lift mmm mm \W$\ Wm mm 'J H> PROFESSOR GEORGE P. FISHER'S WORKS. ¦ ' Topics of profound Interest to the studious inquirer after truth are discussed by the author with his characteristic breadth of view, catholicity of Judgment, affluence of learn ing felicity of illustration, and force of reasoning. . . . His singular candor disarms the prepossessions of his opponents. ... In these days of pretentions, shallow, and garrulous scholarship, his learning Is as noticeable for ita solidity as for its compass ." — N. T TRIBUNE. HISTORY OP THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH; 8vo, with Maps $3.50 SUPERNATURAL ORIGIN OP CHRISTIANITY; with Special Reference to the Theories of Kenan, Strauss, and the Tiibingen School. New Edition, Crown 8vo 2.50 THE REFORMATION. New Edition, Crown 8vo 2.50 THE BEGINNINGS OP CHRISTIANITY ; with a View of the State of the Boman World at the Birth of Christ. New Edition, Crown 8vo 2.50 GROUNDS OP THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. Crown8vo 2.50 DISCUSSIONS IN HISTORY AND THEOLOGY. 8vo. 3.00 FAITH AND RATIONALISM; with Short Supplementary Essays on Belated Topics. New Edition, 12mo 75 THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. New Edition, 16mo, Cloth 50 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF vBy V^J'(V'V Jt GEORGE P. FISHER, D.D., LL.D. • << t PEOFESSOE OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTOKY IJT YALE COLLEGE U / * j ' NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1889 »»¦/:.¦! '-*'*:*. 4 I *.** • ° H'v '/.'¦ "" ,-'-&: - y '¦> . ¦ ¦¦¦ ¦ <>t% rt Copyright, 1883, BY CHARLES SCRlBKBR'S SONS. j ¦ ¦' i . ' *¦ V-".-. . t'.iStJ* TO WILLIAM FORBES FISHER THE SON WHO WAS MY HOUSEHOLD COMPANION WHILE I WAS PKEPAEING THIS VOLUME PEEFACE. This volume embraces a discussion of the evidences of both natural and revealed religion. Prominence is given to topics having special interest at present from their connection with modern theories and difficulties. With respect to the first division of the work, the grounds of the belief in God, it hardly need be said that theists are not all agreed as to the method to be pursued, and as to what arguments are of most weight, in the defence of this fundamental truth. I can only say of these introductory chapters, that they are the product of long study and reflection. The argument of design, and the bearing of evolutionary doctrine on its validity, are fully considered. It is made clear, I believe, that no theory of evolution which is not pushed to the extreme of materialism and fatalism — dogmas which lack all scientific warrant — weakens the proof from final causes. In dealing with auti- theistic theories, the agnostic philosophy, partly from tho show of logic and of system which it presents, partly from the guise of humility which it wears, — not to speak of the countenance given it by some naturalists of note, — seemed to call for particular attention. One radical question in the conflict with atheism is whether man himself is really a personal being, whether he has a moral history distinct from y{ PREFACE. a merely natural history. If he has not, then it is idle to talk about theism, but equally idle to talk about the data of ethics. Ethics must share the fate of religion. How can there be serious belief in responsible action, when man is not free, and is not even a substantial entity ? If this question were disposed of, further difficulties, to be sure, would be left :n the path of agnostic ethics. How can self-seeking breed benevolence, or self-sacrifice and the sense of duty spring out of the " struggle for existence " ? Another radical question is that of the reality of knowledge. Are things truly knowa ble ? Or is what we call knowledge a mere phantasmagoria, produced we know not by what? This is the creed which some one has aptly formulated in the Shakspearian lines : — " We are such staff As dreams are made of, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep." In, the second division of the work the course pursued is different from that usually taken by writers on the Evidences of Revelation. A natural effect of launching an ordinary inquirer at once upon a critical investigation of the author ship of the Gospels is to bewilder his mind among patristic authorities that are strange to him. I have preferred to follow, though with an opposite result, the general method adopted of late by noted writers of the sceptical schools. I have undertaken to show that when we take the Gospels as they stand, prior to researches into the origin of them, the miraculous element in the record is found to carry in it a self-verifying character. On the basis of what must be, and actually is, conceded, the conclusion cannot be avoided that the miracles occurred. This vantage-ground once fairly PREFACE. Vll gained, the matter of the authorship and date of the Gospels can be explored without the bias which a prejudice against the miraculous elements in the narrative creates against its apostolic origin. Then it remains to establish the truth fulness of the apostolic witnesses, and, further, to vindicate the supernatural features of the Gospel history from the objection that is suggested by the stories of pagan miracles and by the legends of the saints. The concluding chapters, up to the last, contain a variety of corroborative arguments, and enter into topics relating to the Scriptures and the canon. In preparing these chapters, I have sought to direct the reader into lines of reflection which may serve to impress him with the truth contained in the remark that the strongest proof of Christianity is afforded by Christianity itself and by Christendom as an existing fact. The final chapter consid ers the bearing of the natural and physical sciences upon the Christian faith and the authority of the Scriptures. It has become the fashion of a class of writers to decry all works having for their aim to vindicate the truth of Christianity : it is considered enough to say that they emanate from "Apologists." The design would seem to be to con nect with this technical word of theology a taint carried over from the meaning attached to it in its ordinary use. But an " Apologist," in the usage of the Greek authors, is simpiy one who stands for the defence of himself or of his cause. When Paul began his address to the mob at Jerusalem, he called aTl them to hear his " Defence ; " that is, as the Greek reads, his "Apology." When Agrippa gave him leave to defend himself against the charges made against him, he "stretched forth his hand," and apologized ; as it is rendered in the English version, "answered for himself." It might viii PREFACE. be convenient, but it is hardly magnanimous, for the assail ants of Christianity to invite its disciples to leave the field wholly to them, or to endeavor to secure this result by call ing names. It is quite true that the advocates of any opinion in which the feelings are enlisted are liable to forget the obligation they are under to rid themselves of every unscientific bias, and to carry into all their reasonings the spirit of candor and uprightness. But, whatever faults on this score have been committed by some of the defenders of the faith, it can scarcely be claimed that their antagonists, as a rule, have shown a greater exemption from these partisan vices. The remark is sometimes rashly thrown out, that defences of religious truth are of no value in convincing those who read them. The contrary, as regards especially their effect on inquiring minds not steeled against persuasion, is shown by experience to be the fact. Certain it is, that from the era of Celsus and Porphyry, to the days of Voltaire and Strauss, Christian believers have felt bound to meet the challenge of disbelief, as an apostle directs, by giving a reason for the hope that is in them (1 Peter, iii, 15). I must expect, that, among the readers who may be interested in the general subject of this volume, some will be less attracted by the sections that are concerned with the philosophical objections to theism, or with the critical evi dence in behalf of the genuineness of the Gospels. But even this class, I trust, will find the major part of the book not altogether ill-suited to their wants. I venture to in dulge the hope, that they may derive from it some aid in clearing up perplexities, 'and some new light upon the nature of the Christian faith and its relation to the Scriptures. It should be stated that a portion of this volume has been PREFACE. ix published, mostly as a connected series of articles, in the Princeton Review. These, however, have been much altered, and in some cases largely rewritten. More than half of the chapters have not before appeared in print in any form. New Haven, Aug. 8, 1883. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE PERSONALITY OP GOD AND OF MAN. Paoe. The Two Beliefs Associated 1 The Essentials of Personality 2 The Reality of Self 2 Self-determination 3 Theories of Necessity and Determinism 6 The Consciousness of Moral Law 18 Religion not of Empirical Origin 19 H. Spencer on the Origin of Religion 21 The Feelings of Dependence and of Ohligation 26 The Consciousness of God and Self-consciousness .... 28 The Tendency to Worship 33 The Element of Will in Religious Faith 35 Religious Presentiment ... 35 CHAPTER H. THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. The Ultimate Source of Faith in God 37 The Intuition of the Unconditioned 38 The Ontological Argument 39 The Cosmological Argument 41 The Argument of Design 42 Order and Design 43 Mind in Nature 44 The Immanence of Design 47 Use and Intention 48 Criticisms hy Kant ... 48 The Atomic Theory of Chance . . . . 81 xi Xll CONTENTS. Pass. Evolution and Design 52 Variability in Organisms 56 Darwin on Variability and Design 57 Is Final Cause an a priori Principle ? 64 The Moral Argument 67 The Historical Argument 69 Personality consistent with Infinity 69 Atheism an Affront to Humanity 72 CHAPTER III. THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES : PANTHEISM, POSITIVISM, MATERIALISM, AGNOSTICISM. What is Pantheism? .... 73 The System of Spinoza 73 The German Ideal Pantheism 75 Pantheism involves Necessity 77 Positivism 78 Materialism 79 Relation of Consciousness to Physical States 80 The Mind and the Brain . . 83 Spencer's Agnostic System 85 The Question of the Reality of Knowledge 95 Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Reid, Kant 96 Hamilton and Mansel 98 J. S. Mill and H. Spencer 100 CHAPTER IV. THE POSSIBILITY AND THE FUNCTION OF MIKACLES, WITH A REVIEW OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S COMMENTS ON HUME. Natural and Supernatural Revelation . Christianity and the Light of Nature Christianity an Historical Religion Christianity not an Afterthought of God . Miracles a Constituent of Revelation . The Relation of Miracles to Natural Law Hume's Argument Huxley's Modification of Hume's Position The " Order of Nature " . The Relation of Miracles to Internal Evidence Indispensable Need of Miracles . 103104105 107 107108109111115116 118 CONTENTS. xiii CHAPTER V. CHRIST'S CONSCIOUSNESS OP A SUl'ERNATURAL CALLING VERIFIED BY HIS SINLESS CHARACTER. Page Proofs of Christianity outside of the Scriptures . . . .121 Tlie Claims made by Jesus 124 Hypothesis of Mental Aberration 126 No Parallel in other Religious Founders 128 The Sobriety of Jesus 132 The Sinlessness of Jesus . .134 No Consciousness of Evil in Him 137 The Ordeal through which He went 142 Miraculous Aspect of his Sinless Character 145 CHAPTER VI. PROOF OF THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST INDEPENDENTLY OF SPECIAL INQUIRY INTO THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE GOS- PELS. The Apostles professed to work Miracles 148 Injunctions not to report the Miracles 151 Excessive Esteem of Miracles forbidden 153 Teaching that is inseparable from Miracles 155 No Miracles ascribed to John the Baptist 161 No Miracles of Jesus prior to his Baptism .... 162 The Persistence of the Apostles in their Faith 162 The Mythical Theory of Strauss 163 The Miracles are Links in the Nexus of Events .... 164 The Resurrection of Jesus 166 The " Vision-Theory " 168 Hallucination disproved 170 Keim's Admission of the Miracle 173 Concessions of the Ablest Disbelievers 175 Renan's Idea as to the Miracles 177 CHAPTER vTI. THH GOSPELS A FAITHFUL RECORD OF THE TESTIMONY GIVEN BY THE APOSTLES. The Reception of the Gospels in the Second Century . . . 182 The Value of the Testimony of Irenaeus 185 Froude on the Testimony of Irenseus 187 Justin Martyr's Testimony .188 References to the Gospels in Justin ........ 190 XIV CONTENTS. Page. His " Memoirs " were the Canonical Gospels 202 Early Non-canonical Writings 205 Apocryphal Gospels 206 Testimony from the Gnostics . . 207 Celsus 209 Papias 210 Marcion a Witness to Luke's Gospel 214 The Tubingen Premise untenable 215 Internal Proof of the Early Date of the Synoptists ... 216 Origin of the Synoptical Gospels 217 The Integrity of the Gospels 219 CHAPTER VHI. THE APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. It was one of the " Homologoumena " 221 The Modern Attack by the Tubingen School 225 The Testimony of Irenaeus 226 John's Residence at Ephesus 227 Patristic Testimonies to this Gospel 230 The Internal Evidence 235 The Apocalypse and the Fourth Gospel 237 The Fourth Gospel and Philo 238 The Author a Palestinian Jew 241 Relation of the Fourth Gospel to the Synoptists .... 242 Discourses of Christ in the Fourth Gospel 247 Alleged Dualism in the Fourth Gospel 255 View taken of Miracles 257 Indirect Proofs of Personal Recollection 258 Not a Pseudonymous Writing 259 Disclosure of the Author's Personal Traits 261 CHAPTER IX. THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF THE APOSTLES' TESTIMONY AS PRESENTED BY THE EVANGELISTS. The Apostles regarded by themselves as Witnesses .... 267 Always conscious of being Disciples 269 Relate Instances of their own Weakness 270 Relate their Serious Faults and Sins 272 Describe the Human Infirmities of Jesus 273 Submit to Suffering and Death 274 Not Victims of Self-delusion , , 276 The Gospels not moulded by Doctrinal Bias . . 277 The Gospel Narratives not Mythical 278 The Life of Jesus prior to his Ministry 279 CONTENTS. XV CHAPTER X. THE MIRACLES OF THE GOSPEL IN CONTRAST WITH HEA THEN AND ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. Page. The Gospel Miracles are to attest Revelation 281283284285286 288 289291292295 30C 302 They are wrought in Opposition to Prevailing Beliefs Absence of Motives to Fraud Ecclesiastical Miracles explained by Natural Causes Incompetence of Witnesses to Ecclesiastical Miracles Gospel Miracles not Tentative Grotesque Character of Ecclesiastical Miracles . Possibility of Post-apostolic Miracles Alleged Miracles in the Early Church .... Miracles reported by Augustine .... The Biographies of St. Francis Sort of Miracles ascribed to St. Francis ¦ The Truthfulness of the Apostles CHAPTER XI. THE AEGUMENT FOE CHEISTIANITY FEOM THE CONVEESION OF SAUL OF TARSUS, WITH AN EXAMINATION OF RENAN'S THEORY OF THAT EVENT. Personal Characteristics of Paul 306 Naturalistic Explanation of his Conversion 307 None of the Antecedents of Hallucination 309 His Conversion not a " Vision " 310 The Moral and Spiritual Change in him ...... 311 CHAPTER Xn. THE ARGUMENT FOE CHRISTIANITY FROM PROPHECY, WITH COMMENTS ON THE THEORY OF KUENEN. The Main Design of Prophecy 314 Characteristics of the Prophet 316 The Predictive Element in Prophecy 317 The Relation of Prediction to Chronology 320 Messianic Prophecy — 321 Particular Predictions 325 Dr. Kuenen's Theory 326 True Prophets and " False Prophets " 329 Criteria of the True Prophet 332 Deistic Spirit of Dr. Kuenen's Theory 332 Prophecies in the New Testament ....... 334 Xvi CONTENTS. CHAPTER XHI. THE ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY FROM ITS ADAPTEDNESS TO THE NECESSITIES OF HUMAN NATURE. Pase. Practical Character of Christianity 336 The Conscious Need of God 337 The Consciousness of Sin and Guilt 340 The Miseries of Life 343 Recognition in the Bible of the Facts of Life 344 Reconciliation to God 345 The Life of Faith 347 The Testimony of Experience 348 CHAPTER XIV. THE AEGUMENT FOR CHEISTIANITY FEOM THE CHARACTER OF THE CHEISTIAN SYSTEM OF DOCTEINE. Christianity a System 349 Relation of Reason to the Gospel 351 The Pure Theism of Christianity 352 The Christian Doctrine of Providence 354 The Christian Doctrine of Man . .'..... 355 The Christian Doctrine of Sin 356 The Christian Doctrine of Salvation 358 The Incarnation and Atonement 360 The Influence of the Spirit of God 361 The Theodicy 361 CHAPTER XV. THE ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY FROM CHRISTENDOM AS AN EFFECT OF CHRIST'S AGENCY. The Progress of Christianity 367 Character of its Influence 368 New Ideal of Man and of Society 369 Effect of Christianity on the Family 372 Christianity and the State 373 Christianity and Liberty 374 Christianity and Charity 379 Christianity and Slavery 384 CONTENTS XVII CHAPTER XVI. THE ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY FROM A COMPARISON OF IT WITH OTHER RELIGIONS. Page. Character of Heathen Religions 388 Peculiarity of the Christian Religion 390 Confucianism 391 Buddhism -. 392 The Religion of Egypt 392 The Religion of the Greeks 393 Mohammedanism 393 Polytheism and Monotheism 394 Christianity fitted to be Universal ....... 401 Hebrew and Christian Monotheism 402 CHAPTER XVII. THE RELATION OF BIBLICAL CEITICISM TO THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. The Practical Influence of the Bible 407 The Place for Criticism 408 Revelation is through Redemption 410 Revelation is Historical 411 Revelation precedes Scripture 414 The Old Testament Literature 417 The Authority of Christ and the Apostles 423 CHAPTER XVILT. THE CANON OF THB NEW TESTAMENT IN ITS RELATION TO THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. Significance of " Canon " 427 The Need of Historical Inquiry 428 Gradual Formation of the Canon 428 The Syrian Canon ....'. 430 The Old Latin Version 430 The Muratorian Canon 431 Irenseus, Tertullian, Clement, Origen . 432 Authority of Apostolic Fathers 433 Eusebius on the Canon . . 435 Jerome and Augustine 436 Luther on the Books of the New Testament 437 Calvin and Tyndale 438 The Disputed Books 440 XV111 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIX. THE CONGRUITY OF THE NATURAL AND PHYSICAL SCI ENCES WITH THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. Page. Alleged Hostility of Christianity to Science 445 Persecution of Scientific Men 447 The Case of Galileo 448 Opposition to Geology and to other Sciences 450 Causes of Intolerance toward Science 452 Wrong Position taken by Theologians 455 The School of Buckle 457 The Historical Theory of Draper 458 Arabic and Christian Science 460 Christianity has promoted Science 462 Distinction of Science and Philosophy 467 Views of Nature in the Old Testament 469 The Unity of Nature recognized 470 The Reality of Second Causes recognized 471 Nature viewed as a System 471 The Narrative of the Creation in Genesis 473 The Bible and Evolution 478 The Idea of Creation 479 The Fact of Death 479 The Transfiguration of Nature 481 The Greatness and the Littleness of Man 482 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. CHAPTER I. THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. Theism signifies not only that there is a ground or cause of all things, — so much every one who makes an attempt to account for himself and for the world around him admits, — but also that the Cause of all things is a Personal Being, of whom an image is presented in the human mind. This image falls short of being adequate, only as it involves limits, — limits, however, which belong not to intelligence in itself, but simply to in telligence in its finite form. Belief in the personality of man, and belief in the personality of God, stand or fall together. A glance at the history of religion would suggest that these two beliefs are for some reason inseparable. Where faith in the personality of God is weak, or is altogether wanting, as in the case of the pantheistic religious of the East, the perception which men have of their own personality is found to be in an equal degree indistinct. The feel ing of individuality is dormant. The soul indolently ascribes to itself a merely phenomenal being. It con ceives of itself as appearing for a moment, like a wave 2 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. let on the ocean, to vanish again in the all-ingulfing essence whence it emerged. Recent philosophical theo ries which substitute matter, or an " Unknowable," for the self-conscious Deity, likewise dissipate the person ality of man as ordinarily conceived. If they deny that God is a Spirit, they deny with equal emphasis that man is a spirit. The pantheistic and atheistic schemes are in this respect consistent in their logic. Out of man's perception of his own personal attributes arises the belief in a persona". God. On this fact of our own personality tie validity of the arguments for theism depends. The essential characteristics of personality are self- consciousness and self-determination: that is to say, these are the elements common to all spiritual beings. Perception, whether its object be material or mental, involves a perceiving subject. The " cogito ergo sum " of Descartes is not properly an argument. I do not deduce my existence from the fact of my putting forth an act of thought. The Cartesian maxim simply denotes that in the act the agent is of necessity brought to light, or disclosed to himself. He becomes cognizant of him self in the fluctuating states of thought, feeling and volition. This apprehension of self is intuitive. It is not an idea of self that emerges, not a bare phenome non, as some philosophers have contended ; but the ego is immediately presented, and there is an inexpugnable N conviction of its reality. Idealism, or the doctrine that sense-perception is a modification of the mind that is due exclusively to its own nature, and is elicited by no object exterior to itself, is less repugnant to reason than is the denial of the reality of the ego. Whatever may be true of external things, of self we have an intuitive knowl edge. If I judge that there is no real table before me THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 3 on which I seem to be writing, and no corporeal organs for seeing or touching it, I nevertheless cannot escape the conviction that it is I who thus judge. To talk of thought without a thinker, of belief without a believer, is to utter words void of meaning. The unity and enduring identity of the ego are necessarily involved in self-consciousness. I know myself as a single, separate entity. Personal identity is presupposed in every act of memory. Go back as far as recollection can carry us, it is the same self who was the subject of all the mental experiences which memory can recall. When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child ; but I who utter these words am the same being that I was a score or threescore years ago. I look forward to the future, and know that it is upon me, and not upon another, that the consequences of my actions will be visited. In the endless succession of thoughts, feelings, choices, in all the mutations of opin ion and of character, the identity of the ego abides. From the dawn of consciousness to my last breath, I do not part with myself. " If we speak of the mind as a series of feelings which is aware of itself as past and future, we are reduced to the alternative of believing that the mind, or ego, is something different from any series of feelings, or of accepting the paradox that some thing which is ex hypothesi but a series of feelings can be aware of itself as a series." So writes Stuart Mill. Yet, on the basis of this astounding assumption, that a series can be self-conscious, he was minded to frame his philosophy, and was only deterred by the insur mountable difficulty of supposing memory with no being capable of remembering. The second constituent element of personality is self- determination. This act is likewise essential to distinct 4 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELTEF. self-consciousness. Were there no exercise of will, were the mind wholly passive under all impressions from without, the clear consciousness of self would never be evoked. In truth, self in that case would have only an inchoate being. That I originate my voluntary actions in the sense that they are not the effect or necessary consequence of antecedents, whether in the mind or out of it, is a fact of consciousness. This is what is meant by the freedom of the will. It is a definition of " choice." Thoughts spring up in the mind, and suc ceed one another under laws of association whose abso lute control is limited only by the power we have of fastening the attention on one object or another within the horizon of consciousness. Desires reaching out to various forms of good spring up unbidden : they, too, are subject to regulation through no power inherent in themselves. But self-determination, as the very term signifies, is attended with an irresistible conviction that the direction of the will is self-imparted. We leave out of account here the nature of habit, or the tendency of choice once made or often repeated to perpetuate itself. That a moral bondage may ensue from an abuse of lib erty is conceded. The mode and degree in which habit affects freedom is an important topic; but it is one which we do not need to consider in this place. That the will is free — that is, both exempt from con straint by causes exterior, which is fatalism, and not a mere spontaneity, confined to one path by a force act ing from within, which is determinism — is immediately evident to every unsophisticated mind. We can ini tiate action by an efficiency which is neither irresis tibly controlled by motives, nor determined, without any capacity of alternative action, by a pronenesa in herent in its nature. No truth is more definitely sane- THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 5 tioned by the common sense of mankind. Those who in theory reject it, continually assert it in practice. The languages of men would have to be reconstructed, the business of the world would come to a stand-still, if the denial of the freedom of the will were to be car ried out with rigorous consistency. This freedom is not only attested in consciousness; it is proved by that ability to resist inducements brought to bear on the mind which we are conscious of exerting. We can withstand temptation to wrong by the exertion of an energy which consciously emanates from ourselves, and which we know that, the circumstances remaining the same, we could abstain from exerting. Motives have an influence, but influence is not to be confounded with causal efficiency. Praise and blame, and the punish ments and rewards, of whatever kind, which imply these judgments, are plainly irrational, save on the tacit assumption of the autonomy of the will. Deny free will, and remorse, as well as self-approbation, is de prived of an essential ingredient. It is then impossible to distinguish remorse from regret. Ill-desert becomes a fiction. This is not to argue against the necessarian doctrine, merely on the ground of its bad tendencies. It is true that the debasement of the individual, and the wreck of social order, would follow upon the unflinching adoption of the necessarian theory in the judgements and conduct of men. Virtue would no more be thought to deserve love : crime would no longer be felt to deserve hatred. But, independently of this aspect of the subject, there is, to say the least, a strong presumption against the truth of a theorem in philoso phy that clashes with the common sense and moral sentiments of the race. The awe-inspiring sense of responsibility, the sting of remorse, emotions of moral 6 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. condemnation and moral approval, ought not to be treated as deceptive, unless they can be demonstrated to be so. Here are phenomena which no metaphysical scheme can afford to ignore. Surely a theory can never look for general acceptance which is obliged to misinterpret or explain away these familiar facts of human nature. How shall the feeling that we are free be accounted for if it be contrary to the fact? Let us glance at what famous necessarians have to say in answer to this inquiry. First, let us hear one of the foremost repre sentatives of this school. His solution is one that has often been repeated. " Men believe themselves to be free," says Spinoza, " entirely from this, that, though conscious of their acts, they are ignorant of the causes by which their acts are determined. The idea of free dom, therefore, comes of men not knowing the cause of their acts." * This is a bare assertion, confidently made, but absolutely without proof. It surely is not a self- evident truth that our belief in freedom arises in this manner. Further: when we make the motives pre ceding any particular act of choice the object of deliber ate attention, the sense of freedom is not in the least weakened. The motives are distinctly seen; yet the consciousness of liberty, or of a pluripotential power, remains in full vigor. Moreover, choice is not the re- . sultant of motives, as in a case of the composition of forces. One motive is followed, and its rival rejected. Hume has another explanation of what he considers the delusive feeling of freedom. " Our idea," he says, "of necessity and causation arises entirely from the uniformity observable in the operations of nature, where similar objects are constantly conjoined together, and 1 Ethics, P. ii. prop. xxxv. THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 7 the mind is determined by custom to infer the one from the appearance of the other." 1 This constant conjunc tion of things is all that we know; but men have "a strong propensity" to believe in "something like a necessary connection " between the antecedent and tho consequent. " When, again, they turn their reflections towards the operations of their own minds, and feel no such connection of the motive and the action, they are thence apt to suppose that there is a difference between the effects which result from material force, and those which arise from thought and intelligence." 2 In other words, a double delusion is asserted. First, the mind, < for some unexplained reason, falsely imagines a tie between the material antecedent and consequent, and then, missing such a bond between motive and choice, it rashly infers freedom. This solution depends on the theory that nothing properly called power exists. It is assumed that there is no power, either in motives or in the will. Hume's necessity, unlike that of Spinoza, is mere uniformity of succession, choice following motive with regularity, but with no nexus between the two. Since we are conscious of exerting energy, this theory, which holds to mere sequence without connec tion, we know to be false. J. S. Mill, adopting an identical theory of causation, from which power is eliminated, lands in the same general conclusion, on this question of free-will, as that reached by Hume. Herbert Spencer holds that the fact " that every one is at liberty to do what he desires to do (supposing there are no external hinderances)" is the sum of our liberty. He states that " the dogma of free-will " is the proposi- 1 An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, P. i. § 8 (Essay 3; ed. Green and Grose, vol. ii. p. 67). * Ibid., p. 75. 8 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. tion " that every one is at liberty to desire or not to desire." That is, he confounds choice and volition with desire, denies the existence of an elective power distinct from the desires, and imputes a definition of free-will to the advocates of freedom which they unanimously repudiate. As to the feeling of freedom, Mr. Spencei says, " The illusion consists in supposing that at each moment the ego is something more than the aggregate of feelings and ideas, actual and nascent, which then exists."1 When a man says that he determined to perform a certain action, his error is in supposing his conscious self to have been " something separate from the group of psychical states " constituting his " psychi cal self." The "composite psychical state which ex cites the action is at the same time the ego which is haid to will the action." The soul is resolved into a group of psychical states due to " motor changes " ex cited by an impression received from without. If there is no personal agent, if I is a collective noun, meaning a " group " of sensations, it is a waste of time to argue that there is no freedom. "What we call a mind," wrote Hume long ago, " is nothing but a heap or collec tion of different perceptions, united together by certain relations, and supposed, though falsely, to be endowed with a perfect simplicity and identity." Professor Huxley, who quotes this passage, would make no other correction than to substitute an assertion of nescience for the positive denial. He would rather say, " that we know nothing more of the mind than that it is a series of perceptions."2 Before commenting on this definition of the mind, which robs it of its unity, it is worth while to notice 1 Principles of Psychology, vol. i. p. 500. 2 Huxley's Hume, p. 61. THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 9 what account the advocates of necessity have to give of the feelings of praise and blame, tenants of the soul which appear to claim a right to be there, and which it is very hard even for speculative philosophers to dis lodge. On this topic Spinoza is remarkably chary of explanation. "I designate as grqtitude," he says, "the feeling we experience from the acting of another, done, as we imagine, to gratify us ; and aversion, the uneasy sense we experience when we imagine any thing done wil h a view to our disadvantage ; and, whilst we praise the former, we are disposed to blame the latter."1 What does Spinoza mean by the phrase " with a view to our advantage" or "disadvantage"? As the acts done, in either case, were unavoidable on the part of the doer, — as much so as the circulation of blood in his veins, — it is impossible to see any reasonableness in praise or blame, thankfulness or resentment. Why should we resent the blow of an assassin more than the kick of a horse ? Why should we be any more grateful to a benefactor than we are to the sun for shining on us ? If the sun were conscious of shining on us, and of shining on us " with a view " to warm us, in Spinoza's meaning of the phrase, but with not the least power to do otherwise, how would that consciousness found a claim to our gratitude? When Spinoza proceeds to define "just" and "unjust," "sin" and "merit," he broaches a theory not dissimilar to that of Hobbes, that there is no natural law but the desires, that " in the state of nature there is nothing done that can properly be characterized as just or unjust," that in " the natural state," prior to the organization of society, "faults, offences, crimes, cannot be conceived."2 As l Ethics, P. iii. prop. xxix. schol. a Ethics, P. iv. prop, xxxvii. schol. 2. 10 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. for repentance, Spinoza does not hesitate to lay down the thesis that " repentance is not a virtue, or does not arise from reason ; but he who repents of any deed he has done is twice miserable or impotent." 1 Penitence is defined as " sorrow accompanying the idea of some thing we believe we have done of free-will."2 It mainly depends, he tells us, on education. Since free will is an illusive notion, penitence must be inferred to be in the same degree irrational. To these immoral opinions the advocates of necessity are driven when they stand face to face with the phenomena of con science. Mill, in seeking to vindicate the consistency of pun ishment with his doctrine of determinism, maintains that it is right to punish ; first, as penalty tends to re strain and cure an evil-doer, and secondly, as it tends to secure society from aggression. " It is just to punish," he says, "so far as it is necessary for this purpose," for the security of society, " exactly as it is just to put a wild beast to death (without unnecessary suffering) for the same object." 3 It will hardly be asserted by any one that a brute deserves punishment, in the accept ed meaning of the terms. Later, Mill attempts to find a basis for a true responsibility ; but in doing so he vir tually, though unwittingly, surrenders his necessarian theory. " The true doctrine of the causation of human actions maintains," he says, " that not only our conduct, but our character, is in part amenable to our will ; that we can, by employing the proper means, improve our character ; and that if our character is such, that, while it remains what it is, it necessitates us to do wrong, it will be just to apply motives which will necessitate us 1 Ethics, P. iv. prop. liv. » P. iii. def. 27. ' Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 294. THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 11 to strive for its improvement, and to emancipate ourselves from the other necessity." l Here, while verbally hold ing to his theory of the deterministic agency of motives, he introduces the phrases which I have put in italics, — phrases which carry in them to every mind the idea of free personal endeavor, and exclude that of deter minism. " The true doctrine of necessity," says Mill, " while maintaining that our character is formed by our circumstances, asserts at the same time that our desires can do much to alter our circumstances." But how about our control over our desires ? Have we any more control, direct or indirect, over them than over our cir cumstances? If not, "the true doctrine of necessity" no more founds responsibility than does the naked fatalism which Mill disavows. It is not uncommon for necessarian writers, it may be unconsciously to them selves, to cover up their theory by affirming that actions are the necessary fruit of a character already formed ; while they leave room for the supposition, that, in the forming of that character, the will exerted at some time an independent agency. But such an agency, it need not be said, at whatever point it is placed, is incompati ble with their main doctrine. The standing argument for necessity, drawn out by Hobbes, Collins, et id omne genus, is based on the law of cause and effect. It is alleged, that if motives are not efficient in determining the will, then an event - - namely, the particular direction of the will in a case of choice, or the choice of one object rather than another — is without a cause. This has been supposed to be an invincible argument. In truth, however, the event in question is not without a cause in the sense that would be true of an event wholly disconnected from an en* i Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 299. 12 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. cient antecedent, — of a world, for example, springing into being without a Creator. The mind is endued with the power to act in either of two directions, the proper circumstances being present ; and, whichever way it may actually move, its motion is its own, the result of its own power. That the mind is not subject to the law of causation which holds good elsewhere than in the sphere of intelligent, voluntary action, is the very thing asserted. Self-motion, initial motion, is the dis tinctive attribute of spiritual agents. The prime error of the necessarian is in unwarrantably assuming that the mind in its voluntary action is subject to the same law which prevails in the realm of things material and unintelligent. This opinion is not only false, but shal low. For where do we first get our idea of power or causal energy? Where but from the exertion of our own wills? If we exerted no voluntary agency, we should have no idea of causal efficiency. Being outside of the circle of our experience, causation would be utterly unknown. Necessarians, among whom are in cluded at the present day many students of physical science, frequently restrict their observation to things without themselves, and, having formulated a law of causation for the objects with which they are chiefly con versant, they forthwith extend it over the mind, — ai entity toto genere different. They should remember that ¦^ the very terms "free," "power," "energy," "cause," are only intelligible from the experience we have of the exercise of will. They are applied in some modified sense to things external. But we are immediately cog nizant of no cause but will: and the nature of that cause must be learned from consciousness ; it can never be learned from an inspection of things heterogeneous to the mind, and incapable by themselves of imparting to it the faintest notion of Dower. THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 18 But it is objected, that if the operations of the will are not governed by law, psychologic science is impos sible. "Psychical changes," says Herbert Spencer, " either conform to law, or they do not. If they do not conform to law, this work, in common with all works on the subject, is sheer nonsense : no science of psy chology is possible. If they do conform to law, there cannot be any such thing as free-will."1 Were uni formity found to characterize the self-determinations of th'3 mind, even then necessity would not be proved. Suppose the will always to determine itself in strict conformity with reason: this would not prove con straint, or disprove freedom. If it were shown, that, as a matter of fact, the mind always chooses in the same way, the antecedents being precisely the same, neither fatalism nor determinism would be a legitimate infer ence. If it be meant, by the conformity of the will to law, that no man has the power to choose otherwise than he actually chooses; that, to take an example from moral conduct, no thief, or seducer, or assassin, was capable of any such previous exertion of will as would have resulted in his abstaining from the crimes which he has perpetrated, — then every reasonable, not to say righteous, person will deny the assertion. The alternative that a work on psychology, so far as it rests on a theory of fatalism, is " sheer nonsense," it is far better to endure than to fly in the face of common sense and of the conscience of the race. A book of ethics constructed on the assumption that the free and responsible nature of man is an illusive notion merits no higher respect than the postulate on which it is founded. Besides the argument against freedom from the i Psychology, i. 603. 14 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. alleged violation of the law of causation which it in volves, there is a second objection which is frequently urged. We are reminded that there is an order of history. Events, we are told, within the sphere of vol untary agency succeed each other with regularity of sequence. We can predict what individuals will do with a considerable degree of confidence, — with as much confidence as could be expected, considering the complexity of the phenomena. There is a progress of a community and of mankind which evinces a reign of law within the compass of personal action. The con duct of one generation is shaped by the conduct of that which precedes it. That there is a plan in the course of human affairs, all believers in Providence hold. History does not exhibit a chaotic succession of occurrences, but a sys tem, a progressive order, to be more or less clearly dis cerned. The inference, however, that the wills of men are not free, is rashly drawn. If it be thought that we are confronted with two apparently antagonistic truths, whose point of reconciliation is beyond our ken, the situation would have its parallels in other branches of human inquiry. We should be justified in- holding to each truth on its own grounds, since each is sufficiently verified, and in waiting for the solution of the problem. But the whole objection can be shown to rest, in great part, on misunderstanding of the doctrine of free-will, Freedom does not involve, of necessity, a wild depart ure from all regularity in the actual choices of men under the same circumstances. That men do act in one way, in the presence of given circumstances, does not prove that they must so act. Again : those who propound this objection fail to discern the real points along the path of developing character where freedom THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF M JlN. 15 is exercised. They often fail to perceive that there are habits of will which are the result of self-determination, — habits for which men are responsible so far as they are morally right or wrong, but which exist within them as abiding purposes or voluntary principles of conduct. Of a man who loves money better than any thing else, it may be predicted that he will seize upon any occa> 6ion that offers itself to make an advantageous bargain. But this love of money is a voluntary principle which he can curb, and, influenced by moral considerations, supplant by a higher motive of conduct. The fact of habit, voluntary habit, founded ultimately on choice, practically circumscribes the variableness of action, and contributes powerfully to the production of a cer tain degree of uniformity of conduct, on which pre diction as to what individuals will do is founded. But all prophecies in regard to the future conduct of men, or societies of men, are liable to fail, not merely because of the varied and complicated data in the case of human action, but because new influences, not in the least coercive, may set at defiance all statistical vatici nations. A religious reform, like that of Wesley, gives rise to the alteration of the conduct of multitudes, changes the face of society in extensive districts, and upsets previous calculations as to the percentage of crime, for example, to be expected in the regions af fected. The seat of moral freedom is deep in the radi cal self-determinations by which the supreme ends of conduct, the motives of life in the aggregate, are fixed. Kant had a profound perception of this truth, although he erred in limiting absolutely the operations of free-will to the " noumenal " sphere, and in relegating all moral conduct, except the primal choice, to the realm of phe nomenal and therefore necessary action. A theist finds 16 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. no difficulty in ascribing moral evil wholly to the will of the creature, and in accounting for the orderly suc cession of events, or the plan of history, by the over ruling agency of God, which has no need to interfere with human liberty, or to coerce or crush the free and responsible nature of man, but knows how to pilot the race onward, be the rocks and cross-currents where and what they may. Self-consciousness and self-deterniination, each involv ing the other, are the essential peculiarities of mind- With self-determination is inseparably connected pur. pose. The intelligent action of the will is for an end ; and this preconceived end — which is last in the order of time, though first in thought — is termed the final cause. It is the goal to which the volitions dictated by it point and lead. So simple an act of will as the volition to lift a finger is for a purpose. The thought of the result to be effected precedes that efficient act of the will by which, in some inscrutable way, the requi- ,site muscular motion is produced. I purpose to send a letter to a friend. There is a plan present in thought, before it is resolved upon, or converted into an inten tion, and prior to the several exertions of voluntary power by which it is accomplished. Guided by this plan, I enter my library, open a drawer, find the proper writing-materials, compose the letter, seal it, and de spatch it. Here is a series of voluntary actions done in pursuance of a plan which antedated them in conscious ness, and through them is realized. The, movements of brain and muscle which take place in the course of the proceeding are subservient to the conscious plan by which all the power employed in realizing it is directed. This is rational voluntary action : it is action for an end. In this way the whole business of human THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN 17 life is carried forward. All that is termed "art," in the broadest meaning of the word, — that is, all that is not included either in the products of material nature, which the wit and power of men can neither produce nor mod ify, or in the strictly involuntary states of mind with their physical effects, — comes into being in the way described. The conduct of men in their individual capacity, the organization of families and states, the government of nations, the management of armies, the diversified pursuits of industry, whatever is because men have willed it to be, is due to self-determination involving design. There have been philosophers to maintain that man is an automaton. All that he does, they have ascribed to a chain of causes wholly embraced within a circle of nervous and muscular movements. Some, finding it impossible to ignore consciousness, have contented them selves with denying to conscious states causal agency. On this view it follows that the plan to take a journey, to build a house, or to do any thing else which presup poses design, has no influence whatever upon the result. The same efforts would be produced if we were utterly unconscious of any intention to bring them to pass. The design, not being credited with the least influence or control over the instruments through which the par ticular end is reached, might be subtracted without affecting the result. Since consciousness neither origi nates nor transmits motion, and thus exerts no power, the effects of what we call voluntary agency would take place as well without it. This creed, when it is once clearly understood, is not likely to win many adherents.1 1 For a clear exposition of the consequences of denying the agency ot mind, see Herbert, The Realistic Assumptions of Modern Science etc., pp. 103 seq., 128 seq. 18 Tfl E GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. The scientific doctrine of the conservation of energy is entirely consistent with the freedom of the will and with the reciprocal influence of mind and body. The doctrine is, that as the sum of matter remains the same, so is it with the sum of energy, potential or in action, in any body or system of bodies. Energy may be trans mitted ; that is, lost in one body, it re-appears undimin ished in another, or, ceasing in one form, it is exerted in another, and this according to definite ratios. In other words, there is a correlation of the physical forces. While this is true, there is not the slightest evidence that mental action is caused by the transmitting of energy from the physical system. Nor is there any proof that the mind transfers additional energy to mat ter. Nor, again, is there the slightest evidence that mental action is correlated with physical. That mental action is affected by physical change is evident. That the mind acts upon the brain, modifying its state, exert ing a directive power upon the nerve-centres, is equally certain. The doctrine of conservation, as its best ex pounders — Clerk Maxwell, for example — have per ceived, does not militate in the least against the limited control of the human will and the supreme control of the divine. Attending the inward assurance of freedom is the consciousness of moral law. While I know that I can do or forbear, I feel that I ought or ought not. The desires of human nature are various. They go forth to external good, which reaches the mind through the channel of the senses. They go out also to objects less tangible, as power, fame, knowledge, the esteem of others. But distinct from these diverse, and, it may be, conflicting desires, a law manifests itself in conscious- THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 19 ness, and lays its authoritative mandate on the will. The requirement of that law in the concrete may be differently conceived. It may often be grossly misappre hended. But the feeling of obligation is an ineradicable element of our being. It is universal, or as nearly so as the perception of beauty or any other essential attribute of the soul. No ethical theory can dispense with it. It implies an ideal or end which the will is freely to realize. Be this end clearly or dimly discerned, and though it be in a great degree misconceived, its existence is implied in the imperative character of the law within. The confusion that may arise in respect to the contents of the law and the end to which the law points does not disprove the reality of either. A darkened and perverted conscience is still a conscience. All explanations of the origin of religion which refer it to an empirical or accidental source are superficial. The theory that religious beliefs spring from tradition fails to give any account of their origin, to say nothing of their chronic continuance and -of the tremendous power which they exert among men. The notion that religions are the invention of shrewd statesmen and rulers, devised as a means of managing the populace, probably has no advocates at present. It belongs among the obsolete theories of free-thinkers in the last century. How could religion be made so potent an instrument if its roots were not deep in human nature ? "Timor facit deos," is another opinion. It has .the sanction of Lucretius. Religion is supposed, on this view, to be due to the effect on rude minds of storms, convulsions of nature, and other phenomena which inspired terror, and were referred to supernatural beings. It is a shallow hypothesis, which overlooks the 20 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. fact that impressions of this kind are fleeting. They alternate, also, with aspects of nature of an entirely different character. If nature is terrific, it is also gracious and bountiful. Moreover, as far back as we can trace the history of mythological religions, we find that the divinities which the my-thopceic fancy calls into being are of a protecting or beneficent character. A favorite view of a school of anthropologists at present is, that religion began in fetich-worship, and rose by degrees through the worship of animals to a conception of loftier deities conceived of as clothed in human form. Against this speculation lies the fact, that the earliest mythological deities which history brings to our notice were heavenly beings whose loftiness impressed the mind with awe. Even where fetich-worship exists, it is not the material object itself which is the god. Rather is it true that the stick or stone is considered the vehicle or embodiment of divine agencies acting through it. " The external objects of nature never appear to the childish fantasy as mere things of sense, but always as animated beings, which, therefore, in some way or other, include in themselves a spirit."1 The doctrine that religion begins in a worship of ances tors, not to dwell on other objections to it, does not correspond with the facts of history ; since divinities in human shape were not the earliest objects of heathen worship. The earliest supreme divinity of the Indo- European race was the shining heaven, which was clothed with the attributes of personality. The same answer avails against the supposition that religion has its origin in dreams, wherein the images of the dead are presented as if alive. Influences of this sort have had some effect, during the long history of polytheism, in i Pfleiderer, Religionsphilosophie, p 319. THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 21 determining the particular shape which mythologies have assumed. As an explanation of the origin of religion itself, and of its hold on mankind, they are miserably insufficient. Herbert Spencer is one of the writers who make reli gion spring proximately out of ancestor-worship.1 An cestor-worship itself he would explain by a dream-theory and a ghost-theory combined. The "primitive man," who is so far off as to give room for any number of guesses about him, mistakes his shadow for another man, the duplicate of himself. Whether he makes the same mistake about every rock and wigwam from which a shadow is cast, we are not told. His image seen in the water gives him a more definite idea of his other self. Echoes help still more in the same direction. Then there is the distinction between "the animate," or, rather, animals, and "the inanimate." Here Spencer rejects what the soundest writers on mythology all hold, that the personifying imagination of men, who as regards reflection are children, confounds the inanimate with the living. The lower animals, dogs and horses, do not ; and is man below them in knowledge? This position of Spencer is characteristic of his whole theory. If man were on the level of the dog or the horse, if he were not conscious, in some degree, of will and personality, then, like them, he might never impute to rivers and streams and trees personal life. Dreams, according to Spencer, create the fixed belief that there is a duplicate man, or soul, that wanders off from the body : hence the belief that the dead survive. Naturally they become objects of reverence. So worship begins. Epilepsy, insanity, and the like, confirm the notion that ghosts come and go. Temples were first the tombs of the dead. Fetiches 1 The Principles of Sociology, vol. i. chap, viii seq. 22 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. were parts of their clothing. Idols were their images. The belief somehow arises that human beings disguise themselves as animals. Animal-worship is explained, in part, in this way, but mainly by a blunder of " the primi tive man." There is a dearth of names : human beings are named after beasts : gradually the notion takes root that the animal who gave the name was the parent of the family. Plants with strange intoxicating qualities are assumed to be inhabited by ghosts. Plant-worship is the result. The worship of nature, the worship, for example, of the heavenly bodies, is the result, likewise, of a linguistic blunder. There is a scanty supply of words. Terms applied to life and motion are figuratively attached to natural objects. The moon is said to run away. These phrases are subsequently taken as literal. The exploded solution of Euemerus, that the gods were human beings, magnified in the fancy of later times, is brought in as auxiliary to the other imagined sources of religion. Thus the Pantheon is filled out. Mr- Spencer, in his First Principles, favored the idea that religion sprang out of a mistaken application of the causal principle to the explanation of nature and of man. The later theory sketched above is what he con ceives that the evolution doctrine demands. He differs, as will be perceived, from the archaeologists who make religion start with fetichism. He administers a solemn rebuke to those evolutionists who allow, what they, like most scholars, feel compelled to hold, that among the Aryans and Semites religion cannot be traced back to ancestor-worship. Such evolutionists, Mr. Spencer gravely observes, are not loyal to their theory : they are heterodox.1 The circumstance that they cannot find facts to sustain the theory as regards these branches of 1 Principles of Sociology, i. 313. THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 23 the human race ought not to be allowed to shake their faith. The ingenious mode in which this theory is wrougM out scarcely avails to give it even plausibility. The transitions from point to point, especially from the lower to the higher types of religion, have an artificial, far fetched character. The resort for evidence is not to history, the source whence, if anywhere, satisfactory evidence must be derived. The proofs are ethnographic. They consist of scraps of information respecting scat tered tribes of savages, mostly tribes which now exist. In this way, isolated phenomena may, no doubt, be col lected, lending a show of support to the speculation about shadows, dreams, and ghosts. But a generaliza tion respecting savage races cannot be safely made from miscellaneous data of this sort What proof is there that "the primitive man " was a savage ? This assumption is made at the outset. That he was unlearned, unciv ilized, is one thing. That he was a fool, that he was not much above the brute, is an unverified assertion. Degeneracy is not only a possible fact, it is a fact which history and observation prove to have been actual in the case of different peoples. Not only is Mr. Spencer's theory without the requisite historical proof ; it Is refut ed by history. The worship of the objects of nature, as far as can be ascertained, was not preceded by the worship of ancestors. It is a false analogy which Mr. Spencer adduces from the worship of saints in the Church of Rome. This practice did not precede the worship of God: primitive Christianity did not come after mediaeval.1 ft is remarkable, that, in an elaborate 1 Sir Henry Maine, who recognizes the prevalence of ancestor-wor ship, remarks that the theory attached to it " has been made to account for more than it will readily explain." — Dissertations on Early Law and Custom, vol. i. p. 69. 24 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. attempt to explain the rise of religion, Mr. Spencer should say nothing of the great founders whose teach ing has been so potent that eras are dated from them, and multitudes of men, for ages, have enrolled them selves among their disciples. ' One would think that Confucius, Buddha, Mohammed, with whatever of pe culiar illumination each possessed, should be counted among the forces concerned in developing the religions of mankind. But the evolution doctrine, in the phase of it which Mr. Spencer advocates, is cut off from doing justice to the influence of individuals. Here, again, his tory is ignored. If religion had no deeper roots than are given to it in Mr. Spencer's theory, it could never have gained, much less have maintained, its hold upon men. The offspring, at every step, of error and delu sion, it would have been short-lived. Mr. Spencer has presented suggestions here and there, of value in the study of the origin of superstitions ; but his view as a whole is a signal instance of the mischievous conse quences of servile adhesion to a metaphysical theory, to the neglect of facts, and even of the deeper principles of human nature. Even as an account of the rise of certain superstitions, his theory needs to bring in as one element a sense of the supernatural, a yearning for a higher communion. The dog dreams. The dog may dream of dogs that have died, or even of deceased men , but he does not worship any more than he becomes con scious of having within him a soul. There is a wide interval between hypotheses of this character and the more elevated theory that religion arises from the perception of marks of design in nature. But even this falls short of being a satisfactory solu tion of the problem. Not to dwell on the fact that the adaptations of nature impress different minds with THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 25 unequal degrees of force, or on. the fact that they fail to exhibit the infinitude and the moral attributes of Deity, it is evident that the phenomena of religion re quire us to assume a profounder and more spiritual source to account for them. This must be found in primitive perceptions and aspirations of the human soul. A capital defect in many of the hypotheses broached to explain the origin of religion, is that they make it the fruit of an intellectual curiosity. It is regarded as being the product of an attempt to account for the world as it presents itself before the human intelli gence. It is true that religion as a practical experi ence contains an ingredient of knowledge ; yet it is a great mistake to regard the intellectual or scientific tendency as the main root of religious faith and devo tion. Belief in God does not lie at the end of a path of inquiry of which the motive is the desire to explore the causes of things. It arises in the soul in a more spontaneous way, and in a form in which feeling plays a more prominent part. "Those who lay exclusive stress on the proof of the existence of God from the marks of design in the world, or from the necessity of supposing a first cause for all phenomena, overlook the fact that man learns to pray before he learns to rea son; that he feels within him the consciousness of a Supreme Being and the instinct of worship, before he can argue from effects to causes, or estimate the tracer of wisdom and benevolence scattered through the creation." 1 Religion is communion with God. How is the reality of the object known to us ? Not as the intuitions, space and time, cause, etc., are known to us. These are con ditioned on experience. They do not assert the exist- 1 Mansel, The Limits of Religious Thought, etc., p. 110. 26 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. ence of a real object, but only that, in case it exists, it conforms to these conditions. Moreover, they describe the nature of reason itself, of its procedure when brought into contact with realities, — a procedure at first uncon scious, and then generalized by reflection. The being of God is not an axiom of this sort. It is in sense-perception that external objects are brought directly to our knowledge. Through sensa tions compared and combined by reason, we perceive outward things in their qualities and relations. There are perceptions of the spirit as well as of sense. The being whom we call God may, in like manner, come in contact with the soul. As the soul, on the basis of sen sations, posits the outer world of sense, so, on the basis of analogous inward experiences, it posits God. The inward feelings, yearnings, aspirations, which are the ground of the spiritual perception, are not continuous, as in the perceptions of matter : they vary in liveli ness ; they are contingent, in a remarkable degree, on character. Hence religious faith has not the clearness, the uniform and abiding character, which belongs to our recognition of outward things.1 Religion is communion with God. If we look atten tively at religion in its ripe form, — as, for example, we find it expressing itself in the Psalms of the Old Testa ment, — we shall get some help towards discerning the elements that compose it, and the sources within man out of which it springs. Such a study suggests that it is through the feeling of dependence and the feeling of obligation that the i On the subject of the immediate manifestation of God to the soul, and the analogy of sense-perception, the reader may be referred to Lotze, Grundziige d. Religionsphil., p. 3, Mikrokosmos, vol. iii. chap. iv. ; Ulrici, Gott u. die Natur, pp. 605-624, Gott u. der Mensch, vol. i.; Bowne, Studies in Theism, chap. ii. pp. 75 seq. THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 27 existence of a Supreme Being in whom we live, and to whose law we are subject, is revealed to the soul, and that intimately connected with the recognition of this being is a native tendency to rest upon and hold con verse with Him in whom we live, and who thus discloses himself to the soul. A closer psychological attention tc these experiences in which religion takes its origin is requisite. This may serve to dispel the impression, if it exist, that there is a lack of solidity or an unscien tific mysticism in these propositions pertaining to the foundations of religious faith. The psychological facts at the basis of theism are not less truly than forcibly stated in the following extracts from Sir William Hamilton : — " The phenomena of the material world are subject to immutable laws, are produced and reproduced in the same invariable succes sion, and manifest only the blind force of a mechanical necessity. " The phenomena of man are, in part, subjected to the laws of the external universe. As dependent upon a bodily organization, as actuated by sensual propensities and animal wants, he belongs to matter, and in this respect he is the slave of necessity. But what man holds of matter does not make up his personality. They are his, not he. Man is not an organism : he is an intelligence served by organs. For in man there are tendencies — there is a law — which continually urge him to prove that he is more power ful than the nature by which he is surrounded and penetrated. He is conscious to himself of faculties not comprised in the chain of physical necessity; his intelligence reveals prescriptive principles of action, absolute and universal, in the Law of Duty, and a liberty capable of carrying that law into effect in opposition to the solici tations, the impulsions, of his material nature. . . . " It is only as man is a free intelligence, a moral power, that he \a created after the image of God ; and it is only as a spwk of divinity glows as the life of our life in us, that we can raiionally believe in an intelligent Creator and moral Governor of the universe. . . . " If in man intelligence be a free power, in so far as its liberty extends intelligence must be independent of necessity and matter ; 28 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. and a power independent of matter necessarily implies the exist ence of an immaterial subject; that is, a spirit. If, then, tho original independence of intelligence on matter in the human con stitution — in' other words, if the spirituality of mind in man — be supposed a datum of observation, in this datum is also given both the condition and the proof of a God. . . . " It is evident, in the first place, that, if there be no moral world, there can be no moral Governor of such a world ; and, in the sec ond, that we have and can have no ground on which to believe in the reality of a moral world, except in so far as we ourselves are moral agents." * These statements commend themselves to reason, whatever doubt may attach to Hamilton's inference, made on the ground of analogy, that " intelligence holds the same relative supremacy in the universe which it holds in us." The origin of the belief in God, a Power above us intelligent and moral, needs to be more defi nitely explained. One fact respecting consciousness is, that we cannot be conscious without being conscious of something. In opposition to the use of terms in Reid and Stewart, Hamilton has conclusively vindicated that view which includes in consciousness the object. "It is palpably impossible," he truly says, "that we can be conscious of an act without being conscious of the object to which that act is relative." 2 If I am conscious of perceiving a tree, I am conscious of the tree. If I am conscious of feeling a pain in the head, I am conscious of the pain. If I am conscious of any modification of the mind, be it a thought, feeling or desire, this mental object is a part of the conscious act. Another fact respecting consciousness is, that insepa rable from it is a knowledge of self — the ego. Con sciousness is a relation between the subject and object, 1 Metaphysics, pp. 21-23. * Ibid., p. 14. THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 29 its two constituent parts. Neither can be dropped out without annihilating consciousness. Mind is known to itself only in contrast with matter ; or, as Hamilton expresses this established truth of philosophy, "mind and matter are never known apart and by themselves, but always in mutual correlation and contrast." 1 This antithesis can never be excluded. It is present when the object is purely mental. "The act which affirms that this particular phenomenon is a modification of me, virtually affirms that the phenomenon is not a modi fication of any thing different from me, and conse quently implies a common cognizance of not-self and self." " The ego and non-ego are known and discrimi nated in the same indivisible act of knowledge. " 2 From this constitution of the mind it follows, that it is impossible for man to think of himself without think ing of the external world, of something outside of him self. In other words, the object, material existence, cannot be excluded from consciousness. In every modi fication of mind, in every state of thought, feeling, or will, it is a co-determining factor. Man may struggle to escape from it, but he struggles in vain. To destroy the external object is to destroy self-consciousness. The human mind can take no cognizance of itself without in the very act taking cognizance of matter. This rela tion of self-consciousness results from the connection in which we necessarily stand with the material world, including a physical organism, and with other individ uals of the same species.3 It is strictly true then, on a rigorous analysis, that the non-ego is a co-agent in giving existence to every mental state. Without its presence as a co-determin- i Metaphysics, p. 157. 2 Tbid., pp. 156, 157. * Muller, Lehre von d. Siinde, i. 102. 30 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. ing factor, self-consciousness would be a bare faculty void of contents ; that is, would have only a potential being. It is an unavoidable inference, that self-con sciousness is not an original, independent existence, but is conditioned, derived. The limitations which have been described are not accidental, but essential. Ima gine them absent, and self-consciousness in man would be inconceivable. It would be as impossible as_vision without light. Hence the principle or ground of self- consciousness in man is not in itself. It inheres in some other being. Is this source and ground of self-consciousness in the object the world without ? Is it in Nature ? This can not be. " Nature cannot give that which she does not herself possess. She cannot give birth to that which is toto genere different from her. In Nature the canon holds good, ' Only like can produce like.' '" Nature can take no such leap. A new beginning on a plane above Nature it is beyond the power of Nature to make. Self-consciousness can only be explained by self-con sciousness as its author and source. It can have its ground in nothing that is itself void of consciousness. Only that personal Power which is exalted above Na ture, the creative principle to which every new begin ning is due, can account for self-consciousness in man It presupposes an original, an unconditioned because original, self-consciousness. This spark of a divine firo is deposited in Nature : it is in it, but not of it. Thus the consciousness of God enters inseparably into the consciousness of self as its hidden background. " The descent into our inmost being is at the same time an ascent to God." All profound reflection in which the soul withdraws from the world to contemplate ita own being brings us to God, in whom we live and move. THE PERSONALITY OF GOD aND OF MAN. 31 We are conscious of God in a more intimate sense than we are conscious of finite things. As they themselves are derived, so is our knowledge of them. In order to know a limit as a limit, it is often said we must already be in some sense beyond it. " We should not be able," says Julius Miiller, " in the remotest de gree to surmise that our personality — that in us where by we are exalted, not in degree only, but in kind, above all other existence — is limited, were not the conscious ness of the Absolute Personality originally stamped, however obscure and however effaced the outlines may often be, upon our souls." It is in the knowledge of the Infinite One that we know ourselves as finite. To self-determination, the second element of person- ' ality, like self-consciousness, a limit is also set. The limit is the moral law to which the will is bound, though not necessitated, to conform. We find this law within us, a rule for the regulation of the will. It is not merely independent of the will — this is true of the emotion* generally — it speaks with authority. It is a voice of command and of prohibition. This rule man spon taneously identifies with the will of Him who declares himself in consciousness as the Author of his being. The unconditional nature of the demand which we are '¦ conscious that the moral law makes on us, against all rebellious desires and passions, against our own oppos ing will, can only be explained by identifying it thus with a higher Will from which it emanates. In self- , consciousness God reveals his being: in conscience ho reveals his authority and his will concerning man. Through this recognition of the law of conscience as the will of God in whom we live, morality and religion coalesce.1 1 This analysis substantially coincides with the exposition of Julius Muller, Lehre v. d. Siinde, ut supra. 32 THE GROUNDS CF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. There is an eloquent passage which has often been quoted from Jacobi. How far it is true, and how far it needs correction or supplement, will appear : — "Nature conceals God; for through her whole domain Natuie reveals (inly fate, only an indissoluble chain of mere efficient causes without beginning and without end, excluding with equal necessity both providence and chance. An independent agency, t, free^ original commencement within her spbere, and proceeding from hei powers, is absolutely impossible. . . . "Man reveals God; for man by his intelligence rises above Nature, and in virtue of this intelligence is conscious of himself as a power not only independent of, but opposed to, Nature, and capa ble of resisting, conquering, and controlling her. As man has a living faith in this power, superior to Nature, which dwells in him, so has he a belief in God, a feeling, an experience, of his existence. As he does not believe in this power, so does he not believe in God : he sees nought in existence but nature, necessity, fate."1 It is true that Nature, except so far as Nature is in terpreted by the light thrown upon it from our own conscious personal agency, " conceals God." There is exhibited no exercise of freedom, no morality, but only efficient causation. It is true that only through the feeling of our own personality, of an intelligence acting freely in ourselves, of a law of righteousness and love for the guidance of will, have we any notion of God, or the slightest comprehension of his attributes. But this consciousness of self, as described above, is not of itself "a feeling, an experience," of God's existence. It i* the consciousness of self as dependent as well as free, which involves this feeling and experience. There is. no identification of self with God : this, Jacobi does not mean, although his language might be construed to imply it. Self is distinguished from God, as from the world, in the same undivided act of consciousness. i Werke, iii. pp. 424-426. THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 33 Shall the conviction of the being of God that arises io the soul in connection with the feeling of depend ence be regarded as the product of inference? It is' more reasonable to say that the recognition of God, more or less obscure, is something involved and even presupposed in this feeling.1 How can there be a sense of self as dependent, unless there be an underlying sense of a somewhat, however vaguely apprehen led, on which we depend? The one feeling is implicated in the other. The error of many who have adhered too closely to Schleiermacher is in representing the feeling of depend ence as wholly void of an intellectual element. Ulrici and some other German writers avoid this mistake by using the term " Gefiihls-perception" to desginate that state of mind in which feeling is the predominant ele • ment, and perception is still rudimental and obscure. Inseparable from the recognition of God is the ten dency, which forms an essential part of the religious constitution of man, to commune with him. To pray to him for help, to lean on him for support, to worship him, are native and spontaneous movements of the human spirit. Man feels himself drawn to the Being who reveals himself to him in the primitive operations of intelligence and conscience. As man was made for God, there is a nisus in the direction of this union to his Creator. This tendency, which may take the form of an intense craving, may be compared to the social instinct with which it is akin. As man was made not to be alone, but to commune with other beings like himself, solitude would be an unnatural and almost 1 Cf. Ulrici, Gott u. die Natur, pp. 606 seq. " The general conviction of a divine existence we regard as less an inference than a perception." — Bowktb, Studies in Theism, p. 79. 34 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. unbearable state ; and a longing for converse with other men is a part of his nature. In like manner, as man was made to commune with God, he is drawn to God by an inward tendency, the strength of which is derived from the vacuum left ii the soul and the unsatisfied yearning consequent on an exclusion of God as the supreme object of love and trust. This suggests the remark, that to the actual realiza tion of religion there must be an acknowledgment of God which involves an active concurrence of the will. The will utters its "yea" and "amen" to the attrac tive power exerted by God within the soul. It gives consent to the relation of dependence and of obligation in which the soul stands to God. The refusal thus practically to acknowledge God is to enthrone the false principle of self-assertion or self-sufficiency in the soul, — false because it is contrary to the reality of things. It is a kind of self-deification. Man may refuse " to retain God in his knowledge." The result is, that the feelings out of which religion springs, and in which it is rationally founded, are not extirpated, but are driven to fasten on finite objects in the world, or on fictitious creations of the imagination. Hence arise the count less forms of polytheism and idolatry. Hence arises, too, the idolatry of which the world, in the form of power, fame, riches, pleasure, or knowledge, is the ob ject. When the proper food is wanting, the attempt is madf t, appease the appetite with drugs and stimu lants. Theology has deemed itself warranted by sound philosophy, as well as by the teaching of Scripture, in maintaining, that, but for the intrusion of moral evil or the practical substitution of a finite object, real or imaginary, for God as the supreme good, the knowledge THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 35 of him would shine brightly in the soul, would begin with the dawn of intelligence, and would keep pace with its advancing development. The more one turns the eye within, and fastens his attention on the charac teristic elements of his own spirit, the more clear and firm is found to be his belief in God. And the more completely the will follows the law that is written on the heart, the more vivid is the conviction of the reality of the Lawgiver, whose authority is expressed in it. The experience of religion carries with it a constantly growing sense of the reality of its object. But we have to look at men as they are. As a mat ter of fact, "the consciousness of God" is obscure, latent rather than explicit, germinant rather than de veloped. It waits to be evoked and illuminated by the manifestation of God in nature and providence, and by instruction. Writers on psychology have frequently neglected to give an account oi presentiment, a state of consciousness in which feeling is predominant, and knowledge is indis- •tinct. There are vague anticipations of truth not yet clearly discerned. It is possible to seek for something, one knows not precisely what. It is not found, else it would not be sought. Yet it is not utterly beyond our ken, else how could we seek for it ? Explorers and inventors may feel themselves on the threshold of great discoveries just before they are made. Poets, at least, have recognized the deep import of occult, vague feel ings which almost baffle analysis. The German psy chologists who have most satisfactorily handled the subject before us, as Lotze, Ulrici, Julius Muller, Nitzsch, find in their language an expressive term to designate our primitive sense or apprehension of God. It is ahnung, of which our word " presage " is a partial 36 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF equivalent. The apostle Paul refers to the providen tial control of nations as intended to incite men "to seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him." 1 He is not known, but sought for. Rather do men feel after him, as a blind man moves abo'.it in quest of something, or as we grope in the dark. The cause of their comparative failure the same apostle elsewhere points out.2 This philosophy of religion is conformed to the observed facts. There is that in man which makes him restless without God, discontented with every substitute for him. The subjective basis for religion, inherent in the very constitution of the soul, is the spur to the search for God, the condition of apprehending him when revealed (whether in nature, or in providence, or in Christianity), and the ultimate ground of certitude as to the things of faith. The validity of the arguments for the being of God has been questioned in modern times. In particular, objections have been made from the side of philosophy and natural science to the great argument of design. These objections we hold to be without good founda tion. At the same time, neither the design argument nor any other is demonstrative. The actual effect of it depends on the activity in man of that religious nature, and the presence of those immediate impies- sions of God, which it has been the object of this chapter partially to unfold. 1 Ac Ls xvii. 27. a Rom. i. 21. CHAPTER II. THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. It will be clear, from the foregoing chapter, that the belief in God is not ultimately founded on processes of argument. His presence is more immediately disclosed. There is a native and universal belief, emerging spon taneously in connection with the feeling of dependence and the phenomena of conscience, however obscure, inconstant, and perverted that faith may be. The argu ments for the being of God do not originate this faith : they justify at the same time that they elucidate and define it. They are so many different points of view from which we contemplate the object of faith. Each one of them tends to show, not simply that God is, but what he is. They complete the conception by pointing out particular predicates brought to light in the mani festation which God has made of himself. We begin with the intuition of the Unconditioned, the Absolute. By " the Absolute " is signified, in phi • losophy, that which is complete in itself, that which stands in no necessary relation to other beings. It denotes being which is independent as to its existence and action. A cognate idea is that of the Infinite, which designates being without limit. The Uncondi tioned is more generic. It means freedom from all restriction. It is often used as synonymous with " the Absolute." 37 38 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. We have an immediate conviction of the reality of the Absolute, that is, of being which is dependent upon no other as the condition of its existence and activity. When we look abroad upon the world, we find a mul titude of objects, each bounded by others, each con ditioned by beings outside of itself, none of them complete or independent. There is everywhere de marcation, mutual dependence, and reciprocal action. Turning the eye within, we find that our own minds and our own mental processes are in the same way restricted, conditioned. Themind has a definite con stitution : the act of knowledge requires an object as its necessary condition. The universe is a vast complexity of beings, neither of which is independent, self-originated, self-sustained. Inseparably connected with this perception of the rel ative, the limited, the dependent, is the idea of the Unconditioned, the Absolute. It is the correlate of the finite and conditioned. Its reality is known as being implied in the reality of the world of finite, interacting, dependent existences. The Unconditioned is not a mere negative. It is negative in~its verbal form, because it is antithetical to the conditioned, and is known through it. But the idea is positive, though it be incomplete ; that is to sayTlaftnough we fall short of a complete grasp of the object. The Unconditioned, almost all philosophers except Positivists of an extreme type, admit. Metaphysicians of the school of Hamilton and Maisel hold, that, as a reality, it is an object of immediate and necessary belief, although they refuse to consider it an object of conceptive thought. But some sort of knowledge of it there must be in order to such a belief. The Unconditioned is not merely subjective, it is not a mere idea, as Kant, in the theoretical part of THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 39 his philosophy alleges. He makes this idea necessary to the order, connection, and unity of our knowledge. We can ask for no surer criterion of real existence than this.1 Unconditioned being is the silent presup position of all our knowing. Be it observed that the idea of the Absolute is not that of "the sum of all reality," — a quantitative notion. It is not the idea of the Unrelated, but of that which is not necessarily related. It does not exclude other beings, but other beings only when conceived of as a necessary com plement of itself, or as the product of its necessary activity, or as existing independently alongside of itself. The Absolute which is ^gtveh in -the intuition is one. It is infinite, not as comprehending in itself of necessity all beings, but as incapable ^of $ny conceivable augmen tation of its powers. It is free from all restrictions not self-imposed. Any thing more^ respecting the Absolute, we cannot affirm. It might be, as far as we have gone now, the universal substance of Spinoza, or "the Un knowable " of Spencer. ' For the refutation of such hypotheses, we depend on the cosmological and other arguments.2 The arguments for the being of God are usually classed as the ontological, the cosmological, the physico- theological or the argument of design, the moral, and the historical. I. The ontological. This makes the existence of God involved in the idea of him. This argument must not be confounded with the intuition of the Absolute which is evoked in conjunction with our perceptions of rela- 1 Cf. Trendelenburg, Logische Untersuchungen, ii. 426. 2 For instructive observations respecting the Absolute and the kin dred ideas, see Calderwood's Philosophy of the Infinite (2d ed.); Porter, The Human Intellect, pp. 645 seq.; Flint, Theism, p. 264; McCosh. The Intuitions of the Mind, chap. iii. 40 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. tive and dependent existence. The ontological proof begins and ends with the analysis of the idea. It claims that the existence of God is necessarily involved in a necessary notion. As presented by Anselm, it affirms that the most perfect conceivable being must be actual : otherwise a property — that of actuality, or objective being — is wanting. It appears to be a valid answer to this reasoning, that existence in re is not a constituent of a concept. How can we infer the existence of a thing from the definition of a word ? Given the most perfect being, its mode of existence is no doubt necessary. But from the mere idea, except on the basis of philosophical realism, the actuality of a corresponding entity cannot be concluded with ¦demonstrative certainty. The same objection is applicable >to the ontological argument of Descartes, who brings forward the analogy of a triangle, the idea of which involves the equality of its three angles to two right angles! So, it is said, the idea of God implies that he exists, necessarily. Certainly, if there be a God; but' the hypothesis must first be estab lished. The inference of Descartes, from the presence of the idea of the infinite in the human mind, that an infinite Author must have originated it, is rather an a posteriori than an a priori argument. As an argu ment from effect to cause, it is not without weight. The argument from the idea of "the most perfect being," though failing in strict logic, is not without an evidential value. The soul does not willingly consent to regard so inspiring a conception as a mere thought. To consider it as unreal, with no counterpart in the realm of actual existence, is felt as a bereavement and a pain. The importance which eminent thinkers have attached to this argument has not been wholly void of foundation.1 The idea of a being infinite and perfect i See McCosh, The Intuitions of the Mind, p. 191, n. THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 41 attaches itself, by a spontaneous movement of the mind, to that image of God which the other arguments call forth. Of more cogency is what has been called the logical form of the a priori proof. It is found in Anselm and Aquinas. It is impossible to deny that there is Truth : the denial would be self-contradictory. But those ideas and truths which are the ground-work of all our know ing — the laws of our intellectual and moral constitu tion — have their source without us and beyond us. They inhere in God. A like indirect proof has been thus presented by Trendelenburg. The human mind goes out of itself to know the world, and also, by exer tions of the will, to mould and subdue it. Yet the world is independent of the mind that seeks thus to compre hend it, and shape it to its purposes. This freedom of the mind implies that the world is intelligible, that there is thought in things. It implies that there is a common bond — namely, God, the Truth — between thoughts and things, mind and the world. Thought and thing, subject and object, each matched to the other, presup pose an intelligible ground of both. This presupposi tion is latent in all attempts to explore and comprehend, to bring within the domain of knowledge, and to shape to rational ends, the world without.1 II. The cosmological proof is more clear. It stands on a solid foundation. Finite things have not their origin in themselves. We trace effects back to their causes ; but these causes are found to be, also, effects. The path is endless. There is no goal. There is no rest or satisfaction, save in the assumption A being 1 Trendelenburg, ibid., p. 430. For an interesting review ot the a priori proofs, see Flint, Theism, Lect. ix. Dr. Flint attaches more ralidity to the Anselmic argument than I am able to discern in it. 42 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. that is causative without being caused, or being which has the ground of existence in itself. If there is not self-existent being, or being which is causa sui, then cause is a phantom, forever chased, but never caught. It has no reality. A phenomenon — call it a — calls for explanation : it demands a cause. If we are told that its cause is b, but told at the same time that in b there is no fount of causal energy, so that we have precisely the same demand to satisfy respecting b as a, then no answer has been given to our first question : we are put off with an evasion. That question takes for granted the reality of aboriginal causal energy. It proceeds from a demand of intelligence which is illegitimate and irrational, unless there be a cause in the absolute sense, — a cause uncaused. Yet, in postulating a causa sui, we surpass the limits }f experience ; for all our experience is of causes dis tinct from their effects. The cosmological proof is nega tive or indirect. The supposition of a First Cause is impressed on us by the absurdity of an endless regress, — an infinite series in the succession of whose limits no causal energy, or cause answering to the demand of reason, is contained. The intuition of cause determines the relation of the Absolute to the world. Are we not led farther by the idea of causa sui, naturally and logically to the ascrip tion of personality to the First Cause? Does not this idea require that will, the fountain-head of aboriginal activity, should be considered the prius of all exist ence ? This has been the conclusion of the most pro found thinkers.1 III. The personality of God is proved by the argu- 1 That causa sui also implies personality is shown by Julius Muller, Lehre von der Siinde, b. iii. p. 1, chap. iv. THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 43 ment of design, — the physico-theological argument '¦ The First Cause is known to be intelligent and free by the manifest traces of intelligent purpose in the consti tution of the world. When we attend to the various objects of which the knowing faculty takes cognizance, including the human mind, we discover something more than the properties which distinguish them one from another and the causes which bring them into being. In this very process of investigation we are struck with the fact that there is a coincidence and co-operation of physical or efficient causes for the production of definite effects. These causes are perceived to be so constituted and disposed as to concur in the production of the effect, and to concur in such a way that the particular result follows of necessity. This conjunction of disparate agencies, of which a definite product is the necessary outcome, is the finality which is observed in Nature. But our observation extends farther: we involuntarily assume i that this coincidence of causes is in order that the pecul-' iar and specific result may follow. This assumption of design is the result of no effort — it is not an arbitrary act — on our part. It is spontaneous. The conviction of design is brought home to us by the objects them selves. We see a thought realized, and thus recognize in it a forethought. It admits of no question that the observation of order and adaptation in Nature, inspiring the conviction of a designing mind concerned in its origination, is natural to mankind. It has impressed the philosopher and the peasant alike. Socrates enforced the argument by the illustration of a statue, as Paley, two thousand years later, by the illustration of a watch. The distinction between order and design, in the pop 44 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. ular sense ofthe term, — meaning special adaptations, — is a valid and important one. Especially is this dis crimination important since the advent of the modern theories of evolution. By order we mean the reign of law and the harmony of the world resulting from it. Both order and the relation of means to special intel ligible ends imply design. They both imply intelligent purpose. Both order and special adaptation may and do co-exist, but they are distinguishable from one another. For example, the typical unity of animals of the vertebrate class, or their conformity in structure to a typical idea, is an example of order. The fitness of the foot for walking, the wing for flying, the fin for swimming, is an instance of special adaptation. What are the laws of Nature ? They are the rules conformably to which the forces of Nature act. We cannot think of them otherwise than as prescribed, as ordained to the end that these forces may work out their effects. In other words, the order of Nature is an arrangement of intelligence. This accounts for the joy that springs up in the mind on the discovery of some great law which gives simplicity to the seemingly com plex operations of Nature. The mind recognizes some thing akin to itself. It recognizes a thought of God. The norms according to which the knowing faculty dis criminates, connects, and classifies the objects in Nature, imply that Nature herself has been pre-arranged accord ing to the same norms, or is the product of mind. Iu conformity to the categories — time, space, quantity, quality, etc. -— according to which the mind distin guishes natural objects, and thus comprehends Nature, Nature is already framed. That is to say, there is mind expressed in Nature. It is from consciousness in our selves that we derive the ideas which we find embodied THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 45 in the framework of Nature, and by which it is under stood and described. Unity is known from the unity of consciousness in the variety of its modifications; substance, from the intuition of self; order, from the harmony in the inner world of thought; cause, from the exertion of the will. Science is the discernment of the expressions of mind which are incorporated in Nature. A dog sees on a printed page only meaningless marks on a white ground. To us they contain and convey thoughts, and bring us into communion with the mind of the author. So it is with Nature. Take a book of astronomy. If the stellar world were not an intellectual system, such a work would be impossible. The sky itself is the book which the astronomer reads, and the written treatise is merely the transcript of the thoughts which he finds there. " How powerful and wise must He be," says Fenelon, " who makes worlds as innumerable as the grains of sand that cover the seashore, and who leads all these wandering worlds without difficulty during so many ages, as a shepherd leads his flock ! " Science is the reflex of mind in Nature.1 Nature is a complex whole, made up of interacting powers and activities which constitute together one complete system. Order reigns in Nature, and universal harmony. Hence 1 This truth is presented with much force and eloquence by one of the most eminent mathematicians of the age, — the late Professor B. Peirce, in his Ideality in the Physical Sciences (1883). He speaks of Nature as " imbued with intelligible thought " (p. 19), of "the amaz ing intellectuality inwrought into the unconscious material world" (p. 20), in which there is " no dark corner of hopeless obscurity " (p. 21), of the " dominion of intellectual order everywhere found " (p. 25), " of the vast intellectual conceptions in Nature " (p. 26). To ignore God as tho author of Nature as well as of mind is as absurd as to make " the anthem tho offspring of unconscious sound " (p. 32). " If the common origin of mfncl and matter is conceded to reside in the decree of a Creator, the identity ceases to be a mystery " (p. 31). 46 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. all these separate powers must be so fashioned and guided that they shall conspire to sustain and promote, and not to convulse and subvert, the complex whole. It follows that the existence and preservation of the sys tem are an end for the realizing of which the particular forces and their special activities are the means. More over, if all the forces of Nature are so interlinked in a system, that any single occurrence involves the more immediate or the more remote participation of all, we must infer that' all are made and controlled with refer ence to it ; that is, the forces of Nature exhibit design'. There is no province of Nature where order, and thus design, are not discoverable. But the most strik ing evidences of controlling intelligence are found in tlie organic kingdom. Here order and special adapta tion meet together. Naturalists, whatever may be their theory as to final causes, cannot describe plants and animals without constantly using language which implies an intention as revealed in their structure. The "provisions" of Nature, the "purpose of an organ," the possession of a part " in order that " some thing may be done or averted, — such phraseology is not only common, it is almost unavoidable. No writer uses it more abundantly than Mr. Darwin. It corresponds to the impression which is naturally and irresistibly made upon the mind. It is when we consider the human body in its rela tion to the mind, that the most vivid perception of design is experienced. To one who does not hold that the mind is itself the product of organization, and every purpose which the mind forms a phenomenon of matter, — a phenomenon as necessary in its origin as the motion of the lungs, — that is, to every one who is conscious of being able to begin action, the adaptation THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 47 of his bodily organs to the service of his intelligence is obvious and striking. The hand bears marks of being designed, more clearly than the tools which the hand makes. The eye displays contrivance, more impres sively than all the optical instruments which man can contrive. I distinguish myself from the eye, and from my body of which the eye is a part ; and I know that the eye was made for me to see with. When we con sider the adaptation of the sexes to one anofher, the physical and moral arrangements of Nature which result in the family, in the production and rearing of offspring; and when we contemplate the relation of the family to the state, and the relation of the family and the state to the kingdom of God, where the ideas and affections developed in the family and in the state find a broader scope and higher objects to rest upon, — the evidences of a preconceived plan are overwhelming. It is objected that in Nature design is immanent, the efficient cause reaches its ends without going out of itself; whereas in all the works of man the efficient cause is distinct and separate from the object in which the end is realized. In Nature the efficient cause operates from within, and appears to work out the end without conscious purpose. The forces of Nature appear to achieve the order and variety and beauty which we behold, of themselves, through no external compulsion, and at the same time without conscious ness. In an organism every part is both means and end: the structure grows up, repairs itself, and per petuates itself by reproduction ; but the active force by which these ends are fulfilled is not in the least aware of what it is doing. Thus, it is contended, the analogy fails between the artificial products of human ingenuity and the works of Nature. These works) 48 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. arise, we are told, through forces which operate in the manner of instinct. It is a blind intelligence, it is said, performing works resembling those which man does, often less perfectly, with conscious design. But for the very reason that instinct is blind, incapable of fore seeing the end which it is to attain, and of choosing the appropriate means, we are obliged to connect it with a conscious wisdom of which it is the instrument. A "blind intelligence " is a contradiction in terms. Wlien we see a purpose carried out, we are impelled to trace the operation to an intelligent Author, whether the end is attained by an agency acting from within or from without. The accurate mathematics of the planetary bodies, marking out for themselves their orbits, the unerring path of the birds, the geometry of the bee, the seed-corn sending upward the blossoming and fruit- bearing stalk, excite a wonder the secret of which is the insufficiency of the operative cause to effect these marvels of intelligence and foresight. The popular objection to the argument of design imputes to it the fallacy of confounding use with fore thought or intention. Is not the eye for seeing ? Yes, it is answered, that is its use or function ; but this is not to say that it was planned for this use or function, for, when you affirm design, you go back to a mental act. The rejoinder is, that we are driven back to such a mental act, and thus to a designing intelligence. The relation of the constitution of the organ to the use irresistibly suggests the inference. The inference is no arbitrary fancy. Design is brought home to us, just as the relation of the structure of a telescope to its use would compel us of itself to attribute it to a con triving intelligence. Kant has two criticisms on the argument of design THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 49 The first is, that it can go no farther than to prove an architect or framer of the world, not a creator of mat ter. But the special function of the argument is to prove that the First Cause is intelligent. The conclu sion that the author of the wonderful order which is wrought in and through matter is also the author of matter itself, appears, however, probable. For how can the properties of matter through which it is adapted to the use of being moulded by intelligence, be separat ed from matter itself? What is matter divorced from its properties ? We cannot understand creation, because we cannot create. The nearest approach to creative activity is in the production of good and evil by our own voluntary action. How God creates is a mystery which cannot be fathomed, at least until we know better what matter is. There are philosophers of high repute who favor the Berkeleian hypothesis, which dis penses with a substratum of matter, and ascribes the percepts of sense to the will of the Almighty, exerted according to a uniform rule. Whatever matter may be in its essence, we know that there is an ultimate, unconditioned Cause. We know that this Cause is intelligent and free. To suppose that by the side of the eternal Spirit there is another eternal and self- existent being, the raw matter of the world, " without form, and void," involves the absurdity of two Abso lutes limiting one another. Moreover, scientific study favors the view that matter itself is an effect. If we accept the hypothesis of molecules as the ultimate forms of matter, Sir John Herschel finds in each of these, as related to the others "the essential quality of a manufactured article." Our intuition of the Infi nite and Absolute is not contradicted, but rather cor roborated, by the evidence which science affords of a supramundane though immanent Deity. 50 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. The second difficulty raised by Kant is, that a strictly infinite being cannot be inferred from a finite creation, however extensive or wondrous. All that can be in ferred with certainty is an inconceivably vast power and wisdom. The validity of this objection may bo conceded. The infinitude of the attributes of God ia involved in the intuition of an unconditioned being, — the being glimpses of whose attributes are disclosed to us in the order of the finite world. These objections of Kant are in the . Critique of Pure Reason. Elsewhere he brings forward an additional j consideration. Admitting that the idea of design is essential to our comprehension of the world, he raises the point that it may be subjective only, regulative of our perceptions, but not objective or "constitutive." Not regarding the idea of design as a priori, like the idea of causation, he inquires whether it may not be a mere supposition, a working hypothesis, which a deeper penetration of Nature might dispense with. The an swer to this doubt is, that the thought of design is not artificially originated by ourselves: it is a conviction which the objects of Nature themselves " imperiously " suggest and bring home to us. As Janet has pointed out, there are two classes of hypotheses. Of one class it is true that they are regarded as corresponding with the true nature of things ; of the other, that they are only a convenient means for the mind to conceive them. The question is, whether the hypothesis is warranted by the facts, and is perceived veritably to represent Nature. In the proportion in which it does this, its probability grows until it becomes a truth of science. Of this character is the hypothesis of design. We infer the existence of an intelligent Deity, as we infer the existence of intelligence in our fellow-men, THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 51 and on. grounds equally cogent. My senses take no cognizance of the minds of other men. I perceive certain motions of their bodies. I hear certain sounds emanating from their lips. What right have I, from these purely physical phenomena, to infer the presence of an intelligence behind them ? What proof is there of the consciousness in the friend at my side ? How can I be assured that he is not a mere automaton, totally unconscious of its own movements? The war rant for the contrary inference lies in the fact, that being possessed of consciousness, and acquainted with its effects in myself, I regard like effects as evidence of a like principle in others. But in this inference I transcend the limits of sense and physical experiment. In truth, in admitting the reality of consciousness in myself, I take a step which no physical observation can justify. Were the brain opened to view, no microscope, were its power infinitely augmented, could discover the least trace of it. The alternative of design is chance. The Epicurean- ^ theory, as expounded by Lucretius, made the world the result of the fortuitous concourse of atoms, which. in their motions and concussions, at length fell into the orderly forms in which they abide. The postulate of this theory is the infinite duration of the world. But " no time can really exhaust chance : chance is as infi nite as time." And the postulate of infinite time is excluded if the nebular hypothesis is well founded. The time in which the primitive material has consumed in arriving at the present system is finite. It is some times said that the order of the universe is possible, because it actually is. The question, however, is not whether it is possible, but whether it is possible with out an intelligent Cause. The Strasbourg Minster is 52 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. possible, but not possible without an architect and builder. ^ If we admit the Lucretian hypothesis of the origin of the material universe, as we behold it, from the combi nation of atoms without special acts of creation, we do not get rid of the proof of design. Why did the multi tudinous atoms fail to combine in an orderly and stable way up to the moment when the existing cosmos was reached? Manifestly they must have been, in their constitution and mutual relations, adapted to the pres ent structure of things, and to no other. The present system was anticipated in the very make of the atoms, the constituent elements of the universe. The atoms, then, present the same evidences of design which the outcome of their revolutions presents. We might be at a loss to explain why the Author of Nature chose this circuitous way, through abortive experiments, to the goal ; but that the goal was in view from the begin ning is evident. The doctrine of evolution (unless materialism is con nected with it) is not inconsistent with the argument from design. Evolution is antithetical to special acts of creation, and professes to explain the origin of the different species of animals and plants by the agency of second causes. It is held that they are descendants of a few progenitors with which they stand in a genetic con nection. Some would extend the theory, and make life itself the natural product of inorganic forms, — a propo sition for which, however, there is no scientific proof. But the evolution theory, even in its broadest form, — in which the network of genetic causation is stretched over all forms, whether living or lifeless, as far back as a nebulous vapor, — gives, and pretends to give, no expla nation, either of the origin of the world as a whole, THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 53 or of the order aud adaptations that characterize it. The different theories of evolution should not be con founded. There is the generic doctrine of a common descent of animal organisms, the earliest of which may or may not have been created outright. This doctrine is held by many who do not subscribe to the theory of gradual or imperceptible variations as an explanation. at least as a complete explanation, of the origin of spe cies. These prefer the hypothesis of "heterogenetic generation," — origin by leaps, or the metamorphosis of germs. Some would not exclude from continued activ ity, especially in producing the lowest species, the primi tive power of organization, whatever it was, through which the lowest species first sprung.1 Darwin's theory is that of natural selection. This hypothesis refers the animal kingdom to the operation of a few agencies acting upon one or more primitive living forms, and producing from them the numerous species, as well as varieties of species, which have existed in the past, and now exist, on the earth. It is obvious that these agen cies are blind instrumentalities, of which it is true, in the first place, that the origin of each requires to be explained ; in the second place, that their concurrence requires to be accounted for ; and, in the third place, that neither separately considered nor taken in combi nation — since they are blind, unintelligent forces — do they avail in the least to explain the order and adapta tion of Nature which result from them. Why do living beings engender offspring like themselves? Why do the offspring slightly vary from the parents and from one another? How account for the desire of food? 1 The different forms of the evolution theory are lucidly and instruc tively considered in the excellent work of Rudolf Schmid, The Theories of Darwin, etc. (Chicago, 1883). 54 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. How explain the disposition to struggle to obtain it ? Why is beauty preferred, leading to " sexual selection " ? How is it that these laws co-exist and co-operate ? We see that they lead, according to the Darwinian view, necessarily to a grand result, a system of living beings. Tliey are actually means to an intelligible end. They appear to exist, to be ordained and established, with reference to it. There is a " survival of the fittest ; " but h®w were " the fittest " produced ? Natural selec tion merely weeds out and destroys the products which are not the fittest. It produces nothing. But it works, in conjunction with the force described as " heredity " and the force described as " variability," to work out an order of things which plainly shows itself to have been preconceived. The fallacy of excluding design or final causes where it is possible to trace out efficient or instrumental causes would be astonishing if it were not so frequently met with. It were to be wished that all naturalists were as discriminating as Professor Owen, who says, — " Natural evolution by means of slow physical and organic oper ations through long ages is not the less clearly recognizable as the act of all-adaptive mind, because we have abandoned the old error of supposing it to be the result of a primary, direct, and sudden act of creational construction. . . . The succession of species by continuously operating law is not necessarily a 'blind operation.' Such law, however discerned in the properties of natural objects, intimates, nevertheless, a preconceived progress. Organisms may be evolved in orderly manner, stage after stage, towards a foreseen goal, and the broad features of the course may still show the unmis takable impress of divine volition." 1 Evolution has to do with the how, and not the why, of phenomena : hence the evolutionist is powerless against 1 Transactions of the Geological Society, v. 90, quoted by Mivait, The Genesis of Species, p. 274. THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 56 the teleological argument. This is true of the theory of evolution in the widest stretch that has been given it. This consistency of evolution with design is affirmed by Professor Huxley : — " The teleological and the mechanical views of nature are not necessarily mutually exclusive. On the contrary, the more purely a mechanist the speculator is, the more firmly does he affirm primor dial nebular arrangement, of which all the phenomena of the uni verse are consequences, the more completely is he thereby at the mercy of the teleologist, who can always defy him to disprove that this primordial nebular arrangement was not intended to evolve the phenomena of the universe." * This intention is recognized in the outcome as related to the unconscious agencies leading to it, as well as in the constitution of these primordial agencies, — recog nized by the same faculty of reason through which we are made capable of tracing phenomena to their appro priate causes. In another place, writing in a less philosophical spirit, Professor Huxley, by way of comment on Paley's illus tration from the watch, says : — " Suppose only that one had been able to show that the watch had not been made directly by any person, but that it was the result of the modification of another watch, which kept time but poorly ; and that this, again, had proceeded from a structure which could hardly be called a watch at all, seeing that it had no figures on the dial and the hands were rudimentary ; and that, going back and back, in time we came at last to a revolving barrel as the earliest traceable rudiment of the whole fabric. And imagine that all these changes had resulted, first, from a tendency of the struct™ e to vary indefinitely, and, secondly, from something in the surround ing world which helped all variations in the direction of an accu rate time-keeper, and checked all these in other directions, and then it is obvious that the force of Paley's argument would be 1 Critiques, p. 307. 56 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. gone ; for it would be demonstrated that an apparatus thoroughly well adapted to a particular purpose might be the result of a method of trial and error worked by unintelligent agents, as well as of the direct application of the means appropriate to that end." ' Here we have " a revolving barrel " at one end of the line, and a watch with its complex apparatus, by which it is fitted to record time, at the other. At the outset, the barrel, with its inherent capacities, requires to be accounted for, then the tendency to vary indefinitely, then that something which limits the course of variation to one path. This combination of means implies the presence and action of intelligence. The actual end evinces that " the means appropriate to that end " were applied to the production of it. Whether natural selection really plays so important a part in the origin of species as Mr. Darwin thinks, is, to say the least, doubtful. The acknowledged mystery that hangs about the facts of correlation, to say noth ing of the difficulties connected with the infertility of hybrids, may warrant the surmise that the laws of growth have not been fathomed, and that the theory of natural selection may have to be qualified, even more than its author, with all his liberality of concession in his later editions, allowed. Be this as it may, the analogy between the operation of natural selection and the action of intelligence Mr. Darwin's language abun dantly implies. If there is any place where, on the Darwinian philoso phy, chance is to be met with, it is in the sphere of variability. It is a topic, therefore, which requiresi attentive consideration. On this subject Mr. Darwin Lay Sermons, pp. 330, 331. THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 57 " I have hitherto sometimes spoken as if the variations — so common and multiform with organic beings under domestication, and, in a lesser degree, with those in a state of nature — had been due to chance. This, of course, is a wholly incorrect expression ; but it serves to acknowledge plainly our ignorance of the cause cf each particular variation."1 Nothing occurs without a cause. But it is another question whether, in this department of the action of natural forces, design is discoverable. Mr. Darwin appears to hold that variability furnishes the materials for natural selection to act upon, but without reference to such prospective action. In regard to the observa- ion of Dr. Asa Gray,2 that "variation has been led along certain beneficial lines," he says : — " The shape of the fragments of stone at the base of our preci pice may be called accidental ; but this is not strictly correct, for the shape of each depends on a long sequence of events, all obey ing natural laws, — on the nature of the rock, on the lines of strati fication or cleavage, on the form of the mountain which depends on its upheaval and subsequent denudation, and, lastly, on the storm and earthquake which threw down the fragments. But, in regard to the use to which the fragments may be put, their shape may strictly be said to be accidental. And here we are led to face a great difficulty, in alluding to which I am aware that I am travel ling beyond my proper province. " An omniscient Creator must have foreseen every consequence which Jesuits from the laws imposed by him ; but can it be rea sonably maintained that the Creator intentionally ordered, if we use the words in any ordinary sense, that certain fragments of rock should assume certain shapes, so that the builder might erect Lis edifice? If the various laws which have determined the shape of each fragment were not predetermined for the builder's sake, can it with any greater probability be maintained that he specially ordained, for the sake of the breeder, each of the innumerable variations in our domestic animals and plants; many of these variations being of no service to man, and not beneficial, far more 1 Origin of Species, p. 137. 2 Darwiniana, p. 148 58 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. often injurious, to the creatures themselves ? Did he ordain thai the crop and tail-feathers of the pigeon should vary, in order that the fancier might make his grotesque powter and f antail breeds ? Did he cause the frame and mental qualities of the dog to vary, in order that a breed might be formed of indomitable ferocity, with jaws fitted to pin down the bull for man's brutal sport? Hut if we g ve up the principle in one case ; if we do not admit that the variations of the primeval dog were intentionally guided, in order that the greyhound, for instance, that perfect image of symmetry and vigor, might be formed, — no shadow of reason can be assigned for the belief that the variations, alike in nature, and the result of the same general laws .which have been the ground work through natural selection of the formation of the most perfectly adapted animals in the world, man included, were inten tionally and specially guided. However much we may w:sh it, we can hardly follow Professor Asa Gray in his belief that ' variation has been led along certain beneficial lines,' like a stream 'along definite and useful lines of irrigation.' " If we assume that each particular variation was from the beginning of all time pre-ordained, the plasticity of the organiza tion, which leads to many injurious deviations of structure, as well as that redundant power of reproduction which inevitably leads to a struggle for existence, and, as a consequence, to the natural selection, and survival of the fittest, must appear to us superfluous laws of nature. On the other hand, an omnipotent and omniscient Creator ordains every thing, and foresees every thing. Thus we are brought face to face with a difficulty as insoluble as is that of free-will and predestination." 1 Here Mr. Darwin appears to find, evidences of de sign in the agencies which are concerned in natural selection ; but with reference to variability, which fur nishes the materials on which natural selection oper ates, he can see no proof of design as regards the use to be made of its results in building up animal structures. Yet foresight and plan must be assumed everywhere : hence he is brought to an antinomy, an irreconcilable contradiction. 1 Animals and Plants under Domestication, ii. 431. THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 59 This is a strange conclusion. Indefinite variability is the assumed fact on which this reasoning proceeds. Granting, for the moment, that there is ground for this assumption, let us look closely at the inferences con nected with it. In the first place, what if the same Agent which broke in pieces the rock, and cast its frag ments down at the base of the precipice, were the architect and builder of the edifice ? Should we ques tion that this providing of the materials had referenc< to the purpose in view? Even if the method chosen by the Agent for creating the materials struck us as wasteful, or otherwise wanting in skill, should we doubt that it was part of a plan ? It is the same Agent, the same Universal Power, which is manifest in natural selection, that is exerted in producing the phenomena of variability on which natural selection acts. In the second place, Mr. Darwin mixes up a moral question, a question pertaining to the theodicy, with the distinct problem whether design is, or is not, manifest in the origination of animal structures. Why God should plan to give existence to this or that animal, or frame nature so that man may direct and combine laws in such a way as to modify animal structures in this or that direction, is a question apart. It is one question whether there is arrangement: it is anothei question whether that arrangement is merciful or not. Here general laws — the consideration of order — comes in, and evolution may help natural theology. In the third place, Mr. Darwin's remarks seem to imply that only a single pur pose can be aimed at in the creative activity. The rocks which are heaped up at the foot of the precipice, if they were intended for the benefit of the builder who uses them, may also serve other uses, — uses possibly inscrutable to us. The laws, to say the least, under 60 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. which they come to be what they are, were the whole sweep of their operation and results understood, might be seen to be for the best. Teleology is not disproved by gradualness of devel opment. The evolution theory is not laid under the necessity of so far contradicting the natural convictions of the race as to make the human eye an undesigned result of unthinking forces. Design is recognized by able naturalists who give large room for the poten tiality of protoplasm ; and its plasticity under the influ ence of environment is one of the phases of evolution doctrine which is not without eminent advocates among the students of nature. Function or future use be comes, under this view, the formative idea which spe cializes organs, and determines structure. An acute naturalist who favors this hypothesis thus writes upon sexual differences, one of the most impressive illustra tions of design : — " Instead of thus eliminating by degrees every trace of finality in sexuality, till we merge into merely mechanical results, is it not just as logical to say that the sexuality of mammalia and flower ing plants was potentially visible in the conjugation of monera and plasmodia ? and that the ' sexual idea ' has reigned throughout, function ever dominating structure, till the latter had conformed to the more complete function by becoming specialized more and more ? Or, in the words of Janet, ' The agreement of several phe nomena, bound together with a future determinate phenomenon, supposes a cause in which that future phenomenon is ideally repre sented ; and the probability of the presumption increases with the complexity of the concordant phenomena and the numbei of relations which unite them to the final phenomena.'"1 The writer last named also observes: — " Finality is certainly not destroyed, whether we believe organs to have been developed by evolution, or to have been created in i Janet, Final Causes, p. 55 : Final Causes, by Mr. George Hens- low, in Modern Review, January, 1881. THE ARGUMENTS FOR IHE BEING OF GOD. 61 some analogous manner to the fabrication of a steam-engine bj man. For my own part, I still hold to the theory that uses cause adaptations, on the principle that function precedes structure. Thus as a graminivorous animal has its food already (so to say) cut up into slices in grass-blades, it does not require scissors to reduce it to small pieces in order to make a convenient mouthful. But a carnivorous animal has a large lump of flesh in the shape of a carcass. It requires to cut it up. The action of biting, in order to do this previous to masticating, has converted its teeth into scissor-like carnassials ; and, as it can no longer masticate, it bolts the pieces whole. So, too, man would never have thought of making scissors, unless he had had something that he wanted to cut up. The parallel is complete : only in the one case it is spontane ously effected by the plasticity and adaptability of living matter, and in the other case it is artificially produced by the conscious ness and skill of man." x It is plain that the extreme form of Darwinian theory, which holds to a boundless variability in proto plasm, and puts the whole differentiating power in the environment, does not get rid of design. The outer conditions are made to determine every thing. But since there is an upward progress from the simplest organisms to the most complicated and perfect; since, moreover, this process of building up an orderly sys tem, as regards the proximate causes, is necessary, — chance is excluded. The alternative of chance is design. But the assumption of limitless variability is untena- ole. Out of variations numberless there must appear individual peculiarities adapted to give success in the struggle for existence. Then, in " this ocean of fluc tuation and metamorphosis," variations coinciding with these must appear, from generation to generation, to join on to them and to build up a highly organized species. The series of chances required to be overcome 1 Modern Review, ut sup., p. 56. 62 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. is infinite.3 Such a miracle of luck is incredible. More over, mere selection on the basis of lawless variability will not account for organs and members, which, how ever useful when fully grown, in their beginnings do not help, aud may hinder, the animal in its struggli for existence. Variation is under restraint. It is the result of an internal as well as external factor. Professor Huxley himself suggests that "further inquiries may prove that variability is definite, and is determined in certain directions rather than others. It is quite con ceivable that every species tends to produce varieties of a limited number and kind," etc.2 The response of the organism to exterior influences is determined by impulses within itself. This is the teaching of eminent naturalists, as Mivart, Owen, and Virchow. Dana, in his lectures to his classes, shows that variation is limited by "fundamental laws." Gray teaches that " variations " — in other words, " the differences be tween plants and animals — are evidently not from with out, but from within ; not physical, but physiological." The occult power " does not act vaguely, producing all sorts of variations from a common centre," etc. He affirms, that " as species do not now vary at all times and places, and in all directions, nor produce crude, vague, imperfect, and useless forms, there is no reason for supposing that they ever did."3 The philosopher. Von Hartmann ingeniously compares natural selection to the bolt and coupling in a machine, but affirms that " the driving principle," which called new species into existence, lay or originated in the organisms.* Darwin himself, in his Descent of Man, frankly allows that he i See Schmid, p. 103; Mozley, Essays, vol. ii. pp. 387 seq. » Encycl. Brit., art. " Evolution," vol. viii. p. 751. » Darwiniana, pp. 386, 387. * See Schmid, p. 107. THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 63 has exaggerated natural selection as a cause, since it fails to account for structures which are neither bene ficial nor injurious.1 Here, as in regard to the correla tion of parts and organs, he falls back on mystery. " The causes and conditions of variation," writes Pro fessor Huxley, " have yet to be thoroughly explored ; and the importance of natural selection will not be impaired, even if further inquiries should prove that variability is definite, and is determined in certain directions rather than others by conditions inherent in that which varies. It is quite conceivable that every species tends to produce varieties of a limited number and kind, and that the effect of natural selection is to favor the development of some of these, while it opposes the development of others along their predetermined lines of modification."2 The upshot of the matter is, that there is no occasion for puzzling over the design of chaotic and purposeless variations, — the stones of all shapes at the base of the precipice, — since they have only an imaginary existence. Variation is accord ing to law : it tends, like the direct agents in natural selection, to the actual issue, — an orderly and beauti ful system of organized beings. The argument of design is generally considered to. be an argument from analogy. Mr. Mill says, — " This argument is not drawn from mere resemblances in nature to the works of human intelligence, but from the special character of these resemblances. The circumstances in which it is alleged that the world resembles the works of man are not circumstances taken at random, but are particular instances of a circumstance which experience shows to have a real connection with an intelligent origin, — the fact of conspiring to an end. The argument is not l Engl, ed., p. 146. See Schmid, p. 106. s Encycl. Brit., vol. viii. p. 751. 64 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. one, therefore, of mere analogy. As mere analogy, it has weight ; but it is more than analogy, it is an inductive argument." l This explanation of the character of the aigument is open to criticism in at least one particular. If the argument is one of analogy, it is not an inference from what we observe in products which we have ascer tained by experience to be of human manufacture. The evidence of design is not less directly manifest in the human eye or ear than it would be in a watch when seen for the first time. The analogy is not be tween things in nature and things made by human art. The proper statement is, that, knowing what design is by the experience of our own voluntary action, we recognize its marks wherever we meet with them, — whether in the products of nature, or in works made by men. But there is much to be said in behalf of the position maintained by Trendelenburg, Dorner, and Porter, that final cause is an a priori principle on a level with the idea of efficient cause. Is not design taken for granted in all our approaches to nature ? Is not the question "What for?" as native to the mind as the questions "What?" or "Whence?" If there are many objects with regard to which we never inquire why they exist, or why they exist where and when they do, the same is true as regards the efficient causes that produce them. With regard to things generally, there are sluggish Eiinds which seldom are stirred with a curiosity to know what causes brought them into being ; yet the a priori character of the principle of efficient cause is manifest. When the question "What for?" is answered, when we discover the use or end of something in nature, we 1 Essays on Theism, etc., p. 170. THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE. BEING OF GOD. 65 are struck with a sensation of pleasure like that expe rienced in a successful search for causal antecedents. Does not this indicate that to the comprehension of nature the perception of design is necessary ? Inquisi tive students of nature, as Harvey, Copernicus, and Newton, have been guided to important discoveries by the expectation that nature would be conformed to a plan. Robert Boyle tells us, — " I remember that when I asked our famous Harvey what were the things that induced him to think of the circulation of the blood, he answered me, that when he took notice of the valves in many parts of the body, so placed that they gave free passage to the blood towards the heart, but opposed to the passage of the venous blood the contrary way, he was invited to think that so prudent a cause as nature had not placed so many valves without a design, and no design seemed more probable than that, since the blood could not well, because of the intervening valves, be sent by the veins to the limits, it should be sent through the arteries, and returned through the veins, whose valves did not oppose its course that way." Kepler was moved to his discoveries by " an exalted faith, anterior and superior to all science, in the exist ence of intimate relations between the constitution of man's mind and that of God's firmament."1 Such a faith is at the root of " the prophetic inspiration of the geometers," which the progress of observation verifies. Does not induction rest on the assumption of design? It is assumed that nature is a system of thought-rela tions : it is an orderly, intelligible system. This implies tLa : things are harmoniously adjusted to one another, and that there is a mutual interdependence between nature and mind. There is an adaptation of the object of investigation to the organ of knowledge, and vice 1 Peirce, Ideality in the Physical Sciences, p. 17. 66 IHE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. versa. At the basis of induction is the postulate of the uniformity of nature. This principle is not the result of induction : it is the silent premise in every induc tive argument. Induction does not give validity to it, but borrows validity from it. But this uniformity of nature, or stated recurrence of phenomena, involves a plan. What is meant by the explanation of auy object of nature? What is to explain any particular organ in a living being ? It is requisite to define its end. There can be no explanation of an organism which does not presuppose adaptation. Says Janet, — " Laplace perceived that the simplest laws are the most Likely to be true. But I do not see why it should be so on the supposi tion of an absolutely blind cause ; for, after all, the inconceivable swiftness which the system of Ptolemy supposed has nothing physi cally impossible in it, and the complication of movements has nothing incompatible with the idea of a mechanical cause. Why, then, do we expect to find simple movements in nature, and speed in proportion, except because we instinctively attribute a sort of intelligence and choice to the First Cause? " Janet does not consider the idea of design to be a priori. But does not this question, and the whole para graph which we are quoting, imply it ? He goes on to say,— " Now, experience justifies this hypothesis : at least it did so with Copernicus and Galileo. It did so, according to Laplace, in the debate between Clairaut and Buffon ; the latter maintaining against the former that the law of attraction remained the same at all distances. 'This time,' says Laplace, 'the metaphysician was right as against the geometrician.' " 1 Ihe intuition of the Unconditioned Being involves the infinitide of his natural attributes. He is inde- pendeit of temporal limitations ; that is, he is eternal. 1 Final Causes, p. 168. THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 67 He is independent of spatial limitations ; that is, he is omnipresent. The categories of space and time cannot be applied to him, — a truth which we can only express by saying that he is above time and space. His power is infinite ; that is, it can do every thing which is an object of power, and admits of no imaginable increase. His knowledge, since final causes reveal his personality, is equally without limit. IV. The moral argument. The righteousness and goodness of God are evident from conscience. Right is the supreme, sole authoritative impulse in the soul. He who planted it there, and gave it this imperative char acter, must himself be righteous. From the testimony of "the vicegerent within the heart" we infer "the righteousness of the Sovereign who placed it there." But what are the contents of the law? What has he bidden man, by "the law written on the heart," to be and to do? He has enjoined goodness. When we discover that the precept of the unwritten law of conscience is love, we have the clearest and most undeniable evidence that love is the preference of the Lawgiver, and that he is love. The argument from conscience is a branch of the argument Trom final causes. In this inward law there is revealed the end of our being, — an end not to be realized, as in physical nature, by a method of neces sity, but freely. We are to make ourselves what our Maker designed us to be. The law is the ideal, the thought of the Creator, and a spur to its realization. It discloses the holiness of God, as design in the ex ternal world reveals his intelligence. This truth is forcibly expressed by Erskine of Linlathen : " When I attentively consider what is going on in my conscience, the chief thing forced on my notice is, that I find 68 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. myself face to face with a purpose — not my own, for I am often conscious of resisting it, but which domi nates me, and makes itself felt as ever present, as the very root and reason of my being." " This conscious ness of a purpose concerning me that I should be a good man -^- right, true, and unselfish — is the first firm footing I have in the region of religious thought ; for I cannot dissociate the idea of a purpose from that of a purposer ; and I cannot but identify this Purposer with the Author of my being and the being of all beings ; and, further, I cannot but regard his purpose towards me as the unmistakable indication of his own character." 1 Is this conviction, which the very constitution of our being compels us to cherish, contradicted by the course of the world ? There is moral evil in the world. But moral evil, though he permits, "he does not cause. Nor can this permission be challenged as unrighteous or unjust, until it is proved that there are not incompati bilities between the most desirable system of created things, including beings endowed with free agency, and the exclusion, by direct power, of the abuse of that divine gift by which man resembles his Creator. If it were made probable that the permission of moral evil is inconsistent with infinite power and infinite goodness, or with both, the result would simply be a contradiction between the revelation of God in our intuition of un conditioned being and in our own moral nature, and the disclosure of him in the course of the world. If we are content to leave the permission of moral evil, the problem of the theodicy, an unfathomable mystery, which only ignorance will bring foward as an 1 The Spiritual Order and other Papers, pp. 47, 48. See Flint, The- Ism, p. 402. THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 69 objection to divine power and goodness, we may discern abundant traces of God's rectitude and benevo .ence in the career of individuals, families, and nations. V. History, as containing at once a providential order and a moral order enclosed with n it, discovers God. Events do not take place in a chaotic series. A progress is discernible, an orderly succession of phenom ena, the accomplishment of ends by the concurrence o' agencies beyond the power of individuals to originate or combine. There is a power that " makes for right eousness." Amid all the disorder of the world, as Bishop Butler has convincingly shown, there is manifested, on the part of the Power which governs, an approbation of right and a condemnation of wrong, analogous to the manifestation of justice and holiness which emanates from righteous rulers among men. If righteousness appears to be but imperfectly carried out, it is an indi cation that in this life the system is incomplete, and that here we see only its beginnings. It is objected to the belief that God is personal, that personality implies limitation, and that, if personal, God could not be infinite and absolute. " Infinite " (and the same is true of " absolute ") is an adjective, not a sub stantive. When used as a noun, preceded by the defi nite article, it signifies, not a being, but an abstraction. When it stands as a predicate, it means that the subject, be it space, time, or some quality of a being, is without limit. Thus, when I affirm that space is infinite, I express a positive perception, or thought. I mean not only that imagination can set no bounds to space, but also that this inability is owing, not to any defect in the imagination or conceptive faculty, but to the nature of the object. When I say that God is infinite in power, 70 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 1 mean that he can do all things which are objects of power, or that his power is incapable of increase. No amount of power can be added to the power of which he is possessed. It is only when " the Infinite " is taken as the synonyme of the sum of all existence, that person ality is made to be incompatible with God's infinitude. No such conception of him is needed for the satisfaction of the reason or the heart of man. Enough that he is the ground of the existence of all beings outside of himself, or the creative and sustaining power. There are no limitations upon his power which he has not voluntarily set. Such limitation — as in giving being to rational agents capable of self-determination, and in allowing them scope for its exercise — is not imposed on him, but depends on his own choice. An absolute being is independent of all other beings for its existence and for the full realization of its nature. It is contended, that inasmuch as self-con sciousness is conditioned on the distinction of the ego from the non-ego, the subject from the object, a personal being cannot have the attribute of self-existence, cannot be absolute. Without some other existence than him self, a being cannot be self-conscious. The answer to this is, that the premise is an unwarranted generalization from what is true in the case of the human, finite per sonality of man, which is developed in connection with a body, and is only one of numerous finite personalities under the same class. To assert that self-consciousness cannot exist independently of such conditions, because it is through them that I come to a knowledge of myself, is a great leap in logic. The proposition that man is in the image of God does not necessarily imply that the divine intelligence is subje.t to the restrictions and infirmities that belong to the human. It is not THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 71 implied that God ascertains truth by a gradual process of investigation or of reasoning, or that he deliberates on a plan of action, and casts about for the appropriate means of executing it. These limitations are charac teristic, not of intelligence in itself, but of finite in telligence. It is meant that he is not an impersonal principal or occult force, but is self-conscious and self- determining. Nor is it asserted that he is perfectly comprehensible by us. It is not pretended that we are able fully to think away the limitations which cleave to us in our character as dependent and finite, and to frame thus an adequate conception of a person infinite and absolute. Nevertheless, the existence of such a person, whom we can apprehend if not comprehend, is verified to our minds by sufficient evidence. Pantheism, with its immanent Absolute, void of personal attributes, and its self-developing universe, postulates a deity lim ited, subject to change, and reaching self-consciousness — if it is ever reached — only in men. And Pantheism, by denying the free and responsible nature of man, maims the creature whom it pretends to deify, and anni hilates not only morality, bat religion also, in any proper sense of the term. The citadel of Theism is in the consciousness of our own personality. Within ourselves God reveals him self more directly than through any other channel. He impinges, so to speak, on the soul which finds in its primitive activity an intimation and implication of an unconditioned Cause on whom it is dependent, — a Cause self-conscious like itself, and speaking with holy authority in conscience, wherein also is presented the end which the soul is to pursue through its own free self-determination, — an end which could only be set by a Being both intelligent and holy. The yearning for 72 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. fellowship with the Being thus revealed — indistinct though it be, well-nigh stifled by absorption in finite objects and in the vain quest for rest and joy in them — is inseparable from human nature. There is an unap- peased thirst in the soul when cut off from God. It seeks for " living water." Atheism is an insult to humanity. A good man is a man with a purpose, a righteous purpose. He aims at well-being, — at the well-being of himself and of the world of which he forms a part. This end he pursues seriously and earnestly, and feels bound to pursue, let the cost to himself be what it may. To tell him that while he is under a sacred obligation to have this pur pose, and pursue this end, there is yet no purpose or end in the universe in which he is acting his part — what is this but to offer a gross affront to his reason and moral sense ? He is to abstain from frivolity ; he is to act from an intelligent purpose, for the accomplish ment of rational ends : but the universe, he is told, is the offspring of gigantic frivolity. The latter is with out purpose or end : there chance or blind fate rules. CHAPTER III. THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES : PANTHM ISM, POSITIVISM, MATERIALISM, AGNOSTICISM. Pantheism identifies God with the world, or the sum total of being. It differs from Atheism in holding to something besides and beneath finite things, — an all- pervading Cause or Essence. It differs from Deism in denying that God is separate from the world, and that the world is sustained and guided by energies imparted from without, though inherent in it. It does not differ from Theism in affirming the immanence of God, for this Theism likewise teaches ; but it differs from Theism in denying to the immanent Power personal conscious ness and will, and an existence independent of the world. Pantheism denies, and Theism asserts, creation. With the denial of will and conscious intelligence, Pan theism excludes design or final causes. Finite things emerge into being, and pass away, and the course of nature proceeds through the perpetual operation of an agency which takes no cognizance of its work except so far as it may arrive at self-consciousness in man. In the system of Spinoza, the most celebrated and influential of modern Pantheists, it is asserted that there is, and can be, but one substance, — una et uniea substan tia. Of the infinite number of infinite attributes which constitute the one substance, two are discerned by us, — extension and thought. These, distinct in our percep- 73 74 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. tion, are not disparate in the substance. Both being manifestations of a simple identical essence, the order of existence is parallel to the order of thought. All individual things are modes of one or other of the attri butes, that is, of the substance as far as it is discerned by us. There is a complete correspondence or harmony, although there is no reciprocal influence, between bodies and minds. But the modes do not make up the sub stance, which is prior to them: they are transient as ripples on the surface of the sea. The imagination re gards them as entities ; but reason looks beneath them, to the eternal essence of which they are but a fleeting manifestation. No philosopher, with the possible exception of Aris totle, has been more lauded for his rigorous logic than Spinoza. In truth, few philosophers have included more fallacies in the exposition of their systems. The pages of the Ethics swarm with paralogisms, all veiled under the forms of rigid mathematical statement. His fun damental definitions, whatever verbal precision may belong to them, are, as regards the realities of being, unproved assumptions. His reasoning, from beginning to end, is vitiated by the realistic presupposition which underlies the a priori arguments of Anselm and Des cartes for the being of God, that the actual existence of a being can be inferred from the definition of a word.1 He falls into this mistake of finding proof of the reality of a thing from the contents of a conception, in his very first definition, where he says, " By that which is the cause of itself, I understand that whose essence involves existence, or that whose nature can only be conceived as existent." His argument is an argument from defi nitions, without having offered proof of the existence of 1 See Ueberweg, History of Philosophy, ii. 69. THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. 75 the thing defined. Spinoza fails to prove that only one substance can exist, and that no other substance can be brought into being which is capable of self-activity, though dependent for the origin and continuance of its existence upon another. Why the one and simple substance should have modes ; why it should have these discoverable modes, and no other; how the modes of thought and extension are made to run parallel with each other ; how the infinite variety of modes, embra cing stars and suns, men and animals, minds and bodies, and all other finite things, are derived in their order and place, — these are problems with regard to which the system of Spinoza, though professing to explain the universe by a method purely deductive, leaves us wholly in the dark.1 The ideal Pantheism of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, pursues a different path. It undertakes still to unveil the Absolute Being, and from the Absolute to trace the evolution of all concrete existences, mental and mate rial. The Absolute in Fichte is the universal ego, of which individual minds, together with external things, the objects of thoughts, are the phenomenal product, — a universal ego which is void of consciousness, and of which it is vain to attempt to form a conception. Schelling, avoiding idealism, made the Absolute the point of indifference, and common basis of subject and object ; and for the perception of this impersonal Deity, which is assumed to be indefinable, and not an object of thought, he postulated an impossible faculty of intel lectual intuition, wherein the individual escapes from 1 One of the hard questions proposed to Spinoza by Tschirnhausern, his correspondent, was, how the existence and variety of external things is to be deduced from the attribute of extension. See Pollock's Spinoza, His Life and Philosophy, p. 173. 76 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. himself, and soars above the conditions or essential limits of conscious thinking. Hegel, starting, like Schelling, with the assumption that subject and object, thought and thing, are identical, ventures on the bold emprise of setting down all the successive stages through which thought in its absolute or most general form, by means of a kind of momentum assumed to inhere in it, develops the entire chain of concepts, or the whole variety and aggregate of particular existences, up to the point where, in the brain of the philosopher, the universe thus constituted attains to complete self-con sciousness. In the logic of Hegel, we are told, the universe reveals itself to the spectator with no aid from experience in the process of its self-unfolding. The complex organism of thought, which is identical with the world of being, evolves itself under his eye. There is a difficulty, to begin with, in this self-evolv ing of " the idea." Motion is presupposed, and motion is a conception derived from experience. Moreover, few critics at present would contend that all the links in this metaphysical chain are forged of solid metal. There are breaks which are filled up with an unsub stantial substitute for it. Transitions are effected — for example, where matter, or life, or mind emerge — rather by sleight of hand than by a legitimate applica tion of the logical method. But if it were granted that the edifice is compact, and coherent in all its parts, it is still only a ghostly castle. It is an ideal skeleton of a universe. Its value is at best hypothetical and negative. If a world were to exist, and to be rationally framed, it might possibly be conformed to this concep tion or outline. Whether the world is a reality, expe rience alone can determine. The highest merit which can be claimed for the ideal scheme of Hegel is such as THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. 77 belongs to the plans of an architect as they are con ceived in his mind, before a beginning has been made of the edifice, or the spade has touched the ground. Independently of other difficulties in the way of the various theories of Pantheism which have been pro pounded in ancient and modern times, it is a sufficient refutation of them that they stand in contradiction to consciousness, and that they are at variance with con science. It is through self-consciousness that our first notion of substance and of unity is derived. The mani fold operations of thought, feeling, imagination, memory, affection, consciously proceed from a single source within. The mind is revealed to itself as a separate, substantial, undivided entity. Pantheism, in resolving personal being into a mere phenomenon, or transient phase of an impersonal essence, and in abolishing tho gulf of separation between the subject and the object, clashes with the first and clearest affirmation of con sciousness. Every system of Pantheism is necessarian. It is vain to say, that, where there is no constraint from without, there is freedom of the will. A plant growing out of a seed would not become free by becoming conscious. The determinism which refers all voluntary action to a force within which is capable of moving only on one line, and is incapable of alternative action, is equiva lent, in its bearing on responsibility, to fatalism. On this theory, moral accountableness is an illusion.1 No distinctioxi is left between natural history and moral history. Pantheism sweeps away the absolute antithe sis between good and evil, the perception of which is the very life of conscience. Under that philosophy, evil, wherever it occurs, is normal. Evil, when viewed in all 1 See Martineau, A Study of Spinoza, p. 233. 78 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. its relations, is good. It appears to be the opposite of good, only when it is contemplated in a more restricted relation, and from a point of view too confined. Such a judgment respecting moral evil undermines morality in theory, and, were it acted on, would corrupt soci ety. It would dissolve the bonds of obligation. In the proportion ii: which the unperverted moral sense cor responds to the reality of things, to that extent is Pantheism in all of its forms disproved. Positivism is the antipode of Pantheistic philosophy. So far from laying claim to omniscience, it goes to the other extreme of disclaiming all knowledge of the origin of things or of their interior nature. A fundamental principle of Positivism, as expounded by Comte, is the ignoring of both efficient and final causes. There is no proof, it is affirmed, that such causes exist. Science takes notice of naught but phenomena presented to the senses. The whole function of science is to classify facts under the rubrics of similarity and sequence. The sum of human knowledge hath this extent, no more. As for any links of connection between phenomena, or any plan under which they occur, science knows noth ing of either. But where do we get the notion of similarity, and of simultaneity and succession in time? The senses do not provide us with these ideas. At the threshold, then, Posith ism violates its own primary maxim. The principle of causation and the perception of design have a genesis which entitle them to not less credit than is given to the recognition of likeness and tem poral sequence. A Positivist, however disposed, with M. Comte, to discard psychology, must admit that there are mental phenomena. He must admit that they form together a group having a distinct character. He THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. 79 must refer them to a distinct entity, or he must refer them to a material origin. In the latter case, he lapses into materialism. The law of three, successive states, — the religious, the metaphysical, and the positive, — which Comte asserted to belong to the history of thought, — this law, in the form in which it was proclaimed by Comto, is withont foundation in historical faot. Belief in a personal Gcti has co-existed, and does now co-exist, in connection with a belief in second causes, and loyalty to the ma xims of inductive investigation. Mr. Mill, while adhering to the proposition that we know only phenomena, attempted to rescue the Posi tivist scheme from scepticism, which is its proper corol lary, by holding to something exterior to us, which is " the permanent possibility of sensations," and by speak ing of " a thread of consciousness." But matter cannot be made a something which produces sensations, with out giving up the Positivist denial both of causation and of our knowledge of any thing save phenomena. Nor is it possible to speak of a " thread of conscious ness," if there be nothing in the mind but successive states of consciousness. Mr. Mill was bound by a logi cal necessity to deny the existence of any thing except mental sensations, — phenomena of his own individual consciousness; or if he overstepped the limit of phe nomena, and believed in "a something," whether ma terial or mental, he did it at the sacrifice of his fundamental doctrine.1 The principal adversaries of Theism at the presei.t day are Materialism and Agnosticism. Materialism is the doctrine that mind has no existence except as a function of the body: it is a product of organization. 1 See, on this topic, Flint, Antitheistic Theories, pp. 185, 186. 80 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. In its crass form, Materialism affirms that the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile. This ex ploded view involves the notion that thought is a material substance somehow contained in the brain. In its more refined statement, Materialism asserts that thought, feeling, volition, are phenomena of the nervous organism, as magnetism is the property of the loadstone. Thought is compared to a flame, which first burns faintly, then more brightly, then flickers, and at length goes out, as the material source of combustion is con sumed or dissipated. Materialism is a theory which was brought forward in very ancient times. It is not open to the reproach, nor can it boast of the attraction, of novelty. And it deserves to be remarked, that the data on which its merit as a theory is to be judged remain substantially unaltered. It is a serious though frequent mistake to think that modern physiology, in its microscopic exam ination of the brain, has discovered any new clew to the solution of the problem of the relation of the brain to the mind. The evidences of the close connection and interaction of mind and body, or of mental and physi cal states, are not more numerous or more plain now than they have always been. That fatigue dulls the attention, that narcotics stimulate or stupefy the powers of thought and emotion, that fever may produce de lirium, and a blow on the head may suspend conscious ness, are facts with which mankind have always been familiar. The influence of the body on the mind is in countless ways manifest. On the contrary, that the physical organism is affected by mental states is an equally common experience. The feeling of guilt sends the blood to the cheek ; fear makes the knees quake ; joy and love brighten the eye ; the will curbs and con- THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. 81 trols the bodily organs, or puts them in motion in obedi ence to its behest. Not only are the facts on either side familiar to every body, but no nearer approach has been made towards bridging the gulf between physical states — in particu^ lar, molecular movements of the brain — and conscious ness. Says Professor Tyndall, " The passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of con sciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought and a definite molecular action in the brain occur simultaneously, we do not possess the intellectual organ, nor apparently any rudiment of the organ, which would enable us to pass by a process of reasoning from the one to the other. They appear together, but we do not know why. Were our minds and senses so expanded, strengthened, and illuminated as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules of the brain ; were we capable of following their motions, all their groupings, all their electric discharges, if such there be ; and were we intimately acquainted with the corresponding states of thought and feeling, — we should be as far as ever from the solution of the problem, How are these physi cal states connected with the facts of. consciousness ? " * There is a class of phenomena which no physical observa tion is capable of revealing. If the brain of Sophocles, when he was composing the Antigone, had been laid bare, and the observer had possessed an organ of vision capable of discerning every movement within it, he would have perceived not the faintest trace of the thoughts which enter into that poem, — or of the senti ments that inspired the author. One might as well cut open a bean-stalk, or search a handful of sand, in the hope of finding thought and emotion. 1 Fragments of Science, p. 121. 82 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. It is easy to prove, and it has been proved, that Materialism regarded as a theory is self-d^estructive. - If opinion is merely a product of the molecular motion of nervous substance, on what ground is one opinion preferred to another ? Is not one shuffle of atoms as " normal as another? if not, by what criterion is one to be approved, and the other rejected? How can either be said to be true or. false, when both are equally neces sary, and there is no norm to serve as a touchstone of their validity ? It is impossible to pronounce one kind of brain normal, and another abnormal ; since the rule on which the distinction is to be made is itself a mere product of molecular action, and therefore possessed of no independent, objective validity. To declare a given doctrine true, and another false, when each has the same justification as the rule on which they are judged, is a suicidal proceeding. Like absurdities fol low the assertion by a materialist that one thing is morally right, and another morally wrong, one thing noble, and another base, one thing wise, and another foolish. There is no objective truth, no criterion hav ing any surer warrant than the objects to which it is applied. There is no judge between the parties : the judge is himself a party on trial. Thus Materialism lapses into scepticism. Physiology is powerless to explain the simple fact of sense-perception, or the rudimental feeling at the basis of it. A wave of tenuous ether strikes on the retina of the eye. The impact of the ether induces a molecular motion in the optic, nerve, which, in turn, produces a corresponding effect in the sensorium lodged in the skull. On this condition there ensues a feeling ; but this feeling, a moment's reflection will show, is something totally dissimilar to the wave-motions which preceded and pro- THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. H'd voked it. But, further, in the act of perception the mind attends to the sensation, and compares one sensa tion with another. This discrimination is a mental act on which Materialism sheds not the faintest ray of light. The facts of 'memory, of conception and reasoning, the phenomena of conscience, the operations ofthe will, — of these the materialistic theory can give no reasonable or intelligible account. The materialist is obliged to deny moral freedom. Voluntary action he holds to be necessitated action. The consciousness of liberty with the corresponding feelings of self-approbation or guilt are stigmatized as delusive. No man could have chosen or acted otherwise than in fact he did choose or act, any more than he could have added a cubit to his stature. Of the origin and persistency of these ideas and convictions of the soul, Materialism hope lessly fails to give any rational account. Materialism, as it is usually held at present, starts with the fact of the simultaneity of thoughts and mo lecular changes. The task which it has to fulfil is that of showing how the former are produced by the latter. How do brain-movements produce thought-movements ? If consciousness enters as an effect into the chain of molecular motion, then, by the accepted law of con servation and correlation, consciousness, in turn, is a cause re-acting upon the brain. But this conclusion is directly contrary to the materialistic theory, and is ac cordingly rejected. It will not do to allow that force is convertible into consciousness. There must be no break in the physical chain. Consciousness is excluded from being a link in this chain. Consciousness can subtract no force from matter. It will not do to answer that consciousness is the attendant of the motions of matter. What causes it to attend ? What is the ground of the 84 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. parallelism which exists between the series of mental and the series of material manifestations ? Is it from the nature of matter that both alike arise ? Then, how can thought be denied to be a link in the physical series ? If it be some form of being neither material nor mental, the same consequence follows, and all the additional difficulties are incurred which belong to the monistic doctrine of Spinoza. Such are the perplexities which ensue upon the attempt to hold that man is a conscious automaton. They are not avoided by imagining matter to be en dowed with mystical and marvellous capacities, which would make it different from itself, and endue it with a heterogeneous nature. Secret potencies, after the manner of the hylozoist Pantheism of the ancients, are attributed to the primeval atoms. " Mind-stuff, " or an occult mentality, is imagined to reside in the clod, or, to make the idea more attractive, in the effulgent sun. The Platonic philosophy is said to lurk potentially in its beams. This is fancy, not science. The reality of a mental subject, in which the modes of consciousness have their unity, is implied in the language of material ists, even when they are advocating their theory. The presence of a personal agent by whom thoughts and things are compared, their order of succession observed, and their origin investigated, is constantly assumed. The proposition that the ideas of cause and effect, substance, self, etc., which are commonly held to be of subjective origin, are the product of sensations, and derived from experience, is disproved by the fact that experience is impossible without them. In establishing the a priori character of the intuitions, Kant accom plished a work which forever excludes materialism from being the creed of any but confused and illogical reasoners. THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. 85 Agnosticism, the system of Herbert Spencer, in cludes disbelief in the personality of God, but also equally in the personality of man. There is, of course, the verbal admission of a subject and object of knowl edge. This distinction, it is even said, is " the con sciousness of a difference transcending all other differ ences." x But subject and object, knower and thing known, are pronounced to be purely phenomenal. The reality behind them is said to be utterly incognizable. Nothing is known of it but its bare existence. So, too, we are utterly in the dark as to the relations subsisting among things as distinguished from their transfigured manifestations in consciousness; for these manifesta tions reveal nothing save the bare existence of objects, together with relations between them which are per fectly inscrutable. The phenomena are symbols, but they are symbols only in the algebraic sense. They are not pictures, they are not representations of the objects that produce them. They are effects, in consciousness, of unknown agencies. The order in which the effects occur suggests, we are told, a corresponding order in these agencies. But what is " order," what is regularity of succession, when predicated of noumena, but words void of meaning ? " What we are conscious of as prop erties of matter, even down to its weight and resistance, are but subjective affections produced by objective agencies which are unknown and unknowable." 2 These effects are generically classified as matter, motion, and force. These terms express certain " likenesses of kind," the most general likenesses, in the subjective affections thus produced. There are certain likenesses of connection in these effects, which we class as laws. Matter and motion, space and time, are reducible to i Principles of Psychology, 2d ed., i. 157. * Ibid., i. 493. 86 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. force ; but " force " only designates the subjective affection in its ultimate or most general expression. Of force as an objective reality we know nothing. It follows that the same is true of cause, -and of every other term descriptive of power. There is power, there is cause, apart from our feeling ; but as to what they are we are entirely in the dark. " The interpretation of all phenomena in terms of matter, motion, and force, is nothing more than the reduction of our complex symbols of thought to the simplest symbols ; and when the equation is brought to its lowest terms, the symbols remain symbols still." x Further : the world of conscious ness, and the world of things as apprehended in con sciousness, are symbols of a Reality to which both in common are to be attributed. " A Power of which the nature remains forever inconceivable, and to which no limits in Time or Space can be imagined, works in us certain effects."2 Thus all our science consists in a classification of states of consciousness which are the product of the inscrutable Cause. It is a " trans figured Realism." Reality, in any other sense, is a terra incognita. With these views is associated Mr. Spencer's doctrine of evolution. Evolution is the method of action of the inscrutable force. Homogeneous matter diversifies or differentiates itself. The development goes on until nervous organism arises, and reaches a certain stage of complexity, when sentience appears, and at length per sonal consciousness, with all its complexity of contents. But consciousness is a growth. All our mental life is woven out of sensations. Intuitions are the product of experience, — not of the individual merely, but of the race, since the law of heredity transmits the acqui- » First Principles, 2d ed., p. 558. 8 Ibid., p. 657. THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. 87 sitions of the ancester to his progeny. So mind is built up from rudimental sensations. The lowest form of life issues at last in the intellect of a Bacon or a New ton. And life, it seems to be held, is evolved from unorganized matter. What, according to Spencer's own principles, are "matter," and "nervous organism," and "life," inde pendently of consciousness, and when there is no con sciousness to apprehend them? How can Nature be used to beget consciousness, and consciousness be used, in turn, to beget Nature ? How are reason, imagination, memory, conscience, and' the entire stock of mental experiences of which a Leibnitz or Dante is capable, evolved from nerve-substance ? These and like ques tions we waive, and direct our attention to the doctrine of " the Unknowable." What is " the Absolute " and " the Infinite " which are declared to be out of the reach of knowledge, and which, the moment the knowing faculty attempts to deal with them, lead to manifold contradictions ? They are mere abstractions. They have no other than a merely verbal existence. They are reached by think ing away all limits, all conditions, all specific qualities : in short, " the Absolute " as thus described, is nothing. If this fictitious absolute be treated as real, absurdities follow. The antinomies which Kant and Hamilton derive from a quantitative conception of the Infinite are the result.1 1 The antinomies of Kant, and of Hamilton and Mansel, are capable of being resolved. They involve fallacies. A quantitative idea of the Infinite is frequently at the basis of the assertion that contradictions belong to the conception of it. The Infinite is treated as if it were a complete whole, i.e., as if it were a finite. Hamilton's doctrine of nescience depends partly on the idea of " the Infinite " and " the Ahso. lute " as mere abstractions, and unrelated, and partly on a restricted defi nition of knowledge. We cannot know space, he tells us, as absolutely 88 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. But this is not the Absolute which Spencer actually places at the foundation of his system. The Absolute which he puts to this use is antithetical to relative being : it is correlated to the relative. Moreover, the Absolute comes within the pale of consciousness, be the cognition of it however vague. Only so far as we are conscious of it, have we any evidence of its reality. Moreover, it is the cause of the relative. It is to the agency of the Absolute that all states of consciousness are referable. " It works in us," says Spencer, " certain effects." Plainly, the Absolute, the real Absolute, is related. Only as related in the ways just stated is its existence known. Mr. Spencer says himself that the mind must in " some dim mode of consciousness posit a non-relative, and, in some similarly dim mode of con sciousness, a relation between it and the relative." 1 Plainly, we know not only that the Absolute is, but also, to the same extent, what it is. But let us look more narrowly at the function assigned to the Abso lute, and the mode in which we ascertain it. Here Mr. Spencer brings in the principle of cause. The Abso lute is the cause of both subject and object. And the idea of cause we derive, according to his own teaching, from the changes of consciousness which imply causa tion. "The force," he says, "by which we ourselves produce changes, and which serves to symbolize the bounded, or as infinitely unbounded. The first, to be sure, is impossi ble, because it is contrary to the known reality. The second is not Impossible. True, we cannot imagine space as complete ; we cannot Imagine all space, space as a whole, because this, too, is contrary to the reality. But we know space as infinite ; that is, we know space, and know not only that we cannot limit it, but positively that there is no limit to it. We know what power is. We do not lose our notion of power when we predicate infinitude of it. It is power still, but power Incapable of limit. i Essays, iii. 293 seq. THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. 89 cause of changes in general, is the final disclosure of analysis." 1 In other words, the experience of conscious causal agency in ourselves gives us the idea of "force." This is "the original datum of consciousness." This is all we know of force. Only as we are ourselves con scious of power, do we know any thing of power in the universe. Now, Mr. Spencer chooses to name the ulti mate reality " Force " — " the Absolute Force." He de clares it to be inscrutable; since the force which we are immediately conscious of is not persistent, is a relative. Yet he says that he means by it "the persistence of some cause which transcends our knowledge and concep tion." Take away cause from the Absolute, and nothing is left ; and the only cause of which we have any idea is our own conscious activity. If Mr. Spencer would make the causal idea, as thus derived, the symbol for the interpretation of "changes in general," he would be a Theist. By deftly resolving cause into the physical idea of "force," he gives to his system a Pantheistic character. It is only by converting the a priori idea of cause, as given in consciousness, into a " force " which we "cannot form any idea of," and which he has no warrant for assuming, that he avoids Theism.2 Let us observe the consequences of holding the Ag nostic rigidly to his own principles. According to Mr. Spencer's numerous and explicit avowals, all of our conceptions and language respecting nature are vitiated by the same anthropomorphism which he finds in the ascribing of personality to God. All science is made out to be a mental picture to which there is no likeness in realities outside of conscious- l First Principles, p. 169. 2 There are clear remarks of Mr. A. M. Fairbairn on this point, Con. temporary Review, vol. xl. p. 214. 90 • THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. ness. To speak of matter as impenetrable, to make statements respecting an imponderable ether, molecular movements, atoms, even respecting space, time, -motion, cause, force, is to talk in figures, without the least knowl edge of the realities denoted by them. Tt is not a case where a symbol is adopted to signify known reality. We ca'tnot compare the reality with the symbol or notion, because of the reality we have not the faintest knowledge. When we speak, for example, of the vibra tions of the air, we have not the least knowledge either of what the air is, or of what vibrations are. We are merely giving name to an unknown cause of mental states; but even of cause itself, predicated of the object in itself, and of what is meant by its agency in giving rise to effects in us, we are as ignorant as a blind man of colors. Mr. Spencer says that matter is probably composed of ultimate, homogeneous units.1 He appears, in various 'places, to think well of the atomic theory of matter. But if he is speaking of matter as it is, independently of our sensations, he forgets, when he talks thus, the fundamental doctrine of his philosophy. He undertakes to tell us about realities, when he can not consistently speak of aught but their algebraic sym bols, or the phenomena of consciousness. The atomic theory of matter carries us as far irfto the unknown realm of ontology as the doctrine of the personality of the Absolute, or any other proposition embraced in Christian Theism. It is impossible for the Agnostic to limit his knowl edge to experience, and to reject as unverified the im- p'ications of experience, without abandoning nearly all that he holds true. If he sticks to his principle, his creed will be a short one. Consciousness is confined to 1 Principles of Psychology, p. 167. THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. 91 the present moment. I am conscious of remembering an experience in the past. This consciousness as a present fact I cannot deny without a contradiction. But how do I know that the object of the recollec tion — be it a thought, or feeling, or experience of any sort — ever had a reality ? How do I know any thing past, or that there is a past ? Now, memory is neces sary to the comparison of sensations, to reasoning, tc our whole mental life. Yet to believe in memory is to transcend experience. I have certain sensations which I attribute collectively to a cause named my "body." Like sensations lead me to recognize the existence of other bodies like my own. But how do I know that there is consciousness within these bodies ? How do I know that my fellow-men whom I see about me have minds like my own ? The senses cannot perceive the intelligence of the friends about me. I infer that they are intelligent, but in this inference I transcend expe rience. Experience reduced to its exact terms, accord ing to the methods of Agnosticism, is confined to the present feeling, — the feeling of the transient moment. When the Agnostic goes beyond this, when he infers that what is remembered was once presented in con sciousness, that his fellow-men are thinking beings, and not mindless puppets, that any intelligent beings exist outside of himself, he transcends experience. If he were to predicate intelligence of God, he would be guilty of no graver assumption than when he ascribes intelligence to the fellow-men whom he sees moving about, and with whom he is conversing. The Spencerian identification of subject and object, mind and matter, is illusive and groundless. They art declared to be "the subjective and objective faces of the same thing." They are said to be "the opposite 92 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. faces " of one reality. Sometimes they are spoken of as its " inner and outei side." On the one side, we are told, there are nerve-waves ; on the other there are feel ings. What is the fact, or the reality, of which these two are "faces "or "sides"? From much of the lan guage which Mr. Spencer uses — it might be said, from the general drift of his remarks — the impression would lip, gained, that the reality is material, and that feeling is the mere concomitant or effect. But this theorem he disavows. He even says, that, as between idealism and materialism, the former is to be preferred.1 More, he tells us, can be alleged for it than for the opposite theory. The nerve-movement is phenomenal not less than the feeling. The two are co-ordinate. The fact or the reality is to be distinguished from both. As phe nomena, there are two. There are two facts, and these two are the only realities accessible to us. The sup posed power, or thing in itself, is behind, and is abso lutely hidden. The difference between the ego and the non-ego " transcends all other differences." A unit of motion and a unit of feeling have nothing in common. " Belief in the reality of self," it is confessed by Mr. Spencer, is " a belief which no hypothesis enables us to escape."2 It is impossible, he proceeds to argue, that the impressions and ideas " which constitute conscious ness " can be thought to be the only existences : this is " really unthinkable." If there is an impression, there is " something impressed." The sceptic must hold that the ideas and impressions into which he has decomposed consciousness are his ideas and impressions. Moreover, if he has an impression of his personal existence, why reject this impression alone as unreal? The belief in one's personal existence, Mr. Spencer assures us, is i Principles of Psychology, i. 159. 2 First Principles, pp. 64, 65. THE PRINCIPAL AN11-THEISTIC THEORIES. 93 " unavoidable ; " it is indorsed by " the assent of man kind at large ; " it is indorsed, too, by the " suicide ot the sceptical -.rgument against it." Yet the surprising declaration is added, that " reason rejects " this belief. Reason rejects a belief which it is impossible to aban don, and against which the adverse reasoning of the doubter shatters itself in pieces. On what ground is this strange conclusion reached? Why, "the cognition of self," it is asserted, is negatived by the laws of thought. The condition of thought is the antithesis of subject and object. Hence the mental act in which self is known implies " a perceiving subject and a per ceived object." If it is the true self that thinks, what other self can it be that is thought of ? If subject and object are one and the same, thought is annihilated. If the two factors of consciousness, the ego and the non-ego, are irreducible, the reality of self is the natural inference. The " unavoidable " belief that self is a reality is still further confirmed by the absolute impos sibility of thinking without attributing the act to self. But let us look at the psychological difficulty which moves Mr. Spencer instantly to lay down his arms, and surrender an " unavoidable " belief. In every mental act there is an implicit consciousness of self, whether the object is a thing external or a mental affection. From 1 his cognition of self there is no escape. Suppose, now, chat self is the direct object. To know is to distin guish an object from other things, and from the know ing subject. When self is the object, this distinguishing activity is exerted by the subject, while the object is self, distinguished alike from other things and from the distinguishing subject. The subject distinguishes, the object differs in being distinguished or discerned. Yet both subject and object notwithstanding this forma] 94 THE GROUNi;S OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. distinction, are known in consciousness as identical. If, again, self as the subject of this activity is made the object, then it is to one form of activity, distinguished in thought from the agent, that attention is directed, while at the same time there is a consciousness that the distinction of the agent from the power or function is in thought merely, not in reality. That self-conscious ness is a fact, every one can convince himself by look ing within. No psychological objection, were it much more solid than the one just noticed, could avail against an experience of the fact. We are fortunately not called upon by logic to part with an " unavoidable " belief.1 To explain the complex operations of the intellect as due to a combination of units of sensation is a task sufficiently arduous. But, when it comes to the will and the moral feelings, the difficulties increase. The illusive idea of freedom, as was explained above, is sup posed by Mr. Spencer to spring from the supposition that " the ego is something more than the aggregate of feelings and ideas, actual and nascent, which then exists," — exists at the moment of action. The mistake is made of thinking that the ego is any thing but " the entire group of psychical states which constituted the action " supposed to be free.2 Yet the same writer elsewhere, and with truth, asserts that this idea of the ego is " verbally intelligible, but really unthinkable." 3 Mr. Spencer's system has been correctly described by Mansel as a union of the Positivist doctrine, that we know only the relations of phenomena, with the Pan theist assumption of the name of God to' denote the i This objection of Spencer is a part of Herbart's system. It is con- futed by Ulrici, Gott '.. der Mensch, pp. 321, 322. 2 Principles of Psychology, i. 500, 501. 8 First Principles, p. 64. THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. 95 substance or power which lies beyond phenomena.1 The doctrine, which is so essential in the system, that mental phenomena emerge from nervous organism when it reaches a certain point of development, is material istic. Motion, heat, light, chemical affinity, Mr. Spen cer holds, are transformable into sensation, emotion, thought. He holds that no idea or feeling arises save as a result of some physical force expended in produ cing it. "How this metamorphosis takes place; how a force existing as motion, heat, or light, can become a mode of consciousness ; how it is possible for the forces liberated by chemical changes in the brain to give rise to emotion, — these are mysteries which it is impossible to fathom." 2 They are mysteries which ought to shake the writer's faith in the assumed fact which creates them. If forces liberated by chemical action produce thought, then thought, by the law of conservation, must exert the force thus absorbed by it. This makes thought a link in the chain of causes, giving to it ar agency which the theory denies it to possess. If chem ical action does not " give -rise to " thought, by produ cing it, then it can only be an occasional cause, and the efficient cause of thought is left untold. This evolu tion of mind from matter as the prius, even though matter be defined as a mode of "the Unknowable," and the subjection of mental phenomena to material laws, stamp the system as essentially materialistic. The argu ments which confute materialism are applicable to it. Underneath modern discussions on the grounds of religious belief is the fundamental question as to the reality of human knowledge. The doctrine of the rela tivity of knowledge has been made one of the chief 1 The Philosophy of the Conditioned, p. 40. * First Principles, 2d ed., p. 217. 96 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF props of scepticism and atheism. If the proposition that knowledge is relative, simply means that we can know only through the organ of knowledge, it is a tru ism. We can know nothing of the universe as a whole, or of any thing in it, beyond what the knowing agent by its constitution is capable of discerning. The im portant question is, whether things are known as they are, or whether they undergo a metamorphosis, jon- verting them into things unlike themselves, by being brought into contact with the perceiving and thinking subject. It is tantamount to the question whether our mental constitution is, or is not, an instrument for perceiving truth. The idealist would explain all the objects of knowledge as modifications of the thinking subject. Knowledge is thus made an inward process, having no real counterpart in a world without. Nothing is known, nothing exists, beyond this internal process. Others, who stop short of idealism, attribute to the mind such a transforming work upon the objects fur nished it, or acting upon it from without, that their nature is veiled from discovery. The mirror of con sciousness is so made that things reflected in it may, for aught we can say, lose all resemblance to things in themselves. That which is true of sense-perception, at least as regards the secondary qualities, color, flavor, etc., — which are proximately affections of man's physi cal organism, — is assumed to be true of all things and of their relations. This is a denial of the reality of knowledge in the sense in which the terms are taken by the common sense of mankind. The doctrine was pro pounded in the maxim of the sophist Protagoras, that " man is the measure of all things." Locke made sensation the ultimate source of knowl edge. Berkeley withstood materialism by making sen THE PRINCIPAL ANT1 THEISTIC THEORIES 97 sations to be affections of the spirit, ideas impressed by the will of God, acting by uniform rule. Hume, from the premises of Locke, resolved our knowledge into sen sations, which combine in certain orders of sequence, through custom, of which no explanation is to be given. Customary association gives rise to the delusive notion of necessary ideas, — such as cause and effect, substance, power, the ego, etc. Reid, through the doctrine of common sense, rescued rational intuitions and human knowledge, which is built on them, from the gulf of scepticism. There is another source of knowledge, a subjective source, possessed of a self-verifying authority. Kant performed a like service by demonstrating that space and time, and the ideas of cause, substance, etc., the concepts or categories of the understanding, are not the product of sense-perception. They are neces sary and universal ; not the product, but the condition, of sense-perception. They are presupposed in our percep tions and judgments. Moreover, Kant showed that there are ideas of reason. The mind is impelled to unify the concepts of the understanding by which it conceives, classifies, and connects the objects of knowledge. These ideas are of the world as a totality, embracing all phe nomena, the ego or personal subject, and God, the un conditioned ground of all possible existences. But Kant founded a scepticism of a peculiar sort. Space, time, and the categories, cause, substance, and the like, he made to be purely subjective, characteris tics of the thinker, and not of the thing. They reveal to us, not things in themselves, but rather the hidden mechanism of thought. Of the thing itself, the object of perception, we only know its existence. Even this we cannot affirm of the ego, which is not presented in sense-perception. The same exclusively subjective 98 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. validity belongs to the other ideas of reason. They signify a tentative effort which is never complete. They designate a nisus which is never realized. Since the concepts of the understanding are rules for forming and ordering the materials furnished in sense-perception, they cannot be applied to any thing super-sensible. The attempt to do so lands us in logical contradictions, of antinomies, which is an additional proof that we are guilty of an illegitimate procedure. From the consequences of this organized scepticism, the natural as well as actual outcome of which was the systems of Pantheistic idealism, Kant delivered himself by his doctrine of the Practical Reason. He called attention to another department of our nature. We are conscious of a moral law, an imperative mandate, dis tinguished from the desires, and elevated above them. This implies, and compels us to acknowledge, the free dom of the will, and our own personality which is in volved in it. Knowing that we are made for morahty, and also for happiness, or that these are the ends towards which the constitution of our nature points, we must assume that there is a God by whose government these ends are made to meet, and are reconciled in a future life. God, free-will, and immortality are thus verified to us on practical grounds. Religion is the recognition of the moral law as a divine command. Religion and ethics are thus identified. Love, the contents of the law, is ignored, or retreats into the background. Rec titude in its abstract quality, or as an imperative man date, is the sum of virtue. The doctrine of the relativity of knowledge is present ed by Sir William Hamilton in a form somewhat dif ferent from the Kantian theory. The Infinite and the Absolute — existence unconditionally unlimited, and THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. 99 sxistence unconditionally limited — are neither of them conceivable. For example, we cannot conceive of infi nite space, or of space so small that it cannot be divid ed: we cannot conceive of infinite increase or infinite division. Positive thought is of things limited or con ditioned. The object is limited by its contrast with other things and by its relation to the subject. Only as thus limited can it be an object of knowledge. The object in sense-perception is a phenomenon of the non- ego : the non-ego is a reality, but is not known as it is in itself. Thought is shut up between two inaccessible extremes. But although each is inconceivable, yet, since they are contradictories, one or the other must be accepted. For example, space must be either infi nite, or bounded by ultimate limits. An essential point in Hamilton's doctrine is the distinction between con ception and belief. The two are not co-extensive. That may be an object of belief which is not a concept. This distinction is elucidated by Mansel, who says, " We may believe that a thing is, without being able to conceive how it is." " I believe in an infinite God; i.e., I believe that God is infinite. I believe that the attributes which I ascribe to God exist in him in an infinite degree. Now, to believe this proposition, I must be conscious of its meaning; but I am not therefore conscious of the infinite God as an object of concep tion ; for this would require, further, an apprehension of the manner in which these infinite attributes co exist so as to form one object." 1 But in this case do I not know the meaning of "infinite"? Does it not signify more than the absence of imaginable limit, a mere negation of power in me? Does it not include the positive idea, that there is no limit? In the case » The Philosophy of the Conditioned, pp. 127, 129, cf. p. 18 seq. 100 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. of opposite ineonceivables, extraneous considerations, according to Hamilton, determine which ought to be believed. Both necessity and freedom are inconceiva ble, since one involves an endless series, the other a new commencement ; but moral feeling — self-approba tion, remorse, the consciousness of obligation — oblige us to believe' in freedom, although we cannot conceive of it as possible. The fact is an object of thought, and so far intelligible, but not the quo modo. This dilemma in which we are placed, where we have to choose between two contradictory inconceivables, does not imply that our reason is false, but that it is weak, or limited in its range. When we attempt to conceive of the Infinite and the Absolute, we wade beyond our depth. They are terms signifying, not thought, but the negation of thought. Our belief in the existence of God and in his perfection rests on the suggestions and demands of our moral nature. In this general view Hamilton was in accord with Kant. Mr. Mansel differed from Sir William Hamilton in holding that we have an intuition of the ego as an entity, and in holding that the idea of cause is a positive notion, and not a mere inability to conceive of a new beginning, or of an addition to the sum of existence. But Mr. Mansel applied the doctrine of relativity to our knowledge of God, which was thus made to be only anthropopathic, approximative, symbolic ; and he founded our belief in God ultimately on conscience and the emotions. Under the auspices of James Mill, and of his son John Stuart Mill, the philosophical speculations of Hume were revived. Intuitions are affirmed to be em pirical in their origin. They are impressions, which through the medium of sense-perception, and under the laws of association, stamp themselves upon us in THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES 101 early childhood, and thus wear the semblance of a priori ideas. But this is only a semblance. There are, possi bly, regions in the universe where two and two make five. Causation is nothing but uniformity of sequence. The Positivist theory of J. S. Mill led him to the con- 3lusion that matter is only " the permanent possibility of sensations ; " but all these groups of possibilities which constitute matter are states of the ego. And Mill was only prevented from concluding that the mind is nothing but a bundle of sensations by the intractable facts of memory. On his view of mind and matter, it is impossible to see how a man can know the existence of anybody but himself. He says that he does "not believe that the real externality to us of any thing except other minds is capable of proof." But as we become acquainted with the existence of other minds, only as we perceive their bodies, and since this percep tion must be held to be, like all our perceptions of matter, only a group of sensations, we have no proof that such bodies exist. The Agnostic scheme of Herbert Spencer accords with the theory of Hume and Mill in tracing intuitions to an empirical source. But the experience which gives them being is not that of the individual, but of the race. Heredity furnishes the clew to the solu tion of the problem of their emergence in the conscious ness of the individual. He inherits the acquisitions of remote ancestors. Then the notion of energy is super added to the Positivist creed. With it comes the pos tulate of a primal Power, of which we are said to have an indefinite consciousness, or " the Unknowable," — the Pantheistic tenet grafted on Positivism. The doctrine of the relativity of knowledge is taken up from Hamilton and Mansel as the ground of nescience 102 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. respecting realities as distinct from phenomena, and respecting God. The facts of conscience which have furnished to Kant and Hamilton, and to deep-thinking philosophers generally who have advocated the rela tivity of knowledge, a foundation for belief in free-will and for faith in God, meet with no adequate recogni tion. Little account is made of moral feeling, and its necessary postulates are discarded as fictions. The rescue of philosophy from its aberrations must begin in a full and consistent recognition of the reality of knowledge. Intuitions are the counterpart of reali ties. The categories are objective : they are modes of existence as well as modes of knowledge. Distinct as mind and nature are, there is such an affinity in the constitution of both, and such an adaptation of each to each, that knowledge is not a bare product of subjective activity, but a reflex of reality. Dependent existences imply independent self-existent Being. The postulate of all causal connection discerned among finite things is the First Cause. From the will we derive our notion of causation. Among dependent existences the will is the only fountain of power of which we have any experience. It is natural to be lieve that the First Cause is a Will. The First Cause is disclosed as personal in conscience, to which our wills are subject. The law as an imperative impulse to free action and as a pre-appointed end implies that the First Cause is Personal. Order and design in the world without — not found there merely, but instinctively sought there — corroborate the evidence of God, of whom we are implicitly conscious, and whose holy authority is manifest in conscience. CHAPTER IV. THE POSSIBILITY AND THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLES WITH A REVIEW OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S COM MENTS ON HUME. Christianity, from its first promulgation, has pro fessed to have a supCTnatural _ origin and sanction. It has claimed to have God for its author, and to be a revelation of him and by him. Nothing in history is more certain than that the apostles denied, and with all sincerity, that the religion which they were pro claiming was the work of man, or owed its being exclusively to natural causes, unmixed with divine intervention. That the Founder of Christianity pre ceded them in propounding this claim admits of no question. At the same time, Christianity allows and asserts a prior revelation of God, made through the consciences of men, through the material creation, and through the moral order to be discerned in the course of history. The Scriptures in which Christianity is authoritatively set forth do not undervalue the natural revelation, how ever misinterpreted, and practically ineffectual, they may declare it to be. Its comparative failure to accom plish its end they attribute to the power of sin to dull the perceptions of mankind. Yet the discontent, self- accusation, and yearning for a lost birthright, which constitute a preparation to receive the new revelation, 103 104 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. are pronounced the effect of the earlier revelation through nature and conscience. Nor is there any thing incongruous between the two revelations. If a miracle — for example, the healing of a man born blind — brings God vividly to view, it is not another God than he whose power is exerted in the natural growth of the eye, and in the cure of disease when it takes place by natural means. Christi anity partly consists of a republication of truth respect ing God and respecting human duties, — truth which the light of nature makes known, or would make known if reason were faithful to her function. To take a single instance — the obligation of veracity is more or less felt by men who have never been taught the gospel. There have been whole nations, like the ancient Persians, who have been celebrated for their abhorrence of falsehood. Even the forgiveness of inju ries, though not so commonly inculcated or practised outside of the pale of Christianity, is not confined within this limit. Forbearance was enjoined by cer tain heathen sages. Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca and Epictetus, are earnest in their laudation of this virtue. There is a large catalogue of particular duties — duties of the individual to himself, to the famity, to the state, even to humanity at large — which were known to mankind, were to some extent defined, and more or less practised among men. The virtues of character which have shed lustre on individuals or communities that have lived in ignorance of Christianity are, to a large extent, identical with those which Christianity enjoins. The difference here is, that these duties appear in Christian teaching in a different setting : they are ingrafted on new motives, are connected with peculiar incentives to their performance ; and they come home POSSIBILITY AND FUNCTION OF MIRACLES. 105 to the heart and conscience with a force of appeal, which, as long as they were disconnected with Chris tianity, never belonged to them. Thus the obligation to forgive, when linked to the truth that God for Christ's sake has forgiven us, or as we find it expressed in the Sermon on the Mount and in the Lord's Prayer, is vastly aided in its fulfilment. Ethical justice an 1 benevolence are placed in vital connection with reli gion : the obligations of man to man are illumined, as well as re-enforced, by being seen in the light of the common relation of men to God, and of their united participation in an inestimable gift bestowed by him. But the essential part of Christianity is not contained in the doctrines which belong to it in common with natural religion, or in the ethical precepts, which, if not actually discerned, are still verifiable, by the light of nature. If we would understand what is signified by the Christian revelation, we must consider the end which Christianity aims at. This end is the restoration of men to communion with God. The purpose is to bring men out of the state of separation from God into the state of reconciliation and filial union to the Being in whom they live. The broken connection between God and man is to be re-established. God is to make such an approach to man as will place pardon and purification within his reach, and will found upon the earth a king dom of righteousness and peace. In such an achievement mere doctrinal communica tions are inadequate. The manifestation of God is primarily in act and deed. Christianity is an historical religion ; that is to say, its groundwork is in events and transactions on the stage of history in connection with which the supernatural agency of God is manifestly exerted, and the outcome of which is an objective 106 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. salvation from sin. Indeed, the method of Revelation is pre-eminently historical. God manifests himself in events which evidently spring from a commingling of supernatural agency with natural causes. These are not isolated occurrences. They are connected with one another ; and they are of such a character as to awaken a living perception of those attributes of God which are fitted to attract to him, and to purify, those with whose lives this course of supernatural history is inti mately concerned. A current of history is established, and carried forward in a channel marked out for it. A community is created, evidently owing its origin and preservation to supernatural power and guidance, and so ordered that in it true religion may be kept alive and perfected. The merciful intention of God to save men shines with an increasing brightness through that long course of historical development which attains its con summation in the death and resurrection of Him who is the image, or complete manifestation, of God. When Stephen, the first martyr, stood up before the Jewish council to defend the Christian faith, he began his argument with referring to the separation of Abraham, by the call of God, from his kindred, and proceeded to describe the deliverance of the Israelites from bondage by Moses, whom God had supernaturally designated for this leadership, and at length came to the divine mis sion and the rejection of the "Righteous One." Paul at Athens, having set forth the first truths of natural religion, asserted the resurrection of Jesus in proof of the commission given him of God to judge the world. Every one knows that the recital of facts formed every where the basis of the preaching of the apostles. The same thing is true of the prophets of the Old Testa ment. Connected with all rebuke and exhortation, POSSIBILITY AND FUNCTION OF MIRACLES. 107 and with the songs of devotion, are references to the way in which God had made himself known by things done for the welfare of his people. The doctrinal part of Scripture rests upon an underlying foundation of facts. Doctrine sets forth the significance of that h:.s tory in which, from age to age, the just and merciful God had manifested himself to men. When this view is taken of Revelation, it no longer wears the appearance of having sprung from an after thought of the Creator. Revelation inheres essen tially in phenomena which form an integral part of the history of mankind. That history is a connected whole. As such, Revelation is the realization of an eternal purpose in the divine mind. In this light it is regarded by the writers of the New Testament. To be sure, inasmuch as sin is no part of the creation, but is the perverse act of the creature, and since the consequences of sin in the natural order are thus brought in, it may be said with truth that redemption is the remedy of a disorder. It may be truly affirmed that Revelation, in the forms which it actually assumed, is made possible and necessary by the infraction of an ideal order. In this sense it may be called a provision for an emer gency. It was, however, none the less pre-ordained. It entered into the original plan of human history, con ditioned on the foreseen fact of sin, as that plan was formed from eternity by the Creator. The Christian believer finds in the purpose of redemption through Jesus Christ the only clew to the understanding of history in its entire compass. Miracles are thus seen to be, not appendages, but constitutive parts, of Revelation. It is in the deviation of nature from its ordinary course that the personal agency — the justice, the mercy, the benevolent pur- 108 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. pose, of God — is revealed, and the deliverance of men from their ignorance, and wilful desertion of God, and from its penal consequences, is effected. Through the agency of God immediately and manifestly exerted at the proper junctures, the kingdom of God is introduced, and built up in its consecutive stages. Miracles, it is true, may be called " the credentials " of apostles. As such, they are auxiliaries in the first promulgation of Christianity. They procure a hearing and credence for the founders of the Church. They are a visible sanc tion given by God to their teaching and work. But the primary office of miracles in connection with Revela tion is that before defined. These views render it easy to point out the relation of miracles to the uniformities of nature. Were the vision not clouded, the regular sequences of nature, its wise and beneficent order, would discover its Author, and call out emotions of love and adoration. The de parture of nature from its beaten path is required to impress on the minds of men the half-forgotten fact, that behind the forces of nature, even in its ordinary move ment, is the will of God. What are natural laws? They are not a code super-imposed upon natural objects. They are a generalized statement of the way in which the objects of nature are observed to act and interact. Thus the miracle does not clash with natural laws. It is a modification in the effect due to a change in the antecedents. If there is a new phenomenon, it is due to the interposition of an external cause. There is not a violation of the law of gravitation when a ball is thrown into the air. A force is counteracted and over come by the interposition of a force that is superior. The forces of nature are, within limits, subject to the human will. The intervention of the human will gives POSSIBILITY AND FUNCTION OF MIRACLES. 109 rise to phenomena which the forces of matter, independ ently of the heterogeneous agent, would never produce. Yet sueh effects following upon volition are not prop erly considered violations of law. Law describes the action of natural forces when that action is not modified and controlled by voluntary agency. If the efficiency of the divine will infinitely outstrips that of the will of man, still miracles are no more inconsistent with natural laws than is the lifting of a man's hand in obedience to a volition. The question whether the miracles described in the New Testament, by which it is alleged that Christianity was ushered into the world, actually occurred, is to be settled by an examination of the evidence. It is an his torical question, and is to be determined by an applica tion of the canons applicable to historical inquiry. The great sceptical philosopher of the last century displayed his ingenuity in an attempt to show that a miracle is from its very nature, and therefore under all circum stances, incapable of proof. His argument has often been reviewed, and its fallacies have been repeatedly pointed out. It is only a late discussion of Hume's argument by Professor Huxley that prompts us to subject it anew to a brief examination. It will be remembered that Hume founds our belief in testimony solely on experience. " The reason," he says, " why we place any credit in witnesses and histo rians is not derived from any connection which we per ceive a priori between testimony and reality, but because we are accustomed to find a conformity between them." This is far from being a correct account of the origin of our belief in testimony. Custom is not the source of credence. The truth is, that we instinctively give credit to what is told us ; that is, we assume that the facts 110 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. accord with testimony. Experience serves to modify this natural expectation, and we learn to give or with hold credence according to circumstances. The' circum stance which determines us to believe or disbelieve is our conviction respecting the capacity of the witness for ascertaining the truth on the subject of his narration, and respecting his honesty. If we are persuaded that he could not have been deceived, and that he is truthful, we believe his story. No doubt one thing which helps to determine his title to credit is the probability or improbability of the occurrences related. The circum stance that such occurrences have never taken place be fore, or are " contrary to experience " in Hume's sense of the phrase, does not of necessity destroy the credi bility of testimony to them. An event is not rendered incapable of proof because it occurs, if ;t occurs at all, for the first time. Unless it can be shown to be impossi ble, or incredible on some other account than because it is an unexampled event, it is capable of being proved by witnesses. Hume is not justified in assuming that mira cles are " contrary to experience," as he defines this term. This is the very question in dispute. The evidence foi the affirmative, as Mill has correctly stated, is dimin ished in force by whatever weight belongs to the evi dence that certain miracles have taken place. The gist of Hume's argumentation is contained in this remark : " Let us suppose that the fact which they [the witnesses] affirm, instead of being only marvellous, is really miracu lous ; and suppose, also, that the testimony, considered apart and in itself, amounts to an entire proof : in that case, there is proof against proof, of whicli the strongest must prevail," etc. At the best, according to Hume, in every instance where a miracle is alleged, proof balances proof. One flaw in this argument has just been pointed POSSIBILITY AND FUNCTION OF MIRACLES. Ill out. The fundamental fallacy of this reasoning is in, the premises, which base belief on naked " experience ' I divorced from all rational expectations drawn from any other source. The argument proceeds on the assump- \ tion that a miracle is just as likely to occur in one place as in another; that a miracle whereby the marks of truthfulness are transformed into a mask of error and falsehood is as likely to occur, as (for example) the healing of a blind man by a touch of the hand. This might be so if the Power that governs the world were destitute of moral attributes. " The presumption against miracles as mere physical phenomena is rebut ted by the presumption in favor of miracles as related to infinite benevolence." 1 Hume's argument is valid only on the theory of Atheism. We give credit to our own senses when we have taken the requisite pains to test the accuracy of the observations made by them, and have convinced our selves that these organs are in a sound and healthy condition. If a number of witnesses, in whose careful ness and honesty we have entire confidence, testify to phenomena which they declare that they have wit nessed, we lend, and are bound to lend, to their testi mony the same credence which we give to our own eyes and ears. Whether the phenomena are of natural or supernatural origin is a subsequent question, to be de cided upon a consideration of all the circumstances. Professor Huxley objects to Hume's definition of a : miracle as a violation of the order of nature, " because all we know of the order of nature is derived frorr our observation of the course of events of which tlie so-called miracle is a part."2 The laws of nature, he » Professor E. A. Park, Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, iii. 196&. * Huxley's Hume, p. 131. 112 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. adds, " are necessarily based on incomplete knowledge, and are to be held only as grounds of a mc re or less justifiable expectation." He reduces Hume's doctrine, so far as it is tenable, to the canon, — "the more a statement of fact conflicts with previous experience, the more complete must be the evidence which is to justify us in believing it." By " more complete " evidence he apparently means evidence greater in amount, and tested by a more searching scrutiny. One of the examples which is given is the alleged existence of a centaur. The possibility of a centaur, Professor Huxley is far from denying, contrary as the existence of such an ani mal would be to those " generalizations of our present experience which we are pleased to call the laws of nature." Professor Huxley does not deny that such events as the conversion of water into wine, and the raising of a dead man to life, are within the limits of possibility. Being, for aught we can say, possible, we can conceive evidence to exist of such an amount and character as to place them beyond reasonable doubt. Wherein is Professor Huxley's position on this ques tion faulty? He is right in requiring that no link shall be wanting in the chain of proof. He is right in de manding that a mere " coincidence " shall not be taken for an efficacious exertion of power. It is certainly possible that a man apparently dead should awake si multaneously with a command to arise. If the person who uttered the command knew that the death was only apparent, the awakening would be easily explained. If he did not know it, and if the sleep were a swoon where the sense of hearing is suspended, it is still pos sible that the recovery of consciouimess might ocrur at the moment when the injunction to arise was spoken. It would be, to be sure, a startling coincidence ; yet it POSSIBILITY AND FUNCTION OF MIRACLES. 113 might be nothing more. But, if there were decisive reason to conclude that the man was dead, then his awakening at the command of another does not admit of being explained by natural causes. The conjunction of the return of life and the direction to awake cannot be considered a mere coincidence. If other events of the same character take place, where the moral honesty of all the persons concerned, and other circumstances, exclude mistake as to the facts, the proof of miracles is complete and overwhelming. Canon Mozley says, — " The evidential function of a miracle is based upon the com mon argument of design as proved by coincidence. The greatest marvel or interruption of the order of nature occurring by itself, as the very consequence of being connected with nothing, proves nothing. But, if it takes place in connection with the word or act of a person, that coincidence proves design in the marvel, and makes it a miracle; and, if that person professes to report a message or revelation from Heaven, the coincidence again of the miracle with the professed message of God proves design on the part of God to warrant and authorize the message."1 It is plain that if events of the kind referred to, which cannot be due to mere coincidence, occur, they call for no revisal of our conception of " the order of nature," if by this is meant that material forces pre viously unknown are to be assumed to exist in order to account for them. Such phenomena, it is obvious, might occur as would render the materialistic explana tion quite irrational. The work done might so far sur pass the power of the natural means employed, that the ascription of it to a material agency would be absurd. Or, if the supposition of an occult material agency hitherto undiscovered were tenable, we should be driven to the conclusion that the person who had 1 Bampton Lectures, pp. 5, 6. 114 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. become aware of it, and was thus able to give the signal for the occurrence of the phenomena, was pos sessed of supernatural knowledge ; and then we should have, if riot a miracle of power, a miracle of knowledge. The answer to Professor Huxley, then, is, that the circumstances of an alleged miracle may be s ich as to exclude the supposition, either that there is a remark able coincidence merely, or that the order of nature — the natural system — is utterly different from what has been previously observed. The circumstances may be such that the only reasonable conclusion is the hypothesis of divine intervention. Professor Huxley, like Hume, treats the miracle as an isolated event. He looks at it exclusively from the point of view of a naturalist, as if material nature were known to be the sum of all being and the repository of all force. He shuts his eyes to all evidence in its favor which it is possible to derive from its ostensible design and use and from the circumstances surround ing it. He shuts his eyes to the truth, and even to the possible truth, of the being of God. Like Hume, he contemplates the miracle as an isolated marvel. He confines his attention to a single quality of the event, — its unusual character, or to the fact that it is without a precedent. This method of regarding historical oc currences would give an air of improbability to innu merable events that are known to "have taken place. If we are told that the enlightened rulers of a nation on a certain day deliberately set fire to their capital, and consumed its palaces and treasures in the flames, the narrative would excite the utmost surprise, if not incredulity, But incredulity vanishes when it is add ed that the capital was Moscow, and that it was held by an invading army which Russians were willing to POSSIBILITY AND FUNCTION OF MIRACLES. 115 make every sacrifice to destroy. Extraordinary actions, whether beneficent or destructive, may fail to obtain, or even to deserve, credence, until the motives of the actors, and the occasions that led to them, are brought to light. The fact of the Moscow fire is not disproved by showing that it could not have kindled itself. The method of spontaneous combustion is not the only pos sible method of accounting for such an event. Yet this assumption fairly describes Professor Huxley's philoso phy on the subject before us. Ignoring supernatural agency altogether, Professor Huxley is obliged to ascribe miracles, on the supposi tion that they occur, to natural causes, and thus to make them at variance with the constitution of nature as at present understood. They are events parallel to the discovery of a centaur. This is an entirely gratui tous supposition. A miracle does not disturb our con ception of the system of nature. On the contrary, if there were not a system of nature, there could not be a miracle, or, rather, all phenomena would be alike miraculous. A miracle, we repeat, being the act of God, does not compel us to alter our conception of the constitution of nature; for natural forces, or second causes, remain just what they were, and the method of their action is unchanged. The " order of nature " is an ambiguous phrase. It may mean that arrangement, or mutual adjustment of j parts, which constitutes the harmony of nature. The ' " order of nature, in the sense of harmony," as Mozley observes, " is not disturbed by a miracle. The interrup tion of a train of relations, in one instance, leaves them standing in every other ; i.e., leaves the system, as such, untouched." 1 To this it may be added, that a miracle i Bampton Lectures, p. 43. 116 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. is not inharmonious with the comprehensive system which is established and maintained by the Author of nature, and in which nature is but a single department. By the " order of nature " is sometimes signified the stated manner of the recurrence of physical phenomena. On this order rests the expectation that things will be in the future as they have been in the past, and the belief that they have been as they now are. This belief and expectation, though natural, and, we may say, in stinctive, do not partake in the least of the character of necessary truth. The habitual expectation that the "order of nature," embracing the sequences of phe nomena which usually pass under our observation, will be subject to no interruption in the future, is capable of being subverted whenever proof is furnished to the contrary. The same is true as to the course of things in the past. The principles of Theism bring to view the cause which is adequate to produce such an interrup tion. The moral condition and exigencies of mankind constitute a sufficient motive for the exertion of this power by the merciful Being to whom it belongs. The characteristics of Christianity, apart from the alleged miracles connected with it, predispose the mind to give credit to the testimony on which these miracles rest. The relation of miracles to the internal proof of di vine revelation merits more particular attention. In the last century it was the evidence of miracles which the defenders of Christianity principally relied on. The work of Paley is constructed on this basis. The argu ment for miracles is placed by him in the foreground ; the testimony in behalf of them is set forth with ad mirable clearness and vigor, and objections are parried with much skill. The internal evidence takes a subor- POSSIBILITY AND FUNCTION OF MIRACLES. 117 dinate place. This whole method of presenting the case has been regarded in later times with misgivings and opposition. Coleridge may be mentioned as one of its ablest censors. The contents of Christianity as a system of truth, and the transcendent excellence ol Christ, have been considered the main evidence of the supernatural origin of the gospel. The old method has not been without conspicuous representatives, of whom the late Canon Mozley is one of the most notable. But, on the whole, it is upon the internal argument, in its various branches, that the main stress has been laid in recent days in the conflict with doubt and disbelief. In Germany, Schleiermacher, whose profound appreciation of the character of Jesus is the key-note in his system, held that a belief in miracles is not directly involved in the faith of a Christian ; although the denial of miracles is evidently destructive, as implying such a distrust of the capacity or integrity of the apostles as would invali date all their testimony respecting Christ, and thus prevent us from gaining an authentic impression of his person and character.1 Rothe, who was a firm believer in the miracles, as actual historical occurrences, never theless maintains that the acceptance of them is not indispensable to the attainment of the benefits of the gospel. They were, in point of fact, essential to the introduction of Christianity into the world : the rejec tion of them is unphilosophical, and contrary to the conclusion warranted by historical evidence. But now that Christ is known, and Christianity is introduced as a working power into history, it is possible for those who doubt about the miracles to receive him in faith, and through him to enter into communion with God.2 There can be no question, that, at the present day, i Cnilstl. Glaube, vol. ii. p. 88. 2 Zur Dogmatik, p.m. 118 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. minds which are disquieted by doubt, or are more or less disinclined to believe in revelation, should first give heed to the internal evidence. It is not by witnesses to miracles, even if they stood before us, that scepticism is overcome, where there is an absence of any living discernment of the peculiarity of the gospel and of the perfection of its Founder. How can a greater effect be expected from miracles alleged to have taken place at a remote date, be the proofs what they may, than the same miracles produced upon those in whose presence they were wrought ? Those who disparage the internal evidence, and place their reliance on the argument from miracles, forget the declaration of Clirist himself, that there are moods of disbelief which the resurrection of a man from the dead, under their own observation, would not dispel. They forget the attitude of many who had the highest possible proof of an external nature that miracles were done by him and by the apostles. Moreover, they fail to consider, that, for the establish ment of miracles as matters of fact, something more is required than a scrutiny such as would avail for the proof of ordinary occurrences. It is manifest that all those characteristics of Clirist and of Christianity which predispose us to attribute it to a miraculous origin are of weight as proof of the particular miracles said to have taken place in connection with it. At the same time, miracles, and the proof of miracles from testimony, cannot be spared. When the peculiar ities which distinguished Christianity from all other religions have impressed our minds, when the charac ter -of Christ in its unique and supernal quality has risen before us in its full attractive power, and when, from these influences, we are almost persuaded, at least not a little inclined, to believe in the gospel as a revela- POSSIBILITY AND FUNCTION OF MIRACLES. 119 tion of God, we crave some attestation of an objective character. We naturally expect, that, if all this be really upon a plane above nature, there will be some explicit sign and attestation of the fact. Such attesta tion being wanting, the question recurs whether there may not be, after all, some occult power of nature to which the moral phenomena of Christianity might be traced. Can we be sure that we are not still among second causes alone, in contact with a human wisdom, which, however exalted, is still human, and mixed with error ? Are we certain that we have not here merely a flower in the garden of nature, — a flower, perhaps, of consummate beauty and delicious fragrance, yet a product of the earth ? It is just at this point that the record of miracles comes in to satisfy a rational expec tation, to give their full effect to other considerations where the suspicion of a subjective bias may intrude, and to corroborate a belief which needs a support of just this nature. The agency of God in connection with the origin of Christianity is manifested to the senses, as well as to the reason and the heart. Not simply a wisdom that is more than human, a virtue of which there is no parallel in human experience, a merciful, renovating in fluence not referable to any creed or philosophy of man's device, make their appeal to the sense of the supernatu ral and divine ; yet also, not disconnected from these supernatural tokens, but mingling with them, are mani festations of a power exceeding that of nature, — a power equally characteristic of God, and identifying the Author of nature with the Being of whom Christ is the messenger. Strip the manifestation of this ingre dient of power, and an element is lacking for its full effect. The other parts of the manifestation inspire a willingness to believe, a rational anticipation that the 120 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. one missing element is associated with them. When this anticipation is verified by answering proof, the argument is complete. An inchoate faith rises into an assured confidence. The importance of the evidence for miracles, then, does not rest solely on the ground, that, if it be dis credited, the value of the apostles' testimony respect ing other aspects of the life of Clirist is fatally weakened. The several proofs need the miracles as a complement in order to give them full efficacy, and to remove a diffi culty which otherwise stands in the way of the convic tion which they tend to create. Miracles, it may also be affirmed, are component parts of that gospel which is the object of belief. Not only are they parts, and not merely accessories, of the act of revelation, but they are comprehended within the work of deliverance through Christ, — the redemption which is the object of the Christian faith. This is evidently true of his resurrec tion, in which his victory over sin was seen in its appro priate fruit, and his victory over death was realized, — realized, as well as demonstrated to man. In fine, miracles are the complement of the internal evidence. The two sorts of proof lend support each to the other, and they conspire together to satisfy the candid inquirer thit Christianity is of supernatural origin. CHAPTER V. CHRIST'S CONSCIOUSNESS OF A SUPERNATURAL CAZfr ING VERIFIED BY HIS SINLESS CHARACTER. Writers on the evidences of Christianity, after some introductory observations on natural theology, generally take up at once the subject of the genuine ness and credibility of the Gospels, for the obvious reason that in these books, if anywhere, is preserved the testimony to the facts connected with the life of Jesus. There are reasons, however, which have special force at present, why this leading topic may well be deferred to a somewhat later stage of the discussion. Independently of differences of opinion respecting the authorship and date of the New-Testament narratives, there are not wanting grounds for believing the essen tial facts which form the ground-work of the Christian faith. It is important to remember, that, besides these books, there exist other memorials, written and unwrit ten, of the events with which we are concerned. We have Paul's Epistles, — the most prominent of which are not contested even by the sceptically disposed, — the oldest of which, the first to the Thessalonians, was written at Corinth as early as the year 53. But, more than this, there are cogent proofs, and there are strong probabilities, which may be gathered from known and conceded consequences of the life of Jesus among men. We can reason backwards. Even a cursory glance at 121 122 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. Christianity in the course of its acknowledged history, and as an existing phenomenon standing before the eyes of all, is enough to convince everybody that something very weighty and momentous took place in Palestine in connection with the short career of Jesus. There followed, for example, indisputably, the preaching, the character, the martyrdom, of the apostles. The church started into being. The composition of the Gospels themselves, whenever and by whomsoever it took place, was an effect traceable ultimately to the life of Jesus. How came they to be written? How did what they relate of him come to be believed? How came miracles to be attributed to him, and not to John the Baptist and to Palestinian rabbis of the time ? Effects imply adequate causes. A pool of water in the street may be explained by a summer shower, but not so the Gulf Stream. Effects imply such causes as are adapted to produce them. The results of a movement disclose its nature. When we are confronted by historical phe nomena, complex and far-reaching in their character, we find that no solution will hold which subtracts any thing essential from the actual historic antecedents. If we eliminate any of the conjoined causes, we discover that something in the aggregate effect is left unex plained. Moreover, the elements that compose a state of things which gives rise to definite historical conse quences are braided together. They do not easily allow themselves to be separated from one another. Pry out one stone from an arch, and the entire structure will fall. It is a proverb that a liar must have a long mem ory. It is equally true that an historical critic exposes himself to peril whenever he ventures on the task of constructing a situation in the past, a combination of circumstances, materially diverse from the reality. CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING 123 Events as they actually occur constitute a web from which no part can be torn without being instantly missed. History, then, has a double verification ; first, in the palpable effects that are open to everybody's inspection ; and, secondly, in the connected relation, the internal cohesion, of the particulars that compose the scene. Let any one try the experiment of subtract ing from the world's history any signal event, like tho battle of Marathon, the teaching of Aristotle, or the usurpation of Julius Csesar. He will soon be convinced of the futility of the attempt ; and this apart from the violence that must be done to direct historical testi monies. Matthew Arnold tells us, that " there is no evidence of the establishment of our four Gospels as a gospel canon, or even of their existence as they now finally stand at all, before the last quarter of the second cen tury." 1 I believe that this statement in both of its parts is incorrect ; that the theory at the basis of such views, of a gradual selection of the four out of a larger group of competitive Gospels, and of the growth of them by slow accretion, is a false one. It can be proved to rest on a misconception of the state of things in the early church, and to be open to other insu perable objections. But let the assumption contained in the quotation above be allowed, for the present, to stand. Such authors as Strauss, Renan, Keim, not withstanding their rejection of received opinions re specting the authorship and date of the Gospels, do not hesitate to draw the materials for their biographies of Jesus from them. They undertake, to be sure, to sub ject them to a sifting process. We have to complain that their dissection is often arbitrary, being guided by 1 God and the Bible, p. 224. 124 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. some predilection merely subjective, or determined by the exigencies of a theoiy. Professing to be scientific, they are warped by an unscientific bias. But large portions of the evangelic narratives they admit to be authentic. If they did not do this, they would have to lay down the pen. Their vocation as historians would be gone. Now, then, we may see what will follow, if we take for granted no more of the contents of the Gospels than what is conceded to be true, — no more, at any rate, than what can be proved on the spot to be veritable history. Waiving, for the moment, contro verted questions about the origin of these books, let us see what conclusions can be fairly deduced from portions of them which no rational critic will consider fictitious. Having proceeded as far as we may on this path, it will then be in order to vindicate for the Gospels the rank of genuine and trustworthy narratives, in opposition to, the opinion that they are of later origin, and compound ed of fact and fiction. I. The known assertions of Jesus respecting his call ing, and his authority among men, if they are not well founded, imply either a lack of mental sanity, or a deep perversion of character ; but neither of these last alter natives can be reasonably accepted. No one doubts that Jesus professed to be the Christ, — the Messiah. This the apostles from the first, in their preaching, declared him to be. They went out preach ing, first of all, that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. It was on account of this claim that he was put to death. Before his judges, Jewish and Roman, he for the most part kept silent. Seeing that they were blinded by pas sion, or governed by purely selfish motives, he forbore useless appeals to reason and conscience. But he broke Bilence to avow that he was indeed the king, the " Son CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING. 125 of God," — a familiar title of the Messiah.1 It was held by the Jewish magistrates to be a blasphemous preten sion.2 He made it clear, then and at other times, what sort of a kingship it was which he asserted for himself. It was not a temporal sovereignty ^ " a kingdom of this world : " no force was to be used in the defence or ex tension of it. It was, however, a control far deeper and wider than any secular rule. He was the monarch of souls. His right was derived immediately from God. His legislation extended to the inmost motives of action, and covered in its wide sweep all the particulars of con duct. In the Sermon on the Mount he spoke with an authority which was expressly contrasted with that of all previous lawgivers — " But I say unto you," etc.3 To his precepts he annexed penalties and rewards which "vere to be endured and received beyond the grave. Nay, nis call was to all to come to him, to repose in him im plicit trust as a moral and religious guide. He laid claim to the absolute allegiance of every soul. To those who complied he promised blessedness in the life to come. There can be no doubt that he assumed to exercise the prerogative of pardoning sin. Apart from declarations, uttered in an authoritative tone, of the terms on which God would forgive sin,4 he assured individuals of the pardon of their transgressions. He taught that his death stood in the closest relation to the remission of sins. The divine clemency towards the sinful is some how linked to it. He founded a rite on this efficacy of his death, — a part of his teaching which is not only recorded by three of the Gospel writers, but is further i Matt. xxvi. 64, xxvii. 11, cf. vers. 29, 37; Mark xiv. 62, xv. 2, cf. vers. 9, 12, 18, 26; Luke xxii. 70, xxiii. 2, cf. vers. 2, 38; John xviii. 33, S7, cf. ver. 39, xix. 3, 14, 19, 21. a Matt. xxvi. 65; Mark xiv. 64. * Matt. v. 22, 28, 34, 39, 44. * Matt. v. 26, vi. 14, 15. 126 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. placed beyond doubt by the testimony of the apostle Paul.1 He uttered, there is no reason to doubt, the largest predictions concerning the prospective growth of his spiritual empire. It was to be as leaven, as a grain of mustard-seed.2 The agency of God would be directed to securing its progress and triumph. The gov ernment of the world would be shaped with reference to this end. I have stated in moderate terms the claims put forth by Jesus. These statements, or their equivalent, enter into the very substance of the evangelic tradition. Not only are they admitted to be authentic passages in the Gospels, but their historic reality is presupposed in the first teaching of Christianity by the apostles, and must be assumed in order to account for the rise of the church. Let it be remembered that these pretensions are put forth by a person whose social position is that of a peas ant. He is brought up in a village which enjoys no very good repute in the region around it. Among his fellow-viliagers he has made no extraordinary impres sion. When he comes among them as a teacher, they refer to his connection with a family in the midst of them in a tone to imply that they had known of nothing adapted to excite a remarkable expectation concerning him.3 For this passage in the Gospel narrative bears indisputable marks of authenticity. What shall be said of such claims, put forth by such a person, or by any human being ? No doubt the first impression in such a case would be, that he had lost his reason. If there is not wilful imposture, it would be said there must be insanity. Nothing else can explain 1 1 Cor. xi. 25. 2 Matt. xui. 31-33; Luke xiii. 19-21. 8 Matt. xiii. 55-57; Mark vi. 3, 4; Luke iv. 22. CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING. 127 bo monstrous a delusion. We have only to imagine that a young man who has always lived in some obscure country town presents himself in one of our large cities, and announces himself there, and to his fellow-townsmen, and wherever else he can gain a hearing, as the Son of God, or Messiah; summons all, the high and low, the educated and ignorant, to accept him as a special mes senger from Heaven, to obey him implicitly, to break every tie which interferes with absolute obedience to him, — to hate, as it were, father and mother, wife and children, for his cause. He proceeds, we will suppose, in the name of God, to issue injunctions for the regula tion of the thoughts even, as well as of external con duct, to forgive the sins of one and another evil-doer, and to warn all who disbelieve in him, and disregard his commandments, that retribution awaits, them in the future life. It being made clear that he is not an im postor, the inference would be drawn at once that his reason is unsettled. This, in fact, is the common judg ment in such cases. To entertain the belief that one is the Messiah is a recognized species of insanity. It is taken as proof positive of mental aberration. This is the verdict of the courts. Erskine, in one of his cele brated speeches,1 adverts to an instance of this kind oi lunacy. A man who had been confined in a mad-house prosecuted the keeper, Dr. Sims, and his own brother, for unlawful detention. Erskine, before he had been informed of the precise nature of his delusion, examined the prosecutor without eliciting any signs of mental unsoundness. At length, learning what the particular character of the mental disorder was, the great lawyer, with affected reverence, apologized for his unbecoming treatment of the witness in presuming thus to examine 1 In behalf of Hadiield, indicted for firing a pistol at the king. 128 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BEIIEF him. The man expressed his forgiveness, and then, with the utmost gravity, in the face of the whole court, said, "Iam the Christ." He deemed himself "the Lord and Saviour of mankind." Nothing further, of course, was required for the acquittal of the persons charged with unjustly confining him. When it is said that claims like those of Jesus, unless they can be sustained, are indicative of mental derange ment, we may be pointed, by way of objection, to found ers of other systems of religion. But among these no parallel instance can be adduced to disprove the posi tion here taken. Confucius can hardly be styled a religious teacher : he avoided, as far as he could, all ref erence to the supernatural. His wisdom was of man, and professed no higher origin. A sage, a sagacious moralist, he is not to be classified with pretenders to divine illumination. Of Zoroaster we know. so little, that it is utterly impossible to tell what he affirmed respecting his relation to God. The very date of his birth is now set back by scholars to a point at least five hundred years earlier than the time previously assigned for it. Of him, one of the recent authorities remarks, " The events of his life are almost all en shrouded in darkness, to dispel which will be forever impossible, should no authentic historical records be discovered in Bactria, his home." 1 A still later writer goes farther : " When he lived, no one knows ; and every one agrees that all that the Parsis and the Greeks tell of him is mere legend, through which no solid histori cal facts can be arrived at." 2 Thus the history of the principal teacher of one of the purest and most ancient 1 Haug, Essays on the Laws, Writings, and Religion of the Parsis (2d ed., Boston, 1868 ), p. 295. 2 The Zend-Avesta, translated by J. Darmestetter (Oxford, 1880), Intr., p. lxxvi. CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING. 129 of the ethnic religions is veiled in hopeless obscurity. With respect to Buddha, or C&kyamuni, it is not impos sible to separate main facts in his career from the mass of legendary matter which has accumulated about them. But the office which he took on himself was not even that of a prophet. He was a philanthropist, a reformer. The supernatural features of his history have been grafted upon it by later generations. An able scholar has lately described Buddhism as "a religion which ignores the existence of God, and denies the existence of the soul." x " Buddhism is no religion at all, and certainly no theology, but rather a system of duty, morality, and benevolence, without real deity, prayer, or priest." 2 Mohammed unquestionably believed him self inspired, and clothed with a divine commission. Beyond the ferment excited in his mind by the vivid perception of a single great, half-forgotten truth, we are aided in explaining his self-delusion, as far as it was a delusion, by due attention to the morbid con stitutional tendencies which led to epileptic fits, as well as to reveries and trances. Moreover, there were vices of character which played an important part in nourish ing his fanatical convictions ; and these must be taken into the account. It is not maintained here that reli gious enthusiasm which passes the limits of truth should always raise a suspicion of insanity. We are not called upon by the necessities of the argument to point out the boundary-line where reason is unhinged. Socrates was persuaded that a demon or spirit within kept him back from unwise actions. Whether right or wrong in this belief, he was no doubt a man of sound mind. One may erroneously conceive himself to be under 1 See Encycl. Britannica, art. " Buddhism," by J. W. Rhys Davis. * Monier Williams, Hinduism (London, 1877), p. 74. 130 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. supernatural guidance without being literally irrational. But if Socrates, a mortal like the men about him, had solemnly and persistently declared himself to be the vicegerent of the Almighty, and to have the authority and the prerogatives which Jesus claimed for himself; had he declared, just before drinking the hemlock, that his death was the means or the guaranty of the forgive* ness of sins, — the sanity of his mind would not have been so clear. Nor is there validity in the objection that times have changed, so that an inference which would justly follow upon the assertion of so exalted claims by a person liv ing now would not be warranted in the case of one living in that remote age, and in the community to which Jesus belonged. The differences between that day and this, and between Palestine, and America or England, are not of a quality to lessen materially the difficulty of supposing that a man in his right mind could falsely believe himself to be the King and Re deemer of mankind. The conclusive answer to the ob jection is, that the claims of Jesus were actually treated as in the highest degree presumptuous. They were scoffed at as monstrous by his contemporaries. He was put to death for bringing them forward. Shocking blasphemy was thought to be involved in such preten sions. It is true that individuals in that era set up to be the Messiah, especially in the tremendous contest that ensued with the Romans. But these false Mes siahs were impostors, or men in whom imposture and wild fanaticism were equally mingled. Mental disorder has actually been imputed to Jesus. A.t the beginning of his public labors at Capernaum, his relatives, hearing what excitement he was causing, and how the people thronged upon him, so that he and CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING. 131 his disciples could not snatch a few minutes in which to take refreshment, for the moment feared that he was " beside himself." 1 No doubt will be raised about the truth of this incident : it is not a circumstance which any disciple, earlier or later, would have been disposed to invent. The Pharisees and scribes charged that he was possessed of a demon. According to the fourth Gospel, they said, "He hath a demon, and is mad."2 The credibility of the fourth evangelist here is assumed by Renan.3 In Mark, the charge that he is possessed by the prince of evil spirits immediately follows the record of the attempt of his relatives " to lay hold on him." i Not improbably, the evangelist means to imply that mental aberration was involved in the accusation of the scribes, as it is expressly said to have been imputed to him by his family. This idea of mental alienation has not come alone from the Galilean family in their first amazement at the commotion excited by Jesus, and in their solicitude on account of his unremitting devotion to his work. Nor has it been confined to the adversaries who were stung by his rebukes, and dreaded the loss of their hold on the people. A recent writer, after speaking of Jesus as swept onward, in the latter part of his career, by a tide of enthusiasm, says, " Some times one would have said that his reason was dis turbed." "The grand vision of the kingdom of God made him dizzy."5 "His temperament, inordinately ijipassioned, carried him every moment beycnd the 1 Mark iii. 21, cf. ver. 32. In ver. 21 iheyov may have an indefi- nite subject, and refer to a spreading report which the relatives — oi Trap avTov — had heard : so Ewald, Weiss, Marcusevangelium, ad loc. Or it may denote what was s^iid by the relatives themselves: so Meyer. 2 (imVeroi, John x. 20. 8 Vie de Jesus, 13™ ed . p. 331. * Mark iii. 21 6 " Lui donnait le vertige." 132 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. limits of human nature." x These suggestions of Renan are cautiously expressed. He broaches, as will be seen hereafter, an hypothesis still more revolting, for the sake of clearing away difficulties' which his Atheistic or Pantheistic philosophy does not enable him otherwise to surmount. Yet he does, though not without some signs of timidity, more than insinuate that enthusiasm was carried to the pitch of derangement. Reason is said to have lost its balance. The words and conduct of Jesus can be considered extravagant only on the supposition that his claims, his assertions respecting himself, were exaggerated. His words and actions were not out of harmony with these claims. It is in these pretensions, if anywhere, that the proof of mental alienation must be sought. There is nothing in the teaching of Christ, there is nothing in his actions, to countenance the notion that he was dazed and deluded by morbidly excited feeling. Who can read the Sermon on the Mount, and not be impressed with the perfect sobriety of his temperament ? Everywhere, in discourse and dialogue, there is a vein of deep reflection. He meets opponents, and even cavillers, with arguments. When he is moved to in dignation, there is the most complete self-possession. There is no vague outpouring of anger, as of a torrent bursting its barriers. Every item in the denunciation of the Pharisees is coupled with a distinct specification justifying it.2 No single idea is seized upon and mag nified at the expense of other truths of equal moment. No one-sided view of human nature is held up for acceptance. A broad, humane spirit pervades the pre cepts which he uttered. Asceticism, the snare of reli gious reformers, is foreign both to h s teaching and his i Vie de Je'sus, p. 331. - Matt, xxiii. CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING. 133 example. Shall the predictions relative to the spread of his kingdom, and to its influence on the world of man kind, be attributed to a distempered fancy? But how has history vindicated them ! What is the history of the Christian ages but the verification of that forecast which Jesus had of the effect of his work, brief though it was? Men who give up important parts of the Christian creed discern, nevertheless, "the sweet rea sonableness " which characterizes the teaching, and, equally so, the actions, of Jesus. The calm wisdom, the inexhaustible depth of which becomes more and more apparent as time flows on — is that the offspring of a disordered brain? That penetration into human nature which laid bare the secret springs of action, which knew men better than they knew themselves, piercing through every disguise — did that belong to an intellect diseased? If we reject the hypothesis of mental alienation, we are driven to the alternative of accepting the conscious ness of Jesus with respect to his office and calling as veracious, or of attributing to him a deep moral depra vation. He exalts himself above the level of mankind. He places himself on an eminence inaccessible to all other mortals. He conceives himself to stand in a rela tion both to God and to the human race to which no other human being can aspire. It would be the wild est dream for any other human being to imagine him self to be possessed of the prerogatives which Jesus quietly assumes to exercise. Is this mere assumption ? What an amount of self-ignorance does it not involve ! What self-exaggeration is implied in it ! If moral rec titude contains the least guaranty of self-knowledge, if purity of character tends to make a man know him self, and guard himself from seizing on an elevation 134 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. that does not belong to him, then what shall be said of him who is guilty of self-deification, or of what is almost equivalent? On the contrary, the holiness of Jesus, if he was holy, is a ground for giving credence to his convictions respecting himself. If there is good reason to conclude that Jesus was a sinless man, there is an equal reason for believing iu him. It has been said, even by individuals among the defenders of the faith, that, independently of miracles, his perfect sinlessness cannot be established. "But where," writes Dr. Mozley, " is the proof of perfect sin lessness? No outward life and conduct could prove this, because goodness depends on the inward motive, and the perfection of the inward motive is not proved by the outward act. Exactly the same act may be perfect or imperfect, according to the spirit of the doer. The same language of indignation against the wicked which issues from our Lord's mouth might be uttered by an imperfect good man who mixed human frailty with the emotion." 1 The importance of miracles as the counterpart and complement of evidence of a different nature is not questioned. It is not denied, that if, by proof, demonstration is meant, such proof of the sinless ness of Jesus is precluded. Reasoning on such a matter is, of course, probable. Nevertheless, it may be fully convincing. How do we judge, re&pecting any one whom we well know, whether he possesses one trait of char acter, or lacks another? How do we form a decided opinion, in many cases, with regard to the motives of a particular act, or in respect to his habitual temper ? It is by processes of inference precisely similar to those by which we conclude that Jesus was pure and holy. There are indications of perfect purity and holiness which 1 Mozley, Lectures on Miracles, p. 11. CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING. 135 exclude rational doubt upon the point. There are phenomena, positive and negative, which presuppose sinless perfection, which baffle explanation on any other hypothesis. If there are facts which it is impossible to account for, in case moral fault is admitted to exist, then the existence of moral fault is disproved. It may be thought that we are at least disabled from proving the sinlessness of Jesus until we have first es tablished the ordinary belief as to the origin of the Gospels. This idea is also a mistake. Our impression of the character of Christ results from a great number of incidents and conversations recorded of him. The data of the tradition are miscellaneous, multiform. If there had been matter, which, if handed down, would have tended to an estimate of Jesus in the smallest degree less favorable than is deducible from the tradi tion as it stands, who was competent, even if anybody had been disposed, to eliminate it? What disciples, earlier or later, had the keenness of moral discernment which would have been requisite in order thus to sift the evangelic narrative ? Something, to say the least, — some words, some actions, or omissions to act, — would have been left to stain the fair picture. Moreover, the conception of the character of Jesus which grows up in the mind on a perusal of the gospel records has a unity, a harmony, a unique individuality, a verisimili tude. This proves that the narrative passages which call forth this image in the reader's mind are substan tially faithful. The characteristics of Jesus which are collected from them must have belonged to an actual person. In an exhaustive argument for the sinlessness of Jesus, one point would be the impression which his character made on others. What were the reproaches 136 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. of his enemies ? If there were faults, vulnerable places, his enemies would find them out. But the things which they laid to his charge are virtues. He associ ated with the poor and with evil-doers. But this was from love, and from a desire to do them good. He was willing to do good on the sabbath ; that is, he was not a slave to ceremony. He honored the spirit, not the letter, of law. He did not bow to the authority of pretenders to superior sanctity. Leaving out of view his claim to be the Christ, we cannot think of a single accusation that does not redound to his credit. There is no reason to distrust the evangelic tradition, which tells us that a thief at his side on the cross was struck with his innocence, and said, "This man hath done nothing amiss." The centurion exclaimed, " Truly, this was a righteous man ! " Since the narratives do not conceal the insults offered to Jesus by the Roman soldiers, and the scoffs of one of the malefactors, there is no ground for ascribing to invention the incidents last mentioned. But what impression was made as to his character on the company of his intimate associates? They were not obtuse, unthinking followers. They often wondered that he did not take a different way of founding his kingdom, and spoke out their dissatis faction. They were not incapable observers and critics of character. Peculiarities that must have excited their surprise, they frankly related; as that he wept, was at times physically exhausted, prayed in an agony of supplication. These circumstances must have come from the original reporters. It is certain, that, had they marked any thing in Jesus which was indicative of moral infirmity, the spell that bound them to him would have been broken. Their faith in him wou":.i have been dissolved. It is certain that in the closest CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING. 137 association with him, in private and in public, they were more and more struck with his faultless excel lence. They parted from him at last with the unani mous, undoubting conviction that not the faintest stain of moral guilt rested on his spirit. He was immacu late. This was a part of their preaching. Without that conviction on their part, Christianity never could have gained a foothold on the earth. It is not my purpose to dwell on that marvellous unison of virtues in the character of Jesus, — virtues often apparently contrasted. It was not piety without philanthropy, or philanthropy without piety, but both in the closest union. It was love to God and love to man, each- in perfection, and both forming one spirit. It was not compassion alone, unqualified by the senti ment of justice ; nor was it rectitude, austere, unpity- ing. It was compassion and justice, the spirit of love and the spirit of truth, neither clashing with the other. There was a prevailing concern for the soul and the life to come, but no cynical indifference to human suf fering and well-being now. There was courage that quailed before no adversary, but without the least ingredient of false daring, and observant of the limits of prudence. There was a dignity which needed no exterior prop to uphold it, yet was mixed with a sweet humility. There was rebuke for the proudest, a relent less unmasking of sanctimonious oppressors of the poor, and the gentlest words for the child or the suffering in valid. There is one fact which ought to remove every shadow of doubt as to the absolute sinlessness of Jesus. Let this fact be thoroughly pondered. He was utterly free from self-accusation, from the consciousness of fault; whereas, had there been a failure in duty, bis 138 THE GROUNDS OF 1HEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. sense of guilt would have been intense and overwhelm ing. This must have been the case had there been only a single lapse, — one instance, even in thought, of infidelity to God and conscience. But no such offence could have existed by itself : it would have tainted the character. Sin does not come and disappear, like a passing cloud. Sin is never a microscopic taint. Sin is self-propagating. Its first step is a fall and the begin ning of a bondage. We reiterate that a consciousness of moral defect in such an one as we know that Jesus was, and as he is universally conceded to have been, must infallibly have betrayed itself in the clearest manifestations of conscious guilt, of penitence or of remorse. The extreme delicacy of his moral sense is perfectly obvious. His moral criticism goes down to the secret recesses of the heart. He demands, be it observed, self-judgment: "First cast the beam out of thine own eye ; " " Judge not." His condemnation of moral evil is utterly unsparing: the very roots of it in illicit desire are to be extirpated. He knows how sinful men are. He teaches them all to pray, " Forgive us our debts ; " yet there is not a scintilla of evidence that he ever felt the need of offering that prayer for himself. From beginning to end there is not a lisp of self-blame. He prays often, he needs help from above ; but there is no confession of personal unworthiness. Men generally are reminded of their sins when they are overtaken by calamity. The ejaculations of Jesus in the presence of his intimate associates, when he was sinking under the burden of mental sorrow, are tians- mitted, — and there is no appearance whatever of a disposition on the part of disciples to cloak his mental experiences, or misrepresent them, — but not the slight est consciousness of error is betrayed in these sponta- CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING. 139 neous outpourings of the soul. " His was a piety with no consciousness of sin, and no profession of repent ance." 1 Let the reader contrast this unbroken peace of con science with the self-chastisement of an uprigL t spirit which has become alive to the obligations of divine law, — the same law that Jesus inculcated. " Oh wretched man that I am ! " No language short of this corre sponds to the abject distress of Paul. There are no bounds to his self-abasement : he is " the chief of sin ners." The burden of self-condemnation is too heavy for such conscientious minds to carry. Had the will of Jesus ever succumbed to the tempter, had moral evil ever found entrance into his heart, is it possible that his humiliation would have been less, or less manifest ? That serene self-approbation would have fled from his soul. Had the Great Teacher, whose words are a kind of audible conscience ever attending us, and are more powerful than any thing else to quicken the sense of obligation — had he so little moral sensibility as falsely to acquit himself of blame before God ? It is psycho logically impossible that he should have been blame worthy without knowing it, without feeling it with crushing distinctness and vividness, and without exhib iting penitence, or remorse and shame, in the plainest manner. There was no such consciousness, there was no such expression of guilt. Therefore he was without sin. We have said that there is nothing in the evangelic tradition to imply the faintest consciousness of moral evil in the mind of Jesus. A single passage has been by some falsely construed as containing such an impli cation. It may be worth while to notice it. To the ruler who inquired what he should do to secure eternal i W. M. Taylor, D.D., The Gospel Miracles, etc., p. 60. 140 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. life, Jesus is said to have answered, " Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God."1 There is another reading of the passage in Matthew, which is adopted by Tischendorf: "Why askest thou me concerning the good ? There is one," etc.2 This answer is not unsuitable to the question, " What good thing shall I do ? " It points the inquirer to God. It is fitted to suggest that goodness is not in particular doings, but begins in a connecting of the soul with God. We cannot be certain, however, whether Jesus made exactly this response, or said what is given in the parallel passages in Mark and Luke (and in the accepted text of Matthew). If the latter hypothesis is correct, it is still plain that the design of Jesus was to direct the inquirer to God, whose will is the fountain of law. He disclaims the epithet " good," and applies it to God alone, meaning that God is the primal source of all goodness. Such an expression is in full accord with the usual language of Jesus descriptive of his dependence on God. The goodness of Jesus, though without spot or flaw, was progressive in its develop ment; and this distinction from the absolute goodness of God might justify the phraseology which he em ployed.3 The humility which Jesus evinced in his reply to the ruler was not that of an offender against the divine law. Its ground was totally diverse. There is a single occurrence narrated in the fourth Gospel, which may be appropriately referred to in this place.4 Jesus said, " I go not up to this feast : " the " yet " in the Authorized Version probably forms no part of the text. " But when his brethren were gone 1 Matt. xix. 17, cf. Mark x. 18 ; Luke xviii. 19. 2 Tt fie epuira? irepi rov aya9ov ; * See Weiss, Matthauseyangelium, ad loc. * John vii. 8, 10, 14. CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING. 141 up, then went he also up, not openly, but, as it were, in secret." Can anybody think that the author of the Gospel, whoever he was, understands, and means that his readers shall infer, that the first statement to the brethren was an intentional untruth? It is possible that new considerations, not mentioned in the brief narration, induced Jesus to alter his purpose. This isj for instance, the opinion of Meyer.1 He may have waited for a divine intimation, which came sooner than it was looked for.2 It is even possible that the ex pression, " I go not up," etc., may have been under stood to signify simply that he would not accompany the festal caravan, and thus make prematurely a public demonstration adapted to rouse and combine his adver saries. In fact, he did not show himself at Jerusalem until the first part of the feast was over. It is not unlikely that he travelled over Samaria. "My time," he had said to his brethren, " is not yet full come." Complaints have been made of the severity of his denunciation of the Pharisees. Theodore Parker has given voice to this criticism. It is just these passages, however, and such as these, which save Christianity from the stigma cast upon it by the patronizing critics who style it "a sweet Galilean vision," and find in it nothing but a solace " for tender and weary souls." 3 It is no fault in the teaching of Jesus that in it right eousness speaks out in trumpet-tones. There is no unseemly passion, but there is no sentimentalism. Hy pocrisy and cruelty are painted in their proper colors . That retribution is stored up for the iniquity which 1 Evang. Johannis, ad loc. a Cf. vers. 6, 7, and ii. 4. So Weiss, in Meyer's Komm. fiber das Evang. Johann., p. 310. * See Renan, English Conferences, and passim. 142 IHE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. steels itself against the motives to reform is a part of the gospel which no right-minded man would wish to blot out: it is a truth too clearly manifest in the constitution of things, too deeply graven on the con sciences of men. The spotless excellence of Jesus needs no vindication against objections of this nature. Were it possible to believe, that apart from the blind ing, misleading influence of a perverse character, so monstrous an idea respecting himself — supposing it to be false — gained a lodgement in the mind of Jesus, the effect must have been a steady, rapid moral deteri oration. False pretensions, self-exalting claims, even when there is no deliberate insincerity in the assertion of them, distort the perceptions. They kindle pride and other unhealthy passions. The career of Moham med, from the time when he set up to be a prophet, illustrates the downward course of one whose soul is possessed by a false persuasion of this sort. When the bounds that limit the rights of an individual in relation to his fellow-men are broken through, degeneracy of character follows. His head is turned. He seeks to hold a sceptre that is unlawfully grasped, to exercise a prerogative to which his powers are not adapted. Sim plicity of feeling, self-restraint, respect for the equal rights of others, genuine fear of God, gradually die out. If it be supposed that Jesus, as the result of morbid enthusiasm, falsely thought himself the representa tive of God, and the Lord and Redeemer of mankind, experience would have dispelled so vain a dream. It might, perhaps, have subsisted in the first flush of apparent, transient success. But defeat, failure, the desertion of supporters, will often awaken distrust, even in a cause which is true and just. How would it CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING. 143 have been with the professed Messiah when the leaders of Church and State poured derision on his claims? How would it have been when his own neighbors, among whom he had grown up, chased him from the town? how when the people who had flocked after him for a while, turned away in disbelief, when his own disciples betrayed or denied him, when ruin and disgrace were heaped upon his cause, when he was brought face to face with death? How would he have felt when the crown of thorns was put on his head? when, in mockery, a gorgeous robe was put on him? What an ordeal to pass through was that ! Would the dream of enthusiasm have survived all this? Would not this high-wrought self-confidence have collapsed? Savonarola, when he stood in the pulpit of St. Mark's, with the eager multitude before him, and was excited by his own eloquence, seemed to himself to foresee, and ventured to foretell, specific events. But in the coolness and calm of his cell he had doubts about the reality of his own power of prediction. Hence, when tortured on the rack, he could not conscientiously affirm that his prophetic utterances were inspired of God. He might think so at certain moments ; but there came the ordeal of sober reflection, there came the ordeal of suffering ; and under this trial his own faith in himself was to this extent dissipated. The depth and sincerity of the conviction which Jesus entertained respecting himself endured a test even moie severe than that of an ignominious failure, and the pains of the cross. He saw clearly that he was putting others in mortal jeopardy.1 The same ostracism, scorn, and malice awaited those who had attached themselves to his person, and were prominently identified with his i Matt. x. 17, 18, 36 ; Mark x. 39 ; John xvi. 2. 144 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF cause. Their families would cast them off; the rulers of Church and State would harass them without pity ; to kill them would be counted a service rendered to God. A man must be in his heart of hearts persuaded of the justice of a cause before he can make up his mind to die for it; but, if he have a spark of right feeling in him, he must be convinced in his inmost soul before he consents to involve the innocent and trustful follower in the ruin which he foresees to be coming on himself. It must not be forgotten, that, from the begin ning of the public life of Jesus to his last breath, the question of the reality of his pretensions was definitely before him. He could not escape from it for a moment. It confronted him at every turn. The question was, should men believe in him. The strength of his belief in himself was thus continually tested. It was a sub ject of debate with disbelievers. On one occasion — the historical reality of the occurrence no one doubts — he called together his disciples, and inquired of them what idea was entertained respecting him by the peo ple.1 He heard their answer. Then he questioned them concerning their own conviction on this subjeci. One feels that his mood could not be more thoughtful, more deliberate. The declaration of faith Dy Peter, he pronounces to be a rock. It is an immovable foun dation, on which he will erect an indestructible com munity. If Jesus persevered in the assertion of a groundless pretension, it was not for the reason that it- was unchallenged. It was not cherished because theie were few inclined to dispute it. He was not led to maintain it from want of reflection. The foregoing considerations, it is believed, are suf ficient to show that the abiding conviction in the mind i Matt. xvi. 13-21. CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING. 145 of Jesus respecting his own mission and authority is inexplicable, except on the supposition of its truth. There was no moral evil to cloud his self-discernment. The bias of no selfish impulse warped his estimate of himself. His conviction respecting his calling and office remained unshaken under the sternest trials. II. The sinlessness of Jesus is in its probative force equivalent to a miracle ; it establishes his supernatural mission ; it proves his exceptional relation to God. We are now to contemplate the sinlessness of Jesu? from another point of view, as an event having a mirac - ulous character, and as thus directly attesting his claimn, or the validity of his consciousness, of a supernatural connection with God. Sin is the disharmony of the will with the law of uni versal love. This law is one in its essence, but branches out in two directions, — as love supreme to God, and equal or impartial love to men. We have no call here to investigate the origin of sin. It is the universality of sin in the world of mankind which is the postulate of the argument. Sin varies indefinitely in kind and degree. But sinfulness in its generic character is an attribute of the human family. Rarely is a human being to be found in whom no distinct fault of a moral nature is plainly discernible. There may be here and there a person whose days have been spent in the seclu sion of domestic life, under Christian influences, without any such explicit manifestation of evil as arrests atten tion, and calls for censure. Occasionally there is a man in whom, even though he mingles in the active work of life, his associates find nothing to blame. But, in these extremely infrequent instances of lives without any ap parent blemish, the individuals themselves who are thus remarkable are the last to join in the favorable verdict. 146 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. That sensitiveness of conscience which accompanies pure character recognizes and deplores the presence of sin. If there are not positive offences, there are defects : things are left undone which ought to be done. If there are no definite habits of feeling to be condemned, there is a conscious lack of a due energy of holy principle. In those who are deemed, and justly deemed, the most virtuous, and in whom there is no tendency to morbid self-depreciation, there are deep feelings of penitence. " If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." 1 This is quoted here, not as being an authoritative testimony, but as the utterance of one whose standard of character was obviously the highest. With such an ideal of human perfection, the very thought that any man should consider himself sinless excites indignation. One who pronounces him self blameless before God proves that falsehood, and not truth, governs his judgment. What shall be said, then, if there be One of whom it can truly be affirmed, that every motive of his heart, not less than every overt action, was exactly confirmed to the loftiest ideal of excellence, — One in whom there was never the faintest self-condemnation, or the least ground for such an emotion ? There is a miracle ; not, indeed, on the same plane as miracles which interrupt the sequences of natural law. It is an event in another order of things than the material sphere. But it is equally an exception to all human experience. It is equally to all who discern the fact a proclamation of the immediate presence of God. It is equally an attes tation that He who is thus marked out in distinction from all other members of the race bears a divine com mission. There is a break in the uniform course of 1 1 John i. 8 CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING. 147 things, to which no cause can be assigned in the natura] order. Such a phenomenon authorizes the same infer ence as that which is drawn from the instantaneous cure, by a word, of a man born blind. On this eminence He stands who called himself the Son of man. It is not claimed that this peculiarity of itself proves the divinity of Jesus. This would be a larger conclusion than the premises justify. But the Inference is unavoidable, first, that his relation to God is altogether peculiar, and, secondly, that his testimony respecting himself has the attestation of a miracle. That testimony must be on all hands allowed to have included the claim to be the authoritative Guide and the Saviour of mankind. CHAPTER VI. PROOF OF THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST INDEPENDENTLY OF SPECIAL INQUIRY INTO THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE GOSPELS. The reader will bear in mind that we are reasoning, for the present, on the basis of the view respecting the origin of the Gospels which is commonly taken by critics of the sceptical schools. Let it be assumed that more than one of the Gospels resulted from an expan sion of earlier documents which included a less amount of matter ; that the traditions which are collected in the Gospels of the canon are of unequal value ; and that all of these books first saw the light in their present form somewhere in the course of the second century. Still it is maintained, that, even on this hypothesis, the main facts at the foundation of the Christian faith can be established. In this chapter it is proposed to . bring forward evidence to prove that miracles were wrought by Jesus substantially as related by the evangelists. I. The fact that the apostles themselves professed to work miracles by a power derived from Christ makes it highly probable that they believed miracles to have been wrought by him. The point to be shown is, that narratives of miracles performed by Christ were embraced in the accounts which the apostles were in the habit of giving of his life. A presumptive proof of this proposition is drawn from the circumstance that they themselves, in fulfill- 148 PROOF OF THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 149 ing the office to which they were appointed by him, professed to work miracles, and considered this an in dispensable criterion of their divine mission. There is no doubt of the fact as here stated. Few scholars now hold that the Epistle to the Hebrews was written by Paul. Some follow an ancient opinion, which Grotius held, and to which Calvin was inclined, — that Luke wrote it. Others attribute it to Barnabas. Many are disposed, with Luther, to consider Apollos its author. It is a question which we have no occasion to discuss here. The date of the Epistle is the only point that concerns us at present. It was used by Clement of Rome in his Epistle to the Corinthians, and therefore must have existed as early as A.D. 97. A majority of critics, including adherents of opposite creeds in theology, infer, from passages in the Epistle itself, that the temple at Jerusalem was still standing when it was written.1 Hilgenfeld, the ablest representative of the Tubingen school, is of opinion that Apollos wrote it before A.D. 67.2 Be this as it may, its author was a contemporary and acquaintance of the apostles.3 Now, he tells us that their supernatural mission was con firmed by the miracles which they did : " God also bear ing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost."4 The same thing is repeatedly asserted by the Apostle Paul. " Working miracles among you " 6 is the phrase which he uses when speaking of what he himself had done in Galatia. If we give to the preposition, as perhaps we should, its literal sense "in," the meaning is, that the apostle had imparted to his converts the power l See Heb. Vii. 9, vni. 3, ix. 4. « Einl. in d. N. Test., p. 388. * Heb. ii. 3. * Ibid., ver. 5. *• evepyibv Bwafieif ev VfiLVf Gal. iii* 5* 150 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. to work miracles.1 In the Epistle to the Romans he explicitly refers to " the mighty signs and wonders " which Christ had wrought by him : it was by " deed," as well as by word, that he had succeeded in convincing a multitude of brethren.2 How, indeed, we might stop to ask, could such an effect have been produced at that time in the heathen world by " word " alone ? But in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians he reminds them that miracles — " signs and wonders and mighty deeds " — had been wrought by him before their eyes ; and he calls them " the signs," not of an apostle, as the Author ized Version has it, but of " the apostle." 3 They are the credentials of the apostolic office. By these an apostle is known to be what he professes to be. In working miracles he had exhibited the characteristic marks of an apostle. The author of the book of Acts, then, goes no farther than Paul himself goes, when that author ascribes to the apostles "many wonders and signs."4 It is in the highest degree probable, in the light of the passages quoted from Paul, that, if he and Barnabas were vindicating themselves and their work, they would declare, as the author of Acts affirms they did, "what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them."6 Now we advance another step. In each of the first three Gospels the direction to work miracles forms a part of the brief commission given by Christ to the apostles.6 If the apostles could remember any thing correctly, would they forget the terms of this brief, momentous charge from the Master? This, if any thing, would be handed down in an authentic form. In the charge when the apostles i Cf. Lightfoot and Meyer, ad loc. - Rom. xv. 18-20. » 2 Cor. xii. 12. 4 Acts ii. 43, cf. iv. 30, v. 12, xiv. 3, • Acts xv. 12, cf. ver. 4. « Matt. x. 1, 8 ; Mark iii. 15, Luke ix. 2 ; cf. Luke x. 9. PROOF OF THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 151 were first sent out, as it is given in Matthew, they were to limit their labors to the Jews, — to " the lost sheep of the house of Israel." They were not even to go at that time to the Samaritans. This injunction is a strong confirmation of the exactness of the report in the first evangelist. Coupling the known fact, that the working of miracles was considered by the apostles a distinguish ing sign of their office, with the united testimony of the first three Gospels, — the Gospels in which the ap pointment of the Twelve is recorded, — it may be safely concluded that Jesus did tell them to " heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils." He told them to preach, and to verify their authority as teachers by this merciful exertion of powers greater than belong to man. Is it probable that he expected them to furnish proofs of a kind which he had not fur nished himself? Did he direct them to do what they had never seen him do ? Did he profess to communi cate to his apostles a power which he had given them no evidence of possessing? II. Injunctions of Jesus not to report his miracles, it is evident, are truthfully imputed to him ; and this proves that the events to which they relate actually took place. It is frequently said in the Gospels, that Jesus en joined upon those whom he miraculously healed not to make it publicly known.1 He was anxious that the miracle should not be noised abroad. For instance, it is said in Mark, that in the neighborhood of Bethsaida he sent home a blind man whom he had cured, saying, " Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any in the town." 2 The motive is plainly indicated. Jesus had i Matt. ix. 30, xii. 16, xvii. 9 ; Mark iii. 12, v. 43, vii. 36, viii. 26, Ix. 9 ; Luke v. 14, viii. 56. * Mark viii. 26. 152 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. to guard against a popular uprising, than which noth ing was easier to provoke among the inflammable population of Galilee. There were times, it costs no effort to believe, when they were eager to make him a king.1 He had to conceal himself from the multi tude. He had to withdraw into retired places. It was necessary for him to recast utterly the popular concep tion of the Messiah, and this was a slow and almost impossible task. It was hard to educate even the dis ciples out of the old prepossession. Hence he used great reserve and caution in announcing himself as the Messiah. He made himself known by degrees. When Peter uttered his glowing confession of faith, Jesus charged him and his companions " that they should tell no man of him ; " that is, they should keep to them selves their knowledge that he was the Christ.2 The interdict against publishing abroad his miracles is therefore quite in keeping with a portion of the evan gelic tradition that is indubitably authentic. On the other hand, such an interdict is a thing which it would occur to nobody to invent. It is the last thing which contrivers of miraculous tales (unless they had before them the model of the Gospels) would be likely to imagine. No plausible motive can be thought of for attributing falsely such injunctions to Jesus, unless it is assumed that there was a desire to account for the alleged miracles not being more widely known. But this would imply intentional falsehood in the first nar rators, whoever they were. Even this supposition, in itself most unlikely, is completely shut out, because the prohibitions are generally said to have proved in effectual. It is commonly added in the Gospels, that the individuals who were healed of their maladies did not i John vi 15-, " Mark viii. 30 ; Luke ix. 21. PROOF OF THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 153 heed them, but blazed abroad the fact of their miracu lous cure. Since the injunctions imposing silence are authentic, the miracles, without which they are mean ingless, must have been wrought. It is worthy of note, that, when the maniac of Gadara was restored to health, Jesus did not lay this commandment on him. He sent him to his home, bidding him tell his friends of his experience of the mercy of God.1 Connected with the narratives of miracles, both before and just after in the same chapter,2 we find the usual charge not to tell what had been done. Why not in this instance of the madman of Gadara ? The reason would seem to have been, that, in that region where Jesus had not taught, and where 'he did not purpose to remain, the same dan ger from publicity did not exist. To be sure, the man was not told " to publish " the miracle " in Decapolis," as he proceeded to do ; but no pains were taken to prevent him from doing this. He was left at liberty to act in this respect as he pleased. The evangelist does not call our attention in any way to this peculiarity of the Gadara miracle. It is thus an undesigned confirmation of the truth of the narrative, and at the same time of the other narratives with which the injunction to observe silence is connected. III. Cautions, plainly authentic, against an excessive esteem of miracles, are a proof that they were actually wrought. No one who falsely sets up to be a miracle-worker seeks to lower the popular esteem of miracles. Such a one never chides the wonder-loving spirit. The same is equally true of those who imagine or otherwise fabricate stories of miracles. The moods of mind out of which fictions of this kind are hatched are incom- 1 Mark v. 19. s Mark iii. 12, v. 43. 154 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF patible with any thing like a disparagement of miracles. The tendency will be to make as much of them as pos sible. Now, the Gospel records represent Christ as taking the opposite course : " Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe." x This implies that there were higher grounds of faith. It is an expression of blame. " Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me : or else believe me for the very works' sake." 2 That is, if you cannot take my word for it, then let the miracles convince you. It would almost seem that Christ performed his miracles under a pro test. He refused to do a miracle where there was not a germ of faith beforehand. In the first three Gospels there is the same relative estimate of miracles as in the fourth. If men form an opinion about the weather by the looks of the sky, they ought to be convinced by " the signs of the times," in which, if the miracles are included, it is only as one element in the collective manifestation of Christ.3 When the seventy disciples returned full of joy that they had not only been able to heal the sick, but also to deliver demoniacs from their distress,4 — which had not been explicitly promised them when they went forth, — Jesus sympathized with their joy : he beheld before his mind's eye the swift downfall of the dominating spirit of evil, and he assured the disciples that further miraculous power should be given to them. But he added, "Notwithstanding, in this rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto you ; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven." They were not to plume themselves on the supernatural power exercised, or to be exercised, by them. They were not to make it a ground of self-con- 1 John iv. 48. •» John xiv. 11. s Matt. xvi. 3. 4 Such is the force of the Kal (in the k