : everywhere a certain feeling of sin and guilt; every where a felt need of propitiation and atonement expressing itself in sacrifices and prayers, in puri fications and penances ; while among many nations we meet with the idea of a mediator (l). And the farther back we go in history, the purer is the form borne by the various religions. It is an acknowledged fact, confirmed both by historical research and the traditions of the heathen, that the original religious notions of God were purer than the subsequent national reli gions (2), thus justifying the description ofthe Apostle Paul when he represents the history of the notion of God as one of progressive perversion of the truth. The consciousness that this was the case reached very far down the stream of time. Thus Varro, e.g. in forms us that the Romans for one hundred and seventy years had no images of the gods, and that they who introduced their use had set up an error hitherto unknown (3). The national religions, however, sank lower and lower as time advanced ; that which drew them down was that power of falsehood which was in p 226 Lect. VIII. — History of Revelation. them from the beginning, which is involved in the very principle of heathenism, and constitutes its nature. For its nature is to draw God into the world. In no heathen religion do we meet with the pure idea of God. Heathenism knows not the abso lute God, but puts in His place the cosmical powers, which are but the organs of His agency, the garment with which He covers Himself. It is thus that the Apostle Paul describes the nature of heathenism, in that classical passage where he treats of it, Rom. i. 18, etc. especially v. 25, — a ' description which the most profound scientific investigation has abundantly corroborated (4). "The cosmical powers, however, are twofola : they belong to nature or to mind. Hence some heathen religions represent more the stage of nature, others more that of mind. Between Fetishism, which finds a god in the individual natural object which it selects for veneration, and the Pantheism of India, which sees the end of man in the absorption of the individual in the universal life of nature, there is a whole series of religions which deify nature. Their home is for the most part among the coloured tribes, who are more immersed in the life of nature than the white man ; but this kind of religion finds its deepest and most striking exemplification in the profoundly melancholy view of the world and religion of the white races of Indians. It is here that the Pantheism of the heathen view of the world is fully manifested in those two forms ofthe Indian religion, Brahmanism and Buddhism. While Brahmanism merges this perishable The Heathen Religions. 227 world in universal being, inthe soul of the universe, whose emanation or whose dream the world is, Buddhism carries out the idea of perishableness to the ultimate cause of all being, and finally annihilates everything, finding in the notion- of absolute subnjis- sion a consolation for all the evils of life. Here the Pantheism of the religion of nature is carried out to its full results. But the populace require personal divinities, to whom they may apply. Hence the pantheistic religions of nature everywhere become polytheistic, the several divinities representing the powers of nature. In these religions we everywhere see the mind of man renounced, as it were, before the life of nature, and merged in its mysteries. The be getting and generating power of nature was the idea represented in a series of divinities, symbols, and solemnities. We who have become so much freer from the power of natural life can now form no idea of the tyranny which these religions were capable of exercising over the minds of men. They might demand the greatest sacrifices from their worshippers ; and these were not refused, whether it were that the noblest virgins of Babylon imperilled their honour through religious enthusiasm for the sake of partici pating in the divine nature, or that the youths of Carthage rushed into the flames in their religious fanaticism. It was the power of nature's intoxication which ruled the mind of man. But natural life is at the same time sensuous life. Hence all these religions are pervaded by a power of sensuousness, 228 Lect. VIII. — History of Revelation. and exhibit a combination of religion and debauchery which is to us as repulsive as it is incomprehensible. Certainly the religions of mind occupy a higher level, but even these do not get beyond the Cosmos. It is only the idea of man which the Greek worships in his gods. It is true that the idea of Godhead is reflected in them, but only in broken rays. A mono theistic feature pervades the Greek conception of the world of gods and goddesses, — it seeks to attain in Zeus or in Fate a supreme absolute divinity (5), but is unable to maintain the heights to which it would soar, and is ever drawn down again within the barriers of limitation. The Greek popular religion knows not an almighty, still less a holy God, and has no concep tion of a God of love. And how little it shunned to attribute to its divinities all the passions and vices of mortals is well known. In the later days of philo sophy, indeed, a struggle against this humanizing of the divine idea took place, and efforts were. made, chiefly by Socrates and Plato, to raise the idea of Godhead to greater purity and spirituality. But the old popular religion could stand no criticism ; the investigation of its doctrines and usages was its dis solution, while philosophic speculation was unable to replace it. For philosophy is not for the masses, but for the few ; moreover, the Platonic philosophy was wanting in that foundation of objective facts which was needed to constitute it a religion. For every religion must appeal and has appealed to facts, either supposed or real ; ideas alone, however sublime The Heathen Religions. 229 or true, cannot make a religion (6). And this, too, was the barrier which prevented the mysteries from becoming religion. In their secret doctrines, especially in the Eleusinian, the mind sought that satisfaction which was not afforded it by the popular religion. They promised to furnish an answer to those fundamental questions of religion, the questions of atonement and a future life. They gathered around them a circle of believers from among the most noble-minded of the nation. But their answer consisted only in symbols, not in facts, and hence they fell together with the old belief in the gods. Finally, the oracles became silent, and left men without an answer from the gods, a circumstance in which the ancient world saw a significant sign that the era of the ancient belief in the gods was at an end (7). And so it was. It was resolved into scepticism on the one hand, and superstition on the other. For this was the issue both of the piety and the religions of the ancient world. It is impossible to form too strong a conception of the power and authority exercised over the life by religious opinions, practices, and customs during the earlier ages, even in Greece, with all its intellectual activity. I have already spoken of the important position occupied by prayer, both in political and private life, in the ancient world. And what is true of prayer, is true of religion in general, every act of life being supported and encircled thereby. The heathenism of the early ages was a pious and religious 230 Lect. VIII. — History of Revelation. heathenism. Athens especially enjoyed the fame of being a God-fearing city. But the limits of religion were also the limits of piety. Prayer and sacrifice were in truth but the fulfilment of a legal duty, and not the spontaneous offerings of the heart. Man paid to the gods the tribute that was their due, for the world was so parcelled out, that dominion fell to the lot of the gods, dependence to that of men. Hence it behoved man to acknowledge this relation, and to discharge his obligations to the gods, that he might earn and secure their favour. No other personal relation to the gods existed. They felt no love, properly so called, to men ; nor was there in men any love to the gods. And Aristotle declared it to be utterly absurd (citoitov) to speak of love to the gods, since love could only exist between beings of the same kind. Piety was nothing more than an acknowledgment of dependence. But the feeling of mere dependence exercises no special moral influence upon man's inner life; it can check and moderate, but is incapable of purifying the heart, and bestowing a new disposition. And this was the extent of the piety of the ancient world. But even this effect of religion was lost when the era of bound less self-assertion began. The age of Pericles and of the Peloponnesian war marks this fatal turn in Grecian life. The sophism which defined the individual man as ' the standard of all things ' lent its support to this movement, which the nobler philosophy of a Plato was unable to restrain, and which the general The Heathen Religions. 231 state of things both evoked and promoted. In im perishable lines has Thucydides depicted the moral corruption which succeeded the plague at Athens after the commencement of the Peloponnesian war, showing how all that was sacred to the gods or revered by man was beginning to fall into contempt (8). From that time the process of the dissolution of ancient piety set in. Religion possessed no independent strength for a victorious resistance. The religions of the ancient world were united to the state ; they were not the religions of the man, but of the citizen. The highest of religious duties was to worship the native gods, according to the laws of the land. Gradually, however, the idea of the state began to lose its former power over the ancient mind, and the individual consciousness to assert itself; — at first, indeed, often in an unauthorized manner, and in the form of sensual enjoyment. Sensualityis thespecial vice of heathenism. And religion itself afforded nourishment to this vice. If in earlier times it had ministered thereto, it was now abused to a far greater subserviency. Poetry and art contributed to this abuse. To us the poems of Homer are but a beautiful play of the imagination, and there is nothing dangerous about them, for who thinks of taking his narratives for truth ? Let us, however, bring before our minds the fact that they had become realities to the Grecian people, and had in their eyes an importance like that of the Bible in ours, and we shall understand why the stricter philo sophers of Greece looked upon the poet as a corrupter 232 Lect. VIII. — History of Revelation. of religion and morality, and Plato desired his exclu sion from his ideal state. To us TiJi^nlastic art of Athens does but call forth our admiration fo^Nl^e sense of the beautiful which has clothed these works wifA- an imperishable charm. But we have abundant testi mony to the dangerous influence exercised by some of them upon their contemporaries, while the streets of Pompeii furnish but too frequent memorials of the extent to which art was at the service of the basest sensuality. The temples, moreover, became places of debauchery, and the festivals of the gods orgies. Such was the case already in Greece, such was subsequently the case in Rome (9). What wonder, then, was it that such a religion should be more and9 more despised by all thoughtful minds. And yet philosophy had nothing to offer in its place but probabilities, and soon nothing but doubts : the result was the supremacy of infidelity. In the Augustan age, the time when men believed in gods was looked back to as a far distant period ; and it was regarded as a mark of a philosophic mind to deny their existence (10). The Stoic philosophy was Pantheism, and made the world to be God ; while the Epicurean, which chiefly prevailed among the educated classes, though at first it allowed the existence of gods, but of gods who did not concern themselves about human affairs, afterwards effaced them from the faith and thoughts of men. The poet Lucretius undertook to abolish faith in the gods by a natural explanation of reli- Philosophic Morality of Heathenism. 233 gion (ll). But man needs something beyond himself; and though he may argue himself into a contrary opinion a hundred times over, he is not self-sufficing. The necessary consequence of this unbelief was that widespread prevalence of . superstition, so vividly depicted by Plutarch (12). Magicians overspread the empire; and the more superstitious the rites they employed, the greater was the approbation bestowed upon them. Such is the conclusion of the history of the ancient mind in the matter of religion. And yet all this was of service to the future. For out of the midst of this general decay arose that feeling of individual want, which, freed from the powers of the ancient world, sought for itself that satisfaction which neither philosophy nor religion could afford, and which revelation alone was able to supply. The morality also of the ancient world took a similar course; for there is between religion and morality an intrinsic relation of mutual dependence. Morality must stand or fall with religion. In the history of the ancient world we meet with many a noble and earnest form, commanding our high moral respect; and it is in the heroes of Leonidas, or in those noble Greeks and Romans whose names have been handed down to us by history, that we see realized what the spirit of antiquity was capable of effecting. Ancient Rome, especially, was distinguished above many other nations and states by that greater moral earnestness, which may be regarded as the fruit of the religious spirit which there prevailed (13). But 234 Lect. VIII. — History of Revelation. it is always the morality of the citizen, not the morality of the man, far less the morality of the renewed heart, which is exhibited. Within the boundary of the state was ancient morality confined. And when this was dissolved, the moral power which was united to it also fell. In vain did philosophy strive, from its own resources, to produce a system of morality which might prove itself efficient. It could not get beyond theories, nor bring forth lasting effects, and never became a general power. And even its very theories cannot but excite our gravest scruples. It is true that philosophy produced individuals to whom all ages must look up with admiration. Especially may Socrates and Plato be said to be, both intellectually and morally, a whole head taller than the mass of their contemporaries. We may say that in them God would show us how far the inherent nobility of human nature can go in its own strength ; but they exhibit at the same time the limits by which the moral strength of mere human nature is bounded. Socrates has often been com pared with Christ ; but the difference between them is as great as the heavens are high above the earth. Socrates was a moral and intellectual power ; yet he was not a power for mankind, but only for his own nation. His fellow-citizens alone were his fellow-men, and no others existed as far as he was concerned. Athens alone was a world worthy of him. With him, as with the ancients in general, virtue was political and public. To obey the laws of the state was, in Philosophic Morality of Heathenism. 235 his eyes, the sum of all obligations. Nor does he in other respects surpass the boundaries of his age. A man's virtue consists in ' conquering his friend by doing him good, his enemy by doing him harm.' He collected disciples to lead them in the way of wisdom, and Alcibiades could say that in the society of Socrates he felt himself another man. But he did not raise them to a morality superior to that of his fellow-countrymen. He did, indeed, keep himself free from those sensual vices to which even the best of the Greeks were subject, yet he could find it in unison with his office of instructing and reforming youth, not only to permit, but even to recommend the society of courtezans. When he heard the beauty of the courtezan Theodota extolled, he went to visit her with his disciples, and entered into a conversation with her, in which he sought to show her by what means she might best captivate men. We see in him nothing of that sacred com passion which preaches repentance to sinners, and shows them the way of happiness. He certainly opposed vice, but he saw its remedy in better knowledge, and not in a renewal of the heart. His life was blameless when measured by the Grecian standard, and he earnestly sought to promote the best interests of his fellow-countrymen ; but he was ignorant of that soul of all true morality, love to God and to one's neighbour. And even his death — at which he unfeelingly dismissed his wife and children, lest their tears and lamentations should interrupt his 236 Lect. VIII. — History of Revelation. philosophic discourse with his pupils — how can it bear even the most distant comparison with that of Jesus Christ ? ' What a delusion it is,' exclaims Rousseau, ' to venture to compare the son of Sophro- niskos with the Son of Mary ! ' (14) Plato vies with Socrates in moral nobility. His philosophy is pervaded by an atmosphere of the eternal world. He was called ' the divine,' and legends of a higher and supernatural origin were current concern ing him. But he, too, did not surpass the limits of the national mind. Man's moral task is, in his view, to infuse into this world the eternal ideas of the true, the good, and the beautiful. But in truth he declares the realization of these ideas to be impossible. Nature opposes an insuperable barrier. In the realm of mind the divine principle prevails ; but matter forms an adverse element. Hence the opposition be tween reality and idea remains for ever irreconcilable, — a never realized ideal. And what kind of ideal is this ? Plato also rises no higher than the state. His notion is not the union of mankind with God, — with this he is utterly unacquainted, — but a state in which reason is supreme, — a state of philosophers. His is the most unnatural notion that can be imagined, — a state which with its community of goods and women, and its abstract supremacy of law, annihilates all personal freedom and property, and is likewise confessedly founded upon pride : the autho rities alone represent reason; the other classes, the lower qualities of the mind, down to the instincts and Philosophic Morality of Heathenism. 237 passions. There is throughout an absence of a true appreciation of man, of the idea of free human per sonality ; hence Plato requires for his ideal state the exposure of weakly infants, and a community of wives. He approves of slavery, — as does also Aristotle, for the slave is only an instrument, and not really endowed with reason, — tolerates paederasty, etc. We nowhere find the true idea of humanity. And yet Augustine acknowledges, ' No one so nearly approaches us as the Platonic philosophy does !' (15) If they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry? Socrates and Plato were incapable of preventing the decay of their nation, or of inspiring it with a new spirit of morality, nor were subsequent systems of philosophy more successful. For they all sought a remedy in man's own moral power, and desired to make him his own redeemer. But no moral theory can avail to renew man which is ignorant of deeper sources of moral life than those which flow from human effort (l6). The two schools of philosophy which, towards the close of the ancient world, were striving for the mastery, were the Stoic and the Epicurean. The Stoic is the strictest morality. But what is true of ancient morality in general, viz. that it is founded in self- love and supported by pride, is true in the highest degree of the morality of the Stoics. Nowhere is the spirit of arrogant pride and cold resignation so thoroughly indigenous as here. If the root of 238 Lect. VIII. — History of Revelation. Christian morality is humility, that of Stoic morality is pride. Humility is a purely Christian notion. The quality of ' lowliness' (humilitas) known to antiquity was first ennobled into the virtue of humility by Christianity. Certainly the Stoic wise man was not to take vengeance for insults, but only because he could not be insulted, being too great in his own eyes for insolence to affect him. It was not from a feeling of forbearance, but from an arrogant contempt for others, that this maxim arose. The Stoic wise man was not to cherish wrath, not to be excited by passion, etc. ; yet not because he was to rest in God, and to be full of gentleness and peace, but because he was to regard himself as too exalted for anything to be able to disturb his godlike repose. This life was too contemptible for a wise man to let himself be dis quieted about it. And even the evil that was in the world was not to call forth his zeal in opposing it. Evil was as much an element in the whole course of the world as good, the bad had their parts to play as well as the good, and the wise man might contemplate the spectacle with stately indifference : if, however, things went too far, he might take away his life, for this world being unworthy of him, he was at liberty to leave it. And this was the course taken by the younger Cato at the fall of the Republic, and by many in the times of the emperors, for the sake of escaping from tyranny, or even from the burden of heavy sick ness. It is but an external similarity which has caused this system of morality to appear akin to the Actual Morality of ihe Heathen World. 239 Christian. That which was true in it did not become truth till Christianity appeared (17). Such was the morality of the nobler spirits in the latter times of the ancient world. The other system, and the prevailing one among the educated classes, was that of Epicurus, the principle of which was pleasure. Hence all virtue consisted in that moderation in en joyment of which prudence dictates the observance, lest pleasure should be spoiled. A very doubtful and circuitous way, it must be confessed, of arriving at virtuous conduct ! The practical effects of such a philosophy may easily be imagined (18). Such was philosophic morality. What, then, was actual morality ? We have a series of dehneations of the moral turpitude of the later philosophers, which presents them in the most contemptible light, as servile hypocrites and flatterers. ' Among most,' says Quin- tilian, ' the greatest vices are concealed under the name of the old philosophy' (19). Or they are at least weak characters, as was even a Seneca, who, especially in his later writings, uttered, it must be confessed, maxims so similar to Christian ones, that the Christians of subsequent ages looked upon him as theirs.but whose morality was to a great extent mere rhetoric, who could resolve to sell the service of his pen, and who showed towards the vices of a Nero an obsequiousness which called forth the indignation even of the Romans of that age (20). And finally, what was the morality of the masses ? Even in the best times it could not escape an atten- 240 Lect. VIII. — History of Revelation. tive observer that there was a germ of corruption in the very core of the ancient nations. And the longer they existed, the more was this developed. The descriptions which the Latin authors Juvenal, Pliny, Tacitus, Seneca have left us of the state of morals in their age are well known, and exhibit a supremacy of shamelessness of which we can in these times form no conception. The best men of those days knew of no remedy for such a state of affairs ; but, convinced that things could not go on thus, they expected the end of the world, and despaired of mankind (21). Only Eternal Love could provide a remedy. From the remotest ages, prophetic utterances, an nouncing better times and a coming deliverance, had pervaded the ancient world. Some of these were partly dim memories of a long past age still glimmer ing in the present, hke the last streaks of twilight gilding the darkened sky after the sun's departure ; others were the presentiments of yearning and seek ing hearts, like the stars which faintly illumine the night, and announce the coming day. Such mutilated and ancient prophecies of a golden future are found among the most widely differing nations. It was the hope of the Persians that a time would come, a Messianic time, in which Ahriman would be annihilated, the world renewed, and deli vered from all evil ! — in which all mankind would be converted to a state of obedience to law, and the happy condition of former timesrestored. Thelndians The Voices of Prophecy among the Nations. 241 expected, at the end of the present age of sin, the tenth Avatar, that is, incarnation. That of Buddha was the ninth, and this would be an incarnation of Vishnu, who would appear under the name Kalki, overthrow all evil, and restore the happy times which had prevailed at the beginning of the world. Even the Chinese were not without such Messianic hopes. The advent of a great and Holy One in the West is frequently announced in their sacred books, — one who was not only to lay down the way of perfection, but also to destroy the ancient idols. Nor were similar expectations less familiar to other Oriental nations. Among the Greelcs, they were profoundly expressed in the legend of Prometheus. Prometheus chained to the rock, in daily torment, utters the oracle, known to himself alone, that the dominion of the false god Zeus will one day be terminated by a Son of God, who will be mightier than Zeus, while he himself beholds Hercules as his deliverer in the distant future. But this dehverance — as Hermes announces to him — is not to take place without vicarious suffering : ' And of that anguish, look not for the end Before some god shall come to bear thy woes : And will to pass to Hades' sunless realm And the dark cloudy depths of Tartarus.' And this is done by Chiron, the most just and wise of the Centaurs, the son of Chronos, sacrificing himself for him, while Hercules kills the eagle at his breast, and so delivershim from his torments. -^Eschylus made this significant legend the subject of a dramatic trilogy, of which, indeed, only a fragment, the ' Prometheus Q 242 Lect. VIII. — History of Revelation. Bound,' remains. Enough has, however, been pre served to show us how the deep ideas of the Greek world concerning guilt, atonement, and the redemp tion of mankind are poetically reflected therein. This poetic legend is indeed almost a prediction of the true Redeemer. The hope of a future golden age, when the whole world should be renewed and evil banished, is very plainly expressed in the old German legends of the gods. Baldr, the good, the holy and the wise, the favourite of the gods and of men, is slain through the crafty stratagem of the wicked Loki. The gods and all creatures lament : men and beasts, trees and rocks weep. Evil times afterwards come upon the earth ; strife and bloodshed increase ; and in the fight between the giants and the gods, Odin and the Ases (the good gods) are subdued, and the world destroyed by fire. But Vidar the victorious will restore the golden age : a new world is to arise, clothed with perpetual spring and plenty ; there will no longer be any Loki, and Baldr will return* from the dead ; while gods and men, recovering from their overthrow, will dwell peacefully together. Kindred traditions are familiar also in Mexico and the South Sea Islands. In short, everywhere in the heathen world, the predic tion and the hope are indigenous, that when evil shall have reached its climax, these iron times of sin and misery will come to an end, and even the gods who have ruled during this age of the world will be overthrown. For this purpose a royal hero, of heavenly descent, will The Voices of Prophecy among the Nations. 243 appear to crush the head of the demon, and to bring back the primitive age of happiness and innocence (22). Nor, as we have seen, is even the idea of vicarious suffering wanting in these representations of a coming redemption. Closely connected with them is the notion of the suffering righteous man, the possessor of the most perfect righteousness, — a notion so emphati cally and remarkably carried out in Plato, that we are involuntarily reminded of that great Old Testament prophecy, Isa. liii., while the early fathers regarded it as a prediction. ' Let us now,' it is said in this remark able passage, ' place in juxtaposition to the unright eous, the righteous man, one sincere and noble, who strives not to seem righteous, but to be so. First, he must be deprived of good opinion ; for if he appears to be a righteous man, honour and profit will be given him as such, so that it would then be uncertain whether he were righteous for righteousness' sake, or for the sake, of honour or profit. Then he must be despoiled of every possession except righteousness, and brought into Collision with the authorities ; so that, though he has done nothing amiss, he may be esteemed the worst of men,[and this that his righteousness may be proved to us by his continuing immovable' in the midst of detraction, and all arising therefrom, and unaltered even till death, he being all his life long, though righteous, esteemed unrighteous. — They say, moreover, let the righteous man thus constituted be scourged, blindfolded, and after he has undergone all kind of torment, be bound to a ' stake, that 244 Lect. VIII. — History of Revelation. he may not desire to seem righteous, but to be so ' (23). But as for this picture sketched by Plato, what is it but an unsubstantial shadow, which the ancient world was conscious it should never see realised ? ' I, at least,' says Cicero, ' have not yet met with a perfectly wise man ; philosophy has only taught what such a one would be, if he should ever appear on earth ' (24). Nevertheless, mankind still clung to the hope of better times to come. The very sorrows of the pre sent made the heart's craving so much the more poignant, that about the time of Christ it had risen almost to direct prophecy. In the famous fourth Eclogue of Virgil, the poet, on the occasion of the peace between Antony and Octavius, brought about by the Consul Pollio, and the birth of a son to the latter, celebrates in enthusiastic expressions the dawn of lasting peace to the world, and greets the newly- born infant as that future restorer of the world whom the Sibylline books had announced : ' The last great age, foretold by sacred rhymes, Renews its finished course ; Saturnian times Roll round again ; and mighty years, begun From their first orb, in radiant circles run. The base, degenerate, iron offspring ends, A golden progeny from heaven descends. . . . See labouring Nature calls thee to sustain The nodding frame of heaven and earth and main ! See to their base restored, earth, seas, and air, And joyful ages from behind in crowding ranks appear.' 1 1 Dryden's Virgil. Heathenism Seeking after God. 245 At another time he salutes Augustus as that Son of God destined to restore the golden reign of Saturn, and to subjugate the whole world, whose advent the oracles of the gods both in the regions of the Caspian and at the mouth of the Nile had foretold ; while Augustus designated himself on coins as the ' saviour of the world' (salus generis humani), and caused himself to be represented on them, as the god Apollo, who, according to universal belief, was to be the ruler of the renewed world. These were, it is true, false flatteries or exaggerations, but they show nevertheless the hopes and expectations then cherished. To these must be added the prophetic voices from the East of a victorious king to arise in the land of Judea, which, according to the historians Suetonius, Tacitus, and Josephus, were universally current (25). But it was not only by the words of individuals that such yearnings were expressed. A tone of pro phecy, a feature of yearning, a presentiment of truth, pervades all heathenism. When Paul came to Athens, he declared to the Athenians 'the unknown God' whom they ignorantly worshipped. The Athenians, by erecting altars with this inscription during a time of pestilence, so that no means might be omitted and none of the gods passed over, themselves declared the unsatisfactory nature of their own knowledge and worship of God, for they thus owned that they were not in possession of the full truth. The heathen really aimed at a supreme God, though they neither knew nor possessed 246 Lect. VIII. — History of Revelation. Him. They had a feeling that there must be one supreme God above the individual gods ; they called him Zeus, or Bramah, or Odin, — but they always drew him down again into limitation. When they would give vent to the heart's deepest emotions, this hidden foundation of faith in one supreme God betrayed itself. Tertullian reminds the heathen, that in prayer and other expressiijns of the heart's emotions, it was not towards the Capitol, but towards heaven that they involuntarily raised both eyes and hands ; not this or that individual divinity whom they invoked, but the supreme God Himself. ' I commend it to God ; God will repay it,' etc. ' 0 human soul,' ex claims he, ' who art by nature a Christian ! ' (26) All the prayers and sacrifices, all the expiations and purifications of the heathen world were such presentiments of truth, — presentiments whose realiza tion is found in the living and personal, the holy and merciful God. In certain isolated instances, too, we find this attraction towards truth making its influence felt as the ruling power of individual life. One of the best examples of this searching for truth is that of Justin, who has himself related the events of his life. He was possessed from an early age by a longing for truth and certainty. He sought the satisfaction of this desire among the philosophers, but in vain. He first applied to a Stoic, but could not learn from him what he most desired, the knowledge of God, which this philosopher seemed rather to despise. He then applied to a Peripatetic, who was, however, chiefly Heathenism Seeking after God. 247 anxious about money. He went to a Pythagorean, who cared about nothing but mathematics. At last he tried a Platonist, who had lately settled in the town where he dwelt, and made rapid progress in his doctrine. He lived entirely among those higher ideas with which this system of philosophy^ deals. This gave his mind a higher impulse, and he hoped soon to arrive at the knowledge of God Himself. For the sake of being wholly absorbed in this world of ideas, he retired to the sea- coast, that he might pass his whole time in philosophic contemplations. Here he happened to meet an old man, whose countenance exhibited both dignity and gentleness, and who, en tering into conversation with him concerning God, immortality, and retribution, soon convinced him how poor and fallible all his knowledge still was. The old man referred him to the prophets, and exhorted him above all things to pray to Jesus Christ Himself, that his eyes might be opened to understand divine truth. Then Justin felt such a fire kindled in his soul as he had never experienced before. He read the Scriptures, he listened to Christians, became a believer in Christ, a Christian philosopher, and a defender of Christianity, and eventually sealed his faith by martyrdom (a.d. 168). In him we have a specimen of the seeking of heathenism. And what it sought it found in that revelation of which Israel was called to be the depositary. Let us now turn from heathenism to Judaism! While the religious life of other nations was enslaved 248 Lect. VIII — History of Revelation. by the power of nature and degraded by it even to intoxication, the Hebrew nation burst these chains, set the human mind free from nature, and pressed forward, through the dark atmosphere which enveloped the religious thoughts of others, towards God, the one personal God. It was truly a mighty deed to oppose this thought, this faith in an extra-mundane God, to the whole world ; to maintain it against the overwhelming authority of all nations and religions ? resolutely to cleave to it in spite of their own strong natural tendencies, and to make it the centre and aim of every transaction of life. The monotheism of Abraham rested upon primitive tradition. It was the oldest tradition of mankind. But it was at that time in danger of being utterly exterminated. The whole world was being overflowed by polytheism. Then God took this one family, and the nation pro ceeding therefrom, out of connection with the rest of mankind, and made it the depositary of the ancient truth and the future hope. It was no arrogant ima gination, but the expression of an actual fact, when this nation regarded and designated itself as the people of God. For God entered into special relations with this family and people ; here He implanted His truth, and placed it like an immovable rock in the midst of the heaving sea of the nations ; here He prepared the stage on which the history of His revela tion was to be carried on. Truth, religion, revelation, were limited to this single nation. As all the religions of the world were national religions, so was the true, Judaism and the Religious Vocation of Israel. 249 the revealed religion also a national possession, but only that it might thence become the possession of all mankind. This belief being of importance to the whole race, this hope of the future was the soul of the nation and of its national life. The particu larism of Israel bore within it the germ of universalism. But it was in Christ and in Christianity that this universalism unfolded and blossomed. And this was the special vocation of this nation. It was of no importance to human culture, like the Greeks and Romans. It was not art and a sense for the beautiful ; it was not the spirit of philosophy ; it was not the endowments fitted to make it the world's ruler; it was not great legislative capacity, which distinguished it, and were inherent in it : its whole importance consisted in being the nation of religion, the people of revelation. It is this which gives to its whole literature its peculiar character. In the writings of the Old Testament we have a copious collection of literary works, composed during periods of Jewish history most remote from each other, and under the most varying outward circumstances, by men of every grade of intellectual rank, in the most opposite frames of mind, and for widely differing purposes, — historic and poetic, lyric and didactic com positions ; and yet all are pervaded by one spirit ; it is the religious tone, the religious view of the world, the tone of strict, ardent, sublime, inexorable mono theism which prevails throughout this collective literature, and impresses upon it that peculiar stamp 250 Lect. VIII. — History of Revelation. which specifically distinguishes it from the literature of all other nations, and makes it of perpetual value to all mankind. We may obtain from other nations, from Greece and Rome, a decision on the natural relations of the world, the arrangement and constitu tion of natural life; but the most excellent, the supreme truth of this life, and the corroboration of our innate consciousness of God's existence, the reference of all the events of life to the Most High, to God, — in short, religion as the truth of life, and as the source and strength of all morality, — we, as well as other nations, have received from this, the nation of religion. This religion, and its spirit of absolute submission of heart and life to the divine authority, was no natural produce of this people ; it was not its nature, but a fact of its history — an act of God. It was not in digenous ih this nation, but introduced and implanted by God in the history and mind of the people. Their history teaches us how powerful in them also was the tendency to error, and the danger of subjection to the powers of natural and of sensuous life. It was only through the discipline of severe chastisement and bitter experience, only through the energetic struggles of those great organs of religious knowledge whom God selected and prepared, only through continuous acts of judgment, that it came to pass that rehgious truth was here established as an immovable rock for the benefit of the rest of mankind. Three great thoughts govern the religious life of this people. The first is God. God is the most prominent, Fundamental Notions of the Jewish Religion. 251 the supreme thought of Israel. God, the hving and personal God, who is the power of all things, and in comparison with whom all is emptiness and vanity ; who is the Holy One, from whom proceeds the law which is to rule our earthly life ; who is gracious and merciful, to whom the poor and afflicted may look for help, and all the world for blessing. Israel is the nation conscious of God. The second thought is sin. Israel is the nation conscious of sin. The law was a constant remem brancer and a constant convicter of sin. Sacrifice was the central point of all the rites and ceremonies of the law. The sacred fire was to be burning incessantly upon the altar, sacrifices were to be offered day by day ; and the climax of all sacrifice was that offered on the great day of atonement, on which the high priest, as the representative of the nation, laid upon the sacrificial animal the sins of the whole people, bore the blood of atonement into the place of God's typical presence, and sprinkled with it the mercy- seat, that the people might be absolved from sin and reconciled to God. A more striking remembrance of sin does not exist ; nor is there a nation in whom the consciousness of sin was deeper, more genuine, or more powerful than in this. Such a conciousness was the necessary assumption of salvation through atonement. ¦ The third is the coming deliverance. Israel was the nation of hope. Ancient prophecies of a redemp tion and a Redeemer to come existed among this people, and ever kept their view directed to the future. 252 Lect. VIII. — History of Revelation. From the remotest ages, men had been acquainted with a prophetic promise proceeding from the mouth of God, — the prophecy of the woman's seed, which was to bruise the serpent's head. The final victory of man over the power of evil upon earth, through a son of man, was promised by this saying, which pointed to the obscure future. All subsequent prophecies were in substance but further developments of this primitive one. The increase of sin and sorrow, and the incj__^sed sense of need upon earth, ever kept aliyij-aTeeling of longing for the future. Before the great deluge — mentioned in the traditions of all Jhations — executed the judgment of God upon the no w ungodly race of men, the father of Noah, rememb jring the old pro phetic words, expressed the wish tllat his son might bring the longed-for rest to the hmman race. And at the very beginning of the new History of mankind upon the earth, now raised afresh/ frdm the waters of the flood, stands that prophecy fof Noah,<^hich, with a far-reaching glance, depicts thi. future of the races, — a prophecy by which th_-/iot of servitude is decreed to the race of Ham, extending from Mongolia in the north-east to Africa *n the south-west ; an extent of territory, on the contrary, is destined to the highly- gifted race of Jpphet., whose stream of nations marks the cour~ ol j|7istory from the north-east of India to the west and da -rth of Europe ; while in the race of Shem, which dw elt in the middle and west of Asia, God Himself vnjtl have His dwelling-place : here is to be the abode oi religion, whose blessings shall, in His Prophecy and its History. 253 own good time, be communicated to the other nations of the world. A new series of prophecies began when God, by the call of Abraham, opened a new chapter in the history of revelation. The promise of the future embraced first the seed of Abraham, but its glance included the whole world. A blessing pro ceeding from them was to come upon all the nations of the earth. This promise formed the foundation of all future prophecies. These assumed a form ever increasingly definite, while their fulfilment was confined to an ever narrowing circlej — to the seed of Abraham, the tribe of Judah, the house of David. The Blessing of the nations, the warlike Hero, the King whose dominion was tp be victorious and peaceable, is their subject. When Israel, during the reigns of David and Solomon, reached the climax of its history and the maturity of its national development, this period became itself a type of the future. A King who, like David, was to attain glory through sufferings (Ps. xxii.) ; who was to reign in wisdom and peace like Solomon (Ps. Ixxii.) ; and thus to be the more exalted counterpart of both, the true climax of Israel's history, and therefore the true end to which the his tory of other nations was tending; — such was this future Son of David and Son of God, this priestly King ofthe people of God (Ps. ex.) to be (Ps. ii.) And in proportion as the external form of the monarchy decayed, did the mental image of the future rise in the writings of the prophets upon the ruins of the present. This future was to be introduced by a new 254 Lect. VIII. — History of Revelation. and great revelation of Jehovah, the bearer of which was, as the end of preceding history, to close up pro phecy in Himself, and possess the fulness of the Spirit of God, to be the true High Priest, and the true and final King, who was also to attain to glory through sufferings, and to bring upon all the nations ofthe earth the happy, glorious, and peaceful government of God. This is the one great theme of all the prophecies. Each of the prophets announces it in his own manner, according to the wants of his age, the task appointed him by God, and the measure of his illumination. But diversely as the announcement may read under diverse circumstances, all the varying features which the descriptions of the different prophets contain, com bine to form one great picture of future blessedness. These prophecies, and the hope which was founded upon them, this nation; at the time of the Babylonian captivity, and at the times of their heaviest afflictions after their return, bore with them to distant lands, and held fast as a light shining on their dark path, when the voices of the prophets began to be silent, and the mouth of revelation was hushed ; — until a long time afterwards — when scattered tones of anticipation and prediction arose in the heathen world — the word of prophecy was again heard in Israel from the venerable Simeon — the witness of the old times, now about to descend into his grave — and from John the Baptist, the herald of the new times. For some years Israel was agitated by one of the most serious of religious questions. In the person of Jesus in Israel. 255 Jesus of Nazareth a prophet arose, who declared Himself to be the promised Messiah and the Son of God ; and by the power of His word, and the sublimity of His words and deeds, inspired a great part of the nation with the most ardent enthusiasm, but exasper ated another, and above all the authorities, to an ever-increasing and passionate opposition, which at length burst forth with the greatest violence, and brought Him to the cross as a blasphemer and a stirrer up of sedition. Soon after, however, His disciples — who were at His death like sheep scattered by the wolf, but now heroes defying an opposing world — came forward with the announcement that Jesus, having risen from the dead, was now sitting at the right hand of God, and would, as He Himself had promised, one day return to judge the world. Israel rejected this message, excommunicated the disciples of Jesus, and has from that time led an enigmatical existence, as the people of opposition to Christianity, which subsequently began to conquer the world. A catastrophe, such as the world has never since seen equalled, fell upon their land and city in the destruc tion of Jerusalem, when a million of men perished, about ninety thousand were sold as slaves, and the sun beheld horrors at the very mention of which the heart freezes. A prediction of Jesus had foretold this judgment ; and the Christians, mindful of it, escaped, while the Jews defiantly held out till they were buried beneath the ruins of their burning temple. And when the Emperor Julian, surnamed the Apostate, some 256 Lect. VIII. — History of Revelation. three hundred years after, commanded and began the rebuilding of the temple, that he might prove the words of Christ to be false, earthquakes and flames of fire burst forth, as both Christian and heathen writers testify, which consumed the work and scattered the labourers ; since when it has lain in ruins, while Israel sits mourning in the dust, and bewailing her departed glory. Her sons are scattered among all nations; their wandering feet have borne them over the whole earth. Everywhere have they built them habitations, yet everywhere are they strangers, bearing both in mind and countenance the impress of their origin. With a tenacity utterly unparalleled, they keep to the traditions of former times, though their worship was destroyed and rendered impossible with the destruction of their temple, and they can no longer keep their law. Without a king, without a priest hood, without a sacrifice, without a centre, they still hold together, though dispersed into mere atoms ; and live, in so far as they are not engrossed in the paltry concerns of the day, on the remembrance of the past and the hope of the future, though the family of David no longer exists, and the priestly race of Aaron can no longer be distinguished, — an enigma in history to which there is but one solution, and that is, that the ancient prophecies of Israel were fulfilled in Jesus the Son of Mary ; and that Israel, that great ruin of a nation in which the fact occurred, is the memorial and witness of this fulfilled prophecy. Christianity is the solution of the enigma Israel. Christianity. 257 But if I say Christianity, I thereby say Jesus Clirist. Christianity appeared in the world, not as a system of philosophy, not as a code of morality, but as an actual fact — the fact of the Person Christ Jesus. All depends on Him. With Him Christianity stands or falls. It cannot be separated from Him. It was not His precepts, but His Person and His testimony concern ing Himself, which brought about the crisis in Israel. He Himself made His whole cause depend upon His Person. We cannot separate it from Him. Ration alism has attempted to separate Christianity from Christ, and to reduce it to mere morality. But experience has proved the attempt impossible. Jesus Christ does not bear the same relation to Christianity that Mohammed does to Mohammedanism, or any other founder of a rehgion to the religion He has founded ; but He is Himself Christianity. To speak of Christianity is to speak not of doctrines and pre cepts, but of Jesus Christ. Christianity is indeed a summary of truths, a new doctrine, a philosophy if you will, a new view of the world, a new explanation of history, a new mode of worship, a new morality, a new rule of life, etc. It is all these, because it is a fact universal in its nature. But all these depend upon the Person of Jesus Christ, are given with Him, and in cluded in Him — stand and fall with Him. Ifwe, there fore, turn our attention to the position and significance of Christianity in history, it is the historical, position and significance of Jesus Christ Himself which meets our view. To this subject we shall next address ourselves. LECTUEE IX. CHRISTIANITY IN HISTORY. HEY are a few apparently unimportant words with which the evangehst St. Luke opens his narrative of the birth of Jesus, when he says (Luke ii. 1), that in those days there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed, and proceeds to "relate that this taxing took place at the time when Jesus was, in conformity with prophecy, born in Bethlehem, the ancient home of the house of David ; — they are, I say, but a few and apparently unimportant words, and yet they de fine in a characteristic manner the whole historical situation. For these two circumstances are included in them, — the coincidence of the appearance of Jesus in history with the culmination and close of the ancient times, as exhibited in the Roman emperor; and the subordination of the course of the world's history to the progress of the sacred history, and their consequent intrinsic connection. The age then existing was itself conscious of its approaching end. The Roman empire was not an accident, but the necessary result of preceding history. The Universal Empires. 259 We may perhaps say, that every Roman general who ascended the Capitol in a triumph, surrounded by the applauding soldiers and populace, was a type of the emperor, who was not after a short enjoyment of official dignity to abdicate the supreme power to another, but to make it permanent. And those several possessors of power, such as a Pompey, an Antony, a Caesar, who, in the midst of the stormy excitement of their times, raised themselves above their fellow-citizens, what were they but preliminary approximations to him who was to establish the future imperial power, and make it a permanent possession of his family ? The republic of so many centuries would not so willingly have surrendered itself to the new imperator if the empire had not been the mature fruit of the whole previous growth, and a necessity of preceding history. In it the Roman universal dominion found its close, and the fulfilment of its vocation. There was an ancient prophecy in Israel — found in the book of Daniel (chap. ii. 29-42, and vii.) — ofthe succession of the various universal dominions, with whose climax the kingdom of the Son of man and of His saints was to coincide. Consciousness of the mutual connection of all men on the one hand, and the instinct of dominion on the other, had early given rise to the idea of uniting all the various nations and kingdoms of the world into one great empire, which was to include the whole earth. To that resolute Babylonian monarch, Nebu- 260 Lect. IX. — Christianity in History. chadnezzar, may this proud and magnificent notion be in the first instance referred, — a notion so much the grander the farther removed foreign states and nations then were from the circle of vision. And there was a truth in the notion ; for there is in the soul of man a consciousness of mutual connection with the whole race, and we cannot conceive the end to which the events of history are tending to be any other than the union of mankind into one great family. The present phase of history, indeed, is that of nation alities, but its future is cosmopolitanism. We may even say that this notion is God's own thought con cerning mankind ; for this is the end towards which His ways are tending. As far, however, as the man ner in which it was conceived, and the means by which its realization was sought by those powerful rulers of Asia, were concerned, it was a depredation committed upon truth ; for it was undertaken in the service of an ambitious thirst of power, and was thus a mere caricature of the divine thought. But, once introduced into the course of human affairs, this thought had its history in the progressive gradations of its realization. The idea of universal empire formed, from that time forth, the motive-power of history. Often, as one attempt after another at its realization failed, it was nevertheless ever taken up again, with the view of attaining by the use of new means what the former had failed to ensure. Four great attempts at realizing this idea had special prominence in history, — the Babylonian, Persian, Grecian, and Roman monarchies. The Grecian and Roman Empires. 261 The memories of these empires are combined respec tively with the names of Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Alexander, and Augustus Caesar. The first two are closely connected with the history of Israel, the last two with the entrance of Christianity into the world. Nebuchadnezzar, by leading Israel into captivity in Babylon, dissolved their state and nation, and thus executed the long-threatened judgment of God upon that disobedient people. Gyrus, on the contrary, by his permission to the Israelites to return and to rebuild their temple, restored to their commonwealth the form, though a mean one, in which it was to experi ence and receive the fulfilment of its ancient hopes, and the blessing of true redemption. The contact of the people of the promise with Gentile nations served in both instances to transplant even into heathen soil the peculiar truths of their religious knowledge and hope, and so to fulfil, with respect to the heathen, that prophetic vocation which the chosen people had to all the nations of the world, and thus in some degree to prepare the heathen world for the fulfilment of the promise. The two other monarchies — the Grecian under Alexander, and the Roman of the emperors — stand in close relation to the entrance of Christianity into the world. It was the grand idea of Alexander to establish the extensive empire which he had, in his stormy attack upon the ancient bulwark of the Asiatic countries, so rapidly won, — an empire ex tending from the mountains of Macedonia to the 262 Lect. IX.- — Christianity in History. rivers of India, and composed of nations so widely differing from each other, — upon the common intel lectual basis of the Greek tongue and Greek learn ing. And when, after his early death, his kingdom fell into ruins, the separate states which arose from it, ruled as they were by men whose minds were formed by Grecian training, only served to carry on this work of Alexander, and to complete the task of pervading the Oriental world with the language and learning of Greece. This unity of language and learning, however, thus brought to pass in the whole of the then civihsed world, was, according to the counsel of God, to form the intellectual substructure for the announcement and propagation of Christianity, which was brought to these various nations by means of the Greek tongue. Surely it may here, if any where, be perceived that a divine thought directs the course of history. All the separate states and kingdoms, however, which had arisen from the great empire of Alexander, were received into the Roman empire, and thus united also to the West of Europe, and drawn into the great stream of universal history. The Roman empire gave an external form, as Alexander's empire had given an intellectual preparation. It was by the Roman empire that nations hitherto so reserved and exclusive towards each other were united into one great whole, and a connection and intercourse established between them which were extended also to the province of general culture. All this contributed to implant in the minds Intellectual Development. 263 of men the idea of a single kingdom, which was to combine diversity of nations and customs into a higher unity, and thus to prepare for that great thought of Christianity, the kingdom of God. At the same time it prepared the ways by which the gospel might reach the Western nations ; for the roads upon which Roman officials and troops passed and repassed from the capital to the provinces, or the tracks by which merchant vessels sailed backwards and for wards, served also for the messengers of Jesus Christ to travel with the word of life from the Euphrates to Rome and Spain, in that great region of nations within which the world's history was then transacted. This whole realm was included under one common law, to establish whose authority, and make it the protecting power of public life, was the special vocation of Rome. It was under the protection of Roman law that the infancy of Christianity was passed ; and the life of that apostle whose task it was to realize the universal mission of Christianity in the Roman world, the Apostle Paul, shows us how Roman law protected him against the fanaticism of his Jewish enemies. But the state of affairs at the birth of Christ — a state designated by the words Roman empire, and the name of its first emperor, Augustus — was the result of the previous growth of ages. All its processes, even those of intellectual development, meet here. Special mental endowments were bestowed upon those nations who were destined to be the depositaries of this intellectual development, and the means of 264 Lect. IX. — Christianity in History. transmitting to us the produce of the cultivation of the human mind in the ancient world. In them was the mind of man to manifest its highest possible attainments, and at the same time its limitation. At first, intellectual life in general was most intimately connected with the idea of the nation and the state. The state appeared as the highest form of social life, to which all others, even that of the family and of religious life, were subordinate. The human race beyond the state and nation was ignored. All intel lectual cultivation was in the fullest sense national, and, indeed, at first, Greek. Outside the intellec tual cultivation of this nation, there was in general none at all, but only barbarism. All other nations were barbarians in the eyes of the Greeks. Morality and religion were also national and pohtical. Virtue and sin were political virtue and political sin, and none greater were known. And this was the case with religion itself. A religion for the human race, a universal religion, was declared by the philosopher Celsus, several centuries after the birth of Christ, to be folly (l). The state, the nation, was the source of every action of life. But this source soon showed itself exhaustible. The national spirit sank ever lower and lower, and was at last extinguished. The com monwealth decayed, and men, abandoning the pur suit of politics, betook themselves to a more general pursuit of culture. In the supremacy of Grecian art and philosophy, the Greeks sought and found compensation for the loss of their national and Intellectual Development. 265 political independence. It was thus perceived that political existence was neither the highest nor the deepest and ultimate source of mental life. Very interesting is it to observe the mental process which was gone through towards the close of ancient history, while the spirit of universalism was endeavouring to work itself out of the spirit of nationalism, — a process carried on in every department of life, in the religious, the moral, and the philosophical. The bounds of national religion were broken through, and amidst the most opposite religions the best was sought for, though in the variegated mass of superstitions a satisfactory result could not be obtained, nor indeed any except the conviction expressed by the philosopher Plotinus, that men cannot come at the gods, but the gods must come to men. In ethics, also, the national point of view was abandoned, and a general morality and moral philosophy striven after, — a morality which, in its expressions, often furnishes the most striking external points of contact with that of Christianity, though it certainly exhibits an utter diversity of spirit, and never seeks to attain power and reality. Philosophy, too, was seeking general truth, and endeavouring to penetrate the mystery of the general relation in which God and the world stand to each other, but without getting beyond doubt and uncertainty, and at last despair of the attainment of any truth. And rightly has that question of Pilate, uttered with the levity and contempt of a blase', What is truth? been ever regarded as an involuntary expression of the result to 266 Lect. IX. — Christianity in History. which the inquiries of the ancient world had conducted it. All efforts at discovering truth had failed, and it seemed best to give up this fruitless enthusiasm ; yet the deeply-rooted desire could not be extirpated from the human heart. The ideas begotten by Alex andrian speculation, for instance, which were to explain the mystery of the divine, and of its revela tion, were but a faint shadow of truth, — the shell, so to speak, of the actual fruit which was still wanting ; yet for that very reason prophecies of the real and actual truth, which was not to proceed from the ex hausted power of the human mind, but to enter into the world as an act of God, and which did enter it in the person of Him who could say of Himself, 'Iam the Truth.' Hence Jesus Christ is the end towards which all ancient history tended, whether external or internal, — an end required by the whole previous development, the answer to the question with which it concludes, the solution of its enigma, the key by which we may be enabled to understand the history of the world. He, the miraculous gift and act of God, coming from above and not from beneath, is not its product; but He is its requirement, and therefore, though with respect to His nature and origin its supernatural, yet, in His historical position, its natural close. He is, so to speak, the filling up of the void which the history of mankind had left, but which it was unable from its own resources to fill. Such is the position of Christianity, i.e. of Jesus Position of Jesus Christ in History. 267 Christ in history, retrospectively viewed. He is the goal to which it was tending, and its close. And corresponding with this is the position He occupies im, history prospectively viewed ; He is its starting- point and its power. A new era begins with Him, and is ruled by Him. Before Jesus took leave of His disciples, He com manded them to carry their message to all nations, to baptize them all in His name, and to gather them into the one Church of the new human race, having previously given them the promise that the gospel should be preached in all the earth, and that there should be one fold and one shepherd. This saying seemed a simple impossibility ; in the mouth of any other it might have been called the saying of a mad man. For how should these few men, unlettered fishermen and publicans as they were, and of the most despised nation upon earth, be able to induce the rest of the world to receive a religion whose central object was a crucified man, and which announced a way of salvation as far removed as possible from flattering the inclinations of men, and standing in sharpest op position to all their natural notions ? The very thought of mankind as a great unity, — the thought, in short, of one religion for all, of a universal religion, of one flock, which was to include all nations, every variety of nationality, of position in life, of degree of educa tion, — the thought of the Church as we have it and know it, was the grandest thought ever conceived or expressed by a man. The very thought was itself 268 Lect. IX. — Christianity im, History. a miracle, its realization the very greatest of miracles ; the permanent, ever-present miracle, compensating us for the absence of all others, conceivable only through what Jesus added, that they should be endued with power from on high, and through what St. Luke relates in the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, that the Spirit of God came upon them and made them other men, enabling them in the power of this new Spirit to conquer the world, and to erect a king dom, which, being founded, not like the kingdoms of the old world by means of natural though unusual power, but created by the word of God's Spirit, is to endure for ever. There cannot be a more sublime subject of contem plation than the triumphant progress of Christianity during the course of the world's history. Everything seemed to conspire to render its victory utterly impossible. Its origin was against it; it seemed but a Jewish sect. Its advocates and followers had nothing attractive about them, and belonged for the most part to the lower and uneducated classes. Its doctrine was a ' stumbling-block ; ' it appeared a most vexatious 'foolishness.' Its reverence for God, too, was suspected; for the Christians, using no, images of the gods, were taken for atheists. The worst and most immoral things were said of its mysterious rites. Public opinion was prejudiced against them, philoso phers assailed Christianity with intellectual weapons, while the authorities opposed it with brutal violence (2). And yet it triumphed. So early as the reign of Nero, Triumphant Progress of Christianity. 269 it was, as the Roman historian Tacitus indignantly asserts, very widely diffused. Nor did it avail to arrest its progress that Nero, in order to divert from himself the guilt of the great conflagration of Rome, executed vast numbers of Christians, not so much, as Tacitus says, because they were guilty of this crime, as because they were hated by the whole human race (3). Nevertheless, Christianity continued to spread. An interesting letter of the younger Pliny, governor of Bithynia, in Asia Minor, to his friend the Emperor Trajan, written about seventy years after the death of Christ, is still extant, distinctly portraying the state of the Christian cause at that time in the places which had been the scenes of St. Paul's and St. John's ministries. ' This superstition,' writes Pliny (4), ' has spread on all sides — in towns, and villages, and in the country ; the temples of our gods stand deserted, and sacrifices have now for a long time ceased to be offered. — I arrested 'a few girls called deaconesses, and put them to the torture, but discovered nothing besides excessive and pernicious superstition. They confessed that they met together before dawn, to sing praises to Christ, as to God. They make solemn engage ments to each other,' he adds, 'to live a moral and serious life.' And a century later, Tertullian, in his Apology, could say to the heathen, ' We are but of yesterday, and yet we have taken possession of your whole country, — towns, islands, the camp, the palace, the senate, the forum ; we have left you only the temples ' (5). Nor could the great persecutions — of 270 Lect. IX. — Christianity in History. which ten may be enumerated — ever hanging over the Christians, arrest the triumphs of Christianity. No age, no sex was spared ; all the strength of the empire was put in requisition ; certain of the most energetic of the emperors, such as Decius and Diocletian, considered it their special duty to root out Christianity from the world, because the very existence of the Roman empire depended upon its extirpation. But the arm of the executioner failed before the fidelity of the Christians. Diocletian was obliged to give up his work ; he retired from the stage, but Christianity remained, and in the person of Constantine ascended the imperial throne, and has since governed, even externally, the Roman world (6). The triumph of Mohammedanism cannot be com pared to this. Mohammedanism came forward as ' a religion of this world, a religion of conquest and of sensuous enjoyments, 'and thesword was its preacher(7). Pascal says of it : ' Mohammed founded his dominion by killing, Christ by suffering Himself to be killed.' ' Humanly speaking, Mohammed chose means adapted for conquest, Jesus those adapted for defeat.' Instead, therefore, of concluding, since Mohammed succeeded, Jesus Christ might well succeed, we should rather say, Since Mohammed succeeded, Jesus ought to have failed (8). The propagation of Christianity can be effected only by means of conversion ; and what that means he can understand who knows what it means to convert one single man. Let any one try to uproot from one single heart the supremacy of Triumphant Progress of Christianity. 271 selfishness ; yet this was a struggle with the supre macy of selfishness in the world ! (9). It is not denied that external circumstances, such as the unity of the empire, intercourse between, distant countries, identity of language and education, favoured the spread of Christianity. But what were these external circum stances but the work of Divine Providence? Nor is it less admitted that a feeling at that time existed, that something new, something better than had yet been known, would appear. But what was this feel ing but the God-ordained result of that preceding development which was intended to prepare for Christianity a way into the hearts of men ? Nor is it denied that the morality of Christianity and of its advocates was a great power. The world had never before witnessed a moral purity so sublime, a brotherly affection so hearty; and the very heathen could not help admiring it. ' See how these Christians love each other,' they exclaimed ; ' how_ ready they are to die for each other ! ' (10). They love almost before they know each other (11). Even Julian the Apostate speaks with admiration of the holy walk and brotherly love of Christians. And Lucian the satirist says : ' It is marvellous how these men rush to one another in misfortune.' 'Most of them,' — such is the sense of a longer passage in a work of the famous physician Galenus, on Plato, of which this passage only is extant, — ' are not in a condition to philosophize, but they live like philosophers ' (12). ' What women the Christ ians have ! ' exclaims Libanius (13) with astonishment. 272 Lect. IX. — Christianity in History. And what was all this but the fruit of the Spirit of Jesus Christ? Such morality was itself a miracle. ' They are in the flesh,' says the Epistle of Diognetus, an able early Christian composition, when speaking of Christians, ' but they do not live after the flesh. They sojourn on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the existing laws, but by their lives they are placed above the laws. They love every one, and are persecuted by every one. If they are reviled they bless, if they are treated arrogantly they show respect. Though they do that which is right, they are punished as evil-doers, and rejoice in punishment as an assist ance in life.' The martyrs, however, became by means of their steadfastness the most impressive preachers of Christianity, and ' their blood the seed of the Church ' (14). ' Boys and maidens,' says Lac- tantius, ' conquer their tormentors by their silence' (15). And it also happened that some converted even their executioners. It was no fanaticism, but the bright reflection of that new life which they received from the Spirit of Christ, which enabled them to encounter death with quiet and peaceful sober-mindedness — without a thought, too, of obtaining glory from men ; for in the eyes of the world their confession of faith was a disgrace, and many died whose very names were known to God alone. All these means contributed, and could not but con tribute, to the success of Christianity, which certainly would not have conquered the world withoutthem. But these means were the means of God and of His Spirit. Triumphant Progress of Christianity. 273 It was not so easy a matter as it may perhaps appear to us to conquer heathenism ; for the heathen religion had so intertwined itself with the political, social, and intellectual life of the people, that it seemed impossible so to separate them as to uproot the one and to leave the other standing. He who was an enemy to the faith of his forefathers seemed also to be an enemy of the state, and of culture in general (l6). National life was founded on religion, and had grown up with it ; the departments of religion and politics were indissolubly united. All national acts were at the same time religious acts ; all public affairs partook of a religious character. Christians were regarded as the enemies of the state, and even patriotism seemed to demand enmity to Christianity, which was viewed as of all things most perilous to the nation. All the earlier apologists had to defend Christianity against these reproaches. And this was the case also with culture in general. Art and science, and all mental cultivation, had developed themselves in connection with religion. To seek to promote Christianity was to threaten the annihilation of the intellectual produce of ages. Christianity was looked upon as synonymous with barbarism. Its first apologists were repeatedly obliged to repel this imputation (17). Even at the present time we may obtain a lively impression of the state of affairs in those days. We have, for example, only to descend into the subterranean vaults or sepulchres in which the Christians met to celebrate their rites, and then to compare with them one of 274 Lect. IX. — Christianity in History. those charming Grecian temples in which the people offered their sacrifices, or one of those magnificent amphitheatres in which they assembled at joyful spectacles, or perhaps even at the bloody conflicts of Christian martyrs with wild beasts, to perceive and feel how great a moral force was needed to gain the mastery over the mighty power of heathen religion and heathen life. And Christianity did gain the mastery ; yet far from annihilating, it preserved, purified, received into itself, and united with its very being, the culture of the ancient world, and transmitted it to posterity. After having taken possession of the Roman world, it laid the German world, which now began to occupy the stage of history, at the feet of Jesus ; made its people the instruments of transmitting its doctrines to futurity, and developed in them a new intellectual life. Many a shock had the Church to encounter in its course, — fightings within and foes without, the false religion of Mohammed, and the wild hordes of Huns and Mongols. But it stood all these perils and attacks, and was only the more firmly rooted in the minds of men, the more firmly planted in the midst of all human interests. A band of men, indeed, appeared in this country, towards the close of the last century, who strove and hoped to put an end to the religion of Jesus Christ ; and a storm also soon arose in France, which threatened the extinction of the Christian Church. But the storm blew over, and the Church stood fast ; while the faith of Christ did but acquire Triumphant Progress of Christianity. 275 fresh strength and gladness from the troubles it endured, and from the terrible commotions of the times. Nor are our own times any less times of conflict ; and the great cause which is now being con tested in the intellectual arena is nothing else than the supremacy of Christianity. But its advocates, far from being discouraged, are combining aggressions on the enemy abroad with defensive operations at home. No age has for many centuries been so pre-eminently an age of missionary exertion among the heathen as the present; and slow as may be the progress actually made, still it is progress, and all are firmly persuaded that the cause of Christ must yet triumph among all nations ; that the words of the apostle, that in the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, must yet be fulfilled ; that the poet's saying shall yet be realized : ' The struggle shall not cease Till vict'ry crown His cause ; Till each remotest nation Is subject to His laws.' The progress of Christianity in history has been a triumphant one. But the progress of Christianity is that of Jesus Christ. When we say Christianity, we do in effect say Jesus Christ, for everything depends upon Him. And what Christianity means, is to bow before Christ, and honour Him as the only and everlasting Saviour of us all. Christianity, however, is not merely a power possessing external sovereignty, but a power exercising an inward and spiritual authority. Not merely the external religions of 276 Lect. IX. — Christianity in History. the various nations, but the entire intellectual life of mankind, has been conquered and renewed thereby. With Christianity a new era dawned upon the human mind, and the whole moral and social life of our race. Christianity introduced ihe era of humanity (18). Not before its advent did men look upon themselves as members of one great family. Not before were the rights of human personality acknowledged. What have been termed the rights of man are the fruit of Christianity. It made no changes in the external arrangements of society; it left laws and privileges, manners and conditions, customs and ranks, as it found them ; but it introduced a new spirit into all these relations of life. It did not externally abolish even slavery; but it taught all to recognise in the slave a man, a Christian brother, and thus inwardly shattered this objectionable institution. It raised the condition of women from a degraded to a most honourable and influential one. It made love, which, as Montesquieu says, at the time of its introduction, still bore only a form which cannot be named (19), the noblest and tenderest power of mental and spiritual life. It withdrew children, whom the heathen world had felt no scruple at destroying either before or after birth, because they were regarded as property which its possessors were fully justified in disposing of at their pleasure, from the arbitrary power of their parents, and placed them under the Saviour's protection, by declaring them to be, by baptism, children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven. It Power of the Christian Spirit. 277 created a new Christian family affection, so hearty, genuine, and voluntary as had been hitherto unknown, and believed to be impossible. Not till Christianity appeared did the love of one's neighbour, in the true sense of the word, exist. Christianity introduced humanity into the world, and inculcated the virtue of compassion. Care for the sick and poor, which has played so famous a part in the history of the Christian world, was one of its happy fruits. That spirit of love, of resignation, of self-sacrifice, which is the love liest and noblest product of the moral life, proceeded from Christianity, from the cross of Christ. It was Christianity which broke down the wall of partition between classes, nations, and states. Not before did there exist upon earth such a thing as international law, upon which, in our days, the whole framework of society depends. That history is not one continuous war of all against all; that right and law form the foundation of national life, and that consequently com merce and intercourse, and a general civilisation of mankind, have been rendered possible upon earth, are blessings for which we are indebted to Christianity. And with the supremacy of law and justice in the several states, it has combined the spirit of gentle ness, and reminded men that even the criminal is still a man, and should be an object of our compassion, because he is an object of divine pity, and because it is the will of God to save his soul. Together with the rights of personality which Christianity acknow ledged, it established also the rights of private judg- 278 Lect. IX. — Christianity in History. ment and liberty of conscience. The first defenders of Christianity were also the first proclaimers of liberty of conscience ; and how much soever this principle may at times have been sinned against by the advocates of the Church, yet hberty of conscience, the necessity of which has now become a matter of universal conviction and admission, was itself the fruit of Christianity (20). But it was not merely liberty which Christianity granted to the conscience ; it did this, indeed, but it did far more : it brought also comfort to the conscience, peace to the soul, delivery from the sense of guilt, consciousness of pardon, assurance of God's mercy on the ground of that ever- availing atonement for sin by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, whereby conscience is healed of its wounds, the mind relieved from anxiety, and the heart from heaviness, in which lies the best comfort in all sufferings, the best remedy for all the sorrows of this life, and which, at the same time, constitutes the true moral power of all work and action. For life is valuable in proportion to the work effected therein; but the power of happy working depends upon a good conscience, assured of God's forgiveness. Hence Christianity, by its announcement of God's mercy in Christ, became at the same time the source of a new and hitherto unknown moral power. The ancient world was unable to form even a distant imagination of such characters — thoroughly moral characters, equally great in doing as in suffering, in self-denial as in activity — as Christianity has produced. It was Power of the Christian Spirit. 279 the infusion, too, of this new moral power which fertilized, developed, and ennobled the mental efforts of man in the various departments of art and science. What but Christianity called forth from the hidden depths of the heart and mind, the strict genuine earnestness and versatility of scientific research, the sublime purity and truth of artistic representation, the depth, the psychological truth, and fulness of poetic productions ? In short, Christianity became the power of a new life to mankind, not only in a religious, but also in an intellectual and moral sense. It is true that much injustice, and even much that is infamous, has been perpetrated in the name of Christianity (21). But this has been an abuse of its name and a contradiction of its nature, while Chris tianity itself has had no share in such acts. Nor is it less true that the Christian world has often seen times of moral darkness and error. But Christian humanity has ever struggled up again out of the depths of moral degradation, and thus shown that Christianity, in distinction to all other religions, possesses a power of inexhaustible life, through which it is ever capable of rising with renewed youth from even the deepest decay (22). There is in it a life and vigour derived from an eternal source, and it is this alone which makes it capable of becoming a new vital power for mankind. And this new life is capable of infusing itself into every phase of life, just because it is in its nature spiritual, and not merely any one special form of 280 Lect. IX. — Christianity in History. external life; hence, too, it is equally capable of assuming the most opposite external appearances, and of entering into and becoming the soul of the most opposite kinds of life. What a variety of forms has not Christianity assumed in different ages of the Church ! During the first centuries, when it cele brated its triumphs in the sufferings of the martyrs, and its rites in the obscurity of the Catacombs ; in the ages after Constantine, when it made the cross the banner of warlike hosts, and the first jewel of crowns ; in the Middle Ages, when from Rome it gave laws to the world, built its splendid cathedrals, and brought forth from its fertile bosom a rich world of poetry ; in the Reformation period, when it awakened and com forted consciences by the earnest preaching of the word, and infused fresh spiritual hfe into the Western world ; during the war mania of Germany, when, with its hymns of comfort, it soothed the crushed and trampled people, or when it afterwards bestowed upon the human mind that enfranchisement which fitted it for its subsequent bold philosophic investigations, or implanted in the narrow circle of the quiet in the land the germ of a new future ; or in the present century, when it marched before our hosts to lead them to the victory of freedom from foreign bondage, and more recently when it aroused the spirit of com passion to gather the outcasts into places of refuge, or to exercise its kindly offices in the abodes of sick ness. Under all these differing aspects it has re mained one and the same, and its witnesses in all Christianity a Testimony to Jesus Christ. 281 ages are as intelligible to us, and awake within us as responsive an echo, as the preaching of to-day. And under what various forms do Christianity and the Church exist at the present day ; under what various phases of manners and customs, of doctrine and wor ship — amidst the nations of the north and of the south, the civilised and uncivilised ! And however various its forms, however diverse its relations, it is ever one and the same : the confession of faith in Jesus Christ, the Saviour of sinful man ! Rent as the Church now is, in one thing all churches are unanimous : the apostolic confession of faith in God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is the common faith of all Christians and churches. If none other is to be found among men, the cross of Christ has, so far as they have suffered themselves to be gathered into the Church of Christ, instituted a unity among men, — a unity of faith and confession, of love and hope. Various as may be their grades of intellectual culture, the preaching of the cross is to all the one truth, the one wisdom ; manifold as may be their nationalities, in Christ Jesus all — the Indian as well as the Euro pean, the Negro as well as the Asiatic — reverence their Teacher, their Redeemer, their King (23). Such is the universal position of Christianity among mankind. It is a divine power renewing every aspect of life. But Christianity is a testi mony to Jesus Christ; for it originated with Him, was given and exists in Him. He is Christianity. Hence Jesus is not a man like other men, subjected 282 Lect. IX. — Christianity in History. to human partiality and limitation, but of universal importance, and the bearer of divine life. How, then, could He have been, as Renan says, enthusiastic and fanatical, and His disciples still more so? A stream so pure and so fertile in blessings could not spring from so dark a source. The blessings which proceeded and still proceed from Him testify : Here is the revelation of God, and therefore the light and life of the world. He is the eternal life ; in Him we have -God. And this is what the Gospels also testify of Him. LECTURE X. THE PERSON OP JESUS CHRIST. j]HERE is scarcely any subject of inquiry which lays so great a claim to the reli gious interest of the present day as the person of Jesus Christ. Nor has any other a right to demand an equal interest ; for it is a matter in which Christianity itself, nay, universal history, is involved. 'It concerns Him who,' as Jean Paul Richter says, ' being the holiest among the mighty, the mightiest among the holy, lifted with His pierced hand empires off their hinges, turned the stream of centuries out of its channel, and still governs the ages ' (l). In our days, indeed, far less interest is felt in dogmatical than in historical questions, and yet history is but the vehicle' and husk of doctrine. The strife about doctrine has been, in fact, transported into the region of the history of the life of Jesus Christ. And how great are the contrasts there opposed to each other ! As great as the difference be tween the eternal Son of God and the son of Joseph. These contrasts are old, though heightened at the present day. 284 Lect. X. — The Person of Jesus Christ. From the very first, Christians have rendered divine honour to Jesus Christ. Even in the New Testament they are designated as those 'who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus ' (2). And Pliny, in his epistle to the Emperor Trajan, speaks of the hymns which the Christians sang in their assemblies to Christ as to God (3). This fact, if we knew nothing else of the teaching of the apostolic Church concerning the person of Jesus, would be a sufficient testimony to the divine honour which was rendered to Him. Very early, however, do we meet with a twofold opposition to church doctrine, a Jewish and a heathen one. Jewish error saw in Jesus only the very greatest of the pro phets, His superhuman greatness being lost in His real humanity. Heathen error saw in Jesus a super human being, who had descended to this earth from higher spheres ; but it resolved His historical reality into mere appearance. In the former, history prevails to the disparagement of idea ; in the latter, idea to the disparagement of history. The Church beheld in Jesus Christ the union of the two, of history and idea, of the Divine and human. How, indeed, the two could coalesce into a perfect unity, remained a problem to reason, which will never be able to rise to the full measure of the fact. But how far are we also from so attaining to the fulness of the fact as to leave nothing unknown even in questions of natural life, so soon as they penetrate beyond the mere surface ! The faith and confession of the Church are, moreover, independent of the attempts, of human reason to comprehend and Ancient and Modern Opposition. 285 fathom the mystery of the person of Jesus Christ. And in this faith the various churches are unanimous. Dogmatic differences concerning this question are but of slight moment compared to the unanimity of faith. Christians of all churches bow the knee in the name of Jesus. Rationalism obliterates the divine element in the person of Christ, as well as the supernatural in general. And even when it speaks of a ' heavenly appearance in this sublunary world,' this is but a figure of speech, for in its view He is still only the greatest of moral teachers. But it was soon perceived that the mere moral teacher did not satisfy the requirements of the facts. Christianity is a phenomenon far surpassing the bounds of mere morality. The portrait drawn in the Gospels is far too great to be realized by ' the wise rabbi of Nazareth,' and philosophic speculation sought to grasp the deeper idea of Christianity. But if Rationalism advocated history at the expense of the idea, speculation advocated the idea at the expense of history. Jesus was only a symbol, — the symbol, for instance, of divine wisdom, according to Spinoza ; or of ideal perfection, according to Kant and Jacobi ; or of the union of the divine and human, according to Schelling and Hegel. How far Jesus Himself approxi mated to this ideal, for He did not fully attain to it, cannot be said ; but this is a matter of indifference, as everything depends upon the idea, not upon the fact. But it is vain to persuade us to such a notion ; for that which so powerfully enchains us in the Gospels, 286 Lect. X. — The Person of Jesus Christ. which makes such claims to our whole interest, what is it but the historical reality of the person of Jesus ? We feel it impossible to stop short at the mere idea, and be contented with it. Strauss attempted, from this philosophical point of view, to get rid of the history altogether. He resolves it almost all into fictions, which owed their origin to the poetic spirit of the Christian Church, leaving but a scanty residuum of historical reality. But if the Jesus of the Gospels is the product of the Church, whose product is the Church itself? The small remains of the history of Jesus left to us by Strauss bear no proportion to the effect whose cause they are said to be. Renan, on the other hand, is convinced that the power exercised by this history was too great to allow it to be resolved into myths. His book is, in this respect, a step in advance of that of Strauss. • He does homage to the historical reality. The philosophic mind of the Ger man might content itself with abstractions and ideas ; the more realistic mind of the Frenchman demanded historical facts. He says, and rightly, that the cause which lay in the person of Jesus must correspond to the prodigious effect produced ; that Jesus could not have been the mere fiction of His biographers ; that the gospel history must, in the main, have actually occurred. By a survey of the country in which its facts took place, the history acquired in his eyes a palpable embodiment. Jesus is, in his eyes, ' a man of enormous proportions.' But he writhes to escape from the admissions which his naturalistic Strauss and Renan. 287 view of the world will not suffer him to make. He multiplies fine expressions and high-flown sen tences to escape that one simple confession, that the person of Jesus is a miracle, and that the essence of His history is supernatural. For he absolutely denies the supernatural and the miraculous, because he admits no world beyond this finite world, no free and personal God, and no personal immortality (4). Miracles, however, form an essential part of the life of Jesus. Hence he chooses rather to view them as delusions and deceptions on the part of Jesus Himself, and to ascribe to Him the application of the maxim, that the end sanctifies the means ; in other words, he prefers annihilating the moral character of Jesus, to acknowledging that in Him we do meet with super natural power. But as long as a feeling for morality exists, it will revolt against the notion that Jesus employed all sorts of artifices, and such as even ordinary morality would be incapable of tolerating : such, for instance, as assuming the appear ance of knowing men's thoughts, or consciously defiling the purity of His teaching by an intermixture of fanatic enthusiasm, for the sake of increasing its efficacy, in consequence of the willingness of the people to be deceived ; or declaring Himself to be the Son of God, and making this declaration a fundamental principle of His kingdom, while His own better knowledge opposed it ; or thinking with sad despair in Gethsemane of the sparkling streams of His home, and of the Galilean maidens who were ready to bestow 288 Lect. X. — The Person of Jesus Christ. their affections upon Him. Such notions could only have entered into an imagination run wild, and a son of modern Paris. No, as long as the Gospels exist, so long will they be the sufficient refutation of such blasphemies against Him who was the purest of the pure. Let us then question these Gospels concerning the person of Jesus. But, first, let me be permitted to say a few yuntiOt on the Gospels in general (5). Jesus Himself neither composed nor bequeathed to us any writings; for He was no philosopher, or founder of a religion in the ordinaiy s/ense. His person and His work are the writings which He inscribed in broad characters on /the history of mankind ; and the work of His Spirit in the heart is the epistle which He is, day by day, inscribing in ineffaceable characters within usV, His disciples, however, did compose writings, Trom/ winch we receive more detailed information concerning Him,, and by— which also the oral tradition amd announcement of Him, which have since the d/ay of Pentecost been current in the world, ha^^be/en supported and pre served. We might, ^ndeed, \\c ve been certain of the existence of Jesus 'Christ, even if we possessed no Gospels ; the Church itself, its very existence, would then be our Gospel. And we might be certain of the main facts of His life, even if oral tradition were uncertain and varying in details. This uncertainty in detail would not destroy our certainty of the general and the whole. We might never have read any- The Gospels. 289 thing about the first Napoleon, and yet we might know what was most important concerning him ; and even if none of his deeds had been committed to writing, the .main facts of his life would still be cer tainties to us, and might remain such for centuries. Yet what is the impression made upon the minds of men even by a Napoleon, compared with the memorial which Jesus has set up in their hearts ; and what are the effects left by the former, compared with the work performed by the latter ? Our faith, then, does not depend upon writings, and their truth and genuine ness or ungenuineness, but upon facts which belong to history, and upon effects produced within our hearts. The written narratives are, however, the support and defence of our faith. They portray to us so vividly the image of Him whom we know and love, and represent His features with such exalted purity and living power, that we can but recognise in them the finger of God, and esteem and honour them as our best and dearest earthly treasures. The repeated attacks which have been made upon these books have diffused the notion, especially among the uninformed, that they are not so unassailable as the Christian Church has hitherto esteemed them. Not only, however, is this suspicion entirely without foundation, but it would, besides, be in the highest degree arbitrary to infer the uncertainty of the facts from the supposed uncertainty of the writings. How, then, does the case stand with the gospel narratives ? T 290 Lect. X. — The Person of Jesus Christ. It must not be forgotten that these are not like writings discovered at some time or other in a library, and concerning whose origin doubts might reasonably be entertained, because nothing further was known of them. They did not originate in private, and after wards pass from privacy into publicity, but came forth from the bosom of the first Christian Church, and were, so to speak, written .under its eyes. They were, from the very first, authenticated by the oral tradition of the gospel history, and the remembrance of their origin ever accompanied them. The earliest Christian instruction was everywhere the relation of the gospel history, for to preach the gospel was to preach Jesus Christ. The great facts of His life, the words which He spoke, the fate which He experienced, His sufferings, His death, His resur rection, — such were the themes of apostolic preaching. All the interest of the Christian Church was con centrated upon the person and history of Jesus Christ. Never yet was there a religious community that had anything like a similar interest in the history of its founder to that which the Christian Church had. For the facts of His history are the matter of its religious faith, and the certainty of the facts is the foundation of the faith. How strictly this was inves tigated may be seen from the care with which St. Paul enumerates the witnesses of Christ's resurrection (1 Cor. xv.) The apostolic Epistles show us what a lively remembrance of the life of Jesus was preserved in the primitive Church. Even if we possessed no Testimony of the Ancient Church. 291 gospel narratives, all the more important facts of Christ's life might be gleaned from the Epistles. And these were written twenty or thirty years after the death of Jesus, that is to say, during the life of the first generation of Christians. The Christ ofthe Epistles, moreover, is the very same as the Christ of the Gospels. It was natural that the need of such written narratives of the life of Jesus should first be felt when the first generation began to fall off, i.e. at about sixty or seventy years after the commencement of our era. Till then — as we learn from the introduction to St. Luke's Gospel — various written records had been made in different circles for the sake of assisting the memory. But these were deficient both in completeness and authenticity,. nor was the authority of their origin acknowledged. Hence they gradually gave place to those longer writings which proceeded from the apostolic circle, and which, under the name of gospels, have, since the end of the first century, obtained universal credit in Christendom. Certainly it was not without divine dispensation that these four Gospels were composed. For these divers narratives wonderfully contribute, by the manner in which they complete one another, to furnish a copious and harmonious joint portraiture of our Redeemer. The first Gospel, we are told, was written by the Apostle St. Matthew for the Jewish Christians of Palestine, before he left that country to preach the gospel in other lands. The second, according to church tradition, was composed under the eye of St. 292 Lect. X. — The Person of Jesus Christ. Peter. The third tells us that it was the result of diligent investigation in the Holy Land, and was dedicated to a noble Roman for his further instruc tion, to become hereafter through him the property of the Christian Church. The fourth declares itself to be the narrative of an eye-witness, and gives suffi ciently clear indications of being the work of the Apostle John ; and we are elsewhere informed that this same apostle, after having for a long period preached Jesus, only orally, to the Church of Ephesus, composed this Gospel, at the urgent request of its elders. These traditions are confirmed both by these writings themselves, and by the respect in which they have been held by the Church from the very first. We have but few remains of the Christian literature of the first century. It is not till the year 150 that these become more copious. Yet scanty and frag mentary as this literature is, we find in it repeated references to the Gospels ; and the more abundant it becomes, the more numerous are such references, and the more firmly is the ecclesiastical authority and use of these writings established (6). And the more we know from various individual examples how strict and tenacious the early Church was in the matter of tradition, even when the retention of subordinate traditions was concerned, the more highly will its testimony be rated, nor can such accuracy and tenacity fail to prepossess us in favour of the evidence which it furnishes to the Gospels (7). Many a dispute concerning even utterly subordinate varia- Testimony of Heretics. 293 tions of tradition agitated the Church in the second century, but no dispute or discussion ever arose concerning the canonical Gospels ; this fundamental interest of the whole Church being from the very first regarded as unquestionably decided (s). And it is just in the case of that very Gospel upon which, in this question, so much depends, — the Gospel of St. John, — that the closely-linked chain of tra dition comes in most opportunely; for Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, who suffered martyrdom at the age of 90, was a disciple of the Apostle St. John. And Irenaeus, in whose writings we find abundant testimony to the Gospel of St. John, was himself a disciple of Polycarp. Now Irenaeus must have been in possession of accurate information on the point ; for Polycarp, his teacher, would naturally tell him much concerning his own personal intercourse with the aged apostle. Irenaeus, then, must have known whether the fourth Gospel were really the work of St. John, and certainly would never have ascribed it to him if it had been so far removed from the times, and so contrary to the mind of that apostle as negative criticism asserts. Besides which, other testimony of the second century reaches back far beyond Irenaeus, into the decade immediately following the death of St. John. To the testimony of the Church must be added that of heretics. The adherents of the fantastic doctrines of Gnosticism in the second century would not have appealed to the canonical Gospels, and have en- 294 Lect. X. — The Person of Jesus Christ. deavoured to show, by all the devices of allegorical interpretation, its accordance with them, and espe cially with the Gospel of St. John, unless their uni versally recognised authority had necessitated this seeming justification of their erroneous teaching (9). Nor do the apocryphal Gospels, whose date is as early as the beginning of the second century, and which assume the existence of the canonical Gospels, bear less decisive testimony to them (10). But it is not merely the external testimony of the Church, nor that of heretical sects, which bears witness to the Gospels ; it is also their self -testimony, the testimony furnished by the harmony, the keeping, the entire character of their narratives. An acquaintance with the facts of Christ's history was the common property of the whole Church; not in the first instance by means of the Gospels, but by oral tradi tions, as all unhesitatingly received it from the apostles. For instruction in Christianity began with instruction in the facts of Christ's life. Would, then, the gospel narratives have met with accept ance if they had not been in accordance with this oral instruction? For this having originated with eye-witnesses, if the written records had not ap pealed to such eye-witnessing, whether their com posers had themselves been eye-witnesses, as Matthew and John, and perhaps partly Mark, or had re ceived their information directly from eye-witnesses, like Luke, they could not have met with acceptance. But this character is borne by the Gospels. Their The Gospel Portraiture of Jesus Christ. 295 thorough originality, and the fact of their being the result of direct knowledge, are very evident (ll). An air of freshness, the charm of originality, pervades them all, constituting their peculiar attraction, and producing their winning power. We see, we hear Jesus Himself, we pass with Him through the various phases of His history. There are no reflections upon the history, but an embodiment of facts; no pedantic representations of history, but the history itself; it speaks to us, and we are transplanted into the midst of its scenes. And these direct representations will endure any amount of investigation. A , mass of geographical and other notices is interspersed. We can verify their accuracy, and all such verifications become corroborations. But the main point is the portrait which they draw of the Lord Jesus. It is such as no human being could have invented ; it must have been copied from an actual original. We might say of a man that he was without sin and without error, and the very image of divine holiness. But we could not portray such an image without some features, which would betray their origin, being introduced by our limited, erring, sinful minds. Here, however, we have a picture completely carried out, in all possible situations, amidst all changes of inner and outer life, and in the most striking contrasts. And in every feature, in every slightest turn, this form commands our admiration, and brings us on to our knees before it. No one can invent after this fashion (12). And least 296 Lect. X. — The Person of Jesus Christ. of all could Jews have done so; for this was not by any means the ideal of their minds. They did not give reality to their ideal, but the reality first gave to them this ideal. For the ideal which possessed their minds might have corresponded, for instance, to some Jewish scribe; but how Httle did Jesus exhibit such a character ! He was a perfect contrast to such an ideal. With that want of self-reliance, that dependence upon the authority of their teachers in religious matters, which the disciples of Jesus shared with the rest of their unlearned fellow-countrymen, they would never have emancipated themselves from the pattern those authorities had prescribed, and have set up a model so entirely different, if this model, which they portray with such overwhelming power and sublimity, had not actually appeared before them in the person of Jesus. Cardinal Wiseman says, in one of his lectures : ' We have in the writings of the rabbins ample materials wherewith to construct the model of a perfect Jewish teacher : we have the say ings and the actions of Hillel, and Gamaliel, and Rabbi Samuel, all perhaps in great part imaginary, but all bearing the impress of national ideas, all formed upon one rule of imaginary perfection. Yet nothing can be more widely apart from their thoughts and principles, and actions and character, and those of our Redeemer. Lovers of wrangling controversy, proposers of captious paradoxes, jealous upholders of their nation's exclusive privileges, zealous uncompromising sticklers for the least comma of the law, and most sophistical departers The Gospel Portraiture of Jesus Christ. 297 from its spirit ; such mostly are these great men, — the exact counterpart and reflection of those scribes and Pharisees who are so uncompromisingly reproved as the very contradiction of gospel principles. How comes it that men, not even learned, contrived to represent a character every way departing from their national type, at variance with all those features which custom, and education, and patriotism, and religion, and nature seemed to have consecrated as of all most beautiful ? . . . The evangelists must have copied the living model which they represent ; and the accordance of the moral features which they give Him can only proceed from the accuracy with which they have respectively drawn Him ' (13). It is not denied that we, who possess the original, might be capable of inventing something similar. But even then, what kind of an invention would it be ? Renan, who endeavours to set up an ideal of his own invention, which shall present the essential facts of the Gospels, furnishes us with an answer. The Jesus whom he depicts is, with all his elevation and amiability, but an enthusiast and fanatic, who does not scruple to employ even immoral means for the accomplishment of his purpose. Such being our delineations, even in spite of this model, how should these Jewish publicans and fishermen, who had such entirely opposite models, have sketched this marvellous portrait ! It is by this, their matter, that the Gospels bear witness to, and even create faith in, their truth. Even a Goethe was unable to escape this impression. 298 Lect. X. — The Person of Jesus Christ. ' I esteem the Gospels,' says he, in the Conversations with Eckermann, iii. 371, 'to be thoroughly genuine ; for there shines forth from them the reflected splen dour of a sublimity proceeding from the person of Jesus Christ, and of as divine a kind as was ever manifested upon earth.' It would be quite sufficient for our present purpose if this internal and external testimony confirmed only the more essential and general contents of the evan gelical narratives ; for if we are but certain of the person of Jesus Christ, we are certain of the main point. But this certainty extends also to details. The occurrences in question were the common property of the Christian Church, and not unknown even to its adversaries ; for — as St. Paul could assert before Festus the Roman governor — these things were not done in a corner (Acts xxvi. 26), but before the eyes of all. They formed the subject of many discussions between Jesus and His adversaries, and were at last the cause of the trial to which He was subjected, and of His execution. Renan, indeed, supposes that the evangelists have given their accounts in somewhat the same manner as the achievements of Napoleon might have been narrated by one or more of the old grena diers of his Guard, who would have given us graphic details, interesting anecdotes, a lively impression of events, but have confused the events themselves, — have placed Wagram, for instance, before Marengo, or made Napoleon expel Robespierre from the Tuileries, or omitted matters of the utmost importance. But Objections to the Gospel History. 299 were the disciples then at such a distance from their Lord as these grenadiers would be from Napoleon ? Would it not have been a far more apt comparison to have spoken of the members of his staff? And do not the apostolical Epistles — even if we confine ourselves to those whose authenticity no one well in formed on the subject ever doubted — furnish collateral corroboration ? There is, in fact, but one objection at the bottom of all the different arguments which have been set up against the historical truth of the gospel narratives ; and that is, the denial of miracles — the denial of another world. And this is an objection arising not from historical criticism, but from the philosophical view of the world. They who believe in the existence of another world, and see in the per son and history of Jesus Christ a revelation thereof, find this stumbling-block removed, are convinced of the truth of the miracles in His history, nay, cannot but require it to contain miracles. We have but one condition to insist upon in the case of miracles, and that is, that they should have a moral purpose : that they should be neither arbitrary nor fantastic, but should subserve the revelation of truth and grace which appeared in Christ Jesus. And who that knows the gospel narratives does not perceive and acknowledge that this condition is observed? If we would obtain further certainty on the point, we need only compare the apocryphal Gospels, and their arbi trary and tastless narratives of miracles devoid of any moral purpose, or the series of legends which have 300 Lect. X. — The Person of Jesus Christ. been formed concerning Mohammed, with our Gospels, to be convinced that these are as far removed from those as the heavens are from the earth, and to per ceive what striking confirmation these caricatures of the evangelical narrative furnish of the works of our evangelists (l4). To what strange means do not men have recourse to get rid of the gospel history, when they have first resolved not to accept it? Strauss began in 1835, by his Leben Jesu, those attacks which have since been repeated in ever varying forms. His notion was, that the early Christians adorned the image of their Master with heavenly features, derived ' from the prophecies of the Old Testament, and thus formed a tissue of mythic and legendary narratives. But in fact, if the disciples had set themselves to devise an image of the Messiah according to their own expectations, they would have produced an entirely different one. They would have delineated the royal Son of David, and not the Prophet of Galilee, the crucified and risen Saviour. The external facts of Christ's history were rather hindrances than aids to their faith ; for they were in accordance neither with their wishes nor their hopes. Nothing but the over whelming impression made by Christ's person raised them above all these stumbling-blocks to their faith, and convinced them that He was the Messiah. Nothing but so extraordinary a phenomenon as the life and miracles of Jesus, as depicted in the Gospels, could have produced this effect. And how could such Attacks upon the Gospels. 301 a circle of myths have been formed in so short a period as that which elapsed between the history itself and its delineation (15), and especially in that age of historical accuracy and abundant literary activity ? (16) Such a notion is opposed to all historical possibility. Single legends and myths may be produced by the unusual impression which an astounding fact or im posing personage may produce upon the minds of men, and be added as embellishments to an historical narrative, but not a life which is itself a miracle. Strauss himself, however, acknowledged that his attack was a failure, and that his master, Baur, had carried out what he had only attempted. 'In my youthful impetuosity, I sought to conquer the fort ress at a stroke ; but my greater master first undertook the regular seige, before which its walls could not but fall ' (17). And certainly Baur must have conquered the fortress if it had not been impregnable.. With that indefatigable patience of which only a German scholar is capable, he took a tedious road to prove that in the several Gospels we have memorials which are the products of later times, and of various opposing tendencies in the Church, and that they cannot therefore be absolutely relied on. This was to apply especially to the Gospel of St. John. And naturally so ; for if this be a genuine record of the life of Christ, the higher view of His person is secured. Hence every effort was made to refer this work to about 150 years after Christ. But such attempts were as fruitless as they were laboured. The 302 Lect. X. — The Person of Jesus Christ. school of Baur is being every day more and more broken up ; and he himself acknowledges that, after all, the person of Jesus Christ remains a great histo rical mystery, and that ' in any case the entire im portance of Christianity to the whole world depends upon His person ' (is). He was obliged, moreover, to leave the enigma of the resurrection unsolved. But if the resurrection remains an enigma, then is the person of Jesus one only. And if this remains unex plained, what is the use of all the other explanations of the history of mankind ? A series of writings of the second century has been handed down to us ; and if these are compared with the writings of the New Testament and with the Gospels, nothing but an utter want of descrimination in literary production can fail to make us sensible of the immense chasm which separates them. To refer the Gospel of St. John to the second century, is hke attributing the most powerful of Luther's writings to some unknown author during the Thirty Years' War (19). Any one maintaining such a notion would expose himself to the ridicule of all well- informed and reasonable men. Even Schelling de signates this difference the strongest proof of the originality of the New Testament writings ; while the very critics of Baur's school have recognised this chasm between the writings of the New Testament and those of a later period, — a chasm as great as that which always exists between the productions of a classical and post classical age (20). Discrepancies of the Gospels. 303 Much has been made of the discrepancies said to exist between the several Gospels, for the sake of invalidating and casting doubt upon their testimony. But these supposed discrepancies, even if they affect particulars and externals, leave the essence of the history untouched. In no other case would such variations be considered a valid argument against the matter itself (21). And how have not the Gospels been tortured to bring out these discrepancies ? It cannot be denied that Lessing was well practised in criticism ; yet even he cannot help exclaiming, ' If Livy and Dionysius, and Polybius and Tacitus, are so candidly and honourably treated by us, that we do not lay them upon the rack for every syllable, why do we not extend equal liberty to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John ? ' (22) Such descrepancies as have been discovered generally owe their origin to an entirely external view and comparison ofthe narratives, which omit all inquiry after the fundamental idea upon which each evangelist selected and arranged his materials. Of late, however, there is a recoil from such prejudices against the gospel narrative ; and even Renan cannot help allowing the historical character of the essential part of even St. John's Gospel, though he certainly treats it in a manner arbitrary beyond comparison, bringing forth from it a history which is in truth only the product of his own imagination. Having thus briefly spoken of the Gospels them selves, we will return to our inquiry concerning the person of Jesus Christ. 304 Lect. X. — The Person of Jesus Christ. It is the peculiarity of the Gospels, that they every where present to our view the person of Jesus Christ. It is impossible for us to stop, if we would, at His teaching. We everywhere meet with Himself. We see His image in all that He says. It is He who lends to His words that peculiar charm, that won drous mixture of sublime strictness and ingratiating kindliness, which renders them so irresistible. From Himself proceeds that fragrance which pervades His words, and makes them words of life. It is the form of Jesus Himself which shines through all He says and does, and constitutes the central point of the gospel histories. What, then, is that portrait of Jesus which the Gospels delineate? It was in a remote town of Galilee, we are told, and in the family of one of its more obscure inhabitants, that Jesus grew up. His birth, indeed, directs us to Bethlehem, the city of David ; and miraculous occur rences connected with that event are narrated. But His subsequent career stood in no kind of connection with those earher events of the newly-dawning salva tion, when it had seemed as if a new sun were about to dawn upon Israel ; and the miraculous incidents of His earlier days seemed but to encircle His after obscurity like a dream. Many of those who had witnessed them were dead ; and the report having gradually died away among the survivors in Beth lehem and Jerusalem, it was concluded that this remarkable child had perished among the infants The Gospel Portraiture of Jesus — His Youth. 305 whom Herod sacrificed to his suspicions. These things were no longer spoken of in Bethlehem and Jerusalem, while in Nazareth they had never been heard of : and Mary and Joseph kept their experiences in the depths of their own hearts, as a secret of which they could speak to no one, because no one could understand it — of which they did not even ven ture to speak to each other, because they themselves could not understand it. And least of all would Mary have spoken of it to her Son ; for in what terms could she talk of it to Him? Thus He grew up in the house of His parents like any other child. But the traditions of David's house, the great pre dictions and the hopes which were attached to them, lived in the hearts, and must often have been upon the lips of these descendants of a great and royal ancestor. They were the atmosphere in which Jesus lived ; while the Scriptures, into which, according to Jewish custom, He was early initiated, were the food with which His mind was fed. It was these which developed His thoughts, fashioned His knowledge, and even His comprehension of Himself. He would willingly have learnt somewhat concern ing His youthful days, and imagination has filled the space left vacant by the evangehsts with all kinds of legendary and miraculous histories. But these are all fictitious. One single occurrence, one single say ing, is preserved by St. Luke, — the saying of Jesus in the temple when a child of twelve years old, — that memorial of His developing consciousness. The u 306 Lect. X. — The Person of Jesus Christ. journey to the feast, the holy city with its associations, the temple and its worship, all that He saw and heard, felt and thought, might well move Him, and give a new impulse to His thoughts. Then, also, the mystery of His own nature began to be clearer and more certain to Him. He felt and per ceived that He stood nearer to His Father in heaven than to His parents upon earth — that communion with God was more His home than the earthly house in which He had dwelt and grown up. This thought and this saying broke forth from the depths of His soul like a first bright beam, enlightening His whole being. From this time forth He became more and more conscious of the miraculousness of His own nature. He learnt to understand Himself. But He was silent. He was subject to His parents ; He ful filled a son's duties like any other man ; He assisted in His foster-father's handicraft; He, as well as Joseph, was called ' the carpenter ' in Nazareth ; and when the latter died, as it appears, prematurely, He provided, as the head of the family, for its wants — yet He was silent. He kept His own miraculous nature a holy secret, and was silent. He went, according to Jewish custom, every Sabbath into the synagogue ; He heard the law and the prophets read and expounded; yet He maintained His silence, meekly waiting until His Father should give Him a sign to come forth and bear public testimony to what He had long silently cherished in His soul. We need not complain that we know too little of His Ministry. 307 His youth and mental development. We know enough ; and what we. do know of this, His period of silence, is, in one word, His meekness, which is the chief feature in the picture which the few touches of the historical narrative placed before us. And this is also the most prominent feature in the picture given us of His public ministry. He comes to the Baptist to be baptized by him like any other Israelite, at the dawn of the kingdom of heaven, though He well knew that it was Himself who was to introduce that kingdom. John refused, and would rather have sought baptism from Him, as one higher and greater than himself, whose shoe's latchet he was not worthy to unloose ; but Jesus bade him perform his office, even towards Himself, saying, ' Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.' At this baptism the Father bore, as we are informed, miraculous testimony to His Son, after which Jesus, coming up out of the water, departed into the wilderness. Thence, after expe riencing mysterious temptations, and maintaining throughout His unselfish vocation of obedience, He returned into the Baptist's neighbourhood ; and as He was silently going on His way, some of John's disciples followed Him. ' Come and see,' are the only words He addressed to them; but such was the impression made by His person, that they were bound to His cause for life. He returns to His home ; He is present at the marriage of Cana ; in all that He says and does we behold the same humble reserve, 308 Lect. X. — The Person of Jesus Christ. advancing only step by step in the path which God points out, and patiently waiting the progressive development and extension of His ministry — waiting till the increasing interest excited by His words and deeds, and His whole public life, brought multitudes to Him from even remote distances, and till He gradually called forth a religious movement which reached to the borders of Israel, and soon awakened and increased the enmity of His opponents. His whole life was one continued series of jour neyings, full of unrest and privation, a round of ceaseless activity and exhausting labour. From the very commencement of His Galilean ministry this was the case. He departed from Nazareth to make Capernaum the central point of His agency. He taught on His way thither, and arrived on the borders of the lake of Galilee accom panied by multitudes. Here He entered into a ship to free Himself from their pressure, and taught them from it, while they stood on the shore. He called disciples to follow Him ; He entered into the syna gogue, and taught and healed in the midst of much popular excitement. Departing thence, He entered into the house of Peter's mother-in-law, whom He healed of a fever. In the evening, when the Sab bath was past, there were brought unto Him from all parts the sick and possessed, and He was employed in succouring them till far into the night. Before the morrow's dawn He departed into a solitary place to pray ; but even there He was followed and sought His Ministry. 309 for. After this fashion did His ministry begin in Capernaum ; and thus was it continued in other places. More than once does the evangelist relate that He had not time so much as to eat; it seems that He was even so engrossed with work, that it was thought necessary to restrain Him by force, because it was feared He might lose His senses (Mark iii. 21). Such was the commencement of His Galilean ministry. And this continued for weeks and months. The Gospels furnish us with details sufficient to enable us to form a picture of His ministry in this place. It may be described, both externally and internally, as one of exciting and exhausting activity. If we inquire, however, what was the soul of this activity, we shall be constrained to say that it is the life of a Saviour which is here depicted, — a life dedicated to the poor, the sick, the forsaken, the despised, — a life of devotion to the unhappy, to deliver them from the sorrows of life, ahd especially from depression of soul. Publicans and sinners, the mourners and the sorrowing, — these are the society He seeks. To the afflicted He brings consolation, and calls the weary and heavy-laden that He may give them rest. A spirit of compassionate love and beneficent kindness animates every act of His life. We read in the Old Testament of a revelation of God vouchsafed to the prophet Elijah (1 Kings xix. 11): 'And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks, before the Lord ; but the Lord was not in the wind : and after 310 Lect. X. — The Person of Jesus Christ. the wind an earthquake ; but the Lord was not in the earthquake : and after the earthquake a fire ; but the Lord was not in the fire : and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle.' Such was God in Christ (23). If ever love appeared on earth, it appeared under the form of meekness and lowliness in Christ. But over the form of the meek Saviour of Sinners is shed abroad a glory and majesty which cause us involun tarily to bow the knee before Him. Who can con template Him in His silent course without feeling that there is in Him a mysterious and hidden majesty, and seeing it shine forth from His every word and deed ? (24). And most of all in His deepest humilia tion. His love was rewarded by a criminal's death on the cross of shame. After having done good to all throughout His whole life, He departed from life with a crown of. thorns about His head. He was about three and thirty years old when He died, and to what a death did He submit ! Whatever human malice could invent that was painful to mind and body was united in it. And Jesus was no unfeeling Stoic, who could look down with proud disdain either upon suffering or the human beings who inflicted it. He felt it all in His inmost soul. The greater His love, the more bitterly did He feel that His own people, whom He had come to redeem, should so basely reject Him. Nothing can be more touching than the simple His Sufferings. 311 and unadorned accounts given by the evangelists of the last hours of Jesus. It is almost with indifference that they relate the particulars one after an6ther, without a remark to betray their inward emotion. But their narrative is on this account all the more touch ing. It is not themselves but their subject which is speaking to us. And how does that subject address us ? It is no ordinary human life which we are here contemplating. What we see and hear in Gethsemane and on the cross, compels us to feel that we are here in the presence of a deep mystery. It is an inward wrestling of His soul with God which we seem to perceive, they are transactions of the invisible world which gleam through the veil of visible events. We cannot but feel that a great and mysterious act is here taking place. We cannot but have a notion of an atoning sacrifice. In the midst, however, of the sufferings which overwhelm Him, He is ever equal to Himself. The meek tranquillity with which He endures whatever wickedness chooses to inflict, and the forgiving love with which He encounters its malice, strike us more powerfully than even in His life. The former over came His betrayer, the latter converted the thief; while throughout the whole scene there shone such a splendour of greatness and majesty, that even from the heathen centurion broke forth the confession, ' Truly this was the Son of God ! ' Nor can we refuse to say, This is more than a sage, more than a martyr, more than a man (25). The mystery of His death 312 Lect. X. — The Person of Jesus Christ. and sufferings is disclosed to us by the mystery of His person. His person is a miracle. We could not avoid such a confession, even if we were acquainted only with His ministry, and knew nothing of His origin. That union of humility and majesty which sets so unique a stamp upon His whole demeanour, that silent power of love which makes His life a revelation of the heart of God, — all are but the manifestation of that holiness which is the moral characteristic of His person and nature. None can avoid being most forcibly impressed by the holy purity of His nature. If all else be denied, this at least must be admitted. The question of Jesus, ' Which of you convinceth me of sin ? ' unanswerable in all previous times, remains so even in our own. But further, the portrait of the Lord Jesus is one of sublimest and purest harmony, both as regards His mental and moral nature. There is a disharmony in the inner life of every other man. Those two poles of mental life, knowledge and feeling, head and heart ; those two powers of the moral life, the reason and the will, — where shall we find them in unison? In the case of Jesus, on the contrary, we are vividly impressed with the feeling that perfect harmony prevails in His inner life. There is absolute peace in His inmost being. As we could not bear to conceive in Him any single mental faculty preponderating, and others consequently retir ing, but are constrained to think of His intellectual Harmony of His Nature. 313 parts and nature as perfectly proportioned, so is it also with His entire moral and spiritual life. It is a human life of perfect harmony. He is all love, all heart, all feeling ; and yet again He is all mind, all mental enlightenment and sublimity. There is no schism between feeling and reason in His nature. There is, moreover, the greatest vitality of feeling and emotion, of thought and resolve, and yet this vitality of His inner nature never passes into passionate excitement; all is quiet dignity, peaceful simplicity, sublime harmony. Such is the image which the gospel narrative pre sents to us, and of which we are constrained to say — Such was He, such must He have been. And in such an image is reflected the moral harmony of His nature. It is because there was in Him nothing of that moral discord which pervades the inner world of all other men, that His mental and spiritual life were so har monious, so peaceful. Jesus was in perfect harmony with Himself, because He was in perfect harmony with God. Such was His ever-present consciousness. He knew Himself to be in absolute communion with the Father. In all of us, even in the most pious and most holy, the consciousness of communion with God is ever accompanied by that consciousness of sin, atoned for, indeed, and forgiven, yet still a conscious ness of sin which forms its background and postulate. With Jesus it was otherwise. His was a pure and absolute consciousness of communion with God. Jesus lived in continual prayerful intercourse with His 314 Lect. X. — The Person of Jesus Christ. Father, His whole life was a life of prayer, but He never prayed for forgiveness. He taught us to pray, Forgive us our trespasses ; but He never prayed thus Himself. He alone of woman born needed not to do so. He knew nothing of this wall of partition be tween Himself and His Father. His soul, His reason and will, were ever and completely in His ' Father's business.' How, then, was it possible that a man descended from sinful man should be thus exempt from the universal moral law of all other mortals ? He could not have been circumstanced as other men. His origin must have been other than that of all the sons of man- beside. His nature must have surpassed the limits of the merely human. Thus much is surely required by the moral phenomenon He presents to us. Such is also the teaching of His miracles. The Gospels tell us much of His miracles. His life is full of marvellous deeds, entirely surpassing the utmost measure of that power and command which the human mind is wont to exercise over nature. We do not need a perfect acquaintance with all the hidden forces and laws of nature, in their full extent, to be certain that they are indeed miracles which we here read of. No power of nature can change water into wine, or by a mere word give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb, cleansing to the leper, and even life to the dead. Yet Jesus per formed these miracles as though they were natural to Him (26). They were not works effected by exertion, but deeds of free power. The attempt has been made His Miracles. 315 to withdraw them from His life, to get rid of them by artificial, or so-called natural explanations. But in vain ! We might as well try to expunge from the lives of Caesar or Alexander their military achieve ments and battles. What would then be left ? His miracles form far too essential a part of His life and ministry to be removed therefrom. His history would then indeed be utterly incomprehensible. What was it but His miracles which attracted the people in such multitudes, that the envy of His adversaries was continually and increasingly excited, — which formed the subjects of so many disputations with' His oppo nents, who dared not utterly deny them, but knew no other expedient than to refer them to demoniacal agency ? To these deeds also did the apostles after wards appeal as to acknowledged facts, of which many witnesses then existed (e.g. Acts x. 37). And even after the days of the apostles, the apologist Quadratus (at the beginning of the second century) speaks of certain who were healed or raised from the dead by the Lord, as still alive when he was writing (27). In short, it is undeniable that the miracles of Jesus Christ are historical facts. Yet we feel that, after all, it is with the Lord Jesus Himself and not with His miracles that we are concerned. He did not perform them for the sake of being a worker of miracles. It was His heart impelled, His pity urged Him to receive the wretched, and to aid them. But it was not merely temporal misery which He had in view. No one can 316 Lect. X. — The Person of Jesus Christ. for a moment imagine that He intended to be a mere healer. His aim was far higher. The object of His actions was the salvation of the soul. It was weakness of faith which He desired to heal by His miracles. These were natural to Him. He was ever conscious of possessing miraculous powers ; the angels of God were ever at His service, ready as His min isters to do His pleasure ; but He made His power subservient to His office, — His office as the Saviour of men. His miracles were designed to glorify Him, but only that they might produce or increase that faith in Him which would save souls. And this salvation which He came to bring was typified in His miracles. They were pure deeds of mercy ; for He came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them. They were not arbitrary acts, but had each a moral motive and moral conditions ; not acts of power merely, but of saving love. They were a commentary, not of words but of facts, upon His person and teaching; they were, so to speak, a hieroglyphic of His doctrine, but at the same time they show that He must Himself be a miracle,- — must far surpass all ordinary human beings. His teaching accompanies His miracles. Miracles illustrate His teaching, and His teaching again inter prets ' His acts. Not without it have His miracles a religious significance. His teaching is the chief matter even to us ; for the fact really is, not that we believe His teaching for the sake of His miracles, but that we believe in His miracles for the sake of His His Teaching. 317 teaching, and for His own sake. Because we feel certain about Himself and His teaching, we feel certain also of His miracles. If He were not what He is, and if His teaching did not approve itself to our hearts as it does, His miracles would not make upon us the impression they do. We should be constrained to regard them as historical facts ; we should be forced to confess that we could not explain them ; we should be obliged to admit their genuine ness, and to infer from them that Jesus was more than an ordinary man; but they would be of no importance to our religious life ; they would furnish us with an historical problem, but afford no solution to the religious problem. That they do this, is entirely owing to their connection with His teaching and person. It is this which bestows upon them their higher authentication and religious importance. It is this which constrains us to say : His teaching presupposes such miracles, and such miracles presup pose such teaching. Each presupposes, each corro borates, and each explains the other (28). Let us now turn to His teaching. Once, when the Sanhedrim commissioned its officers to seize Jesus, and bring Him before them, they returned with their mission unperformed, and with the confession, ' Never man spake like this man ' (John vii. 46), — a confession in which we cannot but unite, in which all ages cannot but unite. Eighteen centuries have passed since Jesus taught, and during their course the opinions of men have undergone 318 Lect. X. — The Person of Jesus Christ. many changes, but His word has preserved its old, yet ever fresh power over their minds. No learned intervention, no special preparation is needed to understand it, and to experience its effects. It is equally comprehensible by all, it exerts an equal power upon all, without distinction. It is only because we have become too accustomed to it, that it does not always exercise upon us its original influence, nor produce equal effects ; but if we but unloose and surrender our hearts thereto, it then appears before our mind in all its victorious power, as though the words were proceeding directly from the mouth of the Lord Jesus Himself. Wherein, then, does ihe peculiar power of His teaching consist? The secret of its influence lies in no peculiar excellence of diction. Jesus was no poet, no orator, no philosopher. It is not the charm of poetry which attracts us, not the ingenious application which surprises us, not flights of eloquence which carry us away, not bold speculation which evokes our astonishment ; it is none of these. No one could speak with more simplicity than Jesus speaks, — whether we consider the Sermon on the Mount, or His parables on the kingdom of God, or the so-called high-priestly prayer. No one could speak more simply than Jesus speaks. But this is the very reason of His influence, that He utters the greatest and most sublime truths in the very plainest words, so that, as Pascal says, one might almost think He was Himself unconscious what truths He was propounding, unless His Person the Centre of His Teaching. 319 He had expressed them with such clearness, certainty, and conviction, that we see how well He knew what He was saying, when He spoke of the greatest and sublimest matters in the plainest words (29). We cannot fail to see, that the world of eternal truth is His home, and that His thoughts have constant intercourse therewith. He speaks of God and of His relation to Him, of the supermundane world of spirits, of the future world, and of the future life of man, of the kingdom of God upon earth, of its nature and history, of the highest moral truths, and of the supreme obligations of man, — in short, of all the greatest problems and deepest enigmas of life, — as simply and plainly, with such an absence of mental excitement, without expatiating upon His peculiar knowledge, and even without that dwelling upon details so usual with those who have anything new to impart, as though all were quite natural and self-evident (30). We see that the sub limest truths are His nature. He is not merely a teacher of truth, but is Himself its source. Truth is a part of His very being. He can say, I am the Truth. And the feeling with which we listen to His words is, that we are listening to the voice of truth itself. Hence the power which these have at all times exercised over the minds of men. But not merely is His teaching the outward manifestation of the essential miraculousness of His person — He also makes His person the central point of all His teaching. He is Himself the matter of His 320 Lect. X. — The Person of Jesus Christ. teaching. Did He speak of the kingdom of God? it was Himself who established this kingdom, and faith in Him was the means of entrance into it ; while possession of this kingdom was in every case and for ever associated with His person. Was He a teacher of the most exalted morality? was His doctrine the purest and most exalted moral philosophy ? was it His great achievement to change religion and morality from merely external acts into an inward state of heart and mind ? — this state was a state of mind and disposition of heart towards Himself. To believe in Him, and by virtue of such faith to love God, this was His doctrine. It is of Himself that He is really speaking, even when He is not directly alluding to Himself. He makes Himself the central point of His every announcement. And most of His teaching does this not indirectly, but directly. He founds all upon His person. The cause He advocates, the salvation He brings, the demands He makes, the future He announces — all depend upon His person. 'It is I,' is the great text of all His teaching. ' If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins ' (John viii. 24), is, in fact, a saying in which His whole doctrine may be summed up. And what a wondrous saying it is ! There could not be one more lofty, more self-conscious. Not one of the great instructors of mankind ever dared to say anything of this kind. Nor could we have tolerated such words from any other. Others have dwelt upon the cause they advo cated, and the matter they communicated, and have The Son of Man. 321 perhaps affirmed concerning it, that it was truth. But the importance of their persons arose in each case from the importance of their matter. Jesus, on the other hand, makes everything depend upon His person ; in fact, His person is His matter. He ever casts the weight of His person into the scale. When He would most emphatically assure or confirm, His words are, ' Verily, verily., I say unto you.' We are to believe His words, not because of the truth of their matter, but because of the dignity of His person. Because it is He that utters it, therefore it is true. The authority of the declaration rests upon the authority of the person : ' Verily, verily, I say unto you.' Never man spake like this man. God alone had thus spoken in the Old Testament. Jesus speaks as if divine authority became Him. And yet He was the meekest of all men ; a circum stance which gives all the greater force to the words, ' It is I.' What then is He ? He has summed up what He tells us of Himself in the two titles which He appropriated, and which have ever since been His current designations. He called Himself the Son of Man, and the Son of God. What, then, do these names import ? What does He imply when He calls Himself the Son of Man ? By this title He, on the one side, includes Himself amongst other men — He is one of our race ; while, on the other, He thereby exalts Him self above the whole race besides; as, in a truly 322 Lect. X. — The Person of Jesus Christ. exclusive sense, the Son of Mankind, its genuine offspring, the man, properly so called, towards whom the whole history of the human race was tending, in whom it found its unity, and in whom, at the close of the old and at the commencement of the new era, history finds its turning-point. His title, Son of Man, implies that in Him the whole race is comprised, and that He is the object of its history. There is in the whole demeanour of Jesus Christ the characteristic of universality. This is an impression He makes upon every one. There is in the history of every nation a tendency to comprise itself in certain individuals of more than usually comprehen sive mind and character. Every nation reverences such heroes of its history, who are in a higher sense than others the depositaries and organs of the national genius, and in whom the nation sees itself, as it were, incorporated. Still these have all been but approxi mations to and attempts at a perfect representation. And this has been more especially the case when a comprehension of the entire nature and mind of the human race has been in question. Even such as have been most representative of the human mind, even the most nearly universal geniuses we can think of, — how far they are from being indeed representatives of mankind ! Jesus was such a representative man ; but He was the only one the world ever beheld. He is the true prototype of the human race. In Him were perfected and exhibited, not merely individual aspects of human nature, but human nature itself, in its primi- His Universality. 323 tive truth and purity, free from the disturbances, and perversions introduced by sin. In Him we find the realisation of our true nature. It is in this character of primitiveness that Jesus Christ is the universal archetype. How various soever men may be with respect to their nationality and individuality, every one may equally look upon Jesus as his prototype. It is true that He was, as to outward circumstances, both individual and national — He was the Son of Mary, and a member of the commonwealth of Israel, His external life comprised but a limited circle of situa tions, — and yet this definite and special form of His historical manifestation so thoroughly bears within it the character of universality, that He is the supreme, the all-embracing, the inexhaustible prototype of all men, in all ages and under all circumstances. In His presence all thought of national peculiarity, distance of time, variety of mental cultivation, vanishes. ' When we see Him followed by the Greek, though a founder of none of his sects ; revered by the Brahmin, though preached unto him by men of the fishermen's caste; worshipped by the red man of Canada, though belong ing to the hated pale race, — we cannot but consider Him as destined to break down all distinction of colour, and shape, and countenance, and habits, to form in Himself the type of unity to which are refer able all the sons of Adam ' (31). In Him mankind has found its oneness, and conse quently the history of mankind its object. He is, He that was to come. All history previous to His coming 324 Lect. X. — The Person of Jesus Christ. was a prophecy of Him. The whole course of external events, and the progress of the human mind, were tending towards Him; the result of both was to demand without being able to produce Him ; hence in Him both find their completion. The secret of His power, and the pledge of His success, are involved in the fact that He is the demand and object of the collective development of the whole human race. He is the fulfilment both of Israelitish prophecy and Gentile prediction ; for He is the manifestation of the divine counsel for the salvation of men. But He is, moreover, the fulfilment of that prophecy which is uttered by our own hearts. He it is who is the secret object of our aspirations. This is the hidden tie which, , unconsciously to ourselves, unites us all to Him, and involuntarily attracts us towards Him. It is He at whom we are aiming, unknown to ourselves. We are all so disposed towards Him, that without Him our souls are without rest ; because He is the truth of our being. Thus is He the object of us all. And this is the cause of His universal position with respect to the world. He speaks of this in the most emphatic manner. He designates Himself the Lord of the world. He connects the fate of the whole world and of individuals with His person — makes it dependent on faith in Himself. His words surpass all human measure when He speaks of this. But He is Lord of the world only to be its Redeemer. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. It is redemption from sin, the true relation to God, His Future. 325 peace, salvation, that He would give to the world. He is the Lord, only to be the Redeemer, the Mediator, by whom the wall of partition, erected by sin between God and man, is to be abolished, and the atonement made which is to be the foundation of the new covenant. Thus is it that Jesus speaks of Himself, of His vocation and significance. And thus does He likewise place Himself in contrast to all mankind besides, raising Himself far above our level, and appearing in the presence of the whole race with divine plenipo tence and authority. Especially where He speaks of His future. And this He does in the strongest terms which can be imagined. It was just while He was being condemned as a criminal, and saw the shameful death of the cross before Him, that He repeated to His judges the saying which He had already uttered to His disciples, that He should be raised to the right hand of the divine Majesty- would appear in divine glory, surrounded by the angels of God, who stand at His service and fulfil His commands — would summon all nations before His judgment-seat, and judge them according to their conduct towards Himself. That He did thus express Himself, is an historical fact ; for it was made the ground of His condemnation, and afterwards formed the universal faith, the firmest hope, of the early Christians. But what an unparalleled saying is this ! In the mouth of any other man it would have been madness. Even the insane arrogance of the Roman emperors, who required divine honours to be paid to 326 Lect. X. — The Person of Jesus Christ. their statues, never reached so inconceivable an extreme. And in this case, such words are spoken by the very meekest of all men ; spoken with the greatest calmness, not in a moment of excitement, which might perhaps render Him incapable of correctly calculating their effect, but repeatedly, for the instruc tion of His disciples, for the warning of His enemies, in all tranquillity and repose, and at a moment when He was indeed externally submitting to violence, but internally triumphing over His foes — was rising superior to all the baseness and wickedness of men by the elevation of His moral nature, and celebrating His greatest moral triumph ; — it is at such a moment that He designates Himself the divine Ruler and Judge of the World ! Such an assertion must be truth ; for in this case there is no medium between truth and madness. No rationalistic ideal of virtue can avail us here : to call Jesus the mere prototype and prefigurement of man kind, will not suffice to justify such language : we are constrained to quit the limits of humanity, and to look for the root of His being, the home of His nature and life, in God Himself, to explain the possibility of such a saying, which would be but an unsolvable psychologic enigma- if Jesus were nothing more than man. Such a saying would be an impossibility, if He were under the same laws of finite existence as our selves. He must be removed by His very nature from the region of merely finite existence, and must belong to that of the divine and eternal life. The absolute The Son of God. 327 relation to the world, which He attributes to Himself, demands an absolute relation to God. The latter is the necessary postulate of the former, which can only be really understood from this point of view. Only because Jesus is to God what He is, can He be to us what He says. He is the Son of man, the Lord of the world, its judge, only because He is the Son of God. It is thus that He ever designates Himself. If He would speak of that which is highest, deepest, most mysterious and peculiar in His nature, He calls Him self the Son of God. This is no notion or invention of later times ; it is the testimony of Jesus Himself. That it is His own statement, can be denied by none. The first Gospels contain it, as well as the fourth. Even though the fourth goes more deeply into this subject, and more opens up to us the secret and eter nal foundations of the being and nature of Jesus than the others, though the three first exhibit more His relation to the world, while the fourth dwells more upon His relation to God, which forms the hidden background and postulate of His relation to the world, the former contain the statement itself, as well as the latter, and express it characteristically in the most unambiguous manner. ' All things are delivered unto me of my Father : and no man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him,' are words found in St. Matthew's Gospel (chap. xi. 27). He stands in a relation to the Father altogether unparalleled. As the nature of the Father 328 Lect. X. — The Person of Jesus Christ. is hidden from the world, so also is that of the Son ; but as the Son is known to the Father, so is the Father to the Son. There is the most intimate understanding between the two, while both stand in the obscurity of divine mystery with respect to the world, — -a mystery undisclosed till Christ quitted His divine concealment, and appeared in the world of men. He severs Himself from men, and includes Himself in the Godhead as one who is more really and more strictly a component part of Divinity than He is even of humanity, to which, nevertheless, He chiefly ap pears to appertain. This subject then forms also the ever-recurring theme ofthe fourth Gospel. Jesus calls Himself the Son of God in an absolute sense, and not in the sense in which men may be called sons of God — by virtue, for instance, of creation, or of moral like ness to Him. In the case of Jesus, this title denotes a relation of essence and nature. By it He makes a distinction between Himself and man, which is one, not of degree, but of kind. God is indeed our Father as well as His, but in an utterly different sense. He bids us say : Our Father ; He never calls God so Himself; His relation to God is unique. His fellowship with God is absolute (John x. 33, 38) ; His presence, the vision of Him, is actually that of the Father (chap. xiv. 9 ff. and xvii.) ; He has divine life in Himself (v. 26) ; and will therefore be honoured even as the Father (v. 23) ; in short, He includes Himself in the Godhead, and thus appears before the world and the whole human race as One forming a The Son of God. 329 component part of Deity. But how could a human being stand so related to God that the strictest fellow ship should exist between the two without any inter posing limit, whether of sin or of creaturehood, unless He formed an essential, and therefore eternal part of the divine nature ? And thus these considera tions force us of necessity to demand His eternal existence, — a fact which Jesus in the fourth Gospel so frequently affirms, when He says of Himself that He came forth from the Father, and is come into the world ; when He surpasses even what His Jewish opponents urged as an objection, by that remarkable saying, ' Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am ' (John viii. 5 8) ; and when He designates this His pre-temporal existence as one in which He participated in the divine love and glory (xvii. 5, 24). Thus does He make Himself a sharer of the very nature and existence of God. In this highest sense does He call Himself the Son of God. That these gospel propositions contain a real his torical tradition must, so far at least as their principal matter is concerned, be acknowledged by even the most would-be critical. Even Renan cannot help ad mitting that Jesus did, though not till the later period of His life, call Himself the Son of God in a superhuman sense, and make faith in this declaration the first commandment of His kingdom. He, indeed, regards this only as the fruit of a pernicious enthusiasm, and as a fanatical delusion on the part of Jesus, which He expiated, so to speak, by His death. Were this, 330 Lect. X. — The Person of Jesus Christ. indeed, the case, we should say that Jesus deserved death, that the Jewish authorities justly condemned Him as a blasphemer, and that He died for His own sin, not for ours. But who that has not yet lost every impression of the moral purity and sublimity of His character, and of the tranquil glory of His spirit, could possibly entertain such a thought ? Who would ven ture to degrade Jesus to such sad depths of moral and mental error ? Let us rather suffer ourselves to be raised by Him to those heights on which He stands, than first degrade Him to our level, and then associate Him with men of such deluded minds and perverted characters, as we regard either with compassion or contempt. No ; as far as we are concerned, the deci sive question is, did Jesus really call Himself the Son of God in this superhuman sense ? If so, such an assertion must be truth. We are told that when Napoleon, at St. Helena, was one day conversing, as his custom was, about the great men of antiquity, and comparing himself with them, he suddenly turned to one of his suite with the inquiry, Can you tell me who Jesus Christ was ? And when the latter con fessed that he had not yet taken time to consider, he continued : Well, then, I will tell you. And then he compared Christ with himself, and with the heroes of antiquity, and showed how Jesus far surpassed them, concluding with the words, ' I think I understand somewhat of human nature ; and I tell you all these were men, and I am a man ; but not one is like Him : Jesus Christ was more than man ' (32). The Son of God. 331 And so He must be. If He is indeed, as He says, Lord of the world, He can only be so by being, as He teaches us, a component of the Godhead. The historical Christ and His teaching are facts. These facts can be, and are, authenticated ; but they will remain an unsolvable enigma until we suffer them to receive the solution afforded them by His own testi mony to His divine Sonship. If He is the Son of God in this sense, then all is clear, and all else that we are told of Him necessary. But if this is not the case, then we are absolutely ignorant what to make of Him. And of what value is all the other know ledge we may acquire, all our knowledge of the human mind and its history, of human nature and its destiny, if we are obliged to leave the greatest fact of human history, — a fact asserting itself to be one which can solve every enigma, and render our whole life a blessing — utterly unexplained ? And even if we are willing, we are unable to leave it thus, it every where encounters us. We must assume some position with respect to it. No other position, however, which is not an absolutely self-contradictory one, is possible, than to allow the validity of Christ's claim to be, according to His own testimony, the eternal Son of God, and Himself of divine nature. Such is the involuntary impression made by His entire history. It was the confession of overwhelming emotion, when Thomas, overpowered by the appear ance of the risen Saviour, exclaimed, My Lord, and my God ! But this confession of emotion becomes 332 Lect. X. — Tlie Person of Jesus Christ. also the confession of the conviction to which the exercise of our reason at last, of necessity conducts us. Jesus left two institutions. He did not appear on earth to appoint external ordinances of religious life. It was in the mind and heart, in the inmost soul, that He desired to lay the foundations of that edifice which was to endure when heaven and earth should pass away. Yet He did institute and bequeath to us two ordinances — these two transactions which form the external culminating point of Christian life and churchmanship — the two transactions which, to dis tinguish them from all others, we call Sacraments : Baptism and the Lord's supper. Their institution by Christ Himself is beyond all question. Each is mysterious in its own nature, and each announces a mystery. In the words in which He instituted the rite of baptism, Jesus inserted His own name between those of the Father and the Holy Ghost ; thus insert ing Himself within the boundaries of the divine life and nature, and saying of Himself that He is the Son of God in the sense of being a participant in the divine Essence. In the words in which He instituted the Holy Supper, saying of His body and blood that He gave them for the sin of the world, He declared the ultimate object of His appearance upon earth, in which the eternal counsel of God's love is manifested and fulfilled. Baptism teaches us Who it was that appeared on earth in the person of Jesus -Christ ; the Lord's Supper teaches us for what purpose He appeared. Baptism and the Lord's Supper. 333 The two mysteries of the Trinity and the Atonement are actually announced and taught to us in these two institutions of Christ. These are the two central truths of Christianity. But with them we enter into its inner sanctuary; and it was only to the threshold of that holy of holies that I designed to lead you, by bringing before you the fundamental truths of Christianity, and seeking to justify their truth and necessity. My task is ended. The road over which we have travelled together began with the contradictions of existence, the enigmas of human life, the problems of human nature. We saw that the enigma of existence demanded God, the personal God. But God is not a dead power, but living love ; and His love not suffer ing Him to remain locked up in mystery, He revealed Himself to man. The object, however, of His reve lation is Jesus Christ. In Him it was that God revealed Himself; in Him the contradictions of our existence are reconciled. Let us, then, not shrink from confessing that we do bear contradictions within us. They are the thorns which will not suffer us to rest. We can find no rest till we find Christ ; in Him contrasts are reconciled. It is He who reconciles the contrasts, God and man, holiness and sin, heaven and earth. He is the absolute reconciliation. If we could penetrate all space, we should find but the God of power ; if we could survey all time, we should see but the God of righteousness. We can know the God 334 Lect. X. — The Person of Jesus Christ. of grace only in Christ Jesus. But the God of grace alone can reconcile the contrasts of creation and of our hearts. In Christ Jesus, Christians have in all ages found their peace and joy. The collective life of the whole Church is a confession of Christ. All her deeds, her whole worship, her preaching, her prayers, her sacred songs, her holy rites, are but a testimony to Him ; and all art, whether of language or pictorial representation, which she has from the first taken into her service, does but serve to glorify Him. And so long as gratitude shall yet be found on earth, so long will He be remembered, so long will His name dwell in the hearts and hover on the lips of men. They who would deprive mankind of Him, would tear out the corner-stone of that noblest edifice, humanity. But it is not merely the memory of a departed benefactor which Christianity preserves ; it is a relation, a personal and vital relation to a living one. At His name all hearts beat, all knees bow. And in all time will the image of Jesus, as portrayed in the Gospels, exercise its mysterious power over the minds of men, and the spirit which proceedeth from Him become a bond, uniting them in faith and love to Himself, and thus a bond of love uniting the whole human race. So long as there are Christians in the world, and such there will be to the end of time, they will recognise each other by the salutation, Blessed be Jesus Christ ! With these words I conclude. I have sought, to the best of my ability, to give an account of the firm Conclusion. 335 foundations of our common faith. I have endeavoured to show that we follow no cunningly devised fable, but the truth, justified as such to our reason, our conscience, our affections. It only remains to commend to God's blessing the words which I have been permitted to deliver in your hearing. NOTES. NOTES TO LECTURE I. (1) Goethe's Works, edition in 40 vols. 1840, vol. iv. p. 264. (2) Fabri, Briefe gegen Materialismus, 1856. Motto. (3) St. Paul, in his speech before the Areopagus at Athens (Acts xvii. 11-31), has given a sketch of the leading features of this Christian view of the world, and entered more fully into the same subject in the first eleven chapters of his Epistle to the Romans. (4) Athenagoras, a divine of the ancient Church, in his apologetic work addressed to the heathen, says (cap. xi.) : ' Which among those , subtle dialecticians and philosophers has advanced his hearers to a degree of knowledge, equal even in theory to that attained in practice by the most ordinary people among us ? ' (5) Nagelsbach, Nachhomer. Theologie, 1857, p. 476, says of Platonic speculation : ' This speculation, how ever, never becomes religion. And this arises not merely because the masses are incapable of speculation, but because every religion is based' upon facts, false religions upon supposed, the true religion upon actual facts, while speculation is devoid of facts.' (6) Comp.K. von 'RixumevB Geschichte der Padagogik, 2nd edition, 1846, pp. 37-65,and Zeitschrift fur Protes- 338 Notes to Lecture I. tantismus und Kirche, 1855, vol. xxx. Die Humanisten und das Evangelium; also Hundeshagen's Der deutsche Protestantismus, 1847, p. 56, and Gieseler's Kirchen- gesch. ii. 4, p. 408. — The saying of Picus of Mirandola is : ' Philosophia quaerit, theologia invenit, religio pos- sidet veritatem.' — Poggius reproaches Philelbus with things 'quae etiam prostituti et meretricarii verentur verbis proferre. — Puerorum atque adolescentum amores nefandos sectaris.' Of his ownfacetice he says to Valla : 'What marvel is it that my jokes do not please an un educated and boorish barbarian ? On the other hand, they are praised and read by those who are far more learned than thou, and they have them constantly in their mouths and in their hands.' Burckhardt's exceedingly mterestmg-work,DieKulturderRenaissanceinItalien, Basel 1860, while highly appreciating this age in Italy, furnishes a series of corroborations of the judg ment expressed in the text. It is from this work that I have taken the opinion quoted from Machiavelli (Dis- corsi, i. c. 12), who also says elsewhere (c. 55) : Italy is more corrupt than any other land ; France and Spain come next. I add a few more passages from Burck hardt's work, p. 456 : — ' The infidelity of Italy during this age is notorious, and they who give themselves the trouble to prove it, will find it easy to collect sayings and examples by the hundred.' Speaking of Massuccio's novels, Burckhardt, p. 460, takes occasion to say of the monastic clergy: 'The manner in which they delude and impoverish the masses by false miracles, joined with their disgraceful conduct, drives every thoughtful spectator to utter despair.' Massuccio him self says : ' The nuns belong exclusively to the monks ; as soon as they have any intercourse with the laity, they are imprisoned and persecuted ; some, moreover, contract regular marriages with monks, at which even masses are sung, contracts entered into,' etc. Then fol lows a series of truly horrible proofs. Burckhardt after wards describes the prevalence of the most multiform superstition, ' and how the destruction of all belief in im- Notes to Lecture I. 339 mortality was intimately connected with these opinions, as wrell as with those of antiquity in general,' p. 550. Compare also the manner in which Pasqual-Villari, the most recent biographer of Savonarola (vol. i. 1868, translated by Mor. Berduschek), expresses himself con cerning Lorenzo de Medici and his corrupting influence on morality : (p. 38)-' The immoral songs which he com posed, and had sung publicly in the streets at carnivals, his cruelties, shameless extravagance, the rapid and hellish corruption of his court, to effect which he de voted all the powers and capacities of his genius — all is excused because he was a promoter of the arts and sciences ! ' (p. 34) ' But artists, authors, statesmen, nobles, people, all were morally corrupt ; all private and public virtue, all moral feeling was absent.' (7) Schiller thus expresses himself concerning and against Kant in his treatise, Ueber Anmuth und Wurde, which first appeared in Die neue Thalia, 1793 : ' He became the Draco of his age, because it seemed to him as yet neither worthy nor capable of receiving a Solon. From the sanctuary of pure reason he brought forth the forgotten yet well-known moral law, placed it in all its holiness before the degenerate age, and little cared whether there were eyes unable to bear it. But in what had the children of the family offended, that he should only care for the slaves ? (Works, edit. 1847, vol. ii. p. 354.) On this contrast between the moral principles of Kant and Schiller, compare my Lehre vom freien Willen, 1863, pp. 347, etc. (8) Goethe, Spruche in Reimen, Werke, vol. iii. p. 3. (9) P. 22. Guizot, L'Eglise et la SociiU Chretiennes en 1861, p. 13 : 'All the attacks which are in our days directed against Christianity, however different in their nature and intensity, have a common starting-point and a common aim, — the denial of the supernatural in the destinies of man and of the world, the abolition of the 340 Notes to Lecture I. supernatural element in the Christian and every other religion, as well in their history as in their doctrines.' — And it is thus that the opposing views are generally represented in France, comp. e.g. Pressense's Jesus Christ. Son temps, etc., and also in Germany, compare Strauss, who in the dedication of his Leben Jesu, p. ix., speaks of : ' A view of the world which, with the renun ciation of all supernatural sources of resistance, leaves man to himself and to the natural order of things.' (10) P. 23. I will here exhibit in juxtaposition some of the confessions of the advocates of the non-Christian view. Strauss, indeed, formerly boasted of the real Christianity of his view of the world (compare Zwei friedliche Blatter, 1839, pp. 30, etc.: 'We consider our present view more Christian than the old Christian one itself ) ; and his article on The Temporary and the Permanent in Christianity concludes with the words : ' Let us have no fear that we shall lose Christ, if we find ourselves obliged to expose much which has hitherto been called Christianity! — If, then, Christ remains, and remains as the highest object we can possibly imagine with respect to religion, as the Being without whose presence in the mind perfect piety is impossible, surely there is left us in Him that which is essential in Christianity,' p. 132. Subsequently, how ever, he placed himself in far more decided opposition to historical Christianity. In his Lebens- und Charak- terbild Mdrklins, 185J, p. 125, he describes the natu ralist Feuerbach as ' the man who put the dot upon the i we had found,' ana characterises the breach with Christianity as the inevitable requirement of truthful ness, e.g. 124, 127, 130, etc. The preface also to his Ulrich Hutten (1860) is full of bitterness, while the saying, p. 24, ig not merely bitter, but blasphemous : ' We that are outside (the Church) can declare that none of us ever thought, or will think, of denying to old Canfcain Schiller the fatherhood of his son in favour Qp'a higher being; nor of attributing to the Notes to Lecture I. 341 medicines which he, as doctor to the regiment, pre scribed, the power of raising the dead ; nor of using the circumstance that even to the present day there is still a mystery connected with the poet's burial, to favour the supposition that he was raised to the heavenly regions in a living body.' In his Leben Jesu, fur das deutsche Volk, 1864, he describes the modern view of the world, advocated by himself, as that which leaves a man to himself (p. 9) ; and afterwards adds, p. 19, em phasizing the words by italics, ' He who would rid the Church of popes, must first rid religion of miracles.' The poetic confession of Prutz (Deutsches Museum, 1862, p. 687), ' Kreuz und Rosen,' of which the follow ing translation may give some idea, accords with the expressions of this philosophico-theological representa tive of the ' modern view of the world : '• — ' Upon my grave place ye no cross Of stone, of iron, or of wood ; My soul has ever loathed that tree Of martyrdom, of pain, and blood. It ever pained me that a world, Filled by a God with light and joy, Should choose, as symbol of its faith, The rack on which a slave must die. Let then no cross my headstone be ; But plant ye fragrant roses there : Of a new manhood's glorious faith, Be roses now the symbol fair.' But the most uncompromising expression of these opinions — as far as relates to their application to politi cal life — appears in J. B. v. Schweizer's Zeitgeist und Christenthum (Leipsic: Otto Wigand, 1861). The multi form and practical activity of this author, who is at the head of a numerous party, together with his present undertaking of editing the 'Socialdemokraten' upon the principles of Lassall, renders his w7ork doubly im- 312 Notes to Lecture I. portant ; and the reckless consistency with which the principles he advocates are applied makes it the actual programme of the movement. Its fundamental idea is the irreconcilability of Christianity, as well as every positive religion, with the triumphant progress of the spirit of the age. The manner in which this idea is carried out — so far, that is, as the contents of his book touch upon our subject — is as follows : — How did this religion originate ? and how is it maintained ? Through a threefold need (p. 15) : a metaphysical one, which betakes itself to an admission of a supernatural cause for an explanation of the inexplicable ; a moral one, which demands an equalizing and retributive justice for the solution ofthe enigma of moral evil ; and a need of help, which, in the feeling of its impotence, would willingly lean upon a strength beyond its own. But, in its threefold aspect, religion is the product of weakness — the weakness both of the reason and the will. Hence it is chiefly found among the weaker sex (pp. 313, etc.) ; for strength both of reason and will is wanting in women ; and all women, from the queen to the maid-servant, are given to superstition (p. 323). Religious faith is as much a superstition as fortune- telling, etc. (pp. 316, etc.). Christianity is at present in a process of irresistible dissolution. Science and culture are ever more and more replacing Christianity and all revealed religion (pp. 76, 84). Moreover, the spirit of the age cannot be reconciled with Christianity. What is the principle of the spirit of the age ? Cosmo politan democracy (p. 99). The antagonistic principle thereto is conservatism. Now, religion, Christianity, the Church, are eminently conservative powers. Hence Christianity and the spirit of the age confront each other, not as two opposite opinions or views, but as two opposing principles (p. 105). These antagonisms are irreconcilable ; no composition can avail. ' When our business is to seize the favourable opportunity of crush ing the power by which the good cause is systematically depressed, to make room for the incorporation of the Notes to Lecture II. 343 political principles of the age in its external regulations, every obstacle must be levelled with unsparing severity ; and its champions must advance with an iron consist ency, whether their way lies through the gay fields of spring, or over ruins and corpses.' When, then, the State is such as modern culture would have it, what is to replace Christianity therein ? A new religion is im possible. The same development of culture which has begun to extinguish Christianity, as being a revealed religion, makes all revealed religion impossible (p. 190). ' The State of the future will do without religion ' (p. 196). Consequently penal statutes, and not religion, appear as the true and real palladium of public security and civil order (p. 225). Then will dawn an era of humanity and toleration (p. 226). And one special advantage will be, that there will then be no theology and no theologians, and that the intellectual powers thus placed at our disposal will then be applied in an economico-national and productive manner (p. 267). How much wealth, too, will be saved, when there are no more churches and clergyman, etc., to pay for! Whoever shall still desire to have a religion, will be obliged to have it at his own expense (p. 270). Such is the programme of the spirit of the age. Thus utterly antagonistic are the opposing principles, though their antagonism is not always so clearly perceived or expressed. NOTES TO LECTURE II. (1) Strauss, Glaubenslehre, 1851. (2) Blaise Pascal, the acute mathematician, the able opponent of the Jesuits, and a brilliant author of the golden age of French literature, has left in his Pensees fragmentary materials for an apology for Christianity, which he regarded as the work of his life. He declared that ten healthy years were needed for such 344 Notes to Lecture II. a work, while God granted him only four sickly ones. He died 1662, at the age of 39. Amidst the anguish of various acute disorders, which left him little rest either by night or day, he not only solved the most difficult mathematical problems (on the cycloid), which none other was able to solve, but also left behind him the materials which he had collected for this great work. His death entailed upon posterity the duty of taking up and- continuing the work com menced by him. On Pascal, compare Tholuck, Vermischte Schriften, 1839, Part i. pp. 244, etc. ; Reuchlin, Pascal's Leben und der Geist seiner Schriften, 1840; Neander, Wissenschaftl.Abhandlungen^ublished by Jacobi, 1851 ; Weingarten, Pascal als Apologet des Ghristenthums, 1863 — Modern editions of his Pense'es, Paris, Didot, 1861; with the Pensees of Nicole; and that of Prospere Faugere, 2 vols., Paris 1844. I quote from Faugere's edition, but insert also the pages of Didot's in brackets. The passage cited is from vol. ii. 84 (49). Compare generally the whole section, Grandeur et misere de l'homme, ii. 79, etc. (44, etc.), from which most of the following quotations from the Pensees are taken. (3) Goethe, Gesprache mit Eckermann, ii. 132, Heyder ( Ueber das Verhdltniss Goethe's zu Spinoza, Ztschr.fur die luth. Theol. u. Kirche, 1866, ii. p. 266) says : ' Goethe was all his life persuaded that all search after an ultimate cause will at last arrive at an insoluble problem.' The Greek Father, Gregory of Nazianzen, touchingly expresses his conviction that man is an enigma to himself (Carm. de Hum. Nat. 1, 3, 14) : ' I was sitting yesterday under the shade of a hedge. My soul was inwardly consumed, I was plunged in grief. The questions : What have I been ? What am I now ? What will become of me? agitated me. I do not know. Even a wiser than I am does not know. I wander about surrounded with obscurity. What I was has vanished from me. What shall I be to-morrow if I still iVo.es to Lecture II. 345 * exist ? ' Compare also Rousseau, Emile, i. iv. vol. ii. (QSuvres, Paris 1820, vol. ix.) p. 17 : 'Nous n'avons point la mesure, de cette machine immense, nous n'en pouvons calculer les rapports ; nous n'en connaissons ni les premieres lois, ni la cause finale, nous nous ignorons nous-memes; nous ne connaissons ni notre nature, ni notre principe actif.' (4) Naville, La vie eternelle. (5) Goethe. Faust: So tauml' ich von Begierde zum Genuss, Und im Genuss verschmacht ich nach Begierde. Compare also Dalton, Nathanael Vortrdge iiber das Christenthum, 2nd edit., Petersburg 1864, p. 35. Byron calculated that he had passed in his whole life eleven happy days. And Nelson envied him alone, 'whose undisturbable possession lies six feet below the earth.' Ziethe, Die Wahrheit und Herrlichkeit des Christen- thums. Seven Lectures, Berlin 1863, p. 43. (6) Pascal, Pense'es, ii. 90 (149), ii. 147 (178). (7) Pascal, Pensees, ii. 118 (191) : pour cela instead oi pour I'e'ternite. (8) Pascal, Pensees, ii. 88 (149); compare also p. 104 (80) : ' Nous avons une idee de bonheur et ne pouvons y arriver ; nous sentons une image de la verite" et ne posse"dons que le mensonge : incapables d'ignorer absolument et de savoir certainement, tant il est mani- feste que nous avons 6td dans un degre de perfection dont nous sommes malheureusement dechus ! ' (9) Pasc. Pens. ii. 82 (48). (10) It is the feeling of this contradiction which begets aspiration, as Schiller expresses it in his poems, Sehnsucht, and Der Pilgrim, : — 346 Notes to Lecture II. ' Ah ! the pathway is not given; Ah ! the goal I cannot near : Earth will never meet the Heaven, Never can the There be Here ! ' x And to name another poet : it can certainly be from no leaning to orTbpdoxy, that, as Goethe says of Byron's Cain, 'a kind of anticipation of the coming Redeemer runs through the whole pi?ee-' Compare note 14. (11) Pascal, Pense'es, i. 104 -Nj^O), on the contradic tions of the human will. Con\Pare a^s0 Rousseau, Emile, i. iv. p. 41 .- 'L'homme n'esf. Poillt un; Je veux et je ne veux pas, je me sens a, la jf°^s esclave et UDre . je yois le bien je I'aime, et je f_f*s *e ma^ Je sms actif quand j'dcoute la raison, passif|cLuailcl mes Passions m'entrainent ; et mon pire tourmenti a.uana Je succombe est de sentir que j'ai pu re"sister.' _ (12) ComparoHerdgfe's Hi^-^T or Hebrew Poetry in his collected^aBSsPflraefigion and Theology, vol. i. p. 160. Alsgffl^|^le..esfe?2- Urlcunde, etc. vol. vii. p. 83, etc. Homer's Iliad, xvii. 446. (14) A copious collection of similar expressions is found in Tudichum's translation of the tragedies of Sophocles, 1827, Part i. pp. 311, etc. Notes to (Edipus in Colonos ; I quote from the work : ' A tone of gentle lamentation resounds throughout antiquity ; an incon solable lamentation among the older poets, who looked forward to no better future. " Generations of men fall like leaves (Iliad, vi. 146, xxi. 464) ; no creature is more miserable than they (xvii. 446) ; they are like a thing of nought ((Ed. sex, .1166) ; a shadowy dream (Pindar, p. 136) ; like a dream (iEschylus, Prom. 549) ; a very vapour's shade (Soph. Phil. 933, Antig. 1152) ; but phantoms (Aj. 126) ; passing away." Pliny, who is generally so concise and terse, becomes eloquent when 1 Bulwer's Translation. Notes to Lecture II. 347 describing the miseries of mankind' (Hist. Nat. vii. init.). The epigram of __Esop (Anth. gr. x. 123) is especially striking : ' How can we escape thee, 0 life, without death ? Thy torments are innumerable, and it is hard both to bear and to escape thee. Nature has adorned thee with beauty : the expanse of ocean, the earth, the stars, the bright orbs of the sun and moon ; all else is pain and fear ; and he who attains aught good is soon seized in retribution by Nemesis.' Plutarch gives a fine fragment (De Consol. i. p. 276) : ' Come, 0 death, thou true physician for all our ills ; Thou haven, that shelterest man from the storm of want.' According to Pliny (vii. init.), ' many have thought it the best lot never to be born, or to have died very speedily.' Alexis (Athen. iii. 124, 6) cites as a saying of many wise men, ' It is best never to have been born, or, if born, quickly to reach the goal.' Even before Theognis, Bacchylides sang (Fr. iii.) : ' It would have been better for us not to have been born, and never to have seen the light of the sun.' And Theognis himself (543, ed. Welcker) : 'It would have been better for an earthly being never to have been born, and never to see the piercing ray of the sun; and for one who is born soon to pass through the gates of Hades, and to lie deep under the earth.' To these may be added the words of Sophocles ((Ed. Col. 1225) : ' Happiest never to have been born ! yet it is certainly the next best thing for the living to return quickly to the place whence he came.' The sayings of Pliny, above quoted, are taken from his Natural History. Similar instances are found in Stirm (Apologie des Ghristenthums, p. x. p. 200, etc.) ; Dalton (Nathanael, pp. 49, etc.) ; and Hettinger (Apologie des Christenthums, i. 1863, pp. 52 and 512, etc.). Pliny's lament over the contradictions of human existence 348 Notes to Lecture II. has been repeatedly quoted, comp; e.g. Naville (p. 88). Hettinger also refers to a poem of Lenau's, which may be appropriately inserted here ; it was written in his later years, just before his madness, and is published among his poetic remains by Anast. Gran (Stuttg. 1851), p. 198. It may be translated thus : — ' Vain emptiness where'er my glances stray, Life's but a tedious journey towards no shore ; A fruitless chase from this to that, nought more ; We lose our httle strength upon the way. ' If we might run our whole long race on earth, And at the end possess the same strong heart, As when in ardent youth we made our start, The sport might even furnish cause for mirth. ' But man borne onward is, from hour to hour, Like a frail pitcher, broken at a well ; Its water oozing out — while still a power Supported it, still drop by drop it fell. Empty at last — what is there left to drink ? Among its fellow-potsherds let it sink.' To which I append the conclusion of a sonnet by Michael Angelo, given by Winckelmann in his Kunst- gesch., Part ii. note 149 : ' Tu desti al tempo l'anima, ch'e diva, E in questa spoglia si fragile, e stanca La incarcerasti, e desti al suo destino. To la nutri, e sostienti, e tu l'avviva : Ogni ben senza te signor le manca : La sua salute e sol poter divino.' (Literally Translated) Thou gavest to time, the soul which is divine ; didst imprison it in this weary and fragile garment, and deliver it to its fate. Thou dost nourish, sustain, and Notes to Lecture II. 349 revive it : without Thee, 0 Lord, it wants every good ; divine power is its only safety. Compare Tudichum, p. 313. Lasaulx — Ueber die Linosklage, Wurzb. 1842 — begins with the words : ' It has often been remarked, that in the majority of genuine popular songs there is a prevalence of the melancholy, the plaintive, the aspiring. To long is an innate feeling in man in separable from his inmost nature. Since the fall his longing has been mingled with a feeling of sadness for his loss of innocence ; and these two fundamental feelings of the human heart, longing and sadness, have ever pervaded all genuine popular poetry' (p. 9). ' So universal a lament over the loss and ruin of the original beauty of life, must date from a time ante cedent to that of the history of individual nations ; it must be the echo of a feeling which has possessed not this or that nation, but the whole human race. This note of sadness is the key-note of the earliest history, and runs in various forms through the oldest national traditions.' Compare also on this subject note 8, Lec ture vii. (15) Pasc. Pens. ii. 9 (154). (16) Pasc. Pens. ii. 6 (151, etc.). (17) Malebranche in Nicolas (Philos. Studien iiber das Christenthum, 4th edit. i. Ill), and Leibnitz in Naville, p. 172. (18) Quoted from Naville, p. 31. (19) Spruche in Prosa, WW. vol. iii. p. 325, and p. 181 : ' It is much easier to recognise error than to discover truth : the former lies on the surface, the latter is buried in the depths, and it is not every one who is capable of searching for it.' (20) Nicolas, i. 20. 350 Notes to Lecture III. (21) Pasc. Pens. ii. 172 (291, 265). J. G. Fichte, Bestvmmung des Menschen, WW. ii. pp. 293, 294. Fichte in this work often returns to this thought, e.g. p. 254 : ' If, then, the will be steadfastly and sincerely fixed upon what is good, the understanding will of itself discover what is true.' P. 255 : ' Truth is descended from con science.' P. 356 : ' Our opinions are founded upon our impulses ; and as are the inclinations of an individual, so are his convictions.' Compare also Goethe. Spruche in Prosa, p. 238 : ' Everything depends upon the in clinations : where these are, there the opinions come forth ; and as they are, so are the opinions.' Comp. also Ziethe, p. 122, where the opinion of Matthias Claudius is compared with the saying quoted from Fichte, ' Men do not will according to their reason, but reason according to their will.' NOTES TO LECTURE III. (1) Lichtenberg's Miscellaneous Writings, collected from his literary remains after his death, vol. i. p. 166. Often quoted, e.g. Ziethe, p. 78 ; Dalton, p. 51. With the preceding compare Pascal on the necessity of the knowledge of God, xi. 20 : 'II est sans doute qu'il n'y a point de bien sans la connaissance de Dieu : qua mesure qu'on en approche on est heureux et que le dernier bonheur est de le connaitre avec certitude; qu'a, mesure qu'on s'en eloigne on est malheureux, et que le dernier malheur serait la certitude du contraire.' (2) Lichtenberg, i. 47 ; Epiktet. Dissert, i. c. 16 ; Opp. ed. Schweighaeuser, i. p. 91. (3) Cicero, De legibus, i. 8 (24) : ' Ex tot generibus nullum est animal prater hominem quod habeat noti- tiam aliquam dei, ipsisque in hominibus nulla gens est, neque tam immansueta, neque, tam fera, qua? non, etiam si ignoret qualem habere deum deceat, tamen habendum sciat.' (Compare Kahnis, Dogmatik, i. 1861, p. 132.) Artemidorus, 'OveipoKpiriK&v, i. c. 8 : ' There is Notes to Lecture III. 351 no people without a god, none without a supreme governor ; but some honour the gods in one manner, some in another.' Compare on this subject, Fabricii bibliographia antiquaria, ed. 3, 1760, pp. 303 sqq., where a larger collection of the opinions of ancient writers, proving the universality of a belief in God, is adduced : Liiken, Die Traditionen des Menschengesch- lechts, Miinster 1856, pp. 15, etc. This work, the fruit of fifteen years of industry, seems less known and appreciated than it deserves. Comp. also Nicolas, i. 154, etc., and Hettinger, p. 107. (4) Cicero, De natura deorum, i. 17: 'Intelligi ne- cesse est esse deos, quoniam, insitas eorum vii potius innatas cognitiones habemus. De quo autem omnium natura consentit, id verum esse necesse est.' Fechner, in his work, Die drei Motive und Griinde des Glaubens, Leipzic 1863, pp. 62-70, has some excel lent discussions on the force of the evidence furnished by the universality of faith, showing that the longer unauthorized faith, i.e. error, lasts, the more does it develop its antagonism to the nature of things, and the more does it display its pernicious consequences, thus gradually annulling itself; while fresh support and ¦confirmation is continually accruing to faith from its agreement with the nature of things, and the beneficial results which serve to corroborate its truth. (5) Especially Tertullian in his work De Testimonio Animce, c. 1 f., 5 f., and Apologet. c. 17. (6) Thus, too, does Socrates argue in his dialogue with Aristodemus (Xenoph. Memor. i. 4, 9) : As little canst thou see thy own soul, by which thy body is governed. Compare also Marcus Antonius, xii. 28 : ' To him who asks thee where thou hast seen gods, or how their existence was disclosed to thee, that thou shouldest honour them so highly, answer : In the first place, they are evident even to the sight (namely, by 352 Notes to Lecture III. their effects) ; in the next, I have never seen my own soul, and yet I respect it.' Compare Jacobi, Von den gottlichen Dingen und ih'rer Offenbarung, 2nd edit. 1822, p. 11. Also Nicolas, i. 202. (7) Pasc. Pens. i. 155, 157 (30, 31) ; Lichtenberg, ii. 88 ; Jacobi, p. 9. (8) Matthias Claudius, Werke, 7th edit., 1844, vol. i. p. 10. I may perhaps be allowed to cite a few more excellent testimonies. The heathen Kleanthes (about B.C. 260) praises Zeus in the words : — 'Supreme immortal God, many-named eternal Gover nor, Disposer of nature, thou that guidest all according to laws — Hail to thee ! It is granted to every man to speak with thee : for we are of thy race : a key-note was given to each being who fives and moves on earth for a voice. With it will I praise thee, and ever exalt thy authority ' (Knapp, Christoterpe; 1844, p. 80). And the Church Father, Gregory of Nazianzen, says in one of his hymns, ' To the Ineffable : ' ' All proclaim Thee only, both that which speaks and that which lacks speech. All honour Thee only, both that which thinks and that which is without thought. For before Thee the wishes and the griefs of all are common. All pray to Thee, and all, recognising the signs that announce Thee, raise to Thee the silent hymn. All attain their rest in Thee, to Thee do all tend.' (9) Jacobi, p. 7 and 189. Pasc. Pews. ii. 113, etc. (243) : Dieu est un dieu cache. (10) Pasc. Pens. i. 9, 8, 58 ; ii. 113, 114, 118, and elsewhere (242-246). (11) Aristoteles, de mundo, c. 6. Cicero, Tuscul. i. c. 28. De divinitat. ii. c. 76. Comp. Kahnis, p. 157-161, where details of the history of this evidence are given. (12) Guizot, L'Eglise et la SociiU Chretiennes, p. 14. Notes to Lecture III. 353 Compare also Napoleon, Memorial de Sainte-Helene par Las Casas, vol. iv. p. 160 : ' Tout proclame l'ex- istence d'un Dieu, c'est indubitable.' P. 162 : ' Dire d'ou je viens, ce que je suis, ou je vais, est au dessus de mes ide"es, et pourtant tout cela est. Je suis la montre qui existe et ne se connait pas.' Vol. v. p. 324. (13) Compare the detailed treatment of this evidence in Kahnis's above-named work, pp. 161-168. Among the utterances of the ancients, Cicero de natura deorum ii. 37, must be especially noticed, where Cicero is con tending against the possibility of the world being the work of chance ; for if this beautiful world, with all its rich variety of form, originated in an accidental com bination of bodies, without any divine intelligence, why should not an accidental mixture of the letters of the alphabet produce verse, or artistic buildings arise by a fortuitous concurrence of atoms ? Even Kant, who denied the validity of all these proofs, confessed, ' This proof is the oldest, the clearest, and the best adapted to the general understanding. It gives animation to the study of nature, because it owes its existence to thought, and ever derives fresh force from it. It brings out reality and purpose where our observation would not of itself have discovered them, and extends our knowledge of nature, by exhibiting traces of a special unity, whose principle is beyond nature. This knowledge, moreover, directs us to its cause — namely, the inducing idea, and increases our faith in a supreme originator to an almost irresistible conviction.' Comp. Kahnis's above-named work, pp. 164, etc. (14) Thiers, inhis HistoireduGonsulat et de I' Empire, tom. iii. p. 220, cites the following words of General Bonaparte to Monge, the scholar, in whose company he frequently was : ' Listen ; my religion is very simple. I look at this universe, so great and vast, composed of so many parts, and so magnificent, and I say to myself 354 Notes to Lecture III. that it cannot be the production of chance, but must be the work of some unknown Being, who is almighty, and who excels men in the same degree as the universe does our finest works of art. Look you, Monge, call in the assistance of your friends, the mathematicians and philosophers, and see if they can find more cogent and convincing reasons. Whatever you may set up to oppose them, you will not weaken them.' Nicolas, i. 75. (15) ComparePerty^l nthropologische Vortrage,1863, p. 39 : ' Many have spoken of ideas which change in the course of time, and with them the organisms which are their realization: — but ideas presuppose such a producing principle. Some who accept no creative principle make the kosmos itself reasonable ; reasonable and alive, and yet unconscious ! ' Rousseau, Emile, i. iv. vol. ii. pp. 36, etc. : ' II ne depend pas de moi de croire que la matiere passive et morte a pu produire des etres vivans et sentans, qu' une fatalite" aveugle a pu produire des etres intelligents, que ce qui ne pense point a pu produire des etres qui pensent. Je crois done que le monde est gouverne" par une volonte puis- sante et sage; je le vois, ou plutot je le sens et cela m'importe k savoir.' (16) Maistre, Abendst. v. St. Petersburg, i. 116, in Hettinger, p. 127, notes. (17) Johann v. Muller, in the midst of his great his torical studies, wrote in 1782 from Cassel to his friend, Karl Bonnet, from whom diversity of religious opinions had hitherto separated him. ' You love me, my dear ¦ and honoured friend, but will you not love me still more if I become more like you, if you learn that henceforth nothing will any longer separate us ? Since I have been at Cassel, I have been reading the ancient authors in their chronological order, and making extracts from them when any remarkable facts struck me. I do Notes to Lecture III. 355 not know why, two months ago, I took it into my head to read the New Testament, before my studies had advanced to the age in which it was written. How shall I describe to you what I found therein ! I had not read it for many years, and was prejudiced against it before I took it in hand. The light which struck Paul with blindness on his way to Damascus was not more strange, more surprising to him, than it was to me, when I suddenly discovered the fulfilment of all hopes, the highest perfection of philosophy, the explana tion- of all revolutions, the key to all the seeming con tradictions of the physical and moral world. I beheld that which was most wonderful effected by the most insignificant means. I perceived the reference of all the revolutions of Europe and Asia to that miserable nation in which the promises were deposited, just as important papers are entrusted to one who can neither read nor adulterate them. I saw the religion appear at the moment most favourable for its appearance, and in the manner most adapted to procure its acceptance. . . . The whole world seemed to be ordered for the sole purpose of furthering the religion of the Redeemer; and if this religion is not divine, I understand nothing at all. I have read no book on this subject, but hitherto in all my study of the ancient times I have always felt the want of something, and it was not till I knew our Lord that all was clear to me; with Him there is nothing which I am not able to solve.' Works, 15, 315, etc. Also in Naville, p. 156, etc. Augustine calls history a poem of the Divine intelligence (De Civ. xi. 10 : ' deus ordinem seculorum tanquam pulcherrimum, carmen honestavit '). (18) Compare further remarks on this subject in Kahnis's already named work, pp. 153, etc. Comp. also Nicolas, i. pp. 81, etc. (19) Cicero, De leg. ii. 4, and the fine fragment from Cicero, De republ. i. 3, in Lactantius, Div. instit. vi. 8. 356 Notes to Lecture III. The literature of this evidence, e.g., in Hahn, Lehrbuch des christi. i. 228. (20) So e.g. frequently Strauss, Glaubenslehre, i. 393; Leben Marklins, p. 155, and elsewhere. (21) Pasc. Pens. ii. 314, 315 (219, 245). (22) For further information on this matter, I refer especially to the excellent work of Weissenborn, Vorlesungen uberPantheismusund Theismus, Marburg 1859. In his treatise on the relation of Goethe to Spinoza (Zeitschr. fiir luth. Theol. 1866, 2), Heyder calls attention to the fact that Pantheism is divided into two main forms, the occidental and the oriental. The former merges the world in God, the latter merges God in the world. In that, God is rest — in this, He is motion ; there God is being, here He is development, process. Hence the former is neither just nor powerful in its conception of the actual world, while the latter does not really attain to the Absolute, for that knows no development, this no existence in the process of the finite ; God is ever being developed without ever really existing. (23) Jacobi, Ueber die Lehre des Spinoza in Brief en an Herrn Moses Mendelssohn, Breslau 1785 ; and Mendelssohn, Moses Mendelssohn an die Freunde Les- sing's (a supplement to Jacobi's correspondence on the doctrines of Spinoza), Berlin 1786. Enger asserts that the publication of these letters was the immediate cause of Mendelssohn's death; so much did he take it to heart that his friend Lessing should have withheld from him such a secret as his pantheistic opinions, while he revealed it to Jacobi in the conversation which took place at Wolfenbiittel. 'Yet M. M. would perhaps have died even if the letters had not been published,' says Claudius. Compare generally Matth. Claudius, v. 102-120. Notes to Lecture III. 357 (24) Spinoza has found a poetical interpreter in Auerbach, e.g. in his last novel of Auf die Hohe. Schelling gives a poetical representation of his pan theistic speculations in an interesting poem (of the year 1800), of which we here append the literal translation of a few lines (Sammil. Werke, Div. 1, vol. iv. p. 546):— ' The force which causes metals to flow and trees to burst forth in spring, tries on all sides to get out towards the light. It cares not for trouble, and now soars upwards, lengthening its members and organs, then again shortening and narrowing them, and hopes by turning and winding to find the right form and shape. And thus, struggling hand and foot against the opposing element, it soon learns to find space in which it first comes to its senses. And now the giant spirit finds himself enclosed in a dwarf of beautiful form and similar offspring (called in language a man). Wakened from his iron sleep and long dream, he scarcely knows himself, and is much astonished. He salutes and surveys himself with wondering eyes, and would fain be again dissolved with all his senses into vast nature. But when once he has burst forth from it, he cannot flow back into it again. So he remains during life narrow and small, alone in his own great world. Sometimes, indeed, in terrified dreams, he fears lest the giant should take courage and arise, and, like the old god Saturn, devour his own offspring in his anger. He knows not that it is but himself ; he quite forgets his origin, and torments himself with phantoms, when he might say to himself, "I am the god whom the world cherishes in its bosom, the spirit which moves in all things." From the first effort of occult forces to the diffusion of the first hving sap in which force wells forth (verquillt) into force, and matter into matter, and the first flower, the first bud swells to the first ray of new-born light, breaking through the darkness like a second creation, and enlightening the heavens day and night from the world's thousand eyes, there is but one 358 Notes to Lecture III. force, one alternating agency, one weaving, one impulse, one tendency towards ever higher life.' (25) Compare Friedr. Schlegel, Ueber die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier, 1808, pp. 127, 97, 98, 114 ; Jacobi, Von den gottlichen Dimgen, p. 154 ; Naville, Der Himml. Voter, p. 21 7, ' The deification of the human race is the justification of all its acts, and involves, as its immediate consequence, the annihila tion of all morality.' (26) Compare the poetic confession of the hopeless ness of Pantheism in Riickert's beautiful poem, die sterbende Blume. Pantheism calls the demand for continuous personal existence the assuming selfishness of the individual ; e.g. Strauss, Leben Marklins, p. 156. (27) Compare what Stahl says on this subject in his Fundamenten einer christlichen Philosophie, p. 24. (28) Compare the above work of Stahl, pp. 14, etc., on the impossibility of the unconscious originating the conscious. Compare also, e.g., Rousseau, Emile, iv. vol. ii. p. 36 : II ne depend pas de moi de croire — que ce qui nepense point a pu produire des itres quipensent. (29) Pascal, Pensees, ii. 198 (287), ii. 171 (292). Nicolas, i. 147, cites the following passage from Lelia, by George Sand, who was well able to say, from her own experience, whether human affection can yield us the satisfaction we desire. 'It is heaven that we want, and have not. Hence we seek it in a creature hke ourselves, upon which we lavish all those high capacities which were bestowed on us for a nobler purpose. We refuse God our adoration, a feeling which was only implanted in us for the purpose of leading us back to Him, and we transfer it to a weak and imper fect being, which thus becomes the object of our idolatry,' etc. (30) Ludwig Feuerbach has written a poem of Notes to Lecture IV. 359 eighteen pages long upon death (Reimverse auf den Tod), 1830, iii. 19-108 ; a literal translation of some lines is appended : — ' I depart from this life to surrender myself to no thingness. The old fable indeed teaches that I should come among the angelic host ; but this is only a delu sion of theologians, who have ever deceived us. My troublesome self will rot in its coffin ; identity will be at an end, for death is not a mere joke. . . . Therefore, beloved ego, adieu, adieu for ever. Alas, alas ! weep not, dear soul, though the ego is shattered to pieces. ... I go down into nothingness, to become the fuel of fresh life. . . . For you, beloved posterity, who will take our places, and draw the breath of life from our cold graves. ... I must come to utter nothingness if a new ego is to arise from me,' etc. These verses are preceded by a series of articles on death, in which death is glorified, as e.g. p. 20 : ' Tem poral sensuous death presupposes a non-temporal super- sensuous death. This eternal supersensuous death is — God.' NOTES TO LECTURE IV. (1) Compare K. v. Raumer, Kreuzzuge, 1, 1840, p. 110 ; Kurz, Bibel und Astronomie, 4th ed. 1858, p. 21, notes. (2) The same view is expressed in O. L. Erdmann's lecture on the relation of scientific investigation to religious faith given in the official report of the thirty- fourth meeting of German men of science and physicians at Karlsruhe, Sept. 1858, Karls. 1859, p. 19. We ap pend a few extracts by way of confirmation. P. 20 : ' There is a boundary which natural science, from its very nature, cannot, and must not, pass ; I mean that boundary beyond which the experience of the senses and the inferences founded thereon are impossible.' 360 Notes to Lecture IV. P. 21 : ' Experience, upon which all natural science is founded, knows nothing of a beginning from nothing, nor of an ending in nothing. But is such a beginning and ending therefore impossible ? i.e., is such a view contrary to reason, and to the laws of thought ? Cer tainly not ! It is true that we can form no conception of the nothing that must have been before creation ; we cannot conceive it. Is, then, that only possible which we are able to conceive and understand ? ' ' The question concerning the origin of matter, the question of creation, properly so called, will never disclose itself to man's mind. It is not a matter of science. Matter is with us taken for granted.' P. 22 : ' Science offers no answer . to the above questions (i.e. concerning the origin of matter, etc.) ; they touch a boundary which human investigation can never pass. It is here that science ends and religion begins; the latter alone answers these questions by teaching us faith in God, the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth.' Compare also A. v. Humboldt : ' Cosmogony assumes the pre- existence of all the matter now diffused throughout the universe, and occupies itself only with the various con ditions which this matter passed through, till it re ceived its present form and composition. All that lies beyond this circle belongs to the province of philosophy.' In the article, Die Entbindung des Warmestoffs, etc., in Moll's Jahrbuch der Berg- und Hiitten-kunde, vol. iii. p. 6. Tholuck's Miscellaneous Works, vol. ii. p. 155. Even Virchow acknowledges (Archiv. fur pathol. Ana- tomie,1855,No.l(,,iAiFabriBriefegeg.denMaterialism, 2nd edit. 1864, p. 61) : I have expressly asserted that scientific investigation is incapable of solving the enigma of creation. Stutz, a geologist of Zurich, in his lectures on the Facts of Faith, pp. 61-70, brings forward a series of sayings on the part of the most eminent naturalists, of Liebig the chemist, Boyle the physicist, Ritter the geographer, Schonbein the chemist, Mar- tius the botanist, etc., expressive of the limits of scientific research, and of the necessity of faith in God. Notes to Lecture IV. 361 (3) Compare Wuttke, Ueber die Kosmogonieen der heidnischen Vollcer vor der Zeit Jesu und der Apostel, 1850. (4) Compare Fabri Briefe, etc., p. 224, where also a corresponding opinion of A. v. Humboldt's is cited. (5) Compare Hettinger, p. 164, and Fabri, p. 66. The criticism on Materialism which follows, in many respects coincides with the able discussions in these two works (especially Hett. 168-185 ; Fabri, 82-86). Guizot also gives an excellent criticism of materialism in his Meditations, ii. pp. 313, etc., where he especially shows — as is also done in the text — that materialism deals with arbitrary hypotheses, comp. p. 329. (6) Kant, Metaphys. Anfangsgrvmde der Naturwis- senschaft, 3 Hauptst., 3 Lehrsatz ; Works, vol. v. p. 407. Compare also Erdmann's above-named work, p. 21 : ' What first caused that motion to take place in sup posed eternally existent matter, which has resulted in the present state of things ? ' ' How did vegetable, animal, and finally human life awaken upon earth ? ' Fabri, p. 34, and Hettinger, p. 174, cite from Virchow (Ges. Abh. 1856) the passage : ' No more than a cannon ball can set itself in motion by its own inherent power, or than the force with which it strikes against other bodies can be the simple result of its material proper ties ; no more than the heavenly bodies can be self- moving, or their motive-power derived from their form and composition, can the phenomena of life be entirely explained by the properties of the matter of which the individual parts are composed.' Also Cornelius, Ueber die Bildung der Materie, 1856, viii. 16, 18, 19 : ' How it happens that one atom should operate upon another through vacant space, is simply incomprehensible.' Compare Wilmarshof, Das Jenseits, Part i. 1863, p. 23. A thorough refutation of the modern atomic theory by 362 Notes to Lecture IV. Fichte will be found in the Zeitsch. fiir Philosophie, 1854, vol. xxiv. pp. 24-46. (7) E.g. Czolbe in Fabri, p. 89. (8) Spinoza, Ethik, Book iv. preface. As an example from modern science, compare Schleiden's Polemik in Fabri, p. 134, or Biichner, Natur und Geist, 1857, p. 267, etc. : ' The mischievous notion of design, leading as it does to numerous errors and false views.' ' The most distinguished investigators in the various branches of science have, during the last few years, zealously and unanimously declared themselves opposed to the philo sophic notion of design,' etc. It is to Trendelenburg, in his Logischen Untersuchungen, 2nd edit. p. 2, that we are indebted for proving and again doing honour to the necessity of the notion of purpose ; compare the section on design, Part ii. pp. 1, etc. The particulars which follow in the text are founded upon, and in part verbally agree with, these philosophic discussions. Fabri also, p. 135, appeals to them ; and Hett. pp. 178, etc., joins in this philosophic treatment of the subject. I cannot strongly enough commend this work to those who desire further information on this point. I quote here a few passages. P. 3 : 'Thus the eye is prepared in the darkness of the womb, that at birth it maybe opened to the light. The eye is formed in the secret labora tory of nature, but yet it corresponds with the light which originates at an infinite distance therefrom,' etc. P. 4 : ' Light neither made nor evoked the eye, and yet the slumbering power of the optic nerve yearns for it.' 'There is everywhere manifested an agreement be tween the counterparts exactly corresponding to the internal and external activity.' ' Purpose governs the whole, and presides over the execution of the parts.' P. 5 : 'As purpose is displayed in the organ of vision, so is it, in like manner, repeated in the organs of the other senses.' Then he reminds us (p. 8) how Cuvier proved the unity of animal organization by the mutual Notes to Lecture IV. 363 relation of its several parts to a purpose. If we ascend to man, ' even here that which is lowest is in unison with that which is highest.' Pp. 11, 12 : 'In the lower is concealed an anticipation ofthe higher, and the whole is conceived by one thought. That which seems perfect in itself, and independently complete, serves in its turn as a member of some more comprehensive and important form of life. As purpose rises, it seizes upon some already accomplished purpose as its instru ment.' P. 14: 'That the whole is earlier than its parts, as Aristotle expresses it, is evident in the seed and its development. The power of the whole operates before it exists, that it may become existent.' P. 21 : ' Consequently the efficient cause produces the whole from the parts, and inversely, design produces the parts out of the whole.' Pp. 14, etc. : ' Unconscious con formity to purpose is indeed the fact of plastic nature, but nothing more than a fact. If it be thought that such an expression has solved the enigma, it might be asked whether it has not rather increased its difficulty, for how can profound conformity to purpose be thought of as blind and unconscious ? ' P. 25 : ' That which is common does not cease to be a miracle because it is common.' P. 26 : ' The efficient cause, the reason's usual point of view, shows itself impotent in the whole present case.' ' A predetermined harmony is exhibited Between light and the eye, between sound and the ear, between density and the mechanism of the organs of motion,' etc. P. 27: 'This pre-established harmony seems to point to a power encompassing the members, and in which is the thought of the Alpha and Omega.' Similarly does also Liebig express himself on the supremacy of the idea and of purpose, in the realm of organized beings, in his Chemischen Briefe, 5th edit. 1861, Letter xxiii. pp. 202, etc., where he designates materialistic views in general as ' the opinions of dilet tanti, who, from their excursions on the borders of natural science, have assumed the right of interpreting to the ignorant and credulous how the world and life 364 Notes to Lecture IV. originated,' etc. Compare also Fechner, Die drei Mo tive, etc., p. 117: 'I have somewhere read how the larva of the stag beetle, when about to enter its pupa state, constructs for itself a far larger dwelling-place than its folded body can fill, so that there may be room enough for the horns which are about to be developed. What does the larva know of its future horns ? ' etc. Stutz's above-named work, p. 66 : ' The more profound observer cannot help declaring it the greatest possible error to ignore, in the province of organic life, the prevalence of conscious intention, and the agency of a Being acting according to purpose ' (Gelyer Monatbl. ii. 30 sq.). Comp. also, pp. 67, 69, the concurring opinions of Martius and Agassiz. (9) Such an evasion does even a Burmeister call to his assistance. Compare Fabri, p. 85, and Hettinger, p. 185. (10) Erdmann, in the above-named work, p. 19 : 'It is now again asserted that the origin of organic nature in general may easily be explained by the agency of physical and chemical forces. There is no need of the eternal wisdom of a Creator ; natural necessity is every thing. In fact, even reason has its fanaticisms, and while seeking to annihilate one superstition it may chance to create another ; while exorcising phantoms, it may happen to honour an empty word as a living creative power.' Liebig in the above-cited work, p. 206 : ' Never will chemistry succeed in exhibiting in her laboratory a cell, a muscular fibre, a nerve, in a word, one of those really organic parts of an organism which are endowed with vital properties, nor indeed an organism itself.' Compare also Schleiden, Das Alter des Menschengeshlechts, etc., 1863, p. 28 : ' The former experiments of Ehrenberg, Schwann, Schulze, and others, confirmed in our own days by the extensive in vestigations of Pasteur, have proved that a so-called generatio originaria or cequivoca, i.e. a formation of Notes to Lecture IV. 365 specifically distinct germs from formless matter, with out the co-operation of given organisms, does not occur in nature. On the other hand, the old saying of Harvey (?), " Everything that lives proceeds from an egg," has been completely corroborated, and is but ex pressed with greater physiological definiteness in the words, "Everything which has life (viz. plants and animals) proceeds from a cell." It is only for the first formation of an organ that it was felt necessary to embrace the view of a spontaneous cell-formation or primitive generation, — a view, however, which at the same time extinguishes the conditions of its existence. But this view, though often met with, is purely imagina tive. Exact natural science will rather confess not only her ignorance, but her impotence, to explain the origin of the first living organism from any of the natural forces with which she is acquainted. With the appear ance of organic life, an entirely new principle was introduced into nature.' Liebig also, in his work above quoted, declares himself opposed to 'the frivolous' notion of the generatio cequivoca, and in favour of the temporal commencement of organic life. 'Exact natural science has proved that at a certain period the earth possessed a temperature at which organic life was im possible ; even at 78° Reaumur the blood congeals. It has proved that organic life had a beginning upon earth.' Similarly does Stutz (Ueber die Schopfungs- geschichte, 1867, p. 15) express himself: 'The existence of such a primary generation must be utterly given up by science ; ' and p. 17 : ' Science must still confess that it needs a power not present in matter for the production of organic life on earth,' etc. (11) The words of Eckstein, Die Askesis der alten heidn., etc., Welt, 1862, p. 22, in Hettinger, p. 191. (12) The philosopher, Franz Hoffmann, in an attack upon materialistic atomism, which will well repay perusal (Introduction to vol. vii. of the works of Franz 366 Notes to Lecture IV. von Baaders, 1854, pp. xxiii.-xxx.), sums up his criti cism in the following conclusion : ' Such a massive conglomerate of intrinsic contradictions could hardly have been heaped up by embracing any other view of the farther, or rather for the apparent, explanation of phenomena, as is to be found in materialism. Here change is said to originate from the unchangeable, perishableness from the imperishable, motion from absolute rest, life from the dead, sense from the sense less, purpose from causes acting blindly, intelligence from the unintelligent, spirit from the unspiritual ! ' Quoted also by Fabri, p. 67, and Hettinger, p. 171. Hoffmann also opposes atomism, in the introduction to vol. iii. of the same work, 1852, pp. xiii.-xxiii., xxxvi.-xxxix., and vol. iv. 1853, p. 11, etc. (13) The epitaph of Copernicus is as follows : — ' Non parem Pauli gratiam requiro, Veniam Petrie neque posco, sed quam In crucis ligno dederas latroni, Sedulus oro.' In former editions of these lectures I erroneously designated this epitaph as the composition of Coper nicus himself. I have since been convinced, from Prowe's work on Copernicus, that the lines are from the pen of Dr. Melchior Pyrnesius of Thorn, a younger contemporary and countryman of Copernicus, who erected the monument to his memory on which these words are inscribed. It represents Copernicus with his hands folded before a crucifix ; near his left arm lies a skull, in the background are seen a celestial globe and a pair of compasses, and under his right arm are the lines in question. The declaration of Lichten berg in his biography of Copernicus (Verm. Schr. vi. 128), that the confession of sin put into his mouth refers to his astronomical heresy, seems to me far fetched. Czynski, in his certainly elsewhere uncritically written biography of Copernicus (Kopernik. et ses Notes to Lecture IV. 367 travaux, Paris 1847), frequently and justly brings to notice the devout character of Copernicus, and the connection in which his discovery stood to it. Kepler concludes his work, On the Harmony of Worlds, with the words, ' I thank Thee, my Creator and Lord, that Thou hast given me this joy in Thy creation, this delight in the works of Thy hands. I have shown the excellency of Thy works unto men, so far as my finite mind was able to comprehend Thine infinity. If I have said aught unworthy of Thee, or aught in which I may have sought my own glory, graciously forgive it.' And it is said of Newton, that, like Klop- stock, he never named the name of God without uncovering his head. On Kepler, compare his life by Breitschwert (1831), and the notice of it in Tholuck's Miscellaneous Works, vol. ii. pp. 384-402. Czynski, in his above-named work on Copernicus, also lays stress on the religious point of view maintained in the works of Kepler and Newton. (14) Compare Chalmers' Discourses on tlie Christian Revelation (6th edit. 1817), and Tholuck's Verm. Schriften, vol. i. 209. (15) Compare Kurz, Bihel und Astronomie, 4th edit. 1858, p. 339 ; and Ebrard, Der Glaube an die heil. Schrift, und die Ergebnisse der Naturforschung, 1861, pp. 6, etc. (16) Compare Madler, Astron. Briefe, p. 129. The so-calied spectrum analysis, undertaken in the year 1859 by Bunsen and Kirchhoff, two chemists of Heidelberg, for the examination of sunlight, has proved that there are in the sun the metals natrium, kalium, and iron ; also nickel, cobalt, manganese, copper, zinc, barium, magnesium, chromium, calcium, aluminium, strontium, as well as oxygen and hydrogen gas. Several of these materials have also been found in •certain fixed stars, e.g. in Sirius. Compare Beweis des 368 Notes to Lecture IV. Glaubens, by Zockler and Grau, etc., 1866, Jan., p. 218. (17) Madler, Astron. Briefe, p. 236. The Parisian astronomer Faye has also lately made it tolerably probable that the sun is not, as has been hitherto supposed, an opaque and solid body enveloped in a luminous covering, but a ball of condensed vapour, from whose heated interior streams of fiery gas are ever ascending to the surface. Compare Beweis des Glaubens, pp. 219, etc. (18) Compare Ebrard, Der Glaube an die heil. Schrift, und die Ergebnisse der Naturforschung, p. 164; also Kurz, pp. 224-232. On the weight of the several planets, compare the tables in Pfaff's Schopfungs- geschichte, 1855, p. 245. Even a Ludwig Feuerbach (collected works, vol. i. p. 58), when desiring to refute the opinion that all the planets are inhabited worlds, reminds us that ' not everywhere, where sufficiency of space is found, do we find also the conditions under which organic life, especially in its higher forms, can exist.' (19) Kurz, Bibel und Astronomie, p. 290. If Faye is right with respect to the sun — and Camille Flam- marion, another Parisian astronomer, believes that he is — La Pluralite des Mondes habites, 1865), the unin- habitableness of the sun, and also of the sun-like fixed stars, is self-evident. Compare Beweis des Glaubens, 1866, p. 32. (20) Compare Seit der Leipziger Schlacht, in the Morgenblatt, 1864, Nos. 1-3, — an interesting article, though written from a naturalistic point of view. (21) The Neptunian theory advocated and established at the beginning of the present century, more especially by Werner (1817), according to which the various Notes to Lecture IV. 369 strata were formed partly by chemical causes, and partly by the mechanical action of water, soon gave place to the Plutonian, which teaches that the rocks were upheaved by the fire assumed to be contained in the interior of the earth. This upheaval theory, laid down especially by Leopold v. Buch, and advocated by Alex. v. Humboldt and Arago, became, in spite of much opposition, among others by Goethe, the prevail ing one. Recently, however, its authority has been increasingly shaken, especially by the chemical school of Nep. Fuchs and others, which refers the formation of the rocks to the medium of water or watery solutions. Specially decisive in this respect was the proof afforded, that the nature and component elements of the primary rock, granite, were incompatible with a formation from a fusion by fire, and required, on the contrary, the presence of water. This has been recently asserted, especially by Mohr of Bonn, in his Geschichte der Erde, in which he uncompromisingly attacks the Plutonists. Compare Stutz's lecture on Creation according to Geology and Scripture, Zurich 1867, which will well repay perusal. Many Plutonists have already consented to important restrictions of their theory, and conces sions to the Chemico-Neptunian theory, to which the prospect of a complete victory seems tolerably certain. This question, and the justice ofthe modern Neptunian theory, are discussed by Zockler in the Allg. litter a/r. Anzeiger, 1867, Oct. and Nov., and in his Urgeschichte der Erde und des Menschen, 1868, p. 36 sq. With respect to the succession of the several formations, Naumann, in his Lehrbuch der Geognosie, 2nd edition, 1862, vol. ii. p. 44, divides the sedimentary formations (i.e. those which arose from the gradual deposition of water, and which contain fossil remains, in contradis tinction to those of volcanic origin, and without such remains) into (1) Palaeozoic or primary ; (2) Mesozoic or secondary ; (3) Cenozoic or tertiary and quaternary, which latter contain extant forms. The primary are again distinguished into (1) the Silurian or older 2 a 370 __Vb.es to Lecture IV. transition rocks ; (2) the Devonian or later transition series (these names Silurian and Devonian being derived from districts in Britain, where they occur, viz. from Wales, the dwelling of the ancient Silures, and Devonshire) ; (3) the Carboniferous series ; (4) the Permian formation, or Red Sandstone, and Zechstein. The secondary formation is divided into (1) the Triassic; (2) the Jurassic ; (3) the Chalk formations. The ter- tiaries are divided into the Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, and Pliocene. These are followed by the quaternary formations of the diluvial and alluvial periods. (22) Compare the above wrork of Naumann, pp. 556, 564; and Ueber die ThierresteinSteinkohlenbildungen, pp. 573, etc. On the great coal-fields of Russia and England compare Ausland, 1866, No. 40, p. 959. (23) Lichtenberg, Geologische Phantasien im Got- tinger Taschenbuch fiir 1795, p. 79, from Tholuck's Verm. Schrift. ii. 156. (24) Lyell, the celebrated English geologist, has by his work, The Principles of Geology, obtained an almost universal acceptance of the principle, that the causes now in operation are those which alone have operated from the beginning, and which alone must be adduced in explanation of the formation of the earth. Hence this is to be understood as a process of gradual change by chemico-physical means. The consequence of this view is the admission of immense periods of time. Thus the space occupied by the process of formation from the original gaseous state of the earth till its state of sufficient coolness for the existence of organized beings, has been computed at three hundred and fifty millions of years, and the period since the first appear ance of organisms at one thousand two hundred and fifty millions. According- to others, even these numbers are too low, and the period required for the history of the formation of our earth is not less than two thousand millions. These calculations, however, are all extremely fluctuating. It has been computed, for example, that the Mississippi carries down yearly about Notes to Lecture IV. 371 three thousand seven hundred million cubic feet of earth from its sources to its mouth ; and hence Lyell infers that about 67,000 years were needed for the formation of its alluvial deposits of about 16,000 square miles ; while another geologist demands 158,000 for the process. Compare Fabri, pp. 273-275. Others, indeed, find this theory extremely ' tedious.' Compare e.g. Perty, Anihropologische Vortr&ge, p. 40. Nor will it ever explain how the remains of the so-called pre-Adamite animals, instead of decaying under the influence of gradually operating forces, have been in several places enclosed and preserved in great masses in the strata of the earth, nor whence came the so-called erratic blocks, nor how a great multitude of elephants were buried under fields of ice, in a state of perfect preservation in Siberia, nor how ferns and palms are found in high north latitudes, unless sudden catastrophes are admitted. In opposition to the acceptance of the immense periods demanded by the schools of Lyell and Darwin to explain the changes which have taken place, Goppert of Breslau has shown by experiments that in Siedsitze, vegetables, etc. became peat even in a few years (compare Andr. Wagner in the Evang. Kirchenzeitung, 1862, pp. 120, etc.) ; and v. Leonhard and Ehrenberg,as well as the French geologist Daubree, have called attention to the rapid changes effected by high temperatures ; thus rendering the millions and billions of these computations superfluous. Compare the above-named No. of Beweis des Glaubens, p. 31 ; Zolmann, Bibel und Natur in der Harmonic ihrer Offenbarung ; A Prize Essay, 1869, p. 72 sq. ; Zdckler, der Urgeschichte, etc., pp. 47 sq. and 141 sq. (25) Darwin, On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured, Races in the Struggle for Life, 1859. The views here propounded soon found much favour, but at the same time no less opposition, in Germany. Thus Perty, e.g., finds in Darwin's proposition, that man arose from a single primordial cell by a process of natural generation 372 Notes to Lecture IV. during about twenty million years, only ' bold flights and arbitrary assertions.' The celebrated Louis Agassiz (Contributions, etc.vol.iii.) calls Darwin's transmutation theory ' a scientific blunder, untrue in its facts, unscien tific in its method, ruinous in its tendency.' And the famous natural philosopher, von Baer of Petersburg, writes to Rudolf Wagner : ' The more I read Darwin, the more do I return to my own (limited) theory of transmutation.' Rud. Wagner, moreover, designates Darwin's theory a 'magnificent historical romance.' Lately, also, Goppert of Breslau, relying on an acquaint ance, as intimate as it is comprehensive, with the whole department of botanical knowledge, especially with the primeval races of plants, declares and maintains, in opposition to the fantastic assertions of Darwin, that vegetable Palaeontology teaches in the clearest manner, that ' new species, without intrinsic generic connection, have in all periods arisen and perished,' and that the several orders have experienced no kind of change from the most remote periods to the present day. Compare Beweis des Glaubens, p. 29. And Liebig in his above- quoted work, p. 204, evidently has Darwin in his mind when he speaks of the ' Dilettantism which assumes that it must have been more convenient to the Creator, instead of making germs or cells capable of most manifold development, to endow but one cell with life, and then to leave to time and chance the unfolding of the idea by means of this one cell.' And in support of his proposition, that 'strict scientific research knows nothing of a chain of organic being,' he refers to Bischoff, ' that master in the history of development,' who (in his lectures delivered in Munich in the spring of 1858), speaking of the time as already come in which it is declared to be ' insufferable and absurd arrogance for man to esteem himself higher and better than the brutes, and ignorance to seek to uphold the distinctions which justify such pretensions,' goes on to oppose such notions by saying : ' The more intimately we become acquainted withthe structure of animals, and especially Notes to Lecture IV. 373 of the rarer kinds of apes, the more convinced shall we be, that in spite of manifold and great coincidence between them and mankind, there yet exist even corporeal diversities quite as great as any which have, in other instances, induced the setting up of different genera and species. The chain of being so enthusiastic ally received and defended, is,upon nearer acquaintance, dissolved into separate members and types, which, though they do indeed exhibit and develop among themselves a decided advance in organization, yet by no means fit into one another in immediate succession, but furnish instances of leaps and differences greater than need exist between man and brute to separate them one from another by an impassable abyss.' Compare also what, e.g., Heer says in his speech at the centenary festival of the Scientific Society of Zurich (Zwei Vortrage von Escher und Heer, Zurich 1847), on the ' not gradual ascent/ but ' retrograde ' formation of nature : ' The thoughts of God, then, are incorporated in creation at one time directly, at another indirectly, both which modes of incarnation of divine ideas are to us equally incomprehensible.' To add to these a philosopher who at the same time takes his stand on the platform of accurate scientific research, we may here cite Fechner, who in his article Die drei Motive, etc., pp. 237, etc., pronounces against Darwin's con clusions, 'in which the enormous mass of facts adduced does not furnish the slightest proof,' and 'whose numerous inductions make a mountain, in a certain sense, bring forth a mouse.' The N. Preuss. Zeitung, 1868, No. 28, gives an account of an interesting meet ing of the Ethnographic Society in London, at which Murchison and Crawford opposed Darwinism by proving that there was no evidence for transformation of species ; and Busk, the Darwinist, giving up ' natural selection ' and the ' struggle for life,' retreated to the ' survival of the strongest,' thus essentially modifying Darwinism. I shall subsequently have to return to Darwin. 374 Notes to Lecture IV. (26) Compare on this subject, e.g. Perty,. pp. 50 ff. Huxley in his work, Evidences of the Place of Man in Nature, says that there exist sufficient reasons for the view that man was contemporary with the animals of the diluvial period; but this, in so far at least as it rests upon the discoveries in the gravel beds, etc., has again become very uncertain. For the extensive researches of Nicholas Whitley in England have undeniably established the fact, that the supposed flint weapons, utensils, etc., are not manufactured articles, and consequently all the hypotheses founded upon them fall to the ground. Comp. Beweis des Glaubens, 1866, Oct. p. 351, after the Reader of Feb. 17, 1866 ; and Ausland, 1866, No. 10, p. 238, etc. (27) Compare the excellent section in Pfaff s Schop- fungsgeschichte, 1855, pp. 615, etc. A series of testi monies from eminent natural philosophers (as Cuvier, etc.) to the essential agreement between the Mosaic account of creation, and the results of geologic investigation, will be found in Nicolas, i. 411. It is shown by Ulrici (Gott und die Natur, 2nd edit. 1866, p. 337 sq. ; comp. Zdckler, Die Urgeschichte, p. 32 sq.) that the Nebular theory of La Place mentioned in the text, p. 76, is by no means so unquestionable and indisputable as it was formerly esteemed. (28) Compare Pfaff, pp. 504, 505. The annual quantity of coal obtained in England is estimated at thirty-four million tons, while the other countries of Europe, exclusive of Russia, yield sixty millions annu ally. In North America, the Pittsburg strata alone embrace, according to Naumann, i. 590, upwards of 690 square miles. According to Bischoff, the plants which produced the coals ofthe Saarbruck districts alone must have taken 1,001,477 years in growing. In this com putation, however, no account is taken of the strata, often 100 feet deep, between the several coal seams (Pfaff, p. 506). (29) Compare Anihrop. Vortrage, p. 16. Notes to Lecture V. 375 NOTES TO LECTURE V. (1) Compare Fabri's above-quoted work, pp. 289, etc., and the interesting essay of Fredr. Pfaff, Alter und Ur sprung des Meschengeschlechts in Daheim, 1865, No. 30, of both which works especial use has been made in the following pages. The facts in question are also discussed in Lyell's Geological Evidences ofthe Antiquity of 'if am, Lond. 1863; and Vogt's Vorlesungen iiber denMenschen, seine Stellungin der Schopfungund in der Geschichte der Erde, Giessen 1863. (2) The pile-buildings are at present one of the most favourite of topics. The literature concerning them, whether in articles or discussions, surpasses computa tion. Even if Maurer does perhaps go a little too far in his opposition to current notions in his Ueber Alter Zweck und Bewohner der Pfahlbauten (Ausland, 1864, Nos. 39-42), yet the exaggerated views formerly held of the age of these buildings are being more and more moderated. Compare, e.g., even the Augsb. Allg. Zeitung, 1866, Beilage, No. 90. It is here shown that the iron objects, found in ever-increasing numbers, prove that these buildings were standing during the times of the Romans, and down to their conclusion in the third and fourth centuries after Christ ; that the vessels of brass reach back at farthest to the sixth or seventh century before Christ, and that even in the piles themselves, in which no metal has been found, traces of intercourse with the Baltic (Bernstein) and with Asia (Nephrite) exist, which do not allow us to refer them farther back than between the tenth and twelfth centuries before Christ. Comp. also Ausland, 1866, No. 18, p. 418. All enlightened and thorough investigators of the pile-buildings are agreed in assign ing to even the lowest strata of these buildings, be longing as they do to the stone period, a date not very long preceding the historical period, and therefore at the earliest between 1200 or 2000 before Christ, while they 376 Notes to Lecture V. make the bronze and iron periods of the inhabitants of the pile-buildings begin a little before the last century before Christ, and last down to the first centuries after Christ. Zockler, Die Urgeschichte, p. 153. The so-called flint axes of England and the north of France served es pecially to prove the high antiquity of the human race : these are flints, in the shape of axes and wedges several inches in length, of rude but apparently intended forms, but unpolished, and without a hole for the insertion of the handle. Since 1847, when the French geologist Boucher de Perthes described, in his Antiquites ante- diluviennes, those discovered in the valley of the Somme at Amiens and Abbeville, and thought they could be proved to be the manufactured productions of a primi tive human race belonging to the later tertiary or oldest diluvial periods, they have been found in far more considerable numbers, and have excited general attention. Nicholas Whitley of Cornwall, however, after investigations of the flint beds of Great Britain, extending through a series of years, shows the impossi bility of regarding these axe and wedge-shape flints as manufactured productions, 1st, because these beds are far too extensive and solid to allow the fabrication of such weapons to be even thought of; 2ndly, because only axes, or at most knife blades and arrow heads, and no other implements, are found ; 3rdly, because their forms exhibit gradations from the mere rude frac ture to the distinct arrow or axe shape ; 4thly, because in most cases the nature of the fracture points to natural causes. For all these reasons Whitley regards these flints as fragments of flint rolled and deposited by glacial currents. Comp. Beweis des Glaubens, Oct. 1866, p. 351 ; Zockler, die Urgeschichte, p. 147 ; Das Ausland, 1869, 9, p. 214 sq., also begins to hesitate as to the evidence of the (unpolished so-called paleolithic) stone utensils. (3) Cuvier, Discours sur les revolutions du globe, p. 22 ; Nicolas, i. 379. Notes to Lecture V. 377 (4) On Darwin's theory, comp. note 25 to Lecture IV. ; also Fabri's above-cited work, pp. 219-260, which I have chiefly followed. Among replies may be cited Zockler, Ueber die Speciesfrage nach ihrertheologischen Bedeutung in den Jahrbuchernfur deutsche Theologie, 1861,4; and especially Frohschammer, Ueber Darwin's Theorie von der Entstehung der Arten im Thier und Pflanzreiche, in the Athendum, 1862, 3. I have already mentioned the contrary opinions of Agassiz, Perty, von Baer, Liebig, Bischoff, etc., in note 25. Waitz also (in his Anthropologic der Naturvolker, i. 231), though 'not opposed on principle to Darwin's theory,' since he absolutely requires a ' natural origin of man,' acknow ledges : ' It must be candidly confessed that there is as good as an utter failure of cases analogous to the transformation of the ape into man, in empirical scien tific research.' K. Vogt, in his Vorlesungen iiber den Menschen, etc., 1863, expresses the ultimate results of this theory in his usual manner : ' The consequences of this doctrine are indeed formidable to a certain move ment, for there can be no doubt that the Darwinian theory shows the door, without further ceremony, to the personal Creator and His interference from time to time in the transformation of creation, and in the furnishing of new species, by leaving not the slightest room for the agency of such a being.' ' Even man is not then a creature made in a special manner and differing from the other animals, endowed with a soul of quite, peculiar kind, and a breath breathed into him by God Himself, but only the highest result of progressive natural selection, and proceeding from the group of apes which are but a little lower than himself.' ' Between man and beast there exists no greater chasm than that which separates many classes of animals.' Others also, as e.g. Schleiden, have expressed themselves in a similar manner ; comp. his Drei Vortrdge fiir gebildete Laien, 1863, Vort 3, Die Stellung des Menschen in der Natur, p. 48 : ' The calculable difference between a Goethe and an Australian savage is far greater than 378 Notes to Lecture V. that between the latter and a brute.' P. 50 : ' With respect to the formation of the hand and foot, men and apes (especially the gorilla) differ far less than one ape does from another ' (the gorilla from the ourang-outang). And this is the case also with the teeth. P. 55 : ' Even with regard to the brain, no essential difference exists, and ' the subordinate differences which are perceptible are quite as, or even more, decided between different races and individuals of the human race.' P. 56 : ' Even the religious instinct does not essentially distinguish mankind from the lower animals, any more than its preparation of honey, etc., causes the bee to cease from being an animal.' P. 61 : ' It is only the capacity of self-consciousness which forms an impassable gulf.' Materialists, such as Biichner, Kraft und Stoff, 7th ed. 1862, p. 218, express themselves, as might be expected, still more strongly, comp. note 29. (5) Waitz, in his above-quoted work, gives an exposition and discussion of Agassiz' doctrine, p. 218, though even he is inclined to accept the view, that ' there were perhaps several localities in the torrid zone in which mankind first appeared, and whence they proceeded ' (p. 229) ; while the facts he adduces are nevertheless decidedly in favour of the unity of the human race. Compare the quotations next following. (6) On the division of races in general, compare Waitz, pp. 258, etc. : ' It is well known that the human race has been very variously divided, and this because sharply marked differences do not exist. Cuvier adopts three classes, Blumenbach five, Lesson six, Bory fifteen, etc. Nor has there been less variation in the principle of division than in the number of classes. Blumenbach bases his division on the varying diameter of the skull. The Caucasian race is distinguished by an oval form of skull, and by the slight projection of the cheek and upper jaw-bones ; the Ethiopic differs, on the one hand, by having a far greater breadth of skull in proportion Notes to Lecture V. 379 to the height, while the Mongolian, on the other, ex hibits a longer and squarer form of skull.' Compare Pfaff, Schopfungsgeschichte, p. 633. A. Wagner (Ge schichte der Urwelt, ii. 34) also accepts as leading types the oval form of countenance prevailing among the Caucasian, the flat face of the Mongolian, and the wedge-shaped face of the black races. Compare Perty, Anthropol. Vortrdge, p. 66. The facial angle, which was first made the basis of classification by Camper (1765), is formed by two lines, one drawn from the fore head through the upper jaw, the other through the ear and the base of the nostrils. This angle ranges on an average from 80° to 90° among Europeans (i.e. the upper part of the face is proportionally prominent), while among some negro tribes it amounts to 70, and among apes reaches at most (according to Poppig) 50. Even among the Bushman, however, we occasionally meet with an angle of almost 90. (Compare Pfaff, p. 642.) On which account Blumenbach makes the dia meter of the skull, instead of the facial angle, his basis of classification, while convinced, at the same time, that this, far from furnishing proof against the unity of the human race, is corroborative of this fact. Compare, in his Beitrage zur Naturgeschichte, i. 156, etc. : ' Words of Comfort in a common family matter.' Compare Tholuck's Verm. Schr. ii. 210. (7) Compare further details in Pfaff, Schopfungsgesch., p. 618; especially Waitz, Anthrop., etc., 1, 195, etc. (8) Perty, Anthrop. Vortrdge, p. 104. (9) Waitz, ii. 230 : ' Man seems to resemble the domestic animals in his capability of settling in various climates, with this single difference, that he can bear such a transportation and settlement just in proportion to the degree of civilisation he has attained. As races of animals degenerate in strange climes, and more and more approximate to the native races, even without 380 Notes to Lecture V. intermingling with them, so also does man, except in cases where essential differences of food, mode of life, and civilisation, between settlers and natives, prevent such a result.' Many investigators maintain that the negro type has begun to approximate to the white races in America. Perty, 104. Among animals, the difference between animals of the same species extends even to the form of the bones, the number of the ribs, ,-efer** Compare Blumenbach, Beitr. zur Naturgeschichte, i. 24, etc.; Morgenblatt, 1833, pp. 204, etc. Meologische Grillen ; Tholuck, Ver^Schrif. ii. 21$, etc. (10) Perty, pp. 70, 86 sq. (11) Perty, p. 78 ; also Waitz, i. [390. (12) Perty, p. 85. (13) Waitz, i. 226 ; Perty, p. 43. (14) Waitz, i. 228. (15) A copious collection of these co/tnmou nationSr"" traditions will be found in the_befcjre-cited work of Liiken, Die Traditionen des MenltWKngeschlechts,lS56, enlarged edit. 1869. (16) Andr. Wa.gaeTy^lreitschrift ghgen Burmeister, p. 41. (17) Waitz, i. 226. (18) Comparejthe complaint of Acliilles to Ulysses in the lower regjpns, Odyss. xi. 488 : ' Talk not of n-fing in this dol'rous gloom, Nor think -^-in words (he cried) can ease my doom ; Rather I choose laboriously to bear A weight of Voes and breath the vital air, A slave to some poor hind that toils for bread, Than reign the sceptred monarch of the dead.' Pope's Translation. Notes to Lecture V. 381 (19) It was customary at feasts and drinking parties to place a silver skeleton on the table, and to pass it round with the words : ' Woe to us poor creatures ! What a cipher is man ! Such shall we all become, when once Orcas carries us off. Let us then live, indeed, as long as life is bestowed upon us.' Compare Lessing, Wie die Alten den Tod gebildet, Lachmann's edition, viii. 254. Petron. ed. Mich. Hadr. (p. 15) : ' Potantibus ergo et accuratissimas nobis lauticias mirantibus larvam argenteam attulit servus sic aptatam ut articuli ejus vertebraeque laxata. in omnem partem veterentur. Hanc quum super mensam semel iterumque objecisset et catenatio mobilis aliquot figuras exprimeret Trimalcio adjecit : Heu, heu nos miseros quam totus homuncio nil est, Sic erimus cuncti postquam nos auferet Orcus, Ergo vivamus dum licet esse bene.' The same thought was expressed upon several ancient monuments, e.g., ' Thou who readest this, enjoy life, for there is neither laughter nor amusement nor any plea sure after death;' or, 'Friends, I advise jtou, mix a goblet of wine and drink it, with your heads crowned with flowers, earth destroys what is left after death,' and many such. (20) Compare Karl Vogt, Kohlerglaube und Wissen- schaft — a controversy with Rud. Wagner, 1855 ; and the almost contemporary work of Louis Biichner, Kraft und Stoff, 1855. Both treatises went through several editions in a remarkably short time (the latter seven before 1862). Also Biichner, Natur und Geist, 1857 ; K. Vogt, Physiologische Briefe fiir Gebildete, 1847, and Moleschott's Works : Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel, 1850, 2nd ed. 1853 ; Lehre der Nahrungsmittel fiir das Volk, 1850, 2nd ed. 1853 ; Physiologie des Stoffwechsels in Pflanzen und Thieren, 1851 ; Der Kreislauf des Lebens, 1852. On the other side have appeared : K. 382 Notes to Lecture V Ph. Fischer, Die Unwahrheit des Sensualismus und Materialismus, 1853, and its 'supplement' entitled, Ueber die Unmoglichkeit des Naturalismus, etc., 1854 ; Jul. Schaller's Leib und Seele, 1855 ; Tittmann's Ueber Leben und Stoff, 1856 ; Aug. Weber's Dee neueste Ver- gotterungdesStoffs,185(5; Frohschammer's Menschenseele und Physiologie, a controversy with Karl Vogt, 1856 ; Fabri's Briefe gegen Materialismus, 1856, 1864 ; and Critische Umschau in der materialistischen Streitlite- ratur in der Evang. Kirchenzeitung Juli und Aug. 1856. Also Fichte's Anthropologic, 1856, etc. ; Rud. Wagner's DerKampfum die Seele vom Standpunkt der Wissenschaft, 1857. Among the latest treatises we would mention with special commendation Von Ruete's Ueber die Existenz der Seele vom naturwissenschaft- lichen Standpunlcte, 1863, justifying in the way of induction 'the view of the independence of the soul,' by showing that, ' in the perceptions of the senses, the spiritual principle acts in a manner independent of purely sensible impressions, and to a certain degree wholly inexplicable by such impressions' (p. 88). I commend to my readers the various interesting infor mation which this work contains. Ulrici's Gott und Natur, 2nd edit. 1866, pp. 261, etc., also contains a thorough investigation of the question of the soul. Compare also especially the opinions expressed by Hettinger, pp. 233-273, of which as well as of Fabri's excellent work I have made free use. (21) According to Biichner, Kraft und Stoff, 7th edit. 1862, pp. 106-109, and Hettinger, p. 250. (22) The Latin poet Lucretius, in his great poem, De Natura rerum, already teaches this psychologic materialism, e.g. iii. 446, etc. : 'We further remark also, that the soul is brought forth at the same time as the body, grows with it, and becomes old with it. When mighty time at length destroys the body, and the members fail, their power having become exhausted, lYo.es to Lecture V. 383 the mind fails also. Thus the whole being of the soul is* dissolved and dispersed, as smoke is dispersed in the higher air. As we see it brought forth at the same time with the body, so does it grow with it, and is with it dried up by old age.' Feuerbach thinks (Sdmmt. Werke, iii. 397) 'that the reasoning of Lucretius against immortality is still valid, and that nothing better could be said against the copulation of a mortal and immortal nature than he has said already.' Ludwig Feuerbach is the philo sopher of modern materialism. Comp. Grundsatze der Philosophie der Zukunft, 1843, ii. 269 : ' The task of recent times was the realization and humanization of God ; the conversion and resolution of theology into anthropology ' (sec. i. 52). Consequently man is the sole and supreme subject of philosophy, and anthro pology, including physiology, the universal science (sec. 54). But this in the sense 'that God Himself is defined as a material being (sec. 14), and man taken in his sensuous reality.' ' The body in its totality is my Ego, my very being.' ' Modern philosophy is a candid sen suous philosophy ' (sec. 36). ' Sensuousness alone is truth and certainty ' (sec. 38). Then, of course, ' the contrast of body and soul is logically untenable ' (ii. 358). 'Sensuousness is reality;' 'sensuousness is perfection' (ii. 366, 367). 'He who ceases to be sensu ous, ceases to exist ' (p. 368). These thoughts are also repeated and carried out with greater detail in his article on Death, vol. iii. Moleschott, Physiologie des Stoff- wechselsin Pflanzen und Thieren, 1851, savs, p. xii. : ' A non-sensuous being is nonsense.' P. xiv. : ' Life can only be understood as a change in matter.' P. xxii. : ' The pivot upon which modern wisdom turns is the physiology of the changes of matter.' For other opin ions, see text. K. Vogt in his Bilder aus dem Thierleben says : ' According to theology — which must itself cease with the annihilation of the soul as a separate and inde pendent thing,' and which therefore contends with the courage of despair for the existence of this thing — the 384 Notes to Lecture V. soul is an individual immaterial principle which has taken up its abode in a certain body, and uses this body as its instrument. The more faulty the instrument, the worse naturally are the works performed with it. If the instrument is destroyed, it perishes, but the principle remains, the soul continues to live after the death of the body. According to science, on the other hand, the soul is not an immaterial principle, separable from the body, but only a collective name for different functions which pertain exclusively to the nervous system — to the brain. — If the organ the body perishes, the function ceases with it ; and if the body dies, the soul comes utterly to an end with it. — Thus a door would be opened to simple materialism — man as well as the brute would be a mere machine, his reasoning the result of a certain organization, and free will abolished, etc. I can say nothing but, Truly it is so. It is really the case. There is no such thing as free will, and, consequently, such things as the responsibility and accountability which ethics and penal law, and God knows what else, would still impose upon us. We have at no moment more power over ourselves, over our intellectual powers, than we have, to use a somewhat coarse expression, as to whether our kidneys shall separate or not,' etc. Biichner (Kraft und Stoff, 1862) designates indeed Vogt's comparison, ' that the thoughts bear the same relation to the brain as the bile does to the liver, or the urine to the kidneys,' a very ill-chosen one, yet thinks 'the mental activity a function of the brain ' (p. 133). ' And .now, can it still be denied that the mind of man is a product of matter?' (p. 148). At pp. 149, etc., it is asserted that there are no innate ideas, but that every- - thing, even the moral sense, ' is dependent on external circumstances' (p. 167). Consequently (p. 179) 'we can have no science, no idea of the absolute, i.e. of that which leads us beyond the world which is about us, and is the object of our senses.' The same is said to hold good of the notion of God (pp. 170, etc.); and this is proved, partly by an appeal to nations supposed to be Notes to Lecture V. 385 without religion, partly upon the authority of Feuer- bach's philosophy. Naturally, therefore, there is no continuity of personal existence (p. 185). And finally, the specific difference between man and the brute crea tion is denied (pp. 217, etc.). A series of such passages is also cited by Fabri, pp. 9, etc., who places at the head of his discussion the striking saying of Hamann, ' A reason which acknowledges itself to be the daughter of the senses and of matter, lo, this is our religion ; a philosophy which reveals to men their vocation to go on all-fours, fosters our magnanimity ; and the triumph of heathen blasphemy is the climax of our genius ! ' This saying is corroborated by such works as Richard Schuricht's Extracts from the diary of a Materialist, Hamburg, Hoffm. and Campe, 1860, in which selfishness is praised as the principle of all life, even of religious life, the ideal despised, the ' wretchedness of our condi tion acknowledged,' and even a Feuerbach treated as a standpoint already surpassed. (23) On this subject see Fabri, pp. 63, 65, 70. (24) Fabri, p. 35. (25) Hettinger, p. 264. (26) Comp. Schubert, Die Geschichte der Seele, 4th edit. 1850, Part i. pp. 444, 465. (27) Liebig, Chemische Briefe, 5th edit. 186 5, Brief 25, p. 207 : ' They (i.e. the Dilettanti of Science, as Liebig always designates the materialists) assert that man's intellect is the product of his senses, that the brain; produces thoughts by means of a change of matter, and is related to them as the liver is to the gall. As the gall perishes with the liver, so does the mind with the brain. If the conclusions of these people are divested of their borrowed tinsel and toys, they amount to this, that the legs are for walking, the brain for thinking, and that we must learn to think, as the child learns to 2b 386 Notes to Lecture V. walk, that we cannot walk without legs, and cannot think without a brain, that an injury to the organs of progression alters the gait, and an injury to that of thinking, the thoughts. But the flesh and bones of which the legs consist do not move themselves, but are moved by a cause which is not flesh and bone — they are the instruments of a force; the soft mass called the brain is the instrument of the cause which produces the thoughts. — As the harp sounds when the wind sweeps its strings, so does the brain think through a change of matter, so does the ear hear, the eye see ; but not of itself does the brain think thoughts, the ear hear music, the eye see the bright sun, the green trees, and understand the language of the eyes whence affec tion is beaming. Man's mind is not the product of his senses, but the acts of the senses are the product of the intelligent will in man.' Comp. also Hettinger, pp. 255-257. (28) Comp. 0. L. Erdmann (Ueber das Verhaltniss der Naturwissenschaftlichen Forschung, etc., p. 20) : ' What we see or feel, in short, what our senses perceive, exists ; we cannot but believe it ! But must, then, that which we do not see or feel, or, in short, perceive by our senses, he therefore non-existent? Thequestion needs no answer.' ' If the nature of life and the action of the reasoning mind cannot be explained by mechanical or chemical laws, the view that we have here effects produced by other causes, is, according to the general principles of science, not only allowable, but actually enjoined.' 'That mechanical and chemical causes exer cise a most powerful influence upon the manifestations of vital and mental agency, is a fact which no one would venture to deny. But when from this fact it is inferred that life and mind can have none but mechanical and chemical causes, such a conclusion could only be arrived at by means of a logic which would also infer that because I know of none but mechanical and chemical effects, therefore none other exist.' Notes to Lecture V. 387 (29) Guizot, in his Meditations, etc., ii. 249, etc., gives interesting information, and an acute criticism of this so-called positivism of Auguste Comte and his followers Littrf- and John Stuart Mill. To this move ment also perfectly applies the conclusion to which Naville is led by his moral indignation against Taine (Der himmlische Voter, p. 217), viz. that ' the glorifica tion of success is the first and surest result of the moral indifference which is the soul of these opinions.' See also an excellent little work against Positivism, Das Christenthum und der Positivimus, from the French of the author of La religion pure et sans tache, etc., Ham burg 1861. (30) Biichner. P. 217 : ' Man has no absolute supe riority to the brute, and his mental pre-eminence is but a relative one. No single mental capacity belongs to man alone,' — not then self-consciousness and moral and religious convictions ? The two latter, indeed, Biichner generally denies. P. 218 : ' The mental pro cess which takes place in animals (namely, the reflec tion accompanying their acts) is in its nature entirely identical with that which takes place in man.' P. 221 : ' Finally, how far is the negro removed from the ape ? ' P. 222 : ' Burmeister describes the Brazilian aborigines as animals in all their acts and instincts, and utterly without the higher intellectual powers,' etc. In oppo sition to this degradation of man to a mere animal, comp. Rousseau's Emile, i. iv. p. 39 : ' Quoi ! je puis observer, connaitre les &tres et leurs rapports; je puis sentir ce que c'est qu'ordre, beaute-, vertu ; je puis con- templer l'univers, m'eiever a la main qui le gouverne ; je puis aimer le bien, le faire ; et je me comparerais aux betes ! Ame abjecte, c'est ta triste philosophie qui te rend semblable a elles : ou plut6t tu veux en vain t'avilir ; ton genie depose contre tes principes, ton coeur bienfaisant dement ta doctrine, et Tabus meme de tes faculte"s prouve leur excellence en depit de toi.' 388 Notes to Lecture VI. (31) Starting from the view that man is the object of all nature, and consequently also the central com pendium of the various grades of development in which natural life is displayed, Aristotle designated the soul of man as vegetative (the faculty of vegetation, i.e. of nourishing the bodily organism, a faculty answering to the life of plants), as sensitive and locomotive (the faculty ,of sensation ahd locomotion, answering to the life of animals), as reasonable (the faculty peculiar to man, the faculty of reason). Compare e.g. Schwegler, Gesch. der Philos. 4th edit. 1860, p. 79. The Scholas ticism of the Middle Ages followed Aristotle in this matter, as also in its psychology and ethics. Hettinger. too, referring to Thomas Aquinas, makes use of this division. In former editions I employed the expressions vegetative and sensitive soul, but have omitted them in this, as no longer current, and have confined myself to the matter independently of the names. With what is said of the body, compare Hettinger, pp. 302, etc. ; of sensitive life, compare Dalton, p. 31 ; and of the new principle of self-consciousness, Dalton, pp. 28, etc. (32) Compare with what follows, Wiese, Die Bildung des Willens, 2nd edit. 1861, and Dalton's above-quoted work, pp. 38, etc., on the three gradations of develop ment of the will : I will will, I do will, I will the will of God. (33) Compare Goethe (Sprilche in Prosa, vol. iii. p. 172) : ' Man would not be the most distinguished being upon the earth, if he were not too distinguished for it.' NOTES TO LECTURE VI. (1) P. 130. Plutarch, Advers. Colotem Epicuream, c. 31. Comp. Fabric. Bibliogr. Antiq. p. 304; Artemidori 'OveipoKpuiK&v, i. 9 : ' There is no nation without a God, JVofes to Lecture VI. 389 without a supreme ruler ; but some honour the gods in one way, some in another.' Cic. De legg. i. 8 : Among so many kinds of creatures there is none besides man which has any knowledge of God ; among men there is no people so wild and savage as not to know that they must have a god, even if they do not know what one. Comp. also Nicolas, i. 154 ; and Hettinger, p. 359; Lect. iii. note 3, may also be referred to. J will here quote also the fine passage from Guizot's L'Eglise et la Societe" Chre'tienne en 1861, p. 14 : ' Dans tous les lieux, sous tous les climats, a, toutes les epoques de l'histoire, a tous les degre's de la civilisation, l'homme porte" en lui ce sentiment, j'aimeraismieux dire ce presentiment, que le monde qu'il voit, l'ordre au sein duquel il vit, les faits qui se succe"dent r^gulieremen't et constamment autour de lui ne sont pas tout ; en vain il fait chaque jour, dans ce vaste ensemble, des deoouvertes, et des conqu&tes ; en vain il observe et constate savamment les lois permanentes qui y president; sa pensde ne s'enferme point dans cet univers livr6 a sa science ; ce spectacle ne suffit point a son ame ; elle s' elance ailleurs; elle cherche, elle entrevoit autre chose, elle aspire pour l'univers et pour elle-meme k d'autres destines et a un autre maitre : Par dela tous ces cieux le dieu des cieux reside — • a dit Voltaire, et ce dieu qui est par dela tous les cieux ce n'est pas la nature personifiee, c'est le surnaturel en personne. C'est a, lui que les religions s'adressent, c'est pour mettre l'homme en rapport avec lui qu'elles se fondent. Sans la foi instinctive des hommes au sur naturel, sans leur elan spontane" et invincible vers le surnaturel, la religion ne serait pas.' (2) Joh. v. Miiller 's Werke, Cottasche, Ausg., Part xxiii. p. 5 ; and Jean Paul's Erinnerungen aus den schonsten Stundenfur die letzten, Works, 47, 125. (3) These thoughts are especially current in mystic 390 Notes to Lecture VI. theology, and have of late been often made use of in preaching, and also employed by apologetic writers. Comp. especially Hettinger, p. 374, etc., and Dalton, pp. 40, etc. Gregory of Nazianzen to the Ineffable one :— All come to rest in Thee : all flow towards Thee ; Thou art the end of all. (4) The question concerning the psychologic nature of religion, whether it is knowledge, will, or feeling, has been much discussed in theology. It was originally looked upon as an act, as a definite kind of worship of God (cultus Dei) — this was the case in the ancient Church, till the times ofthe old Protestant theologians ; — then as knowledge — till the days of rationalism and of the Hegelian philosophy ; — since Schleiermacher, as a certain state of feeling, which is, however, always passing into knowledge and action. To describe religion as faith is a current expression with modern theologians. Compare e.g. Kahnis, Dogm. i. 131, 142, etc. (5) Fichte, Sammtl. Werke, ii. 253, etc. : ' This organ (i.e. that by which the highest reality is attained) is not knowledge ; it is faith — that voluntary repose in the view naturally offering itself to us, because in this view alone can we fulfil our destiny. It is not our knowledge, but the determination of the will to allow to knowledge its legitimate exercise.' Compare also his remarks upon faith as a free act of the will. (6) Compare, on this whole section on prayer, the able passage in Guizot's L'Eglise, etc., pp. 14, etc. (7) Compare Nagelsbach, Die nachhomerische Theo logie, 1857, pp. 211, etc. From this work is also quoted the passage within inverted commas in the text. Lasaulx, Ueber die Gebete der Griechen und Romer, Wurzb. 1842, p. 5 : ' Prayer was combined not only with religious acts, and the more important concerns, Notes to Lecture VI. 391 but with almost every incident of daily life.' Pp. 9, etc.: 'In the earliest times it was the custom, more especially during the stillness of the night, with uncovered heads, and under the open vault of heaven, to invoke the gods, and to surrender the mind to the contemplation of the infinite. — The regular times of prayer were morning and evening ; also the commence ment and the close of meals. Not only, too, were reli gious transactions combined with sacrifice, but all the important incidents of life began with prayer. The assemblies of the people and of the senate, military enterprises, contests of all kinds, wagers, even plays, were all begun with Zeus, that is, with prayer. In Rome, it was the custom, according to the directions of king Numa, to, offer, at the beginning of every year, certain prayers and sacrifices for prosperity during its course. The presiding magistrate opened all the electoral comitia with a solemncarmenprecationis; and while the musterings of the people on the field of Mars, and the sessions of the senate, began with similar ceremonies, the consuls, as heads of the republic, were inaugurated with a, solemnis votorum nuncupatio in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus,' etc. Lasaulx supports each of these assertions by passages from ancient authors. — The passage from Homer is Odyssey, 3, 43, etc. Melanchthon calls the lines quoted the finest in all Homer. The precept of Socrates is in Xenophon, Oecon. vi. 1. In this work Xenophon does not even let Ischomacus begin instructing his young wife in the art of housekeeping till he has sacrificed and prayed that his teaching and her learning may prosper. Many similar passages may be found in Xenophon. Comp. Nagelsbach, p. 217. The sayings of Plato cited in the text are found in Plat. De legg. iv. p. 356, and Tim. pp. 22, 4, etc. Plato himself acts in the same manner: Tim. pp. 57, 8; De legg. iv. pp. 347, 1, x. pp. 193, 11 ; Epinomis, pp. 352, 10. Similarly does Demosthenes begin his discourse De corona by invoking the gods ; and Servius, ad Mn. xi. 301, affirms of the 392 Notes to Lecture VI. Romans: 'Majores nullam orationemnisi invocatisnumi- nibus, inchoabant sicut sunt omnes orationes Catonis et Gracchi' (Lasaulx, p. 9). Even Julius Caesar approached Jupiter Capitolinus step by step upon his knees, when he offered up his thanksgivings after his fourfold triumph (Dio Cassius, 43, 21 ; Lasaulx, p. 12). Of the various opinions on prayer, I will only further cite those of the Sophist Maximus of Tyre (Diss. xi. p. 207): ' Every one ought, like Socrates, whose life was a con tinuous prayer, to beg for nothing from the gods but virtue of soul, a quiet mind, a blameless life, and a death joyful through hope ' (Lasaulx, p. 8). Upon the desecration of prayer, however, compare Dollinger, Heidenthum und Judenthum, 1857, p. 635. (8) Vinet, Reden iiber religiose Gegenstdnde, ubers. von Vogel, Frankfurt 1835, p. 345. (9) Kant, Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, Sdmmtl. W.W., edited by Rosen- kranz, x. 236, note. (10) On the relations of Christianity and education, compare Lubker's Vortrdge uber Bildung und Ghristen- thum, 1863 ; also Harless, -Das Christenthum und die Literatur der allgemeinenBildung,Zeitschr.furKirche und Protestantismus, Nov. 1862, reprinted in his work, Das Verhdltniss des Christenthums zu Cultur und Lebensfragen der Gegenwart, 1863. With regard to national and social life, comp. Montesquieu, V Esprit des lois, xxiv. 3 : ' Wondrous phenomenon ! the Christian religion, whose sole object seems to be the happiness of a future life, ensures the happiness of this present life.' And he proceeds to carry out this thought still further, especially in opposing Bayle's assertion that Chris tianity is irreconcilable with the fulfilment of social duties ; comp. Nicolas, ii. 345, a section which will re pay perusal. Ziethe, too, calls attention to this saying of Montesquieu, and tells also of an Indian Prince who Notes to Lecture VI. 393 desired to know the secret of England's greatness, and to whom Queen Victoria showed neither her splendid navy, her rich revenues, her brave army, nor well-filled seaports, but delivered to him a Bible with the words, ' The Word of God is the secret of England's greatness.' Hettinger likewise, p. 407, adduces much that is appro priate to the point in question. I would also remind the reader of Goethe's well-known saying (Westdstl. Divan Works, vol. iv. p. 264) : ' All epochs in which faith, under whatever form, has prevailed, have been brilliant, heart-elevating, and fruitful, both to contem poraries and posterity. All epochs, on the contrary, in which unbelief, under whatever form, has maintained a sad supremacy, even if for the moment they glitter with a false splendour, vanish from the memory of posterity, because none care to torment themselves with the knowledge of that which has been barren. French scholars especially have pointed out the connection of the history of human society with religion, and with the development of the idea of God.' Thus Franck (Etudes Orientates, 1861) endeavours to show how the value of a nation's social constitution is proportional to the value of its religious idea. And Edgar Quinet, in his lectures at Lyons (Unite morale des peuples mo- dernes, 1839, an appendix to his Genie des religions), teaches that the religious idea is the very essence of civilisation, and the formative principle of political constitutions. Benjamin Constant marks the transition to this opinion : ' He projected his work on religion in the spirit of Atheism, but finished it by seeking the necessary condition of the existence of civilised society in the religious sentiment.' Comp. Naville, Der hi/mm- lische Voter, p. 60. (11) Hettinger, p. 519, quotes Guizot's words: 'All political and social questions always lead to the religi ous principle for their final solution ; ' and Proudhon's (in his Confessions of a Revolutionist) : ' It is surprising that as soon as we go deep into politics we always 394 Notes to Lecture VII. stumble upon theology.' Proudhon also begins his Systime des contradictions e'conomiques, ou philo sophie de la misere (1846, two vols.), with an inves tigation of the idea of a God ; and Guizot makes this thought the foundation of his Discours sur I'Histoire de la Revolution d'Angleterre (1850). (12) Guizot, L'Eglise, etc., p. 167. NOTES TO LECTURE VII. (1) A similar train of thought is found in Nicolas, i. 203, etc., who also quotes significant expressions of the French philosopher Cousin : ' What is true of the in dividual is true of the human race. A primitive reve lation illumines the cradle of civilisation ; all ancient traditions reach back to an age when man, having just proceeded from the hand of God, received immediately from Him all those truths which were soon afterwards either obscured or disfigured by time, or by man's blundering knowledge.' He refers to a series of pas sages from the ancients which express the same convic tion. Plato makes his Socrates appeal to the tradition of the ancients, who ' were better than we, and stood nearer to the gods' (ol p.ev irdkaiol Kpelrrove1. i)p.Q>v Kal iyyvrepa 6emv oikovvt6<; Tavrrjv tt)v tyr)p/nv rrapkZoaav) in matters of faith and the divine government (Phileb. opp. iv. p. 219), in religious knowledge in general (Tim. ix. p. 324), in the question of the immortality of the soul and future retribution. (Opp. ix. p. 115.) And this superiority is a fact constantly acknowledged, comp. e.g. Cousin. Eastern traditions were the basis of Plato's views ; in them lay, so to speak, the material of all his thoughts (Traduct. de Platon., tom. vi., Notes sur le Phedre, Nicolas, i. 208); or Ackermann : ' As often as he lays down a doctrine, he appeals to ancient sacred traditions.' (-Das Ghristliche in Plato,1 p. 52.) Aris- 1 The Christian Element in Plato, translated. Edinburgh : T. & T. Clark. Notes to Lecture VII. 395 totle, too, expresses himself similarly to Plato (Metaph. xii. 8; De mundo, 6); and Cicero (De legg. ii. 11):. Antiquitas proxime accedit ad deos ; also Tusc. i. 12. Hettinger also coincides with Nicolas and his quota tions, pp. 422, etc. Historical proofs of the greater purity of religious notions and worship are also fur nished by Nicolas, i. pp. 159 sq. Compare also Liiken, Die Traditionen, p. 27, where a series of corresponding remarks from Creuzer, W. Schlegel, Movers, Grimm, and Gottfr. Miiller is given. (2) The first Platonic passage is in the dialogue Alcibiades, ii. p. 150, belonging to the Platonic school. Compare also Plato, Politia, pp. 271-275 : ' till One- comes to instruct us thoroughly.' The second passage is in Plato, Phaedo, p. 85. These passages have been frequently quoted by Apologists : thus, the first by Nicolas, i. 152, 202, ii. 123, 126 ; the second by the- same, i. 260, ii. 409, and also by Hettinger, p. 422. Stirm, too, p. 466, and Dalton, pp. 121, 122, 146, call attention to them. (3) Neander, Denkwiirdigkeiten, i. 28. The whole- section furnishes interesting contributions to this sub ject. Xenophanes concludes his work on nature with the words : ' No one knows, nor will know, anything with certainty concerning the gods, or what I say of the universe. For even though he should say what was most correct, he still would not know it was so, for delusion is our lot in all things.' From Tholuck, Der sittliche Character des Heidenth., p. 5. (4) The first passage from Cicero is in Tusc. i. 11 : ' Harum sententiarum quse vera sit, deus viderit ; quae verisimilis, magna quae stio est.' A similar one will be found in De not. deor. iii. 39. The second is in Academ. qucest. i. 12 ; the third in Cic. Tusc. iii. 1, 2 : ' igni- j culos nobis dedit parvulos quos celeriter malis moribus opinionibusque depravati sic restinguimus, ut nusquam 396 Notes to Lecture VII. naturae lumen appareat.' Comp. also Nicolas, i. 260 and ii. 410, and Hettinger, p. 473. (5) Kant to Jacobi in Jacobi' s Werke, iii. 523. (6) Schiller, Die Gunst des Augenblicks, and Das Gluck. ' From the clouds, from God's breast, Must our happiness fall.' ' Ah ! happy he upon whose birth each god Looks down in love, whose earliest sleep the bright Idalia cradles, whose young lips the rod Of eloquent Hermes kindles; to whose eyes, Scarce wakened yet, Apollo steals in light ; While on imperial brows Jove sets the seal of might,' etc. * Great is the man, I grant, whose strength of mind Self-shapes its objects and subdues the Fates. Virtue subdues the Fates, but cannot bind The fickle happiness whose smile awaits Those who scarce seek it ; nor can courage earn What the grace showers not from her own free urn ! From aught unworthy, the determined will Can guard the watchful spirit ; there it ends, — The all that's glorious from the heaven descends.' 1 With Schiller compare Vilmar, Vorless. iiber die Ge schichte der deutschen __V ationalliter, 2d ed. 1847, p. 609; Mozart's confession that his ideas came to him as in dreams ; and Goethe's saying to Eekermann : 'All the productivity ofthe highest art, every important apercu, every invention, every great thought which is fruitful in results, stands at no man's bidding, but is exalted above all earthly power. Man must look on such things as an unhoped-for gift from above, as the pure offspring of God, which he must receive and reverence with joyful gratitude. In such cases man is often to be 1 Bulwer's translation of Schiller's Poems. Notes to Lecture VII. 397 regarded as an instrument, as a vessel found worthy to receive a divine influence,' in Dalton, p. 15. (7) Plutarch, De recta ratione audiendi (Hettinger, p. 507) ; Kant, Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, 1793,'etc. In Kant's Sdmmtl. Werkenr by Rosenkranz, 1838, Part x. Even the title of the first treatise is as follows : ' On the indwelling of the evil together with the good principle, or on the radical evil of human nature.' Compare my work, Die Lehre vom freien Willen, etc., 1863, pp. 347, 348; also Nicolas,. ii. 5 ; Dalton, p. 49. (8) Vol. xxx. Winckelmann, Antikes. (Heidnisches, pp. 10-13) : ' If the modern, at almost every reflection, casts himself into the infinite, to return at last, if he can, to a limited point; the ancients feel themselves at once, and without further wandering, at ease only within the limits of this beautiful world. Here were they placed, to this were they called ; here their activity found space, their passions, objects and nourishment.' And then he describes how 'heathen feeling pro duced such a condition of human existence, a condi tion intended by nature,' that ' both in the moment of supreme enjoyment and that of deepest sacrifice, nay, of ruin, we recognise an indestructibly healthy tone of mind.' Marklin, in Strauss' Leben Mdrklins, 1851, p. 127 : 'I would with all my heart be a heathen, for here I find truth, nature, greatness.' Strauss calls a Christ ian an angel riding upon a tame animal, and praises the ' healthy sensuousness ' of Greek life in Schubart's Leben, ii. 461. To which Noth replies in Studien und Kritiken, 1850, 2. And even Goethe admits, in the above-cited work, p. 14, ' that the relation to women, which has become so refined and intellectual among us, was scarcely raised above the limits of common necessity.' (9) Compare above, note 14, Lecture II, the contri- 398 Notes to Lecture VII. foutions of Thudichum, in his translation of Qffdipus Col. v. 1191, etc. An ancient oracle, said to have been given to Midas by Silenus, in answer to the question what was the happiest lot for man, runs as follows : -1 Oh, ye children of a day, begotten of the unhappy God and of the evil Tyche, why do you constrain me to say what I had better conceal ? Life hidden from its own evil is easier. Never to be born is the happiest lot for man.' Aristot. ap. Plut. Cons, ad Apoll. c. 27 Compare this whole work of Plutarch in general. Thus speaks also the Delphic oracle in Cicero, Tusc. i. 47. And Pliny, H.N. vii. in xxviii. 2 : ' Quapropter hoc primum in remediis animi sui hdbeat, ex omnibus bonis quae homini natura tribuit, nullum melius esse tempestiva morte.' Liiken, p. 302 : ' The old poets, in general, are full of these lamentations; and Grecian mythology, though exhibiting, when compared with the oriental religions, with their penances and mortifications, a certain outward appearance of cheerfulness, could not •conceal its internal characteristic of a certain amount of tragic despair, arising from the struggle ofthe human mind against adverse and inexorable fate. — We see the philosophers succumb at last to the universal sadness.' Lasaulx, Abhandlung uber den Sinn der QSdipussage, Wurzburg 1841, pp. 10, etc. : ' No nation felt more ¦deeply than the Greeks the unhappiness arising from the weakness and sin of the natural man. An under tone of lamentation runs through the external splendour and joy of Grecian life from its beginning to its close. Its greatest poets and sages have repeatedly expressed the sentiment that no mortal can be esteemed happy before his death. In every mouth we find the same •sad cry : It were better never to have been born ; and its fellow : or to die as soon as possible. Achilles, the ideal of Grecian life, was cut off in the flower of life at the commencement of its history ; and Alexander, the Macedonian hero, fell in the prime of his youth at the close of its national existence (Hegel's Philosophie der Gesch. p. 232). The life of OEdipus, too, who may be Notes to Lecture VII. 399 regarded as a representative Greek, contains little else than the fact of this secret unhappiness of Greek con sciousness.' Lasaulx even interprets his name, o'i c.ittov<; (the two-footed, i.e. man), man of woe. ' Since Greece, after all, attained only to a false solution of the riddle of human life, it could not but perish.' Lasaulx con cludes his ingenious treatise (p. 13) with the words : 'Except the legend of Achilles, I know none which offers a grander prospect of Greek mythology than that of CEdipus.' — With respect to Greek art, Thiersch expresses himself in the same sense, at least concerning the superlatively beautiful statue of Leucothoe in the Glyptothek of Munich, in the Verhandlungen der Erlanger Philologen Versammlung, p. 46 : 'A gentle touch of melancholy — a main feature ofthe higher kind of beauty — is here unmistakable,' etc. I have else where frequently met with this feature in ancient works of art. Compare also Histor.-Polit. Blatter, 1864, vol. • liii. No. 9, p. 765, in an article on 'Count Friedr.' Leopold Stolberg, according to his modern biographers, Dr. Menge and W. von Bippen : ' Amidst the various notices on this subject (viz. of Stolberg on ancient and modern works of art during his stay in Rome, 1791-92), the acute remark which he makes in this work on the •character of ancient in comparison with Christian plastic art, and subsequently corroborates in his history of the religion of Jesus, is particularly worthy of attention. He finds, namely, an expression of deep and serious melancholy stamped upon the heads of all the antique statues, whether of gods or men, — a certain character of severity and want of sympathy, which hovers like a dark cloud, suggestive of the notion of death, even upon the features of divine and eternal youth. This verdict has been almost unanimously con- -firmed by later aesthetics and connoisseurs, by Solger, Schnaase, Lasaulx. — Hegel compares Niobe, whose beauty was turned to stone by grief, with the virgin whose grief was of an entirely different kind : the sword pierces through her soul, and her heart is 400 Notes to Lecture VII. broken; but she does not turn into stone. She not only possessed, love, but her whole heart was love — the free, concrete inwardness (Innigkeit) which in the midst of bereavement abides in the peace of love. Hegel, JUsthetik, edited by V. Hotho, 2nd edition, vol. iii. 46, and vol. ii. 77, 101, 425, etc. Compare also my lecture, Ueber die Darstellung des Schmerzes in der bildenden Kunst, 1864. — On the Indians, see Fr. Schlegel, Ueber die Sprache und Weisheit der Inder, p. 100 : ' If all that the old poets have sung, in isolated passages, of the miseries of existence ; if all those sad rays of a truly terrible view of the world which the notion of a blind fate has scattered amidst the legends and histories of various nations in deeply significant tragedies, were collected into one picture, and the transitory and poetic fancy exchanged for real and lasting earnestness, the peculiarity of the ancient Indian view would thus be best comprehended.' Compare also Stirm,p.300; Hettinger, pp. 5 12, etc.; and Nicolas, ii. 12, etc., who, among other testimonies, cites a characteristic expression of Madame de Sevigne" to her daughter, in which, in spite of the happiness which her life and talents afforded her, she complains of the sorrows of life, and still more of death, and continues : ' and I find death so terrible, that I hate life still more because it leads thereto, than because it is sown with thorns. You will say to me — Would I then like to live always ? Certainly not ! On the contrary, if my opinion had been asked, I would rather have died in my nurse's arms.' (10) Seneca, De ira, iii. 26, compare ii. 9 and 27 ; De Benef. i. 10. Compare Liiken, pp. 403-405. (11) Even Bayle asks (Article Manicheens) : 'Why were not the heathen able to say something more sen sible about it ? It is only by means of revelation that we can get over this difficulty.' Nicolas, ii. 24. Notes to Lecture VII. 401 (12) Comp. Liiken, Die Traditionen des Menschen- geschlechts, p. 74. (13) Very instructive, in this respect, is what we read of the life of Perthes (Perthes Leben, i. 60, etc.), who himself passed through the various phases of progress, from Kant to Schiller, and thence to Christian truth. (14) Compare Stahl, Funda/mente einer christlichen Philosophie, p. 39. (15) Schiller, in his essay on the aesthetic education of man (1795), speaks on this point in Letter v., where he says that he finds, 'in the drama of the present day,' on the one hand rank luxuriance, on the other laxity ; and after depicting its lawlessness, continues : 'On the other side the civilised classes present the repulsive aspect of a laxity and depravity of character, which makes us the more indignant, because it has its source in culture. The enlightenment of the understanding of which the more refined classes not unjustly boast, so little exhibits on the whole an ennobling influence upon the disposition, that it rather strengthens corruption by maxims. . . . Selfishness has planted its system in the midst of the most refined society, etc. . . . Cul ture, far from setting us at liberty, only developes with every power which she cultivates in us, some new want,' etc. (16) Rougemont, Christus und seine Zeugen uebers. von Fabari/us, 1859, 245. (17) E.g. Strauss, Leben Jesu, preface xviii. : ' The chief stumbling-block to our age in the old kind of religion, is this delusion of miracles,' xix. (18) Rousseau, Lettres de la Montagne, p. i. Lettre iii., (Euvres, Paris 1820, p. 250 : ' Cette question 2c 402 Notes to Lecture VII. seVieusement traite'e, serait impie, si elle n'etait pas absurde : ce serait trop d'honneur a, celui qui la resou- drait negativement que de le punir; il suffirait de 1'enfermer. Mais aussi quel homme a jamais nid que dieu put faire des miracles ? ' Comp. also Nicolas, iv. 276-326 ; and Hettinger, pp. 562 sq. (19) Guizot, L'Eglise, etc., p. 14. (20) Ziethe, p. 21. Comp. also Guizot, L'EgKse, etc., p. 14; Meditations sur la Religion Chretienne, pp. 27, etc. ; Hettinger, p. 557. (21) Similarly Dalton, p. 185 ; and Hett. p. 571. On the question of miracles compare also the excellent treatise of Uhlhorn, Die modernen Darstellungen des Lebens Jesu, Hanover 1866, pp. 104, etc., and the thorough investigations of Rothe, Zur Dogmatik, 1864, pp. 84, etc. Also Grau, Ueber den Glauben als die hochste Vernunft, 1865, pp. 11, etc. (22) So Ziethe, p. 86 ; Stirm, p. 445 ; and modern orthodox theology in general. (23) Niebuhr, Lebensnachrichten,i. 470, etc. And im mediately before : 'He whose earthly life and sufferings were depicted, would have, in my estimation, a perfectly real existence, and his entire history the same reahty, even though not one single particular has been literally narrated. Hence, even the fundamental fact of miracles must, according to my conviction, be conceded ; or else the not merely incomprehensible but absurd view embraced, that the holiest of men was a deceiver, his disciples either deluded or liars, and that deceivers preached a holy religion, of which self-denial is the chief duty,' etc. (Brief an B , 1812.) On the miracles of Mohammed, compare Tholuck, Verm. Schr. i. 27. The following specimen of the fanciful nature of Mohammedan miracles, given by Tholuck in the Notes to Lecture VII. 403 above-named work, may -suffice : ' In order to fulfil a test demanded by his adversaries in Mecca, Mohammed caused it to become night at mid-day : thereupon the moon hastened forwards, performed a seven-fold circuit round the Kaaba, and bowed down before it, then did obeisance to the prophet, and cried aloud in presence of all the inhabitants of Mecca : Peace be unto thee, O Achmet ! It afterwards went into the prophet's right sleeve, and then came out of his left; and having severed itself into two halves, which betook themselves, one to the east, the other to the west, and finally re united, it quietly continued its course, " without any one perceiving any kind of derangement." ' But all these narratives belong to subsequent times, as Mohammed himself declared that he was incapable of working miracles. Comp. also Ziethe, p. 89. (24) A similar examination of testimony is found in Hettinger, pp. 528, etc. Compare also Rougemont, Ghristus und seine Zeugen, p. 126 ; -Dos Zeugniss der Apostel, pp. 145, etc.; also Auberlen, Die gottliche Offenbarung, i. 7, etc. (25) So especially Holsten, a follower of the so-called Tubingen school, in his essay, Die Christusvision des Paulusund die Genesisdes paulinischen Evangelvu,msr Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaftliche Theologie, 1861, iii. pp. 224-284. The appearance of Christ to St. Paul, on his way to Damascus, is said to have been a purely mental occurrence, connected with the peculiar nervous temperament of the apostle, who was subject to ' epileptic fits ; ' to which also are to be referred the bufferings of the messenger of Satan, of which he sub sequently speaks (p. 251). It is by such means that the effort is made to invalidate St. Paul's testimony to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. On the other hand, Beyschlag. points out, in Studien und Kritiken, 1864, No. 2, pp. 197-264, in his article, Die Bekehrung des Apostels Paulus mit besonderer Rucksicht auf die Er- 404 Notes to Lecture VII. klarungsversuche von Ba/wr und Holsten, how clearly and decidedly Paul distinguishes between inward visions and external appearances (compare Acts x. 17, xii. 9, xviii. 9, xxii. 17 ; 2 Cor. xii.) : ' consequently his whole consciousness of apostleship depended on the point that he had seen the Lord not merely in a vision, but bodily ' (p. 225). Holsten, indeed, owns that ' criti cism must endeavour to comprehend this vision as the inward psychological act of his own mind ; ' in other words, criticism cannot upon its own historical assump tions (which deny transcendent casualty in general) admit the historical fact. (26) Auberlen starts from this point in his above- cited work, p. 11. Also Uhlhom, p. 111. (27) Baur,Dos Christenthumund dieKirche der drei ersten Jahrh., a newly revised edition, which appeared shortly before the author's death, 1860, ii. p. 39. (28) Compare note 24. Baur himself owns, in his above-cited work (p. 45), ' If we can only see a miraale in his conversion, in his sudden change from the most violent opponent of Christianity into its most decided herald, it appears so much the greater, since, in this revolution of his convictions, he also broke through the restraints of Judaism, and merged his Jewish exclusive- ness in the universal idea of Christianity.' Though he makes this a purely mental occurrence, he cannot help •confessing that ' no psychological nor dialectic analysis •can fathom the mystery of that act by which God re vealed His Son to him.' (29) So Nicolas, iv. 167. (30) Lessing's Works, edited by Lachmann, x. 10. (31) From Lessing, notes to Fragment i., ' On the ^crying down of Reason in Pulpits.' Works, x. 14. Notes to Lecture VII. 405 (32) Goethe, Gesprdche mit Eckermann, ii. 132 : ' Man is an obscure being,' etc. Compare also i. 226, 227, iii. 199. 'We are all walking in the midst of mysteries ' (iii. 200). Sprilche in Prosa, Works, iii. 169, 298, 325 ; Faust, 1st and 2nd parts, Works, 11, 30, 12, 15. Comp. Stirm, p. 442 ; Hett. p. 438 ; on Newton, comp. Nicolas, i. 112. (33) Stahl, Fundamente eimer christlichen Philoso phie, p. vii. (34) Compare Fabri, Briefe gegen Materialismus, p. 163. (35) Pasc. Pens, ii, 347 (186). Also the next sentence, ' Que si les choses naturelles la surpassent, que dira-t- on des surnaturelles ? ' Hamann's saying in Hettinger, p. 419. Compare also the whole of Hamann's intro duction to his biblischen Betrdchtungen, i. 15-63, and i. 103. ' The further reason penetrates, the thicker is the labyrinth in which she is lost.' (36) Fechner, Die drei Motive und Griinde des Glaubens, p. 4. With the former comp. N icolas, iv. 41 9. (37) Gesprdche mit Eckermann, i. 227. (38) Compare Hettinger, p. 445 ; also Bacon, De augment. scientice,x. 1 : 'Modo animus ad amplitudinem mysteriorum pro modulo suo dilatetur, non mysteria ad angustias animi constringantur.' (39) Pascal is ever returning to this opposition of Christianity to our reason, and using it as a proof of its truth. Compare e.g. Pens. ii. 102 (181), with reference to the doctrine of the fall and that of hereditary sin, or ii. 145 (184), 'le christianisme est e'trange,' etc . ; — ii. 146 (211) : ' sources des contrarie'te's : un dieu humilie', et jusqu'a la mort de la croix ; un Messie triomphant 406 Notes to Lecture VIII. de la mort par sa mort ; deux natures en Jesus Christ,' etc. — Compare also Weingarten (Pasc. als Apologet des Ghristenthums, 1863, p. 28) : 'The concluding idea of the Pense'es is the divine irony of Christianity, by which the apparently false and incredible is used as an evi dence of truth, that irony of which St. Paul speaks in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, and which is expressed also in that well-known saying of Tertullian, which might, if anything could, serve as a motto to the Pense'es : " Credo quia absurdum, cum credimus, nihil desideramus ultra credere." ' (40) Julius Miiller in the Deutschen Zeitschr. fur christlichen Wissenschaft, etc., 1853, No. 36, p. 240. (41) Pascal, Pens. ii. 146 (182). (42) Pasc. Pens. ii. 172. The same thought. 'La seule religion contre la nature, contre le sens commun, contre nosplaisirs, est la seule qui ait toujours e"te.' (43) Pasc. Pens. ii. 156. (44) Pasc. Pens. ii. 204 (198). (45) Pasc. Pens. ii. 348 (187). (46) Pasc. Pens. ii. 347 (186). (47) Nicolas, ii. 300, uses the expression of Plato. (48) Pasc. Pens. i. 156 (30, 31). NOTES TO LECTURE VIII. (1) Stirm gives a very good and brief representation of heathenism in the 10th letter of his apology, pp. 355-392. Notes to Lecture VIII. 407 (2) Compare e.g. Roth, Die hochsten Goiter der arischen Volker, in the Zeitschr. der deutschen morgen- landischen Gesellschaft, 1852, i. pp. 67-77, where it is shown that the gods were originally gods of light, and were conceived of rather as moral powers than as powers of nature. Thus the divine name deus and other similar names (Sanscrit root di/v) refer to the notion of light. A series of expressions from Plato, Aristotle, and others, indicating the same conviction, is given by Tholuck in his work, Der sittliche Charakter des Heidenthums, 3rd edit. 1867, pp. 1, etc. (3) So we are informed by Plutarch in the Life of Numa, cap. viii., and Varro in Augustine's De Civit. iv. 31. Varro appeals to the example of the Jews, who also worship the Deity without images. Compare Tholuck's above-named work, pp. 35, etc. (4) E.g. Wuttke, Die Geschichte des Heidenthums, i. p. i9. There are also some good remarks on this sub ject in a lecture On the Origin of the 0. T. Religion, by Dillmann, 1865, e.g. p. 7 : ' The heathen religions are all religions of nature ; their principle is the deifi cation of nature, their gods the powers of nature,' etc. This principle is also determinative of the different grades of heathenism. Either natural things (as in Fetishism), or the forces of nature (the generative and pprductive forces), or the laws of nature (the stars), or ( mer life of nature, or the ideas of nature which repre sent its acts, as in Egypt, become objects of adoration, till in Greece the idea of man is worked out. (5) Compare on this monotheistic feature, Nagels- bach, Horn. Theologie, p. 127 ; on this feature especially in ..Eschylus, Nagelsbach, Nachhom. Theologie, p. 138. For involuntary expressions of this direct feeling, see Tholuck's above-named work, p. iv. On the mono theistic features in these religions in general, comp. Dillmann, p. 9 sq. 408 Notes to Lecture VIII. (6) Compare the conclusion of Nagelsbach's Nach- homer. Theologie, p. 476. (7) Plutarch considered this phenomenon important enough to write a special work on the subject, De de- fectu Oraculorum, in which he refers, in support of the view that the Geni die, and that the oracles cease with them, to the story, so much discussed at Rome in the time of Tiberius, of the lament which was heard from a solitary rocky island of the Mediterranean, 'Great Pan is dead ' (LTav 6 p.eya<: rkdvr\Kev). (8) Nagelsbach, Nachhomer. Theologie, p. 432. (9) On the immoral influence of the Greek mytho logy and religion, compare in the already cited treatise of Tholuck the special condemnation of the myths of the poets pronounced by Plato and others, pp. 10, etc. ; on the immorality of heathen worship, pp. 62 and 75, etc. ; also Tzschirner, Fall des Heidenthums, 1829, i. p. 26, note. For examples of the influence of certain works of art, Plin. H. Nat. 36, 5. Hence the attacks upon heathen art in the ancient Church. Augustinus, De civ. Dei, ii. 7. Clem. Alex. Strom, v. 5 ; Protrept. ii. Tertul. De idolol. iii. Compare Kunstblatt, 1831, No. 28, ' On the causes and limits of the hatred of art in the three first centuries after Christ.' Griineisen also, in his excellent article, ' On the morality of Greek art ' (Zeitschr. fur histor. Theol. 1833,No.3,pp. 1-123), while thoroughly appreciating the moral nobleness of early Greek art, most emphatically points out the immoral influence of its later productions (p. 91). And to add an entirely unprejudiced witness, compare Augsburg. Allgem. Zeitung, 1864, No. 2, appendix, ' On the latest excavations of Pompeii,' in which the writer, after speaking of the obscene paintings discovered, says: ' One might almost venture, in the midst of such horrors, to admit that it was high time these were covered by the terrible agency of the volcano, by the jYo.es to Lecture VIII. 409 pure mantle of Christianity ! For if such was the state of things in a Roman country town, what must it have been in Rome itself, or in those schools of dissoluteness, Corinth and Alexandria ? ' Compare also Nagelsbach, Nachhomerische Theologie, 1858, pp. 234, etc. ; Becker, Charicles, 2nd edit. ii. 199 ('We would rather turn our eyes from a picture so revolting to our moral feel ing, and for the honour of humanity doubt the existence of such degrading impulses ' ) ; Frdr. Hermann, Privat- Alterihu/mer, sees. 29, etc. Copious information on these subjects will also be found in Dollinger, Heiden- thum und Judenthum, pp. 638, etc., 683, etc., 718, etc. ; Stirm, p. 232 ; Nicolas, i. 232, etc. (10) Cicero, De invent, i. 29 : Eos qui philosophies operam dant non arbitrari deos esse. Tholuck, p. 51. (11) Lucretius, i. 932 : Religionum animum nodis exsolvere pergo. (12) Plutarch, De superstitione. Compare Stirm, p. 164'; Tholuck, p. 57. How this superstition sought to form itself into a systematic view of the world and of life, may be perceived from A. v. Harless's interesting work, -Das Buch von den dgyptischen Mysterien ; Zur Geschichte der Selbstauflosung des heidnischen Hei denthums, 1858. (13) On the moral earnestness of ancient Rome, compare Tholuck, pp. 27, etc. (14) On Socrates in general, compare Hettinger, pp. 818, etc., and the able little work of Fred. v. Rouge- mont, Socrate et Je'sus Christ. On the moral principles of Socrates concerning obedience to the laws of the State, Xen. Memorabilia, iv. 4, 12, vi. 6 ; on the relation to friend and enemy: vikov tous p,ev <£_X.ov? ev iroiovvra, tous Be ex^pov, «:«/_&.?, ii. 6, 35 ; and Plato, Crito, t. viii. 178. Compare Schmidt, Die biirgerl. Gesellschaft in der 410 Notes to Lecture VIII. altrom Welt ilbers. v. Richard, 1857, p. 18 : on his re commendation of association with courtesans, i. 3, 14 on his conversation with the courtesan Theodota, ii. 11 Zeller, Philosophie der Griechen, 2nd edit. ii. 1, 75 , Nagelsbach, Nachhommerische Theologie,^. 236. Rous seau's saying concerning Socrates and Christ, Emile, iv. vol. ii p. 110: 'Quels prejuge's, quel aveuglement ne faut il point avoir pour oser comparer le fils de Sophron- isque au fils de Marie? Quelle distance de l'un a l'autre ! ' P. Ill : ' Oui, si la vie et la mort de Socrate sont d'un sage, la vie et la mort de Je"sus sont d'un dieu.' On the pohtical character of ancient morahty, compare also Jacobi, Woldemar, Works, v. 382. (15) Comp. Neander, Wissenschaftl. Abhandlungen, edited by Jacobi, 1851, pp. 140-214 : on the relation of Grecian to Christian ethics. 1. Stoicism ; 2. Socrates and Plato ; 3. Aristotle. On Aristotle, compare also Jacobi, v. 421. Zeller also (Philosophie der Griechen, ii. 1, 569) says, that 'Plato, when speaking of the gravest moral errors, expresses himself with a lenity which would seem to us extraordinary, if we did not remember that he was himself a Greek. On his low estimate ofthe relations between man and woman, com pare the same work, p. 570. The saying of Augustine, quoted in the text, is in De civ. Dei, viii. 5. (16) Such was the argument with which Christian authors subsequently encountered the Platonists, e.g. Amobius (Adv. Gentes, ii. p. 39) : ' You,' he says to the Platonists, ' seek the salvation of your souls in your selves, and think you become gods by virtue of your own innate strength. We, on the contrary, promise ourselves nothing from our own weakness, and find, when we lopk at our own nature, that it has no strength, and is conquered whenever circumstances are adverse, by its own passions,' etc. Compare Harless, -Das Buch v. d. dgypt. Mysterien, p. 110. (17) Neander in the above-cited work, 1. Stoicism. — Notes to Lecture VIII. 411 The remark on the non-acquaintance of the heathen world with the notion of humility, and the change in the meaning ofthe word humilitas, has been repeatedly made by apologists ; compare e.g. Stirm, p. 236; Zeithe, p. 38 ; and see notices in Latin lexicons. Schmidt, p. 14, says: ' Humility, i.e. a low position, was a reason for contempt in the eyes of ancient heathen philosophers (e.g. Cic. Tusc. v. 10); from their purely external stand point, they could form no conception that the name humility would one day be given to one of the brightest virtues.' It is well known how little Stoicism knew of the virtue of love (compare Schmidt, p. 300), and that the maxim of the founder of this school was, ' Neither forgiveness nor alms.' If oth er principles were subsequently expressed, this must be attributed to the influence which Christianity had begun to exercise. (18) Certainly Epicurus meant chiefly intellectual pleasure, but not apart from bodily pleasure. In his school the consequences of this dangerous principle were soon carried out. Compare Zeller, Die Philoso phie der Griechen, 2nd edit. iii. 1, 1, p. 405. That this school knew no independent spiritual power of morality, but was actuated only by calculations of what was necessary, compare the same work, pp. 406, etc. (19) Quintil. Instit. i. Procem. Cicero, in Tusc. ii. 4, speaks in the strongest terms of the striking contrast between the doctrines and the lives of the philosophers, and gives a very bad account of the latter. Dollinger, p. 605 ; Tholuck, p. 52. (20) Zeller substantially admits this, although he defends Seneca against the reproaches of a Dio Cassius and others, iii. 1, I. pp. 641, etc. On the morals of Seneca, and the unconscious influence exercised upon him by Christianity, compare Schmidt, pp. 303, etc. Tertullian calls him, Seneca noster. De anima, c. 19 ; compare Schmidt, p. 321. 412 Notes to Lecture VIII. (21) E.g. the well-known passage fromSeneca, De ira, ii. 8, 9: 'Everything is full of vices and crimes; more are committed than can be expiated by punishment. There is, as it were, a great struggle who shall exceed in turpitude. Day by day the love of sin increases, and shame diminishes. All respect for goodness and justice has disappeared, and desire rushes whither it will. Crime no longer hides, but exposes itself unabashed to the gaze of all. With such publicity, indeed, does vice appear, and such is the power it has attained over the minds of all, that innocence is not merely rare, but in general not to be found,' etc. The same, iii. 26 : ' Why should I conceal under gentle terms the universal malady? We are all wicked. What one blames in another, each may find in his own breast. We live wickedly among the wicked/ Seneca consoles himself, like many others of those times, with the world's approaching destruction, according to ancient predic tion, when the old race of men shall perish, and a new manhood, free from crimes, shall arise (et dabitur terris homo imscius scelerum). Compare Liiken, p. 305. In the same manner does Marcus Aurelius complain t&v irp6