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PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION 
 
LIFE AND WORKS OF THE LATE 
 JAMES HINTON. 
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JAMES HINTOH". 
 
 Edited by Ellice Hopkins, with an Introduction by Sir W. W. Gull, 
 Bart., and Portrait engraved on Steel by C. H. Jeens. Fourth Edition. 
 Crown 8vo. Cloth, 8s. 6d. 
 
 LAW-BREAKER. 
 
 THE MYSTERY OF PAIN. New Edition. Fcp.Svo. 
 Cloth limp, is. 
 
 OTHERS' NEEDS. Sewed, 2d. 
 
 London ; Regan Paul, Tbench & Co. 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGIOK 
 
 SELECTIONS FROM THE MANUSCRIPTS 
 
 OF THE LATE 
 
 JAMES HINTON 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 CAEOLINE HADDON 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 LONDON 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., 1, PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
 
 1884 
 
-^\^^>^ 
 
 ^"^.^ y 
 
 {The rujhls of translation and of rejyroduction are reserved.) 
 
(^ 
 
 EDITOE'S PEEFACE. 
 
 The anomalous literary form of this book requires a few 
 words of explanation. Its contents can be classified 
 neither under the head of Sermons, Essays, Diary, nor 
 Table Talk, although they partake by turns of the nature 
 of all these. 
 
 The readers of James Hinton's Life and Letters will 
 remember that from the time he began his career as a 
 philosophical thinker he was accustomed to write down 
 every day the ideas that presented themselves to him. 
 Wherever he might be — in the street, in society, at a 
 concert, in church — he would jot down memoranda of the 
 thoughts that struck him, and these he would write out 
 clearly in the evening. This habit was first begun as a 
 necessity of his mental life ; he could not, he said, push 
 on to new discoveries unless he thus disencumbered his 
 mind of its burden. Afterwards he pursued the practice 
 with a more distinct conviction of the usefulness of such 
 a record of the process of the intellectual life as was thus 
 afforded. Owing to the peculiar nature of his thinking, 
 no mind could furnish a more admirable field for such 
 observations. For the more the mental operations re- 
 
 82G163 ^ 
 
vi Editor s Preface. 
 
 semble the unconscious animal functions, the more do 
 they lend themselves to scientific observation. No doubt 
 there is a thought-life in humanity, whose laws, if we 
 could trace them out, are as invariable as all other laws 
 of nature, but it is not generally possible to observe this 
 life in the individual, in whom self-consciousness, arbitrary 
 determination, or a timid conventionality, interferes with 
 the freedom of the mental operations. Still more rare is 
 a mind that can register its own operations without dis- 
 turbing their spontaneity, or can commit to writing the 
 utterance of tender and passionate emotion without ren- 
 dering the fountain of feeling turbid and impure. But 
 it is this that James Hinton has done in four large 
 volumes of printed manuscripts, and an equal mass of 
 written pages. 
 
 It is a wealth which his executors feel as a burden of 
 responsibihty as long as it is practically locked up from 
 the public. The printed volumes have been placed in the 
 British Museum, and they may be purchased of Messrs. 
 Macmillan & Co., Cambridge, and Mrs. Hinton, 35, 
 Acacia Koad, N.W. ; but their voluminous nature pre- 
 vents any, save the few, from exploring them, and many 
 gems of thought and expression are thus hidden. At the 
 request of numerous lovers of James Hinton's writings, 
 I have attempted to extract some of these. As the 
 manuscripts follow no order except that of time, and are 
 as promiscuous as the entries in a diary, the arrange- 
 ment of them was not an easy task, and it was rendered 
 still more difficult by the habitual parallelism of James 
 Hinton's thinking. He always saw one thing in and 
 
Editors Preface. vli 
 
 through another. Eegarding matter and mind as the 
 phenomena of Spirit, how could he avoid speaking of the 
 one in terms of the other? "Every man who tells us 
 anything worth knowing tells us one thing," he says some- 
 where ; and this is eminently true of himself. Passion 
 controlled, or motion resisted, is the one thing he sees in 
 the moral as in the material world : this is holiness ; 
 this, too, is physical life. How can they be kept apart ? 
 Everywhere, in the life of the individual body and mind, 
 and in the larger life of humanity, he beholds this double 
 process, nutrition and function, which constitutes the 
 vibration of Life. It is by this that truth is evolved, and 
 that the moral development of the race is effected. To 
 one not familiar with these large generalizations, the 
 symbolic language used for brevity by Mr. Hinton is 
 sometimes enigmatical. He will condense into a single 
 expression a whole series of analogies previously worked 
 out and habitually present to his mind. This kind of 
 shorthand wants deciphering, and in the Preface to the 
 original volumes which follows this, will be found explana- 
 tions of the chief terms used with special meanings. 
 
 It will be readily understood that this altruistic 
 method of James Hinton's thinking made it difficult to 
 classify a series of extracts under any one title. There 
 are many passages which might be equally called meta- 
 physical, physiological, ethical, or religious. From his 
 metaphysics the translation to ethics is easy and inevit- 
 able. The central idea of the former is that the " self " 
 is a defect, a "not," or minus quantity: by this con- 
 ception he transforms the whole field of experience ; it 
 
vlii Editors Preface. 
 
 becomes a key in his hand to unlock some of the most 
 intricate mental problems. But removed from that ab- 
 stract region into the sphere of practical ethics, this truth 
 becomes the very principle of Love. For if the self be a 
 deadness, a negation, self-sacrifice can be nothing but an 
 entering into Life, and all pain, regarded as the instru- 
 ment and means of sacrifice, changes its character and 
 reveals itself as good. Evil to the self cannot but be 
 good to that Being of which self is the negation. The 
 bearing of this principle upon the conduct of life is 
 obvious. Its application is the very " secret of Jesus," 
 the easy yoke that makes the burden light, the conquest 
 of ills by self-renunciation, humility, and trust. Thus 
 the classification of these selections was rendered diffi- 
 cult by the very characteristic of Mr. Hinton's thinking 
 which gives his work its chief value, that complete in- 
 terpenetration of heart and intellect which harmonized 
 all his conceptions, and made them converge, as it were, 
 into one focus. 
 
 I must disclaim, on behalf of this book, any attempt 
 to set forth a coherent or complete account of the author's 
 metaphysical and ethical system. It may, rather, be 
 looked upon as presenting a transcript of his table talk, 
 bringing back the image of the man as he appeared to 
 those who lived in daily converse with him. James 
 Hinton was, too, by the nature of his genius, emphatically 
 a scer^ not a constructor of systems. He simply took the 
 conception, to which he gave the name of Actualism, and 
 flashing it like a torch upon the various dark problems 
 of life and mind, revealed everywhere glimpses of order 
 
Editor s Preface. ix 
 
 and beauty. He offers no other proof than this : *' that 
 which doth make manifest is light." That much remained 
 still obscure no one was more aware than himself. " I 
 have not seen that yet," he would frequently say ; and 
 it filled him with an amazement — not of admiration — to 
 find most people ready with a ''view " of every subject. 
 He used to say that wherein he differed most from other 
 men was in knowing the '* feel " of ignorance. 
 
 I must call attention to the fact that these extracts are 
 from the earlier series of manuscripts, and represent the 
 growth of the writer's thoughts from 1856 to about 1861. 
 This early date should be borne in mind, because many 
 things in these papers may seem at variance with the 
 later utterances of the writer. No man was ever more 
 indifferent to the charge of inconsistency ; not from any 
 disregard of accuracy, still less of allegiance to prin- 
 ciples, but because he viewed all thought as a life, the 
 imperfect stages of which must seem to contradict one 
 another until surveyed in their completeness. That a 
 statement was true was no reason why it should not be 
 denied ; indeed, that process was needful to its fuller re- 
 affirmation. He was therefore most tolerant of " deniers," 
 and held them to be eminently useful ; whilst that any 
 one should rest contented in a negative stage indicated 
 to him a curious sort of paralysis of the mental life. He 
 had, he said, but one advice to learners in the art of 
 thinking : Go on. This habit of his mind should be 
 remembered in reading the religious passages, when his 
 language is sometimes hardly to be distinguished from 
 the crudities of pulpit theology. Those who are accus- 
 
X Editor s Preface. 
 
 tomed to his phraseology know that he often used 
 theology as the allegorical presentation of philosophy. 
 Illustrations of this will be found in the following pages. 
 
 I have not, therefore, altogether discarded such pas- 
 sages. To have done so would have been to lose some- 
 thing of the freshness and force with which these 
 thoughts were originally presented, and also of the 
 interest which attaches to them as anticipations of 
 truths afterwards more completely attained. He him- 
 self called these anticipations ** affirmations of the 
 moral sense," and knew that they could not be held 
 permanently in that form : other intellectual elements 
 would come in and demand recognition, to the temporary 
 exclusion of the truth first discerned. But it was his 
 delight to trace how these suppressed affirmations were 
 restored with fuller evidence at a subsequent stage ; and 
 it was this that induced him, on revising the manuscripts, 
 to leave untouched some of those crude expressions. 
 
 It is for their suggestiveness that these " thoughts " 
 will be chiefly valued. They must not be compared with 
 the polished sentences of pcnsee writers such as Joubert 
 or Novalis. They might rather be called " chips," frag- 
 ments from the workshop of a great builder. 
 
 The important later series of manuscripts have not 
 been used in the preparation of this volume. They arc 
 chiefly concerned with working out the position which 
 Mr. Hinton latterly adopted in regard to some questions 
 in ethics. To selections from these writings, to which 
 he himself attached greater value than to any other part 
 of his work, I propose to devote a subsequent volume. 
 
 Caroline Haddon. 
 
AUTHOE'S PEEFACE. 
 
 This volume contains a transcript, unaltered, except by 
 omissions and by verbal corrections, of papers written 
 at various intervals, simply as a private record of my 
 thoughts. They embrace subjects of many kinds, often 
 having no special connection, save that they were 
 regarded from a common point of view, and were felt 
 to throw on each other a mutual light. To render 
 them intelligible, a few things should be stated. 
 
 These papers are not to be assumed to represent my 
 present opinions. They are not a statement of my 
 thoughts, but a history of them, and present, not the 
 results, but the process. Necessarily, therefore, they 
 contain that which I now think erroneous or partial. 
 Here and there I have indicated this by a brief remark, 
 but on the whole I have treated the papers as docu- 
 ments merely, and not as subjects for criticism or state- 
 ments for revision. I have, indeed, specially sought 
 not to exclude my errors, wherever they seemed to me 
 to have any vital connection with the progress of my 
 ideas, because the chief value which I attach to the 
 papers is that of being an exact transcript of a process 
 
xii Author s Preface. 
 
 that has taken place quite independently of any volition 
 of mine, and the record of which may perhaps have the 
 same interest that Science finds in every natural event, 
 quite apart from its intrinsic importance. 
 
 I take, however, this opportunity to explain a few 
 terms which occur in meanings other than their cus- 
 tomary ones. 
 
 The terms nutrition and function I have adopted from 
 physiology, and applied to the mental and moral life of 
 man. They mean always the production of a tension , 
 and its ceasing; with this idea also implied, that the 
 tension is produced in an " organization," that is, under 
 conditions whereby the ceasing of the tension produced 
 definite results, or a " function." For example : the 
 process of a reductio ad absurdum, with its impossible 
 consequences enforced by sound logic, and ending in a 
 correction of the premiss, is a mental " nutrition," 
 ending in a " function ; " the tension against reason is 
 the nutrition. The change of basis, in which the tension 
 ceases, is the function. So too in the cases in which 
 a false thought of right enforces a false duty, making a 
 " tension " against the moral reason, which ceases with 
 a truer apprehension of the duty : here is a moral 
 nutrition and a function. 
 
 The words theory and interpretation are used in a 
 sense precisely corresponding. Theory means that 
 which is imposed on us as true while there is an error 
 in the basis of our thought ; interpretation, the rectify- 
 ing of the basis. 
 
 The word polarity has been used rather in unusual 
 
Author s Preface, xili 
 
 connections than with unusual meaning. It denotes 
 nothing more than an oppositeness in two things, which 
 impHes in them a special tendency to union. The 
 positive and negative electricities are examples of polar 
 opposites. 
 
 Continuous and transitive vibrations are sufficiently 
 explained by the context. The motion of a pendulum 
 is a continuous vibration, the upward motion being of 
 the same form as the downward; a body falling into 
 water, and making the water rise, is a transitive 
 vibration ; the upward motion, though equivalent to 
 the downward, being changed in form. 
 
 One new word I have introduced, which I would 
 prefer to have omitted if it had not been too much 
 interwoven with the thoughts — the word actualism. 
 This term I gave, for convenience, to the general con- 
 ception I had formed : it is parallel to idealism, 
 materialism, positivism, etc., and was adopted to ex- 
 press the idea that all existence is truly active or 
 spiritual, as opposed to inert or dead. 
 
 As I have been re-perusing these writings, I have 
 grown more and more conscious how far my words have 
 often been from conveying my whole meaning ; how my 
 very thought, indeed, has changed and grown beneath 
 my hands, and from being what seemed like a clear 
 perception, has become only a suggestion of far distant 
 things. I have felt this especially in relation to God 
 and Nature. To me, Nature means God's action towards 
 me and towards man ; and it is so much, and grows to 
 me perpetually so much more, and so joins itself with 
 
xiv Authors Preface. 
 
 Revelation, and becomes one with all that I have most 
 prized in that, that all seems to come into it, and I 
 cannot draw a line ; nor can I even try. But I know 
 this is no end — my eyes are dazzled ; others will judge 
 for me. 
 
 To any reader who has felt interest enough to extend 
 his glances at these papers even to their end, let me say 
 that I hope he has felt this about them, that with 
 whatever weaknesses and errors and waste of time and 
 thought they are mixed, yet there is in them some sign 
 of the opening of a road into farther truths. This is 
 all they were wished to afford. 
 
 James Hintox. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 I. 
 
 METAPHYSICS. 
 
 The nature of the world — The hypothesis of matter — The universe 
 is God's action perceived as motion — Nature is action — Nature 
 is one with man — Berkeley's error — The mind is not more real 
 than the external world — The laws of Nature are given by 
 man — The work of Science is to harmonise our perceptions 
 with our conceptions — Can we know the fact of the world ? — 
 How come we to perceive a physical world ? — Wherever sin 
 is, matter is — The law of cause and effect is a form of thought 
 — God's act is not the cause but the fact of the world — 
 Granting illusion, all mysteries are removed — The error of 
 regarding this as an imperfect physical world — The mental is 
 physical — Things are forms of the spiritual — Science now is 
 too abstract — The error of" inherent tendencies," etc. — Nature 
 is a process felt as a matter — Metaphysics is a Mathematics — 
 The world is the symbol of an unknown quantity — Matter = x 
 — Science, like Mathematics, exists for the sake of the un- 
 known quantity — The point, that is, absence of matter, is 
 the only infinite, and the symbol of God — The molecule is in 
 reality a point — Chemistry and Physics correspond with 
 Mathematics — Metaphysics and Science must be used together 
 — What will make philosophy popular? — The tendency of 
 Positivism — The life of Metaphysics 
 
XVI Contents, 
 
 11. 
 NATUKE KNOWN BY THE MOEAL EMOTIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Man's response to right — The actual is kno^\^l by the conjoint 
 use of sense, intellect, and moral being — Man fell by the 
 conscience — Men really judge by their feelings — The evil of 
 thinking that God acts for results — Mysticism is allied to 
 Science — The Mystics are interpreters — The intellect attains 
 freedom by subjection to the moral sense — The physical is 
 the moral — Nature is Holiness — Nature is man's bride — Nature 
 is "the hands of the living God" — We must recognise negation 
 of Being — Love of God is the love of all things — The world as 
 a work of genius — The organic is not the highest in Nature 
 — The future Science — Nature's secrets are won by sympathy 
 — Evil of the doctrine of special creations — " Design " is a 
 necessary consequence of the assumption of matter — Science is 
 done for love — To be natural is to love — Nature is perfectly 
 beautiful, therefore ideal beauty is less perfect — Nature is 
 God's ideal — All mental life is the representation of Nature 
 — To account for error is to show it beautiful — Evil is nutrition 
 — Painting recalls to us the spiritual fact of Nature — The 
 function of Art is to reveal the holiness of Nature — Art will 
 advance as Science has — The future of the world 59 
 
 III. 
 
 MENTAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 Moral and emotional facts stand on the same basis as physical 
 facts — False perceptions are the condition of mental life — 
 Nature is always first misunderstood — There is no method for 
 discovery — The relation of logic to imagination — The place of 
 those who want logic — The significance of jiaradox — Sleep in 
 mental life — Breathing in mental life — Genius and talent — 
 Talent is nutrition, genius function — Man's mind is female, 
 woman's male — How genius and talent are aflected by paradox 
 — Genius is common sense— Mental life arises from failure — 
 Men are i)arts of a whole — May genius be fouud common ? — 
 
Contents. xvll 
 
 PAGE 
 
 In humanity, as in genius, there is no design — Nutrition and 
 function are the life in thinking — Submission to the thought 
 of others is disease — Saying is seeing — The mental life of 
 humanity ... ... .,, ... ... 107 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE AKT OF THINKING. 
 
 How to think rightly — Truth is suppressed and comes back in 
 higher form — All thought is necessary — Opinions are like insti- 
 tutions — Necessity of surrendering good opinions — Opinion 
 is form only, and must change to preserve its value — We only 
 know form ; to know the fact is to love — That which must 
 be thought must be distinguished from that which is true — 
 Use of analogy — Thought is Nature, and therefore cannot be 
 false — All opinions are true under their conditions — The 
 danger of fear in thought — The value of logic — What are 
 axioms? — Newton's work great by its incompleteness — Truth 
 is the union of opposites — The minus in thinking — Necessity 
 of sacrifice in thought — The nature of hypothesis — All advance 
 in thought comes by right use of words — No ends in thinking 
 — Thinking is an especial work — Parallel of thinking to art 
 — Imagination the chief element in true thought — The Art 
 element in true thought parallel to the Gentile element in 
 Christianity 141 
 
 THE SELF AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 Individuals are states of humanity — Individuals are separate 
 because physical — Man as a parasite — The self is negation — 
 Eternal life is deliverance from the self — Descartes perverted 
 modern thought by starting from the self — The untrust- 
 worthiness of consciousness — True consciousness is the 
 opposite of self-consciousness — Unsatisfactory nature of the 
 doctrine of immortality — The desire for immortality is not 
 
xviil Contents. 
 
 man's highest aspiration — "What absorption into God means — 
 Love is not self-sacrifice — We want martyrs — To give love 
 is to create — Men are sacrificed for man — How happiness is 
 attained — Only love can satisfy — Happiness is a putting 
 aside of consciousness — Pleasure comes from want — Person- 
 ality is not highest — God is not personal — The Trinity — God 
 is Being — No mind without body — God as light — The fact is 
 love and is shown by Christ ... ... ... ... ... 177 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE BIBLE. 
 
 Nature interprets the Bible — The work of the Bible is to give man 
 life — What death means — Inspiration — No need for inspira- 
 tion — To have life is to be inspired — We must not be afraid 
 of the Bible — The source of the Bible's power — We put the 
 divine element away from the present — The difference between 
 physical and spiritual is one of perception — Redemption 
 cannot be partial — Religion must not appeal to the selfish 
 emotions — The mistake of our Christianity — The supposition 
 of a physical hell — Hell cannot be remorse — The world 
 accounted for by God's act and man's death — Christ does not 
 save from the punishment of sin — What God's hell is — 
 Heaven is love — Christ's work will cease — " This is my body " 
 shows the spiritual nature of all existence — Prayer changes, 
 not the Uciy but the phenomenon — Christianity is not a 
 theology but a fact — Our Christianity is dead — How Christi- 
 anity may be surpassed ... ... ... ... ... 204 
 
 VII. 
 
 HOLINESS. 
 
 Nature is self-control — The moral life is parallel to the mental — 
 To be moral is to act — Ago ergo ego — Misery only removed 
 by removing selfishness— No action but right action — There 
 i« II" true arbitrary action or free-will — Arbitrary action is sin 
 
Contents. xlx 
 
 — Freedom "because necessity — Man cannot fail because he is 
 a part of Nature — The only mystery is man's death— The 
 moral lesson of Science — Our moral life is passion controlled — 
 The phenomenal nature of evil — Sin as inaction — The analogy 
 of disease to sin — Evil to the individual is good to the race — 
 Life comes only from death — AVe are redeemed, not tempted, 
 by matter — Creation is self-control — God has no physical 
 power — " Creation out of nothing " — The creature is one with 
 the Creator — Self-sacrifice is not loss — A selfish world is the 
 necessary phenomenon of an altruistic world — No nutrition 
 without a final function — The resurrection of the dead comes 
 by Man 235 
 
 VIII. 
 
 ETHICS. 
 
 The practical problem is to unite work for man with the devotion 
 connected with work for God — Peace must be made heroic — 
 We need the Puritan's heroism on another level — By seeing 
 the present as the phenomenon of the eternal all life becomes 
 religious — Our Christianity cannot give the enthusiasm which 
 alone can raise men above selfishness — Whether civilization is 
 an advance in a moral direction — Faith will make common 
 life heroic — Stoicism and Actualism — Parallel of Science and 
 the practical life — The world is altruistically good — The 
 world is good for giving in — Men are ignorant rather than 
 evil — Happiness is altruistic — Man is one — Man's business is 
 with the present — The practical as existing for the sake of the 
 reflective — The unreality of the physical — Virtue connected 
 with the self — The evil of exalting individual over general 
 regards — The self as the devil — Genius is a sufferer, not a 
 doer — Self-sacrifice is extended politeness — Poverty does not 
 involve loss of refinement — The education of children — We 
 need not seek results — Whether the world goes best by being 
 let alone — What martyrdom is — Men are still called upon to 
 be martyrs — The conditions must always be fulfilled — The 
 
XX Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 world's debt to outcasts — Vicarious suffering is the law of the 
 world — Circumstances determine virtue — The ascetic instinct 
 — Our ethical life is pre-scientific — Future times will owe to 
 this age the culture of the heart 265 
 
 IX. 
 SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 Altruism as a basis for life — To obtain justice we must aim 
 higher — Is selfishness normal? — Society will take the place 
 of Government — The function of social evil — The scientific 
 laws of force as guides in political economy — Eightness of 
 the Socialist feeling towards property — Parallel between capital 
 and civil Government — Results that flow from the negative 
 element in man — Disregard of the relations of things — Trade 
 should be made a profession — The redudio ad absurdum in 
 political economy — The truth and error in Socialism — The 
 conditions of the success of Socialism — Criminals should be 
 treated like lunatics — Human life and the training of children 
 — The world was never worse than now — Men seek wrong 
 ends — The life of society — The child-state of humanity — The 
 value of good manners as showing the pattern for life — The 
 end of civilization is a return to Nature — Life is in the sphere 
 of good manners — Our life a suppression — Woman, like re- 
 ligion, needs to be liberated — The law of " anticipation " in 
 history — The law of fulfilling the conditions must be applied 
 to the practical life — The present age is one of " nutrition." 298 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND EELIGION. 
 
 I. 
 
 METAPHYSICS. ' 
 
 The nature of the world — The hypothesis of matter — The universe 
 is Grod's action perceived as motion — Nature is action — Nature is 
 one with man — Berkeley's error — The mind is not more real than 
 the external world — The laws of Nature are given by man — The 
 work of Science is to harmonise our perceptions with our con- 
 ceptions — Can we know the fact of the world ? — How come we to 
 perceive a physical world ? — Wherever sin is, matter is — The law 
 of cause and effect is a form of thought — God's act is not the cause 
 but the fact of the world — Granting illusion, all mysteries are 
 removed — The error of regarding this as an imperfect physical 
 world — The mental is physical — Things are forms of the spiritual 
 — Science now is too abstract — The error of " inherent tendencies," 
 etc. — Nature is a process felt as matter — Metaphysics is a Mathe- 
 matics — The world is the symbol of an unknown quantity — 
 Matter = x — Science, like Mathematics, exists for the sake of the 
 unknown quantity — The point, that is, absence of matter, is the 
 only infinite, and the symbol of God — The molecule is in reality a 
 point — Chemistry and Physics correspond with Mathematics — 
 Metaphysics and Science must be used together — What will make 
 Philosophy popular ? — The tendency of Positivism — The life of 
 Metaphysics. 
 
 Men may adopt three views concerning the nature of the 
 world. (1) That there is a material and an actual 
 (spiritual), both truly existing, and necessarily with a 
 certain antagonism between them ; this leads rightly to 
 asceticism. (2) That there is only the material ; this 
 
2 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 being the true existence (at least to us), and such as 
 we perceive it. There is (to us) no actual. This is 
 positivism, as it speaks. (3) That the sole true existence 
 is the actual ; and that this material, or real, is our way 
 of perceiving it. The last is actualism (or positivism as 
 it truly is), the practical inference being that we have to 
 deal with the real, but on the principle that it is truly 
 actual, if we could see it aright, getting at the true Being 
 by leaving out the negation. Now which is the best ? 
 
 Newton* says, '"the first cause is certainly not 
 mechanical." This is just the point at which science 
 stops : the conversion as it were of the first cause into 
 mechanical cause, or motion. Or as the problem may be 
 better put : what is that wherein consists the act of 
 spirit becoming motion ? This is the problem, to bridge 
 the gulf which separates a spiritual act from motion : the 
 jQystery of creation is here. The hypothesis of matter 
 or a substratum in which motion inheres as one of its 
 properties is evidently simply a mode of solving the 
 difficulty ; the hypothesis was manifestly invented for that 
 object. It appeared, I suppose, simpler that a spiritual 
 being should create matter and put it in motion, which 
 motion would then *' naturally" continue, or continue by 
 the laws of motion (whatever that means), than that a 
 spirit's action should itself be motion. And indeed at 
 first sight this solution does seem to have some ad- 
 vantages ; to our minds it does seem natural that matter 
 should move, there is a conformity between the nature of 
 the two things : also it does not seem so hard to under- 
 stand that a spirit should put matter in motion : not 
 that the idea is at all simple or intelligible, but I 
 suppose we readily accept the supposition because we are 
 conscious of being able to do the same thing ; by our 
 
Metaphysics. 3 
 
 spiritual act, our will, we move matter. The idea has 
 that deceptive appearance of comprehensibility which 
 arises from familiarity. Also by supposing a creation of 
 matter once and putting it in motion, which continues as 
 a matter of course, we throw back the difficulty if we do 
 not diminish it : it does not press on us as a present 
 mystery — the thing was very wonderful when it took 
 place, but it was so very long ago that it does not 
 concern us much, and besides it was altogether a different 
 process from any that takes place now, so that it is no 
 wonder if we find it mysterious. But upon this we may 
 remark (1) That it does not really relieve the difficulty. 
 (2) That it rather substitutes a greater difficulty for a 
 less one. (3) That it is in point of fact utterly 
 inadmissible. If a spiritual may become a physical 
 action at any time, why not now ? Why suppose two 
 processes or orders of things when one, which must in 
 any case be supposed, will suffice ? And again, as has 
 been said, we are conscious continually in ourselves of a 
 spiritual act becoming a physical act ; why should we 
 exclude God from doing that which we do ourselves '? 
 If part of the motion which exists is our spiritual act, 
 why is not the rest of it God's spiritual act ? Why two 
 different causes for like events ? But the difficulty is, by 
 the hypothesis of matter, really rendered greater. We 
 cannot see how a spiritual act, either our own or God's, 
 can produce or be (which is a better term) motion ; but, 
 hard as this may be, we do at least perceive it in our own 
 experience, whereas the creation of matter is a thing at 
 once much harder to conceive, and entirely bej^ond 
 experience. It is not only inconceivable as a process 
 but is illustrated by no analogies. That God creates the 
 world by a spiritual act, as we by spiritual acts take a 
 part in the production of the phenomena, appears by the 
 
4 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 side of this past and done creation of matter, a thing of 
 course, so simple by comparison, that we almost forget 
 that it, too, is an impassible mystery. But also this 
 hypothesis of matter is inadmissible (as long seen) on 
 scientific grounds. Useless and worse than useless as an 
 explanation of the fact which it was invented to explain, 
 it is positively shown to be false alike by metaphysics 
 and by science. It fills the world with needless mysteries 
 without helping in the least to remove a necessary 
 one. But though the hypothesis of matter only makes 
 bad worse, the problem may be attempted in other ways, 
 and, as it seems to me, somewhat mitigated if not solved. 
 Berkeley tried to do this by afi&rming the world to be 
 God's action upon man's mind, which is at least better 
 than the material hypothesis, although open on one side 
 to fatal objections. I propose this view : That the 
 universe is God's action absolutely, and quite indepen- 
 dently of any percipient. But God being a spirit, His 
 action, of course, is spiritual action. How then do we see 
 it as physical, i.e. as motion, which is not a spiritual 
 attribute ? (I do not say as matter and motion, because 
 the idea of matter is evidently derived from motion, viz. 
 through resistance, which is only motion opposed to 
 motion.) This is my solution. We perceive God's 
 spiritual action as motion, because we ourselves, by our 
 own finite nature, impose a limit on it : i.e. God's action 
 being in itself unlimited, having relation neither to time 
 nor space, we, by virtue of our finitude, perceive it in 
 relation only to such boundaries : that is, we see it as 
 motion, the material universe. 
 
 This is why the laws of Nature are truly the laws of 
 our minds, why the conceptions by which material 
 phenomena are bound into science are supplied from 
 within, not gathered from without; why it is in truth 
 
Metaphysics. 5 
 
 himself that man studies in the universe. Science is 
 man's view of God's action. Doubtless each order of 
 intelligent beings has a different science ; according to 
 the limit their nature compels them to put upon the 
 divine action. Our perceptions themselves involve the 
 ideas of space and time ; they are only human '' forms," 
 not actualities ; and we can conceive of force only as 
 motion ; whatever God might do, if we perceived it, it 
 would be motion to us. 
 
 We must have action, getting rid of matter altogether. 
 The one error of science is the considering action as 
 substance ; and so, in its advance, we get rid of substance 
 continually, seeing nature more and more truly, till at 
 last, giving up substance altogether, we get the true 
 nature, the spiritual, the divine. And we take with 
 shame, yet a shame that should be full of hope and joy, 
 the " inertia " wholly to ourselves. Inertia is selfishness, 
 the subjectness to passion, the not acting, the true or 
 spiritual death. 
 
 Surely Nature is one because knowledge is one. To 
 comprehend anything is to have it in us — one with our 
 own central "thought." Surely we "comprehend" 
 nothing but axioms: comprehension is of one fact, at 
 once primary and ultimate. As I have said of life, it 
 comprehends all and is comprehended in the least. Our 
 comprehension is of life ; our minds being life we com- 
 prehend life. This and this alone we understand or 
 know. To understand a thing is for it to become one 
 with us. The mere accumulation of ideas and theories 
 — nutrition — is not truly knowledge, in fact it is error, 
 which is opposed to it : it is a mere preparation for it. 
 Knowledge is the result of interpretation or function, 
 
6 Philosophy and Religion, 
 
 which is always one, however various the nutrition or 
 assimilation or resulting organization : the functional 
 process has ever an absolute oneness. In short we know 
 a thing only when we see that it is merely a form of our 
 own thought — our own thought being ever and neces- 
 sarily one. 
 
 The conformity of all our senses, the constant im- 
 pression produced, is due to the fact of organization, and 
 our forming part of one universal organization. 
 
 To affirm of any thing or fact that it is " seen " or 
 "perceived" is to assert that it is only phenomenal; 
 but not therefore that it does not indicate a reality ; 
 that is the very thing it does do, by virtue of the prin- 
 ciple of causation. Its object and end is to show us the 
 reality. Eemember the two-fold relation to us of the 
 universe ; to our bodies, as subserving our physical life, 
 and to our minds ; how much more essential the former 
 seems to be ; yet is this surely only a phenomenon, for 
 what is our life, our body and mind, but simply one 
 vibration produced on our spirit by the Divine act? 
 When that ceases, still remains the spirit, still remains 
 the Divine act. These are eternal and have no relation 
 to time. Still is there passion in our spirit produced by 
 the Divine act, still do we live. Our physical and mental 
 life are but one form of the ever-changing phenomenal 
 passion, nothing is lost or ceases when that ends ; so the 
 apparent primary importance of the physical life is 
 deceptive or phenomenal. And our bodily and mental 
 life is really as it were only one vibration out of the 
 boundless series of vibrations which constitute the passion 
 produced by God's action on the spirit. This life is one 
 vibration of the music produced in the human spirit by 
 God's action influencing it. Human spirits are like lyres 
 
Metaphysics. 7 
 
 which vibrate when breathed on by the wind, but the 
 wind does not blow /or them, or in order to produce that 
 music. And our bodies and minds are one note of such 
 music, which swells and dies away, but only to be suc- 
 ceeded by another and different one. I perceive that 
 people are puzzled by confounding relations between 
 phenomena with the view of the phenomenon as a whole : 
 the relations of phenomena are not affected in any way by 
 the subjective view. Just as the sun's path among the 
 stars is merely phenomenal, yet as a relation among 
 phenomena remains unaffected by the subjective view of 
 the sun's motion. It is only understood, which surely is 
 no detriment. 
 
 All phenomena and phenomenal relations are real in 
 relation to our bodies and minds ; as real as they are. 
 Things, qualities, time, space, are actualities to our bodies 
 and minds ; really affect and influence them ; these are 
 relations between phenomena. We are apt to think of 
 the external world as unreal in comparison with our own 
 bodies and minds, but the relation of the external world 
 to them is not altered in the least. In fact, the phe- 
 nomenon remains altogether just as it was, only we 
 understand it. Thus no alteration is made at all in our 
 common- sense treatment of phenomena, which are as 
 ever in relation to each other, and our bodily and mental 
 interests continue the same as ever. 
 
 As for the wonder of perception — sensation, thought, 
 etc.— this is the fact of organic mind; and physiology 
 must afford the explanation. Thus not only is the 
 externality of the universe conceded in every possible 
 sense, viz. its externality to our bodies, but the reality 
 also in every sense in which there is the least evidence or 
 possibility of it, viz. in relation to our minds and bodies. 
 
 It was a fatal error of Berkeley's to make the mind 
 
8 Philosophy a7id Religion, 
 
 a reality in relation to the external world as phenomenal ; 
 thus he denied the reality of the external world in an 
 inadmissible sense. The sense being also a phenomenon, 
 the full reality of the external world is maintained in 
 every sense, except an artificial one, that might possibly 
 be asserted by controversialists, but certainly rests on no 
 possible evidence even of the least conclusive description. 
 It is real in relation to men's minds and bodies ; that is 
 all they know or care to maintain, and that is true. The 
 question is, "What are it and our minds and bodies also ? 
 And this is the question of questions for all, though 
 disregarded ; it is the " Know Thyself.'" 
 
 It is because the laws of nature exist in ourselves, have 
 their origin and cause in us, that we know truth when 
 we see it. We recognize its conformity with our own 
 mental constitution; see ourselves in it, in fact. But 
 then how is it that before knowing the truth we always 
 err ? Surely only because the universe is too large for 
 us to grasp ; we cannot for a very long time comprehend 
 the simplicity of nature. Therefore we look wrongly 
 upon things, but the error is in detail not in principle. 
 The principles of natural doctrines are ever true, axioms 
 do not deceive us, enlargement of view is all that is 
 needed to help us to apply them rightly. And truth 
 ever succeeds ; it must indeed, for truth is but the 
 natural action of the mind : and to *' arrive at truth " is 
 only this — that the laws and forms the mind imposes 
 upon that part of God's action with which it has to do, 
 should not be arbitrary but consistent. And the mode in 
 which we err is most suggestive ; for what is it but that 
 we invent things and properties which have no existence ? 
 Error is the seeing what does not exist ; seeing in fact 
 many things where there is only one. The progress of 
 
Metaphysics. 9 
 
 truth consists in the rejection of multiplicity and the 
 substitution of unity and simplicity of conception. But 
 this shows what the prerogative and necessary action of 
 the mind is. No one would say that we are made to err 
 arbitrarily in our progress towards knowledge ; these 
 erroneous '' creations " or forms imposed on nature by 
 the mind are the legitimate steps of its advance. Its 
 prerogative is not to receive but to give laws to nature : 
 the work of science is how best to do this. Man is the 
 ruler and lawgiver : things have to conform to him, not he 
 to them. As he is more and more filled and penetrated 
 by God's work, so does he rule nature better ; so does he 
 carry out to greater perfection his own mental action, 
 and instead of many partial and discordant powers, pro- 
 perties, and laws, comes to see around him one act — the 
 normal operation of his own mind, and that alone, ever 
 presented and repeated before him in that which God 
 does. Knowledge is not a being filled to the brim ; 
 science is not a submission of the intellect to laws. 
 Knowledge is power ; science is dominion. Hence the 
 twofold aspect of science : it sprang first complete into 
 existence. Man gave laws and right laws to the world 
 when first he was placed upon his throne : he enunciated 
 right laws when by the first philosophers his statute 
 books were written. But also he had need of larger 
 knowledge of God, of a nearer approach to Him in His 
 work, before he could use his power fully. Man by 
 studying nature brings himself into communion with 
 God, that from Him he may learn how to discharge his 
 Godlike office of Lawgiver. 
 
 Man constructs Science as the bird builds its nest ; 
 the bird arranges things in a way accordant with its 
 nature, and its sensations ; it does what it must, it carries 
 
lo Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 out its laws of thought, just as man does in Science : it 
 puts them right, it groups them in what appear to it 
 their natural and necessary relations, solely with refer- 
 ence to themselves — and then it is a nest ! So Science 
 becomes a moral nest, in which man's spirit reposes. 
 
 Woman being taken out of man affords an excellent 
 allegory to illustrate the relation of man and nature. 
 Nature is " taken out " of man; it is himself that he 
 sees thus as something external and secondary, and sub- 
 ordinate to himself. Yet not himself merely — not a 
 phantom or illusion — but God and he working together ; 
 not man without God nor God without man, but God 
 using man, as it were. In nature God uses man's 
 mental constitution to educe out of His spiritual action 
 a material universe suitable to himself. Nature is thus, 
 as woman was, the product of God's action and man's 
 " substance." It is man's mental substance or constitu- 
 tion, which, brought into relation with God's (spiritual) 
 action, is nature : i.e. man imposing a limit on God's 
 action (itself infinite) perceives it as matter and motion. 
 And the relation of nature to man should be that of 
 woman to him — it should be his second self : it should 
 be known to be so : it should be treated so. Man has 
 degraded alike woman and nature to be his material 
 minister : miserable error, miserable loss. Both are his 
 spirit's peers and friends. 
 
 It was the old practical error of the " a priori " philo- 
 sophers that theories to be true needed only to agree 
 with the laws of our own conceptions ; it is the recent 
 practical error of the empirical philosophers that theories 
 to be true needed only to agree with the facts. In each 
 case the same error of defect. 
 
 Instances of the disregard of the laws of our own 
 
Metaphysics. 1 1 
 
 conceptions in the formation of recent scientific theories 
 are innumerable : in fact that vice pervades the whole 
 scheme and structure of modern science. Either way, 
 of course, agrees equally with the facts ; indeed the facts 
 suggest rather the wrong than the right, and therefore 
 by men who thought their only or chief business was to 
 make the theories accord with the facts, the wrong was 
 naturally adopted. But the structure of our minds 
 demands the reversal of these views : an entire turning 
 round of science, a re-assertion of the laws of mind. 
 
 The " a priori " chimeras had at least this advantage, 
 that in the very nature of them they were obliged to be 
 expressible, and therefore conceivable ; but the chimeras 
 of experimental science will not even submit to this 
 slight restraint. They float, many of them, in such an 
 equivocal region, that when you want to speak of them, 
 their enunciation is found to be no less than im- 
 possible. 
 
 That was a great error of Bacon's : he thought truth 
 was in nature instead of in man, and that formulae cor- 
 rectly expressive of natural facts must therefore be true. 
 The very error of the " a priori " men, in another form, 
 but still identical, for they believed that formulae correctly 
 expressive of laws of thought must be true. And has 
 not this falsified science ever since, the idea that formulae 
 correctly expressing facts must be true ? The error is 
 palpable — those only are true formulae which brings facts 
 into accordance with the laws of thought. Is not this 
 the error of the mathematicians ; using hypotheses 
 merely as means of calculation ? Bacon thought also 
 that by changing externals he could alter internals ; 
 could eradicate a false intellectual habit by substituting 
 a new method. Just what those men do who are for 
 reforming mankind by altering institutions. It w^as the 
 
12 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 one-sidedness of men that wanted removing, and Bacon 
 essayed to do this hy turning men altogether to the 
 opposite side. But I also am wrong in thinking that I 
 could improve history. What is this alternate excess 
 hut a vibration, what the union of the two but develop- 
 ment? We must excuse the vagaries of the period of 
 liberty; variety and apparent caprice are its element. 
 The future science shall embody both — the law and the 
 liberty in one. 
 
 The law of science is, to make our perceptions and 
 coriceptions harmonize : thus it is altogether an internal 
 thing. How recent science has failed even to aim at this, 
 is palpable : of the two it is more important that our 
 theories should rightly correspond with our conceptions 
 than with our perceptions ; [for after all these are what 
 we mean by facts]. Laws may be true although not 
 agreeing with facts, the facts being incorrectly observed 
 or regarded; but laws that do violence to conceptions 
 cannot be true. The universal error of putting pheno- 
 menon before cause, almost necessarily arises from the 
 idea of receiving laws from nature instead of giving them 
 to her. 
 
 How simple, comparatively, it makes the mystery of 
 perception — that we are the cause of the facts which we 
 perceive, i.e. the cause of their being as we perceive 
 them. All that mystification about the " authority of 
 the senses," etc., ceases. 
 
 Let us trust ourselves, trust our senses, our mental 
 senses as well as our bodily ones. Now we place much 
 reliance on our external senses and none on our internal, 
 as, before, much on internal and little on external. We 
 should learn to rely on both : for what is the good of 
 
Metaphysics. 1 3 
 
 talking about the external world, when it is absolutely 
 ourselves that we study and trust ? Are not the senses 
 as much we, as the intuitions ? Have the senses any 
 authority which they did not derive from us ? By the 
 senses we acquire a subjective knowledge, viz. of an 
 effect upon ourselves. By the internal senses or percep- 
 tions we learn, from this effect on ourselves thus known 
 through the senses, the cause which is external to our- 
 selves. The internal senses, the rational powers, are in 
 immediate relation with that which is external to us, 
 which the senses are not. By the senses we learn the 
 effects on ourselves and their relations ; that is their 
 value. Our knowledge is entirely bound in effects on 
 ourselves ; this is the reason of the necessity for the use 
 of the senses ; without them no basis for any knowledge ; 
 we cannot know causes if we do not know effects. Our 
 internal faculties, reasoning, intuition, etc., bring us 
 into relation with that which is not subjective, with the 
 causes of these effects on ourselves which we perceive 
 by the senses ; but these internal faculties can have 
 valuable results only when they are employed upon 
 materials gained by the senses. Without these they are, 
 of course, misleading; trying to learn cause without 
 knowing effects, is of course hopeless ; for the effects 
 are the causes in the '' present," existing where alone 
 we can know them. 
 
 In one sense the old philosophers were not too much 
 subjective, but too little. They reasoned of things 
 external to them, without knowing what was internal ; 
 tried to get at true external causes of effects on them, 
 not having first learnt what those effects were. Our 
 philosophy is becoming as extremely subjective as theirs 
 was external. They busied themselves wholly about the 
 causes affecting them without caring to know what were 
 
14 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 the effects on themselves ; we busy ourselves wholly 
 about the effects on ourselves and their relations to each 
 other, without caring to know the cause external to us. 
 This is the true relation of the two philosophies. Our 
 material universe, as we consider it, is altogether an 
 effect on ourselves (for our reference to God having once 
 created it, or to His now and then doing or creating some 
 things in it, is idle in the extreme). The old philosophy 
 was full of guesses about what might be the cause or 
 causes of the effects on ourselves ; not knowing what 
 those effects were, nor caring to know, save in the most 
 superficial and inaccurate way. Put the two things 
 together, and we have a depth, something satisfactory 
 and worthy of manhood. 
 
 Here is the point for positivism : do we certainly 
 know (as it affirms) that we do not and cannot know the 
 fact and being of things ? If so, how and why do we 
 know this ? If we know this much, surely we may 
 know more ; for we could not know this unless we knew 
 why we cannot know it. It is " because of the subjective 
 element in all phenomena ; " but then can we not find 
 out this subjective element ? This " self," which must 
 be perceived as external but is not, what is it ? 
 
 The positivists do not see that they are cutting the 
 bonds which have tied philosophy's feet, and then saying 
 to her: do not walk. They do not see that their 
 arguments about it, and the presumption from its 
 failure hitherto, lose all their force in that very fact of 
 the new starting-point they give her. The question is 
 altogether another one now, and susceptible of an 
 entirely new treatment; now that we know that this 
 assumption, that things exist such as we perceive them, 
 
Metaphysics. 1 5 
 
 is an illusion ; and that the cause of our perception is 
 not and cannot be this. 
 
 Positivism must aim to put us into one with the 
 fact of the world around us. And this it does by 
 saying : Sacrifice yourselves, live for others. Then this 
 must be the fact of the world around us, not passive, 
 not getting ; but giving, acting. The positivist says : I 
 speak of the law only, and that is self-sacrifice, love for 
 others ; but as for the fact, I will not even think what 
 that may be. But none the less is it involved in this 
 law that the fact is Love : is that which, in relation to 
 us, is self-sacrifice. 
 
 The problem of science (of interpretation) always is, 
 the phenomena being given by accurate observation, to 
 find something which, being considered as the fact, the 
 phenomena shall necessarily be as we see them ; and 
 where such a fact is found, as it does inevitably force 
 itself upon the mind of some man, it is self-evidently 
 true ; comes with irresistible conviction ; it is the fact, 
 we cannot help seeing it to be ; that which makes the 
 phenomenon necessary is unquestionably the cause of 
 it. This is a good way of seeing it : it identifies physical 
 cause and connection in reason. Now the fact which 
 makes the physical necessary (and has this self-evidence) 
 is a subjective inertia of humanity. Cause is ever that 
 which makes necessary ; the motion of the earth makes 
 it necessary for us to perceive, therefore it is the cause 
 of our perceiving. Now surely all finding out of cause 
 is interpretation in this sense ; is it not ? And all other 
 supposing of cause is hypothesis, making phenomena 
 their own cause, as gravitation, e.g. : we have to in- 
 terpret gravitation as gravitation is interpretation of 
 planetary motions. And see the beauty of this ; our 
 
1 6 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 perceiving is the primary fundamental fact, and neces- 
 sarily so ; we can have no other basis to start from or 
 rest on. There is ultimately nothing else to explain or 
 give cause for ; all questions of cause resolve themselves 
 into this, the cause of our perceiving, or of our sen- 
 sations rather. This is as it should be ; the final 
 answer, too, must be that which gives some condition of 
 ourselves as the fact. 
 
 The question respecting the universe is not, " How 
 comes there to be a physical, or what is the physical 
 world ? " but " How come we to perceive a physical 
 world ? " He must be dull who cannot see that this is 
 the "fact," the question, especially with astronomy to 
 help him, in which the same history has been. Astro- 
 nomers started with the assumption that the heavenly 
 motions existed as such, and puzzled themselves. They 
 did not ask the right question. In like manner we do 
 not face the true problem ; we have made assumptions 
 instead of keeping to facts. The question is, how come 
 we to perceive a material world? This we answer by 
 guessing ; we assume, we jump at once to a conclusion, 
 do everything that is unphilosophical and sure to land 
 us in error ; we lay it down, without any reason at all, 
 that it is because the physical exists externally to us. 
 Let us keep to the fact and give our attention to the 
 real question. How do we come to perceive a physical 
 world ? That is the question, and the only question ; 
 to be answered by investigating first what we perceive. 
 
 With regard to the question, " When did the physical 
 begin ? " I answer, " It began with the not-being of 
 man, the Fall." It is like the question, when did the 
 sun begin to move round the earth ? — when man began 
 to perceive. They are alike affairs of perception. All 
 
I 
 
 Metaphysics, 1 7 
 
 that is remains the same ; nothing was altered when the 
 physical began ; but a mode of perception commenced 
 in man. 
 
 When and wheresoever there is sin, suppression of 
 moral Being, there is the physical, there is time and 
 space, there is nutrition ; i.e. there is redemption or 
 development. This is the great life. This constitutes 
 the spiritual universe, this is our not-being from other 
 spiritual Being, our nutrition-producing failure, our 
 tendency and function. All other forms of life flow 
 from, are included in, and re-present this. 
 
 What more is there in what I say than this : that God 
 is all around us and we do not perceive Him ? It is this 
 simply. But then our not perceiving God is our per- 
 ceiving matter. Postulate Being instead of not-being ; 
 and that is the universe. 
 
 This also I see ; the law of cause and effect, under 
 which we see nature, is a form of thought. It is nothing 
 real, truly belonging to the essential action which con- 
 stitutes the universe ; but a relation like that of time 
 and space and motion, arising from our constitution ; it 
 arises as time does from the limit we impose on that 
 which is unlimited. Hence its absolute authority, hence 
 its absolute non-entity. It is one of those things which 
 is and is not (like time and space). And now the value 
 of this thought : this relation of cause and effect, succes- 
 sion of *' second causes," — what is it except the mode in 
 which we view God's immediate action ? Therefore when 
 we say anything occurs under or by virtue of this law of 
 cause and effect, what is it that we affirm ? See if it 
 can be anything else than that God does it ? We see 
 God's action as a chain of causes and effects ; seeing 
 
1 8 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 them so by virtue of our finiteness of view, just as we 
 see things in time. Cause and effect, because they are 
 cause and effect, maybe known to be God's direct action. 
 And it follows that if cause and effect be God's direct 
 action, God's direct action consists in cause and effect : 
 and therefore to affirm direct creation is to affirm creation 
 by second causes : the two things are one. To see the 
 law of cause to be a form of thought removes that 
 apparent difficulty also. 
 
 God's act is not the cause of things but the fact of 
 them. When we ask for the cause, we ask for the cause 
 in time ; that which preceded it, which was and is not : 
 which God's act cannot be, being eternal. The idea of 
 cause, thus, I see to be wholly phenomenal. 
 
 If we consider God's act only as the cause of the origin 
 of the universe we deny the existence of His act, for the 
 cause exists only in the effect ; and the effect has all the 
 reality, the necessity, the fact, of the cause. The cause 
 is not, and never was, more than the effect ; the effect 
 contains it in full. We have fallen into horrible con- 
 fusions from this word ''cause," using it with so little 
 understanding. I see it now clearly ; and that it is 
 above all necessary to separate from it all idea of 
 efficiency, that is, acting. We have confounded cause 
 with actions. 
 
 In tracing a chain of " causes " we are not tracing a 
 " thing " which really exists, but imposing upon nature 
 accurately and wisely the law of our own minds. We 
 are bound to make the " facts " agree with our ** ideas," 
 and do not see the facts until we have done so. Our 
 idea of cause and effect is the true and only possible 
 fact of cause and effect. There is no other "law" in 
 nature but a law which we make. God is not the 
 
Metaphysics. • 1 9 
 
 " Lawgiver " to Nature — He is the Doer of it ; we are 
 the Lawgivers. 
 
 This strong persuasion that there may really exist 
 space, infinite space, without matter, is very striking ; 
 the actual is felt in it dimly and unconsciously. Space 
 is '' the unknown God ; " it is our ignorance makes the 
 actual to be " space." We are in space because we are 
 in God, and do not know it. 
 
 Being is a property of God ; not-being of the pheno- 
 menon : they are parallel ; the phenomenon is the Divine, 
 but without its '' Being." This is the puzzle of theology 
 — a God a'part from Nature is both asserted and denied. 
 It means that the absolute of Nature is God ; but this 
 which we take to be, is not, as it cannot be, God. The 
 old heathenism identified Nature and God; ours is a 
 suppression of this, with a " hypothesis " of God. God 
 is Nature — not the phenomenon but the Fact, the Being : 
 this is the interpretation. So the classic life was more 
 harmonious and whole than ours. 
 
 If we once get it into our minds that an effect on us, 
 or passion produced in us, as sentient Beings, causes us 
 to perceive material things, there is surely no more diffi- 
 culty about the material world. Then all we have to do 
 is to ascertain the cause of this passion in us, which 
 causes us to perceive the material universe, and all is 
 done. And this of course is a work of induction : how 
 is it to be settled without any trouble, a priori? I 
 want to know what this is, that I am caused to perceive. 
 If I wish to ascertain a cause, all right reason teaches me 
 to examine the effect. How is it likely we should be able 
 to answer this question alone without taking any trouble ? 
 
20 Philosophy aud Religion. 
 
 People say at once that the cause of this passion in us is 
 that a material universe exists which we perceive. Now 
 I do not insist upon the absurdity of this answer ; I will 
 suppose it to be possible, and even rational : but I say it 
 is a mere guess ; it is a priori : it is doing the very thing 
 which the same men are never tired of abusing our fore- 
 fathers for doing. We argue from our senses, which is 
 the very thing that is under dispute ; a most vicious circle. 
 
 Men who maintain cause to be a form of thought, 
 an universal law of mind, do not see that if it be so 
 it must exert an absolute authority over all "primary 
 qualities ; " that the mind as imjoeratively demands a 
 cause of gravity as of the ascent of a balloon, and can no 
 more rightly be put off by a reference to a direct act of 
 God in the one case than in the other : both are equally 
 God's act. That is why we perceive them as links in a 
 chain of cause and effect. To call a thing God's act is to 
 bid us find its cause that we may see it to be so — that is 
 how we see God acting. The mind, in short — the man, 
 I should say, humanity — rejects everything except action. 
 One action it accepts as the universe ; properties are 
 mockeries, feeding a hungry and thirsting soul with dust. 
 God ! is its cry. Let me see God and I see all things. 
 Blind me not, dare not to stifle me, with those dark veils 
 of matter ; clothe not the universe in sackcloth. Life 
 pants for life. I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait. 
 
 In affirming action the intellect is only doing for the whole 
 what it does successively for each of the parts. It is the 
 exclusion of a hypothesis, a ** not ; " or rather it is a trans- 
 ferring a *'not" from without to within. It is but 
 showing us why there must be this subjective passion in 
 us, which makes us infer the external world (and such a 
 
Metaphysics. 2 1 
 
 one); viz. love acting on '*not." — It is important to 
 observe that the subjective must ever be first, and that 
 what we call perception of the external must necessarily 
 be second, a hypothesis. The not recognizing this has 
 put us wrong, has made us think of " our senses deceiving 
 us." The truly instinctive must be that which recognizes 
 sensations as in us. Surely this is before intellect 
 properly so-called. Surely intellect begins with the 
 first inference, i.e. hypothesis. And is not that the first 
 conception of the external ? As for children, when they 
 first perceive or infer the external, their apparent 
 knowledge of '' things," as external and acting in rela- 
 tion to them appropriately, by no means involves that 
 they have any such conception as that of " external 
 things," or that all is not purely subjective to them. 
 An infant (even anencephalous) sucks immediately ; but 
 it knows nothing of any breasts. Children act well and 
 truly in relation to " external things," not knowing that 
 there are, or thinking whether there are, any external 
 things at all, conscious only of sensations purely sub- 
 jective, but prompted thereby to actions which are 
 perfectly adapted to their relation to "things." It is 
 the same with animals. 
 ■t This suggests (among other thoughts) how we may be 
 acting with a true reference to spiritual things, influenced 
 by them and responding to them, and taking our place 
 among them, while utterly unconscious and unthinking 
 of them. While engaged with our own sensations alone 
 (which material things are, when regarded as physical 
 only), we yet are truly acting among, and in, relation to, 
 spiritual facts — though we are heedless of them utterly 
 and do not perceive them at all. Yes, our unconsciousness 
 of the spiritual, while yet that is the whole fact, is like 
 a child, playing with " things " and educated by them, 
 
22 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 without any thought but of his own sensations. After a 
 time, that which was to him a mere sensation becomes to 
 him a " thing." The perception of physical " things " is 
 an interpretation of the physical sensation. Humanity 
 is such a child — taking no thought but of the physical, 
 and educated thereby to see true existence. 
 
 It is quite right that man should perceive the material 
 world ; this is perceiving the " not," which is the great 
 thing for him to know. Save as knowing this " not " in 
 himself he cannot be saved ; and he must first perceive 
 or " suppose " this " not " as external, before he can know 
 it as internal (this we know by the history of the human 
 mind). This is why man is in a material world : to show 
 him the '* not " in himself, he must first see it as without 
 {i.e. humanity must), and then he will come to know it as 
 within. (In the meantime individual men, feeling it by 
 conscience and revelation, are redeemed.) This is the 
 infancy of humanity ; and still, as we see in the animal 
 world, the embryonic form remains. Humanity is just 
 now waking up from perceiving only its own sensations 
 to perceive the actual around ; just as when a child first 
 interprets its sensations into external things. 
 
 All mysteries are removed if we once grant our feeling 
 not true. It does indeed seem strange at first, and 
 unlikely, that we should be thus living a life of illusion 
 — feeling as one thing what is another — but then this is 
 just the mystery of our life : it is odd and unlikely we 
 should have been as we are. Why not this oddness, as 
 well as any other ? There is this strangeness, in fact ; 
 whether we regard it as a mystery or as an unlikely fact : 
 so far as expressing the case is concerned, we may take 
 either view ; we have certainly one or the other. In the 
 untrue feeling is the basis and explanation of the prac- 
 
Metaphysics. 23 
 
 tical wrongness of our life, and of the theoretical puzzles. 
 But in fact there are mysteries and wonders any way ; 
 and this view, too, gives us the world as larger and more ; 
 it only means that we are too small. 
 
 And again : this fact (of an untrue feeling) is only 
 strange at first, before it is reflected on and examined ; 
 then it is seen evident and most natural ; it is involved 
 in our finite being only. And observe, this is putting one 
 oddness, or strange and unlikely thing, in place of 
 many. It has the law of parsimony on its side. If we 
 do not grant that, we must affirm innumerable mys- 
 teries, and each of them beyond all proportion greater 
 than it. And against it is absolutely nothing except a 
 strong natural tendency the other way, which is involved 
 in the fact itself that we do feel wrongly. Observe that 
 Copernicus's was exactly the same argument ; that we 
 must admit one strange thing, that we are feeling 
 wrongly, instead of many. And with regard to the 
 moral objections which at first appear, they soon range 
 themselves on the other side ; it is a great relief to the 
 moral sense. 
 
 I have had these thoughts : — how all change whatever 
 may be subjective — i.e. to man^ or humanity — and not, 
 therefore, truly external, as we feel it to be. It arose, in 
 part, from thinking how astronomy makes an externally 
 perceived motion subjective to man (or at any rate is a 
 step towards making it subjective). I observed how we 
 have no evidence for any motion external to us, but just 
 that perception which we have for motion in the heavens : 
 therefore, why may not all motion — i.e. all change — 
 truly be subjective ? Then I thought of the logical dis- 
 proof of the possibility of motion, which cannot be 
 answered ; and whether it may not truly be that the 
 
24 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 cause of all perception of motion must be only to our 
 consciousness, and not apart from man; i.e. motion be 
 perceived, and yet not he ? 
 
 And then, again, I generalized this to clmnge, alto- 
 gether ; whether all change be not subjective, in the 
 same way ; i.e. due to change only in man ? For 
 motion, and all change, may be clearly paralleled; 
 motion is but change in p^ace ; all change is change in 
 form. As man, therefore, by subjective change in respect 
 to place, perceives motion as external, so, by subjective 
 change in respect to /on^i, it is clear he might perceive 
 change in form as external. Again : think how the 
 eternal, the absolute, does not change ; how the essence 
 of time is change, or succession : if Being is eternal, 
 there can be no change but that which is phenomenal. 
 
 And then I thought of dreams, and spectral illusions. 
 It cannot be a true philosophy which leaves them as 
 exceptions and anomalies : they have to be brought in 
 and unified with all other things — suppose they should 
 be found the great guides and standards by which to 
 explain all ? 
 
 It is curious how much more the instinct finds in them 
 than our Science does ; how the early races of men, and 
 " sacred" literatures, dwell on them. 
 
 In dreams and illusions we are conscious of changes, 
 as external to us, which are due to subjective changes 
 wholly. Here, then, is an instance in point. From 
 subjective change we are conscious of external changes, 
 while there is no such external change. 
 
 But there is an evident difference between dreams and 
 illusions and our perceptions of genuine phenomena; 
 for one is due to subjective changes in ourselves, the 
 other not. Still, we know positively subjective change 
 as a cause of '* consciousness " of external changes, and 
 
i 
 
 Metaphysics. 25 
 
 it is the only cause of such consciousness that we do 
 " know; " in relation to the question of perception, it is 
 the only solid standing point. In dreams, our conscious- 
 ness of external changes is from subjective changes in 
 our individual selves, unshared by any others, and not 
 lasting even to ourselves [save, perhaps, in madne8s\. 
 Suppose the perception of genuine phenomena were due 
 also to subjective changes — but to such in man, or 
 affecting all .2 
 
 In a word : subjective change, affecting man as a 
 whole, is the cause of our perception of external changes ; 
 i.e. of course, of Nature: these, therefore, being not 
 dependent on our individual selves, not ceasing to be 
 perceived, produce a permanent, instead of a temporary, 
 conviction of reality. They have all the properties of a 
 dream, and yet are not such to us. Man is dreaming, is 
 under subjective illusion ; that is all. 
 
 Before astronomy was known, men necessarily believed 
 there was a heaven such as they had impression of by 
 sight. Till this time we have necessarily believed there 
 is a material world, answering to the impression we have 
 by touch. And clearly this arises from our relation to 
 these bodies ; but in the same way it was from our 
 having sight — our relation to eyes — that men were 
 obliged to believe in such a heaven. There is no such 
 thing ; but they, having eyes (and in relation with the 
 true phenomenon), were necessitated to think so; we 
 understand why, for our impressions are still the same. 
 So is it not by our having muscles and nerves that we 
 are compelled to believe " matter " ? Being so sensed, 
 and brought into relation with the true world, we must 
 have believed so. It is surely to our senses we must 
 look for the explanation of those necessary false beliefs. 
 
26 Philosophy and Religion, 
 
 The doctrine of the true co-existence of the spiritual 
 and the material will not do at all ; it is infinite con- 
 fusion. It is as if we tried to believe at once the motion 
 of the earth and of the sun — fact and percept. The 
 man who heheves in matter alone (the physical alone, 
 i.e. in motion and mind) is consistent ; it is like the old 
 astronomy : or to believe the actual alone is truly exist- 
 ing, this is consistent also ; simple, necessary, common 
 sense ; like the Copernican astronomy. But the attempt 
 to believe in both, with all possible contrivances and 
 with all stipulations, involves us in hopeless difficulty 
 and confusion. 
 
 Here is our folly, our damnation ; not even for the 
 sake of taking the deadness out of all the universe 
 besides, will we consent to take it to ourselves ! Let the 
 universe be dead, but respect our life. Let sun and 
 stars whirl round us like childish toys, but question not 
 our stedfastness. So we seem to have control over 
 Nature ; it seems that the sun rises and sets for our con- 
 venience ! 
 
 It is clearly wrong to regard the '* not " as the fact, 
 as we do with our material world : but there is also 
 another erroneous way, that of Plato, the considering 
 this world as an imperfect image of a world similar to it 
 in all respects except that imperfection — the considering 
 this as an imperfect physical world. To this I conceive 
 is parallel the theological conception of the world as 
 physically depraved, i.e. as having been originally in a 
 superior and perfect physical state from which it is 
 now fallen [and the same of man]. Plato's super-sen- 
 sible world is the right idea ; but it errs in this, that it 
 is not truly spiritual or moral ; and so also our con- 
 
I 
 
 Metaphysics, 2 7 
 
 ception errs. The Fall, the " not," relates to the moral ; 
 and the "not" of the moral is that which makes the 
 world physical. But as physical, it is perfect, as much 
 now as ever, as much as possible. Clearly it is so, by 
 the axiom of least resistance. This is the point to 
 recognise: that the "not" in the universe is a "not 
 moral," and it is that which causes it to be physical ; 
 but that as physical, it is not, and cannot be, depraved. 
 And seeing that this "not" is a moral, actual "not," 
 there can be no longer any question as to the seat of it, 
 viz. that it is the moral " not " in us. Our conception 
 makes God intellectual, as conceiving ideas, instead of 
 moral. 
 
 This parallel of the ordinary conception of the effects 
 of the Fall to Plato's doctrine, shows how far it is from 
 being an absurd imagination or chimera. And now one 
 sees why the present doctrine of " real matter " was 
 necessary ; it was necessary that it should be seen that 
 the " not " is the very essence of the physical. The 
 other doctrine, that the physical was imperfect, would 
 not do ; because it implied that without the " not " it 
 was still physical. Only by seeing that the very fact and 
 essence of the physical is this " not," can it be seen that 
 the true fact (apart from the "not") is moral or spiri- 
 tual ; that the Fall introduced the physical ; i.e. only by 
 the belief in a " real matter " and in the necessity of the 
 physical processes and laws, could recognition of the 
 spiritual be introduced. 
 
 Seeing that the " not " is the essence of the physical, 
 and that it is only from and in ourselves, we see how the 
 physical is from ourselves, is our mode of perceiving 
 that which is spiritual or moral. Therefore men have 
 invented a real matter, have introduced this hypothesis 
 of " substance ; " it was necessary before they could 
 
28 PJiilosophy and Religion. 
 
 realize the moral Being that constitutes the universe. 
 This is the function of that nutrition. The introduction 
 of ''matter" is the nutrition; its exclusion reveals a 
 fact. And see — it was introduced by suppressing an 
 instinct. 
 
 An act is an act or a passion, according to the view 
 that is taken of it. It is an act in relation to the doer, 
 a passion in relation to its effect on others. Act and 
 passion are two words for one thing. The external 
 universe is God's act, and at the same time passion in 
 spirits; and regarded in this twofold manner, it stands 
 before us, as it were, completely revealed. When I used 
 to think of the universe simply as God's act, the question 
 would arise, on what does He act. We have been 
 accustomed to think of Him as acting on matter ; and 
 we seem somehow to want a substratum or recipient for 
 the action. This our own experience suggests to us. 
 And I conceive this idea is a just one in some sense ; and 
 that God's act is an act on something ; viz. on the world 
 of spirits : that God first created spirits, and that His 
 act, which constitutes the universe, is His act upon them. 
 Thus I approach towards the great question, '' What is 
 that act of God's which produces such passion on spirits, 
 that we perceive it as nature ? " 
 
 How difficulties and contradictions disappear by seeing 
 the universe as an act, and not as a thing. And this 
 simple view is again the first instinct ; always, what- 
 soever we perceive, we first, and by our nature, suppose 
 some one does it. This is the superstitious form of first 
 science, to which last science returns. 
 
 The great difficulty in science seems to have been the 
 want of seeing that all force, motion, or passion, must 
 
Metaphysics. 29 
 
 flow from, or rather, perhaps, be the re-appearance of, 
 some previously existing force or passion, precisely 
 equal. See how this has vitiated physiology, as in the 
 idea of " vital " force as a " property " of matter, or any 
 "force" as a property at all; not perceiving that life 
 was passion, and must be referred to equal pre-existing 
 passion. So with regard to function, physiologists did 
 not see that the force of the function involved an equal 
 force as previous to it, which the function is, in another 
 form : so that they talked about the contractility of a 
 muscle, and its contraction causing waste. And through- 
 out science, the false and impossible doctrines I think 
 must all of them have rested on this one error, of sup- 
 posing physical passion [or psychical] to begin, as it were, 
 not recognizing the force or passion as ever the same 
 passion with some previous form. Now the root of this 
 error may be clearly seen and is beautiful. It is nothing 
 less than that we are spirits, and can act ; and our con- 
 sciousness as agents has led to our attributing in thought 
 (though not designedly) active powers to " things." The 
 whole philosophy of science, I think, lies in this ; the 
 source of all error, and therefore of all advance ; i.e. of 
 nutrition and of growth. 
 
 Our consciousness of acting has been a continual 
 illusion to us in nature ; we have thought that ''actions " 
 acted. Just as we have thought " actions " were real 
 Beings, by virtue of our consciousness of Being. So 
 simple and natural to us is this idea of "acting" or 
 "free-will," that the whole advance of science consists in 
 separating it from that to which it cannot belong. In 
 brief this is science : to get rid altogether of " j)roperties 
 of matter," and to see all such properties as passions, the 
 same in another form as some pre-existing form of passion, 
 which becomes the property or passion in question. 
 
30 Philosophy and Religio7i. 
 
 It is no wonder there has been so much materialism, 
 confounding, as we have done, the spiritual with the 
 mental. The mental is truly physical, one with the rest 
 of the bodily life, and is only perceived as is the rest of it. 
 It is our mode of perceiving that very same passion which 
 constitutes our bodies, and of course it depends on our 
 bodies ; there is nothing about it other than physical, i.e. 
 passional. 
 
 As to animals we are all of necessity poets. The poet 
 says of a flower that it is "thirsty; " and he does not 
 speak figuratively, but strictly. The flower is thirsty ; 
 if that which is in the flower were in us we should 
 perceive the thirstiness, or as we say, "be thirsty." This 
 is only the perception of a bodily condition ; which 
 condition does not depend on our perceiving it ; nor can 
 it rightly be called by any other name. The poet has 
 true and fine perceptions ; but the most ordinary man 
 is a poet respecting animals, and says of them " they 
 are hungry" or "thirsty." All recognize in them that 
 which in themselves they perceive as hunger and thirst. 
 Of course the animal is hungry, just as we are ; but 
 we are "a Being" to perceive or be conscious of the 
 hunger ; there is no Being to be conscious of or to perceive 
 the hunger of the animal ; it is altogether a thing. If the 
 hunger were not there (independent of our perception), 
 how could we joerceive, feel, or be conscious of it ? Does 
 our consciousness create that of which we are conscious ? 
 How can we feel hunger, except because there is hunger 
 to feel ? We have been deceiving ourselves here — as if 
 our consciousness or perception were something in itself, 
 instead of a perception of something. It is just an 
 inversion here of the fancy of a real matter external to 
 us ; we make in one case that which is internal external ; 
 in the other that which is external internal. Or again, 
 
I 
 
 Metaphysics. 3 1 
 
 how can I be conscious of (or perceive), under the form of 
 hunger, a condition of the body in respect to proportion 
 of fluids or of salts ? It is hunger that I feel. These 
 "conditions of the body" are hypotheses, theories. I 
 do not perceive them, they are suppositions which 
 I infer or invent to account for what I perceive. 
 
 This advantage for religion is gained by seeing that 
 the phenomenon is effect and not cause of the subjective 
 passion, viz. that though when the phenomenon is put 
 first, some people may deny that it has a cause, no one, 
 I think, will be found to deny that our subjective passion 
 has a cause. This is the very basis on which the belief 
 in an external world reposes ; and has availed to 
 maintain that belief all these years in defiance of the 
 most conclusive metaphysical proof to the contrary. If 
 it once was shown that it is the subjective passion which 
 demands a cause and not the phenomenon, there is surely 
 no class of men that will deny the necessity of a cause 
 for that. Unfortunately by making it the phenomenon 
 that demands a cause, unnecessary difficulties are placed 
 in the way of a full recognition of the divine act as the 
 cause. The effect does not agree in many ways, as is 
 plain, and is shown by consequences, e.g. the referring of 
 the act to a distant period ; the dividing it into direct and 
 indirect, or supposing it to consist altogether in the 
 institution of laws, or to be amended and altered : — the 
 whole series of inappropriate and unconceivable pecu- 
 liarities which are supposed to attach, and one can hardly 
 avoid attaching, to the Divine act as manifested in 
 " creation." The one source of all the error is the 
 attaching the idea of God's act to the phenomenon 
 instead of the reality. There is but one cause appro- 
 priate to the universe, and that is a subjective passion of 
 
32 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 the human spirit. It is the cause of that passion which 
 we must look for in the Divine act ; and so seeking it we 
 find it to be in accordance with its effect, what it must be 
 in itself, an eternal spiritual act, having for its one 
 emphatic characteristic, holiness. 
 
 Which view gives us the firmest hold on this present 
 world ? which makes it most real, most connects it with 
 our very life and Being ; and not for the present state 
 only, but for eternity ? Surely the view which represents 
 it as a true picture and vision, or image, of the actual fact, 
 but falsely seen as real : not the ordinary one, which 
 represents it as real indeed, but only of an inferior kind, 
 and destined to be wholly destroyed and superseded by 
 something quite different. 
 
 For it is simple that if this be an image, falsely felt 
 and seen as real, there is no reason that, knowing it to be 
 not real, we should cease to perceive it, to know it and 
 enjoy it. All the value and beauty, in every way, of this 
 physical world, may be ours unendingly ; just as to a 
 person who has taken an image — a phantasmagoria, e.g. 
 — for reality, there remains all the value and pleasure of 
 it just the same when he knows it so ; nay more — even 
 the new pleasure of recognizing its artistic beauty and 
 value : for all the reality remains the same as ever ; that 
 cannot be less, and it certainly must be better than the 
 phantom. And besides, we are freed from the evil ; the 
 evil that necessarily comes from taking it as real ; for this 
 is the evil that is in this world — that we feel it as real. 
 Feeling as real that which is a mere show, we must err 
 and go wrong and suffer : knowing it as it is delivers us 
 from this. 
 
 Then is there no more sin, only infinite beauty, joy 
 and goodness in all this physical, when it is felt as it is : 
 
Metaphysics. 33 
 
 no suffering, or temptation, or possibility of temptation ; 
 because the false feeling of the reality of it is removed. 
 This is what, in part, we even now realize, so far as the 
 man in us is concerned, when we know Christ, and look 
 not at the seen but at the unseen. 
 
 Thus I embrace that doctrine, which Emerson refers 
 to, of this world being a 'picture painted by God on 
 eternity for the edification of the soul. Truly it is so ; 
 its use and meaning are educational. For this end it 
 must answer to the fact ; [but the fact has a true sub- 
 stantiality about it], and for the purpose of education it 
 must be taken for real by ignorance. It is as the motion 
 of the heavens is the picture of the earth's, and must be 
 taken for real to do its educational work; then we, 
 learning the cause of the perception, are made to know 
 a fact how much more glorious : not that only of which 
 it is the picture, but an universal fact which is not less 
 than infinite. 
 
 Interpretation — perceiving true relation among phe- 
 nomena, or perceiving phenomena to be subjective — is 
 merely looking naturally at the facts, as it were closing 
 our eyes and forgetting our former artificial ideas, and 
 opening them again to look the facts fairly in the face. 
 It is like a man who has perplexed himself in vain with 
 an affair overnight, and after a night's rest sees the same 
 matter under a totally different aspect and as simple as 
 anything can be. Genius takes this morning view. The 
 difficulty lies in the first false perception. At first we 
 cannot see things in their true relation, we do not know 
 the facts sufficiently : then as we discover the facts we 
 assimilate them, arrange them according to our false 
 view ; and so at last require just to forget them entirely 
 and look again naturally, to see how they really are. 
 
 D 
 
34 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 To suppose that we can perceive " things " or matter 
 or anything but force or passion, is an unsound dynamical 
 view ; it involves the origination of force or passion. 
 For perception is a passion ; and all passion is produced 
 by passion, i.e. by force. It can of course be only force 
 which produces the passion or perception. We only need 
 to remember what we are talking about. 
 
 Is not a " thing " wholly an affair of relation to us 
 [an image] ? It begins and ceases ; i.e. it was and 
 becomes not ; but that is because it ever is not ; if it 
 were, it could not cease to be. That it is not, is included 
 in the doctrine that nothing (that is) can be annihilated. 
 Now I see ; time or succession does not relate to being 
 at all ; to any thing even ; only to form, but that is 
 surely only to " appearance : " is not this also a matter 
 of definition? How strange it is, we feel no surprise 
 at form beginning and ceasing, in spite of our con- 
 viction that nothing begins or is annihilated. Clearly 
 it is involved that nothing that is can be truly in 
 time. Consider now how it is, and what we perceive as 
 form. 
 
 Now I perceive : these forms that pass away are 
 the tilings — the physical — they are the images of the 
 spiritual : they constitute the physical. We know it ; 
 we say things cease to be ; they become other things : 
 the *' thing" is the ''form." Neither the unchanging 
 matter nor the force is the thing. The universe is real, 
 i.e. it consists of "forms," which become and cease; i.e, 
 are not, are but images. It is the things or the forms 
 that are images of or correspond to the spiritual ; it is 
 the ''thing," not the abstract matter or force, that is the 
 symbol. 
 
Metaphysics. 35 
 
 The question well arises : things are forms — forms of 
 what ? They say of matter or force ; I say by no means ; 
 forms of spiritual action. In this sense I use the word 
 " form " as an equivalent to that of " image." This is 
 the thing to insist upon. What we " perceive " in this 
 world is not mere matter and motion, but more, infinitely 
 more. They are things, the forms or images of the 
 spiritual ; it is the materialists who deny it. They 
 are things; *' forms" replete with divine energy and 
 meaning. 
 
 Thus it is that a real world is given to mankind ; a 
 world of things, which the present science denies, and 
 substitutes an abstract world of matter and force. 
 "Things" have meaning, they are forms; forms of 
 fact or act, which matter and force are not. There 
 are no " things " to science as yet, only to artists and 
 poets; but when science has things it deals with 
 meaning and significance. Think of this word '' signi- 
 ficance." Things are '' signs." Perhaps this word sign 
 is better than image, for the relation of the real to the 
 actual. 
 
 What a glory and brightness surrounds the world now 
 to my gaze. That these things which science has taught 
 me to look on with such cold curiosity, are in truth more 
 real, more " significant," than ever enthusiast dreamed. 
 Science outvies in meaning and depth of revelation the 
 inspirations of the artist and the poet. " Things " are 
 forms in which the spiritual appears. This is the 
 basis of poetry and art, for the emotional is also in a true 
 sense the spiritual. Let science give us back our real 
 world again. It is the present phenomenal science that 
 is unreal, is abstract, dealing with our own conceptions. 
 The old " metaphysical " science had its faults doubtless, 
 and of course was only a half ; but at least it had a real 
 
36 Philosophy a7id Religion. 
 
 world, i.e. a world of things, of forms or signs, each 
 with its meaning or reality. It did not confine itself to 
 abstractions as ours does. 
 
 I perceive that what I cannot tolerate are those primary 
 or inherent properties — mystical values or powers : 
 e.g. "contractility," "irritability," the " vital force," the 
 " inherent tendency to sj)ecific form." I see that to go 
 against these is what I have been doing from first to last : 
 trying to see all as necessary ; but that is, as forms. It 
 is curious, for each of these aspects of life — function, 
 nutrition, and form — there has been supposed an inherent 
 primary property. This is how the case has stood : first 
 there is an inherent tendency to form ; then there is a 
 peculiar vital property ; then there is an unaccountable 
 irritability, a property of performing special functions. 
 How clearly this is mere hypothesis ; how miserably 
 monotonous, if nothing worse. All the known, certain 
 laws of physical action, adapted as they are to the results, 
 are set aside as if they were not. The tension that must 
 be from the manifest forces at work where life exists ; the 
 tendency to action from such tension; the necessary 
 moulding into different forms — all these are ignored. 
 And as for the recognition of these doing away with the 
 wonder — the recognition of and reverence for God — let 
 us be rational, and apply our wonder and reverence to 
 these, and to God in them. 
 
 But the basis and foundation of all this is evident — it 
 lies in the assumption of the existence of the phenomenon. 
 The "primary qualities" must be supposed in some way 
 or other on that hypothesis : there must be a first, an 
 inherent virtue or nature. So that it is clear the reject- 
 ing these means the rejecting of a real matter. This is 
 in the nature of Science : its entire work is the doing 
 
Metaphysics. 3 7 
 
 away with these primary and inherent virtues ; its work 
 is precisely that of showing that the phenomenon does 
 not exist, freeing us from this illusion, and thereby 
 necessarily revealing to us the fact. 
 
 How a process may have effect like a substance, one 
 sees in a jet of water supporting a ball ; as it were by a 
 solid mass. Is it not thus Nature is to us : — a process, 
 an operation, felt as " substance " by us ? And as for 
 this view of the " actual " making us feel that our appre- 
 hension is so false and mistaken, is not that exactly 
 right ? Ought not science to press home upon us this 
 very correction — that spiritual realities are our true con- 
 cern, not such things as we feel ? Surely that case of 
 the jet of water supplies a good idea of "life" — the 
 physical organic. The body is a process, appearing as 
 a substance. 
 
 Surely it is right to call the separate forces, as elec- 
 tricity, "things." The forces sue forms, i.e. things, and 
 the one abstract force bears the same relation that the 
 abstract matter does. The separate forces cease to be ; 
 therefore they never were. Surely the fact is just the 
 same, whether we draw water from the earth by a bucket 
 and pass it into a receiver, or whether we draw electricity 
 by a machine, and pass it into one. The fact is as truly 
 the same as the process appears identical; in neither 
 case have we operated on any real matter, alike only on 
 form. 
 
 I see in reading the writings of the mathematicians, 
 so far as I can understand them, that my reasoning is a 
 mathematics. I do not go into details and employ for- 
 mulas, but as to the essential nature and self-evident and 
 
o 
 
 8 Philosophy and Religio7i. 
 
 demonstrative character of their reasonings, it is alike. 
 Mine is a mathematics of things, -where arbitrariness has 
 been. God writes in an unchanging present — " on the 
 instant Eternity " — a Geometrical Diagram ; and we deal 
 with it in the strangest way. In the first place we are 
 apt not to perceive at all that it is one, but to regard it 
 as a series of isolated lines and figures, arbitrary, any 
 part of which might have been otherwise without detri- 
 ment to the whole ; nay, we even consider it rather irre- 
 ligious to say the contrary. And these isolated lines and 
 portions of the figure we endeavour to trace out in their 
 relations to each other : i.e. to gather from them any 
 consistent meaning that is most obvious : but to make 
 them accord as parts of one whole, tending progressively 
 to one result, does not enter our heads. We do not feel 
 justified in insisting that each single group shall repre- 
 sent clear geometrical principles ; we have no right, as 
 we think, to do that, we only want to know what they are, 
 we are " ministers and interpreters " only of Nature, and 
 whether there be any strict mathematical relations 
 between the parts we do not know. And then, stranger 
 still, when we do find out such true relations, such logical 
 connections of things — the meaning of each part — we 
 straightway call them causes ; and imagine that in these 
 relations exists the power which produces the figures 
 between which they hold. Only that which we cannot 
 understand do we give God the credit of doing — i.e. 
 directly: anything that is reasonable and intelligible 
 we seem to think unworthy of Him, and as soon as we 
 have traced its relations to other things we sever it from 
 His hand. But this surely is simply a form of anthro- 
 pomorphism ; because we consider Him to be and to act 
 like ourselves. TFe, acting on things only by taking part 
 in God's action, i.e. only on something that is without — 
 
Metaphysics. 39 
 
 on a substratum in short — do really act primarily and 
 secondarily ; institute chains of causes ; do some things 
 directly and others indirectly; act "immediately at 
 first " and " afterwards through the powers of nature " 
 as Newton says. But this is the very sign of our imper- 
 fection ; it is the result of our creative incapacity. 
 It is because we are man and not God that we do this, 
 and it is because the Creator is God and not man that 
 He does not. This poor fancy rests clearly upon the 
 idea that God acts and requires to act upon a substratum 
 as we do. 
 
 Metaphysics in truth is but a species of mathematics ; 
 it is only more comprehensive. Mathematics we may 
 say perhaps is the " metaphysics of quantity," but it 
 rests wholly on the mental processes ; and the funda- 
 mental conception of the transcendental mathematics is 
 entirely metaphysical, i.e. it is simply a fact of our 
 mental action, accurately observed. And metaphysics 
 has the demonstrative character of mathematics, if it 
 be rightly used — the words rigorously defined and kept 
 to their meaning. It is then quite on a par with mathe- 
 matics in that respect : both treat merely of the relations 
 of our conceptions, and are absolutely alike ; both having 
 also direct and immediate application to things, mathe- 
 matics not more than metaphysics. But the latter is 
 larger, and therefore more difficult and less advanced. 
 The processes of mathematics, I believe, will be found 
 to be, in detail, precisely correspondent to those of a 
 sound metaphysics ; and hand in hand how prettily the 
 two might walk together. In short, mathematics is 
 simply a branch of metaphysics. But of late years it 
 has been separated from metaphysics, and hence the 
 misery of our Science, the load of absurd hypotheses. 
 
40 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 Mathematics surely is so certain, and deductive or 
 independent of observation, because it is seen to be a 
 science of forms only {i.e. of relations] . Experimental 
 science professes to be not of forms, but of that which 
 truly exists; yet it is not really so: all science is 
 properly of forms [which " things " are] and of forms 
 alone, and when this is rightly seen surely all will be 
 like mathematics in certainty and deductive character. 
 What perplexes science, and puts us at fault, is the 
 supposition that the objects with which it deals truly 
 exist as such apart from us. The mathematician does 
 not stand so in respect to his science ; he admits an 
 existence to which his forms relate (matter, etc., in space 
 and number), but passing this by altogether, he concerns 
 himself only with forms. Now all science must come 
 to be thus ; admitting a true existence, an actual to 
 which all "things " relate, of which they are all forms, 
 we must see that we, in science, have not to do with 
 this existence at all, but only with forms. Then we 
 may Unow. Should we not see "things " to bear some 
 such relation to the " actual " as the mathematical 
 conceptions do to " things " ? Then as the pursuit of 
 these conceptions a priori results in propositions which 
 are true and necessarily true in respect to the " things," 
 would the pursuit a priori of " things " result in pro- 
 positions true of the " actual" ? But here a new con- 
 ception appears ; is not our inductive science just such 
 a pursuit of "forms" as the mathematician's; and do 
 we not find what we have thus indirectly learnt of the 
 forms, or things, to hold good of the actual or spiritual ? 
 
 It is clear if the mathematician considered his "forms," 
 or geometrical conceptions, as existing in nature, his 
 science would be altered altogether; it would become 
 
Metaphysics. 41 
 
 then merely experimental, lose all its certainty and 
 uniformity, all its value and use indeed. He never 
 would find in nature, nor make, any one of them. His 
 very definitions are impossible, they exclude that which 
 is essential to reality. Just so *' things " cannot be, in 
 true actual existence ; the very nature of them excludes 
 that which is essential to true Being, viz. action. But 
 it is interesting to note this parallel between the de- 
 ductive treatment of mathematical abstraction and the 
 experimental treatment of things; both are processes 
 dealing with forms, which result in conclusions that 
 apply to that which is relatively fact ; abstractions give 
 us results which apply to "things;" "things" results 
 which apply to Being. So that, in truth, mathematical 
 deduction and experimental induction are parallel rather 
 than contrasted ; they are the same process in relation 
 to forms which have a different relation to us. Mental 
 forms, or abstractions, are to be treated by mental in- 
 duction, or a priori ; sensational forms, or " things," 
 by sensational induction, or by experiment. Is not the 
 idea of sensational forms for things a right one ? The 
 physical is a sensational form, even as the mathematical 
 is a mental form. Experiment and observation being 
 the same process in respect of the sensational that 
 deduction is in respect to the abstract. 
 
 Let me think how observation and induction correspond 
 with mathematical thought ; both are a similar putting 
 ourselves into relation with the respective subjects. 
 They are using our senses, bodily and mental respect- 
 ively. The mathematician does, in respect to concep- 
 tions, just what the experimenter does in respect to 
 things. Both alike exert themselves, use their active 
 faculties, bring themselves into relation with the subject 
 of their thoughts, and vary their relation to them. Is 
 
42 PJiilosophy a7id Religion. 
 
 there not a strict parallel here ; the same life exhibiting 
 itself in many forms ? 
 
 I perceive now a more right way of dealing with the 
 question of a real matter. By denying that there is 
 matter we put ourselves in a wrong attitude ; virtually 
 conceding the very point in question. We speak of 
 *' matter " as if it were a thing that could be asserted or 
 denied ; while the case is that matter is not in a position 
 to be either. " Matter " is a mere symbol or expression, 
 without any meaning of its own, for some unknown fact. 
 To deny it is no less absurd than to assert it : it is to be 
 interpreted. Clearly if a mathematician were foolish 
 enough to affirm as a great fact that some unknown 
 quantity — say the diameter of the sun — were = a; ; we 
 should be entirely beside the mark in affirming that it 
 could be X', or denying that there could be x\ the 
 question would never be settled so ; the whole dispute 
 would be mere nonsense. So is that about a real matter. 
 In truth the man who affirmed the x would have the 
 advantage of him who denied it ; for he could certainly 
 show that we were obliged to suppose such a conception, 
 to have some such symbol, to fill the gap which other- 
 wise there would be. 
 
 Our ignorance exists only by virtue of our knowledge 
 and capacity of knowing. We do not say a beast is 
 ignorant ; to be ignorant means that we ought to know. 
 So, to be not-Being means that we ought to he. All 
 terms of negation are necessarily relative. That of 
 which we are ignorant we express by a symbol ; but only 
 because we know it must be, although we are ignorant 
 of it. So our selfishness has relation only to a love 
 which ought to be. We suppose a physical or inert in 
 
I 
 
 Metaphysics. 43 
 
 nature, i.e. a symbol or unknown, because we perceive 
 that a fact, a Being, is there which we do not know. 
 We know it must be there, although we do not know it ; 
 and we call it (not intelligently, as the mathematicians 
 do ;r, but with a poor conceit of knowing) "matter," 
 *' physical laws," " motion," '^ force," anything whereby 
 we can cheat ourselves. Let us thank God and nature, 
 who carry us on in spite of ourselves, and will not let us 
 rest in our symbols, as we fain would do. 
 
 Now, how come we to perceive that there is this 
 unknown fact and these circumstances and conditions of 
 it whereby we determine our symbols ? Can I see how 
 the mathematician, starting from the smallest point of 
 known value, lays hold of more and more unknown; con- 
 verting more and more into the known, by means of 
 relations established between them? So we, starting 
 with some true knowledge, some spiritual, some con- 
 sciousness, some conscience rather ; some love or sense 
 of holiness (yes, all consciousness flows from the con- 
 science, the moral Being; the physical is a symbol 
 standing for an unknown moral) ; starting from this 
 Being or known love, and brought into relation with 
 other Being or love which is not known, is not in us (we 
 being selfish) — this unknown love is ^' passion " in us. 
 And we, perceiving that it is, but not knowing what, use 
 a symbol for it, and call it "physical" or "matter." 
 This we do by virtue of our ignorance, even as the 
 mathematician does. Only the mathematician does not 
 mistake his symbol for the true existence he is in search 
 of ; and we do. Because in reference to our moral Being 
 there is a " not " in us, which there is not in reference 
 to our intellectual. 
 
 Scientific speculations are very well in their place, but 
 
44 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 do not let them intrude into other regions. It is very 
 well for physicists to speak of " matter; " but for men 
 generally to call this a " material world " is an absurdity. 
 Should we call it an :r- world it would mean as much, viz. 
 that we do not know what it is. Matter is a symbol for 
 an unknown fact ; the world is not a material world, it is 
 a world of things. To call it an a;-world would be a gain, 
 for then we might suppose there were some reality and 
 meaning in it at the bottom, if we could find out what 
 it was ; whereas this word " matter " passes with us as a 
 sort of voucher that there is truly nothing, no signifi- 
 cance, in the world at all. Let us abstain from calling 
 it matter until our wise men have given us a known 
 quantity for the symbol. 
 
 Again, see how the unknown quantity is that for the 
 sake of which mathematics exists altogether. So it is in 
 Science : it is by hypothesis that it exists, and for the 
 sake of the unknown. And only by means of the symbol 
 for the unknown (the hypothesis), and by using it as a 
 reaUty, can the progress, the interpretation, be. Even 
 so, in all thought, we must use our hypotheses as if they 
 were real facts ; we can interpret, or do away with the 
 hypotheses themselves, only by so using them : to refuse 
 so to use them because they are ojily hypotheses, would 
 be Hke turning out the unknown quantities in a mathe- 
 matical problem. Berkeley's idea is just this. It is easy 
 enough to prove *' matter " to be merely a non-entity ; 
 but that is the very reason why we should work with it. 
 We must use this symbol in order that we may know 
 what it stands for. I3y bringing it into all sorts of rela- 
 tions, more and more complete and extensive, with the 
 known, we are able at last to say, " it means that.'* How 
 we might advance in thought with this conception well 
 
Metaphysics. 45 
 
 held in view ! Surely all thought then may have, must 
 have, mathematical precision. It is a mistake to suppose 
 that mathematics is so certain because of the peculiar 
 nature of the subjects it deals with : it is not at all so ; 
 quantity has no peculiar certainty about it ; the certainty 
 lies in the method. Mathematics, dealing with so limited 
 a subject, has been able soonest to arrive at a practical 
 (not indeed a theoretical or intelligent) realization of the 
 right method — that is all. All thought can be as certain 
 as mathematics ; and even mathematics itself may be 
 much beholden to other thought for an explication and 
 extension of the method which it has unintelligently 
 instituted. 
 
 I say with reference to the life of thought, that 
 nutrition must precede function ; that we must think 
 wrongly before we can think rightly. It is only saying 
 that before we can know an unknown we must have a 
 symbol. Think what we lose by clinging to hypotheses 
 as real ; to a real matter as if it were the thing we were 
 to rest in. We lose nothing less than all ; we stop short 
 of the very point ; we take up with " nothing," when that 
 very "nothing" is given us only as a means of getting 
 at something. We deprive ourselves of all that is of any 
 true value in our Science, just as if a mathematician 
 rested in his unknown symbols. 
 
 Is it not one chief advantage of mathematics that it 
 goes straight on with each inference, without this refer- 
 ence to other considerations; that it deals with each 
 sequence of ideas solely in and for itself ? It does not 
 profess to deal with the real absolute truth, but only 
 with what is under the given conditions, only what 
 follows from definitions and axioms. And therefore going 
 straight on and never swerving, it does arrive at the real 
 
46 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 truth, and does interpret nature ; because it has assumed 
 its right position. All reasoning must become similar, 
 and then will avail equally. We must learn to remember 
 that in reasoning we have to do, not with that which 
 really exists, but with our own definitions, postulates, 
 and data ; and to see what follows from them, and that 
 only, quite irrespective of whether or not anything " ex- 
 ternal " agrees with them, or with our deductions from 
 them. Acting thus we shall have an available art that 
 will not fail us. In a word, we have to give up the idea 
 that thinking is a means of arriving at truth, and to 
 remember that it has its own purpose and use for which 
 it must live freely its own life. The contradictions of 
 mathematics to nature are most interesting here ; they 
 are such as would never be tolerated in any other form 
 of thinking; and the superiority of mathematics as a 
 mode of thinking, which is so inseparable from these 
 " absurdities," is a good demonstration of the nature and 
 right relations of the thinking process. The question is 
 not are the things true, but are they good natural mental 
 life ; if so, no fear but they will effect their function. 
 Suppose the mathematician were to falter, and qualify 
 his deductions respecting the triangle because no perfect 
 triangle exists in nature ? Mathematical truths are not 
 true to nature. We let the inadmissibility of a conclu- 
 sion vitiate the process of deduction, instead of reacting 
 upon the premises ; we let the bond go, the bar yield. 
 It is as if a mathematician, landed in a result which gave 
 him a part greater than the whole, should refuse to apply 
 his axiom, instead of arguing back as he does. The 
 reason of the greater advance of mathematics is partly the 
 simplicity ; but partly also that mathematical reasoning 
 does not bring the intellect and the heart into opposition, 
 as philosophical reasoning seems to do, and so has never 
 
Metaphysics. 47 
 
 been vitiated by that stress. It is no matter that a mathe- 
 matical deduction should be inconsistent with the facts 
 of nature ; no moral difficulty arises ; there is no forcing 
 of the mathematical argument to make it agree. There 
 is no remedy for philosophy but to draw the distinction 
 between the truth (or belief) and the life of the intellect. 
 If our thought be natural it will in the end be sure to 
 agree with nature. Would it not be well to have the 
 axioms employed in philosophical and moral reasoning 
 explicitly stated, as those of geometry, and referred to, 
 and unflinchingly adhered to; and the definitions and 
 postulates also ? The simplicity of mathematical ideas 
 is not directly the cause of the great advance of mathe- 
 matics; but this and their very limited scope have 
 allowed thought to proceed unchecked in those respects, 
 and hence its advance, as a lower form of life. There 
 has been resistance to the higher. I seek to make all 
 thought truly mathematical, to extend the mathematical 
 process to all. They develope in the same form. 
 
 Do I not see in respect to the point, that it is the 
 only infinite ? This is what mathematics does when it 
 deals with the infinite ; it simply gets rid of substance, 
 becomes spiritual. The point alone has no bounds, no 
 limits, because it has no dimensions. So soon as ever we 
 arrive at, or think of, the infinite, we have laid aside the 
 physical ; no limit means no " matter." It is wonderful 
 that in order to treat of the real, or things, mathematics 
 must go to that which is immaterial ; only from thence 
 can we gather the power ; as the physical flows from 
 the eternal, so must the interpretation. The point is 
 infinite ; it has no bounds. It is all in one ; not only 
 the circle and ellipse in one — the two dimensions — but 
 all three, all absolutely in one, are the point ; and this is 
 
48 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 the idea of the point, and so absolute unity involves 
 infinity, and infinity absolute unity ; i.e. no dimen- 
 sions, no physicalness. Thus the absolute unity of God 
 involves His infinitude, and His spirituality. The point 
 is actual [the atom with no substance] ; and it is one, 
 and infinite. 
 
 The " point " is the symbol of God. We look wrongly 
 at this ; the point is the denial of substance, but if there 
 be no substance there is the spiritual — nO'thing, but 
 therefore spiritual Being. 
 
 The infinite is to space as the eternal is to time ; it is 
 no space at all, it is neither much nor little ; or, if either, 
 still less much than little ; to assert infinity is to deny 
 space. The concej^tion of the infinite as very large, is 
 parallel to our conception of the eternal as very long. 
 Surely there must be something bearing a similar rela- 
 tion to time that the point does to space ; that we con- 
 sider nothing^ yet is symbol of eternity ; something 
 which has neither past, present, nor future. Would not 
 such a conception be aidful to science, even as that of 
 me point is ; be to metaphysics, perhaps, as that of the 
 point ^to mathematics ? Are not our metaphysics per- 
 plexed for the want of it ? If mathematics wants to be 
 freed from substance, surely much more metaphysics 
 from duration ? 
 
 This mode of conceiving infinitude and eternity as very 
 much of time and space instead of as having nothing to 
 do with them, is ** natural," it is true, to us, who are 
 by deadness in a physical world, and in absence of the 
 physical see absolute not-being. Our way of regarding 
 the point as absolute negation, our physical conception 
 of the infinite and eternal, is proof and exemplification 
 of man's actual deadness. 
 
Metaphysics. 49 
 
 Again, with respect to the point : consider how all 
 physical conceptions relate essentially to molecules ; e.g. 
 gravitation of masses is only gravitation of molecules, 
 and of masses through them. But the only true idea of 
 a molecule is an ultimate molecule, that which cannot be 
 divided ; but this is having no parts, which is no dimen- 
 sions, no substance ; it is a point. Here is the true con- 
 ception of the atom ; it is that which has no substance ; 
 it is only the physical conception of the point : it is the 
 '' infinitesimal " physics, that is all. It is at the basis, 
 like the point in geometry. Have not much of our con- 
 fusion and difficulty arisen from not seeing this, but 
 introducing the idea of substance into it ? Is not this 
 what makes mathematics so superior to all other Sciences 
 — its spirituality ; its having discarded the idea of sub- 
 stance ? With a-chrons for metai3hysics, and true atoms, 
 or points, for physics, will not an equal exactitude be 
 given ? Clearly I see this about the atom ; physics is 
 essentially " non- substantial." And surely here is the 
 reason metaphysics is behind ; as the greatest, of course, 
 it is the least developed ; it has not yet emancipated 
 itself from the conception of time, as Science has from 
 that of space. The perplexity that still is in physics is 
 probably much from the atom, or molecule, not being 
 yet recognized as a true point (or infinitesimal) ; the con- 
 ception of true substance still adheres to it, though not 
 entirely. Here is the philosophy of Boscovich's concep- 
 tion, surely, as points, surrounded by infinite spheres of 
 force ; but was he not wrong in introducing space again ? 
 Is not the true infinite the point itself ? Substance 
 comes, in physics as in metaphysics, from action of the 
 point, the atom or molecule ; it is secondary, and not 
 primary. 
 
 I must think of the full bearing of this ; that physics 
 
 E 
 
50 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 too is wholly based on action without substance ; how it 
 clears up that great mystery of the molecular constitution 
 of bodies, that infinite division which yet is not infinite ! 
 Mathematics and physics alike derive things from points, 
 and interpret them by it. And do I not see, it is 
 chemistry that especially relates to the atomic or mole- 
 cular, %,e. to the point or infinitesimal ? It is in this 
 especially distinguished from physics ; and here is the 
 key to it : it is the Science of infinitesimals. How 
 strange that we should think of it emphatically as the 
 Science of substances ! The doctrine of atoms is the 
 doctrine of points. It corresponds with the infinitesimal 
 mathematics ; the other portion of mathematics with 
 physics proper. The doctrine of the molecular consti- 
 tution of bodies lies at the basis of all, as the idea of 
 the point does in mathematics ; but the infinitesimal 
 mathematics is " atomic," i,e. chemistry. 
 
 A physical thing or body no more truly " consists of" 
 molecules or atoms than a mathematical ''thing" or figure 
 consists of points, for an atom cannot occupy any space, 
 any more than a point. Space cannot be atomic. There- 
 fore atoms cannot constitute, or make up a body, any 
 more than points. A million points occupy no more 
 space than one ; and just so a million atoms. We must 
 introduce the mathematical conception here. Its 
 " things" do not consist of points, but are generated by 
 action of points. So physical things do not consist of 
 atoms, but are generated by action of atoms, i.e. action 
 without substance ; by pure action, i.e. spiritual action. 
 Is it not plain that nature is spiritual ? Physical science 
 refuses to have it any other way. 
 
 The true use of metaphysics and science is together : 
 metaphysics, alone, is a failure ; science alone unsatis- 
 factory and "superficial." They have one object, and 
 
Metaphysics, 5 1 
 
 should be employed in -union. It is as if touch and 
 sight were used separately; how, in that case, touch 
 alone would fail of any clear or intelligible result ; and 
 sight would give us knowledge merely of appearances. 
 
 How palpably the faculties science employs answer 
 thus to sight ! But the existence of that unsatisfactory 
 metaphysics demonstrates other faculties, which might 
 be the very ones to make the knowledge of phenomena 
 the interpreter of fact ; as knowledge of appearances 
 is of " substance." The phenomenal relation of science, 
 and the failure of metaphysics, give no ground for any 
 conclusion ; like touch and sight, they may be the very 
 things which mutually give the needful completeness to 
 each other. The failure of each alone surely is what 
 ought to be. 
 
 We have previously argued that the physical (scientific) 
 and the spiritual (metaphysics) are one ; let us treat 
 them on this plan, and see if metaphysics will not be 
 fruitful (certain and practical), and science penetrate 
 below appearances : e.g. in physics all action is 
 vihratile ; all the " laws " = no external change ; 
 therefore subjective, etc. [Metaphysics, in fact, thus 
 is Science.] 
 
 This presents us with another parallel, viz. that of 
 science to sight, and metaphysics to touch. Like touch, 
 metaphysics assures us of something more real than the 
 objects of science, but gives us no satisfactory intelli- 
 gence of them. Science, like sight, must be the inter- 
 preter for it, recognizing the relation of the phenomena 
 it deals with. 
 
 The true revealer has a sort of wonderful power of 
 making things quite new and different from what we 
 thought them. But there are two kinds ; the one 
 showing us unthought-of wonders and problems in 
 
5 2 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 things of which we previously were ignorant, and knew 
 we were ignorant, and had only vague impressions, but 
 no contrary ones ; another presents to us in entirely 
 new lights and ways, shows us unsuspected wonders in 
 things which we felt and were convinced we perfectly 
 understood. So the latter meets with an opposition and 
 refusal the other does not encounter. 
 
 I thought : why are these changes of form in space, or 
 conveying to us the feeling, the consciousness or per- 
 ception, of motion f Then I reflected that the conception 
 of space is " empirical ; " i.e. entu-ely derived from the 
 individual sense of moving. So it links itself with the 
 " self," with the feeling to us of the fact, whatever it is. 
 Then I considered how all the other forces — sound, light, 
 chemicity, life itself — are identified with motion ; how 
 we say they are motion. Yet they do not naturally 
 convey to us any such impression ; indeed, nothing 
 can at first seem more absurd or repugnant than to 
 reduce them to mere motion, or change in space; it 
 seems like turning all the beauty and meaning and fact 
 out of them. 
 
 And then it occurred to take it the other way : to look 
 at the converse. If light and music and life be motion, 
 why, vice versa, must it not be that motion is truly 
 these ? It is not *' life is motion," but " motion is life." 
 The solution here is to obtained not by less but by more ; 
 not by emptying, but by filling. It is not that we put 
 the life into the one motion but that we put it out of the 
 other. That which we call motion is truly life : but it is 
 mere motion to us because of our emptiness and death : 
 we do not see the Life in it, not because it is not there : 
 the life we do see, which is one with it, proves that it is 
 there. 
 
Metaphysics, 53 
 
 And with this how well agrees the extended use of the 
 word motion : what is there of life, energy, activity, and 
 power, that we do not call motion ? This particular 
 form of life, which we call motion, is that which is in 
 immediate relation, as it were, to us in some way ; so 
 that our emptiness makes itself seen in it. This mere 
 '* motion" is what Life becomes by and through us : we 
 put in the negation, and make life and action, i.e. Being, 
 mere change in space ; and in this respect it is well to 
 observe that on examination the " matter " disappears ; 
 and force, i.e. motion, is seen to be all — it is the Being 
 too. 
 
 That "motion," as such, is in the special and more 
 immediate relation to us, is evident: "materially" it is 
 the one thing within our power ; and besides it is proved 
 by our making it the standard and explanation of all 
 things, it is the one " action " we seem to understand. 
 And now observe, nothing less is done than removing 
 the difficulty of how motion produces sensation. This 
 "motion" is more — i.e. the fact of it^and has an 
 adaptation to produce such results. So I seem to see 
 much farther into our "perception," and to escape from 
 an opposition to instinct and feeling which could not be 
 right. 
 
 It is as if some cups were before us ; one appears to 
 us empty, the others full. Now this empty cup is ours, 
 the others not. On examining, we find there is not the 
 difference between them we thought : either ours is full 
 or those are empty — they are alike, at any rate. Now 
 which is it ? Is it that we do not see the fulness of ours, 
 or that we imagine a fulness in the others ? This is the 
 question : is motion life, or Life motion ? I hold the 
 former. 
 
 Observe — ^^not as the idea, but as rising out of it — how 
 
54 PJiilosophy and Religion. 
 
 perhaps our very bodily motions may constitute a life, 
 little as we think of it. See how all are necessitated ; 
 all answer ends; all are determined, indeed, by intel- 
 lectual causes. If this be so, how the doctrine of 
 intelligence as a cause of life is intensified and fulfilled. 
 Here we see what it is : that in these intelligent, designed 
 motions, there is life. Surely, of all motions, we should 
 know most of our own ; and we know how volition and 
 thought are the cause of them. 
 
 Here is Socrates' argument in Crito : if thought be the 
 cause of all things, how absurd it is to refer them to 
 mechanical causes. Leave out the life from human 
 motions, and they too are the phenomenon of me- 
 chanical results. That is how they might appear to 
 a * dead ' intelligence, who should not recognize our life 
 in them. 
 
 The argument is thus : — take light or fire ; now there 
 is no more in them than there is in mere mechanical 
 motion ; they are that, and necessarily under the same 
 law. Then of course we see that all that is in them 
 is in motion. This in truth is involved in the thought 
 that the stars constitute living organic bodies : their 
 motions are a life. 
 
 This "mere motion" is what Life {i.e. Being, the 
 divine and eternal) becomes to us, by us. By our negation 
 Life is emptied, and made mere change in relation to 
 space ; i.e. we do not see it, nor what there is in it. So 
 one understands the value of that strong feehng of the 
 sacred mystery of Life ; this guarding it from any mere 
 physical explanations. I do not go against that. I do 
 not deny the sacred mystery ; but I say that all this 
 which we treat so lightly partakes of that sacredness. 
 
Metaphysics. 5 5 
 
 There is no more in life than in motion, only because in 
 motion is all that is in life. 
 
 People think that philosophy can never be in itself 
 influential on, or regarded with interest by, the people 
 generally. I am not so sure of this, when philosophy is 
 renewed. It was so of old, when it referred to matters 
 of universal interest, to the instincts of truth, justice, 
 piety, in a word, to rightness. Why may it not become 
 so again ? I grant the modern is not, and cannot be, 
 but the reason is plain; our modern philosophy is nutri- 
 tive—force-absorbing — has no power in the nature of 
 things. But a philosophy that brings home nature to 
 man's heart, and sees in the universe the very passions 
 that are agitating his own bosom, is another thing. 
 Whether men can find time and attention and love for 
 that, remains to be seen. Why should we prejudge so ? 
 We always think nothing can be but what we are used 
 to. Absolutely all that our modern philosophy has 
 for the heart is proof that God is very wise and very 
 powerful, and, on the whole, rather good than other- 
 wise; and strangely enough these proofs are made to 
 consist in what we can understand. Moreover, our 
 philosophy and science have been not only divorced 
 from but almost ever opposed to religion — never one 
 with it, — and it has been therefore watched like a thief, 
 and men ever sought to bind it in new chains as it burst 
 the old ones. 
 
 Abstract philosophy — " interpretation," — the answer 
 to the question "why" in its ultimate form, the moral 
 why, was ever man's passion, is now, and ever will be. 
 This is re-introduced with all the added scope and power 
 of five centuries' nutrition. Our modern nutritive science 
 
56 Philosophy and Religion, 
 
 has been doing all it can to put it down and keep it from 
 operating, and in the main, though with hard struggles, 
 it has succeeded, as indeed was right and necessary; but 
 the passion, the tendency, is there still as ever ; becom- 
 ing indeed more powerful the more it is opposed 
 (as chemical affinity does in nutrition) : it will have its 
 way again at last, indeed the nutrition exists only 
 that it may, and that in doing so it may eflfect objects 
 higher than itself — the function^ that is, of Science. 
 
 Surely Platonism arose from a kind of Positivism : 
 indeed it is necessary that the reality of the physical 
 should be denied, before a doctrine which puts another 
 reality in place of it can be conceived. 
 
 So here one may clearly see the tendency of Posi- 
 tivism. One may point to experience, and say to the 
 positivist : " Yours must come to a more spiritual doc- 
 trine. Look at Platonism ; it could only have come into 
 existence by aid of a doctrine akin to yours ; and as 
 your denial is deeper and more com^Dlete, so shall the 
 resulting spiritual doctrine be also. The platonist fails 
 because of still keeping hold of some kind or degree of 
 true reality in the physical : this defect you must 
 remove." The doctrine of a present and only real 
 spiritual waits for and solicits some one to remove the 
 reality of the physical. 
 
 Positivism must come to an actual doctrine of the 
 universe : it carries a new platonism in its bosom. It 
 is like the chrysalis to the butterfly, or the bud to the 
 flower : the restraint and coercion are for development. 
 Positivism is negative now, by accident as it were ; i.e. 
 by the law of the case, this must precede the positive. 
 But a positive form must come : there must arise some 
 vieAV of the existing. 
 
Metaphysics. 5 7 
 
 Platonism, as well as actualism, is a system based on 
 a correction of our impressions and tendencies to think : 
 i.e. considering the subjective elements, it is essentially 
 the same. Positivism, or science, taking away the 
 reality to which the platonic holds, demands the pla- 
 tonic process to be repeated in new relations. 
 
 But the former platonism is proof that this will and 
 can be done ; it failed because not complete enough. 
 
 One chief thing I want to do is to show the life of 
 metaphysics ; how it has been working in a necessary 
 way to a most important end ; how all has been good ; 
 how even the nonsense and contradictions are hypo- 
 theses by which the fact is revealed, and the " not " 
 more and more excluded. How, e.g., less and less value 
 is being attached to arguments for the existence of God 
 from the visible world ; and yet the rejecting all such 
 arguments, as some have done, saying we can know 
 nothing thereby, is just an anticipation, suppressing 
 hypothesis, but not putting the fact in its place. It is 
 as " spiritual," not as physical, that the world reveals 
 God. Is it any better argument, that to create "mind " 
 the creator must be intelligent, than that to create 
 *' matter" he must be material? Matter and mind 
 alike are from ''not." 
 
 Let me come nearer to Thee, oh God; know more truly 
 what it is Thou doest. How sad a disappointment it is 
 to me to find that these principles of Thy acting, as I 
 have thought, are but shadows projected from myself ! 
 I would know, not more of myself, but more of Thee. I 
 beseech Thee, show me Thy glory. Hide not Thyself 
 from my desiring eyes. What is nature to me, of what 
 value are beauty, delight and use, of what satisfaction 
 
58 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 the simplest and the grandest laws, if Thou bo not in 
 them ? May I nei-er know what Thou doest ? Wilt Thou 
 be recognized alone by faith and love ? Dost Thou say 
 to me, in these earnest but futile strivings, " Who by 
 searching can find out God ? But with that man will I 
 dwell w4io is of an humble and a contrite spirit, and who 
 trembleth at My word." 
 
{ 59 ) 
 
 11. 
 NATUEE KNOWN BY THE MOEAL EMOTIONS. 
 
 Man's response to rieht — The actual is known by the conjoint use of 
 sense, intellect and moral being — Man fell by the conscience— Men 
 really judge by their feelings — The evil of thinking that God acts 
 for results — Mysticism is allied to Science — The Mystics are inter- 
 preters — The intellect attains freedom by subjection to the moral 
 sense — The physical is the moral — Nature is Holiness — Nature is 
 man's bride — Nature is " the hands of the living God " — We must 
 recognize negation of Being — Love of God is the love of all things 
 — The world as a work of genius — The organic is not the highest 
 in Nature — The future Science — Nature's secrets are won by sym- 
 pathy — Evil of the doctrine of special creations — " Design " is a 
 necessary consequence of the assumption of matter — Science is done 
 for love — To be natural is to love — Nature is perfectly beautiful, 
 therefore ideal beauty is less perfect — Nature is God's ideal — 
 All mental life is the representation of Nature — To account for 
 error is to show it beautiful — Evil is nutrition — Painting recalls 
 to us the spiritual fact of Nature — The function of Art is to reveal 
 the holiness of Nature — Art will advance as Science has — The 
 future of the world. 
 
 The strongest feeling in human nature is our response 
 to right ; deepest in man's breast, and ineradicable, Hes 
 that fundamental passion; it is king and ruler, and 
 though driven from the actual throne by meaner 
 feelings, never abdicates its authority. " People will 
 fight for truth and justice, or that which they think to 
 be such," says the Times, If we can therefore but make 
 nature embody to us the idea of right, how much more 
 it will be to us ; how much profounder and more over- 
 ruling our love. 
 
6o Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 It only needs to use our whole being in the induction, 
 and then we know the actual. By sense alone we only 
 know the apparent (not the real) ; by intellect alone we 
 only know the abstract. Now taking both, and so 
 bringing to bear a larger part of our being, we attain a 
 better and truer knowledge, i.e. of the real. But sense 
 and intellect still are but part of us : by them we can of 
 course only know the real — still the illusion, though not 
 so merely an illusion as sense or intellect separately. 
 But where is the moral nature ? That which the sense 
 alone learns cannot be true for the intellect also ; that 
 which the intellect alone learns cannot be true for the 
 sense also : so that which sense and intellect alone learn 
 is not true for the moral being also. 
 
 The definition of the actual now is : that which is true 
 for, which answers to, the whole being of humanity; 
 that which will bear investigation by sense, intellect, and 
 moral being, the latter correcting the former two, even as 
 they correct one another. It is that which is learnt by 
 the joint action of sense, intellect, and moral nature. 
 
 And here one may think further respecting that *' it 
 is not good for man to be alone." Take this idea of the 
 woman as represented by the moral *' faculty." Is it not 
 remarkable to see how well then the old Greek philosophy 
 will answer to man's state ? For that philosophy wanted 
 precisely these higher elements. It was "very good," 
 but it was not well for it to be alone ; and a help meet 
 was given it in the newly awakened, almost newly 
 originated conscience: and see, iifell thereby. As is well 
 seen in the early ages of the Christian Church, in the 
 unscientific, unphilosophical superstitions of the Fathers, 
 dictated, evidently, by the moral element. 
 
 Thus we see how natural, how necessary it is, that men 
 
Nature known by the Moral Emotions. 6 1 
 
 should turn with such admiration and delight to that old 
 classic literature. It is like the longing look back to 
 Paradise, to the true, right attitude of man ; nor can this 
 cease till the same attitude is restored and perfected ; and 
 this is what we should seek, or at least be ready to 
 welcome and expect. And may not this be the true 
 reason for man's clinging to classical studies ? 
 
 What a strange thing it is that people imagine they 
 decide on doubtful points by their intellects, and not by 
 their feelings ; and they are even angry if the contrary is 
 suggested. What a putting of the inferior above the 
 higher nature : but how beautifully herein does God 
 attain His higher ends even by human error ! What is 
 really done when a person with sincere and earnest heart 
 undertakes to weigh the evidence on a doubtful religious 
 point — such as future punishment, personal reign, etc. — 
 is that under the idea of letting his reason judge, he 
 listens calmly and intently to the voice of his inner 
 nature. Painfully and with prayerful resolve he lays 
 aside prejudice and passion, he puts off indolence, and 
 judges as he feels. Herein is a deep beauty. To what 
 good all this toilsome process ? Certainly not the attain- 
 ment of truth; because equally earnest and capable 
 people arrive by such means at opposite results ; and 
 evidently not, because such a process has in itself no 
 adaptation to lead to truth ; and the less, the more purely 
 intellectual it be made. To arrive at truth involves 
 many conditions in the person which in the vast majority 
 are sure to be wanting. What then ? Does the process 
 fail of its result ? Are the prayers, the tears, the hours of 
 meditation, the agonizing renunciation of old ties, all of 
 no avail ? Not so. They fail not of God's purpose, which 
 is the discipline and development of the moral nature ; 
 
62 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 the education of the soul. In this strife the child grows 
 into the man : the end is gained. What he thinks ahout 
 future punishment or millenarianism is of no conse- 
 quence : that he should bring his soul before God, and 
 struggle earnestly to do the right, that is the point. 
 
 The doctrine of virtue or moral rightness being that 
 which most promotes happiness (Paley's doctrine), goes 
 with that view of natural theology, which sees in creation 
 only God's wisdom in the sense of design and skill. 
 Nature truly viewed teaches a better lesson ; she is law ; 
 she does not exist for results. God in nature acts 
 according to an absolute rule independently of results. 
 What an infinite (yes, and eternal, for it is moral) 
 meaning there is in this laic of science. God acts by an 
 invariable rule, and not for results : blessed be the men 
 who have sought to establish this as a fact of science. 
 Therefore He does not act in time ; He acts morally. 
 
 We think we exalt God by attributing to Him an 
 optional creation, a supreme and absolute self-determi- 
 nation apart from any law. We forget that love includes 
 law, and can only be by it. It is true xvc act, or seem to 
 act optionally, or without any determining power : but 
 this is our misery, our degradation, our death ; it is 
 because we are passional, inert, not loving. There is 
 no mere optional with Him, all is holy. Our own true 
 human characteristics and dignity are entirely in abey- 
 ance in respect to those things in which we act optionally. 
 
 It is amusing how, w^ith all our science and triumph 
 of common sense. Mysticism is 'not put down ; here it 
 appears again in its extremest form. The cure for it has 
 not been found yet. Nay, it is clear that science cannot 
 
Natu7^e knozun by the Moral Emotions. 6 
 
 o 
 
 put a stop to it; science only feeds it. For see how 
 these mystics have been the very men who have had the 
 largest grasp of science, have done most in it. Not to 
 speak of Moses, passing by Plato also, let us come to 
 modern times — look at Swedenborg and Newton. It is 
 clear that we must look elsewhere than to the prosecution 
 of science for the cure of this disorder of the intellect, if 
 it is such. As science grows, so does that tendency, that 
 conviction, gain increasing power. Nay, it allies itself to 
 Science, rests upon it, turns to its own use the means 
 brought for its destruction. It urges on to perfect 
 fulfilment all those discoveries and tendencies which are 
 announced as its destruction. 
 
 In this unity of the sensible and spiritual, one sees the 
 basis of ceremonies in religion ; why, too, they are so 
 misconceived and misused from our separation of the two, 
 from our thinking that the sensible has any other being 
 than that which is one with the spiritual, and that 
 therefore, as sensible, they are of spiritual power or 
 value. "This is my body;" "As often as ye eat it;" 
 that is, in all eating. 
 
 It is interesting to trace the different states of feeling 
 on the subject of necessity in Nature. The ordinary 
 supposition — of design, i.e. arbitrary will, not necessity — 
 implies that we do understand, that we know all about 
 the thing, that our faculties are tests and capable. 
 Seeing it as necessary, we feel that we do not understand 
 it, that it is something infinitely wonderful to he under- 
 stood. So we gain, not only a grander conception, but 
 also a hope of a future understanding above any that now 
 we think possible. Those who rebuke the belief that we 
 can understand, do not see the humility that is its source. 
 
64 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 They are too modest to think that men ever will under- 
 stand — more than they themselves do. 
 
 Think how the mystics are the dynamical men : men 
 who ask why. (See Newton especially.) This is their 
 character. The mere laying out of phenomena in order 
 does not satisfy them : they insist on the knowledge of 
 causes. Hence they discover the physical causes ; and 
 hence, too, they see the physical as efflux and effect from 
 the actual, which is their mysticism, especially so called. 
 It is one tendency, one faculty, that makes them dis- 
 coverers in science and mystics. They show causes ; 
 they cannot rest in appearances, but must go to fact ; 
 that is all. Find the fact of the physical, and we have 
 the actual, the absolute : this is what they do. They 
 apply practically Comte's princij)le, that the intellect has 
 to do only with relations ; so in regarding the fact they 
 go constantly to that which is not in the intellect, to the 
 actual. This is the fact to them, and necessarily they 
 see the physical as an " appearance " flowing from that ; 
 as indeed positivism shows it cannot be anything else. 
 For the fact that the intellect cannot deal with the 
 absolute, by no means shows that we are cut off from it — 
 it only shows that we cannot intellectually know it ; but 
 we have other faculties, other being and nature besides 
 the intellect, which Comte seems to forget in this con- 
 nection, though he fully recognizes them in others ; as 
 where he shows, e.g., the inferiority and subordination 
 of the intellectual to the moral. Comte is, in truth, 
 a mystic himself ; only stunted ; if he had carried out 
 this last idea of his he would have had a lofty place 
 among them. 
 
 The mystics are precisely interpreters : they show the 
 phenomona necessary and also they show the fact. The 
 
Nature known by the Moral Emotions. 65 
 
 non-mystics, the men of talent or theory, do not, in truth, 
 seek causes at all in any genuine sense. They virtually 
 say of the phenomenon, it is "because it is." This is 
 the sum of it, though of course they put it under a pre- 
 tence of cause; all these ultimate inherent properties 
 of matter or things are nothing but this. As for saying, 
 God made them so because He chose, this is truly an 
 irreverent thought. It no more applies to them than 
 to any other physical fact or process to which supersti- 
 tion might assign it ; yet the feeling that there must be 
 an ultimate of which this is true, is a wise one : why 
 does it not lead men to see the eternal fact which alone 
 truly is ? 
 
 Sense alone gives the phenomenal ; intellect alone the 
 abstract ; conscience alone the moral ; sense and intellect 
 alone the scientific ; sense, intellect, and conscience to- 
 gether, the true real, actual or spiritual, which alone 
 truly IS. But I do not say this is true Being ; it is as 
 much as we are ; but it has our own negation in it. The 
 true Being is not man, or such as he, but God. So I 
 may admit that true knowing is impossible to man ; but 
 I say that man can know according to his whole being, 
 though his knowledge must be subjective ; that he can 
 therefore know altogether more than he does now, in an 
 entirely different way ; that this knowledge of ours does 
 not answer to man as he really is. This is the basis of 
 actualism : that we are as much mistaken as the men 
 who believed appearances uncorrected by reason. 
 
 Comte's position practically is just as if, in old days, 
 any one should have said : Do not trouble yourself about 
 the intelligible world ; this sensible is all that concerns 
 us, meaning us to put up with the uncorrected appear- 
 ances. Now this would not do. It was because this did 
 
66 Philosophy and Religion, 
 
 not answer to the whole man that the " intelligible " was 
 invented. Yet would such a man have had a certain 
 right on his side ; for the separate intelligible world was 
 a chimera. So has Comte ; but his real does not answer 
 to the whole man, and will not do ; and because it did 
 not do, the separate spiritual was invented for the con- 
 science to have its full development and scope in, just as 
 the intelligible was for the intellect. But the intellect 
 was given to man to interpret the sensible by ; and so is 
 the conscience. The real world will fulfil, and more than 
 fulfil, all our moral demands, if we will employ our moral 
 faculties on it ; even as the sensible world contents our 
 intellectual faculties when they are employed on it. 
 
 See how, by union of sense and intellect together, an 
 entirely new '' reality " is given to the world. It is a 
 different thing : the " intelligible world " has ceased to 
 be a chimera. So from the union of real and spiritual a 
 new universe is given, and the spiritual ceases to be a 
 chimera. The eternal is no longer an *' everlasting 
 time," no longer future. Of course we cannot understand 
 the eternal, with our sepai-ate real and spiritual ; our 
 spiritual is in fact only an abstract sensible : just as the 
 old intelligible was the sensible, not truly different, only 
 chimerical, with the same sort of " eternity " as ours. 
 
 Bacon said : " You must take the sensible into your 
 intelhgible, and not go dreaming." So I say of the 
 spiritual : we must take the sensible into our spiritual, 
 and not go dreaming. Only so, by conforming our 
 imagined spiritual to tJie sensible, shall we know the 
 true spiritual. What we talk about now is our imagi- 
 nation merely. What an apparent reversion in my 
 thoughts ! Yet the spring of it all has been intolerance 
 of the chimerical spiritual, the Design argument, and 
 the " sentimental " heaven. I have come to this through 
 
Nature known by the Mo7^al Emotions, 67 
 
 the medium of metaphysics, from the love, not of the 
 sensible, but of the spiritual. Now I can understand 
 Bacon better. It was not that he regarded the sensible 
 especially; but he could not endure the old chimerical 
 " intellectual." He saw that to be worth anything it 
 must be conformed to the real or sensible ; in short, that 
 the sensible was not that mere phenomenal that it was 
 supposed to be, but was more. " Conform the intelligible 
 to it, and see," he said. I say exactly the same ; the 
 sensible is not the mere phonomenal that it is sup- 
 posed to be, it is more ; conform your spiritual to it, 
 and see. So it was by metaphysics too that Bacon did 
 his work. He was not an experimenter ; his world was 
 in the intellectual. 
 
 The essential point in inductive science is the authority 
 of the intellect over the senses. That is what distin- 
 guishes it. (^.^. our knowing the stars for worlds.) 
 It is the only means of discovering truth, the only true 
 science ; because the only one subordinating sense abso- 
 lutely, and compelling it to conform. The " actual " 
 philosophy deals by the intellect as the "inductive " by 
 the senses, denies its authority, and subordinates it, and 
 makes it conform to a power or faculty, together with 
 which it uses it in investigation. Thus, of course, the 
 " actual " makes more use of the intellect, even as the 
 inductive does of the senses. This denial of the authority 
 of the intellect, taken with the assertion and employment 
 of the moral sense, constitutes a new and inductive 
 science, in which the intellect bears the same part as, in 
 our present inductive science, the senses do, is at once 
 the foundation, and yet subordinate. 
 
 It was only by subjecting the senses to the intellect 
 
68 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 that they could be properly and freely used. So long as 
 they were held to deal with the real, they were neglected, 
 held so fallible, and a limit placed upon their use ; 
 because they gave results against the intellect — against 
 a part of man/(?Zi to be superior. So Bacon necessarily 
 liberated them ; stimulated, and indeed gave unbounded 
 play to their use, and relieved them also from the stigma 
 of being unable to discover. Bacon said : "Do not take 
 ideas superficially abstracted from the senses." Now 
 just such is the case with the intellect. See how it is 
 unused, neglected, repressed by some ; and by all, friend 
 and foe alike, held incapable, except under narrow limits. 
 By subordinating the intellect to the conscience, I 
 think it is set free; its use is stimulated, rendered 
 certain and unlimited ; and the idea of its incapacity 
 overthrown. This does for the intellect what Bacon did 
 for the senses. Eefusing to accept from it as truth any- 
 thing that does not conform to the demands of the 
 conscience, it is compelled to go on, and Nature is 
 subdued again. All the reasons which now repress it 
 are removed. First, the religious reasons : it is no 
 longer opposed to the part of man felt to be superior to 
 it. Second ; the reasons that make men say we cannot 
 know by it ; just as Bacon removed what made men say 
 they could not know by the senses, the attributing 
 authority to them. Now we see that the intellect can 
 explore absolutely, that it has a boundless field, that 
 nothing it can come into relation with can be beyond 
 its exploration. Of old the intellect had to be trained 
 and developed before the senses could be rightly used ; 
 i.e. made servants, not masters ; so the conscience had 
 to be trained and developed before the intellect could be 
 rightly used. 
 
Nature known by the Moral Emotions. 69 
 
 Is not the future attitude of thought to be this : — that 
 what the woman's emotions demand is to be thought ; 
 that tliat is to rule, as intellect or conscience does now ; 
 but that its demands are to be rightly interpreted, by 
 sense, intellect, and conscience, working. For here it is, 
 as it was with intellect of old : its true demands could be 
 found only by uniting it with the senses, and actively 
 working by them. The ruling faculty, without this, 
 takes too little; invents something not enough, based 
 on the accej)tance of the uncorrected impressions of the 
 inferior faculties. What union, harmony, beauty and 
 delight will there be, when men and women are united 
 thus ; each understanding their position, and each using 
 it ! This were, indeed, a making of twain one new man. 
 And into what harmony that discord of the faculties will 
 then be resolved ; the discord comes from what the earth 
 abhors — the servant-faculties taking upon themselves to 
 rule. 
 
 Man has various *' faculties " to exercise on one world 
 — the world that is ; but his plan has been to make as 
 many worlds as he has faculties. Of old there was that 
 absurd " sensible " world, through which the intellect 
 could not work, and an *' intelligible ; " even as we have 
 an ''intelligible" world, morally absurd (through which 
 the conscience will not work), and a " spiritual." We 
 must invent a world for a faculty that comes into active 
 exercise, if it will not work in the already recognized 
 one ; and surely the tendency to do this is felt as each 
 faculty comes into activity. So now our spiritual world 
 rests on conscience, as the old intelligible one on the 
 intellect : the invented world rests, for its evidence, on 
 the faculty which demands it ; and this is the relation 
 which ever wants inverting. Very instructive and in- 
 teresting is the reference to conscience to prove the 
 
70 Philosophy aiid Religion. 
 
 spiritual world : what it proves is that the other (known) 
 world needs to be differently seen. 
 
 Note how the intellectual life of a man simply re- 
 presents the moral history, springs from it, exists only 
 by relation to it. Not the moral is like the intellectual ; 
 but the mental is only a partial and typical, or veiled, 
 presentation of the moral; and the physical, as corre- 
 sponding with the intellectual, repeats it again. Now 
 may not this life, which to us is bodily and intellectual, 
 be in truth moral, a true spiritual life, only seen by us 
 with an inertia in it, and so to us physical ? This, that 
 we see as physical, necessarily corresponds to the moral ; 
 because it is moral ; it represents it to us in a lower form 
 because we do not perceive the moral element in it. We 
 suppose cause and effect, etc., not seeing that it is true 
 action or love. The physical is the moral with the love 
 left out ; and therefore the form without the fact. All 
 the physical palpably is just that — the form of the moral 
 without the fact. So the law is as we see it ; yet truly 
 it is the very fact of love ; the not-love which constitutes 
 it **Law," is only in us. And so of all: so of the 
 physical world ; it is the very fact of love ; the not-love 
 which constitutes it physical, is only in us. 
 
 The way to understand nature is by patience and 
 gentleness, being willing to be ignorant, not using force. 
 How violent and arbitrary, and therefore unmeaning, is 
 that idea that we perceive things as we do because they 
 are so. It is an invention forcibly introduced. Let us 
 be content with that which nature gives us; not being 
 in such a hurry and so violent. There is no possible 
 connection between things being as we perceive them 
 and our perceiving them so. Let us think in least re- 
 sistance ; not insist on making a thing clear, but leaving 
 
Nature known by the Moral Emotions. 7 1 
 
 it obscure if necessary, above all things distinguishing 
 thoroughly between things that differ, not forcing things 
 into unnatural union. 
 
 The moral sense cannot say of the intellectual pheno- 
 menon that it cannot be thus ; or it must be thus — it 
 cannot deny the phenomenon. That would be like the 
 intellect asserting or denying what is or must be to the 
 senses. Scientific inferences or theories should never be 
 afi&rmed or opposed on moral or religious grounds. 
 The point is, not to assert or deny respecting the pheno- 
 menon as such ; but to show the phenomenon to be only 
 phenomenon, and to learn the fact from it. 
 
 I see two things in Nature ; giving as it were a double 
 solution to the problem. One of them has reference to 
 the reality, the other to the human perception of it. 
 The latter is vihratile motion in direction of least resist- 
 ance ; the former God's holy act. The language of 
 sensation translated into the language of reality, or the 
 reality deduced from, and seen in, the appearance ; 
 rising from the phenomenon to the cause : — this is the 
 course of true Science. And this last deduction is the 
 truest Science ; Science cannot stop short of it, it is her 
 mission to deduce causes from phenomena. Nor is any- 
 thing in Nature truly known until it is thus known ; till 
 it is seen that moral action is the very being of all 
 things, Science is but on the threshold of her domain. 
 She is busied with subjective impressions, with sensations 
 and ideas which she professes, and rightly, to despise, 
 and has not entered on her true work, which is to ex- 
 plore the objective reality. It must rise to spiritual 
 facts and moral deeds or it does but sport with illusions, 
 and remains an idle classifier of sensations. What 
 you would say of him who thought to study optics by 
 
72 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 comparing, arranging and grouping colours uninquiring 
 whence they arise, holds true of all who trace the laws 
 of matter and ask not what spiritual fact is there. And 
 here is a new branch of knowledge opened ; the corre- 
 spondence, viz. of the spiritual and moral world with 
 Nature ; the parallel, I should say, not only of thought 
 and Nature but of character and Nature. If Nature be 
 holy action, then shall holy action be in some sense 
 Nature. And we must seek to trace all things not only 
 in the intellect but in the moral sense ; not only truly 
 to understand Nature by seeing her rej^eated in intellect, 
 but to appreciate her by tracing her again in the virtues. 
 Then Nature shall be known. 
 
 What a glory it casts over the working of the laws of 
 Nature to regard them as expressions of holiness ! How 
 it changes them from darkness into light, and renews the 
 face of the earth ! God will not do anything for any one, 
 nor save any one from any evil (as we see He will not), 
 except according to those laws ; not because there is 
 anything in the law, but because it would be wrong. No 
 necessity is in the laws, only rectitude in the deed ; no 
 iron bonds of matter, but only free choice of right. This 
 we do not tremble at, nor submit to, but love. Fearful 
 and appalling are those laws which work generally for 
 good, but do harm sometimes ; and with a lurid ludicrous- 
 ness superadded, because they are represented as binding 
 the very hand and heart of God. Because it would be 
 wrong otherwise, it is that God drowns him who saves 
 others from a watery death ; that God cuts off by quick 
 disease or wasting penury the best and noblest men, 
 capable of the highest deeds ; that he gives no success 
 save by means adapted to secure success. It would be 
 wrong : and therefore we who suffer thus are glad, and 
 
Natu7'e hiown by the Moral Emotions. "Ji 
 
 will rejoice. Co-operation with God in the laws of Nature 
 is choice of right, the spirit's life. 
 
 What madness can be like that of living in the midst 
 of eternal verities and busying ourselves exclusively with 
 a few subjective phenomena, as if we and our thoughts 
 were all ? Matter, and the sciences founded upon matter, 
 are subjective, and touch not the real basis of things ; our 
 knowledge is but a well-ordered dream, until, opening 
 our eyes to the real light of heaven, we see that each 
 thing has its place as a moral deed, forms part of a holy 
 act ; is that. What we perceive it as, relates not to its 
 essential nature, nor is the question true science takes 
 cognizance of, except to inquire why we so perceive it. 
 We are not mind and matter ; we are spirit, and our true 
 concern is with moral beings, and moral action. To that 
 all things tend ; all material, all mental knowledge is but 
 a stepping-stone. The bringing all things into relation 
 to the spirit, seeing them as moral, is the end and mean- 
 ing of all knowledge and all experience. Until things 
 are spiritual they affect not us ; they are outside us ; far, 
 far away, as material things, nay, even as intellectual 
 things ; dreamy mysteries, unintelligible, strange, fan- 
 tastic ; in which we see a glimpse of meaning here and 
 there, but the whole is a riddle ; filling us with joy, 
 indeed, but with a joy mixed with awe, almost with terror, 
 and full of strange misgivings. If we can see Nature to 
 be a spiritual deed, a holy act, then we understand her, 
 then she is ours. A right act ? There is no mystery in 
 that ; that is native to us ; what we were born to and 
 would do. It draws us absolutely; not one thing too 
 much, not one too little, if it be right ; our inmost spirits 
 claim it all for ours ; the mean and the noble, the painful 
 and the pleasant. If it be right it is man's, it is human ; 
 
74 PJiilosophy and Religion. 
 
 it is our very own. God has done it for us ; we, had it 
 been our place, would ourselves have done it. Yes, this 
 world we would have made, with its darkness and pains 
 and sorrows, its mysteries and doubts, its aspirations that 
 end in disappointment, its temptations that rule with a 
 sway so bitter. 
 
 The love of Nature is man's instinctive and unalienable 
 joy in right action ; it is the attractiveness of virtue, but 
 working as yet blindly, and without a just appreciation 
 of its objects. And, in truth, herein lies the real mean- 
 ing of that relation of Nature to man, which so many 
 have expressed under the image of a marriage. Nature 
 is the bride of the soul ; not wedded yet, indeed, but to 
 be wedded. And is it not with man's love for Nature as 
 ever with love ? Beauty excites it first ; it is an irre- 
 sistible drawing towards the lovely, but that is not its 
 end. Its end is for the inmost soul. This play of 
 charms leads us on through a path of flowers to most 
 serious duty. When man truly w^eds Nature he will find 
 that he has taken to his heart, not a beautiful body, but 
 a deep and earnest spirit; not his sensuous or intel- 
 lectual faculties, but his spirit, his conscience, will be 
 mated there. 
 
 "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the 
 living God." The " hands of the living God " are what 
 we call the " laws " of Nature. When God is spoken of 
 as the "living," it is ever with special reference to 
 Nature. It is Nature, the creation, that is the life of 
 God. It is thus, in respect to ourselves ; our life is that 
 which we produce by our self-sacrifice ; we are living in 
 respect to that which we have so created by self-control. 
 Thus the passage means what we daily see. It is a 
 fearful thing for a man living in this universe to be 
 
Natici^e known by the Moral Emotions. 75 
 
 wicked; Nature infallibly and fearfully avenges every 
 wrong. Not that I mean to bring down the awful mean- 
 ing of these words to a mere passive operation of physical 
 and moral laws ; that is just what I wish not to do. This 
 universe, these " laws," these facts, are God, and there is 
 none other. I mean that this avenging of sin by Nature 
 is the falling into the hands of the living God ; that this 
 one fact is stated truly, as it actually is, in the Bible ; and 
 falsely, unperceivingly, by men of science and moralists. 
 We have to lift up our conceptions from the dust and 
 raise them even to heaven, and to see that it is the hands 
 of the living God that lay hold upon us in these natural 
 circumstances. Think of this which we have so over- 
 looked : the power of Nature to make us sin, i.e. act 
 wickedly, if we are selfish. Is it not a fearful thing to be 
 unloving, dead, inert, in a world of action, which operating 
 so on us makes us the willing instruments of crime ? 
 
 Because I assert all Being to be Divine, or God, I do 
 not therefore assert that we are Divine, or that matter is. 
 Even as in asserting all motion, or light, to be vibration, 
 I do not therefore assert darkness to be vibration. I 
 assert (relative) not-being also ; i.e. not-being affecting 
 us, or appearing to us, as Being. Here is the great error : 
 men, having assumed the negation which affected them 
 .to be Being, were compelled to suppose some Being not 
 Divine. Hence all the mystification, past and present, 
 from which no system has escaped ; not even Pantheism, 
 though it has altered the form of it, and asserts the 
 negation to be Divine. For clearly here is the error of 
 Pantheism : it asserts that to be God which is not-God ; 
 i.e. it asserts that to be Being which is not-Being. This 
 is the true relation of Actualism to Pantheism : there is 
 no harm in asserting all Being to be God, if we only 
 
76 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 recognize negation or not-Being. The main error of 
 philosophy is this of not recognizing negation. 
 
 Is not this, in part, why love to God is so much a true 
 passion, an all-absorbing joy ? It is not only a love of 
 some unseen person hard to conceive, from which love to 
 creatures flows merely as corollary ; it is a love of the 
 universal, the absolute, the infinite Being, that is, the 
 love of all. It is being united to the source of all delight, 
 the very height and consummation of all beauty. It is 
 to be one with Nature, to love, to know God ; what man 
 longs for, has longed for, in all ages. We need not wait 
 to be dead for that ; we may be it now. This is the bridal 
 union of Nature and the soul. To see God is to love Him, 
 to see in all Nature that one fact of God Himself, and to 
 be joined with it in love. Nothing is now unloved, 
 nothing unloving. Now we know her ; know why she 
 has stood before us so long with deep sad meaning in 
 those gentle eyes. She has wished us to know and to 
 love her, but our blindness would not let us ; we have 
 felt indeed what she must be, but we could not truly know 
 her. When we sought to clasp her to our hearts — oh 
 horror — it was a corpse cold and dead, a painted image 
 with no heart within. But now we know her, and know 
 it was our own death alone that made her dead. This is 
 the love of God, the being one with Nature, the being 
 holy ; no more enslaved, no more doing as we like. It is 
 the glorious liberty of the sons of God. Words cannot 
 tell it ; words, which have been poured forth in vain to 
 paint the joy of human love, how shall they tell of the 
 Divine ? Yet words must be used ; for when was joy 
 silent ? 
 
 It is thought alone that is " material ; " man has made 
 
i 
 
 Nature known by the Mo7^al Emotions. "j^j 
 
 matter, made it by his sin, his selfishness. We see 
 matter, because only love can see love ; and where there 
 is not love is matter. Christ Himself would have been 
 but matter to a crocodile. Alas, to how many of us is 
 God only " matter " for the same reason. Our taking all 
 this world to be mere matter, and using it only for the 
 supply of our animal wants, and generally for our 
 physical and mental purposes, is like a wild beast de- 
 vouring men as if there were nothing in them save so 
 much food for its stomach. The reason is plain ; we 
 have not eyes, we are not alive, we are not-man. Poor 
 miserable lost creatures — miserable herein, that we might 
 be better off. The Africans stole the glasses of Ander- 
 son's telescope to ornament their bodies with ; it was 
 merely " matter " to them. So we use the world, laugh- 
 ing in our ignorance at those who remonstrate with us. 
 
 Logic is a lever by which we elevate ourselves. But 
 for that purpose we must use it firmly. It is like a pole 
 by which pressing on the solid earth we push ourselves 
 up an ascent. But we, feeling the resistance, are so apt 
 to cease to push; we come to a "paradox," and say, 
 *' Ah, this is beyond the reach of reason, we must not 
 adhere to logic here, it is above that." Fools ! let us 
 push and push and hold hard to our pole ; and though 
 in truth we shall not move the solid earth, we shall move 
 ourselves, which to us is of much more consequence. 
 Logic may prove nothing ; certainly it alters nothing ; 
 but it may rectify our premises. 
 
 We know of God's gifts only by finding that we have 
 them. The earnest work given to science, the faithful, 
 self-denying loving labour, live to end in better than 
 mere material knowledge. Love, aspiration, hope, and 
 toil of the soul, yea, spiritual life and love, have been 
 
78 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 given up, freely expended; is the result to be merely 
 material knowledge, sensuous advantages ? Oh no ; for 
 spirit spirit shall be given. Love for love. Life for life. 
 The weary brow, the throbbing pulse, the aspiring heart, 
 the longing sighs addressed to God for knowledge of 
 Himself, are not squandered thm. Men have sought to 
 know God, that is the good of science, and lo ! God 
 show^s Himself to them. 
 
 Physical things prepare the way, fit us for the revela- 
 tion ; but they are not the fact itself. The fire and 
 the whirlwind are the knowledge of the phenomenal ; 
 spiritual science is to the phenomenal which it follows as 
 the " still small voice." The true deep impulse to science 
 is love for God, desire after Him ; and if God gives not 
 to man love in return, He is still the debtor. For love 
 can only be paid with love ; not with material gifts, not 
 even with such as are God's gifts to man. Science is 
 man's prayer : " I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory." 
 How can God answer it but by showing us His love ? 
 In science man has given himself to God; he cannot 
 be repaid with universes. Shall love be repaid with 
 " things " ? To repay science God must give Himself. 
 The eyes of shepherds turned long ago to heaven, 
 thinking that in those stars they saw the very heart of 
 God. They were not deceived ; we, their late descend- 
 ants, do see in those stars the very heart of God. They 
 poured out their love, not that we might exult in know- 
 ledge and traverse unerringly the seas ; this were a poor 
 reward. Their love, their life comes back to us as love, 
 as life. The true desire of science has been to know 
 God, not His works ; and it must end in knowledge of 
 Him. It was our spirits, iccy that desired to know, to 
 know that which is like ourselves. 
 
Nature known by the Moral E^notioits, 79 
 
 I cannot express truly the sight that flashes on me ; 
 yet it is the very fact. The material and psychical 
 world is (as I have seen it must be) passion in spirits ; 
 i.e. conscious passions, emotions ; it can be nothing 
 else. Therefore it *' becomes " in us conscious passions, 
 i.e. passion in our spirits ; we are surrounded by an 
 universe of feelings, sensations, hopes, fears, sorrows, 
 joys; an universe, in a word, of ''passion." Here is 
 the foundation of poetry ; here the truth of imagination ; 
 here their marriage with logic and with science. This I 
 have been saying so long, and did not know it : that the 
 universe was passion in spirits, not seeing that this is 
 sensation, thought, emotion. Thus it is that we have 
 no words for spiritual things, but those derived from 
 physical ; the physical are spiritual. 
 
 If I have any power of investigating Nature, it is 
 because the world is a work of genius and I love it. 
 God's heart is in it, and I know it as a friend. The 
 solemn throbs and pulses of its vast vibrations are not 
 merely mechanical events to my eye, I feel them as the 
 beatings of a heart pressed close to mine. I throw my- 
 self on Nature and press myself upon her bosom in the 
 passionate embrace of a friend ; our thoughts are one 
 because we love. 
 
 The imaginative view of God — that which attributes 
 to Him the human, as "passion," " the world a work of 
 Genius," and so on — goes to the heart of theology. It 
 is not itself the truth, but the road to it. The introduc- 
 tion of fictions, the theory which leads to interpretation, 
 is the living theology ; the imaginative view of things, 
 which gives to them human attributes, is the truest. But 
 alike in respect to things and to the Deity, it should be 
 
8o Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 remembered, that this imaginative view is not final, but 
 only a means to an end : that it is the introduction of 
 fictions, necessary indeed, to enable us to grasp the phe- 
 nomena, but whose design is not to remain for ever, but 
 to reveal the fact. [This idea was seen afterwards to be 
 one with that of the calculus^ 
 
 It is truly therefore mind, design, thought, emotion, 
 that are at work, and embodied in Nature ; even as in our 
 thoughts, feelings, and so-called " actions." And surely 
 our mental passion may appear "a world" to other 
 beings. It is design and feeling that are in Nature ; but 
 not God's. It is His act. His holiness, which becomes 
 feeling, emotion, and all those human passions, when it 
 becomes passion ; i.e. as it affects created spirits. The 
 design, the goodness, the wisdom, are in the passion, the 
 result ; not in the act ; they are phenomenal. 
 
 As in a musical composition each sound exists because 
 the musician chooses it, but each is as it is because it is 
 right ; and to show each note to be the right note is to 
 show the cause or reason of its existence ; so Nature is 
 music, and each vibration in it is such because it is the 
 right vibration ; the only reason for its being is that God 
 chooses so to act ; but acting, God acts so because that 
 is the right act. Herein appears again the likeness of 
 Nature to a work of Genius. Both are right : but the 
 Tightness of a spiritual act is holiness. That other 
 Tightness of material adaptation flows from this, and 
 expresses it. It is a secondary thing, having relation 
 only to those Beings who perceive God's act as matter. 
 
 The laws of Nature, as we call them, are the relations 
 or connections of our sensations. They are beautiful, 
 nay glorious ; they are well worth knowing ; they must 
 be known; they constitute the very basis of all our 
 
Nature known by the Moral Emotions, 8i 
 
 knowledge. They are what bring us into relation with 
 God's action, which is the thing to be known. But they 
 are not themselves the objects of knowledge, but only a 
 means to it ; as we use colours and sounds for learning 
 optics and acoustics. That, in our sensation, motion 
 must take direction of least resistance, and all motion be 
 vibration, and develop by interference and subdivision, 
 and follow in the definite order of cause and effect, and 
 so on, is beautiful, interesting, and absolutely necessary 
 to be known. But all this is not what we want to know. 
 This is not the fact ; this is the effect upon ourselves : it 
 is the cause of all this that is the true object of know- 
 ledge ; what is it that thus affects us ? 
 
 Nature being thus a representative and expression of 
 moral rightness, how she justifies and repays an un- 
 bounded love ! Riglit is the only thing we cannot love 
 too much. Will it not be a good thing when the separa- 
 tion of the love of Nature from the love of holiness is no 
 longer possible ? Shall we not be willing to submit, and 
 to take part with her ? Do we not acquiesce, nay do we 
 not rejoice? Can we not lay even our torn and bleeding 
 hearts upon that altar ? 
 
 Nature obeys the man who acts right, for he takes 
 part with God. In right action Nature has her origin 
 and her existence ; to right action she owes an absolute 
 allegiance. Hence it is, sin works its own punishment : 
 there is no deception, no defect, no error in Nature's 
 justice ; each wrong, however it may seem for a time to 
 succeed, is fully avenged. No criminal can overrule her 
 process by his power, no secrecy elude her vigilance. It 
 is indeed a fearful thought : weak as an insect as man 
 is in Nature's grasp, absolutely and passively within her 
 power, how shall he dare to put himself in o^Dposition to 
 
82 Philosophy and Religion, 
 
 her ! Inevitably those fatal wheels will crush him ; yet 
 this he does when he does wrong, for Nature is holiness. 
 The earth's motion, fearful as it is to contemplate, hurts 
 us not, because we move with it. 
 
 We are so constituted that the fall of one loved one 
 outweighs, in our feeling, the happiness and good of any 
 number ; and so Christ speaks in His parallel of the 
 hundred sheep. Why have we that feeling ? In what 
 lies the charm, to a loving heart, in the wandering and 
 sinning of a loved one ? Is not our heart so because 
 God's is ? Does not the fact demonstrate some unknown 
 value and meaning and depth of fact in such wandering 
 itself, which we have yet to learn ? And as to the illus- 
 tration, on the other side, of the multitude of seeds of 
 which only a few develop, is there not an inversion in 
 our view, arising from our perception of the organic as 
 the highest in Nature ? Do not those seeds which are 
 restored to the inorganic reach the highest place? 
 
 That is a beautiful thought of Shelley's, that the dead 
 are one with Nature. Cannot he who sneers at it see 
 that Nature is infinitely more to the poet than to him — 
 so much more, that it fills the poet's mind with an emo- 
 tion and enthusiasm unknown to him ; making him even 
 willing and happy to die ? 
 
 I rejoice to think of the future Science. How our 
 children, instead of being overwhelmed with the vastness 
 and multiplicity of Nature, will delight in her simplicity, 
 will play with her as with a child, and take sweet counsel 
 with her as with a friend whose whole heart is open to 
 them. And what a friend ! One who is pure and fresh 
 ever from the hand of God, holding before us constantly 
 a pattern of the right, answering to our unceasing 
 
Nature kitown by the Moral Emotions. 83 
 
 inquiry, What would God have us to do ? " God does 
 this." 
 
 Nature is gentle and " easy to be entreated ; " all her 
 secrets may be gained by sympathy, by self-devotion. 
 The way to comprehend her is not to put her to the 
 torture, and attempt to wring out her laws by crucial 
 experiments. She gives deceitful answers in her agony, 
 or indignantly refuses to respond. Confide in her, love 
 her, talk with her as a friend, woo her by secret, silent, 
 reverential dwelling of the mind and heart upon her 
 beauties ; be a lover to her, and she replies with love, 
 and makes the heart that thus with self-abnegation 
 devotes itself to her, the participator of her most che- 
 rished secrets. There is no limit to such a man's insight 
 into Nature but his own power of comprehending what 
 she tells him. All this artists and poets have long 
 known. They have wooed Nature, and not in vain. In 
 their verses, on their canvas, her inmost heart stands 
 revealed. But men of Science have done otherwise. 
 With brutal violence they have sought to wrest from her 
 those pledges of affection which are due to love alone, 
 and they have rightly failed. Science and poetry and 
 art are truly one, and must be cultivated in one spirit. 
 When men of Science are reverential lovers and wor- 
 shippers of Nature, as artists and poets are, then shall 
 they also, as artists and poets do, comprehend her. The 
 study of Nature is a study of physiognomy, needing 
 for its successful presentation not the scalpel of the 
 anatomist, but sympathy. 
 
 It is so far from being the fact that our knowledge 
 of the laws of Nature is founded on microscopic and 
 telescopic observations, or indeed on minute examina- 
 
8 4 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 tions of any sort, that in truth our knowledge of the 
 laws of these remote facts is based upon their analogy 
 with those facts which are obvious. It is only in so far 
 as we can reduce the former to a sameness with the 
 latter that we know anything about their laws. Hence, 
 e.g. it is right to call the two forms of polarity male and 
 female. Herein also lies an idea full of joy : as the 
 external and obvious in Nature is full of artistic and 
 poetic beauty, so also must that be which is remote and 
 concealed. The excessively minute, the overwhelmingly 
 large, are one with those exquisite forms of which our 
 eyes can realize the beauty and our heart idealize. As 
 the external superficial world has a moral meaning, a 
 sympathizing heart ; as it speaks to us of our own joys 
 and sorrows, and raises within us tender emotions and 
 lofty aspirations, so is that world which is hidden from 
 us bound to us also by ties as close. The stars that roll 
 through space, the minutest particles of which millions 
 constitute an atom, are our brethren also, even as trees 
 and flowers are, share our emotions, reciprocate our 
 love. This noble work the men of Science have, to 
 extend the artistic and poetic appreciation of Nature 
 beyond the scope of the senses, to show that she is the 
 same in the vast and in the minute as she is in the 
 forms which we speak of as forms of beauty. I feel 
 within myself the spirit of those old Greeks who symbo- 
 lized Nature and man's relation to it under so many 
 legends and in so many statues. Science is the " loves 
 of man and Nature : " Cupid and Psyche speak to me 
 of it ; but it is love fraught with no disaster. Tearful, 
 painful, full of doubt it has been indeed, unconscious of 
 its divine and joyful nature, a blind yearning, torturing 
 and harassing the soul of man all these long ages, while 
 he knew not what it was ; his soul passionately smitten 
 
Nature known by the Moral Emotions. 85 
 
 with the beauty of Nature, yet knowing it not, nor how 
 to express his vague yearnings, knowing only that he 
 was miserable. Such is ever the dawn of love. Incon- 
 ceivably removed and unapproachable appears to us the 
 object of our passion. Enough for us it seems to kiss 
 the hem of her garment, to adore her at a distance ; we 
 shrink into utter insignificance before her. Thus appears 
 to each man's heart his destined bride, thus to the uni- 
 versal heart of man has Nature yet appeared. Oh miser- 
 able days and nights of tears, prophetic of unutterable 
 joy ! Loved even as he loves, although he knows it not, 
 one soft reply to stammering, half-uttered words, raises 
 him to bliss he had not dared to dream ; gives him the 
 empire the dearest to his soul, his rightful empire too, 
 for there enthroned he has his home. Does man love 
 Nature, and Nature not love man ? It is not so ; she is 
 his bride, his wife ; bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, 
 soul of his soul. Oh union made in heaven and yet to 
 be accomplished on earth, has not thy day come even 
 now ? 
 
 To affirm special creation, is a step towards atheism. 
 The certain effect of introducing God specially into the 
 past is to exclude Him just so much from the present. 
 A reality is exchanged for an hypothesis ; a seen and 
 felt reality for an inconceivable hypothesis. The universe 
 in truth is full of God ; so full that nothing can be added 
 thereto. No possible mode of regarding Him as working 
 can bring Him closer than He is. Only those whose God 
 is afar off can even conceive of Him as brought nearer. 
 It is our privilege, and a privilege full of exquisite joy it 
 is, to see that God does all things so directly, that it is 
 impossible He can do anything more directly. No cause, 
 nor chain of causes, has intervened : God did it : God 
 
S6 Philosophy and Religion, 
 
 does it : just as directly, just in the same sense, as He 
 is supposed to '' create a species." If any one says tins 
 makes no difference, I repeat that he cannot know till he 
 has tried how much he loses by referring God's immediate 
 agency to the past. If that idea has any excellence or 
 vii'tue, if it be glorious or delightful, if it be true, let us 
 have it now. It sanctifies the world and makes it holy ; 
 a sacred, awful, joyous thing is that which God is doing. 
 And worst of all, the best of people with the best of 
 motives, are committing Christianity to a scientific hy- 
 pothesis. It must not be. Christianity is too precious 
 to be, not indeed imperilled, but impeded so. It 
 matters not whether the hypothesis be false, as we think 
 it, or true as so many hold ; the j)oint is, that the oak 
 shall not cling to the ivy. The remedy for apparently 
 irreligious scientific dogmas is not to affirm a contrary 
 scientific dogma, but to show that Natm^e is so full of 
 God that no scientific doctrine, rightly stated, can be 
 irreligious. True science teaches the same thing as the 
 heart dictates; puts only into definite expression the 
 indefinable emotion. 
 
 Here come a group of vibrations sweeping through the 
 air, mere matter and motion ; and lo ! they fall upon a 
 human eye, a human ear, and straightway are become 
 thought and emotion, an overwhelming passion of love, 
 or joy, or grief; virtue or penitence, or heroism. If 
 those vibrations were truly matter and motion here is a 
 miracle. But what if those vibrations, as w^e thought 
 them, were, in very truth, God's spiritual act; His 
 thought, emotion, passion, surging against another 
 spirit's bosom? What then more natural and just? 
 The miracle resolves itself into sympathy. How can we 
 so stultify ourselves as to think that what originates 
 
Nature known by the Moral Emotions, Z'] 
 
 and ends in love and gladness, becomes matter on the 
 way ? Poet nor madman ever feigned such a metamor- 
 phosis ! I adhere to common sense. That which is 
 once spiritual is spiritual for ever. 
 
 We have to introduce design because of our assump- 
 tion of " matter." To deny that, and leave the '' matter," 
 is manifestly bad : but the inadequacy, the impossibility 
 of design, its making God in time, and indeed altogether 
 denying Him in fact — all this is proof of the wrongness 
 of our conception. The ** design " is a hypothesis 
 necessary from the wrong assumption. It involves the 
 personality of God too ; and the very impossibility of it 
 is evidence of the wrongness of the view, and the means 
 (in part) of rectifying it. So I find this idea of design to 
 be as it were the '' evil " by which a negation is removed : 
 and the atheistic argument — holding matter but denying 
 design — is an anticipation : it does not show us why we 
 perceive design. We must perceive design in Nature 
 because we perceive it as real or in time (putting our own 
 " condition " into it) ; only by seeing it as eternal can 
 design be excluded : for as truly as there is cause and 
 eflect, there is design. Now if we know why we must 
 perceive design, we can exclude it; just as, knowing 
 why we must perceive (or infer) the epicycles, we can 
 exclude them. 
 
 This I must apply more widely. The feeling of in- 
 tolerance which some experience towards the " design " 
 idea is like that of Copernicus towards the epicycles. 
 He felt that it could not be so, even though he might not 
 be able to show it otherwise. Probably he denied them 
 long before he showed the motion of the earth. But the 
 assertion of actualism is involved in this feeling against 
 design ; even as the motion of the earth is latent in the 
 
88 Philosophy and Religio7i. 
 
 disgust at epicycles. Design cannot be got rid of without 
 making the world eternal, spiritual ; otherwise there is 
 a blank, a denial of plainest facts. We cannot deny that 
 we perceive design : and seeing the actual as " real " 
 involves seeing it as design; like seeing God as 
 "personal." 
 
 That God is the direct doer of every thing in Nature, 
 that this present world is full of Him, is not so much 
 seen with the intellect as felt with the heart. I feel it 
 throb through all the pulses of my life. I cast myself on 
 the great ocean of Nature, on my mother's bosom, and 
 feel God's arms around me, and His loving heart pressed 
 to mine. It is no longer Natm-e, it is divine love and 
 holiness that hold me in their embrace. 
 
 In my own experience there is a good illustration of 
 the identity of two oj)posite opinions. For example : 
 formerly I could not be brought to admit special creations, 
 because it appeared to me that all was law, and accom- 
 plished by second causes. Now I see that there is no 
 special creation, because all is God's direct and special 
 act. Formerly I saw the law, now the liberty ; but not 
 two things : these are one, the chain of causes is God's 
 absolutely free and direct action. These two are one, 
 just as in Nature necessity and freedom are united in 
 motion in direction of least resistance. The advance is 
 to see the liberty, but not to see it as exceptional, and 
 opposed to the law. Because law and liberty are one it 
 is that God's direct act appears to us as cause and effect. 
 One sees that God does as He chooses in Nature, and 
 holds a special providence ; another sees that Nature is 
 the expression of an absolute law, and holds it to be 
 a chain of second causes, with which God does not 
 
Nature known by the Moral Emotions. 89 
 
 interfere. But we should open both eyes, grasp Nature 
 with both hands ; embrace the Deity with head and, 
 heart. When we have most enlarged ourselves still is 
 God too great for us, but how great He is we cannot see 
 while we shut ourselves up in less than our native 
 littleness. How God sets our distinctions at defiance, 
 and bids us learn from each other. He does as He 
 chooses in acting by law. The chain of causes is His 
 free agency, His direct and immediate act. The in- 
 compatibility of law with freedom, of direct action with 
 unvarying causation, lies in our imagination alone, is 
 the fruit of our weak and corrupted will. Let us not 
 bring God down to ourselves, but rise rather up to Him. 
 Law is His freedom : be law our freedom too. It is 
 the only freedom. The absolute Eight alone is liberty. 
 Nature thus, in her primary conception, in her very 
 foundation and essence is moral : she is spiritual in 
 truth, as man must have her to be. Nature is law and 
 liberty because she is right action — the holy deed of a 
 spirit, and regarded every way teaches that great lesson 
 of the conformity of the will to right. Trace matter 
 back to its essence and it is found to be Holiness. This 
 is involved indeed in saying that the universe is a 
 spiritual act. The great principle which Nature em- 
 bodies, its essence, what it means as a great chain of 
 causes and effects, is 'Rectitude, 
 
 The question may be brought to this : we are to 
 believe God — now why? Is it because the facts warrant 
 belief? Or are we to believe for the sake of some 
 advantage to ourselves, because something will happen 
 if we believe ? To ask the question is to answer it. 
 And this is, in truth, the design question over again, 
 whether it is holiness or contrivance in nature ; whether 
 
90 PJiilosophy and Religion. 
 
 the thing was done because it was right ; or in order for 
 some advantage. Our systems form a whole ; our 
 believing for design, and creation by design, are all one 
 thing. Well may theologians tremble so to have science 
 touched. They are right in feeling that their sacredest 
 doctrines are involved : Science and theology are one. 
 The chain, though hidden, vibrates to the slightest 
 touch ; it is vain to talk of holding them sej^arate. 
 
 Science is done for love. Now what man, that is a 
 man, would repay a woman's affection with jewels ? 
 And shall not God too give love for love ? Man has 
 been struggling, blindly, madly often, to pull down this 
 barrier that rises up between him and God. Science 
 is the record of this effort, the achievement of this end. 
 At last — behold infinite eternal love : ihi8 is our God ; 
 we have waited for him. Wherefore hidest Thou 
 Thyself} What to us is this infinite array of suns 
 and worlds, this thronging life and innumerable shapes 
 of beauty and delight, if Thou be not in them? We 
 cannot, will not have them ; through and through we 
 search them and pronounce them all a vanity ; not in 
 them is that true fact for which we long, which we must 
 attain or die. They are inert ; om* flesh and our soul 
 crieth for God. With earnest, passionate, self-immo- 
 lating toil man has sought for God, for the true Being 
 in nature. Is he now to be told that he must be content 
 with physical advantages : that he must be content 
 with getting : that there is no Being to whom he 
 may give himself ? Oh weary, longing, steadfast heart, 
 believe it not. " Shake thyself from the dust . . . arise, 
 shine, for thy light is come." 
 
 " To be natural " therefore is to love, and willingly to 
 
Nature known by the Mo7^al E^notions, 91 
 
 do the right. Nature is voluntary or spiritual rightness; 
 moral goodness : spiritual because absolute freedom ; 
 right because absolute law. We are surrounded there- 
 fore by, exist in, goodness; hence the discord with Nature 
 of moral evil, a discord how powerfully felt, how fear- 
 fully seen, in human life ! Every voice of Nature to 
 man has this meaning. *' Choose the right. Make 
 your liberty conformable to law ; in conformity to law 
 achieve and maintain your liberty." Not driven and 
 compelled, but how sweetly solicited to good, is man. 
 Each softest or sublimest object whispers in its beauty, 
 ''I am right," or in its grandeur thunders, "I am 
 right." This seeing, God pronounced it good. All 
 good but one thing; and that the one that Thou madest, 
 oh God, in Thy image, the crown and glory of Thy 
 creation, choosing right like Thee ! How long shall he 
 be thus dishonoured and abased, walking the earth with 
 step erect, but with heart crushed down with evil and 
 face bowed in shame ? Teach us, I beseech Thee, to 
 see Thee so in Nature, that Thy moral beauty there 
 revealed may win us to be like Thee ; Thy holiness fill 
 us with shame. Thy tenderness melt us to penitence. 
 Lead us through Thy works unto Thy Gospel; by the 
 condemnation teach us to seek the pardon; by proof 
 of ruin and corruption subdue our hearts to renewing 
 and sanctifying love ! 
 
 And that this law of Nature — the law and liberty seen 
 in motion in direction of least resistance — is given to it 
 by ourselves, is the expression indeed of our mental con- 
 stitution, how it shows us to be made for good ! This is 
 in us intellectual rightness; the sign and proof of that 
 spiritual rightness which is our native but now lost 
 inheritance. This world could have been made only by 
 a good, or holy, Being; its very structure involves it. 
 
92 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 Eight is stamped everywhere. Holy, holy, holy Lord 
 God! 
 
 Have I not solved that question I proposed to myself 
 so long ago : What is that action of God's that we see as 
 matter and motion ? It is His Holiness ; His choosing 
 the right. Nature is right, and right by His choice, 
 therefore not infused or filled with the moral element ; 
 it is morality. Each true thing I have ever heard seems 
 now to come back to me with a new kind of truth : this 
 for instance, that the glory of God is His moral cha- 
 racter ; even His creative glory. The universe proclaims 
 not only his power and godhead, but truly understood 
 His moral excellence also. God answers prayer. In 
 my earnest wish to know something of what His work 
 in Nature was, I prayed, " I beseech Thee, show me Thy 
 glory." And He has shown me, sufficiently for mortal 
 comprehension, what His glory in creation is. The 
 rightness of each object in Nature is an instance and 
 evidence of the spiritual rectitude of its Maker. Beauty, 
 being, as I have seen, conformity to the universal law, 
 bears this testimony : He that made me conformed His 
 will to law. The world is infinitely beautiful, because 
 God is infinitely holy. 
 
 A miracle cannot be an interference with the general 
 course of nature, because there is no general course of 
 nature to interfere with. How can a being interfere 
 with his own action ? How many cases there are in 
 nature of mischievous result as well as of good : e.g. bees 
 are destroyed sometimes by the adhesion of pollen which 
 they are conveying to the stigma. Thus natural theo- 
 logians have never been able to look nature fairly in the 
 face. In truth the idea of nature is not that of use and 
 design ; it has a deeper basis. Nature is right, and 
 
Nature known by the Moral Emotions. 93 
 
 results shift for themselves : there being the innate com- 
 pensation in it, because it is right, that every evil, every 
 failure or loss, becomes tributary to a greater good. 
 The true idea of nature is that of a work of art ; what 
 it expresses is not contrivance but passion ; its end is not 
 use but self-expression ; its spring not benevolence but 
 the necessity of producing ; its law not adaptation, but 
 rightness. This is the truth that God's object in 
 creation was not the good of His creatures, but His own 
 glory, ''For Thy glory they are and were created." 
 Creation sprang from God as pictures grow out of an 
 artist, or melody flows from a musician ; because it was 
 in Him and must come forth. Thus the universe is 
 music. It is an impassioned act ; full of a meaning 
 deeper than thought. Man cannot Imow nature, starting 
 with the idea of design ; alter the conception to that of 
 passion, and it is clear. 
 
 The idea that the universe is music was with me the 
 result of a purely scientific induction ; the studying of 
 material laws alone developed the conception, and 
 simply in reference to material phenomena ; yet it con- 
 tains the moral secret of the universe as well. 
 
 I do not agree with that view of " ideal " beauty 
 which represents it as more perfect than the true beauty. 
 Nature is really perfectly beautiful ; infinitely above any 
 ideal of beauty we can form ; it is blasphemy to say or 
 think the contrary. Is it not God's act ; and can He 
 not conceive better than we ? The imperfections and 
 ugliness of Nature are relative to us only. The real 
 beauty of Nature as it is, is absolute, infinite, God's act 
 being so ; but we see it under limit of our own nature, 
 partially and in time ; therefore to us it is defect, and 
 want of beauty. I object to this in Plato, that he finds 
 
94 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 the real world not even beautiful enough for him ! It 
 was a false direction {i.e. though right then) that he 
 gave to thought in sending it to the region of the ideal 
 for its highest conceptions. But this, observe, it was 
 emphatically right to do ; it was the separation for per- 
 fecting. 
 
 Man's thoughts cannot surpass, nay for ever shall fall 
 infinitely short of God's act. Higher thoughts, more 
 glorious conceptions, a more perfect beauty, a diviner 
 truth, a purer and profounder holiness exist here in the 
 facts of actual Nature than our most elevated imagi- 
 nations could ever approach. Nature is perfect and 
 infinite in beauty and in every form of rightness. That 
 we find her not so is because we see her wrongly ; in 
 parts and not in whole, in time and not in eternity. 
 Yet is this right also ; our proper mental discipline con- 
 sists in not seeing all things beautiful ; it is needful for 
 us, this perception of the beautiful mingled with the 
 ugly. But to accomplish this good for us it was not 
 needful that God should deform His work and really 
 mingle bad with good ; it was enough to place us with 
 our littleness in a world of perfect good too large for us. 
 That is all : what makes our evil — apart from sin — is 
 only too large a good ; our ugly is a beauty on too grand 
 a scale for us. The senses delude us here as every- 
 where : we perceive an ugly and we think therefore that 
 the thing is really so. Here as everywhere the first step 
 towards true knowledge is to learn to emancipate our- 
 selves from sense. 
 
 Now I know what the " ideal "is. It is to us what 
 Natui'e is to God; that is, a fact perfectly beautiful. 
 We cannot see the true and perfect beauty of Nature, 
 because it is too large. Because it is only a part, it has 
 innumerable connections with other things which we do 
 
Nature known by the Moral Emotions, 95 
 
 not perceive, and so it appears to us defective. There- 
 fore we conceive for ourselves something smaller, some- 
 thing that shall be a whole and yet not too large for us ; 
 a single fact that shall represent to us the universe, 
 isolated, and without any connection with any other 
 fact; and that we conceive of as perfect and complete 
 in beauty, in itself. This is creative art, the work of 
 genius ; but this to us is just what creation is to God. 
 The universe is God's Ideal perfectly acted out. Our 
 effort to attain the ideal is an attempt to do what God 
 did in creation. 
 
 This is the meaning also of creation being a work of 
 Genius, of Nature expressing God's _passion. It is God 
 carrying out His ideal. Little sympathy have they 
 with God who deem that He did anything worse than He 
 could have done it ; even an artist worthy of the name 
 will not do that. No man who can legitimately claim 
 the title of Voet will do less than his best : shall the 
 Great Poet be the only one to link shame with the word ? 
 *' The heavens and the earth, and all that is between 
 them, think ye that I have created them in jest ? " 
 Does not the Koran rebuke the Christian ? Did not the 
 Great Heart glow, the Almighty Hand thrill with joy, 
 when the Ideal of the Universe was realized in act ? 
 Nature is God's ideal wrought out with no shortcoming. 
 We have the gift of conceiving an ideal in order that we 
 may know what Nature really is, if we could see her 
 rightly : and that we may share with God the joy of 
 creation ; share in the joy, though not in the achieve- 
 ment. God will not keep even that joy to Himself ; all 
 He has He gives to His dear loved child ; the joy of 
 holiness, the joy of love, the joy of making others 
 happy, and even that joy we might have thought truly 
 
96 Philosophy and Religion, 
 
 incommunicable, the joy of creating. But it is a poor 
 return for this great gift, yea rather a most melancholy 
 abuse of the gift itself, to claim for this petty ideal of 
 ours a superiority over God's own ideal ; to call His 
 creation poor and mean, defective, marred, and incom- 
 plete, and our conceptions perfect and surpassing : — they 
 are but toys. 
 
 The absolute and perfect beauty of creation is involved 
 in its holiness ; if Nature be really partly ugly, it is 
 partly unholy ; this is no strained analogy, it is mere 
 certainty. In Nature we perceive a mixture with the 
 beautiful of that which is ugly, and we conceive a perfect 
 beauty ; but this is only to teach us that in Nature as 
 God sees it there is nothing ugly. For sin is not in 
 Nature, not in God's act ; it is man's act, and, corrupt as 
 it may be, it cannot pollute Nature's purity. 
 
 As our sympathy with God increases, we shall imder- 
 stand more what His ideal is ; i.e. as we grow holier ; for 
 sympathy with God is holiness. Therefore it is as I have 
 said : the source of a true knowledge of Nature lies in 
 rectitude of heart, in love of right. When we have a 
 perfect sympathy with God, so that our ideal corresponds 
 with His (save only as respects our poor capacity), then 
 we know Nature to her inmost heart, she is our ideal 
 also. There have been men who have attained near to 
 this in all ages, I believe ; for it does not depend on 
 great knowledge. The true poets have come near it ; 
 martyrs have seen it who have beheld in dark and loath- 
 some dungeons the path that leads beside the still waters, 
 strewn with sweet flowers, and overshone by the sun 
 and a thousand stars ; who have seen in bm-ning piles 
 the altar of a glad and grateful sacrifice, in chains and 
 cruel stripes the gems which glitter in the crown of life. 
 
Nature known by the Moral Emotions. 97 
 
 Yes, even we, unworthy to be martyrs, may see it too, 
 if we can learn to see in care and want and toil, in 
 self-control and sacrifice for right, a bright and joyous 
 life. 
 
 Is not this God's ideal of Nature, that is, of Life — 
 Love duly regulated ? If we ask. What is Nature ? the 
 reply should be. What is your ideal ? That may not be, 
 nay certainly is not, the very truth — but it is the nearest 
 you can come to it. 
 
 Now our ideal is to Nature as if some one unable to 
 comprehend or appreciate a musical strain as a whole, 
 should take the single chords, and seek to make each one 
 complete and perfectly beautiful. He would add more 
 notes, or alter their arrangement, or leave out the dis- 
 cordant ones, or cause the chord to be played by more 
 instruments. He would make each chord an "ideal." 
 But this could not really be done without spoiling the 
 music, and we should say to him : The whole strain just 
 as it is, with what you call these imperfections, is to us 
 just so perfect, just such an "ideal" as you seek to 
 realize in the separate parts. The ordinary view of the 
 ideal, regarding it as above Nature, has inflicted on us 
 woeful injury. It has misrepresented to us alike God 
 and Nature. It has made Nature teach us false lessons ; 
 it has closed our eyes to the holiness that is in Nature, 
 so that we have not in truth really seen Her. And, 
 pitiful loss indeed, it has taught us to look for our best, 
 not to God's conception, but to our own. How could 
 we ever rise, when our own ideal was our standard ? 
 What can our own ideal express or contain, but our- 
 selves ? That was not what we were endowed with the 
 ideal faculty for, but that we might by its means be 
 emancipated from the tyranny of our senses, and see 
 
 H 
 
98 Philosophy a7id Religmi. 
 
 Nature with our hearts as she really is. So knowing in 
 our inmost soul, taught by our hearts that Nature is 
 really perfect, we shall be led to explore and study her, 
 we shall seek how we may see mortality swallowed up in 
 life ; pain, evil, and defect absorbed and lost in perfect 
 rectitude. And thus studying Nature our heart and 
 thought will be itself expanded. 
 
 " Man sees nothing that he does not say." I perceive 
 science, philosophy, art, that wonderful impulse to 
 " represent " nature, which is so specially evident in the 
 artist, but is equally the fact of all our mental life, is the 
 child's instinct to say what it sees. I have noticed this 
 in my own children ; whatever they see or think of they 
 say ; before they do anything they say it. That is the 
 primary idea and use of language, as a means and form 
 of our own mental life ; to communicate with others is a 
 secondary application. It is clear we must " represent " 
 (or say) that which we are, which we understand, or are 
 the substance of. 
 
 Now, incidentally, as our mental life thus is, and con- 
 sists in, re-presentation of nature ; so, certainly, does our 
 bodily. Our physical nature is a *^ saying " or " repre- 
 sentation " of nature ; all life indeed is so ; i.e. of 
 physical nature. And the human body, as the ultimate 
 development of the physical life, is a complete represen- 
 tation of nature. When our mental life attains to be a 
 perfect representation of nature, then will it not have 
 attained to the stage of manhood; a perfect '' saying " 
 or representation of nature ? 
 
 There seems to be one way in which the unbeautiful 
 phenomenon already reveals the beautiful reality, and 
 that is man's most distorted works revealing the beautiful 
 working and development of the human mind. So that 
 
Nature known by the Moral Emotions, 99 
 
 when we look at the ugly we no longer perceive the ugly 
 although we see it, but perceive by its means the abso- 
 lutely beautiful. I have long ago seen in so many cases 
 that human errors and follies were among the most 
 beautiful of all facts : that to account for or give the 
 reason of anything was always to show the good and the 
 beauty of it. I have seen this long before I saw that it 
 was so because it is all life ; that evil is nutrition, and 
 nutrition necessarily of absolute and equal goodness ; all 
 except sin. 
 
 Life always appears to us beautiful and good. It is a 
 very synonym for good, indeed. But wherever we see a 
 whole there we see life ; therefore if we saw the whole, 
 we should see it to be life ; i.e. absolute beauty and good. 
 Ugliness and evil are not-life; types of sin, which is 
 death. Ugly, evil, false, mean simply that we do not 
 see the life ; they are phenomena of which we are unable 
 to see that they are vital parts of a living whole. 
 
 Art is the interpretation of Nature by the intuition of 
 Beauty. 
 
 As I look on a painting I see that its calling is to 
 make us see that nature is not really matter, but a 
 spiritual fact which thus appears to us. By painting 
 we are recalled to the reality of nature. Painting and 
 Science both deal with the one question : What causes 
 us to perceive the phenomenon ? — Science for the head, 
 painting for the heart. It is the higher spiritual func- 
 tion they are destined to achieve that binds man to the 
 arts, although he knows it not. Nothing he seeks in Art 
 or Science is the real reason of his impulse towards 
 them, or can redeem that impulse from being unworthy, 
 but a higher end which he cannot foresee or intend, 
 
lOO Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 because it is to raise him above himself, to elevate his 
 si3intual standard, which nothing he can himself con- 
 ceive can do. 
 
 As the function of Science is to reveal that Nature is 
 a holy act of God, so the function of Art must be to 
 reveal that holiness in the actual facts of Nature ; to 
 show the holiness of Nature. All Nature is beautiful, 
 and beautiful because holy ; for beauty truly is spiritual, 
 and the work of Art is to display this, but it must be 
 done in Nature's living way, and by no short cut. The 
 phenomenal is God's road to the sph'itual therefore, it 
 is man's. 
 
 What course Art will take in showing the universal or 
 absolute holiness of Nature, one cannot say, but it must 
 be so. When Science, or the mere tracing of cause and 
 effect, becomes thus spiritual, in the true sense of moral, 
 how can Art fall short? It must have even a higher 
 function, to point out the holiness, not to our intellect, 
 but to our heart. Art is truly above Science ; Science 
 makes us see the holiness of Nature, Art shall make 
 us feel it. And Science as the lower first attains its 
 development ; Art follows and depends upon it. 
 
 An ideal beauty above Nature must be laid aside, and 
 Art must sit down to Nature accepting her as absolute 
 beauty, and making her ideal correspond thereto. It is 
 not hard to see that there must result a complete revo- 
 lution of our conception, or rather of our feeling, of 
 Nature altogether. It will show Nature to be only 
 phenomenal and the reality quite different. But that 
 is what we want. In order to rise above Nature we 
 must first put Nature above us. We are truly above, 
 no doubt, and shall safely rise again ; but this inversion 
 must be or we are left in ignorance. 
 
Nature known by the Moral Emotions. loi 
 
 Of Poetry also as well as Art this must be true. So 
 long as Poetry deals with an ideal beauty above Nature, 
 it is in its infantine stage ; like the science of the dark 
 ages : — not wrong absolutely ; this has been a stage all 
 the mental life of man has passed through and it is only 
 right, but it must pass. 
 
 We err altogether in thinking the dark ages time lost 
 for Science : it was, as I have said, the prepar'ng of the 
 instruments ; it was infancy laying the only possible 
 basis for manhood. So now of Art and^" Poe;try .   \ " '; ' 
 
 In the same way, we must study the evil phenomenon 
 as goodj and it will reveal its good reality. We should 
 say, evil is a subjective phenomenon, produced by a 
 good reality. Holding it to be good, and studying it 
 so, in all its details, mastering it phenomenally, it will 
 reveal to us what that good reality is which causes us to 
 perceive the subjective evil. 
 
 I cannot but believe that human life may become 
 glorious, beautiful, and happy to a degree almost beyond 
 our thought by the fulfilment of the promise of such 
 a Science, when through the false phenomenon we see 
 the true reality; through the ugly phenomenon the 
 beautiful reality; through the evil phenomenon the 
 good reality. Shall we not, must we not, b^ happier 
 then ; more conformable to Nature ? yes, better, without 
 which we cannot be more natural. 
 
 It is striking — first we use the phenomenally true to 
 interpret the phenomenally false, then the phenomenally 
 false when interpreted to interpret the phenomenally 
 true. 
 
 First we interpret the life above by the life beneath ; 
 then the life beneath by the life above. For as we 
 
I02 Philosophy ajid Religion. 
 
 interpret, more and more comes to require interpreta- 
 tion. Thus, at first, we divide nature into two portions, 
 the inorganic and organic, or unliving and living, and 
 first get a certain knowledge of the unliving, which we 
 use to interpret the living. Then when we have in- 
 terpreted this, we use it again to interpret the unliving, 
 and see that the whole is life. 
 
 Surely Art will advance as Science has done : by 
 nutrition and function, first by making the ugly appear 
 l-eautiful ; and then by letting it reveal the beautiful 
 which constitutes it. And this will continue as in 
 Science, making more and more phenomena which now 
 appear beautiful to us appear not so, until the entire 
 phenomenon being seen to be unbeautiful will reveal the 
 real or spiritual beauty. This is the " function " of 
 Art from the first, unforeseen by us but not less to be 
 worked out by us. And it is (as in Science) only a 
 renewal of its childhood. 
 
 How beautiful appears that childish instinct to believe 
 and to admire everything ; it is not a childish folly, it is 
 the instinct of humanity to trust in God, and God honours 
 it, makes it the great, the only instrument of revealing 
 to man the really true, the really beautiful. Only those 
 who trust Him so implicitly as to believe all His work 
 absolutely true and beautiful, will God conduct to a true 
 knowledge of Himself. Knowledge can only come through 
 trust and love ; and cannot be when there is not perfect 
 sympathy. 
 
 We imagine to ourselves a God, and then love Him ; 
 but do we love the true actual God who does all these 
 things in the world ? Is our will one with His ? We 
 must enlarge our conception of good by all the evil that 
 there is ; that is God's ideal. How poor a thing we 
 
Nature known by the Moral E7notions. 103 
 
 should have made of His love and mercy ; it would have 
 been self-indulgence, not self-sacrifice. Here is the 
 failure of our ideal, the false ideal. Thus Christianity 
 is spoilt by such " ideal." 
 
 Science and Art have done, like other children in their 
 childish period, only that which they like. It is the 
 mark of manhood to know that the important things to 
 do are not those which he likes, but rather the opposite. 
 He has to do his work against his inclination. Science 
 has set herein a noble example, and by mere instinct of 
 advancing years ; seeing indeed some reward, but not 
 knowing at all the best. Nor can it be known : how can 
 the youth who quits his play and sits down reluctantly 
 to business know the best results that will ensue ; the 
 place among men, the home, the power that he is 
 creating for himself? He acts for immediate ends, he 
 gains respect, he gets a little money to spend, and so on. 
 But what he does is incomparably more than these, 
 though he little thinks of it. So Science set herself 
 to her weary phenomenal task like a good boy leaving 
 school ; she saw a new scope for her activity ; she saw 
 immediate useful ends to serve, and she has had her 
 share of these ; but she does not foresee God's design 
 for her. The thing she was accomplishing, to which all 
 these were as nothing, she did not know ; nay she can 
 hardly believe it when it appears. See too how habit 
 becomes second nature. This experimental course which 
 Science was so loth to enter upon has become so 
 pleasant, or at least so usual, by long custom, that it 
 is hard for her to do anything else; or even to believe 
 anything else is to be done. 
 
 How the men of the old pseudo-spiritual science must 
 
I04 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 have scorned the idea of a science wholly material or 
 phenomenal, founded entirely upon nature and observa- 
 tion. They had been diving into essential being, talking 
 of deep " spiritual " reality. The mere phenomenal 
 must have been distasteful in the extreme. We cannot 
 wonder that the struggle was so long. Perhaps the 
 greatest apparent degradation of the human mind, 
 in the whole history of humanity, is that abandonment 
 of a real or spiritual science to take up with a purely 
 phenomenal and natural one. Yet instead of a descent 
 it was a rise no less than infinite, as we see now. 
 
 We say, with the poor Israelites of old, to man : 
 " Speak thou to us, but let not God speak to us lest we 
 die." Alas ! the sad mistake — God's " words are life ; " 
 for they are spirit. But life is a painful, tearful, striving, 
 failing, desolate, discontented thing ; we do not like it, 
 we fear it, we think it death and say again : '* Speak 
 man to us; lest we die." We cling to the " ideal," to 
 the human ; and dread to plunge into that great ocean 
 of the phenomenal wherein God's voice alone is heard. 
 For He speaks in thunders, and lightnings flash from 
 His eye ; He utters His voice when sorrow chills the 
 heart and forms of horror affright the soul. In illusions 
 that bewilder, in anguish that overwhelms, in loathsome 
 shapes that terrify, God speaks; and we in our folly 
 say: "Let not God speak to us lest we die." But we 
 grow wiser at last, and weary of man's empty words ; 
 athirst, and finding only broken cisterns, we brace our- 
 selves to our solemn tasks, and say : " Let God speak 
 to us, that we may live." Then we apply our lips with 
 resolute and trustful heart to the bitter fountain; we 
 grasp with shuddering yet undaunted hand the abhor- 
 rent fact, and say : *' The cup the Father giveth me to 
 
Nature htown by the Moral Emotions. 105 
 
 drink shall I not drink it ? " And we prove that the 
 words He speaks to us are spirit and are life. The 
 fearful or the sad phenomenon reveals the joyful fact, 
 the false and ugly evil melts into the holy. 
 
 Will it not he glorious, this future of the world, when 
 Science, Art, Philosophy, and Poetry shall join in show- 
 ing to man that Nature is a divine and holy deed ; its 
 truth, its beauty, its good, all spiritual, and revealed by 
 perception of false, of ugly, and of evil ; when ugliness 
 and evil shall be to us only as wrong perceptions are to 
 our sense of truth : — the means only of revealing to us, 
 bringing at once and of course before our minds, the 
 higher, larger beauty and goodness, which, except by 
 them, we could not know? 
 
 To affirm the absolute beauty of Nature is at once to 
 affirm that it is not material, because the material 
 universe is not absolutely beautiful and cannot be. Has 
 not this, partly, kept Art back and prevented us from 
 identifying the ideal with the actual ? she has waited for 
 Science. But when Science also affirms matter not to 
 be a reality, the way is open for her; and for Poetry 
 also, in the affirmation that Nature is absolutely good, 
 although phenomenally evil. 
 
 And what a new world thus opens before us — what 
 untold, unthought-of treasures of beauty and good lie 
 hidden in the ugly and the evil ! It will re-create our 
 world for us to " interpret " them. I thank God there 
 is so much ugliness and evil — so many illusions — 
 because each one of them is the voucher for a beautiful 
 and good reality, as each illusion of the sense in Science 
 is evidence and voucher for some true scientific fact. I 
 clasp evil and wrongness to my heart, and love them by 
 anticipation : they are life ; they are God's tenderest 
 
io6 Philosophy a7id Religion, 
 
 love; and He says to me in them: "Look, My child, 
 and tell Me what I am doing; 'tis painful to you at first, 
 but you will love it when you see it." By faith I see 
 it even now. My Father ; and love it though unseen 
 because Thou doest it. Blind and ignorant children 
 that we have been, that we would not look to see what 
 our Father does, but turned away our eyes, calling it 
 ugliness and evil because it affects us painfully. Yet is 
 this ideal Art right, as a step ; nor is this vain attempt 
 to rise by our own ideal up to God, really in vain. Sad 
 indeed would be a phenomenal Art, or Science, or Poetry, 
 if it had not first been hallowed by the upward flight 
 towards the throne of God. Once having learnt to see 
 that the ideal is in truth divine, Science, Art, Poetry can 
 descend safely to identify it with phenomena wherein the 
 stamp of divinity seems almost lost; once having soared 
 the soul will soar again. Therefore the false ideal precedes 
 the true. God's is too large for us at first; uninstructed 
 by the teaching of the fancy we should never compre- 
 hend the glory of reality; as a child is taught by toys 
 to deal with the reality of life. 
 
 It is God's voice and not man's that I want to hear in 
 Music ; and in Science too, and in Society ; and in all 
 human works indeed ; for in all this best knowledge is 
 to be attained. All man's works may and shall express 
 this higher meaning — even human life. We try to put 
 society right, to carry out our own ideas ; so long as we 
 do this we shall certainly put it wrong, but, thank God, 
 it will be vitally wrong ; and in the end it shall express 
 a meaning beyond any thought or design of man, or 
 possible to man ; an idea written there by God ; accom- 
 plished not by our efforts, but in spite of them, although 
 by them only rendered possible. 
 
( I07 ) 
 
 III. 
 MENTAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 Moral and emotional facts stand on the same basis as physical facts 
 — False perceptions are the condition of mental life — Nature is 
 always first misunderstood — There is no method for discovery — 
 The relation of logic to imagination — The place of those who want 
 logic — The significance of paradox — 'Sleep in mental life — Breathing 
 in mental life — Grenius and talent — Talent is nutrition, genius 
 function — Man's mind is female, woman's male — How genius and 
 talent are affected by paradox — Grenius is common sense — Mental 
 life aiises from failure — Men are parts of a whole — May genius be 
 found common ? — In humanity, as in genius, there is no desifrn — 
 Nutrition and function are the life in thinking — Submission to the 
 thought of others is disease — Saying is seeing — The mental life 
 of humanity. 
 
 We perceive not only physical facts, but moral, emo- 
 tional, intellectual facts. These moral facts are as 
 much external to ourselves as the physical ; and they 
 nourish, constitute, are food of, our emotional and intel- 
 lectual life, just as the physical facts are of our scientific 
 life. This is important to observe ; because though our 
 entire mental life depends upon observation of physical 
 facts, yet these physical facts are not only physical, 
 they are intellectual, emotional and moral, as much as 
 physical. For instance, when I perceive a person fall 
 in the street, I perceive a physical fact illustrating 
 gravity ; but I also perceive an emotional fact, a fellow- 
 creature injured ; a moral fact, a call for my assistance ; 
 an intellectual fact, or process of thought and motion. 
 
io8 Philosophy and Religion, 
 
 And these emotional, moral, intellectual elements are 
 as truly in the fact I see as the physical ones. I 
 no more create them than the other, indeed perhaps 
 even less ; douhtless the physical elements, those which 
 involve space, time, and matter, are much more depen- 
 dent upon my perception than the others. Thus each 
 psychical fact is threefold, physical, intellectual, moral ; 
 nourishing our threefold mental life. 
 
 Our emotional life is only one form of the emotional 
 life of the universe. And observe that our minds must 
 be nourished with emotional elements in wrong or 
 organic relations. The entire process of nutrition and 
 function exists here also, and will reveal itself to patient 
 thought. Thus an emotional organization is produced, 
 so that perception of " physical facts " sets up long trains 
 of feeling. It is psychical facts that we perceive in 
 nature. But the question returns, whence and how come 
 those physical forms of thought, space and time and 
 matter ? I know what is wrong ; I have a nutritive 
 view of the question ; I put the phenomenon before the 
 fact, effect before cause ; this it is that perplexes me. 
 
 It may be objected to the statement of our perceiving 
 emotional and intellective facts in nature, that we only 
 perceive these by virtue of our own consciousness, 
 because by our own experience we have learnt that they 
 must be there. When we see a person fall we do not 
 perceive a sentient being in suffering, but know from 
 our own experience that it must be so. Now this helps 
 me to the very fact I have been wanting. I grant that 
 our perception of emotional facts in nature is based upon 
 our own experience ; but this statement is equally true 
 of all our perceptions, of physical as of emotional. We 
 can perceive nothing but that which is homogeneous 
 with what we have experienced. The foundation of all 
 
Mental Physiology. 109 
 
 that we perceive lies in what we feel ; here is the I 
 foundation of our perception of space, time, matter, i 
 Let a man once perceive a new idea, excite him in a new 
 emotion, and from that time he sees everything new. 
 What he sees depends on what he is himself. A child 
 perceives no " things " in the facts of nature until by 
 his own consciousness he has obtained the idea of himself, 
 of his body as a thing, or occupying space, as being solid ; 
 nor of time, until he has experienced in himself the lapse 
 of time. So he perceives in the facts of nature no ideas, 
 no emotions, until he has conceived ideas and felt 
 emotions himself. Thus the facts of nature constitute 
 our minds and yet are independent of what we perceive 
 in them. The " things " bear the same relations to 
 the reality as the ideas and emotions do ; they are all, 
 as perceived by us, self-derived, and yet true. 
 
 Our solemn conviction of a real universe around us 
 would really be almost laughable if it were not so 
 glorious ; this wrong relation of our ideas is our 
 nutrition, the very fact and basis of our mental life. 
 It is, in fact, because of this wrong perception that we 
 have a mental life at all. I am truly overwhelmed with 
 the grandeur and solemnity of this thought ; our per- 
 ception of a world external to ourselves is the source of 
 our mental life, the stimulus of all our mental activity ; 
 in one word, it is our mental nutrition from first to last. 
 All our mental life comes from observation of Nature. 
 Consider how useless it would have been for all pur- 
 poses of mental life for us to have perceived Nature 
 as being merely a passion in ourselves ; or, if instead of 
 seeing the sun moving we had directly perceived that we 
 were being carried round it. 
 
 In this necessity of our perceiving passion in ourselves 
 
no Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 as external, I conceive I approach to a solution of the 
 question as to the sense in which our mental life is 
 maintained by organic or wrongly arranged materials ; 
 to seeing how the elements are in themselves organically 
 arranged. Until the illusion of a real external world 
 had had its full nutritive operation upon us, it could not 
 be done away with. Berkeley and other spiritualists 
 attacked it in vain ; its work was not done. And now, 
 if so be it is overthrown, Nature has another sort of 
 work to do for us, not less but more. The illusory motion 
 of the sun was the life of astronomy up to a certain point, 
 but when that was seen aright, there were other nutritive 
 errors in astronomy, and it advanced faster than ever. 
 So when we see matter aright as a passion in ourselves, 
 there will be other nutrition from Nature, and Science 
 will advance faster than ever; for each function is a 
 nutrition. And see how the nutritive elements of each 
 former period are cast off, excreted, when they have per- 
 formed their function and become decomposed or disin- 
 tegrated ; with what contempt we look back upon the 
 idea of the sun really moving round the earth (though 
 not upon the men who believed it) ; so shall we be before 
 long upon the idea of real matter. 
 
 I see, too, that books presenting new truths, must be 
 first misunderstood ; men must be so as well as Nature ; 
 this is nutrition ; there can be no function without it. 
 All new facts of observation must be first organically 
 arranged ; it is the very law of life. Perhaps we may 
 say he never really understands a fact or truth who has 
 not first misunderstood it. A new truth is presented by 
 a book just as by Nature, and will certainly, by all who 
 really perceive it, be organically perceived, although the 
 rectification or function may immediately ensue : the new. 
 
Mental Physiology, 1 1 1 
 
 true food must be first assimilated, i.e. its elements 
 arranged in vitally wrong relations, in conformity with 
 the previous life of the individual ; it could not else effect 
 its function. And why should men complain ? It is not 
 a thing to feel hurt about ; they only participate in 
 a common lot with Nature ; surely this is enough. 
 Nature is ever misunderstood at first, and most by 
 those who most earnestly study her. Did not she show 
 us, as plainly as it was possible to put the thing, the 
 earth going round the sun ; and did not we, for ages, 
 think that she meant that the sun went round the 
 earth ? It was too bad, and really very hard for her, 
 for we are her pet children ; our education is her 
 dearest delight. But we could not help it, and she 
 has had most pathetic patience with us, never one 
 harsh or angry word; she has only said : " Look again, 
 see this fact, how can it be as you think ? " And 
 when we put that wrong also, she has still only smiled, 
 and caressed us gently, and said again : " Look here." 
 Fact after fact she has tenderly laid before us, until 
 at last we could not but see it as she meant it. But 
 still how far we are from her real meaning. Nature 
 deals with us as with children ; when we see one thing 
 wrong she does not scold us nor explain it to us, but 
 shows us other and other things, yet truly one, till we 
 cannot help seeing them aright. Hers is the true scheme 
 of education. And the true scheme for a writer is not 
 to explain, but to show fact after fact. Ever by men as 
 by children, a new fact (and especially a new theory, 
 which is the fact of facts) must at first be wrongly seen, 
 and assimilated to that which is in the mind before. 
 
 That is a radical error, the idea of a method for dis- 
 covery. There can be none, any more than a method of 
 
112 Philosophy and Religio7i, 
 
 growing and developing. Mind develops as the body 
 does, by passion in direction of least resistance. Men 
 have supposed they made the mind. Have we not 
 hitherto taken more pains to do God's work than our 
 own ? There is but one work that He commits to us, and 
 that is moral control of passion ; to do right is the only 
 thing we have to do, and can truly do at all. All the rest 
 is His doing. There is no method for thinking, or pro- 
 secuting science ; thought develops by alternate nutri- 
 tion and function, like other life. If we must have such 
 a one method it is this alone : — sympathy with Nature ; 
 love, which is life. Life is the "method" of the mind, 
 as of the body, as of the universe. The mind grows like 
 the body ; the conditions are, in each, plenty of whole- 
 some food and air, and plenty of exercise. " Which of 
 us by taking thought," is as true for mind as for body. 
 
 Think, whether it may not be according to Nature, 
 that habits and actions should be first prompted and 
 acquired by lower motives ; and continued and per- 
 fected afterwards by higher ones : — as, e.g. civilization, 
 activity in man, is prompted first by hunger; but the 
 developed faculties of men lead them to continue the 
 highest activity without any regard to food, or fear of 
 the want of it. The very being is modified by the action. 
 Man starts a non-worker ; but does he not, being made 
 to work, grow into a natural worker ? And so may it be 
 in ethical and rehgious things also ? And may we see 
 a light on the future : when the end is attained — man 
 made different — shall the means, the painful means, be 
 put aside ? 
 
 It is thus in the organic : Nature is so constructed 
 that things do cease when their purpose is attained : 
 e.g. the tail of the Cercaria, when useless, drops off. 
 
Mental Physiology. 1 1 3 
 
 Is this the idea of the spiritual ? — these means, which 
 are the physical necessities, no more wanted, and no 
 more to be ? This is to be thought of : how action 
 modifies, remakes, the being of the creature. There is 
 a wonderful law here ; expressive of something beautiful 
 in the actual. Is it a phenomenal inversion ? , 
 
 This has struck me respecting logic. The logical 
 faculty helps thus : Every one has certain basic or 
 fundamental ideas, in accordance with which, more or 
 less, he arranges all his conceptions and views. Now if 
 a man have not logic he can arrange his views incon- 
 sistently without feeling them to be so, and therefore can 
 rest satisfied, looking at subjects as he likes, seeing them 
 all under the glow of his favourite moral perfections, as, 
 e.g. of God's goodness and wisdom ; not perceiving that 
 his opinions are more or less inconsistent with such 
 general idea. Hence he is eloquent, active, can talk and 
 interest, and in a word be " charming." Indeed, " ima- 
 ginative " men are very much characterized by this 
 
 deficient logic, and poetry as yet involves it. So says, 
 
 e.g. " The world is holy ; " not perceiving the illogical- 
 ness of calling a thing ''holy." Hence I think, in a 
 great measure, the weakness of poetry, and that class of 
 thought. The poets do not perceive the illogicalness, but 
 practically the world feels it, and even to the best of us, 
 such thoughts seem to be a thing apart from the real and 
 actual world; we call it "imagination," meaning fiction. 
 [As indeed, in a high, noble (i.e. a vital) sense it is. And, 
 by-the-by, surely imagination altogether, as Euskin 
 defines it, is the vital introduction of fiction, preparing 
 only for the function.] Now, the logical man is very 
 different ; to him it is necessary that his conceptions 
 should be really consistent ; hence he is ill at ease, does 
 
 I 
 
114 Philosophy a7id Religion. 
 
 not know what to believe, does not find that he can 
 ordinate all facts and phenomena under any such beautiful 
 basic idea, is therefore at a great disadvantage ; cannot 
 speak, has no beautiful things to say, finds poetry mystify 
 him, has no brilliancy, is in short a mere dull, useless 
 simpleton. But his turn comes, the illogical man rests 
 content ; the logical man advances. With patient toil he 
 arranges his ideas consistently ; but then he finds that 
 they require another basic idea; by his logic he over- 
 throws the fundamental conceptions, and introduces one 
 consistently with which all the phenomena may be 
 arranged ; making thus an absolute advance or develop- 
 ment in knowledge. The logic works to and fro, as it 
 were, — vibrates. It is a lever by which he overthrows his 
 own basic conceptions. I have the image of stone-work 
 in my eye ; he first lays a rest for his logic, then by 
 means of that, as with a lever, upheaves his own firm 
 standing ground. He gets " revelation " in fact, that is, 
 he interprets. I seem to arrive at this (though it appears 
 strange to me) : that logic is emphatically the interpreta- 
 tive faculty. Logic puts right the ideas arranged theo- 
 retically, or in vital wrongness ; and by that means 
 reveals or inducts the new basic idea or general con- 
 ception, i.e. the function ; or in Science the development, 
 the new and higher life. This seeing that the elements 
 of any theory must go so ; this instinctive putting right, 
 and so interpreting, is in truth the logical faculty. The 
 interpretation is emphatically logical. I think this must 
 be so. This '* logical faculty " is simply that instinctive 
 perception of right relation. And here is the relation of 
 logic and imagination : imagination is nutrition, theory 
 fiction : logic the function, interpretation, exclusion of 
 the fiction or vital force. Thus imagination is the 
 nutritive, the theoretical, the converse of the logical. 
 
Mental Physiology. 1 1 5 
 
 Here should be the love between them. Imagmation and 
 logic are man and wife — one : the blessed parents of 
 truth and mental life. [This agrees strictly with 
 Kuskin.] The logic cannot be without first imagination : 
 but imagination exists for logic. " Without poetry can 
 be no facts." 
 
 What a strange divorce and unnatural hatred it is that 
 has existed between imagination and logic : or rather, not 
 unnatural, but only that natural aversion between boys 
 and girls, which I have noted so widely, and which is the 
 precursor of the marriage union. But how wonderful it 
 seems that I should find the logical faculty to be em- 
 phatically genius. How oppositely we usually think ; 
 but it is so. The gift of genius is to exclude fictions, to 
 permit the elements to assume right relations. (Boys, at 
 a certain age, have just that same contempt for girls that 
 logical men have for imaginative.) Mozart wrote music 
 logically : and so of all interpreters. It was very clear 
 in Copernicus that he treated astronomy logically. Ima- 
 gination is theory, after all. All this is merely the old 
 common sense and instinct of the world — that imagination 
 and strict reasoning should be united. Logic works first 
 forwards on the phenomena, then backwards upon the 
 standpoint. My own logic has worked thus. I never 
 could see that the facts of the world agree with God's 
 skill, wisdom, and goodness, as the "idea of the world." 
 Accordingly I worked logically upon the phenomena, and 
 then my logic worked back again, revealing to me a 
 different, higher, and truer ''idea" of the world, viz. 
 that of holiness ; revealing it by the interpretation of the 
 phenomena, or rather, of the imaginative theory of them. 
 And this holiness, which has been revealed to me as the 
 " fact " of the universe, is not a fiction, but genuine, real, 
 and logical holiness, viz. the holiness of a deed. It has 
 
1 1 6 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 been said before, imaginatively, i.e. fictitiously, the world 
 has been called a " holy thing.'' 
 
 And here one sees the nature and the use of that class 
 of men in whom logic is wanting : they can deny results 
 without denying causes (or systems) ; can deny con- 
 clusions, leaving the premises uncorrected. Now, so far, 
 this is a defect, doubtless ; but does it not enable a thing 
 to be done which otherwise might not be ? Is it not by 
 such people that the evil and wrong of certain facts, or 
 results, are felt and insisted on? To these men it is 
 owing, surely, that others (in whom the logical connection 
 of things will not be ignored) are made to feel the 
 wrongness and impossibility of the results ; and so the 
 system gets altered. 
 
 Thus, in fact, three sets of men work out the reductio 
 ad absurdum. One set deduces the impossible results, 
 and gravely sets them forth as facts ; another denies and 
 denounces the results, and insists they are not legitimate 
 consequences, etc. ; then a third sees what each of the 
 others points out, and so makes visible the demand to 
 correct the premises. Is it not a beautiful organic 
 co-operation ? 
 
 It is interesting to note the dependence of the class 
 who correct the premises upon the other two ; how they 
 need not be able — doubtless are not able — to do the other's 
 work, not logical enough to make the deduction, nor 
 sensitive enough to feel decisively, for themselves, the 
 wrongness ; but capable of seeing both when shown them, 
 and putting them together ; endowed, that is, with the 
 faculty of seeing what the new premiss must be. And 
 doubtless they do that work not by more or stronger 
 perception, but by a less resistance ; i.e. others may see, 
 as clearly as they, both the proofs of the results and the 
 
Mental Physiology, 117 
 
 objections to tliem; but, not perceiving any way of 
 escape, they remain passive. The man who finds the new 
 premiss may do so simply because those forces, as it were, 
 are able to move in that direction ; there is an opening, 
 a channel, in him, there. His perception of a new 
 fundamental conception is a direction of not-resistance. 
 So it does away with the stress, or tension. 
 
 No man can tell you anything new ; for in knowing 
 one thing you truly know all, and until you know one 
 thing no man can tell you another. The one thing that 
 is, and only can be, known is life ; and all that can be 
 known is only life. More and more life you may be 
 made to know ; more can be told you, but not different, 
 not new. 
 
 How gloriously Coleridge said in answer to "What is 
 life ? " " What is not life that truly is ? " His instincts 
 led him to af&rm truths of which he did not see the 
 mode, or strictly the evidence. 
 
 The existence of a particularly difficult and manifest 
 paradox is one of the best of signs ; it is the indication 
 that the time has come for an advance in thought, for its 
 development or advance to a higher grade. The two 
 opposite opinions must be put together, not by a com- 
 promise, nor by holding two contradictory opinions, or 
 making one yield, but by maintaining both in their fullest 
 and most absolute sense, and seeing how they agree and 
 are one ; i.e. by adding another element to our knowledge 
 and raising the level of our thought. Strong and startling 
 paradoxes are ground for hope and not despair; they 
 are the things which turn the course of thought when in 
 that direction it has reached its limit ; turn it and elevate 
 
1 1 8 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 it, if dealt \N'ith aright, in a spirit of manful boldness and 
 earnestness, and not of cowardice and compromise and 
 distrust of power. In fact, paradox is in mind the 
 analogue of that condition which caused development of 
 species ; two extremes, two polars. And what did Nature 
 do — sit down and talk about the limitation of her powers ? 
 She took the two, each in its completeness, and putting 
 them together, educed a new and higher race ; setting us 
 there, as ever, an example. A paradox in point of fact 
 is male and female. Paradox is the puberty, the adoles- 
 cence, the nubile state of thought. In each new develop- 
 ment of thought the sexual or polar distinction is there 
 from the first, but latent. Boys and girls grow up 
 together and we do not perceive the opposition or mutual 
 adaptation at first, but by-and-by the two groups declare 
 themselves ; at first in very trifling differences, then 
 more deeply, at last absolutely ; then thought has grown 
 to the paradoxical state. Male and female each assert 
 their nature and will not yield one atom to the other. 
 We have, not many views or ideas of like kinds, but two 
 opposite kinds, which each maintain an absolute and 
 indefeasible footing, and will not be put down. At first 
 they repel each other and are shy, even quarrel and 
 dislike ; but Nature at last asserts her purposes ; mys- 
 terious sympathies grow up ; each one admires and 
 respects the opposite and is drawn unconsciously towards 
 its incomprehensible difference from itself. The magical 
 charm overcomes pride ; love is established, but at first 
 the talk is not of marriage but of friendship ; they will 
 retain their individuality and opposition but live in 
 amity and mutual kindness and good-will ; in short, they 
 will make a comi^romise. Short-sighted ideas ; short- 
 sighted even as mortal men. You shall not have your 
 friendship ; your touch is fatal ; it is the vortex of a 
 
Mental Physiology. 1 1 9 
 
 Charybdis upon which you enter, which will draw you 
 certainly within its gulf. You are not two but one ; and 
 one you shall become by a power higher than your will. 
 This is the nature of paradox; it is polarity, and its 
 issue is a bridal day. 
 
 In animal life, when development ensues, the creature 
 gets into a paradox : i.e. there are two opposite tendencies 
 or forces with which nothing can be done but by a union 
 into one. In animal life this is done by instinct, as in 
 thought it is done by genius. The work of genius in 
 raising the grade of thought is the very same as that of 
 instinct in raising the grade of life, and is done, too, with as 
 little foresight and design. The instinct and the genius 
 have no reason for what they do except that the thing 
 *' must be so of course." It is their nature to put it 
 right. Genius therefore is love, or sympathy, as I have 
 said ; and marries male and female thought ; unites the 
 law and liberty in one. For this also is marriage ; it is 
 the law of liberty. And this is a further insight : not 
 only is the law of right the law of liberty, but the law of 
 love also. Law and liberty in one are holiness and love ; 
 absolute freedom and absolute law. And Nature, being 
 the law of liberty, is not only holiness but love. The 
 holiness the law, the love the liberty : one in God. This 
 union is a true marriage, to be attained as man's spiritual 
 development. Male and female are holiness and love ; at 
 war now in man's moral being, as are paradoxical opinions 
 in his intellectual nature ; but they must be one. Thus 
 the progress of thought is a perpetual wedding feast ; the 
 intellectual repeats the social state of man ; this is why 
 love and marriage are ever the sources of deepest and 
 intensest sympathy. So is a true marriage of Nature 
 and man. They are truly wedded, and all the arts of 
 
1 20 Philosophy a7td Religion. 
 
 life spring from the embrace. All is one : the great fact 
 of human life is the great fact of Nature's life. 
 
 In our mental life we must be content to live and con- 
 form to the laws of life ; to eat, and drink, and sleep, 
 and be nourished, as well as perform functions. At the 
 same time fully believing that, by such conformity, all 
 we aspire after and much more is finally to be achieved ; 
 not despairing, for the general mind (Science) is the 
 universal life, to the attainments of which no limits can 
 be placed. It is no argument that as the powers of the 
 human body are limited, and pretty well known, so are 
 those of the mind; the analogy does not hold. The 
 human mind, in the sense in which it advances from age 
 to age, is one living organism, which has a course to run 
 quite unknown, unknowable until it is revealed in fact. 
 It can no more anticipate its future than can the child 
 its manhood, still less can it conceive a greater. Nothing 
 can conceive a greater than itself; anything that is 
 growing and developing must of necessity outstrip its 
 conceptions. Youth indeed casts a splendour on the 
 future ; but it is never anything more than a pleasant 
 present ; which is just what our Science anticipates, an 
 everlasting *' feast," forgetting that such a feast would 
 become intolerable torment. Better than that, there is 
 before it a noble succession of feasting and working, 
 producing development which may not be anticipated. 
 
 What is sleeping in the mental life ? It is the period 
 during which assimilation most vigorously takes place, 
 with no eating and very little function. It strikes me it 
 must be a period of a priori reasoning : just such a 
 period as preceded Bacon's epoch, not so badly called 
 the dark ages. This is no legitimate term of reproach. 
 
Mental Physiology. 121 
 
 What greater blessing than the darkness of night ? 
 What period of greater or more beneficial activity than 
 natural sleep ? Do not the alternation of light and 
 darkness from the one motion of the earth, represent 
 the vibration, day and night ; being as function and 
 nutrition ? 
 
 I thinli I shall best discover what mental respiration 
 is in myself. Thus thinking is like breathing to me. It 
 is my breath of life, and I cannot leave it off or am 
 compelled soon to begin again. And the respiration of 
 the mind of the whole, is it not some constant passion 
 which cannot but be done ; and the effect of which is to 
 cast off error and arrive at larger truth ? Is not this 
 work of mine one respiratory act of the great mind of 
 man ? 
 
 The human mind is the external world to genius, the 
 productions of which he seeks to interpret. To say that 
 a man has genius is to say that all he effects is truly 
 and entirely the result of others' labours and done by 
 their power ; that he is merely a stimulus, and owes his 
 influence solely to his relation to an organization built 
 up, and a functional power accumulated, wholly by others. 
 It is manifestly so ; the disproportion were else too vast. 
 See how many men must labour and die to produce the 
 edifice which genius with one touch reconstructs. It is 
 of course because the power is not in him but in the 
 elements he uses that his power seems so great. To 
 attribute the deed to him would be like attributing an 
 explosion to a spark, forgetful of the gunpowder. 
 
 The men of genius are sure to exist, yet they can 
 occur only at intervals. Genius must be waited for ; 
 
122 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 talent can be cultivated. Men can always do something ; 
 they can always observe ; and this they must go on doing 
 patiently, assured that if they thus effect the nutrition 
 the function will not fail. They know that in due time 
 they shall reap. But our experimental science sows and 
 sows away and never expects to reap. 
 
 We must hold fast to the dynamic view in mental 
 physiology — nothing is done without an equivalent ex- 
 penditure of force. Genius does things without force 
 because it does not do them, as the fall of an uplifted body 
 needs no force. 
 
 About transitive and continuous vibrations : a falling 
 stone and heat resulting must be taken together. If we 
 take the fall alone, we leave off where no end is ; if the 
 heat alone, we begin where is no beginning. So also of 
 spirals ; they are transitive and continuous also, and in 
 one form or other, universal ; continuous in the earth's 
 motion ; but every possible motion is a transitive spiral, 
 for every motion is three motions at right angles ; and 
 all motion also is vibration. Therefore all motion is 
 three vibrations at right angles, i.e. a true spiral. For 
 there is in nature no motion that does not involve length, 
 breadth, and depth. This is as true of motions as of 
 things. Consider the complexity and the simplicity ; 
 how every motion is accompanied by an opposite while it 
 takes place, and is succeeded by an opposite when it 
 ceases, doubly vibratile, and each of these opposites is 
 similarly accompanied and succeeded. 
 
 Talent absorbs force; genius reproduces force and 
 passes it on. It is continuous and transitive again. He 
 whose w^ork is the result or expression of his passion 
 
Me7ttal Physiology. 123 
 
 has no exterior force. He whose passion is the result of 
 his work has operative force. Take a painter ; he has a 
 passion, a conception, he expresses it in a picture, when 
 he contemplates it he sees the re-presentation of his 
 passion, he admires it, dehghts in it, accordingly; but 
 the picture can be only admired by others ; it has pro- 
 duced no passion in him, much less in the beholders. 
 But another painter paints by instinct, by his nature ; he 
 has no conception or passion to express, but he must 
 paint so, and as he paints, behold, his picture reveals to 
 him something he had never conceived nor could con- 
 ceive, and produces in him an overwhelming emotion or 
 passion. This picture has power in it ; it is a functional 
 picture, a force-producer, and it excites passion and emo- 
 tion in beholders. It does for others what it has first 
 done for the author. The thought that moves the thinker 
 will move the hearer too, and only that ; not the thought 
 that expresses or is produced by a passion, but the 
 thought that produced a passion. So Goethe is a nutri- 
 tive poet. His thought produced no passion in him, and 
 it produces none in others. I do not say that the nutri- 
 tive men are not deep feelers. I do not speak of them, 
 but of their works. I say that they absorb the force of 
 passion as nutrition does ; and that the force can only 
 be reproduced by just inverting that process. But the 
 force of genius is only the force of talent thus repro- 
 duced ; first the nutrition, then the function, and only 
 then. [By-the-by, the logical people who will have the 
 function without the nutrition correspond with Berkeley, 
 little as they think it, and just such was the old pre- 
 Baconian science.] The men who produce this nutri- 
 tive, imaginative, forceless work, must indeed be men of 
 deep feeling. The work expresses or is the result of 
 feeling or passion ; passion is the only force ; the power- 
 
1 24 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 lessness of it arises from its being the result and not the 
 producer of passion. We only need to understand this, to 
 see the vital relations of different men, and we shall put 
 them to their right uses, and not find fault with them for 
 not being other than they are. We do not look for work 
 from the growing child, but we reverence the child not 
 less than the hard-working man; the latter produces 
 and the former does but absorb force ; true, but the 
 force-absorber is but the force-producer of the future ; he 
 grows that he may work ; nay, he may be of greatly 
 higher order than the present force-producer, and be 
 destined to a work greatly more noble. We must be 
 content. Both force-producers and force-absorbers we 
 want, and of different grades. 
 
 All things, all men, all thoughts, all motions, the 
 universe indeed, is divisible into the two classes of force- 
 producing and force-absorbing ; this is the great distinc- 
 tion. In other words, all is vibration; for these are 
 precisely the two halves of a vibration ; i.e. all is life, or 
 nutrition and function. The universe is vibration or 
 life ; may we not say, a vibration, a life ? Then, if a life, 
 whereof ? 
 
 Talent has instinct as well as genius. Vegetables have 
 instincts (as for food, light), as well as animals. But in 
 talent and vegetable they are much less marked and 
 extensive ; they do not give the character as they do to 
 genius and animal. In the vegetable the object and 
 result of all is the nutrition, the growth ; in the animal, 
 the instincts are for its functions. Observe, in both the 
 instincts for food, etc., for nutrition ; in genius super- 
 added those for function. Also note that instinct ever in 
 both is the result of organization, and depends upon a 
 functional process. The idea of talent is nutrition, as 
 
Mental Physiology, 125 
 
 of vegetable. The idea of genius is function, as of 
 animal; in each both processes go on necessarily to- 
 gether, but they are differently subordinate. The vege- 
 table world is to the animal as placenta to embryo ; so 
 talent to genius. 
 
 How familiar and common-place to us are the facts 
 which threw into infinite delight those who first saw 
 them ! How Copernicus's heart must have throbbed 
 when the fact of the earth's motion, so indifferent to us, 
 revealed itself ; and future generations will coldly take 
 as matters of course what the men of this glow over with 
 delight. So when we see the men and women in the 
 streets, we little think how for each one a mother has 
 groaned and rejoiced. A man of genius is the mother of 
 new life ; his the female part in the history of mind ; his 
 the throes and toil, the exultation and delight. He gives 
 birth truly to new life. The man of talent does the work 
 of the man ; exerts his own powers and effects his own 
 objects. The man of genius quietly nourishes unknowing 
 in his own bosom, and feeds with his own life, patiently, 
 in sorrow and depression, too often amid cruel taunts, his 
 living burden ; moving him sometimes to strange fancies, 
 unappeasable longings and restlessness, until his time is 
 come. And then his proud eyes weep happy tears, as he 
 folds tremblingly to his heart the image and inheritor of 
 his soul's life. 
 
 The cause of the difficulty in receiving the work of 
 Genius is the wrong position of the eye, as it were ; people 
 think they are seeing one thing when in reality they are 
 seeing another. They have not yet learnt to recognize 
 the universal human mind, which performs functions, 
 and of which the individual minds are but parts, elements, 
 
126 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 or organs — or rather, perhaps I should say, the universal 
 humanity as a living existence, of which individual men 
 and women are merely the " organic molecules," — so that 
 the functions of this higher " life " take them by surprise ; 
 they cannot believe the function because they have not 
 recognized the organization and nutrition. They have 
 not seen that all the labours of men of talent consti- 
 tute a nutrition, and produce one living organization 
 with power to perform functions. They have not seen in 
 fact what they have been doing ; in other words, that 
 they have been acting instinctively; accomplishing a 
 higher object than any they had in view. In fact, men 
 have not seen that the human mind is a life ; just as they 
 have not seen that the whole universe is a life. They 
 look upon what individual men do as isolated things. It 
 is as if some being with microscopic eye should watch 
 and register the individual processes which constitute the 
 nutrition of a human body, without perceiving the 
 bearing and meaning of them ; should see the various 
 particles mutually reacting and arranging themselves, 
 without understanding that all this made up an organi- 
 zation and accumulated force. Of course he would be 
 astonished enough when the function was performed. 
 It would appear to undo so much of that the doing of 
 which he had been watching with so much interest and 
 satisfaction, and which he imagined was done for its own 
 sake, being, as he might remark, beautiful. 
 
 Man's mind is female : it does the nutrition and re- 
 production ; it absorbs into itself. Woman's mind is as 
 man's body ; it gives itself, is instinctive. As the female 
 body is united with the male, and only so reproduces, is 
 not man's /t'maZe mind "quickened" by woman's and 
 only so rendered truly re-productive? And develop- 
 
Mental Physiology. 1 2 7 
 
 ment, in mind, is only from an union of the woman's 
 mind with man's. In the ordinary process of mind do 
 we not see, in fact, that only as man is '' quickened " by 
 woman does the mental life multiply and extend ? For 
 the acquisition of knowledge is truly a growth, it is a 
 taking in, not a giving out. This knowledge of the 
 external world is in the strictest sense subjective know- 
 ledge. It is in us, all this phenomenon. The woman's 
 mind that cleaves to the moral, acts by instincts, gives 
 itself away in love, is the externally acting mind. Man's 
 mind grows and re-produces itself ; woman's mind per- 
 forms external functions. And as woman's body is 
 quickened by man's through mutual love, so is man's 
 mind by woman's through mutual love. And in the 
 true development, or Genius in its most perfect sense, 
 the man and woman's mind are united into one. The 
 new grade of mind is the male and female in one. 
 
 This in fact is just the difference between Genius and 
 talent : Genius holds its own in spite of paradox, because 
 it knows it, sees it, and does not care ; the thing is so. 
 Talent gives up at the sight of the paradox ; it has not 
 seen the thing, it has only supposed it, to see if it will 
 do ; and of course when it finds it will not, it gives up 
 and takes that which will do best — a compromise ; it is 
 its business. It is necessarily so ; and this produces all 
 sorts of differences ; Genius is bold ; talent timid ; talent 
 builds up, Genius throws open ; talent seeks to attain an 
 object. Genius does the right, and the object is attained. 
 But the great thing is this : Genius is one with the 
 infinite, i.e. with Nature; talent is finite, limited, ex- 
 presses the man. For Genius comes never to an end ; 
 recognizes the infiniteness, the unbeginning ; talent 
 makes a closed circle : so it is talent that invents the 
 
128 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 chimeras, which are always beginnings ; the specific or 
 inherent qualities, primary properties, or God's especial 
 act. Talent will ever have a primary beginning ; its 
 chimeras are ways of attaining that ; it is, and invents, 
 the arbitrary. Genius ever recognizes rightness; ever 
 carries knowledge higher up, sets aside the chimeras and 
 shows cause ; shows necessity for arbitrariness, infini- 
 tude for finiteness : its end and true object ever being the 
 spiritual. It is, in truth, an infinite, an eternal, we have 
 to do with ; talent shuts it up in chimerical beginnings 
 and ends ; Genius throws down these barriers, progresses 
 step by step, ever larger and higher, towards the eternal ; 
 her goal is the spiritual ; ever as herself is rightness, so 
 her home is the Eight. 
 
 Common sense is genius, and genius is common sense. 
 Common sense is the not going by appearances, not 
 making up ; it is interpretation ; it is letting things come 
 naturally, not using art and contrivance ; therefore it 
 cannot be first. Genius is common sense in its origin ; 
 it is the first application of common sense to a subject ; 
 it is common sense in respect to that which has not yet 
 been known. That which is genius in one man or age, 
 is common sense to succeeding ones. The Copernican 
 astronomy is common sense; it rests upon common 
 sense. Common sense in Copernicus discovered it ; but 
 then it was the first exercise of common sense on that 
 subject, and that is genius. So common sense belongs 
 to women (the male mind) ; it is the woman's reason — 
 " of course it is " — " it must be " — "it is because it is." 
 Common sense and genius do not prove; they show. 
 Proving is only hypothetical truth. It is curious that 
 genius should be thought the opposite to common sense, 
 deal with what subject it may. But genius brings new 
 
Mental Physiology. 129 
 
 views, opposite to what has been thought ; does away so 
 with former common- sense conclusions (or interpreta- 
 tions of smaller nutritions), and so appears opposed 
 through its greatness which swallows up the smaller. 
 For common sense is the interpretation of genius, appro- 
 priated by men not of genius. It is a part of the work 
 of genius to distinguish between the instincts and 
 fashions ; and say, that is an instinct, this is a fashion 
 (the instincts being ever the true). Those who " want 
 common sense " have not appropriated the results of 
 former genius. And it is curious, and curiously right, 
 that these are so apt to have a genius of their own. 
 Also it is well called common sense ; the seK-element, the 
 individual element, is put aside, which is emphatically 
 the work of genius. 
 
 That which makes us go wrong is that we are con- 
 stantly making up a system, making a scheme for our- 
 selves perfect and complete ; this is sure to be false. The 
 interpreter is just the man who does not do this ; who 
 suspends his judgment, and whenever he does not see an 
 absolute must be, says, '* I do not know." It is nothing to 
 him that this or the other " supposition " would make a 
 very nice, beautiful, and every way desirable system ; 
 must be, or right, is his law ; his act is the act of love, of 
 necessity, alone. He has no talent to construct ; he does 
 but overthrow ; overthrow chimeras, set aside inventions ; 
 reveal, unveil, that which was concealed by hypothesis. 
 He is the simplifier, the putter of one for many, which is 
 the great must of the human mind. And on the other 
 hand, as when he does not see an absolute *' must be,'' no 
 consequences can tempt him to say : " I see ; " so also 
 when he does see this " must be," no consequences can 
 deter him from saying it. It is so, and he says it, come 
 
 K 
 
130 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 what may ; it is no matter to him that a system thereby 
 is shattered and none seems ready to take its place ; still 
 less does he attempt to supply one. He has faith, and 
 is in no hurry, knowing that every termination will be 
 found the beginning of an illimitable expanse. 
 
 It is beautiful to see in the mental world how life 
 arises from failure, from dissatisfaction. When I try to 
 express an idea I do not satisfy myself. I try again ; do 
 it over and over again, and better and better : that is life. 
 So life in its very idea involves development ; it is not a 
 stationary condition of activity, but always and neces- 
 sarily a development. The question whether life has truly 
 developed itself is absurd ; if it does not develop itself 
 it is not life. And so the indication of a capacity for a 
 higher life is ever a dissatisfaction with the present. 
 Those who advance the intellectual life are first discon- 
 tented with that which exists. It must be a precisely 
 parallel process in the physical world that leads to the 
 development of animal life. And the parallelism may be 
 traced into the very details as it were ; the passion 
 resisted by other passion. For what is the reason that a 
 theory or view that satisfies one man does not satisfy 
 another (capable of judging), but that in this other's mind 
 there is more thought which resists the other thought ? 
 A conclusion cannot be reached ; the passion fails of its 
 accomplishment ; that which seems right to the other to 
 him is absolutely wrong, because there is more than that 
 view will embrace. It is ever more passion, as it were, 
 in the same limits, which causes development ; as I have 
 seen in life, it is more vital passion in the same space ; 
 this is the doctrine of development by pressure. 
 
 Why does the silkworm produce silk ? Because it acts 
 
Mental Physiology, 131 
 
 out its nature. Thus all truly great and valuable deeds 
 are done. It is God that acts when nature acts, whether 
 it be the nature of a worm or of a man. In relation to 
 God, these acts of nature are moral acts ; they are His 
 spiritual and therefore holy deeds. If we would act like 
 Him, we too must act morally : in spiritual activity lies 
 our capacity of acting as God does. Here is the true 
 difference between men ; the difference between a great 
 poet, an artist or philosopher, and the most untutored 
 labourer who does his work but rightly, is none ; it lies 
 only in appearance ; their acts are the same thing from 
 a different point of view. But between a man who acts 
 rightly and one who does wrong, the difference is wide as 
 the poles. Do we thank the silkworm or the bee? Not so : 
 we take all they do as a matter of course, and thank God. 
 Just so should we deal with the men of genius. No thanks 
 are due to them ; they have simply done what it was their 
 nature to do. Take all that as of course, and thank God. 
 
 The difference between talent and genius is precisely 
 that between doing right for an object, as to obtain 
 heaven or escape hell, and doing right simply from love, 
 or because we must do it [that '*must" always means 
 love : it is the fact of attraction]. 
 
 What lives, is not that which is like what is being done 
 at the time, but that which is unlike. That truly carries 
 out the tendency of the age which is the very opposite to 
 that which it has been doing and which is in fashion and 
 approved. That which is in the spirit of the age, and 
 meets at once with universal approbation, plays but a 
 subordinate part ; that which seems to go utterly against 
 it is the true function. It is true that afterwards this 
 function is seen to be a genuine expression of the age, 
 
132 Philosophy and Religion, 
 
 and to have had many foreshadowings ; but it did not 
 appear so at the time, and these foreshadowings probably 
 had not been noticed at all. 
 
 Each man's (or woman's, or child's) special incapacity, 
 or dislike, is his specific resistance ; that which dii-ects 
 his force, gives him his specific form or being, and is 
 the great source and secret of his value. There is no 
 more inestimable gift than a well-marked and powerful 
 " resistance." 
 
 In respect to defect as the source of our strength — or at 
 any rate of what we contribute to the general wealth of 
 manldnd — I am aware how it is by not feeling the neces- 
 sity for practical action and results, by being able to be 
 content without them, that thought can be maintained 
 unbiassed and absolute, and the true relations demon- 
 strated and affirmed. And here one sees the mutual 
 excluding of negations by opposites; together these results 
 embrace the work of those who cannot be content without 
 abstract truth, and those who cannot be content without 
 practical right and good ; and so the perfectness is given. 
 Must not each be content to say: "/ must insist upon 
 this, you see to that ; and putting these together, let us 
 work altruistically " ? Is not this the true attitude for 
 thought ? 
 
 This struck me in reading Lynch on Poetry : — Are not 
 those who are able to dwell so beautifully and invigo- 
 ratingly on the goodness and beauty of the world and of 
 human nature, and who feel this so deeply and satisfy- 
 ingly gifted by defect ? Are they not capable of being thus 
 satisfied, and therefore have the sensitiveness and appre- 
 ciation by the absence in them of the necessity for higher ? 
 And from this ** defect " comes a positive good, help and 
 
Mental Physiology. 133 
 
 use for others ; for the world wants that sensitive appre- 
 ciation of, and bright light upon, worldly beauty and 
 good ; it is one of the elements it ought to contain, and 
 in that full prominence and relief which only such men 
 can give it. So there must be others, small enough to 
 be content with the abstract, to give that also to the 
 world, which wants and must contain that too. And 
 since the world wants also the practical phenomenal life 
 in its perfectness, must there not be those small enough 
 to be content with that ? 
 
 Is there, then, here a key to the partialness of men, 
 that men must be small enough to be content with the 
 part, in order to give it perfection ? Is it not an evident 
 fact that men are parts ? Might we not as well say an 
 eye was an individual by itself, as a man ? Look not 
 only at its dependence, but its function; the thing it 
 can do implies a body, a whole, for the sake of which it 
 is done, and alone is worth doing. 
 
 One sees how these not -perceiving men must even be 
 fools, relatively and for a time. They do not perceive by 
 their senses as other men do; it is for this reason indeed 
 that they perceive the fact. Meanwhile, before this per- 
 ception of the fact (which constitutes their discovery), 
 necessarily they do not perceive at all, neither by senses 
 nor intellect, and are really at a disadvantage, and the 
 world is right when it calls them fools. May it not often 
 be that men who pass for fools all their lives, and never 
 do anything to redeem themselves, may truly be men of 
 genius ? Perhaps the possibility of the intellectual per- 
 ception was never given them ; perhaps not the requisite 
 data ; perhaps they never came to sufficient self-con- 
 sciousness, never turned attention to what they could 
 do, and so wasted their whole lives in attempting to do 
 
134 Philosophy and Religion, 
 
 what they could not. I see it is a happy accident that 
 produces an acknowledged man of genius ; there may be 
 thousands who merely fail. 
 
 This opens a good prospect ; most likely men of genius 
 may be indefinitely multiplied, and the world found full 
 of them, when we know how to act towards them. Is it 
 not certain that all "not-perceiving" men will be found 
 to have that faculty of genius, and if rightly guided will 
 prove capable of using it too ? The defect, if there be 
 true rationality, in them, necessarily involves the com- 
 pensating power. It should be encouraged ; such men 
 are snubbed, and really think themselves fools ; they 
 should be taught sensible phenomena, and encouraged 
 to look at them in their own way, or say boldly : *' This 
 must be the fact of tliat,^' As it is now, genius needs 
 to be extraordinarily self-confident or it is altogether 
 repressed. The man of genius, if he be not strong also, 
 is afraid to speak his thoughts ; he meets only ridicule, 
 which cowes him ; so he denies his own nature, endea- 
 vours to imitate the sense-perceivers, and, necessarily 
 failing, he remains a poor, useless, foolish-seeming 
 person all his life. So it is there seem to be so few men 
 of genius in the world. 
 
 By the fact of the man of Genius doing better than he 
 can conceive, is shown the possibility of the accomplish- 
 ment by man of more than a man can conceive. So 
 the work of Genius is truly in one sense superhuman 
 (taking our sense of human, in which the self is put for 
 the man) ; in Genius man is seen ; the self cast out and 
 gone. Here is an image of the true being of man in 
 the destruction of the self. It is so in the intellectual 
 sphere. 
 
 So men of talent think Genius ** cannot be under- 
 
Mental Physiology, 135 
 
 stood ; " they think that there must have heen a con- 
 ception before the work. Just so we think of nature ; 
 that there must have been a " conception "of it before- 
 hand ; so we cannot understand it. It is "a work of 
 Genius," and we take the '' talent " view of it. We 
 think it like a work of talent, full of " contrivances." 
 Our studies of nature are like the man of talent trying 
 to understand the work of Genius ; he can see a great 
 deal ; admirable design, results secured, etc., but cannot 
 fathom it altogether; there is evidently something more, 
 some organic unity, some "necessity." Is not this 
 partly the meaning of that unity of plan which is seen, 
 and which cannot be comprehended in " Design " ? 
 
 I see the life in thinking, how each interpretation 
 makes a new nutrition by suppressing some existing 
 instinctive or " arbitrary " opinion or thought. After 
 more thought I bring back the fact which I had sup- 
 pressed, as one with the opposite which resulted from 
 its suppression; and this giving me the truth of that, 
 repeats again the process of nutrition in respect to some 
 other subject, causes me to suppress some other view, 
 and so it goes on, ever ; there is no end to this process, 
 as there is none to the life of Nature. When this can 
 be clearly seen as the life of thought, how simple and 
 satisfactory thought may be ; we shall never be afraid to 
 suppress, to oppose; always giving freely, yet in absolute 
 obedience to law. We shall introduce our hypotheses 
 knowing them to be unknown symbols; suppress our 
 instinctive views knowing that Being is only in self- 
 sacrifice, and that that which dies does so for a higher 
 life. 
 
 The most effectual and most decided opposition to 
 
136 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 wrongness of all sorts is involved in the knowing and 
 showing it to be nutrition, that it exists for the sake of 
 the good, and in order that it may be put right or 
 corrected. This view, so far from rendering us less 
 earnest in correcting error, or rectifying wrong, renders 
 us necessarily more so. We see not only the evil to 
 correct, but the good, else unattainable, to be gained by 
 correcting it. Yet it also makes us tolerant, calm, 
 loving, reasonable, patient, hopeful; full of confidence, 
 indeed, and smiling through our bitterest tears. It 
 gives us double power, greater fortitude and earnest- 
 ness in doing, greater calmness, patience, love in the 
 mode of doing. Not tolerant of error or wrongness, but 
 rejoicing in it as a means to truth and good : in truth, 
 embracing instead of opposing. It teaches us to say 
 to the doers of things wrongly: "You, too, are good 
 workers ; you express the phenomenon ; but this is the 
 fact : this we owe to you, it is the fruit of your labours ; 
 receive and enjoy the reward of your toil." Is not this 
 better than saying to them : " You are doing quite 
 wrong ; leave off and begone, or imitate me." Which is 
 likely to have most effect as a remedy for wrongness ? 
 Nay, which man is likely to work most consistently, 
 trustfully and earnestly, and therefore perseveringly, for 
 the remedying of wrongness ? In fact, it is the same 
 thing as in physics; wrongness is the result of force, 
 and can only be averted by turning the force to good ; 
 physical evil and good are theory and interpretation. 
 We see the beauty of our instinct of putting wrong right, 
 of opposing all evil and falsehood. It is instinct in its 
 truest sense, the tendency to function; we overthrow 
 the wrong to reproduce the force, and obtain its function 
 through the organization. 
 
Mental Physiology. 137 
 
 We should revere our own thought, if it is genuinely 
 our thought. It is God's very deed. To yield to fashion, 
 to take another man's thought instead of our own, is 
 ugly, evil, everything that is bad. If we could get our 
 eye right we should see that it is disease, a passion not 
 conformable to our life. That operation of an extraneous 
 force is disease, the very essence of it. Disease is not so 
 terrible, because it is in itself a bad thing ; it is equally 
 good with the best, simply a part of the universal life ; 
 but because it is a passion in us not conformable with 
 our life, a passion imposed on us by extraneous force. 
 This is just like having a thought imposed on us ; it is 
 mental disease ; a little more of it were death. To make 
 another man's thought our own, to see and understand 
 it, become one substance with it, is another thing ; that 
 is to grow and develop. The passive submission to, and 
 the living appropriation of, another man's thought, are 
 two opposite things ; development and disease. 
 
 What is the use of saying, or trying to say, that which 
 we do not see ? For example, that we perceive things in 
 time and space, etc., because they really exist so ; or 
 that animals have a certain form because they have an 
 inherent tendency thereto ; or that matter has an inhe- 
 rent gravitation. What comes of it? What, in the 
 name of common sense, is really said after all ? Saying 
 is seeing ; and if the two be separated they are useless 
 both — especially the saying. There is no perception 
 contained in or involved by such expressions, and thus, 
 in fact, as nothing is perceived, so nothing is said ; the 
 words are no more than the rattling of a stick. God 
 uses them, however, and by their means reveals some- 
 thing to us which we can perceive, and in saying which 
 we say something. We cannot say anything we do not 
 
138 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 understand ; just as (consciously) we understand nothing 
 we cannot, do not, say. These expressions, which are 
 intended to convey incomprehensible ideas, are really 
 meaningless. We know nothing but that which we 
 comprehend, see fully and completely all about, not only 
 that it is but that it must be ; it must be involved in our 
 fact of thinking, or we do not know it ; and what is the 
 use of saying that which we do not know ? — the idea is 
 an absurdity. And yet surely these theories must be 
 said ; like the cycles and epicycles they are things unreal 
 and impossible, yet having a reality to us until they 
 have revealed the real. It is just so with matter, which 
 is a theory, phenomenon, or chimera, a thing not only 
 unreal but impossible ; which cannot be said, because it 
 cannot be known; yet it is real to us until it has 
 revealed the reality. Thus matter is a theory, an inven- 
 tion, like the epicycles ; necessary to the conception of 
 the phenomena until they have revealed the fact. 
 
 This is the way those theories came to pass, those 
 attempts to say what we do not see. We perceive or feel 
 that if they were so the facts or phenomena would be as 
 we perceive them ; then we come in the strangest way, I 
 suppose by familiarity, to regard that which we have 
 invented as the easiest way for us of accounting for or 
 conceiving the phenomena, to regard that as a fact, as 
 certain ; and we cling to it with the most wonderful 
 tenacity, forgetting that we do not see it. We think 
 that is the very thing we do see. People think that 
 matter is the very thing that they see. It is all the 
 result of our intuitive conviction of cause : it is our life ; 
 if we do not perceive a cause we invent it (and quite 
 right too). This is the assimilation. Thus we come to 
 be trying to say what we do not see, to express what we 
 do not know — a ridiculous position certainly in one 
 
Mental Physiology. 139 
 
 sense, yet not to be laughed at, and one at which God 
 does not laugh ; far, far from Him is it to mock His 
 children's life. And all this ceases by falling by its 
 own weight; the theory yields to the interpretation. 
 Instead of our supplying unknown causes, the facts 
 show us their cause, which thus seeing we know, and 
 then can say. 
 
 Our individual minds live and die, constituting the 
 whole, the great universal mind, the mental life of 
 humanity ; just as the individual elements of our bodies 
 live and die, constituting thus the body itself, the phy- 
 sical life of the man. This relation of the individual 
 mind to the universal mind is the grand presentation of 
 the problem of continued identity, the transitory ele- 
 ments and the permanent whole, individual minds and 
 the universal mind ; as cells are formed, grow, and 
 decay in the body, and by their decomposition produce 
 functional effects, of development or other. 
 
 This is the mental life in Science. The theory yields 
 to the interpretation, but the interpretation yields a new 
 phenomenon, i.e. a new theory and basis for a new 
 nutrition. Thus in astronomy the motions of the sun 
 and stars, interpreted, reveal the motion of the earth, 
 which is now the phenomenon, and forms the basis of a 
 new nutrition, i. e. a new theory. So in Science as a 
 whole. The phenomenon is interpreted as a subjective 
 passion, viz. as motion in least resistance; but this 
 reveals the holy act of God which is now the pheno- 
 menon, and forms the basis of a new nutrition, i.e. a new 
 theory. The motion of the earth has been theoretically 
 regarded as an original motion deflected by gravity. So 
 now that Science presents the holy act of God as the 
 phenomenon, we shall have to treat that theoretically, to 
 
140 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 invent many things respecting it which of course we 
 cannot foresee ; and to reveal new truth by interpre- 
 tation, which can still less be foreseen. 
 
 To understand how all is life, the great thing is to 
 have an unbounded faith. This is life, that all evil is 
 nutrition ; by faith essentially it is to be seen. By faith 
 indeed even the interpreter acts ; he sees that which is 
 invisible. Faith is the source of life ; of mental, of 
 spiritual life. Physically even, the analogue of faith 
 must be the source of life. To believe and know that 
 everything shall have a higher end and issue than we 
 can see, this is to see life, to feel it in and around us. 
 
( HI ) 
 
 IV. 
 THE AET OF THINKING. 
 
 How to think rightly — Truth is suppressed and comes back in higher 
 form — All thought is necessary — Opinions are like institutions — 
 Necessity of surrendering good opinions — Opinion is form only, and 
 must change to preserve its value — We only know form ; to know 
 the fact is to love — That which must be thought must be dis- 
 tinguished from that which is true — Use of analogy — Thought is 
 Nature, and therefore cannot be false — All opinions are true under 
 their conditions — The danger of fear in thought — The value of 
 logic — What are axioms ? — Newton's work great by its incom- 
 pleteness — Truth is the union of opposites — The minus in think- 
 ing — Necessity of sacrifice in thought — The nature of hypothesis — 
 All advance in thought comes by right use of words — No ends in 
 thinking — Thinking is an especial work — Parallel of thinking to 
 art — Imagination the chief element in true thought — The Art 
 element in true thought parallel to the Gentile element in 
 Christianity. 
 
 No other art is so easy as that of thinking; and the 
 reason it has been thought so hard, and is so backward, 
 is because people have not seen its easiness, and have 
 been trying to do something difficult ; to do, instead of 
 suffering to be done. For thinking is a passive thing, a 
 life that is lived within us. 
 
 A rule for thinking is, that when two things seem 
 opposed, and both appear true, not to deny one for the 
 sake of the other, but ask : *' If it be thus, how can 
 the other be ? " So going on to see both right ; not 
 
142 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 by means of hypotheses, but as necessary, as each 
 involving the other. And this necessarily comes through 
 seeing what the nature of the phenomenon is, its 
 relativeness, and dependence on us. We must embrace, 
 not exclude. 
 
 Were it not well if the advance of thought up to this 
 point had been peaceful and mutually helpful, instead 
 of so much fighting and disputing ? Or, if that were 
 necessary (as doubtless it was), were it not well if for 
 the future it ceased to be so ? This may and must be 
 by the recognition of two laws : — (1) the necessary false- 
 ness of hypotheses or opinions formed in ignorance ; 
 and this even if they agree with the phenomena (as 
 gravity, e.g.) ; that only shows the hypothesis to be 
 good, not to be true. If it did not do that it would not 
 be tolerable, even as hypothesis ; it is the business of a 
 hypothesis to agree with the phenomena ; only so can it 
 answer its purpose at alL And (2) that the true must 
 be suppressed for restoration. To recognize these two 
 laws heals all intellectual strife. 
 
 Are not all controversies between men just this : — one 
 saying to the other, " You have not fulfilled the con- 
 ditions " ? And if that were done consciously, what a 
 mental millennium it were ! There need not be doubt or 
 quarrel ; not fulfilling conditions means not making all 
 agree. 
 
 There comes to be another rule in thinking, viz. that 
 we need never waste our labour fon resuscitating any 
 opinion or view which the world has rejected (Idealism, 
 e.g.) unless at the same time we interpret, or perfect it ; 
 doing away the defect which caused it to be rejected. 
 This is, truly, to unite with the opposite ; incorporating 
 
The Art of Thinking, 143 
 
 the added phenomenon or details. But also, is not all 
 interpretation, all putting right, a restoration (although 
 perfected) of a previous opinion ? 
 
 We suppress a truth in order to have it back again 
 more truly. With regard to this law of thinking, how- 
 ever, the suppression must always be necessary, not 
 arbitrary. We cannot say: ''Now I will suppress this 
 and get it better." Not so, but seeing that which is 
 opposed to it, let us think boldly, truly on. We are so 
 embarrassed in our thinking now because we are afraid 
 to suppress that which we hold to be true, i.e. to hold 
 opposed views. When we come, in thinking, to that which 
 seems opposed to anything which we must hold to be 
 true, we stop, to avoid contradicting this truth. But let 
 us suppress anything whatever ; we can only suppress it 
 because it is arbitrary to our view, being assured that it 
 will infallibly repeat itself with fuller, deeper meaning, 
 and in absolute oneness with that which seems now 
 opposed to it. For this is what occurs now : un-religious 
 men think on and suppress religious truths; then at 
 certain intervals it is shown that the religious truths are 
 quite compatible with these opposite doctrines, and in- 
 deed require them, are best seen by means of them. Now 
 this will ever be the case ; but then, why needs this 
 process be gone through hostilely ? Why should not 
 religious men do this work of advancing their own doc- 
 trines ? The life once seen, the thing is done. The 
 suppression of a true view is not a rejection of it, but 
 merely a vital process ; like burying a seed and letting it 
 die that it may bear fruit. We do not despise and reject 
 the grain that we put into the earth ; we put it there 
 that we may live by it. We do not repudiate the passion 
 we control or suppress ; on the contrary, we suppress it 
 
144 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 that we may exercise it hereafter in nobler form and to 
 better purpose. 
 
 This is the confusion : we have supposed that holding 
 an opinion opposite to any given view involved a denial 
 of the truth of such view. This is an entire mistake ; we 
 need only admit that we cannot see all truth at once. 
 Practically we have been counting ourselves omniscient. 
 What we do is to lay aside for a time, to suppress in its 
 relation to ourselves, a certain truth while we look at the 
 same truth in another form ; and the more intense and 
 entire our belief in any truth, the more easily and con- 
 fidingly we shall be able to do this, and we do it for the 
 purpose of seeing that truth itself better and more fully, 
 as one with its opposite ; or rather, we do it in order 
 to think, to know, to live ; because it is right, and in 
 faith. 
 
 A true thing is never new, because that which is true 
 is always first erroneously said. 
 
 The way to think, is to think anything, to hold nothing 
 certain or fixed. There is nothing to start from, except 
 a certain state of consciousness, something which makes 
 me conscious of self and perceptive; there are these 
 phenomena. This is the only fact. What causes the 
 phenomenon to be such? Nothing is to be held, and 
 refused to be given up ; anything is to be thought, no 
 matter what it denies. Indeed, it is certain that all 
 which we naturally think is illusion. All opinions and 
 prejudices of men are for calm investigation ; not to be 
 set aside as mere evil and folly, but to be seen as parts of 
 the redemption, and the necessity; why and how this 
 must be ; the ignorance that is their source. They are 
 necessary. We must trace it by a physical passive neces- 
 
The Art of Thinking. 145 
 
 sity, a necessity having relation to the mental, or states 
 of consciousness; but the true necessity is their being 
 necessary for man's redemption, of which the scientific 
 passive necessity is but evidence and sign. Especially 
 apply this to men's ideas about life, and why they will 
 not allow it to be reduced to mere physical necessity, 
 why this feeling must be, whence the confusion that 
 makes them feel a physical affair to be so inseparable 
 from the spiritual. 
 
 The distinction between logic or laws of thought, and 
 intuition, is this : the laws of thought are *' thought in 
 least resistance." But for this there must first be the 
 thought itself. Surely our putting logic up as all, is 
 just like, in physics, resting upon the laws of nature, as 
 if the laws were all. An opinion answers to an institu- 
 tion ; it is an embodiment and expression of some fact or 
 condition of us, some necessity in the life of man. An 
 opinion is only good while it is this, i.e. while it is 
 according to the other conditions of knowledge, which 
 makes it a true expression of the " fact " or life. Like 
 institutions, opinions must change in order to maintain 
 their value. Both alike are forms, which must change, 
 in order that the fact may be. In our hold of opinions, 
 as of institutions, we put form for fact, and continually 
 sacrifice the fact to the form. So we should be ready to 
 change opinions which have done so much good, proved 
 so valuable, so necessary, under which, and dependent on 
 which, so blessed a life has been diffused. The power is 
 in the fact, not in the form. That opinion is life-giving 
 which expresses life, love, self-sacrifice. Keep, not the 
 opinion, but the self-sacrifice. The evangelical doctrine 
 is powerful while appealing as a doctrine of self-sacrifice, 
 but soon loses this attitude and becomes one of self- 
 
146 Philosophy a7id Religion. 
 
 seeking. Here is the key to its history ; the reason that 
 it can do so much and yet so fails. 
 
 That a thing is wrong, does not mean that it ought 
 never to have been done or thought ; but that it ought to 
 be left off. Its good and rightness and necessity are in 
 its being cured. So in respect to opinion : here is the 
 struggle. When a thing is proved wrong, people think 
 that it ought not to have been ; but this is a mistake ; it 
 ought to cease, that is all. It is "• in time." All this 
 matter of opinion, all the physical, is form merely ; its 
 being wrong is merely appearing wrong. There is no 
 true wrongness ; such phenomenal wrongness is in the 
 fact of right and Being. It is necessary to think wrongly 
 before we can think right — we starting ignorant. No- 
 thing should be more welcome, more natural and expected, 
 than to see our opinions wrong. We should know it 
 must be. 
 
 We cannot give up our opinions, because we derive 
 good through them, and are conscious of honesty and 
 zeal for God in holding them. So Paul says of the Jews, 
 they were " zealous for God." But we cannot believe 
 that the men who in former ages had to give up their 
 opinions derived good from them and were honest in 
 holding them. This has been the difficulty — that the 
 form is held for the sake of the fact which it has em- 
 bodied. All that is, is from good ; these forms were 
 every one of them the result of good, and therefore held. 
 And therefore too so harmful; because when, by the 
 negation or defect in the good that formed them, there 
 was more good demanding a new form, the old form 
 struggled against it. Good produces the forms and 
 opinions ; but it is a good necessarily defective. More is 
 ever being added ; therefore the forms and opinions must 
 
The Ai't of Thinking. 147 
 
 change. We must learn to see that those before us were 
 just as honest and as good as we ; and that life consists 
 in the honest and zealous giving up of opinions. 
 
 That we have made opinions the condition for salva- 
 tion is just an instance of how we put the '' not " for the 
 fact : being inert, of course we supposed that truth was 
 intellectual. Opinion is form only, and cannot effect the 
 fact ; nay, under different conditions the fact demands 
 a different form. See how the change of form in Nature 
 is simply because the fact will not change, and in order 
 that it may not. So to retain the actual truth, it may 
 and indeed must be needful to change opinions. The 
 entire intellectual regard without any exception shall 
 alter, shall be of every form ; and, in truth, the intel- 
 lectual history of the world is the form changing that 
 the fact may not change. A part of Nature is in this 
 also : opinions necessarily change because the fact will 
 not. Here is a guide to intellectual culture, to thinking. 
 Let opinions, the mental forms, change indefinitely; 
 they must, in order that the fact may be the same : 
 with every changing relation these intellectual forms 
 must change : clinging to them is doing violence. It 
 cannot alter the fact indeed, but it produces tension. 
 When an opinion is held longer than it entirely corre- 
 sponds to the fact, or is the opinion which would naturally 
 by laws of thought be in such a man's mind if not for 
 old association, there is tension. 
 
 What constitutes the difficulty of receiving new 
 opinions is men's unwillingness to give up those opinions 
 which are best and wisest. It is so now as ever ; in 
 every advance men have had to abandon opinions sanc- 
 tified by devoutest feelings, confirmed by vigorous inquiry. 
 
148 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 founded on the best evidences; than which no other 
 opinions were possible. We may be taught to see this, 
 and so be prepared in the future. We may be taught 
 that our opinions may be right for us, and yet not 
 absolute rightness. There may be opinions which it 
 may be quite right and necessary for us to hold to-day, 
 but which we ought not to hold to-morrow. The demand 
 ever is to us to give up, not that which we may have 
 thought doubtful or bad, but that which has been best 
 and dearest (always excepting that which we morally 
 know). Because a new view runs counter to the best- 
 established and most valuable views, it is not therefore 
 to be rejected : but this may be demanded — that it be 
 inclusive not exclusive. It must not merely suppress, 
 but show as necessary. All advances have been thus 
 inclusive ; yet how they too have been at first rejected. 
 So Christ supersedes Judaism because He includes it ; 
 it could not otherwise have been set aside. Think how 
 great a shock to a Jew the demands of Christianity must 
 have been. It could only be complied with by seeing 
 that it is an addition ; that it embraces all the fact, and 
 shows the form necessary. 
 
 To embrace an interpretation is not to reject, but to 
 fulfil, a form. Only so could the Jew have been at liberty 
 to receive Christianity. So is the actual in relation 
 to our sensational religion. Men cling to the old con- 
 ception ; feel it is Divine. Only by seeing that the 
 actual fulfils it, not denies, contains all the fact and 
 shows the form necessary — only so can they embrace it. 
 Will it not be to the orthodox as Christianity to the 
 Jews ? Only a few of them will receive it ; but the un- 
 believers may, even as the Gentiles accepted Christianity. 
 
 Is not faith essential to true knowledge, for the very 
 
The Art of Thinking. 149 
 
 reason that knowledge (intellectual knowledge, that is) 
 can only come through giving up conclusions, and utter 
 unfixing of convictions — a course which only faith can 
 enable us to go through. Without faith we cannot in- 
 tellectually know, because we cannot and will not fulfil 
 the conditions of knowing ; will not give up and alter, 
 and utterly distrust ourselves. Is not this dependence 
 of knowing upon trust, beautiful ? Is not the fact dimly 
 expressed by some old sayings ? An absolute trust in 
 God — i.e. in that which is — independently of all things, 
 and especially of our being right, is essential to knowing, 
 because essential to learning : without it we infallibly 
 cleave to our ignorant impressions, and dare not let 
 them go. 
 
 All opinion is meant to change. The sole valuable 
 thing is our being made to love, which can be in most 
 varied opinions. That very opinion which produces love 
 at one period, may crush it at another. The opinion is 
 that which it is necessary for us to think, and is deter- 
 mined by two elements : one constant, viz. the fact 
 itself; the other variable, viz. man's condition or rela- 
 tion to it, i.e. his ignorance — a positive and a negative. 
 The negative must be in opinion as such. It cannot 
 correspond truly with the fact because only the actual 
 can do so. Love is the fact ; we know or comprehend it 
 when we are, or love. This is the only true knowing ; 
 then only does the subjective truly answer to, i.e. become 
 identified with, the objective or fact, because the fact is 
 only this. Here is the meaning of "knowing" being the 
 *' oneness of subject and object." To know is to be that 
 which is known. So opinions about Christ, too, must 
 alter; why should they not? The love, the life, will 
 remain; the fact be more truly, more widely compre- 
 
1 50 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 bended, the phenomenon seen as necessary. How can 
 we think we know enough to know aright the history and 
 nature of Christ's relation to us ? Is it not necessary 
 that with the removal of ignorance that fact must appear 
 to us (as all other facts) in ever new ways ? Does not 
 the fact demand ever-changing forms, by virtue of our 
 being intellectual ? My opinions are in ever fluctuating 
 "form," varying with ever-varying conditions, according 
 to the resistances ; they effect no fact ; fact remains ever 
 the same, it is not in relation with my intellect. I 
 distinguish broadly between thai which I am obliged to 
 think (by least resistance), and that tvhich is true. An 
 opinion, as such, is necessarily false. It should be ever 
 ready to change on the least good, or even probable, 
 reason shown ; never held fast ; it is a perpetual flux, a 
 life, a part of Nature ; and only so is good. Holding 
 fast to opinion is like introducing stagnation into Nature. 
 
 Thus we should think : in the first place, our opinions 
 must be according to our best means of judging ; but 
 they will certainly be not the truth, if only because 
 partial. Second, the truth is certainly better than our 
 opinions. Therefore we must be ready at any time to 
 conform them to whatever evidence may appear to 
 demand it, for to know more truly must be to know better ; 
 remembering that the office of the intellect is not to 
 determine the belief. People hold as opinions what is 
 against the best evidence, because of feelings. This is a 
 total confusion. To see the relation of opinions is the 
 only way to be free from this bondage. To do this is to 
 cut one's self off from the chance of rising to know that 
 better truth, is against the axiom that the truth must be 
 better than our thought. We should be willing to give 
 up a most pleasing opinion for one most repugnant, if 
 
The Art of Thinking. 151 
 
 evidence demands ; knowing that this is the road to the 
 best. Say, if you Kke, this cannot be true ; but it is 
 according to the evidence ; therefore it is my opinion, 
 held as means of discovery and advance, but not my 
 beHef. The doctrine of "anticipation" is a great help 
 here : it enables us to admit and embrace all. Where 
 there is not sufficient evidence, think as you like — only 
 remember that you do so. Do not fancy you have 
 evidence where you have not. In science as well as 
 theology what power and what freedom this gives us. 
 
 As a man's knowledge increases, either his opinions 
 must change or he must change. So a man who retains 
 his opinions, either refuses to learn more or does alter 
 himself in order not to alter his opinions. This last 
 continually happens, especially in successive generations ; 
 the men who retain the opinions of preceding generations, 
 who uphold them, must be different men in order to do so. 
 It is quite clear that if they had been such men they 
 would not at that different time and different state of 
 knowledge have had those opinions. The men alter 
 themselves, they do violence to some feelings, they coerce 
 themselves : that which was genuine expression of the 
 entire man, and therefore left the man free and whole, is 
 no longer so, and therefore distorts the man. There is 
 nothing for it but to see that opinions are forms only, 
 and do not touch the fact. Here is the essential and 
 radical failure of orthodoxy ; it makes faith include a 
 certain intellectual view. Is not what is wanted a plan 
 of thinking which should retain every old opinion as a 
 phenomenon in its own place ; never abandoning it abso- 
 lutely, but seeing that in a certain state of knowledge it 
 must appear, and ever retaining the moral elements that 
 give it vitality? As in advancing life the lower form 
 
152 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 ever retains its place as the form of life at that stage. 
 And do not the lower forms persist as monuments of the 
 progress ? 
 
 Men distrust analogical arguments, because they do not 
 know how to use them. They are aware there is no force 
 in them as they themselves employ them, therefore they 
 have no confidence in them however used. They cannot 
 distinguish between good and bad, and so distrust all 
 alike. The difficulty about arguments from analogy 
 depends upon whether a man can see what constitutes 
 such arguments at all. 
 
 The embracing all that ever was thought would be a 
 beautiful position, and how fruitful ! It links itself with 
 other views as to the nature of the mental operations : viz. 
 suggests the thought that all man's thought is in, and 
 comes out of. Nature. It is there : it cannot therefore be 
 false, it can only be not enough ; it is in man's mind only 
 by its heing. One has a clue whence to trace thought ; 
 how to understand what it is, and whence it comes : it is 
 Nature. 
 
 AU opinions are true, under their conditions ; and no 
 opinion is true, otherwise. So nothing has ever been 
 thought of or said which is not right and necessary ; only 
 the conditions must be fulfilled— this is the great work 
 of the world. A true and right instinct guides to all 
 assertions ; there is not one too many ; only they are de- 
 fective, and then there are different assertions, expressing 
 different parts of man. These furnish the conditions 
 for each other — the problem is to unite them. May one 
 say that aU are right, not because there is anything in 
 man that is so, but because they come into man from 
 
The Art of Thinking. 153 
 
 without, and are not from him ? Each of those opinions 
 expresses, not self, but Nature : it is the limitations, the 
 excludings, express the self. 
 
 Whatever has been an old notion we shall come to 
 again ; not being conscious of turning, but to our surprise 
 finding ourselves again at it. It is like going away from 
 a spot round the world ; we go straight on, but infallibly 
 return to it. But we return with the gathered fruits ot 
 our experience ; like a man returning to the home he left 
 as a child : — the place is the same, but he is different ; and 
 he sees it quite different too. So God put man in Eden, 
 and drove him out ; and he goes round the globe back 
 to it ; but it will be a different Eden to him when he 
 returns. 
 
 Very interesting it is to note how errors are exactly 
 related to truth, and so how significant. Errors are so 
 many sign-posts saying : The truth lies out there ! 
 
 The road to the heavenly city lay through the Slough 
 of Despond. It was not to be reached by turning back, 
 cowardly, and keeping on terra firma (as Christian philo- 
 sophers seek to teach us to do). A man walking across 
 a chasm on a narrow plank — all seems to reel to him ; but 
 it is only that he is giddy. Go on steadily, and you are 
 safe ; the only danger is in fear. 
 
 The way in which some writers dispose of scepticism, 
 viz. by the instincts, is very well for certain purposes. 
 But the road to true knowledge lies through those doubts, 
 not skirting the edge of them. That slough must be 
 fairly crossed, or the journey's end will never be reached. 
 It is easy to put the questions off, but we remain wan- 
 
154 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 derers and guessers until we cease to do so, and solve 
 them. 
 
 How the doctrines which pass under the names of 
 certain men are quite opposed to what they truly taught ; 
 they grasp, perhaps, their particular statement on some 
 points, entirely against the whole spirit and thought of 
 the men. See Newton in respect to gravitation ; here it 
 is very simjDle and very clear. So Bacon : how opposed 
 to him is our Baconism. The very elements of Being 
 which made these men opposed to their own age, would 
 put them not less in opposition to us who swear hy their 
 names. Now here we see how our Christianity is utterly 
 opposed to what Christ truly taught (as our physical 
 astronomy to Newton's). We build the tombs of the 
 prophets, but should kill them just the same : all mar- 
 tyrdom has been inflicted in the name of some martyr. 
 And in respect to particular sects, do we not see the 
 same thing — are not the Irvingites and Swedenborgians, 
 etc., far away from those whom they call master ? Can 
 we not see that the Swedenborgians are not Sweden- 
 borgian, even as the Christians are not Christian ? May 
 one find a general account of the case thus : that these 
 originators were great men, the followers little men, and 
 so necessarily the difference. The latter not able, not 
 big enough, to receive the spirit, the life, have been 
 compelled to swear by misapprehended *' doctrines." 
 
 Those who do not use rigid logic are as if they used a 
 flexible pole to push a boat ; they do not get on. They do 
 not see that the fact of logic being against their thought, 
 and its repudiation by a portion of mankind, mean that 
 there is something radically false in their conceptions. 
 This is an evil result of acquiescence in mysteries ; they 
 
The A7^t of Thinking. 155 
 
 think there is no need we should have clear under- 
 standing. This is it : some, influenced by the under- 
 standing, accept moral mysteries ; others, influenced by 
 the heart, accept intellectual mysteries. The reconcilia- 
 tion here is evident : get better premises, which, with 
 logic, will allow the now non-logical results. 
 
 It is evident there must be some premises which 
 will allow any results; and since men agree that pre- 
 mises are not to be proved, nor ought to be provable by 
 reason, it would seem that fresh ones are ever open to us. 
 The obstacle to advance is evidently the clinging to 
 premises. 
 
 And the beauty is, that these improved premises will 
 ever give better results than the best obtained by force, 
 against logic. 
 
 We cut off our hands and then complain of want of 
 power ; we refuse to be guided by sound reason, and then 
 complain how little we know. Logic is of boundless 
 power if we would not mistrust it so. For example, 
 when it is demonstrated that, in believing "matter," we 
 clearly believe in that which is not and cannot be, we say : 
 " Ah, those things are beyond the scope of our reason ; 
 we must not subject them to such examination ; must 
 acquiesce in the mystery and suppose that our faculties 
 are too limited." Let us rather accept the fact, and 
 see what comes of it. We are necessitated to believe in 
 that which is not ; why so ? Here is a great fact, a 
 glorious problem ; we shall learn something from it if we 
 will not be afraid and shut our eyes. (And in the name 
 of religion too ; fancying that anything can hurt it : faith 
 in God is truly faith in ourselves.) Why are we com- 
 pelled to think that which is " not " to be ? Because we, 
 in being, are not. There is infinite instruction here ; the 
 
156 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 fact of being landed in a paradox is proof that we can 
 understand that ; for these things our reason does suffice. 
 
 The question of axioms wants more looking into. It 
 does not do to have certain things laid down as true 
 without proof, and all proving rest upon those assertions. 
 I think I find axioms to be mere definitions, to be true 
 because the words used express and embody certain 
 relations, which the axioms only assert explicitly, but 
 which are truly in the words; that they are true 
 because of the meaning of the words, and may be proved 
 by a reference to such meaning. For example, '' the 
 whole is greater than its part." This is proved by 
 reference to the meaning of the words "" whole " and 
 "part." So *' motion takes least resistance." *'A 
 child is younger than its father " is an axiom : it is 
 provable by referring to the meaning of the word father. 
 
 Axioms are not unprovable ; they are provable, just 
 as it is provable that a child is younger than his father. 
 There are no unprovable propositions ; all truth rests 
 not on unprovable propositions but on ideas. There is a 
 great difference ; of course ideas are not provable ; for 
 proof is not a thing a^jpropriate to them. Here is a 
 point to look to — to trace ideas from sensation. Then, 
 having ideas, all reasoning (the mental life) becomes 
 simple. 
 
 Propositions respect the relations of ideas to each 
 other; and all of these are provable. There is no 
 failing of the process of proof, no falling short, in the 
 sphere to which it is appHcable, viz. in relation to pro- 
 positions. To prove an idea of course is absurd ; but as 
 soon as a relation of ideas or a proposition exists, then 
 proof is available. Axioms are not unprovable in the 
 sense usually meant. 
 
The Art of Thinking, 157 
 
 Now farther : that which is the nature of the truth of 
 axioms, must surely be the nature of universal proof : 
 I.e. proof of all kinds must lie in the nature of the ideas 
 themselves, and all proof must be matter of definition. 
 An axiom is only a proposition proved in the same way 
 as all others — but of the simplest nature. All processes 
 of proof must be just bringing down the special pro- 
 position to some simple ideas, the definition of which is 
 seen to involve the point to be proved. 
 
 I see how mistaken people are in their great diffidence 
 in theorizing, not venturing an opinion upon any points 
 on which they have not special knowledge, and so on. 
 They do not see the point at issue, which is not any fact 
 in Nature, but only a relation of our ideas. A theory 
 fixes nothing external to us, but only says : Of these 
 ideas or conceptions of ours this is the right relation : 
 leaving the question open as to the ideas, and therefore 
 as to the fact. We are bound to be bold and free in 
 thus regarding our ideas. This modesty has for its 
 fruits idle fancies, hypotheses, and retardation of all 
 progress. We are bound to put our ideas in the right 
 relation, or we pay the penalty ; and the guide to this is 
 simplicity ; the simplest relation is the right. By this 
 means it is, and this alone, that we discover the wrong- 
 ness of the ideas themselves, and so advance ; by doing 
 this boldly. Not doing it hides from us our ignorance. 
 
 True interpretation ever not only shows that the 
 phenomenon is not, but also that it must be the pheno- 
 menon {e.g. the earth's motion and sun's, Christianity 
 and Judaism) ; so only can the hypothesis be destroyed ; 
 by being '' fulfilled " (" filled with the fullness of God "). 
 Interpretation is so the fulfilment of hypothesis. The 
 form is filled with the fact. 
 
15S Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 The grandeur of Newton, the interin-etative character 
 of his work, is shown in the rugged and unconcealed 
 incompleteness of it, by the rough unravelled edges : — 
 the centrifugal impulse altogether unaccounted for, 
 merely postulated, and gravity itself to his own mind 
 quite unconceived as to its manner and mode. He 
 said : This much is so ; but as for these other things, I 
 do not know them ; they must wait. It is the true 
 attitude of the interpreter ; he did not fear paradoxes. 
 (But he never meant his unknown elements to be left 
 as they have been since.) A man that *' makes a 
 theory " does not leave things unfinished like this ; he 
 shows how all may be from beginning to end. The 
 interpreter shows how a part must be, and leaves the 
 rest. But men cannot now raise themselves to the height 
 of Newton's mind ; they do not appreciate his attitude ; 
 they suppose the thing perfect, and that nothing more is 
 to be done, letting the postulates remain uninvestigated. 
 
 A man that cannot face a paradox is no good. The 
 great requirement for good thinking surely is, not to be 
 afraid. But then this depends upon a man's senses — 
 whether he can see or not ; a man who sees his way is 
 not afraid; one who cannot is sure to be so. The 
 greatest of all aids to good thinking is an absolute faith 
 in the moral and spiritual; such as gives a firm con- 
 viction that nothing that can be thought can be attended 
 with any danger to it, a faith entirely above the reach 
 of doubt derived from things that are in time. This 
 sets a man at liberty — not to disbelieve in the spiritual, 
 but to avoid fancying that he has to guard religion 
 against the assaults of Science. 
 
 It is essential to good thinking to be able to receive 
 
k 
 
 The Art of Thinking, 159 
 
 and admit and cling fast to that which is true, though it 
 be only part ; and though perceiving that there is not 
 only another side, but much that is opposite. *' Hold 
 fast that which is true," and wait ; being willing for the 
 rest; but do not try to make up; do not relax and 
 smooth down and accommodate. The opposite is exactly 
 what you want ; but before you can properly receive 
 that you must perceive in its full and perfect force that 
 to which it is opposite. Truth is not between opposites, 
 but a union of opposites : if you will not have one of 
 them first, you will never get the other. Be bold ; the 
 timidity may be added afterwards to make up the 
 prudence, but if you will not be bold you will never be 
 prudent ; there cannot be prudence without the boldness 
 in it. We must have the extremes. 
 
 What bearings there are in the view of zoology — as an 
 advance by union of opposites — upon the practical life 
 of man ; all relations in which there are opposing ten- 
 dencies and demands. See how the growing, the ex- 
 tending, action is wanted ; and also the controlling, 
 restraining action ; and where the true advance is 
 gained, is it not by their union ? The two lines — of 
 extension and intension — are here also ; and surely 
 we may call the conservative element the former ; the 
 progressive, the latter. And so the true progress is when 
 the progressive is embodied in the conservative, or fused 
 and interpenetrated with it. 
 
 Does not the *' conservative " element ever resist — 
 insist on carrying out the existing elements to the 
 highest state of organization ? the progressive seeks 
 to extend, to grow, to expand? The two parties are 
 those of order and of liberty. Might not these names 
 almost be applied to zoology, and also to the mental 
 
i6o Philosophy and Religion, 
 
 life? Then should one think that in the zoological 
 line of '' development " there is, perhaps, no true 
 addition at all, but only intensification of the existing 
 elements : i.e. no more in the bird than in the fish, but 
 only elevated to higher pitch. 
 
 But see how the development thus attained in the 
 line of resistance is the very development to be incor- 
 porated with the extension attained in the line of growth. 
 It is, as it were, the right development, or " order," but 
 not embracing the right amount. And here is a 
 parallel to the mental, surely : is not a " theory " 
 erected on too narrow a basis ? 
 
 We must get well familiar with the conception of the 
 "not." It is essential to our thought; as much to us 
 as to mathematics, which indeed exists by it. Our 
 analytical thought must be by means of the '* not." If 
 you speak to a mathematician of minus twenty, he does 
 not laugh and say it is " mere nothing ; " he knows it is 
 an element of calculation just as important as any 
 other. So when we speak of the " not-being " of any- 
 thing, we must learn to rise above the vulgar instinctive 
 contempt, and recognize in that as essential a conception 
 for knowledge as any affirmation can be. " Not-being" 
 is a relative fact of the very utmost consequence, as we 
 know practically well enough. There is nothing more 
 real, more important to us in daily life than the*' not ; " 
 we must bring our intellect into accordance with it. 
 
 One great point is to be content to use unmeaning 
 terms as instruments (like x and y in mathematics) ; to 
 get rid of the idea that thought deals with the reality. 
 The only point is to keep the relations right — as in 
 mathematics. Thought must be logical, but it need not 
 
The Art of Thinking. i6i 
 
 conform to any " existence." Our plan has been, as if 
 a mathematician, when he came to an absurd quantity, 
 should have altered it, to make it possible. We have 
 " altered" our thoughts, to make them agree with what 
 we thought was fact. [Was not the same thing done in 
 mathematics, before men knew that the only point to 
 attend to was the relations ?] 
 
 Surely this is the relation of the intellect to the moral 
 or spiritual — the intellect is compelled to suppress the 
 fact of the moral, just as it is all other facts, in order to 
 see them rightly, or as necessary. Hence if the function 
 of the intellect be misunderstood, a difficulty arises. 
 Perhaps indeed it is natural and necessary to man to 
 conceive of the intellect as determining belief, until by 
 the development of the intellect itself he has learnt better. 
 And therefore when the intellect comes to deal in its 
 universal manner with moral, actual facts, difficulty 
 and dispute arise : for these facts are vital to man ; he 
 cannot be without them. The intellect deals with them 
 no otherwise than it does with all others ; but our neces- 
 sary clinging to them raises an embarrassment directly ; 
 the intellect is put in opposition to the very fact of 
 humanity on the one hand, and on the other it is 
 checked and distorted, not permitted to act freely, by 
 those who try to maintain those facts which it cannot 
 help suppressing. Here of course is the origin of all 
 the talk about the " inability of the intellect to deal with 
 spiritual matters," the necessity of " acquiescing in 
 mystery," and so on. The intellect can deal as well 
 with these matters as with any other questions ; first 
 suppressing the facts it will show them necessary. But 
 it must first suppress the facts ; if we will not let it do 
 that, we simply prolong a strife which can have but one 
 end ; we oppose life, which is ever a futile attempt. The 
 
 M 
 
1 62 Philosophy and Religion, 
 
 intellect will render an infinite service to religion, but 
 she must do it in her own way, and we only need to 
 understand her. 
 
 It is this right relation of rule that puts our faculties 
 all to work. Of old the senses did not work ; now our 
 intellect does not work. The lower ruling, the higher 
 does not work ; but the higher ruling the lower, all work 
 — each in its place : the senses, subjected to the in- 
 tellect ; the intellect, subjected to the conscience. 
 The conscience also shall work, subjected to its right- 
 ful ruler. 
 
 So it is not inconsistent in a man objecting to the 
 subjection of conscience to intellect, to say : " Use your 
 intellect : " his is the very ground on which that can 
 alone be well and rightly said. It is as subjecting con- 
 science the intellect does not work, not vice versa ; just 
 as, subjecting the intellect, the senses did not work. This 
 world must meet the demands of the conscience ; there- 
 fore we must set our intellect to work upon it, and see 
 what it is. Bacon said : " This world must meet the 
 demands of intellect, therefore set your senses to work 
 upon it." 
 
 The essence of science is the subjection of the sense 
 to the intellect (setting sense free to work) ; the essence 
 of *' religion " is the subjection of intellect to conscience 
 (setting intellect free to work). Astronomy is a good 
 example of intellect working in subjection to sense : — 
 of old the sense affirmed the motion of the heavens, and 
 the obedient intellect made up the best scheme it could. 
 So in religion now : intellect affirms this inert world, 
 and the obedient conscience makes up the best theory of 
 a spiritual it can : and we are afraid to use the intellect 
 freely. Science lives by the use of sense liberated by 
 
The Art of Thinking. 163 
 
 intellect ; religion by the use of intellect liberated by 
 conscience. 
 
 Consider how absolute that law of our mental life, of 
 our advance of knowledge, seems to be; that we first 
 invent hypotheses which are afterwards proved to be 
 unnecessary, and which yet are essential to that 
 knowledge which proves them unnecessary, as nutrition 
 is to function. It seems impossible to us that they 
 should not be true, inconceivable and ridiculous to 
 suppose them not to be, until the farther knowledge 
 comes. Consider, I say, how absolute this rule is ; the 
 hypothesis seems simply saying what we see, the only 
 way of stating it. See the bearing of this on the 
 hypothesis of real matter. This was truly necessary 
 till now, I grant ; yet not more so than every exploded 
 hypothesis has been in its day. It is the nature of a 
 hypothesis, a false, a phenomenal view, to be thus neces- 
 sary and unavoidable. We cannot state a thing we have 
 observed save in the form of a hypothesis ; the theory is 
 involved in the saying it. We assimilate it, that is, and 
 must do so ; we must express it according to our previous 
 knowledge and mode of thought ; i.e. according to our 
 not; our ignorance, or not-knowing. Every hypothesis 
 must be set aside ; by this means comes the function. 
 Apply this to the hypothesis of real matter. If it is not 
 set aside, producing so a function, it fails of its object ; 
 it is a nutrition, a life, wasted. We must not cling to 
 them ; at least only until they effect their function ; then 
 let them go — all, all. They are evils, like the evils of 
 society ; they exist to be put an end to, effecting so a 
 function, not arbitrarily, but necessarily, or rightly. 
 The evils of society must be put an end to, not arbi- 
 trarily, but because it is right; (this is the necessity 
 
164 Philosophy and Religio7i. 
 
 here) from love ; this is the function, the development. 
 The}^ must be not merely suppressed, but put aside by 
 introducing something which was not there before. This 
 is very im23ortant. 
 
 All error is defect, is a result of icant. In thinking 
 of philosophical and other systems, to regard them 
 aright we should not look at the forms of the error ; this 
 misleads us, takes us away from the essential point. We 
 should regard the negation, ignorance, or wanting fact, 
 from which it arises. The mischief in respect to thought 
 is this : we will not give up. Some self-sacrificing, 
 earnest, deeply religious man, starting from our false 
 assumptions — false because defective — tliinks. With all 
 his heart and soul he gives himself to this most needful 
 of all human works ; and it results in some doctrine, 
 which, when fairly stated and tried by our assumptions, 
 seems like atheism and blasphemy. This is the logical 
 result of our premises ; and what is it for ? Why, to 
 make us alter them ; to show us our ignorance. But we, 
 clinging to our assumptions as if they were our life, say : 
 " What a wicked man ! " we raise an outcry against 
 him, and banish and proscribe his works. Why, there 
 is more piety in one half -hour of that earnest toil of his, 
 than in all our ceremonious, rigid, self-satisfied, self- 
 seeking life. Why has he arrived at such a bad con- 
 clusion, then? Because he reasoned righihj. You have 
 made up something to suit yourself; he has given up 
 himself to find what is, and takes it, when he seems to 
 have it, be it what it may. He believes in God and 
 trusts Him ; you — not an inch farther than you think 
 you can see Him. (Surely the wonders faith works 
 at this day are not less than those it wrought of old.) 
 These strange, intolerable results are the necessary means 
 
The Art of Thinking. 165 
 
 of opening our eyes to our wretched assumptions ; these 
 show us how ignorant we are ; these are the fruits, 
 natural and necessary, of our view of Nature and of 
 God ; the badness is not in them but in their cause. 
 
 The point of hypothesis is, that it is the statement of 
 the fact, as if it were necessary, but without any true 
 necessity shown. Arbitrariness is put for necessity : 
 e.g. the doctrine of *' specific tendency " seems to make 
 the special forms of living things necessary, but does 
 not truly do so. It is as if necessity were inferred in- 
 stinctively from the fact of Being. The source of 
 hypothesis is the demand of man (or Nature) to have 
 every fact necessary. Again the spiritual is here ; for 
 this demand for necessity is a demand for laiv. It is 
 because all true Being is necessary ; i.e. it is action, one 
 with law — i.e. is Love. Science can end nowhere but in 
 the recognition of Love as the only true or absolute Being. 
 
 Gravitation is exactly a hypothesis in this sense, a 
 fact supposed as its own cause. What we have to do is 
 to find out why bodies attract each other ; then we at 
 once exclude the " hypothesis " and see it necessary. So 
 chemical affinity, surely is just a hypothesis. But such 
 hypotheses are good in their way; for they mark the 
 perception of the fact ; though they are absurd when 
 supposed as causes of the facts. They necessarily arise 
 with the perception of any fact : we may say that no fact 
 is truly perceived save in and by means of such a hypo- 
 thesis. Is not this a law of our intellectual life. So 
 our hypothesis of an external world is simply our way of 
 perceiving the fact of our passion. So, before the inter- 
 pretation, the hypothesis cannot be discarded ; to deny it 
 is to deny the fact. (E.g. we must believe in gravitation, 
 until we know why bodies approach , in specific tendency, 
 
1 66 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 until we know why all forms are ; in chemical affinity, 
 and chemical elements and compounds, until we know 
 the " why " of the phenomena.) Is not this partly the 
 intention of cause and effect ? The hypothesis stands to 
 us for a cause ; and of course, as nothing can he without 
 a cause, to deny this, which is to us the cause, is 
 virtually to deny the effect or fact. This is both why 
 we suppose the hypothesis and why we cannot give it 
 up. H^^pothesis seems to supply a cause without truly 
 doing so; it seems also to suj^ply a laxc. It gives us 
 something, or rather some "not," which is so tangible 
 and obscure that we may fancy it (according as we are 
 devout or un devout), either existing by itself, or immedi- 
 ately dependent upon God. It serves to hide the gap 
 as it were ; it " conceals our ignorance." 
 
 The philosopher could not think of the individual, /Ju-f 
 {e.g. chemical union) as existing of itself ; nor the man of 
 piety as being directly caused by God ; but each of them 
 puts this fact as a hypothesis ; viz. supposes a '' chemical 
 affinity ; " and then they can think of it, each one as suits 
 him best. So hypothesis lures us on, encourages us at 
 first, making us think we know something. Then, by 
 failing, it reveals to us the fact. I see better from this 
 again how all observation is truly subjective, is our own 
 sensations hypostatized. 
 
 There are no words expressing man's thought which do 
 not answer to something. Words live, do not come by 
 chance. It is ever a folly to deny anything that is 
 embodied in the words of a people. We should show what 
 fact the words mean, what the fact is, by the non -recog- 
 nition of which the necessity for inventing hypotheses 
 has arisen ; show the negation. Something acted on men 
 to make them invent : what was it ? 
 
The AiH of Thinking. 167 
 
 All advance in knowledge is the art of using words 
 rightly; *' the difference of true and false is a question of 
 expression." Words are first applied to the phenomenon, 
 so they have a fixed and definite meaning ; then the art 
 of using them is that of applying words having such 
 phenomenal signification to the real : so it is in truth the 
 fixing of the correspondence of the two. Here is the life ; 
 now one sees the bond, the organization ; and how words 
 lead us on, and necessitate our progress, prevent our 
 stopping, because so long as our view is incomplete words 
 are not rightly applied, and are felt not to be so. There is, 
 in the meaning of the words we use, that which requires 
 adjustment; the phenomenon does not receive its full 
 interpretation by such use of them. So the words are 
 necessarily truer than the thoughts, because larger ; they 
 assert, by the necessity of the case, more than we mean. 
 They connote more than we think of ; so if we use them 
 aright, we must have affirmed (and truly) more than 
 we meant. This is what I have seen when I said words 
 had a meaning of their own — the very words by which 
 we try to define our first and primary positions, contain 
 assu7nj)tions. So I suppose a child rises from mere phe- 
 nomenalness at first, and so language ; though the w^ords 
 refer truly to the actual. Historically (as Fichte would 
 say) they are accommodated from the material ; but phi- 
 losophically, it is the reverse — the accommodation is to 
 the material. But though the world is at first merely the 
 phenomenon to the child, yet it is not natural to have all 
 our hypotheses. It is as in astronomy : to the child the 
 sun moves ; but the Copernican astronomy is immensely 
 more natui'al to it than the Ptolemaic. The greatest 
 violence is done to "natural conception" by these hypo- 
 theses introduced on the basis of the existence of the 
 phenomenon. They never would be but for our rooted 
 assumption. 
 
1 68 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 Every word is tied, as it were, to a certain phenomenal 
 meaning, and with these words we test the spiritual. So 
 all metaphysics is necessarily the interpretation of the 
 phenomenon. Now it is true, words are, in time, sepa- 
 rated more or less from their first phenomenal meaning, 
 but this takes place only according to the laws of the case, 
 and virtually the union is ever maintained, for the pheno- 
 menal signification is embodied in the secondary mean- 
 ings. So each generation finds its predecessor's state- 
 ments wrong or imperfect ; for observe, our increasing 
 knowledge of the phenomenon itself, i.e. as plienomenon, 
 and in its own mutual relations, must give larger, deeper 
 meanings to the words. So metaphysics ever waits for 
 science, for the meaning of its words to be unfolded. 
 Metaphysics and theology can be developed only through 
 the medium of science. 
 
 Perhaps it was not necessity that made spiritual and 
 physical things to be expressed by the same word, but 
 a deep instinct. For here surely lies the poetry of 
 language : not that it was necessary to apply one word 
 to many subjects, for as each new idea jDresented itself 
 a distinct combination of sounds might have been 
 invented ; but men who were poets saw that an old word 
 expressed the thing ; they did not invent a new word, not 
 because they could not, but because they did not want it. 
 Being poets they perceived the identity, and expressed it 
 in a figure. The creators of language perceived the iden- 
 tity that science has hitherto served rather to obscure. 
 Was it not a good thing for us that language was made 
 so long ago, before and not after the nutritive epoch of 
 science? Language is functional, and therefore ever 
 suits the functional stage of mental life : it expresses 
 emphatically the oneness of Nature. So it is a help 
 
The Art of Thinking. 169 
 
 and not a hindrance to mental progress; and perhaps, 
 as I have thought, we shall never surpass it. Thus 
 perhaps it is that whatever is clearly thought can be 
 clearly said. It may be a question whether old words 
 were thus applied to new ideas with any real poetic 
 perception of the identity, or only under the influence of 
 an unerring instinct. But in either case it was the 
 poetic art : then as now poetry consisted not in saying 
 anything was like another, but that it is another. 
 Surely Language is also a life, and will present its 
 nutrition, function, and development. 
 
 All good thinkers, so far as they are good, are charac- 
 terized by indifference to results ; they do not care what 
 sacred doctrines they set aside. 
 
 As for the objects I set before myself in my thinking — 
 I have none. Exactly this is what I have not : I refuse 
 all objects. I simply see, and have no wish, no desire, no 
 anticipation ; nothing I want to maintain or enforce. I 
 wish to see what is : this is all. I tend to no end ; 
 Nature uses me. I have faith : faith that that which is 
 is better than that which I could devise ; faith that if I 
 say what I see, that will most contribute to the knowing 
 of that which is, which is the only good in respect to 
 knowing ; in truth, the only knowing. 
 
 I do not hold that I can construct a final system ; mine 
 is but a step not more truly right than that which has 
 rightly preceded ; only the present right. Dearest and 
 most welcome of all men to me is the man who shall 
 supersede me. His further and clearer vision is to me 
 even as if it were my own. But it must be by a step 
 forward that I am to be overthrown. I am not so foolish 
 as to imagine that I, a mere channel for the surging tide 
 
I/O PhilosopJiy and Religion. 
 
 of truth, can stop its ever advancing waves. It flows 
 through me and goes on. Thank God ! When I have 
 done my work what can it be to me but joy that others 
 also should do theirs ? 
 
 The reason our conceptions must be followed out inde- 
 pendently of Nature is in part this : that we do not 
 perceive Nature as it is — that the true fact does not 
 come within oui* grasp at all, but only as modified by, 
 and pertaining to, these conceptions : so that we have 
 not in truth a standard to which to conform our concep- 
 tions, as we fancy. This is the old error that Nature 
 is as it appears to us ; the attempt involves a fatal circle ; 
 for first our mode of conceiving determines the percep- 
 tion, and the perceived thing is to determine the con- 
 ception. The fact that Nature is above us, and that we 
 have to learn it, demands at once this severance of con- 
 ceptions from existence. We must remember that our 
 conceptions are not above Na-ture, but below ; and then 
 that they must apply to the perceived, because that per- 
 ceived arises out of bringing the unknown fact into 
 relation with such mode of conceiving. 
 
 Mathematics, e.g., is true of the percept ; but what the 
 fact of Nature is, is altogether another question. It is 
 true of Nature as in space ; but whether Nature he in 
 space is to be considered quite apart. 
 
 I see that in my own arguments (as in respect to 
 Function, etc.) there has been this wrong attitude : that 
 my deductions were applied directly to Nature ; that I 
 was speaking as of Nature herself, instead of conceptions 
 only, and then applying them to Nature. So men rightly 
 do not see that because a thing is true to logic, therefore 
 it is in fact ; and therefore they violate logic to make it, 
 as they think, agree with fact. The separation gives an 
 
The Art of Thinking. 171 
 
 infinite advantage : no one denies the authority of logic 
 over thought ; the union of the two impedes thought 
 now as observation of old. For this is the mischief: 
 that people spoil their thinking by trying to compel their 
 thoughts to conform to Nature instead of letting them 
 live their own life. 
 
 It is remarkable that the only portion of Greek thought 
 which has permanent value, and truly remains to us as 
 an actual inheritance, is mathematics ; that department 
 in which this separation had been effected — which dealt 
 with conceptions solely, not implying that they existed 
 in Nature. This is valuable and true for ever, because 
 it is true of thought. Oppositely, mere observations — 
 accurate reports of that which is perceived, without any 
 involving of thought or theory — are true and valuable 
 for ever ; they are true of the phenomenon ; but mixtures 
 of the two are sure to be true to neither ; and though not 
 useless, have no permanent truth or value : they do a 
 work, but perish in the doing it. 
 
 A man who thinks *' conformably to Nature," i.e. to 
 perception or observation, or who observes " conformably 
 to thought," thinks or observes absurdly. Thinking and 
 observing must be done separately, and the developed 
 results brought together. 
 
 Man first tried to determine Nature (or the perceived) 
 by thinking; then to determine thinking by the per- 
 ceived, or by observation [this is the same as first 
 regarding the phenomenon according to the actual, then 
 the actual according to the phenomenal]. Neither will 
 do, of course : they have to be united into one. They 
 are two polars, each with the opposite negation ; the 
 former, arbitrary action ; the latter, necessary passion. 
 The history of Science thus is very simple ; and how the 
 old life is lost in thus gaining the new. 
 
172 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 Observe : our thoughts ought to be determined by 
 Nature, i.e. by the true actual fact ; not by the percept. 
 They have to interpret that, and therefore must not be 
 ruled by it. This that we conform them to is the phe- 
 nomenon, not the fact. True, we must and will conform 
 om* thought entirely to fact — to that which is — but then 
 we must first knoiv it. 
 
 Here is an instance of the distinction : — to Thought 
 there are negations, but of course there are none in 
 Nature. Thought deals in plus and minus: and I see 
 that much of my perplexity about that negation has been 
 from my not seeing clearly enough this separateness of 
 conception and fact. 
 
 Thinking ought to be recognized as an especial work, 
 and an especial gift, attaining its real use only by 
 assiduous culture. What most (even cultivated) men 
 should seek and expect is the capacity — not to do it — 
 but to enjoy and appreciate it. In fact, it not unfre- 
 quently happens that what people set up as their 
 reasons, for example, for disbelieving a particular 
 doctrine are, in truth, the very reasons for accepting 
 it. Thinking, indeed, includes both the attractions of 
 art and the positive results of science. 
 
 This art of thinking must have its principles founded 
 on the nature of our faculties, and on the truth of 
 Nature. It must act on all these things, and fulfil all 
 their demands. It must embrace and express the facts 
 of our total condition and of our environment. 
 
 Surely the parallel of thinking to art— especially to 
 painting — will throw light upon both ; upon each through 
 the other. Shall we find a correspondence even in the 
 details of their course ? We have seen that thinking is 
 like music, and in comparison with music how unde- 
 
The Art of Thinking. 173 
 
 veloped and poor ! Now, from both these parallels will 
 not light and even guidance come ; guidance in thinking, 
 the hardest of the arts, from the easier and therefore 
 sooner developed ones ? There is a new value thus 
 revealed in them. Nay, may it be that by serving as 
 guides and servitors to thought the arts are to render 
 their great service of interpreting Nature ; by being the 
 ministers of the interpreter of Nature — thought?^ They 
 are its ministers, as well as the senses under the form 
 of observation and experiment. Bacon then erred, and 
 our recent philosophy has erred too, in using only one 
 of its ministers to serve it ; the consequence has been 
 dissension and separation. The arts have erected them- 
 selves apart from thought, and there has been even 
 strife. In truth, all art and all observation are one ; 
 members of one body, built into one Head — Thought. 
 
 The chief element in thinking is really the imagina- 
 tion ; imagination either as the powder of seeing the 
 unseen, or of putting ourselves away from the centre, 
 and taking a view including ourselves, and not projected 
 from us ; that is, of truly using our impressions. Surely 
 there is no exercise of the imagination equal to that 
 which is involved in interpreting the vision of that 
 unseen which presents to us the phenomenal, inter- 
 preting Nature. 
 
 The imagination, then, being the true faculty which 
 works in thinking, how comes it that logic, being simply 
 a kind of skeleton in it, has been supposed the thought 
 faculty ? May we not say of logic that it is the con- 
 dition or mode under which imagination works in think- 
 ing, as in other arts it works under other conditions ? 
 
 The imagination in thought has been suppressed for 
 perfecting. In Art there has been beauty, the ideal, as 
 
I 74 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 opposed to thought which possessed truth rather ; each 
 of these confessedly being by the negation of the other. 
 True thought is the union of truth and beauty. 
 
 The art-feeling is the affirmation of joy. Joy dwells 
 in that region, is its idea, its principle ; but it is not so 
 of the phenomenal; hence the separation. And that 
 which shows the phenomenal as the true sphere of joy 
 must be union with the actual, taking away the middle 
 wall of partition. 
 
 What was combined with the Gentile elements in 
 Christianity is parallel to that which is combined with 
 the art-elements in true thought. The Gentile culture 
 bears the same relation to Judaism as art now does to 
 science, Judaism answering to the line of growth, to 
 science. As Christianity was presented in two phe- 
 nomena, so the actual world is presented to us in two 
 phenomena ; the physical is the one, the ideal or spiritual 
 is the other. 
 
 One may note here a reason for the observation that 
 in order for true knowledge of anything, it must be pre- 
 sented to us under two forms. For when this is the 
 case there is a possibility of the two uniting, by the 
 exclusion of the negation, and presenting a fact that 
 appeals to another kind, or mode, of knowing. Two 
 sensible apprehensions to one intellectual apprehension ; 
 two intellectual apprehensions to one spiritual know- 
 ledge. 
 
 Eecognizing the part of imagination in true thinking 
 we see another thing. Since logic in its development 
 suppresses imagination, is not this very fact proof that 
 they are two complementary lines ? Is not the exercise 
 of imagination which is thus suppressed the anticipa- 
 tion? Does not the suppression prove this, and prove 
 
I 
 
 The Art of Thinking. i 75 
 
 that the mterpretation will be its perfecting ? Whenever 
 one development of human tendencies especially sup- 
 presses any other, this is to be perfected and restored 
 in the fulness of that other. Thus, those tendencies, 
 those emotions of joy, free-liking, etc., to which religion 
 in its progress is opposed, are emphaticalty the ones in 
 which perfected religion consists ; the opposition is the 
 proof of it. (Even as the exhibition and play of the 
 vital force is the very substance of life ; that for which 
 all opposition to it, and failure of it, in normal develop- 
 ment, exists.) So the question is answered why logic 
 especially was put as thinking. It is just as that which 
 opposes and checks pleasure and freedom, activity and 
 enjoyment, has been jDut down as religion. The intel- 
 lectual process, referring all to general laws,- sinking all 
 individualities in abstract statements, must repel the 
 imagination; even as the developing religion the strongly 
 sensitive and joyful. And so the imagination and the 
 pleasure, thus suppressed, barred and cut off, have been 
 keeping up an isolated and in part despised life of their 
 own. Their true relations have been misapprehended; 
 they have to be grafted in again. Then will there not 
 be "life from the dead " ? Will it not be a renovation 
 when pleasure becomes one with religion, and art with 
 strictest thinking ? 
 
 As Christianity came through the Jews, but turned to 
 the Gentiles, and had its real kindred with them, with 
 their liberty and spontaneity, so does not the true 
 thinking, though coming indeed through the love of 
 logic (or reason or science), have its true kindred and 
 affinity with imagination, the line of liberty and joy? 
 Think how image-making was forbidden to the Jews, 
 and art (with the exception of music) banished ; and 
 how Christianity has again recalled art. So those 
 
176 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 devoted to thought proper, or to science, turn away 
 from its true significance. We have to appeal to the 
 imagination-class, and say: "What you ignorantly 
 worship is here ; Nature \s this." 
 
 Is it not heautiful to see the whole department of 
 imaginative life as one of two imperfect lines coming hy 
 a negation ? There is no more any mystery in it ; its 
 mystery is that it is not enough. Truth, true knowledge 
 and thought, is such — involves such seeing the unseen — 
 that from it, hy negation, poetry must emerge. 
 
 In this more perfect life of imagination in union with 
 logic is exhibited the perfect human joy that is in 
 sacrifice ; the perfect having that is in giving. In what 
 crushes down one person's spontaneity or imagination, 
 that of another finds a more perfect freedom and satis- 
 faction ; hut in no one is this latter primar}^ and imme- 
 diate ; it is always a result of discipline and learning. 
 " Thy statutes have become my song," Law crushes all 
 men's spontaneity at first ; hard fact crushes all men's 
 imagination ; but they may be made one at length, and 
 the man may say: " These real and strict logical rela- 
 tions are become the very world of my imagination." 
 
 Thought can achieve such wonders for us, can do and 
 give us so much ; can elevate our life to the region of 
 the actual ; surely the need for the attainment of its 
 fruits is immense. But this can only come in one way. 
 We must recognize thinking as a special art, and culti- 
 vate the power of appreciating it, of criticism. 
 
( ^n ) 
 
 V. 
 
 THE SELF AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 Individuals are states of humanity — Individuals are separate because 
 physical — Man as a parasite — The self is negation — Eternal life is 
 deliverance from the self — Descartes perverted modern thought by 
 starting from the self — The untrustworthiness of consciousness — • 
 True consciousness is the opposite of self-consciousness — Unsatis- 
 factory nature of the doctrine of immortality — The desire for 
 immortality is not man's highest aspiration — What absorption 
 into God means — Love is not self-sacrifice — We want martyrs — To 
 give love is to create — Men are sacrificed for man — How happiness 
 is attained — Only love can satisfy — Happiness is a putting aside 
 of consciousness — Pleasure comes from want — Personality is not 
 highest — God is not personal — The Trinity — God is Being — No 
 mind without body — God as light — The fact is love and is shown 
 by Christ. 
 
 What is that " I " that has consciousness ? After all 
 that question returns. Surely it is the same as : What 
 is that thing that has weight ? Take it away and leave 
 the consciousness, and it is not missed. Now, may not 
 this individuality or personality he states ? Since this 1 
 is in time it must only be a form, only a state ; just as 
 '' things " are states. Now, do I not get a clue to the 
 relation of persons, i.e. of the physical humanity, to the 
 actual ? There is a succession of persons ; they cease, 
 and must therefore he states. Persons are states of 
 humanity ; they are forms or states from the actual, by 
 a ''not." 
 
 There cannot truly he a "not." We are forms, as I 
 
 N 
 
1/8 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 have said; but then just as a thing cannot truly be 
 because it is only a form, so cannot a person. We are 
 forms of course ; the I, the person, is a " state " of 
 humanity. In that very axiom that only forms can be 
 in time, it follows that persons are forms, or states. 
 States or forms of what ? Why, of humanity. This 
 personalis the form of humanity from the ''not." In 
 saying our body and mind are part of God's act which is 
 Nature, I have said all this before ; personality goes with 
 the mind. 
 
 Must we not look at this self, or consciousness (clearly 
 they are one), in connection with the unity of humanity? 
 There are now many selfs in humanity, because it is 
 fallen. It is as material that men are many or separate. 
 Even mentally one sees how they are one. Without his 
 material nature clearly man is one. First destroy this 
 separateness of men and make one humanity again ; 
 then the separateness of man and God is destroyed : this 
 is redemption. Yet what beauty and joy there are from 
 this separating humanity : here is the demand for love, 
 self-sacrifice. See how the demand for self-sacrifice, in 
 respect to men, is only of the material or sensational ; 
 love is the doing away with the separateness ; it is 
 making our material powers another person's ; his will, 
 his demands, act through me. Let this be only per- 
 fected and man is no more many. The separate indi- 
 viduals are from the *' not " in relation to man, as man 
 is from the " not " in relation to God. 
 
 Are we not parasites ? See how the parasite has not 
 the life of that living body on and in wliich it is : it is 
 part and yet not part. 
 
 So we are part of the physical universe, and yet dis- 
 
The Self and Consciousness, 1 79 
 
 tinct. We have an individual life which it does not 
 share ; yet all that is in us is from it ; and all our power, 
 all that by which we live, is its. Just so is the parasitic 
 animal to its nidus, as we are to physical Nature. 
 
 Now, the parasite has individual life, in which its nidus 
 does not partake; yet is that nidus living, only its life is 
 larger. From our point of view we might well see how 
 its nidus should be to the parasite distinguished from 
 itself as not living. The parasite might well seem a 
 living or organic thing in an unliving " world." 
 
 Is not the universe thus collectively living ; in relation 
 to us being as the tissues of an animal are to the para- 
 site in them ? 
 
 This is the entire point of all I see : the root, heart, 
 and being of my views — that self is negation: all is 
 included in it. 
 
 But then, how can "negation" be conscious, intelli- 
 gent, and sensational ? This is just what proves it to be 
 negation, this shows it in time. There must be a not ; 
 for being conscious, etc., as implying time, means the 
 '' not ; " for that which is in time is not. So, except as 
 being negation, there were not possibly self, or con- 
 sciousness, or intelligence. Think how in a limb, e.g., so 
 long as it is healthy there is no consciousness of it ; 
 when it is diseased then consciousness begins. The 
 negation is not the consciousness, but the action of 
 Being on the negation produces consciousness and all 
 that is thus ''personal." The ''Being" is actual; all 
 that is necessarily is actual. 
 
 Being redeemed is being delivered from ourself — not 
 therefore necessarily from consciousness, or perception 
 of it, but from the illusion of thinking it the fact, or our 
 
i8o Philosophy and Rehgio7i. 
 
 true Being, i.e. from self-love or self-regard. We cannot 
 believe but that we are all right in our views. But if we 
 can give up ourselves, then we can see that perhaps we 
 are subserving some much greater end than any benefit 
 to ourselves ; and may not feel so sure that we must 
 know all these essential points. So we shall compre- 
 hend that God may permit us to be in error and dark- 
 ness, to redeem the world. We think God loves our self ; 
 that self is of very little regard to the universe, of very 
 little regard to God ; of which the proof is, that we are 
 only then right to the universe or one with God, when it 
 is of very little regard to us. God hates it, and so 
 should we, and never grow content with it. That is 
 why God abhors self-righteousness ; He hates self. He 
 means to destroy it ; that is His love. It is curious : 
 our idea of heaven is saving ourself; God's idea is de- 
 stroying it. He will deliver us from it and utterly 
 exclude it and do it away, so that it shall plague us no 
 more. Now, here is a contradiction : the self will be 
 taken away from us. This is the eternal ; therefore to 
 the intellect it is a contradiction. To be thus dehvered 
 from self is eternal life. 
 
 To be without a self, to get rid of the self, is simply to 
 have all things to us exactly as they are. Things are so 
 to God ; that is, He is not a self : an infinite self is not 
 self. As with space and time, infinity excludes them ; 
 space, time, and self are correlative ; space as inertness 
 or limit, time as form. 
 
 Omniscience is this — not being a self ; even as omni- 
 presence is not being in space, and eternity not being in 
 time. The negation necessitates our affirming by negation. 
 Self-sacrifice perfected is no more self-sacrifice. He is in 
 us, self is cast out ; there is no other deliverance from self. 
 
The Self and Consciousness. 1 8 1 
 
 . Who are we, what is the human race, that we should 
 be right, that we should not be subject to an illusion ? 
 This self of ours is to be destroyed, and man freed; 
 therefore this illusion. God has sent us a strong delusion 
 that we should believe a lie ; we are damned through it, 
 as we know ; from which damnation only Christ revealing 
 the fact to us can save us. Is it not certain that this 
 authority of consciousness is maintained through fear. 
 And what good ever came of fear ? Our idea of God as a 
 *'self" spoils the relation; we conceive Him as loving 
 Himself ; this as the best and highest for Him, but not 
 for us; we are to love Him chiefly. He Himself. So 
 perfect sympathy and oneness are impossible ; as we see 
 that in friendship the perfect sympathy is in loving each 
 other. But seeing God as Being, the absolute Being, all 
 is right. Now we see that our love and God's love are 
 one ; alike in Him and us it is love of Being ; God's love 
 is not love of self, but answering to ours, love of Being, 
 love of us as Being is in us. It is thus the perfect- 
 ness of love ; love of self in love of others. God's self- 
 love is love of the creatures and no other, for the 
 *' Being " is them. So in being alive or one with God, 
 man's self-love also is one with love of others, i.e. of all ; 
 because it is God in him. Here is the being a new 
 creature ; being one with God, all things are made right 
 to us. 
 
 Has not Descartes given a perversion to modern thought 
 by making his position this being of the self ; though he 
 only expressed it, of course ? How utterly false a starting- 
 point, the assertion of the self as Being. It is true, 
 however, the "cogito" proves Being; there can be none 
 of those predications without that. If it were, " I think, 
 therefore there is Being," that would be good. In truth, 
 is not the step direct from the " consciousness " to God ? 
 
1 82 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 We may say of a shadow, " It is dark, therefore there is 
 Being." Do not all these passive affections (thinking, 
 among them) necessarily belong to the negation ? 
 
 All this work about the authority and trustworthiness 
 of consciousness means simply that man wants a fixed 
 standing point, and cannot be content with a life which 
 perpetually grows. It is unbelief, and it is fear. And 
 here is another connection ; unbelief is one with fear. 
 But then love casts out fear ; therefore that unbelief is 
 not love. Love and faith so identify themselves, as in- 
 deed they must, being evidently one. If consciousness 
 deceives us, why, from the illusions of consciousness, 
 should we not learn true facts as we do in reference to 
 the physical, from the illusions of the sense ? This 
 argument about consciousness is nothing dififerent from 
 an argument by which it should be maintained that the 
 senses cannot deceive. We are striving, just so foolishly, 
 and in just such foolish fear. 
 
 In truth, consciousness seems much more to us than 
 it is ; we confound it with our very Being, forgetting 
 even sleep. Is not this regard to consciousness like self- 
 interest : have we not in part learnt it from our abuse of 
 Christianity ? it is not natural to man. See how satis- 
 fied not only the indolent Brahmins are, but the active, 
 intellectual, ancient classical nations were, with the 
 thought of losing it. That fancy of becoming part of 
 unconscious Nature, even as thingal, could rouse enthu- 
 siasm. We pervert here, in our appeal to self-interest : 
 the Bible bids us have that now, which these men put 
 off to the future. Theirs is a taking away, ours an 
 adding; we do not give up, but we receive God into 
 ourselves; not "unclothed, but clothed upon." We 
 
The Self and Consciousness, 183 
 
 become too great for consciousness. We must learn 
 to think less of personality, of consciousness, of the 
 " I," of the self altogether. 
 
 Consciousness of self is the true opposite to conscious- 
 ness. Observe, in ordinary life, self-consciousness is ever 
 disease; the right and proper consciousness is that of 
 other things, of external objects. The right conscious- 
 ness indeed is perception, consciousness of other than 
 self ; when we become se^-conscious, then we are morbid 
 at once. And see how Adam's change at the Fall is even 
 most prominently seen as se^Z-consciousness. So the true 
 consciousness is consciousness of Nature. With this idea 
 of a consciousness not of our own self, how beautifully 
 benevolence and sympathy, and indeed all virtue, appears. 
 Is it not, as it were, a consciousness of others ? And 
 again : is not this universal consciousness, in truth, an 
 infinite, or rather the infinite, consciousness ? There is 
 no possibility of ceasing, nor of loss ; it is the eternal. 
 To it there can be no evil ; change or loss is consciously 
 of form only. Here is the perfect happiness ; it is the 
 utter loss of self. 
 
 I conceive our present doctrine of immortality is very 
 unsatisfactory. Is it not like that of the matter and 
 force not ceasing, though " things " do (which indeed is 
 used as illustration and argument) ? I fancy there is 
 nothing more in the one case than in the other; it is 
 abstractions merely. The man ceases, even as the thing ; 
 it is the fact only that does not cease ; which, I take it, 
 is not the mind, as we talk. That which is in time 
 cannot be eternal ; we are deluding ourselves with a vain 
 fancy. And surely Socrates' argument applies only to 
 the actual — if there be that in a man. If actualism seem 
 
184 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 to deny personal immortality, it denies nothing that is 
 worth retaining. 
 
 Surely the desire of personal immortality is not truly 
 a noble or worthy attitude of humanity. At least it is 
 not the highest. Granted it was an advance in humanity 
 to attain to it, but may it not be a greater to give it up ? 
 Man rose to it from less, from indifference; he should 
 give it up for more, for self-sacrifice. We should lose 
 this feeling of good and evil to ourselves apart fi'om that 
 of others. And is not this an instance of a law? Perhaps 
 the " self-consciousness " is a rise from unconsciousness, 
 but it is a greater rise to altruistic consciousness. From 
 ignorance first to error, then to knowledge. And is it 
 not the self ever first, self-desire, self- consciousness, self- 
 knowing, i.e. the not-Divine, and then the Divine, or 
 altruistic ? What I would have is to have no joy or 
 sorrow of my own apart from that of others, to escape 
 this isolation and limit, and to be like God, whose joy 
 and sorrow are in others ; who creates. Is this creation 
 — to be in others ? So in our poor way we say of the 
 creator, the artist, that he is in his work. This I mean 
 by being Divine ; it is being infinite, unlimited. 
 
 The dispute respecting '* absorption into God " may be 
 easily disposed of by the scriptural statement that we are 
 one with God, even as Christ is. The perplexity arises 
 altogether from our introducing physical, inert, or nega- 
 tive conceptions into our relations to God. There is 
 certainly no absorption, because there is Being and life. 
 It is not losing, but having ; not ceasing to be, but being. 
 We, having put the negation for fact, find the giving life 
 a destruction. We are one with God, now. These 
 physical relations, to which alone the idea of absorption 
 
The Self and Consciousness. 185 
 
 applies, these negations which put us in time, have no 
 bearing. Get to think rightly on the subject, and we 
 see that the question of *' absorption in God " (regarded 
 as a ceasing to be — or indeed in any way) has no mean- 
 ing. It is self, death, that we are delivered from ; will it 
 not content us to have God's Being ? Must we stipulate 
 for a sense of personal enjoyment? Let us be consistent, 
 and bargain for perpetual youth, or that we may fare 
 sumptuously every day. 
 
 It is faith that sees. The man who says, " Now bad as 
 all this world looks to me, I know that if I could see it I 
 should see it all perfectly, infinitely good, with no evil in 
 it at all " — he ivill see it. The others who have not 
 faith, who think it may be as evil as it looks, how should 
 they ever see it otherwise? — ''believe and be saved." 
 Men say, " We cannot love that way, it is contrary to 
 nature." They can, if they look at Christ : through and 
 from Him we can derive this life. He has conquered 
 death for us. It is granted it is contrary to our nature 
 as unredeemed. We must have God in us, be one with 
 Christ ; i.e. we must (so far) lose our personality. This 
 is that loss of personality which seems such an awful 
 doctrine ; it is holiness, that which we experience as joy 
 not of earth but of heaven. We cannot do that as a 
 person, but may as instruments of God's own action, as 
 actually one with Christ ; it is having in us that actual 
 which the intellect cannot receive, which cannot belong 
 to the physical, is not relative but absolute. This love 
 is losing personality, that " not " by which we are " able 
 not to act," to be arbitrary. Surely to have another in 
 us, to have our actions another's, is exactly the idea of 
 loss of personality, or how can it be defined? ''Yet not 
 I but Christ," says St. Paul. To lose personality is to 
 
1 86 Philosophy mid Religio7t. 
 
 love, to lose inertia; to be taken out of that law of 
 cause and effect ; it is to know God. 
 
 Love in relation to consciousness, self, or time, is self- 
 sacrifice ; but this is an accident in our perception, not 
 love in itself. It is absurd to make love self-sacrifice ; 
 even as it would be to define a fact as the destruction of 
 its absence. Light is the destruction of darkness if there 
 be darkness ; but to define light as destruction of dark- 
 ness is absurd ; where light perfectly is there is no dark- 
 ness ; where love is perfectly there is no self. Love is 
 positive ; we do not know what it is — it is God, Being ; 
 but in respect to us, it is self-sacrifice. A Being with a 
 " self " cannot know Love as it is, cannot know God. 
 Love must be manifested in the flesh as self-sacrifice ; to 
 know God truly is to be in heaven, is to escape from this 
 self, to be freed from consciousness, emancipated from 
 time ; that is, to be eternal. 
 
 The stress of this question is, does this mean that we 
 lose our consciousness ? Now this is another question : 
 it should not be assumed that it does ; for how can there 
 be love without consciousness, or that from which our 
 consciousness comes as the '' not " ? In heaven is love, 
 joy; these involve surely enough. I do not think there 
 remains consciousness in our physical sense, even as not 
 thought [the spirit does not think] ; not that physical 
 consciousness that is in time, of which accident may 
 deprive us ; but all that is true and actual in it ; the 
 fact, of which that is the phenomenon or form. " Shall 
 I have love ? " Suppose you are love ; are God. Does 
 God have love ? Surely not ; He is love ; apart from 
 the love, there is no God to have it. We must not say 
 God has love ; it is making Him physical, giving Him 
 some Being that is not actual. It is our defect, our 
 
The Self and Consciotisness. 187 
 
 " not," whereby we can have love. Clearly we shall not 
 have love in heaven ; apart from love is no we ; as apart 
 from love is no God. Is it not joy enough for a person 
 who loves to be all love ; to be one with God, with no 
 other happiness but His ? And as He is not a person so 
 are we not to be. 
 
 Is not this, indeed, an excellent definition of the self — 
 the way we feel the absence of God ? 
 
 Men are not truly less prejudiced than they were ; nor 
 are the feelings which prompted persecution different ; 
 they are but of less intensity. The form is changed, not 
 the fact : we are glad for those to suffer, to have no 
 opportunity of influencing men, who seem to us to be 
 putting forth injurious doctrines. And in those days, if 
 there were martyr-making flames, there was also the 
 flame of martyrdom in the human heart ; and that was a 
 considerable counterpoise. People could see men carried 
 unflinchingly to the stake, and not be utterly puzzled to 
 imagine why ; they might execrate the impiety of the 
 man, but they did not lift up their hands in pious amaze- 
 ment at his folly. It would not have been altogether out 
 of their comprehension how a man should possibly find 
 anything better than a large income. We want the spirit 
 of martyrdom again, and nothing will kindle it but 
 martyrs. 
 
 If we were self-sacrificing, we should see that nature is 
 self-sacrifice ; it is because we are self-seeking that we 
 see God as such. It is ever so ; that which we see must 
 be that which we are. So we cannot be " saved " by 
 Nature, because we see in Nature our own death ; cannot 
 be saved by being like a God whom, because of our own 
 death, we see as self-seeking. We are shut out from the 
 
1 88 Philosophy and Religion, 
 
 possibility of salvation save as God manifests Himself 
 as self-sacrificing ; which can only be in the self- sacrifice 
 of a man, because it is only in a man that we can see 
 self-sacrifice to be such. He cannot show us His self- 
 sacrifice in Nature, because Nature is that very fact, and 
 we cannot see it. 
 
 We cannot get Being for ourselves ; we must have it 
 given us ; we must be created. Here is the necessity for 
 Christ, for God's self-sacrifice ; it gives us life. Giving 
 love is the true creating, not the making of substance. 
 We cannot create ourselves ; practically we know we 
 cannot make ourselves love. 
 
 We ought to look at humanity, and be content for its 
 sake. We find it so difficult to look beyond the I ; we 
 think if all men be not saved there is so much loss of 
 humanity ; but it is for the sake of man that men must 
 be destroyed. So, too, we put the "not" for the fact. 
 God will destroy men, body and mind, that man may be. 
 Humanity is the Being, the object of love. 
 
 Is it not one humanity in many forms, in many indi- 
 viduals ; and this succession of individuals or forms goes 
 on until humanity is redeemed ? This redemption of 
 humanity is the end, the function of the human race. 
 This series of men is the fact under various forms ; is not 
 this what Nature represents ? God saves man ; %,e. man 
 is ; for us to be saved it is only necessary that we should 
 be man, should he. God takes care of all that is ; only 
 the *' not " He destroys. But to be man we must be 
 united to Christ ; for He is man, and all true humanity 
 is one with Him. 
 
 This only is to be happy, not to pursue it. Self-sacrifice 
 
The Self and Consciousness. 189 
 
 is eternal happiness. To give up the pursuit of physical 
 happiness, to seek for heaven as not physical, is, in that 
 very fact, to sacrifice self to love. It is to be in heaven. 
 The eternal cannot be pursued, it is. Therefore he who 
 is *' pursuing happiness" cannot be on the road to heaven. 
 And necessarily the pursuit of happiness must fail ; it is 
 exactly grasping at a shadow, a " not." Yes, our position 
 is precisely that, throughout, of taking a shadow for the 
 fact. To be happy means to love : if we are to be happy 
 at all, it is now in this very present fact ; for this is the 
 eternal fact ; there is no other fact for us. If we cannot 
 be happy in sacrifice now, we never shall be ; for there 
 never will be aught else — never — it is the eternal. 
 
 He who pursues happiness must be miserable ; as he 
 who seeks comfort must be uncomfortable. And that we, 
 thus miserable, do not know it, think ourselves happy if 
 we can only succeed in our incessant pursuit ; what does 
 this show but that we do not know what it is to be 
 happy ? See how a person born with skin disease is 
 content to pursue comfort, never having had it ; finds his 
 pleasure in this miserable temporary relief; does not 
 know (at least for a time) how wretched he is. So are 
 we ; so engaged in seeking relief for this disease that we 
 do not know, have no idea or imagination of what the 
 true powers, capacities, happiness, of manhood are. We 
 do not believe that there is anything else better for man 
 than to scratch himself. (It is Plato's illustration, not 
 mine.) The only way to have happiness is to be freed 
 from this disease. And our self-indulgence, our getting, 
 does but aggravate that disease of not-happiness. There 
 is no attaining happiness so. We must be cured. 
 
 And see with what an eagerness of passion these things 
 are pursued ; we must do and enjoy such things ; we are 
 overpowered, are not ourselves. That not-happiness, 
 
IQO Philosophy and Religiori. 
 
 that discomfort, overpowers all things. All truly valu- 
 able and great objects and pleasures are nothing to such 
 a poor man ; he must scratch himself. So are we with 
 our imperious passions, our necessity for pursuing hap- 
 piness, in spite of all considerations. 
 
 And clearly there is but one relief for such a poor 
 wretch : no philosophy, no talking, is of any avail. He 
 may abstain from scratching; but if the desire continues 
 he is miserable. This is self-righteousness, asceticism. 
 But cure him, give him comfort, and he no longer pursues 
 comfort ; give us happiness and we no longer pursue it. 
 Yes, cure us, give us happiness, that is, make us love. 
 Take away that inertia. All this comes because we do 
 not love. Not-loving is our disease. Make us to love, 
 and we shall pursue happiness no more so madly ; we 
 shall have it. Make sacrifice to be in us seZ/-sacrifice, 
 give us the life we cannot give ourselves. 
 
 Consciousness, being a regard to and thought of self, is 
 certainly not love, not hapj)iness. In fact, when we think 
 of ourselves, that is not loving, not being happy. Does it 
 not show Si failure of happiness, if a person thinks : Now 
 I am happy? It strikes me as true, even now, that 
 perfect happiness means just a putting aside of conscious- 
 ness. All physical pleasure seems to aim at this ; but 
 this is only transient, only in the passing from conscious- 
 ness to not-consciousness. I do not mean the absence of 
 consciousness as in sleep ; but the swallowing it up in 
 love. Surely pleasure is just the thinking of something 
 else than ourselves ; when we think of it lovingly so 
 much that we entirely forget all else, especially ourselves, 
 then we are, in that sense, perfectly happy. But to us 
 now such a state never lasts ; it passes away, and con- 
 sciousness returns ; we only remember that we were 
 
The Self and Consciousness. 191 
 
 happy. But conceive such a state prolonged indefinitely ; 
 then would be no consciousness, no time ; such is eternity. 
 There can surely be no time where there is no thought of 
 self, no not-love. 
 
 It has not been clear to me how all pleasures could 
 be from a want, or discomfort ; because at first they are 
 quite new and unconceived. But I see now; the idea of 
 eating as pleasurable only from hunger, applies to all. 
 If we did not know about eating, hunger would be to 
 us only a state of discomfort, not foretelling to us the 
 pleasure of eating. So with all pleasures. That all are 
 preceded by a want is shown in the fact of the instinct 
 which leads to the procuring of them. It must have been 
 a musical hunger that first led to inventing music, and 
 so on. And that the arts have attained to so great 
 perfection and beauty is nothing more than the great 
 perfection of cookery ; it does not any more affect the 
 question of whether all pleasure be not from ivant. And 
 no doubt, before there was such wonderful advance, the 
 pleasure from these sources of enjoyment was not at all 
 less. Think, e.g., how much more is reported of the early 
 music than we find it capable of effecting now ? 
 
 The absence of appetite is disease ; defective wants of 
 all kinds are such. Physical being and well-being con- 
 sists in abundant wants. Also with regard to having 
 more or less physical good; I think we mistake in 
 thinking that the less possession means the less enjoy- 
 ment. An infant is perfectly happy with the milk ; a 
 man, with every conceivable luxury, has no more, nor so 
 much enjoyment ; not to speak of the depravation of 
 appetite and health from luxury. Doubtless people 
 suffer from the wishing for things they have not got ; 
 but this is quite different from the rich man enjoying 
 
192 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 more than the poor. We know it is not so ; simplicity 
 is the greatest enjoyment. So that this development of 
 material good is not, and cannot be, for increase of en- 
 joyment as its end. This perpetually increasing want is 
 a means to quite other ends ; to the understanding and 
 interpreting of Nature; that by investigating her as 
 material we may learn that the fact is actual ; and that 
 this perpetual getting, by its failure and the intolerable 
 evils which result from it, may redeem us from selfish- 
 ness and teach us to love. These two are correspondent ; 
 the latter is the actual, of which the former is the 
 representation in the intellectual or formal. 
 
 Brinvilliers, when led to the rack, asked what that 
 great pail of water was for, and was told it was for her 
 to drink. Is not there, in this, a light on our physical 
 life ? Is it not hy torture, as it were, that we have such 
 intense need and desire for what otherwise we should not 
 desire nor enjoy ? The things which give us pleasure, 
 and the withholding of which we cannot tolerate, are in 
 no way to be accounted for according to our normal life ; 
 even as the intense thirst produced by torture was not. 
 Christ says, ** shall never thirst; " He gives relief from 
 torture. Not so much that we, being physical, are sur- 
 rounded by physical suffering, as that the being physical 
 is the very receiving this unnatural pleasure ; implies 
 the "tortured" state, as making possible such enjoy- 
 ment. And so the feeling that the physical existence is 
 a matter of pleasure — a " filling the heart with joy and 
 gladness" — is included also. The feeling of gratitude 
 in respect to it has its place. The two opposite feelings 
 are justified and united so. 
 
 That all pleasure must be from pain, must mean relief, 
 
The Self and Consciousness, 193 
 
 seems certain. With respect to those cases when a 
 pleasure is enjoyed for the first time, comes unexpectedly 
 and unforeseen — first hearing music, etc. — such pleasure 
 is no pleasure unless there be susceptibility. And this 
 susceptibility surely means previous want ; for it ceases 
 with the enjoyment. The discomfort, or want, is not 
 conscious ; yet I think it clearly exists, and manifests 
 itself in the dissatisfied, wrong condition of a person who 
 has such susceptibilities which have never been gratified. 
 This is like instinct, like genius ; the pleasure or relief 
 is not known nor consciously desired ; but the necessity 
 spoils the life, and when very strong works its own 
 gratification. All pleasures, all arts, must have arisen 
 so. The discontent and inability to rest or be comfortable 
 of a person with an ungratified susceptibility proves the 
 dependence of pleasure on pain ; and after being once 
 gratified, the want or discomfort becomes conscious 
 enough. So capacity for pleasure means want. 
 
 Does this unconscious want answer to the unconscious 
 love of God that our passions are ? Our consciousness 
 is illusion; Christ reveals the fact of God and Man. 
 What distinguishes man but a capacity, unfilled, for 
 better things ? He knows not for what ; nothing satisfies 
 it ; he is restless, he must attain, give himself to, Being ; 
 and this he knows not. So our passions, this love for 
 good which knows not a true object, this capacity, this 
 want, are not evil, though they produce sin, dissatisfac- 
 tion, restlessness, and disappointment. See the suscep- 
 tibility, the fact to which they have relation. And see, 
 too, the gratification, the end ; how the satisfaction comes, 
 is given, from without, and then the meaning of them is 
 revealed. How many have testified this ! We think we 
 want enjoyment, when in truth we want love ; we think 
 we want to get, when in truth we want to give, to Be. 
 
 o 
 
194 PJiilosophy and Religion. 
 
 As the unconscious want of music is satisfied by music 
 — given as from heaven, revealed to the longing but 
 unknowing soul — so this longing for God is satisfied 
 by God revealing Himself. Not from within but from 
 without comes the answer to these inarticulate demands. 
 Thus (as Maurice says), the Gospel says what all philo- 
 sophers, all the longings of humanity, meant, but did 
 not succeed in expressing or attaining. It does not 
 oppose or suppress, but fulfils; and only by fulfilling 
 puts away. It embraces all in a kingdom, revealing the 
 kingdom in which aU are. It affirms consciously, as it 
 were, what they unconsciously, reveals what the want, the 
 striving, meant ; satisfies, as we know so many have 
 testified. (That it does not satisfy now, is it because we 
 have lost the fact which alone should satisfy ?) And all 
 these strivings, all these passions which waste themselves 
 on that which satisfies not, all must predict and imply a 
 satisfaction ; all mean that man shall be redeemed. This 
 is the prophecy of the passions ; they are nutrition for 
 that ; they are God's love acting on man. 
 
 This confuses us : that as mind, consciousness, self- 
 action, in a word personality, is the greatest thing to us, 
 we assume that it is truly the greatest. So we put it 
 into Nature and God, making ourselves the measures of 
 all things. Do those who maintain this mean to say that 
 God is truly such as we can think ? Or if they grant He 
 is above our thought, is it not clear that this is just 
 what appears so evil in my doctrine ; viz. that if God is 
 necessarily such to us, but is not truly so, then what 
 basis is there for our affections, is it not a mockery ? I 
 say this evil is not in the nature of the case, but in the 
 artificial and forced limit of our thoughts ; and if we will 
 be natural, and say: "Clearly God cannot be truly such; 
 
The Self and Consciousness, 195 
 
 how is He truly and in Himself? " we can know better ; 
 can attain a sure resting-place, a satisfaction not failing 
 either our affections or our intellects ; a God to love 
 more perfectly, more profoundly, more naturally, more 
 elevatingly. This God is the infinite God, Love : the 
 love of whom is love of Being, is eternal life. The God 
 who is manifested in Christ, who dwells and works in us, 
 who works all things by His own will, in whom we live 
 and move and have our Being, who is our Father, who 
 forgives our iniquities, who makes us one with Himself. 
 We can see God thus, can know Him, if we will not be 
 afraid. The heart of man knows Him, and the intellect 
 retires from its idle toil confessing itself incompetent. 
 We will have a God whom our intellect can grasp. We 
 think we can know fact. Being, by the intellect, but we 
 cannot any more than by sense ; a higher faculty must 
 '' know " God. We have to know here that the " fact " 
 is not the intellectual phenomenon, but the cause of our 
 perceiving it. So this is simple enough. I say we can 
 know God, but not intellectually, and that this personal 
 God, who acts in time, of which theologians tell us, is 
 not possibly the true God, but is phenomenal merely ; 
 that it will not do. I do not deny it is the right pheno- 
 menon, but I say we not only can, we must^ know the 
 fact, which is not this. This personal God is a *' state of 
 consciousness " like other hypotheses or phenomena. 
 Here again we see the phenomenon must not, may not, 
 be given up until the fact is known ; we want the negation 
 excluded, not another form of it. To know God is more 
 than we have made it ; we have reckoned it a means of 
 obtaining everlasting happiness, and it is eternal life. 
 
 There is a true beauty in this conception of the non- 
 personality of God ; in truth, there is more in the true 
 
196 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 One than can be in one person. The true and absolute 
 God is so vast, so rich, that if He be brought into 
 personality, as for our apprehension He must be, there 
 must be three Persons, as it were, to contain Him ; the 
 Godhead cannot be in one Person. Even as Humanity 
 demands the dignity of man, the tenderness of woman, 
 the trust and joy of infancy, and cannot be without all 
 three, so the Godhead demands the Father, Son, and 
 Holy Ghost, fully to contain and to express it. This 
 elevates our thoughts of God ; humanity is none the less, 
 it loses none of its moral value and dignity or of its 
 spirituality, or any attribute of delight and glory, because 
 it needs three persons to constitute it. So neither does 
 God. Those who take one Person for their God instead 
 of three, simply lose so much. 
 
 It is the necessity for three Persons in the one God 
 that we see in redemption ; and that is the necessity for 
 infinite love and self-sacrifice. In the absolute one 
 God all this exists together ; but if it is to exist in 
 the personal it demands three Persons. Love is one, is 
 absolute, infinite ; but if it becomes personal, there must 
 be three persons. We see that it must be so ; this is in 
 all Nature. So if we are to understand, to know any- 
 thing about the true nature of that absolute infinite Love 
 that is God, we must see God as three Persons. And 
 see here, how in fact those that make their God one 
 Person, do lose the Love. Save in three persons. Love 
 cannot represent itself. 
 
 We also take quite a wrong view respecting the 
 Trinity, as a revealed doctrine : we abuse it as if it gave 
 us some knowledge respecting the essential Being of God, 
 made us know the unknowable. We should be content : 
 
The Self and Consciousness. 197 
 
 that is how God must be to our apprehension. This is 
 the true intent and meaning of it; and so seen, how 
 simple, nay, how impossible a subject it is for controversy 
 or dispute. God to man must be three personalities ; 
 even because man is three personalities; it is part o 
 the axiom that God to man must be a man. Our error 
 has been fancying that we could know God intellectually ; 
 not recognizing that the intellect necessarily introduces 
 elements not belonging to that which truly is apart from 
 it. We cannot truly know even a thing that is without 
 us as it truly is in itself ; we can only know the form ; so 
 we can only know God, by the intellect, formally. There 
 is no Father without the Son and Spirit; they are 
 correlative, each involves the other ; they are all the one 
 actual ; that which the actual becomes by the " not." 
 So one sees there is no Being who created, or could have 
 created, the material world, there being none to create. 
 
 With regard to the necessity of God's being personal 
 to the heart, consider this also. Setting aside love to- 
 wards God (as the question si^ftJi^tZice), the very strongest 
 of man's non-religious natural passions, loves, have been 
 and are for that which is not personal, nay, even for 
 abstractions. See man's love of truth, of justice, honour, 
 courage, and loyalty. These are the strongest passions 
 of man, as has been often proved. But I do not put an 
 abstraction for God, proved though it be that an ab- 
 straction will do for the heart. My God is the farthest 
 possible from an abstraction : He is the Being, the only 
 true actual Being, and all of it. He is, so intensely, so 
 actually, that personality detracts from Him. That is 
 why He can be loved ; not temporally, not physically, but 
 eternally, and actually, with such an infinite and all- 
 absorbing intensity. Love of the Infinite, of Jehovah, 
 
igS Philosophy and Religioii, 
 
 may be so infinite as to exclude all not-love, all conscious- 
 ness, which love of a person could scarcely do. Is it not 
 the triumph of the love of God above all other loves, that 
 it alone is perfect, and destroys consciousness even of 
 self ? Is not this why even Christ shall deliver up the 
 kingdom, and God be all and in all? No "person" 
 shaU interpose between that love made perfect and its 
 God. 
 
 Reflect how "infinite" is a merely negative term. We 
 have come by familiarity to overlook this. It means 
 inconceivable, the denial of everything by which we 
 conceive. Saying God is not personal, not conscious, 
 not moral, is simply carrying out into particulars this 
 general statement that He is not-finite. We cannot con- 
 ceive God as He truly is ; yet if he were a person, or 
 moral, or conscious, we could conceive Him. It is 
 strange the reluctance there is to admit this ; we seem 
 to feel that by giving up as true in respect to God that 
 which arises from limitation or negation, we are giving 
 up His Being. God is none the less not these things 
 that we are, because He is not so by being more instead 
 of less. To a man to whom shadow is reality to say that 
 there is no darkness, is to deny. Thus is it with us ; 
 when the darkness, the self-ness, is denied of God, we 
 tremble, as if our God were being taken from us. But 
 in truth, He cannot be God that can be denied ; God 
 must be such, the denial of whom is a contradiction in 
 terms ; if we could rightly see the case, we should see 
 it so. 
 
 Think, in connection with this, of what is shown by 
 history ; that the first denial of idolatry or of a material 
 God has ever been felt as a denial, and not as an 
 
The Self and Consciousness. 199 
 
 affirmation, which it truly is. This shows us what takes 
 place in ourselves ; explains our feeling of losing God 
 altogether when consciousness, personality, moral Being 
 are denied of Him ; we cannot feel that this is in truth 
 only the affirmation of a truer, fuller Being, the denial 
 of darkness or limitation. It is partly this, and partly 
 because oiir conceptions have been degraded altogether ; 
 for, think, does it not seem absurd to us, that when Paul 
 said we ought not to think that God can be bodily, the 
 proper inference is that therefore He is an abstraction 
 merely ? We feel how entirely it is the other way ; that 
 what is asserted is that God's Being is too intense and 
 perfect to be material ; just as an abstraction is less 
 Being than a stone. And so when we say we ought not 
 to think that God is personal and conscious, it is not 
 less absurd to infer that therefore we make Him a mere 
 unconscious " thing." It is clear what is affirmed is an 
 intenser, more perfect Being than can be consciousness 
 or person. It is true we cannot conceive of it ; we mean 
 the inconceivable and infinite. And let us remark, too, 
 that we cannot conceive an infinite mind, nor a mind at 
 all without a body, in any legitimate sense of the word. 
 
 We have gone back to Judaism. If to deny hody is to 
 assert more emphatic intense Being — if we can see this 
 — how much more to deny mind. Both alike are deny- 
 ing that which is alone the only known being to us. 
 But we have faith. We see that our being involves 
 negation, and that to Him who truly is, such being as 
 ours in any form cannot be rightly attributed, whatever 
 our weakness may demand. We see that God must be 
 personal to us, only until we are better capable of under- 
 standing Him. In truth, personality involves body. 
 An irrational idea is that of a mind without a body. 
 
200 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 What indeed would be the good of one ? Without a body 
 to act on, and be affected by, the matter it ''perceives," 
 mind would be very forlorn. So the instincts of men 
 have always made ghosts poor miserable creatures, much 
 inferior to embodied men. In truth, a mind without 
 a body, or relation to the material world, is not a cheer- 
 ing idea. There is an utter dissonance in the ideas, 
 and it is the sign of a profound discordance ; that was a 
 deep intuition. He that perceives matter is necessarily 
 material. 
 
 See the goodness and rightness of our thought that 
 we cannot know in our present state, that our knowledge 
 is limited. Certainly we cannot know till we get rid of 
 the inertia. The ancients thought they could know in 
 spite of the inertia ; we have found that under this 
 inertia we cannot. Instinct tells us that some things 
 are unknowable, and that we must know the limits of 
 our powers; that "essences," " substances," are not to 
 be known. Most true ; we cannot know that which is 
 not. We can never know what " substance," what 
 " essence " is, we can only know how we come to 
 " suppose " them. Can we know epicycles ? Of course 
 not ; but we can know all that is to be known about 
 them — that they are not. We think it is the very being, 
 essence, and fact of things we cannot know; because, 
 of course, we put the " not " for the fact. We cannot 
 know while we think the "not" is the fact; but when 
 we see that it is a " not," then we know, and feel that 
 we know all about it, and are content. So respecting 
 God: He is unknown so long as we think He has a 
 " substance," an inert Being : but when we know other- 
 wise, then we feel that we do know and see Him in 
 Christ, and are content. Nothing shows more strikingly 
 
The Self and Consciousness. 201 
 
 how we put the "not" for the fact than our being 
 unable to conceive of God except as having a " sub- 
 stance," as something besides Love. We lie under 
 this necessity by the " not " that is in our intellect ; or, 
 as I should say, that constitutes intellect. Of course 
 we must put the " not " for the fact, when only by 
 virtue of that " not " can we think or conceive at all. 
 
 God is light : what a new meaning is in this now. 
 God is one ; and yet a trinity. A trinity by the '* not ; " 
 a trinity to our perception at first. The trinity is from 
 the unity, not the union made up by the trinity. Yes, 
 God is light, and He exists in His creatures as colours. 
 As colours are to light, so are all creatures to one 
 Being; various '' nots ; " yet all determined by one law, 
 all love. 
 
 So from all this phenomenal or physical we get at 
 the fact by excluding the " not," by adding. Yet then 
 the physical will not remain as such, any more than 
 the colour, as such, in light. Take away the "not," 
 and the physical is gone. " Not that I would be un- 
 clothed, but clothed upon." To be freed from the 
 physical it only needs that more Being should be 
 given us. 
 
 For the existence of colour a peculiar " not " is neces- 
 sary ; not less light, but a " not " of that which is 
 essential to the being of light. All the variety and 
 relations of things are in the conception of colour. And 
 see the good and rightness. Would we have all white 
 light and no colour ? We are in such a relation to light 
 that we can see the " not " aright, can see how it is 
 essential to the good. What were light without colour, 
 without this interference, this self-sacrifice, which pro- 
 duces colour ? Light were no longer light if there were 
 
202 Philosophy and Religion, 
 
 no not-light. God would be no longer God if there 
 were no not-God, no creature. In colour nothing is but 
 light ; it is all light : so the creatures are nothing but 
 God. Colour is from light by interference, by itself 
 causing itself not to be. So the creature is from God 
 by His self-sacrifice : and it is essential to the very 
 being of God that it should be so, even as colour is 
 essential to light. From interference of the various 
 coloured rays come inexhaustible combinations and 
 variety. So by self-sacrifice of creatures other creatures 
 are. Also darkness, sometimes — sin. All creatures are 
 imperfect, coloured, have a " not " in them, in reference 
 to the true actual. 
 
 God is not said to be sound. Sound is not onCy as 
 light is. Is not sound more a representation of the 
 physical ? It is one out of many ; light, colour is many 
 out of one. A kind of inversion is here, the same fact 
 seen oppositely. Is not sound most parallel to the 
 physical, light most parallel to the spiritual? Is it 
 thus indeed that, as physical, sound is most to us ? 
 The ear is the most perfect. Are the less developed 
 senses still more related to the spiritual ? We do not 
 see the light, as we hear sound ; we only see things by 
 it. And only that which is from the " not," only colour, 
 do we perceive, not light itself. That is nothing to us, 
 like darkness. When the light is not present we cannot 
 see ; but we do not perceive the light itself — " Whom no 
 man can see," yet *' in whom we live." Is there some- 
 thing in the conditions under which light forms colours, 
 illustrating God and the creature ? God who sees all as 
 one, sees love alone ; the evil is not in the universe, as 
 the colour is not in the light. 
 
 We are selfish, but the Fact, which we have not and 
 
The Self and Consciousness. 203 
 
 are not, is Love. Looking at Christ we see that it is so ; 
 He shows us the Infinite, the One, the only Absolute. 
 It is this, and only this. With our eyes opened by Him 
 we can see that it is so. With that damnation taken 
 from our hearts the shadow of death is gone from the 
 universe. Loving, we can see that it is Love ; we know 
 it, knowing God. 
 
 I cannot admit that God must be personal to the 
 heart. To the intellect He must be ; and this probably 
 misleads us. We have not thought of Him as Love, as 
 He is, but only as personal. The heart delights in Love 
 too great and pure to be personal; in eternal Love, 
 which when manifested to us in time is self-sacrifice. 
 
 "Mere reason" cannot be tolerated in religion, even 
 as it cannot in the sanctities of home. For religion is 
 truly the home-feeling of the universe. The Church is 
 the Home. Here comes feeble, weary, jaded humanity, 
 to seek its rest. Here, called back from the toil and 
 glare and coldness of the outer life, it is gathered into a 
 family. Can mere cold reason intrude here, and not 
 find itself on a foreign shore, not be seen hateful ? A 
 higher faculty, a better and more human insight, even 
 the insight of a true sympathy, reign there, and give the 
 whole tone to the place. 
 
204 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 VI. 
 THE BIBLE. 
 
 Nature interprets the Bible — The work of the Bible is to give man life 
 — What death means — Inspiration — No need for inspiration — To 
 have life is to be inspired — We must not be afraid of the Bible — 
 The source of the Bible's power — We put the divine element away 
 from the present — The difference between physical and spiritual is 
 one of perception — Redemption cannot be partial — Religion must 
 not appeal to the selfish emotions — The mistake of our Chris- 
 tianity — The supposition of a physical hell — Hell cannot be remorse 
 — The world accounted for by God's act and man's death — Christ 
 does not save from the punishment of sin — What God's hell is — 
 Heaven is love — Christ's work will cease — " This is My body " 
 shows the spiritual nature of all existence — Prayer changes, not 
 the fact, but the phenomenon — Christianity is not a theology 
 but a fact — Our Christianity is dead — How Christianity may be 
 
 I HAVE found that the nearer I have arrived to the 
 Bible, the nearer I have been to the truth. But also I 
 note that it is not so much by studying the Bible 
 directly as indirectly through Nature that I thus come 
 into unison with it. The Bible needs interpreting by 
 Nature, even as Nature by it. Having our minds filled 
 with the spirit of the Bible, and looking so at Nature, we 
 see a truth and significance in the Bible we should never 
 otherwise have discerned. We can in fact see and 
 understand nothing by itself ; we must go beyond and 
 away from everything in order to grasp it properly ; we 
 
The Bible. 205 
 
 want a key to it ; and with the Bible as with all other 
 things. Looking at it alone, we cannot see it, we take 
 phenomenal views, and read passages over and over 
 again which most distinctly declare facts, without seeing 
 them, or seeing them as just the opposite. As the Bible 
 is the interpreter of Nature, so is Nature the interpreter 
 of the Bible. 
 
 I believe few people's minds have ever been more 
 filled with the Bible than mine has been since I began 
 to see the deep truth of Nature. It brought me, uncon- 
 sciously, to the Bible, and has held me to it ever since. 
 Seeing the truths of Nature, my eyes were opened to 
 truths plainly stated, yet hidden, in the Bible, and 
 which I believe I might have read the Bible endlessly 
 without seeing, had not my eyes been opened by Nature. 
 
 We entirely misconceive the Bible when we think it is 
 of so much consequence to understand it aright, or 
 wonder that it is so easy to misunderstand it ; alike for 
 essential points, as we term them, and unessential. The 
 essential point is that it should give us eternal life, 
 make us love God. This is its work ; if it does this, it 
 does all that is necessary — it saves us. The under- 
 standing it is a matter of development ; it takes place 
 gradually in the world's intellectual progress; man's 
 salvation does not depend on that, but on his feeling 
 that God sacrifices Himself for him, and giving himself 
 thereby to God, which may be felt and done under very 
 many different forms of thought. We have oneness with 
 God in Christ by this mutual love. It is well to under- 
 stand the Bible, and even to understand Nature, but it 
 cannot be done at will ; it is a life, and it takes time and 
 means : but the drawing of life from the Bible is so plain 
 that a fool cannot err therein, it is in loving. The God 
 
2o6 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 whose heart bleeds in our sorrow — He gives us life, in 
 Him we live. But to a God who feels not, does not give 
 Himself to us, we could but say, " Turn away those 
 calm, cold eyes ; mock us not with that unmoved benefi- 
 cence ; let us perish without Thy pity." Not so, oh 
 God ; not so art Thou. Alas, what would it avail that 
 God should love us if He will not make us love ? That 
 we do not love is our misery; that is the death from 
 which we must be delivered. Who will give us life ? 
 "Who but a God that gives to us His own ? 
 
 Consider how the word ''die," though hardly ever 
 used for mere physical death, is constantly, and almost 
 solely, applied to the sacrifice of Christ. Adam died ; 
 Christ died ; we are dead in sins. But when the body 
 dies we do but cease to breathe. This is the idea of the 
 death of Christ ; it was that true death which subserves 
 a new life. Ever the word death seems to be used in 
 that sacred sense. It is a sacred word ; ought we to 
 profane it as we do, by making it a mere ceasing to 
 breathe ? We should learn from the Bible to speak of 
 bodily dying as sleeping, or giving up the breath ; and 
 sanctify the word " death " which has so profound, yea, 
 at once so glad and sorrowful a significance. We speak 
 too lightly of death ; there is no " death " worthy to be 
 so called, that does not stretch out its hand and grasp 
 the skirts of a higher life ; save indeed that utter death 
 wherein he lives who "lives in pleasure." 
 
 With regard to inspiration, the wonder is, not that 
 these men knew the things they have said, but that all 
 men do not know them. Is humanity so utterly fallen 
 that our admiration of, and delight in, the true percep- 
 tion of any man, must be turned into incredulity ? 
 
The Bible. 207 
 
 There are no such believers in the Fall of man as such 
 philosophers. They take a vain trouble to deny the Fall 
 in words who passively acquiesce in it as a fact, and try 
 to teach men so ; holding the Fall as that whereby alone 
 the dignity of man can be maintained, I deny that he is 
 so fallen as they would make out. I deny that he is 
 forbidden ever to aspire to absolute knowledge, to truly 
 loving, self-sacrificing action. I hold him dead indeed, 
 but capable of life ; blind, but having eyes wherewith he 
 is destined yet to see. Dead I admit him to be ; yet I 
 demur to the burial which these men are in such haste 
 to celebrate, and to eat thereafter the funeral feast. 
 Let the meats wait, the viands be untasted yet a little 
 longer, while Love and Hope kiss the pale cheeks and 
 unreturning lips. I believe in the resurrection of the 
 dead ; that this still cold corpse of humanity shall live 
 again. 
 
 Where is the need for inspiration when the Bible 
 doctrines are seen to be a simple statement of the facts, 
 the clear and certain facts, of our life ; and plainly written 
 in all Nature ? Is not inspiration, as every true miracle, 
 the act of humanity, and therefore divine ? Because of 
 this truth is it not that there are so many meanings and 
 applications of the language of the Bible, that it is found 
 to apply to so many things, and to be capable of so many 
 references ? 
 
 The true aspect of religion is not : '* Things are bad, 
 take care " (this is the self-idea) ; but : " Things are 
 good — understand and know ; " your not knowing makes 
 the evil ; things are better than they are to you. 
 
 And farther, respecting inspiration, I remember that 
 
2o8 Philosophy and Religion, 
 
 all such act of God is moral act, and results in moral 
 Being; God's direct inspiration is not of the intellect, 
 but of the spirit, the love, the man. What God's direct 
 inspiration gives, is holiness ; and so we come back to 
 the beauty and delight, that it was holiness that was the 
 inspiration of the sacred writers. " Holy men of God 
 spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost ; " were 
 moved to holiness by the Holy Ghost, and so spake. 
 Yes, it was moral purity, the direct inspiration of God, 
 made these men see. Intellectual enlightenment is, by 
 the very fact of its being intellectual, necessarily among 
 those divine acts which are classed as indirect. 
 
 "Holy men {i.e, humanity) spake;" i.e. God spake. 
 They were holy men, and saw the world as spiritual. 
 Were they not indeed the chief true mystics, who have 
 since sadly degenerated ? The Bible is the great inter- 
 pretative, i.e. mystical, book ; a book written truly by 
 man, with a true perception of the spiritual, excluding 
 the " not." And consider again, with reference to these 
 men seeing the spiritual, that in those days men were not 
 so immersed in hypotheses by Science as we have become ; 
 were not so blinded by materialistic science as we are ; 
 and might have a clearer vision, of less extent perhaps, 
 but of greater exactitude and completeness. I do not see 
 why the truths of the Bible should not have been seen 
 by holy men all those ages ago ; because they are true, 
 and because of the absence of the hypotheses which 
 have so complicated all " actual " questions for us. So 
 many unknown and arbitrary symbols have been of late 
 introduced into our knowledge by the progress of obser- 
 vational or theoretical science, that we find it hard to 
 conceive how clear might have been the vision before. 
 We are not hereby undervaluing the introduction of these 
 
The Bible. 209 
 
 unknown symbols, but seeing quite well that they are 
 the essential means by which alone a higher and more 
 perfect knowledge can be obtained. 
 
 The difficulty about present inspiration comes from 
 putting the whole affair into a human mode ; inspiration 
 goes with the life ; it is part of it ; having life from 
 Christ we must be inspired. And our inspiration is of 
 course the same as that of the scriptural writers ; their 
 inspiration was that they were made alive ; it was not 
 intellectual, nor is ours. How simple it would have been 
 if instead of beginning a long way off we had commenced 
 from the present. We are inspired ; but we know our 
 inspiration does not guard us from error ; i.e. is not 
 intellectual ; it is a fact of life in the actual Being ; 
 it belongs not to the physical or mental, but to the 
 spiritual. Thence we know what was that old inspiration ; 
 it guided into truth — not correct opinions ; but actual 
 truth. Errors in matters of " opinion " or of physical 
 relation in the Bible teach us what true inspiration is, 
 and that it is not a matter of the relative but of the 
 actual. 
 
 It is curious the way in which our divines speak of the 
 *' imperfect " theology of the early centuries. In the 
 second century the Christian writers had not a full 
 appreciation of the Pauline doctrine. Men speaking the 
 same language, partaking the same modes of thought, 
 men whose immediate predecessors had themselves con- 
 versed with him, — these men did not apprehend the true 
 Pauline doctrine. And they confounded justification with 
 being made holy. Strange ; when we consider that the 
 word means being made holy. Is it rather possible that 
 we do not quite comprehend Paul ? Christianity was a 
 
2 1 o Philosophy and Religio7i, 
 
 power then in the world. May not the reason be that 
 they knew what it was better than we ? Perhaps they 
 did confound justification with being made holy; but 
 might it not be some compensation if they were really 
 made holy ? Perhaps they did not see Christ's death as 
 a price, an expiation, as w^e do ; but what if they were 
 made "conformable" to it? Which is the important 
 thing — the understanding or the being ? 
 
 The true key to the Bible is to read it quite simply 
 and naturally, without any particular regard or reverence, 
 but as common sense ; we pervert our view, trying to find 
 deep meanings. In two opposite ways are we perverted ; 
 — we leave out all the actual meaning ; e.g. in those 
 passages respecting Christ as being man, and those which 
 say that God is in us ; and then we fancy deep and 
 obscure ideas in things which are so very simple. We 
 need have no discomfort in studying the Bible ; it is the 
 simplest, most transparent, most friendly and familiar 
 of all books. 
 
 We are so afraid of the Bible, handle it as if it was 
 full of traps and pitfalls, and if we were not most cautious 
 would let us into some great sin. Surely it is a friend ; 
 it came into the world not to condemn the world, but 
 that through it it should be saved. And why cannot we 
 be content not to understand it ; just as we are in respect 
 to Nature ? And how monstrous it is that we should 
 think ourselves bound to "justify" it all, and be able 
 to show it all worthy of God, etc. Even at the utmost 
 we should say that if we saw it rightly we should under- 
 stand ; as we say of Nature ? In truth, the study of the 
 Bible and of Nature have been prevented very much 
 alike by this idea ; it interferes with all proper exercise 
 
The Bible. 211 
 
 of thought, besides constraining us to insist on ascribing 
 to God and maintaining to be worthy of Him the most 
 wretched fancies of our own. It is making our intellect 
 the judge of God, instead of our hearts. This is the 
 vicious root from which our opinion-religion springs. 
 We should study the Bible : its being the word of God 
 just puts it where Nature is ; and it should be studied 
 in the same way; with the same freedom, pleasure, 
 patience ; feeling that any opinion may be erroneous : 
 this is the true reverence. An '* opinion-religion " is a 
 monstrous perversion, yet it goes necessarily with a sen- 
 sational-religion. We may say to men : " Fear not ; 
 God will not damn you for anything you think or do 
 respecting this book; but if you are damned you will 
 dislike or despise this book : thus there is a sort of test 
 for you in it." The Bible does not want any believing ; 
 it may be seen to be true ; like other things that are true, 
 the idea of believing is not to the point. *' To believe in 
 Christ " is another thing ; that God sacrificed Himself 
 in Him for man ; this is to love God so as to have eternal 
 life, to be saved. The man who believes in Christ will 
 certainly be saved. 
 
 I have noted the infinity of the Bible ; how it is like 
 Nature in that ; different from all other books, which have 
 a certain grasp and limit, and which one can wholly 
 master. Now, is not this the cause of it ; viz. that all 
 things are treated absolutely, in relation to the spiritual 
 or actual ; everything entirely in subordination to that 
 and as dependent upon it ? So it grasps the fact, and 
 all the form follows by mere necessity. Surely if one 
 can enter fully into the spirit of the Biblical writings, 
 their virtue may imbue his writings too ; that marvellous 
 power which the Scriptures have possessed be shared, as 
 
2 12 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 it were. All human books look at the forms as existing 
 in and for themselves more or less ; put the form for the 
 fact ; are limited therefore, and transient necessarily ; 
 but to lay hold of the fact, and show all forms as from 
 and in relation to it, is to rise to the level of the Bible. 
 All mystics have attempted this, but as yet has not only 
 the Bible succeeded ? It alone sees all the form to be 
 mere form; truly draws the line of "being." The key 
 to the Bible is these two things, first it puts the " not " 
 in us ; second it is speaking of eternal things, not tem- 
 poral, i.e. not future; in futurity the eternity is lost. 
 The eternal is that of which existence can be predicated, 
 and therefore it is not in time, in which is only form. 
 The eternal not only is but always was. It is the fact, 
 the actual ; it is that which brings us into relation and 
 oneness with the infinite fact. The things that are 
 unseen are eternal. 
 
 The Bible is a miracle, the miracle ; the type and 
 example of them. If we can learn how it was, then we 
 know all miracles. Nothing can be more miraculous 
 than that its writers said those things ; the raising from 
 the dead is less, it raises us from the dead. Here is the 
 problem of miracle submitted practically to ourselves ; 
 find out how the Bible came to be. It is of no use saying 
 nothing can transcend the laws of Nature, and so on — 
 here is the fact ; find the law of it. The law of love it is, 
 this includes all ahke. Show that the fact of Nature is 
 love, and we have miracles in their right place at once. 
 
 We are of course obliged to deal with the Bible as we 
 do, ignoring all but those passages which agree with our 
 particular " views." It is not from any irreverence, but 
 the necessary result of confounding the actual and the 
 
The Bible. 213 
 
 intellectual; thinking that to religion certain opinions 
 are necessary. We cannot let the matter rest open; 
 saying : This means more than I can see : my views on 
 these subjects may be quite wrong. We cling to that 
 which we think, which has been the best opinion we 
 could arrive at, and there remain ; to let our opinion go 
 is to us letting religion go. 
 
 Here is the difference between the Bible and the world. 
 The world says, " We are as God made us ; " the Bible, 
 " You are not as God made you, but in a state in which 
 your true God-given Being is an abeyance." The world 
 says, '' The world is good as it is to us, and we will make 
 it better." '^ It is not good," replies the Bible, ** and you 
 must be delivered from it." The world says, " Man is a 
 great and glorious being ; it is a grand thing to be a man, 
 with his free-will and his virtue." The Bible says, 
 " This being man, as you call it, is being merely dead 
 and corrupt ; there is no goodness in it or in him ; God 
 must be in him ; that is the sole possible good in relation 
 to him." This is the radical opposition between the two, 
 and our Christianity has in it the virtue of neither, and 
 spoils both. So we are perpetually, while professing 
 Christianity, apt to use the language of the world ; ever 
 prone to speak of man as the world speaks of him, because, 
 in truth, that way of regarding him is in our doctrines 
 and in our hearts. 
 
 We have done one thing with reference to the two ends 
 of the world, as it were : viz. put into them all the 
 Divine and eternal. We have put all creation into the 
 past, infinite ages ago ; all salvation and damnation into 
 the future. The present, we are determined, shall be a 
 blank; there shall be nothing Divine while we live. But 
 
2 14 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 in truth, in what does the present differ from all other, 
 but in respect to us ? The actual or eternal is as much 
 now as ever it can have been or can be. "We think the 
 Biblical writers were speaking of things a long way off, 
 whereas they spoke of the eternal, of which it is the 
 property to he. We think it far off because we do not 
 see it ; but this is not because it is so, but because we are 
 dead. So we invent hypotheses necessarily ; the actual 
 is present in the Bible as in Nature, and we use them 
 both in one way. 
 
 It is said that the difference of the physical and sj)iritual 
 is one of time ; I say it is one of perception only. So it 
 cannot depend on bodily death, which is an affair of time, 
 but must depend on some change in us not material. 
 W^e being the same, must still be bodily ; death is only a 
 change, not a ceasing, of the material conditions ; the 
 material can cease to us only by a change in us which is 
 not material. What a strange conception that by a 
 change merely material, we can be delivered from matter ! 
 What a superstition that is about a person going to die, 
 and unprepared ! Transmigration, a material existence 
 of some sort after death, would seem to be involved here. 
 
 Think again respecting the Pharisees believing the 
 resurrection, so primary an element in Christianity, 
 and yet they so emphatically wrong and so denounced 
 by Christ. W^as not theirs a perverted view, in thus 
 putting it off until a future, after the history of the 
 world came to an end ? was it not an importation from 
 heathenism, a departure from pure Judaism ? When 
 Martha said of Lazarus, " I know that he shall rise 
 again in the resurrection," how Christ seems to turn 
 entirely aside from that view as if to reprove and to 
 
The Bible. 215 
 
 correct — *' 1 am the Eesurrection and the Life." Is it 
 not as if to say, " There is no true resurrection but in 
 that life which is derived from Me ; do not look to any 
 mere physical change " ? Again, " Those that are 
 accounted worthy to attain that life and the resurrection 
 from the dead . . . neither can they die any more." 
 " He that believeth on Me shall never die." Is not here 
 the distinction of the resurrection of life and the resur- 
 rection of damnation to be regarded? So Paul's ex- 
 pressions, "to attain to the resurrection," "the first 
 resurrection : " nothing can reveal these passages to us 
 but the remembrance of the actual resurrection. Cannot 
 we see that all the change that needs to be, needs to be 
 in us, not in anything external : nothing other than as 
 it is, but we seeing it truly. So escaping from the 
 physical condition, not by any passive external change 
 but by change in us ; the physical being from our con- 
 dition. Only the dead can be in a dead world. 
 
 Think now there cannot be true and absolute Evil (and 
 therefore not absolute Good), because evil is no evil if 
 the subject be altered ; that which is pain and therefore 
 evil, may cease to be pain by alteration only in the sub- 
 ject ; so it cannot be in itself evil. In truth. Being, that 
 which is, cannot be either good or evil ; it is above them ; 
 it is. So there is a wisdom in that " knowing good and 
 evil." This has a wide bearing. Think how God appearing 
 to Adam after the transgression — the chief and greatest 
 of all goods — was evil to him ; made him afraid and hide 
 himself; he tried to avoid God. Now here is simply 
 what we do ; in all these things we call evil, God comes 
 to us, and we are afraid. To us it is evil, and we try to 
 avoid Him. This is the explanation of all. When we 
 are made alive again we shall rejoice to meet God ; there 
 
2i6 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 will be no evil, for observe how there can be no fact but 
 God coming to us. There is no other Being to come. 
 The fact of all our experience must be that ; all else is 
 negation merely. 
 
 Try it even with a child ; is it possible to make him 
 loving save by love ? If he even think that the fact which 
 surrounds him is not love, will he not certainly grow up 
 unloving ? Is not this now the basis of all wise educa- 
 tion — make a child feel that it is loved ? So man was 
 growing up, not feeling that he was loved, in such a blind 
 state that he could not see that the entire fact of his 
 experience was indeed that ; and God had to show him 
 that he was loved to " save " him. This was the revela- 
 tion the world wanted ; not duty, not immortality, not 
 retribution, not a personal God — but redemptioji ; that 
 the fact of man's experience is that he is loved. Thinking 
 otherwise, man must of course strive after good for him- 
 self. It is useless to talk against it ; so useless that it is 
 not even tried. Theologians even, and preachers, have 
 embraced that very doctrine. What the world wants is 
 some revelation, some knowledge or fact, that should 
 make us not care about ourselves. Orthodoxy has this 
 element, in part, and it is its life. Its argument is, that 
 Christ's loving and saving us wiU make us love Him, and 
 so we shall not care about ourselves ; but this will not 
 do ; it must be saving the world, or the purpose is not 
 answered. No, not even the saving of a single soul can 
 be achieved, not one man can be saved, if humanity be 
 not redeemed. Even practically we see this. 
 
 I cannot even think a partial redemption. Man is 
 either redeemed or not redeemed ; for in truth each man 
 is what he is by virtue of all being what they are ; the 
 
The Bible. 217 
 
 state of humanity determines that of each man. This is 
 our interest in humanity ; what is to man is everything 
 to us. Here is a profound truth : the true life and well- 
 being of man, of each man, is in that of humanity ; but 
 it seems not so to us. So in learning self-sacrifice for 
 others, we are in truth regarding only our own true 
 good ; it is only getting right to the fact. 
 
 It is said : Does not trust in God make men neglectful 
 in respect to business, etc. ? Here is the difference ; it is 
 as darkness and light. That is a trust on behalf of the 
 self, thinking God will take care of myself. It believes 
 in " special providences ; " and this world's business is 
 trusted to accidents ; God is not seen in the laws of 
 Nature and of Life. It is in truth the profoundest mis- 
 trust, it is the essence of unbelief. True trust is trust in 
 God against the self ; it is recognizing Him in all law 
 and necessity ; it is seeing eternal fact in these human 
 affairs. How miserable is this belief in God taking care 
 of the particular self ; instead of delivering from it and 
 destroying it. What a perversion of the idea of faith, 
 what a travestie of religion, and, above all, of that of 
 Christ ! Happily the feeling, the heart of the men who 
 say these things, is constantly quite different from their 
 words. 
 
 Eeligion cannot and ought not to compete with the 
 world in its appeal to the selfish passions. Men are right 
 in preferring this world to the next ; this is not wicked- 
 ness, but mere common sense and scripturalness. It is a 
 perversion to make out that the Bible seeks to make men 
 give the preference to the future over the present ; it 
 seeks to make them give preference to the eternal, the 
 actual, the fact which is necessarily present, over the form, 
 
2i8 Philosophy and Religio7i. 
 
 which alone can be the future. This is the very spirit of 
 the Bible, to seek not the future but the present. Do 
 not get (future), but he (now). "Now is the day of 
 salvation." This is its doctrine, this its precept, this its 
 suasion of love : attend to the present, do not sacrifice it 
 for the future ; live now, do not seek to get. Passion is 
 ever in reference not to that which is, but that which is 
 to be ; it is from want ; its eye is necessarily on the 
 future. Christ seeks to turn us from the future, which 
 can be only form, to the present. So men in refusing to 
 attend to the future and preferring the present (or that 
 which is nearest to it) carry out the spirit of the Bible. 
 And the world ever will and ought to carry the day until 
 it is put quite otherwise than this. 
 
 It is interesting to see how theology has been misled 
 by accommodating itself to the phenomenon. The pheno- 
 menon is that men are led by self-interest ; so preachers 
 have thought that if they could convince men that it was 
 to their interest to be religious, they would be so. But 
 it is a great mistake ; it is not the fact that men are most 
 influenced by self-interest. That is not the 'power in the 
 world. Our passion, the pursuit of pleasure, are not 
 self-interest or self-regard ; they are giving self, finding 
 our satisfaction in the object. [Not to say that all that 
 truly moves mankind must have in it an element of 
 generosity : even money-getting is for wife and children.] 
 Keligion can only subdue and rule the passions by being 
 a giving of self also, a truer, fuller self-giving. It must 
 say : " Give yourself" — as the passions do — or they will 
 utterly overbear it. But " Give yourself to God ; not to 
 these mere forms which are illusions and deceits, but to 
 the very fact and reality of all. Religion is the fulfil- 
 ment, not the restraint, of the passions ; it is liberty. 
 
The Bible. 219 
 
 not enslavement ; it absorbs the humanity, not sets it 
 aside. It is that for which the heart cries out and longs ; 
 which the visions of youth prophesy, the weariness of 
 disappointed age implores. 
 
 Our Christianity making men think more of damnation, 
 necessarily makes us think so much of suffering ; it puts 
 that as the great fact before us, and so unmans us. Thus 
 we are vastly worse than the ancients, w^ho gave freer 
 play to that most distinctively human of instincts, that 
 of despising pain, almost the first demand in a true, 
 strong, great character. First get over the fear of pain, 
 then some good may come to you — this is the true philo- 
 sophy of human nature. But we say, "Be afraid of pain ; 
 so you may save your soul." It is a miserable state we 
 are in, between two fires. Truly to be redeemed is to be 
 redeemed from fear of pain ; for fear of pain and self- 
 regard are one and the same thing. Fear of pain is the 
 source of all temptation. Nor is it any better to say that 
 it is the hope of happiness, rather ; for the two are one. 
 Desire of happiness (any other than utter self-sacrifice) is 
 only fear of pain. I say this doctrine of ours of salvation, 
 making us regard pain so much, makes temptation so 
 strong : this which is cultivated in us is the very strength 
 of sin. So life is such a toil and struggle for Christians ; 
 it must be hard for them to practise virtue, for they are 
 afraid of pain. Their very light is turned to darkness ; 
 the medicine that is given them takes aw^ay their 
 strength. 
 
 Men preach, how if we will do, believe, etc., all will be 
 well. How can I believe that which will only he if 1 
 believe ? To be believed, a fact must first be, not after- 
 wards. It is not, " If you believe, you are redeemed," 
 
2 20 Philosophy and Religio7i. 
 
 but, " You are redeemed — believe it and know the fact " ! 
 This is it : ahke the wicked and the good, the dead and 
 the living, the self-regarding and the loving, the deluded 
 and the knowing, are channels; they are sacrificed for 
 the good of the world. It only needs that I should know 
 this, and love or be willing, and at once I am perfectly 
 happy. What more could I wish ? We thought there 
 was something more to get^ and now we are awake and 
 find that we have all things, and can only half believe it 
 for happiness and wonder. It is like an infant dreaming : 
 in its dream it seems in a desolate dark place, where its 
 mother is not, and it wants ; it strives to stretch out its 
 hands to seek, to get ; it seems to wander here and there, 
 and never finds. Until it wakes ; and then it sees and 
 knows again, and behold, its mother's bosom is its pillow, 
 and its little hands, groping in the darkness, have been 
 clasped in hers. It did not want anything ; only to be 
 waked. 
 
 It is strange, except that we learn by error, that ever 
 a real (physical) fire should have been supposed as hell. 
 Christ's words, " the fire is not quenched," seem expressly 
 designed to deny it. For it is the essence of the real to 
 cease. Christ says *' hell, where there is fire," but not 
 physical ; a worm, corruption, but not physical. Is not 
 this the exact meaning of the passage, to guard us against 
 supposing it merely physical ? We are told — by denying 
 its special characteristic — that it is not physical. And 
 I believe this would be understood so by the hearers ; it 
 is a refinement of philosophers that matter and motion 
 do not cease. Again, a burning heart is the intensest 
 symbol of love, burning but not consumed ; a ceaseless 
 fire that burns without consuming, is the very type of 
 love. The sun, too, is burning, and the functions of the 
 
The Bible. 221 
 
 body are a true burning ; Science calls them so. 
 Function, which is love, is ever burning. 
 
 This world differs from heaven and hell in one way ; 
 viz. that God's full presence is not made manifest, but 
 obscurely seen by physical images. The full manifesta- 
 tion constitutes at once heaven to the good, hell to the 
 wicked. 
 
 Do we want to know why violence and cruelty and 
 every vice exists ? It is to teach us — yes, us — that we 
 must love and not be selfish. These things come because 
 man is dead, and they bid him live. He would never 
 have known that he was dead without them. When we 
 %o love that we treat all wrong with love instead of 
 punishment, as God does, then wrong will cease. Then 
 Christ will be seen; and His words spoken in such 
 darkness and so little heeded, so held up to ridicule by 
 those who know Him not, so cautiously explained and 
 limited by those who think they know Him, lest they 
 should impede His cause, will appear, as in truth they 
 are, the most striking proofs that He was indeed The 
 Man, i.e. was God. 
 
 Comte's idea of ignoring the absolute is like accepting 
 the Iliad simply as a fact, and not asking any questions 
 about either Homer or humanity. Which indeed would 
 have the justification that neither Homer as an arbitrary 
 fact, nor the development of humanity without Homer, 
 sufficiently accounts for it. So, neither the theological 
 nor the metaphysical view accounts for the world. But 
 surely God's act and man's death together do. The great 
 point is that of man's actual death; it is the "not" 
 which " matter," or the hypothesis, reveals. This the 
 theological view does not recognize, and so makes death 
 
2 2 2 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 a special affair, and one of difficulty and embarrassment. 
 It has excluded it from its proper place as the cause of 
 the materiality^ or inertia, of Nature, and of course finds 
 it a constant difficulty. This puts theology wrong in 
 relation to the Bible, which is based on that fact from 
 first to last. This is the key to the embarrassments of 
 theology ; it has to introduce man's death, as a fact, into 
 a system which truly rests upon that fact, and yet is 
 considered to be independent of it. Just as if, having 
 refused to admit Homer as author of the Iliad, men 
 should stiU be trying to bring him in as in some myste- 
 rious way connected with it, as having — Heaven knows 
 what — deteriorated it, or something. Science on the 
 other hand looks at the " not " as being itself the fact, 
 and ignores the actual fact itself, altogether. The oneness 
 of the two, in spite of their apparent hostility, is evident. 
 
 Think of a man utterly selfish ; how is it possible tha t 
 an3^thing worse should happen to him? How can we 
 want to punish him ? he is already the most miserable of 
 beings, suffering the greatest evil, enduring; the neatest 
 loss. One may think pain may be added, and so a 
 punishment; but certainly not remorse. Moral pain 
 cannot be added leaving the selfishness or death ; it is 
 itself a sign and means of life. To suppose Hell remorse , 
 is to suppose it a rise, a making alive, and not death. 
 A man who has been sunk in selfishness can only rise 
 into remorse. This is our error, that we put pain and 
 pleasure above the moral, and think more of being 
 miserable than of being wicked. Pain is in its nature 
 temporal ; the moral sense exists not for our punishment, 
 but to save us. 
 
 Probably the Devil is a Pharisee, and says to all 
 
The Bible. 223 
 
 the angels, " Stand by, I am holier than thou." So he 
 is not saved ; even as the publicans and sinners entered 
 into heaven before the Pharisees. Is not man this 
 outcast " sinner," and Satan the self-righteous, rich and 
 comfortable, saying, " God, I thank Thee " ? Is not 
 this the Devil? he cannot go down to his house ''justi- 
 fied." [How beautiful is rectified here : the publican 
 was the most "just-made " man.] The Devil cannot be 
 saved ; he has no part in Christ's sacrifice. He came 
 not to call the righteous, but sinners ; not devils, but 
 men ; to repentance. The Pharisees are serpents, vipers ; 
 the Devil is the great serpent : the Pharisees are described 
 as binding burdens, but not touching them ; Satan hinds. 
 And again, the first temptation was under a religious 
 Quise, instruction how to be like God — surely the Devil 
 is a Pharisee. 
 
 Is there not something here? — the devils are ''re- 
 served in chains and darkness : " like a Pharisee, this is. 
 They are said to "believe and tremble." The rich, 
 well-satisfied men tremble sometimes, and there is 
 misery before them. Let them — let the Devil — pray to 
 be miserable ; or at least weep and howl for the miseries 
 that are coming. The devils are to be "tormented" — 
 there is hope even for them. Does this throw light on 
 the parable of Dives and Lazarus? Did Christ put a 
 higher meaning into this superstition of the Jews : does 
 this show the rich man tormented -with the Devil here- 
 after? See how the "goats" are sent into quenchless 
 or eternal fire reserved for him and his angels : such as 
 for the Devil, such for them ; if their redemption, theirs 
 also who share with them. So that there may be a 
 future, as well as this present, hell, and men who are 
 Pharisees are reserved for this even as the devils are. 
 Christ preaching to the spirits in prison suggests the 
 
2 24 Philosophy ajid Religion. 
 
 "chains and darkness," surely. How monstrous is that 
 fear of preaching any salvation after death lest it should 
 make men persevere in sin ! When shall we see that it 
 is a present salvation, a glorious gift that God has given 
 us, and through us offers to men ? What matters the 
 future ? Here is life for the dead, healing for the sick, 
 love for the selfish — surely this is enough. 
 
 With this view of the Devil well agrees, "the Devil 
 is an egoist" (Goethe). And also in this: Pharisaism 
 is formalism — putting form for fact ; and not knowing, 
 not having the life to feel, that there is any other fact : 
 most exactly the Devil is a formalist. This is virtually 
 the same with his being a miser ; they are the same in 
 their respective relations. The Devil is satisfied with 
 the form — the physical. What can those " chains and 
 darkness " be, which are not physical, but such a moral 
 state? And think, in respect to darkness, what icants ii 
 produces in us, how it sets us upon getting: we can 
 attend to nothing else but the supply of this want. It 
 accords well with the idea of the physical as producing 
 wants, or passions; or best of all perhaps, is a not- 
 knowledge, ig-norance : this makes wants. A man in 
 the dark cannot be at rest : light gives calm, repose, 
 assurance — man wants to see. 
 
 There is no dealing with the facts of the world save on 
 the view that the sensational is nothing. This is not 
 hard-hearted, it is the only way in which the heart can 
 face the facts of the world ; a true deep sympathy neces- 
 sitates it, or drives mad. We require to get back (in a 
 higher form) that old doctrine that the material is below 
 the man and unworthy of regard ; our habit of regarding 
 it so much and tracing in it so especially God's glory, 
 has perverted our hearts. 
 
The Bible. 225 
 
 Our idea of this as man's probation — especially when 
 we force the Bible into it ; or rather force ourselves to 
 graft the Bible upon it — leads us to a view of the world 
 that is utter mystery and darkness. Nothing can be 
 clearer than that it was quite otherwise with those who 
 wrote the New Testament. They had a view, a revela- 
 tion, that made all liglit to them; they saw the earth 
 " full of the glory of God ; " they had something to pro- 
 claim, which, if people only knew it, would make them 
 full of happiness and perfect in rejoicing. They had, in 
 fact, redemption to proclaim. 
 
 Men will and must maintain a vicarious punishment, 
 a forensic proceeding such as is the essential tenet of 
 orthodoxy, while they think they are not punished in 
 this world. Mak e them see that this is the pun ishment, ! 
 the eternal damnation from which jChr^st savej them ; 1 
 that it is not postponed, and not possibly remitted alto- ' 
 gether, and then this substitution theory falls. And 
 then as for the punishment of men's evil deeds and 
 feelings, that for which we have consciousness of ill- 
 desert, these, as temporal or physical, have also their 
 punishment. This too is inflicted, and to the full; 
 sinning does work misery. Christ does not relieve men 
 from this punishment of sin ; a man who sows evil reaps 
 evil — ^just as much the best Christian as any other man. 
 It is the eternal, the actual punishment, the damnation, 
 from which Christ saves us, from which we must be saved 
 or are utterly undone. The other sensational physical 
 punishment we can — nay, must — bear ; by that (in part) 
 our salvation is made possible. 
 
 This is God's hell — the very means and fact of redemp- 
 tion ; bright with beauty, thrilling with delight, the 
 
 Q 
 
226 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 image of that Love which is His Being, which is all 
 Being, the want of which is death. This is God's hell — 
 this glorious phenomenon, this marvellous life within us 
 and without : so tenderly inviting, so sternly warning, so 
 inevitably avenging — that wakens us to fervour, moves 
 us to tears, fills us with remorse and agony and shame ; 
 that will not let us rest nor have peace, until self be 
 made hateful to us and utterly abandoned, and God's 
 own life be in us. This, that by suffering draws to love ; 
 by pain and pleasure, by temptation and failure, teaches 
 us to give and not to get. I say this is God's hell: 
 what of our hell ? 
 
 Our notion of damnation makes it the very worst sort 
 of punishment, that which all jurists deprecate — very 
 severe and very uncertain. We darken the whole earth 
 with it, and yet are afraid to pronounce it upon any 
 individual. It is a mockery, this " eternal misery ; " 
 prevents our saying of any one boldly, ''He is damned;" 
 and of course no one believes he will be damned. In- 
 finitely better, even on lowest grounds, is the other view. 
 
 What a simple and beautiful view this gives of that 
 early Christianity ; those men living with Christ had this 
 new life, probably more from Him personally than from 
 His words ; that sinfulness is damnation, infinite eternal 
 evil ; that love is eternal life : and so they went about 
 telling every one of this deliverance there was from sin 
 and how to obtain it — the revelation of God as the self- 
 sacrifice. This indeed is the very glory of Christianity, 
 this new doctrine of eternal or present damnation. Men 
 had the doctrine of sin and suffering before, looking to 
 the actions, or deeds. Christianity went to the root and 
 to the heart ; teaching now being evil is the death, the 
 
The Bible. 227 
 
 damnation, the eternal punishment; enhghtening the 
 heart and spirit, that this is worse than all sensational 
 (therefore temporal) punishment, all suffering : turning 
 men away from this to regard the corruption, the death, 
 that is not to be but is. So imparting a new life, a new 
 sensibility, revealing it in the life and death of Christ ; 
 so, and only possibly so ; making men feel that this state 
 of self-indulgence is damnation, the worst of all evil, 
 from which all suffering that can help us to escape is 
 love and blessing. And not stopping here, in doctrine, 
 merely, it does what was never dreamt of before ; it 
 reveals a means of redemption and re-creation — saving 
 us from regard to self: — the self-sacrifice of Christ for 
 us, and love to Him. Thus it saves us from damnation, 
 which the law of philosophy alike could never do, because 
 they appeal and can appeal only to the self-regard, 
 which is damnation. 
 
 So Christianity overcame the world; clearly it must 
 have done so : what could stand against that which de- 
 livered men from self-indulgence and self-seeking, which 
 gave them actual life ? Until men brought back their 
 own death into it, their own ignorance, and made it to 
 speak of those future temporal sensational things of 
 which it was natural to think. 
 
 Think of this : how can we foresee what God will do 
 for us ? Suppose a child should stipulate about what 
 sort of happiness he should enjoy as a man, would he 
 ever have invented love"^ Would he not have insisted 
 upon all sorts of pleasures and enjoyments, on having 
 things given to him, on being mad e comfortable ? Would 
 he ever have thought of utterly abandoning himself in 
 absolute devotion to another ? C ould he have imagined 
 that new ecstatic life ? Alas ! we are worse than children, 
 
2 28 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 and more foolish. How soon children learn the idea of 
 love ; how easily and naturally it comes to them ; how 
 soon they understand the suhject when they see lovers ; 
 what an instinct draws them to the unknown life. But 
 we — we see heavenly lovers, yet our hearts do not 
 respond ; we see men who count all pleasures vanity, all 
 sufferings a joy, because they love and give themselves, 
 but our hearts do not beat with prophetic throbs ; and 
 w hen our childish thoughts stretch out to imagine for 
 ourselves the coming bliss, we cleave to our toys an"? 
 sweets, and say : '^ But when I am a man I shall have 
 plenty of nice things." No, thank God we shall not ; 
 
 )ut we shall love. There shall be no pleasure for us 
 
 in heaven, save in infinite abandonment; no gain b ut 
 i n utter loss ; no possession save in giving. 
 
 The joy of heaven is the joy of love. The key to it is 
 in Christ, who for the joy that was set before Him 
 endured all. Christ's was the joy of self-sacrifice, of 
 loving, of saving, of giving up His life for another's. 
 But this is no joy save to those who love. Heaven 
 is not a happiness save as we love ; only to those 
 who have eternal life can there be happiness. We 
 cannot attain love by seeking for joy ; so men are not 
 to be converted by holding out to them the joy of 
 heaven ; that cannot make them love, any more than 
 the fear of hell. We can only love for love's own sake, 
 in sacrificing self. Love is the actual, it is Being : in 
 loving, man is. It is true that much of this is said 
 (truth always is) ; it is said that heaven would be no 
 heaven to a wicked man. But then, to be consistent, 
 what of those intellectual pleasures, and of the rest, 
 and no more sorrow and sighing — are not these an 
 attraction to the unholy? It is here we are wrong; 
 
The Bible. 229 
 
 in not seeing that the joy of love is all, and that it is 
 enough. 
 
 God's love is not exhausted in Christ, only brought 
 down to us. It is just so much as we can see ; not a 
 great effort, as it were, the highest achievement of 
 Divine goodness, just done once. It is love, appearing 
 so small that we may see that it is love ; as a father 
 condescends to do little things for his child that he may 
 see that he loves him. The father's love is constantly 
 active in vastly greater spheres, which the child cannot 
 appreciate or know of, but in that loving and dying we 
 understand that it is love. So even Christ's work is to 
 cease ; the Mediator to be no more ; God is to be all 
 in all. 
 
 As our power of loving, and therefore of knowing love, 
 increases, we shall come to see the love of God swallow- 
 ing up our special connection of it with the sacrifice of 
 Christ. " He shall deliver up the kingdom to His 
 Father." And think again, how the world could not 
 have seen the love of God in Christ until it had been 
 educated by all the previous time. 
 
 Man only needs to know that the fact of these things 
 that he loves is God, and he is redeemed. These 
 passions have for their object, God, the fact. We seek 
 for God, else we should be contented by what we get. 
 It is because we love God, and do not know, do not see 
 the fact, that we go to such excess, run so into sin. We 
 go ever on and on, and must, till we find what we seek. 
 Man's soul thirsts for God. All his passions are the 
 heaving of his soul beneath that Infinite Beauty; he 
 cannot be content until he has found Him. 
 
230 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 This goodness and love of God in making creatures 
 happy, which, we dwell upon, is not true love, were it 
 ever so perfect, which it is not. If we want truly to see 
 the love of God we must see it where Christ sought it ; 
 in sorrow, in sin, in agony ; in the lowest, the vilest, the 
 wretchedest. It is not in lovely landscapes, in splendid 
 palaces, in forms of beauty, in the heaping up of 
 delights : that is man's love — God's love is seen in 
 sacrifice. So too we see better why Christ was crucified ; 
 for our blindness' sake, that we might not be able to 
 close our eyes to the Divine self-sacrifice. Not that 
 that was so much in itself, but it was needful for our 
 dull material sense to learn : such as that is all Nature. 
 And so seeing, we come to perceive that the true death, 
 the true self-sacrifice of God for man, infinitely out- 
 shining any martyr's torture, was the life of Christ ; His 
 becoming the dead man ; not dying as man, to rise the 
 living God. 
 
 The meaning of " This is My body " is very large. 
 God giving us food is giving Himself to us. The fact of 
 eating food is that ; because it is in such form does not 
 affect it. It is entirely an abuse, our making it such a 
 special ordinance ; not that it is not such, but that all 
 are such. All life is sacred when we become quite 
 spiritual, and see all as actual ; but why not therefore 
 now ? It is the very means of our becoming spiritual. 
 How powerful a means of redemption it would be as 
 often as we used food to do it in remembrance of Christ ; 
 to see the spiritual fact beneath the form ; to remember 
 that Christ has shown us what the fact is, and so not be 
 deceived by the form, thinking that the mere pleasure of 
 getting can be the fact ; writing " non sihi " upon all. And 
 indeed, who can say " non sihi " and not think of Christ ? 
 
The Bible. 231 
 
 So here we see the meaning and feel the appropriate- 
 ness of the Lord's Supper. It is because our relation to 
 God is so intimate that no other expression for it is 
 adequate or truthful. The use of it proves the case so. 
 For what other relationship would "eating flesh and 
 drinking blood " be fit language, or that sacrament a fit 
 emblem? That relationship, not to be described like 
 others, demands that expression. As bread and wine 
 are the very life and body of the man — as he is not, 
 except by them — so is it that God is us, makes us, is 
 our life and Being; we cannot be separated, we must 
 live by Him. It is not that we live separately and by 
 ourselves, and then come into relation with a Being 
 apart from us, as we do with others ; but we only live 
 or he at all by Him ; the relation to Him is not a result, 
 but the source of the life. 
 
 With regard to prayer. True, God does not change ; 
 the fact, His act, changes not, but the 'phenomenon of it 
 may change. That is change, not in God, but in man. 
 " If that be all, why then pray for it ? " Observe, is it 
 not real to us ? Is it not what we want ? We must 
 allow that prayer will not change what is, but it may 
 change what is in time. 
 
 Although the phenomenal only is subject to the power 
 of prayer, yet is not that all that it should be ? Is it 
 not to that our feelings cling, and about which our hopes, 
 fears and desires twine? Is it not the "actual" to 
 us ? and is not that all we would wish or desire to alter ? 
 Would we alter the fact of the universe, alter what God 
 does and wills ? This is the scope and place of prayer. 
 
 We may own and reverence, and heartily consent to, 
 prayer; but we must nevertheless protest against its 
 
232 Philosophy and Religio7i, 
 
 being brought in as a kind of salve to make tolerable a 
 theory of things that ought to be intolerable, and left in 
 its naked hideousness in order that it might bo felt so : 
 viz. the idea that God has arranged a system in which 
 evils, and bad and inexcusable things in themselves, 
 may befall, by His abstinence, as it were, and permission. 
 We must not call in prayer and Divine interference, to 
 help us to swallow this camel ; straining meanwhile at 
 the gnat of him who says : *' I see that God rules all, 
 and I do not see how to pray." Of course, a seeing 
 person cannot see how to pray, when prayer has been 
 obscured, nay, blotted out, by such representations. 
 
 Christianity is not a theology but a fact. We see 
 men are fallen, are wicked, and are redeemed by 
 Christ ; words are vain, and nothing to the point ; say it 
 how we like, here it is. Wicked men, dead men, do 
 receive life from Christ ; are redeemed, are made holy ; 
 it matters not to talk. And there is " none other Name " 
 — no other religion does it, attempts it, tends towards it. 
 
 Seeing the world perfectly right and good is the true 
 basis of all earnest and energetic action ; for it is as a 
 means it is right, because of what is to be by it. A man 
 who sees and approves a means as such, does not rest 
 in it ; he acts and uses it. Seeing the world thus right 
 and good, necessarily we throw ourselves heart and soul 
 into the great life ; God's (Nature's) action absorbs and 
 carries us away too. If He works in us, there is a 
 necessarily unfailing source of activity and zeal that 
 casts the self out of us, and makes us one with the 
 course of Nature. All other action must be laborious 
 and lifeless in comj^arison. So we see the meaning of 
 the apostles' contentment with the world ; their finding 
 
The Bible. 233 
 
 it full of God's glory; and at the same time their 
 earnest, intense zeal to alter it. It is as God finds it, as 
 He sees the world. His seeing the evil right and good, 
 and not being a thing He cannot tolerate (or however we 
 may like to say it), does not paralyze His activity, does 
 not prevent His curing the evil. 
 
 Men will cling to the form, let what will come of the 
 fact. We will have the believing in Christ, though 
 there be nothing in it, it must be that form though it be 
 nonentity. The fact, the life, or what is nearest to it, 
 may be elsewhere ; but this we utterly abjure, if there 
 be not the Christian form. It is thus : once there was 
 connected with Christ the very fact of man's Being ; He 
 gave life to men ; now we have forgotten all about the 
 life, and use Him more or less worthily merely as a 
 means for getting something. And yet now more than 
 ever we will have Him accepted and sworn by, though 
 there be no longer any life connected with Him : this is 
 our orthodoxy. But this is not the end; the stream 
 does not flow through the channels where His Name is 
 named ; but it flows still, and none the less from Him. 
 Christ is the sole life of this our modern world, the sole 
 though unacknowledged source and spring of its love 
 and self-sacrifice. In those ages when the Church was 
 darkest, where were the saved? Why, out of the 
 Church ; among those who denied that Christ. Men are 
 bound to deny our Christ, but that does not make them 
 less Christians. If God be in them, and they true men, 
 Christ is in them ; they live by Him. It is monstrous 
 to make believing in Christ the accepting of a name. 
 We retain the name but have given up the fact. Never 
 shall the world have true life until men see the fact of 
 Christ again. 
 
234 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 Surely it may be that there is a sense in which even 
 Christianity is to be surpassed. Not, certainly, in the 
 revelation of God to the heart and sight; not in the 
 doctrine which shows Him as the giver of Life. In this, 
 all thought apart from it has fallen infinitely short ; 
 nor can any advance do more than restore it, and place 
 it in its true light. But in this sense such an advance 
 may be destined : in the leaving behind the miraculous 
 element — " greater works than these shall ye do " — 
 which shall come through the perception of the 
 spirituality of all our experience, truly, through Science. 
 This is simply a corollary from the idea that miracle 
 is by a negative. That less, that revelation by a minus, 
 was needed then. The time may come when it will be 
 thus understood, and no longer needed. Science faintly 
 whispers about it now in the doctrine of God revealed in 
 ''law." Let us only see that this ''law" is one with 
 the revelation of self-sacrifice in Christ, and then, surely, 
 this higher point is attained. 
 
( 235 ) 
 
 VII. 
 HOLINESS. 
 
 Nature is self-control — The moral life is parallel to the mental — To be 
 moral is to act — Ago ergo ego — Misery only removed by removing 
 selfishness — No action but right action — There is no true arbitrary 
 action or free-will — Arbitrary action is sin — Freedom because 
 necessity — Man cannot fail because he is a part of Nature — The 
 only mystery is man's death — The moral lesson of Science — Our 
 moral life is passion controlled — The phenomenal nature of evil — 
 Sin as inaction — The analogy of disease to sin — Evil to the 
 individual is good to the race — Life comes only from death — We 
 are redeemed, not tempted, by matter — Creation is self-control — 
 God has no physical power — "Creation out of nothing" — The 
 creature is one with the Creator — Self-sacrifice is not loss — A 
 selfish world is the necessary phenomenon of an altruistic world — 
 No nutrition without a final function — The resurrection of the dead 
 comes by man. 
 
 Nature is self-control, yet no restraint. It is perfect 
 liberty ; absolute, self-enjoying freedom. Oh wild luxu- 
 riance of beauty ! forms of perfect loveliness in infinite 
 diversity, wandering at your own sweet will, creeping 
 over earth or towering to heaven, making space resonant 
 with gentle laughter and radiant with smiles. Ye speak 
 to my heart of passion wisely ruled, of affections directed 
 to the right. Due self-control, ye testify ever to re- 
 luctant man, is life, is joy, is liberty. What gentle 
 entreaties, what earnest admonitions, what solemn 
 testimony, " God does thus," have ye uttered all the 
 ages past, are ye uttering still. Ever ye say to man, 
 
236 Philosophy and Religtoit. 
 
 " Be free like us ; make not thyself a slave." I do 
 believe that if I can show that this moral meaning is the 
 true meaning of Nature ; if I can connect these thoughts 
 with natural objects, not as an arbitrary, ideal associa- 
 tion, but as the reality of them ; it will be a means in 
 the hand of God of making men better. 
 
 Here again is a curious relation, parallel somewhat to 
 the mental life : the moral control or suppression of our 
 passion constitutes our own life : the suppression of the 
 not-me, as it were, produces the me. Is not this as the 
 suppression of the phenomenal or subjective, in Science, 
 gives us the true? The ignorant man who lives in 
 appearances is a type of the sinful man who yields to 
 passion ; as the phenomenon is to the reality, so is our 
 " passion " to spiritual act. In truth both are one ; the 
 intellectual phenomenon, and the emotional phenomenon ; 
 the former called Nature, the latter passion ; the former 
 the subject of mental life, the latter of moral life : the 
 " sense of right " operates in both. 
 
 We, as spirits, are placed among other spirits, and 
 deriving from their passion, as it were, our own. Even 
 as we see in respect to motion, that it is transmitted from 
 particle to particle ; each of which has its own vibratile 
 passion, receives force, undergoes divergent passion, and 
 approximation after, and then its passion ceases. It has 
 had its life. Thus is j^assion transmitted to our spirits, 
 forming our bodily and mental life. But — and here is 
 our prerogative as spirits — this passion we may make 
 our own, our spiritual moral life. We take for our own, 
 permanently, our eternal life, the life thus wrought 
 within us by self-control. This is our privilege, our 
 power, our duty — to make the Hfe of Nature our life. 
 
Holiness. 237 
 
 When we see a man doing wrong, we should think : 
 " This is inertia where there should be life. All this 
 mischief is because he does not act, but is acted through 
 merely, like an animal ; the evil is, not that he does these 
 things, but that he is not a man." 
 
 I see now how much there was in the emendation of 
 Descartes' maxim, to ago ergo ego, for see what it comes 
 to ; the very statement of the not-being of humanity ; I 
 do not act, therefore not I. The thinking, the passion 
 does not make the I : it is the not-acting which reveals 
 the not I. 
 
 Eej&nement, progress, civilization, virtue even as it is 
 called — all that leaves the selfishness, leaves all that is 
 evil ; makes not a single step towards holiness, towards 
 life. The misery, horror, and degradation that are in the 
 world are for the nutrition, for the life. Suppose there 
 were this selfishness of man and no misery : what a 
 hopeless state were that ! 
 
 This misery from our passions is simply the ruin 
 arising from the operation of Being (love) on the not- 
 being (the absence of love) of man. This is not the evil ; 
 this is the remedy for it ; it makes the nutrition, the 
 life ; without it there were no remedy for human death 
 and ruin. The failure and suppression of humanity is 
 necessary for its development as part of the infinite life. 
 This curse is also a blessing, as all God's curses are. 
 And so all plans for getting rid of suffering, misery, and 
 degradation, save by getting rid of not-being, destroying 
 the selfishness by true spiritual redemption, must fail. 
 It cannot be suppressed; it is the result of action. 
 Destroy the not-being, give the love ; only so is any pro- 
 gress made. If there were not misery where there is 
 selfishness, there could be no action around, no love, no 
 
238 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 God. So surely as God is, there must be misery from 
 selfishness, ruin and woe where there is sin ; the passion 
 ensures, must ensure, wretchedness. The proof (and 
 necessary consequence) that God is, and that He is Love, 
 is that inertia, or not-love, inevitably produces misery 
 and discordance with Nature. If it were not so, the 
 Infinity must be a mere blank void. It is the love of 
 God inflicts our misery. This is Being giving itself to 
 not-being. 
 
 So those who can truly see, see only the selfishness of 
 man as death. The misery and wretchedness, the evil of 
 all kinds that is not selfishness, they see as life, nutrition, 
 redemption, a means of blessed function. And think : it 
 is not the suffering, the miserable, who are truly to be 
 pitied: "blessed are they that mourn: " but those that 
 are selfish; those are the truly miserable ones, those for 
 whom we should weep. " Weep not for Me," said He 
 who hung in death's extremity upon the cross ; "weep for 
 yourselves." So may you say, oh sons of penury, earth's 
 most outcast and perishing sons and daughters — "weep 
 not for us but for yourselves." Truly it is not to those 
 whom God loves most, not to His favourites, that He gives 
 peace, prosperity, affluence — with cold hard hearts. 
 
 Now does not our entire conception of a free wiU want 
 rectifying ? I think we must have been in error here. 
 Surely we have been considering as belonging to our 
 constitution, as moral Beings, that which is in truth 
 only the result and sign of our sinfulness ; viz. this power 
 of arbitrary action. We think we have the power of doing 
 as we choose. I see that this is altogether a false issue. 
 It is not the point ; nor is it true. What we have is the 
 power of acting, i.e. of acting right ; but when we act we 
 must act right ; the rightness consists in that fact of 
 
Holiness. 239 
 
 acting. If we have not acted righx we have not acted. 
 The question of moral freedom has been wholly misun- 
 derstood ; the wonder is that it stands so well on such 
 false ground. 
 
 There is and can be no such thing as arbitrary action ; 
 all true action is love, self-sacrifice ; it is the only fact of 
 law. There is no arbitrariness in all the universe, least 
 of all in God ; only love, which of all is most its opposite. 
 Love, or be not ; this is the only alternative. 
 
 See here a oneness of the actual and physical. Does 
 not arbitrariness in this point of view answer to a state 
 of absolute rest, which is not nor can be ? Man thinks 
 himself arbitrary, even as he thinks the earth is absolutely 
 at rest. Not only is not the earth at rest, but nothing is 
 or can be. Absolute rest were absolute inaction. Every- 
 thing is necessarily moving, is in action, is giving itself. 
 Even equilibrium is equivalent to motion, it is a giving 
 self. The whole must be in equilibrium, mutual self- 
 giving, or love ; the parts in motion. Arbitrariness is 
 supposed by man, as absolute mere self-rest is supposed 
 of the earth ; these are the parallels, and both alike 
 impossible. Being can only be in self-giving, in action, 
 not to act is not to be. We do not truly see Nature as 
 inert in seeing her under law, that is a step out of inertia ; 
 the arbitrariness which we first put into her is the true 
 inertia, the most absolute form of it. Law is only from 
 love, and in introducing law we make a step towards love, 
 towards freedom. Freedom is the true opposite to free- 
 will. 
 
 Is not the key here in the idea of time ? All our 
 delusion seems to be this, that we being in time neces- 
 sarily perceive effect before cause. So, e.g., we first per- 
 
240 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 ceive our consciousness before that death of man which 
 is its origin. So necessarily the effect gets erected into 
 a sort of entity, being by itself, and the cause supposed 
 to result from it, and connected therefore with it by such 
 hypotheses as best answer the purpose to our reason. 
 So the sin is first to us, and we set up some sinning 
 power, direct action opposed to God's will, etc., and think 
 of death as its effect, instead of seeing the death as the 
 fact and the sinning as its effect, and by the very action 
 of God's love. Man is dead and therefore sins ; this is 
 simple, but the sin first and the death afterwards is like 
 the contractility of a muscle producing its decomposition. 
 Our arbitrary power of acting answers exactly to this 
 primary quality of the muscle to contract. So with 
 regard to other theological hypotheses : not seeing man's 
 death in Adam and his being made alive by Christ, we 
 have to invent " federal relationships " alike to Adam and 
 to Christ : these being necessary to express the phenomena 
 until the fact is seen ; only so. They have no existence, 
 nor can have ; but until we see the actual connection, the 
 fact of man's deadness, it is quite a mistake to think that 
 we can do without these. Can anything be more demon- 
 strative of Christianity as the religion — as a fact — than 
 seeing how it thus takes part with all other facts in the 
 development of the human mind : that it is to man first 
 phenomenal and then factual, as all God's works ? 
 
 It is beautiful that in all that is not directly moral, or 
 actual, man is strictly a part of Nature ; in all man's 
 arbitrary doings that are not wrong it is Nature that 
 works; it is all a part of the great physical and psychical 
 passive necessity. This is beautiful, making man's 
 works truly instincts, in mind as well as body; all 
 mutually determined, each just such as all others 
 
Holiness. 241 
 
 demand, constituting a living organization ; by means 
 of nutrition effecting functions. So each man and each 
 working of each man is an organ of the whole, subserv- 
 ing the universal life : and all an image of the great 
 spiritual or actual organization. 
 
 We act arbitrarily only when we sin. In all un-moral 
 things we act necessarily, viz. by our physical necessity. 
 In right action we also act necessarily, viz. by a moral 
 necessity, the true actual necessity. This is our freedom, 
 our power of action, our Being, our personality. When 
 we sin or do not act rightly, then only are we arbitrary ; 
 we are not. Arbitrariness is not-being. Here again 
 logic, though appearing for a time to be opposed to 
 religion, is yet found altogether on her side, with its 
 proof that man has not free or arbitrary will, and that 
 all he does is necessary. It is most true ; logic is on 
 the side of religion, now and for evermore. Man is free, 
 is moral, because he acts necessarily ; even as God. 
 
 We are made to enjoy, and therefore to have passion, 
 in order that we may have life. This is the meaning of 
 our love, our longing and passion for happiness. Had 
 we not this, there would be no life, for life is passion 
 controlled. Is it not beautiful; this passion or tendency, 
 which is desire or love given to them to obtain life, 
 eternal life ? The passion in spirits is that force which 
 will be life in them, if they will, by God acting in them ; 
 if they will not, then are they dead. 
 
 Thus I see, temptation is not so strictly to sin : Nature 
 does not tempt us to sin, but it produces in us passion, 
 which, if we rightly control it, is our Hfe ; if we do not, 
 it is death. Nature is ever holy. Sin is not in the 
 thing done, but in the refusal to control our passion; 
 the refusal of God, in fact. 
 
 B 
 
242 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 We are parts of Nature and share her perfection. To 
 a man who thus acts with Nature, failure is not nor can 
 be. He does not succeed in life ; his life is success. 
 Even as Nature is not moral, because it is morality. 
 Success cannot have success, even as morality cannot 
 have a moral. Success is yoked to his steps and cannot 
 leave him ; nothing can bring to him other than constant 
 good. Nothing should disturb such a man's equanimity ; 
 for all wrongness and loss are nutritive, the means of 
 higher ends. Whatever happens, my L(/e has been and 
 is ; Nature has accomplished her ends, God has accom- 
 plished His ; and therein I mine. My will is done 
 because and while it is one with The Will. This is 
 success, to find, in all events, my Life. It lies not in 
 the result but in the deed. Life ever succeeds and must 
 succeed. It laughs to scorn opposition, failure, loss, for 
 these are not her contraries, but her very being ; they 
 are the means of her progress, the willing instruments 
 of her achievements. But that this may be true for us, 
 we need to have life ; and sin is death. To sin is to 
 sacrifice and cast away this joy, this triumph. Sin has 
 no part in life, nor he that sinneth. It is the right deed 
 only that succeeds ; wrong is death, despair, and horror, 
 in itself, not in its results. " What shall it profit a man 
 if he gain the whole world and lose his own spirit ? " 
 Granted that the world is his : but if he be not ? There 
 is no earthly event that should have power to make a 
 man unhappy. But this is not said of sin. He who 
 sins is not above grief but below it, and should thank 
 God that he may rise through grief again to holi- 
 ness. 
 
 We must learn to see ourselves as part of a great life, 
 to which we are absolutely subordinated ; even as the 
 
Holiness. 243 
 
 elements of our bodies are to us. Human life is nothing 
 more than any other form of passion to Nature. Cease 
 to regard the bearing on ourselves of facts in Nature as 
 of any real importance in relation to the things them- 
 selves ; e.g. consider diseases as essential and absolutely 
 good parts of the universal life, and cure by utilizing the 
 force which causes. This is the practical lesson, that 
 as we are parts of a living whole, we must be living, i.e. 
 holy, accept our part, control our passion, do as God 
 does ; being part of Nature, be natural. 
 
 We must do right, to make our moral life ; here is the 
 fact ; it is no matter how it is defined, let it be any way 
 in theory ; do the right : that is what remains when 
 metaphysics is laid aside. Let thought be function of 
 the brain, let moral right be operation of physical laws, 
 or form of motion ; it will all do. But do the right ; 
 Ijive : that is the lesson of the physical world ; and this 
 necessity returns upon us just the same after all our 
 speculations: live. If it be physical, live; if it be 
 spiritual, live. What matters it ? 
 
 We should see in our inclinations as it were chemical 
 attractions : a source of life if controlled, but death, 
 decay, and loathsomeness if uncontrolled ; death to us, 
 but still forming part of the great life of the universe. 
 We do not call chemical attraction evil ; the results are 
 bad only in relation to the particular organization ; it is 
 the result of that special relation only. This is the idea 
 of evil being not real but only phenomenal, or from our 
 relation. We should learn to understand that our 
 tendencies, our national inclinations, are not really evil 
 (even when they produce unholiness or death in us), but 
 only phenomenally, i.e. in their special relation to us. 
 
244 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 There is but one mystery in all God's universe, and 
 that lies in us. Not in gleaming suns or circling planets, 
 not in the myriad forms and varied capacities of living 
 things, nor in the mighty, achievements of the intellect. 
 Life is no mystery ; it is an axiom ; it all lies in a defi- 
 nition. The mystery is, not life, but death — not that 
 Nature lives, but that man refuses to live. The mystery 
 is the mystery of sin ; not indeed as it afifects God's 
 universe ; it casts no shadow there ; but as it affects our- 
 selves, the sinners. The dark cloud lies in our own 
 breasts ; the heavens and the earth afford no solution, 
 as no parallel. All there is life. The death within us 
 seeks in vain a fellow, save in hell. Our conscience 
 testifies the fact ; if a reason can be given our conscious- 
 ness must give it. Let us search our own bosoms and 
 say why sin is ; answering at last the marvelling universe 
 that calls to us in God's own loving words : Why will 
 ye die ? Let us give the reason now, dragging it forth 
 from our deepest hearts. Let us say. Therefore we sin. 
 That Nature may cease to be amazed, and life no longer 
 shudder at the touch of death. Oh shame and sorrow 
 infinite ! we dare not tell it, not even to the gentle earth 
 and placid stars ; we dare not whisper it to the flowers, 
 nor breathe it sighing to the sighing trees. Least of all 
 to these, that love us with the trustful love of innocence ; 
 that smile upon us day by day, and stretch out gentle 
 hands to greet us, bidding us welcome to their beauty, 
 as if our hearts were pure and full of love like theirs. 
 Not to these can we breathe the full secret that haunts 
 our memories, they would shrink from us in horror, and 
 never again should we behold them free and uncon- 
 strained as now. Would to God we could hide it for 
 ever! And yet, not so — that were indeed "the worm 
 that dieth not." Into God's ear will we pour it ; He will 
 
Holiness. 245 
 
 listen and forgive; although for utter selfishness we 
 have spurned His authority and trampled on His law 
 of perfect love ; although we have disregarded conscience 
 and been deaf to the voice of duty ; though we have 
 known the right and chosen the wrong, He will forgive. 
 
 There is no atom, no particle, no mass, no element 
 throughout the physical and psychical universe, that does 
 not willingly yield to the control which constitutes nutri- 
 tion. We alone refuse. Let us be natural ; let us take 
 up the universal burden, and look on the attractive sins, 
 feeling their strong temptation, and say : These are the 
 elements of my life, the forces that shall nourish me, and 
 give me vital power. For the resistance or control of 
 passion constitutes the nutrition of the spiritual life. 
 The holy acts we thus gain power to do are its functions. 
 Much-tried, much-enduring man, who with firm heart 
 withstandest the assaults of strong temptation and with 
 resolute will controUest passion, blessed art thou ! True 
 image of the Deity, like Him creating life; sharer by 
 thine own act, in the universal life. Thine own act 
 indeed, for only so thy life ; yet an act wrought in thee 
 by God's free grace alone ; taking for thy portion the life 
 that flows eternally from God and making it thine own ; 
 life that is thus at once God's act and ours ; God's holiness 
 shared in by us. 
 
 We are so full of the wonder of the phenomenon of life, 
 of its greatness, its glory, the skill of God in it, etc., that 
 we will not let it go ; we will not give up the shadow for 
 the substance. We have to see that all that is imaginary, 
 before we can see the true wonder. We need not fear ; if 
 there were not something great and grand in the fact, we 
 should never have an image so glorious. Did our fore- 
 fathers lose anything by giving up the phenomenon in 
 
246 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 their day ? They were bolder, wiser, than we ; they had 
 no experience of their fathers to encourage them ; cannot 
 we take heart from theirs ? Never fear to let go ; it is 
 the only means of getting better things ; let go — let go ; 
 we are sui-e to have again. Thus how Science teaches the 
 lesson of morals, which is ever give up — give up ; deny 
 yourself ; not this everlasting getting ; deny yourself 
 and give, and infinitely more shall be yours ; but give^ 
 not bargaining ; give from love, because you must. And 
 if the question will intrude: "What shall I have if I 
 give up this ? " relegate that question to faith, and 
 answer : I shall have God : — yes, God gives Himself 
 to me ; my giving is my acceptance of God's act, God's 
 act in me, which is myself. I live, I act, I create in 
 giving. In my giving, in my love, God, who is love, 
 gives Himself to me. Thus Science teaches the moral 
 lesson of self-denial, self-control, and love. 
 
 The material is lowest ; it is lost to the giver in being 
 given. The intellectual is given, and not lost to the 
 giver : the true or moral is not only not lost in giving, 
 but 18 only in the giving. That this material is most to 
 us, is just our death. 
 
 The phenomenon is ugly to us, as fireworks frighten 
 children, while their parents go to gaze on them for 
 their beauty. Sinai was the sunrise of one of the 
 world's great days — a sun which set in blood when 
 Jerusalem fell before the Komans. Fearful to us ; but 
 is it not heavenly beauty when seen aright ? Was not 
 the scene at Calvary the brighter dawn of a more glorious 
 day, the loveliest sunrise within God's universe ? Yet 
 what was the phenomenon, but murderous malice and 
 dying innocence ? 
 
 If we do right, the passion so controlled becomes our 
 
Holiness. 247 
 
 spiritual, our real life ; if not, it becomes the life of the 
 universe. It is the same to God. The evil is but 
 phenomenal evil; it is nutrition of the universal life. 
 If we restrain the passion, that resisted tendency is our 
 life; if we do not, the unrestrained passion is still 
 resistance to tendency, is still life. It is our life, if we 
 will take it ; but if not, there is no loss. 
 
 The universe is necessarily as it is, because God is 
 holy, and His act cannot be arbitrary. This physical 
 and psychical necessity is, in reality, God's holiness. 
 The necessity of the universe does not contravene, but 
 reveals the holiness of God. Physical necessity is a 
 phenomenon of which the reality is spiritual holiness ; a 
 theory of which the interpretation is moral rectitude. 
 
 Evil is life, and therefore we dare to look on it. 
 *' Ocean of life, whose waters of deep woe," says Shelley. 
 The waters of life are woe ; we need not be ashamed or 
 afraid to own it. The perception of Nature as a spiritual 
 reality, re-creates for us the world, and all that it con- 
 tains ; makes all new and of a higher order. Yet truly 
 seen they are one. Kectitude, love, holiness, are expressed 
 by, constitute, all these physical laws. We must learn 
 to see holiness in them, and when we trace the working 
 of material laws, or the results of physical passion, know 
 and feel that the reality thus presented is one of infinitely 
 vaster import, even the eternal rectitude of God. 
 
 To see that the phenomenal evil is not really evil, but 
 only an effect on us produced by good, has this great 
 advantage, that it enables us to face boldly the fact of the 
 evil, and removes the disposition to regard the pheno- 
 menon as other than it is. Knowing that evil too, as 
 evil, is really good, we are no longer afraid to do full 
 justice to iis proportions as evil, and to admit that, as 
 seen, it is absolute evil, unredeemed by the least trace of 
 
248 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 good. With this faith of the absolute good (and it 
 appHes equally to beauty and ugliness) we can face the 
 facts. It is just as in Science ; men could not really see 
 Nature, they could not bring themselves to look at her, 
 so long as they thought she was really partly false. 
 The experimental, inductive (phenomenal) Science arose 
 necessarily from the faith (for it was strictly a faith), 
 from the conviction as a self-evident fact, that Nature 
 was absolutely and perfectly true. So will the same 
 thing arise from the faith that she is really, absolutely, 
 and entirely beautiful and good. A phenomenal art and 
 philosophy will be the necessary fruits. 
 
 Knowing that the evil phenomenon is a real good, we 
 can now, and now only, truly investigate the phenomenon 
 itself. For investigation is, and means, comprehension, 
 finding out the truth ; but this means finding out the 
 beauty and the good. So long as it is believed that any 
 phenomenon is really ugly or evil, it can no more be 
 investigated than if it be believed to be really false. 
 There cannot be a phenomenal art or philosophy except 
 upon the basis that all phenomena are really beautiful 
 and good. This is clear enough of art. The phenomenon, 
 as a whole, cannot be brought within its domain, save on 
 the assumption that it is (or will reveal) beauty. In 
 philosophy this is less apparent, but equally true. Nothing 
 comes within the domain of philosophy, except on the 
 assumption that it is (or will reveal) good; to give a 
 reason for anything is to show how and in what sense it 
 is good : — save sin, the only account of which is that a 
 being or spirit will not act, chooses death. Sin is not a 
 fact or reality, but a negation ; and, as such, needs only 
 a negative account of it. 
 
 I love this idea of sin as not an act (or reality), but as 
 
Holiness. 249 
 
 inaction ; a refusal to share in life. The mystery of the 
 existence of moral evil is thus solved. Placing my eye 
 right, I see something of the infinite wisdom with which 
 this system of things is formed ; the deep reality from 
 which it flows. God has shown it to me. There is no 
 blot on His creation that needs to be washed out, or 
 compensated for. The idea has arisen from confounding 
 the phenomenal with the real, thinking evil was really 
 evil. So excellent is life, that not to live is that foul and 
 fearful fact of sin. What does the hatefulness of death 
 prove to us, but the loveliness of life ? It is so simple : 
 first to see that Nature is God's act ; that all God's act 
 is absolutely good : this shows it all. It removes quite 
 away that black pall that overlies the universe. It is 
 God's hand wiping away our tears. The universe is a 
 scene of absolute life and beauty and good ; nothing is 
 there that is not so. Only this sad fact which stains not 
 its glory, that some spirits refuse to share in it, is the 
 great mystery of sin. 
 
 This suggests to me, that we misinterpret what the 
 Bible tells us of heaven. It says indeed that God will 
 wipe away all tears, that sorrow and sighing shall flee 
 away, even that there shall be no death ; but it does not 
 tell us that there shall be no phenomenal evil. That is 
 quite another thing. Still shall there be life, yea, more 
 life ; still therefore evil. But not sorrow and sighing, 
 not tears : everlasting joy and undiminished gladness, 
 gladness for life, for evil seen to be good. We fancy if 
 there be evil there must be sorrow, and sighing, and 
 tears. But it is not so. To cure us of our grief, it 
 needs not to take away the evil, but to show it us. 
 Shall we grieve at the evil when we see it as God does ? 
 Let me only see the evil as it is, oh God, and my eyes 
 shall weep no more, nor my heart know another pang. 
 
250 Philosophy and Religion, 
 
 The motion of the sun was a source of error to the 
 men of former times ; now God has removed for us that 
 error ; but He has not altered the phenomenon ; still 
 falsely, as falsely as when first Adam witnessed the 
 illusion, rolls the sun around the earth. But God has 
 shown it to us. The illusion remains, hut the error is 
 gone. So shall evil remain, but the grief shall be gone. 
 The illusion shall not cease, but sorrow and sighing 
 shall flee away. Not in the least jot will God alter His 
 deed; it is eternal. In heaven there shall be all the 
 evil there ever was on earth ; nor shall we say it is too 
 much. None shall gaze upon the life of heaven, and 
 say, " I will not live." So there shall be no sin there, 
 no death. 
 
 The analogy of disease to sin is full of instruction. 
 [I see this is the way to speak of analogy between the 
 physical and the spiritual ; not the spiritual analogous 
 to the physical, but the physical to the spiritual.] The 
 idea of the remedy for the moral disease by the annihi- 
 lation of aught that truly is, is just on a par with the 
 false therapeutics that seeks to cure disease by destroy- 
 ing something ; considering inflammation to be excessive 
 action, instead of the want of the right vital action. 
 There is not too much action, but too little ; all the force 
 that is operative must and should be there ; necessarily 
 must be there, or there would not be the being at all, the 
 organization, the possibility of life ; but there ought to 
 be there also another force, more action, a control, a 
 life, that is wanting. To cure disease is to give life ; to 
 produce action is to destroy disease. Thus Christ gives 
 life, and destroys not-life ; the two are one. We have 
 been deceived by the 'phenomena of sin, just as by those 
 of disease ; have alike considered that to be an action 
 
Holiness. 251 
 
 which is a mere want of action. Both we have to 
 interpret : and to see the moral by the physical ; for this 
 end the physical exists indeed. But as disease, if life be 
 not restored, destroys the body, the individuality, so 
 surely sin does if life be not given by Christ. 
 
 The very things which are evil in individuals, are 
 right and good and necessary in regard to the race. So 
 that beings who should look on man as a whole would 
 see no evil ; nothing amiss, nothing wrong ; a perfect, 
 unmarred, and unboundedly lovely " instinctive " life ; 
 just as we see in Nature, of which man is part. And so 
 in this perfect, this lovely Nature, as it is to us, so 
 different from ourselves, may be this very self-ness which 
 is in us ; and sin and failure, and wrong, death and 
 redemption ; and yet we not see it at all. 
 
 That individual evil is right and good in respect to 
 man, we see remarkably in Bacon. He regarded the 
 material, and he moved men to do the same ; and so 
 Science is in one sense emphatically evil ; it has de- 
 teriorated the world terribly. But in relation to man it 
 is wholly good ; it is simply that he gives up his ideal 
 and takes God's ; it is one of the most beautiful facts in 
 his history. We may see it again in respect to religious 
 thought. Our " spiritual " altogether being an inven- 
 tion from our not knowing the fact of the world, it is as 
 necessary it should be denied as afi&rmed. So " matter " 
 must be both affirmed and denied. This is necessary in 
 respect to man, just as for right thinking it is necessary 
 to hold both Being and negation. The sin of men works 
 the purposes of God ; it is necessary ; it is involved in 
 the true good, and to Man is only good. 
 
252 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 Looking on the universal humanity thus, it must 
 appear to other beings (of such a grade as to see it as 
 one living thing) as a diseased body does to us. The 
 elements which constitute it, partly or wholly dead ; the 
 body diseased by want of vital state of some of its 
 elements. Christ heals humanity by restoring life to the 
 individual spirits, the men that compose it. This is the 
 only true cure of disease. To this we must attain before 
 we are worthy of the name of physicians. To restore 
 life to the elements that are dead, or dying in excess. 
 Christ heals humanity by restoring holiness or life to 
 the individual men; we attempt to heal the diseased 
 body only by alleviating particular effects of the disease ; 
 checking the increased action, etc. What we must aim 
 at is to restore the vital resistance, the due self-con- 
 trol. By virtue of Christ's healing of the diseased 
 humanity, is achieved a result of a glory surpassing 
 what would otherwise or could have been. This disease 
 and nutrition come to be one : nutrition, in respect to 
 the organization effected ; disease, in respect to the 
 elements themselves which constitute it. For what is 
 disease but a living frame not attaining its ideal, not 
 perfectly fulfilling its tendency ? But this is life ; there 
 is a wonderful unification here. Disease is ever life — 
 life ever disease {i.e. using life for nutrition). Thus God 
 uses sin, as it were ; but does this cast sin on God ? I 
 think not. A spirit lives or not, as it chooses ; but all 
 the evil which it produces by refusing to live — all the 
 disease — is not real evil, but nutrition or life. Thus, I 
 think, we have attained the point from which the mystery 
 of moral evil ceases ; and we find it to be nothing but 
 the simplest and most natural way of regarding the 
 facts, that the true exj)lanation is contained entire in 
 the commonest physical phenomena. It is simply life, 
 
Holiness. 253 
 
 one instance of the relation of continuous and transitive 
 vibration. 
 
 The decay of a human body is just so much nutrition 
 to the physical universe, God counts it no less ; we find it 
 evil because of our relation to it. So, if a human spirit 
 die, infinite is its loss (that is real death ; spirit being 
 reality) ; but it is no loss to the real or spiritual universe: 
 God counts it no loss. But His love leads Him to redeem ; 
 not for His sake but for ours. And the very existence of 
 medicine, the science of healing, among ourselves is proof 
 and justification of redemption, makes it one with Nature. 
 If the healing of disease be natural, so is redemption. 
 Healing of disease, in fact, exists but as a type of redemp- 
 tion ; that is the reahty of it, as the reality of death is 
 sin. 
 
 Death, or suppression, is only of form : of one form 
 for the life or being of another. So, clearly, to have 
 altruistic Being excludes death ; then the life is in that 
 of other. 
 
 So, in truth, our evil is, that our being is of form ; 
 that to which death applies ; i.e. that we do not pene- 
 trate into the true fact of Being. Otherwise, it were and 
 could be no loss to us ; as there can be none to Being. 
 The " death " is to our feeling only ; this sacrifice of one 
 form for another is the very proof of life. Death pertains 
 only to the relative. This we have seen in physiology, 
 and it is more beautiful when seen in its *' actual " 
 relations ; all ceasing of one tension is the being of 
 another ; it is all " life " in different forms. 
 
 Thus what we want is to have our Being altruistic. 
 Then in death is our life — in this suppression is the life 
 of man. Is not the fact of it to be, ever, but different 
 to us by the giving to us eternal life ? So is there not a 
 
2 54 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 Tightness and a necessity in that word ? — it is "eternal" 
 life we want ; to that, death is life. This " life in other " 
 change cannot affect ; it affects form only. Surely it is 
 life in God ; only so can it be truly altruistic, i.e. in all 
 other. It is to partake of the essential Being which 
 changes not. 
 
 When we inflict pain upon each other we know it is not 
 the part which feels, nor even the body at all though it 
 looks like it, but the man whose body it is. So there 
 would be nothing unreasonable in conceiving that when 
 we inflict pain upon an animal, it is not the animal that 
 feels it (though it looks like it), nor even the entire 
 animal organization, but the being (the spirit) whose 
 body that organization forms. And further, should we 
 not conceive that all that we do in opposition to Nature 
 inflicts pain upon the spirit whose organization Nature 
 is ; that by injury to any part of the external world we 
 cause suffering to a spirit ? I believe it. I have long 
 had an instinctive feeling that all Nature was sensitive ; 
 and this is the truth of it. It is all sensitive, as our 
 bodies are, viz. as being the organization of a spirit. 
 The apparent sensation of animals, as animals, is 
 designed to reveal that to us. Thus, the reason against 
 cruelty to animals is not rendered less strong, but more 
 BO, and is extended. 
 
 Further ; our sin, being disease in that organization 
 of which we constitute elements, also occasions pain to 
 that higher spirit whose organization or passion it is. 
 Humanity is sick; and the spirit that "inhabits" it 
 suffers. Sin produces pain (besides to ourselves and 
 to our fellow creatures) also to a higher being — the 
 " universal man," if we may name him so. But this 
 disease and evil also are nutrition, forming yet a higher 
 
Holiness. 255 
 
 organization, of which these inclusive organizations are 
 the elements. 
 
 There is a wonderful truth in those words, '^ without 
 shedding of blood there is no remission of sins." With- 
 out death is no restoration of life, nor can be ; for remis- 
 sion of sins must mean imparting again the lost spiritual 
 life ; death must yield the vital force. 
 
 Life comes only from death ; the force only from the 
 approximating passion. Nutrition is ever the result of 
 function. Christ's death to give life to the world seems 
 but a simple expression and instance of this universal 
 fact, or more truly these phenomenal relations flow from 
 the spiritual verities. 
 
 Christ's death restores the lost life ; and, in restoring, 
 effects an object higher than could otherwise have been. 
 The wrongness has been a nutrition, and redemption is 
 its function. In Christ's sufferings there was more than 
 the death of the body ; a real spiritual life flows from 
 His spiritual passion ; He bore our iniquities, our death ; 
 from Him we thus derive new life. 
 
 It is a pitiful thought that we are sinful because we 
 are in matter ; that we are associated with the physical 
 in order that we may be tempted as it were. It is not 
 so ; we are in a material world in order that we may be 
 redeemed. A sinful spirit must be in a physical world in 
 order to be redeemed ; in a world of time where the deed 
 once done may be undone again ; where the eternal is 
 diffused, as it were, into the temporal ; where penitence 
 may find scope, and repentance may avail; and where 
 there are so many, not hindrances, but aids ; where all 
 things that live and rejoice say to us, " Live, control 
 passion, and be happy ! " and death, in its perpetual 
 
256 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 recurrence, warns us not to die ; saying in tones that will 
 not be denied: " Sin is destruction; he that soweth to 
 the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption : he that liveth 
 in pleasure is dead while he liveth." Therefore it is we 
 are in a world of things; that we may learn to hve. 
 The image of redemption, of being from not-being, is 
 around us, that we may be prevailed upon to accept our 
 own. 
 
 We think entirely wrong when we attribute physical 
 power to God, as if He could do physical things, move 
 the earth, etc. The idea is not appropriate ; of course 
 He not only can do, but does it all ; but not physically ; 
 it is by moral action that physical things are done in that 
 higher, truer sense. How could the motion of the sun 
 be stopped ? In two ways : either by stopping the eartliy 
 or altering man. We see the sun's motion cannot be 
 stopped, as such ; there is nothing to stop ; it is an image. 
 Just so of physical things ; God can alter them — or may 
 be conceived as altering them — only in one of two ways : 
 altering His own moral act, of which they are the image, 
 or altering us who perceive His act so, by virtue of our 
 being and relation to Him. God has not physical power 
 in our sense ; that is wholly phenomenal, belongs to 
 matter ; only that which has motion can produce or stop 
 motion in that sense of physical force. 
 
 The view which assigns the doing of certain physical 
 things to God, imparting original properties, moving 
 planets, etc., is no more to be tolerated than any other 
 mode of making God physical. The essence of idolatry 
 is in it, which is a limitation of God ; a denying Him to 
 be Being. Doubtless idolaters made images, and thought 
 of God as bodily, for the very same reason as we think of 
 
Holiness. 257 
 
 Him as doing physical, material things ; to realize Him 
 better, that He might not be so far off. We have the 
 strongest proof that the denying the materiality of God 
 was felt by the nations of old as equivalent to atheism. 
 They could not receive omni-presence any more than we 
 can receive omni-action; and observe the identity of 
 reason ; if God be omni-present, He is present nowhere 
 as bodily ; so if God be omni-active, omni-agent, He does 
 nothing as physical. We must give up this as our 
 fathers, the idolaters, gave up the other ; in short, we 
 must give up the material as true Being, and see that all 
 that truly is, or is actually done, is spiritual. 
 
 I make full admission of the moral excellence and 
 Tightness of these views during our ignorance; I 
 reverence them and the men who have clung to them. 
 Speaking of the moral history of man I would do them 
 fall justice, but now I speak of truth and reason, which 
 is quite another matter. And also, doing justice to those 
 views, I should claim justice for idolatry also. I doubt 
 not men have loved and worshipped God under idolatry, 
 who would not (and could not with the knowledge they 
 had) have done it any other way ; the denial of idols to 
 them would have been atheism : as we find respecting 
 our materially acting God. Is it not strange that we 
 should make such a distinction between material-being 
 and material-acting ? We have to learn that Being and 
 acting are one. There is nothing at all that God does 
 not do, in every sense of the word. I grant there is 
 much we cannot so consider, but this is the point and 
 good of the argument. All that appears to us, and 
 must be considered as not strictly done by God (i.e. all 
 that is in cause and effect), is the result of our not-seeing, 
 our ignorance. It is not done by God because it is not the 
 actual fact, but the fact in it is that which is done by God. 
 
 S 
 
258 Philosophy a7id Religion. 
 
 There is profoundness in that thought of *' creation 
 out of nothing ; " it is wrong, with an exquisite right- 
 ness. We must deny the " nothing," from which the 
 creation is supposed, and hold the infiniteness of Being : 
 but we can see the excellence of the idea — the relation is 
 right. If the "nothing" cannot be, then of course that 
 which is created out of it cannot he. The necessity 
 which has driven men to this expression is beautiful ; 
 from the truth, and man's intellectual relation, how 
 clearly it is necessitated ! Material things " are," in the 
 same sense as "nothing" can be. " Nothing " can be 
 to us ; it can be perceived as being. Here, then, is 
 evidently the nature of the things so created. 
 
 Is not all included in that doctrine of love, of creation 
 as God's self-sacrifice ; that is, that the creature is one 
 with the Creator ? Only so do we know God, because we 
 are God. When God would show us Himself, He shows 
 us — what but ourself, man ? We recognize God in Christ, 
 because we recognize humanity. God does in Christ 
 what we would do, what alone would constitute us men. 
 He cannot be God if He be not man ; nor the Creator if 
 He be not one with the creature. Are we not " children 
 of God " only as one with Christ, as bearing the same 
 relation to the Father as Christ does ? This gives a new 
 conception of our sonship to God ; and throws a light on 
 Christ's sonship too. If we are sons as He is, then surely 
 is He the Son even as we are ; He one with God as we 
 are. See how we can interpret these mysteries from 
 simple and familiar things — that Christ is at once God 
 and man ; the Son of God and one with God ; a distinct 
 Person, and yet He in the Father, and the Father in Him, 
 and all one God. All this is no mystery, but the fact of 
 our own Being ; we too are in the Father and He in us. 
 
Holiness. 259 
 
 We may say : " The works I do, I do not of myself, but 
 the Father who dwelleth in me." Again, our bodies are 
 " the temples of the Holy Ghost." Interpreted thus 
 from within, starting from the knoivn, these divine 
 mysteries become plain and happy truths. 
 
 '' God sacrifices Himself utterly," even to become the 
 creature — it is so that we are. And does He not 
 emphatically sacrifice Himself in all this misery and sin 
 and evil, that as we say He permits, so calmly as we 
 think ; all for His own glory, that He may get thereby ! 
 Does not its agony, its hideousness, go to His heart 
 infinitely more than to ours ? How could this great 
 " not " be, that is sin and sorrow, save by His self- 
 sacrifice ? That there is sin and woe is not a contradic- 
 tion to God's love, it is the very fact of it ; because He 
 loves and sacrifices Himself, it must be. It is thou, oh 
 God, who art the martyred one, the anguished, the 
 oppressed. It is Thou that bearest all this sin and 
 agony, that there may be living, loving man, to share thy 
 joy! So that passage: "Heaven and earth are full of 
 Thy Glory," stands out in full and simple majesty. The 
 glory of God being the fact of His love, of His self- 
 sacrifice, earth too, in all its sin and sadness, is full of 
 God's glory. It needs not that God's glory be educed 
 from sin ; in the fact of it His glory is made perfect, 
 even as it is in the Cross of His Son. The mystery of 
 sin is blotted out : all must be that great fact of self- 
 sacrifice. 
 
 Give up and you shall have ; cast out self and all is 
 yours, even God ; we are heirs of God. The universe is 
 the very best for you ; give up that self-will and you will 
 find it so. It is as good to you as to God ; because the 
 world is redeemed. So all men's good is in the destruc- 
 
26o Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 tion of the evil. The casting out of self — not- God — 
 from us, is our life. Genius proves that men have their 
 true life, their Being, in heing one with Nature. In men 
 of genius Nature, God speaks. Yet are they the typical 
 *' men." So in inspiration. Are not the inspired men 
 the true men ? Are not they the truly individual, the 
 personal ? We need not fear to be divine. 
 
 How interesting it will be with these views of the 
 physical as the image of the spiritual, to trace the 
 meaning of the Incarnation, and other events in 
 Christian history. They cannot lose anything of their 
 value ; a phenomenon cannot be made less. Because 
 the body is an image of a spiritual fact it is not there- 
 fore less a body ; it is a body because it is such an 
 image. That is the meaning of the word body. Con- 
 sider, too, the symbols of the Old Testament; just so is 
 the universe a symbol ; and as the great fact of all the 
 Scriptural symbols is that of sacrifice, so is the great 
 fact of the symbol-universe, of Nature, sacrifice. 
 
 Spiritual self-sacrifice is not (like the phenomenal) a 
 ceasing to be, a less ; it is the very being ; it is the act 
 that constitutes the being and the life. In giving our- 
 selves, emphatically we have ourselves, we are : so 
 Christ's self-sacrifice to us ; so God's self-sacrifice in 
 creation. It is no loss. The self-sacrificer — the Creator, 
 the Redeemer — is in the creature, in the redeemed ; is 
 and lives in, and by virtue of. His self-sacrifice. Even 
 we say : *' I live in that which I love ; " that to which I 
 have given my being, my soul. 
 
 Wonderful is this world ; every one having as it were 
 to seek his own good at another's loss ; this " compe- 
 tition," each one taking for himself instead of another 
 
Holiness. 261 
 
 having. It is evidently the necessary phenomenon to 
 the self of an altruistic world. It is only the converse of 
 that constitution of the world, a necessary opposite view 
 of it. Being constructed on the truly good plan — that 
 of sacrifice, the self given up to others — necessarily from 
 the self-view, according to the self-action, it is this 
 opposite of the self-getting at the expense of others. 
 This latter is involved phenomenally in the former; that 
 best good implies it. It is we trying to reverse it, 
 reading it backwards ; but if it had not this backward 
 construction the truth could not be so good. This is 
 what comes when the self is in an altruistic world. And 
 so the world is good, if we put our standard high enough, 
 and include the sacrifice of the self; but from this of 
 course comes the effort to reverse it on the part of the 
 self. But observe, this does not succeed, that is the 
 point ; if it did it would be bad. The self is sacrificed in 
 spite of all its efforts ; the world is altruistic, even when 
 most of the self seems to succeed ; it still fails utterly, 
 perhaps then most utterly. Is here the truth in the 
 representation of future punishment in the sense of 
 suffering, phenomenal evil, or evil to the self succeeding 
 selfish enjoyment; so that the most successful self- 
 attempt fails in the long run even from the self-point of 
 view? But then there is a great perversion here. People 
 do not see that it is the self cannot succeed at all, and so 
 comes the notion of making the best of both worlds, 
 which perhaps is exactly the greatest mistake the self 
 ever made : though it has done nothing else from the 
 first. This sacrifice of self is martyrdom, is the destiny 
 of man, whether he will or not, and the glory is that 
 he is to will it. There is beauty even in Calvinism 
 here ; it represents the destiny of the lost strictly as a 
 martyrdom ; they suffer for God's glory, for the good of 
 
262 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 the universe. It is this gives it its power, and is its 
 charm. It is true : man can accept that — only each 
 ought first to accept it for himself. 
 
 God does not let the smallest atom be placed in oppo- 
 sition to its affinities or tendencies but to effect a higher 
 function ; not one is allowed to suffer but for a vastly 
 higher end. And so with man. Not one pang is inflicted 
 upon him, not one felicity withheld, one tendency re- 
 strained, but for the purpose of nutrition and subser- 
 vience to a function. We must liberate ourselves from 
 the thraldom of thinking that we are the object of crea- 
 tion. We are part of it ; elements forming part of the 
 universal life ; we must be content to bear our share of 
 nutrition, and offer up ourselves willing instruments in 
 the production of the function ; yield gladly our bodies 
 to suffering, our hearts to sorrow, our desires to disap- 
 pointment ; bear our part in the great life, ennobling 
 and exalting it by willing subservience. 
 
 In life there is no particle that has not at last its 
 tendencies and affinities fully gratified, carried com- 
 pletely out. But by the violence done to them, the 
 restraint imposed upon them, it is made to form part of 
 an organism ; and by obeying its affinities, by carrying 
 out its tendencies, it effects the function. So, surely, in 
 respect to the nutrition effected by violence done to 
 human affections, restraint on human tendencies, all 
 shall come right at last. 
 
 Let us rejoice that God uses us and our troubles and 
 resentment and intolerance of the evil, to bring about 
 the good. Also He does the best for us, for each one ; 
 our trials are the only best for us. What a wonder it is : 
 
Holiness, 263 
 
 the best for the world, the best for each one also. And 
 yet not a wonder, for only by being best for each one 
 could it be best for the whole. We think individual 
 welfare is sacrificed for the welfare of the whole : it is a 
 mean mistaken thought. The good of the whole com- 
 prises and consists in the good of each part. We think 
 God does like us, who are obliged to manage, and con- 
 trive, and choose, and sacrifice some objects for others : 
 God attains the perfect good of the universe by, and 
 with, and not without my perfect good. 
 
 We admire this nutrition and development by limit 
 and excess and resistance in nature ; we sympathize not 
 with her toil and long-suffering and patient endurance. 
 But when it comes to ourselves and we have to live also, 
 bear the wrongness, resist the passion, then we com- 
 plain sadly, and even doubt if God can be good ; or we 
 think He has much to do in the future to make it up. 
 This doctrine of the future has utterly perverted our 
 faith ; at least it has made a great nutrition, and we 
 will have a glorious function from it by-and-by. It is 
 the poor sacrificed working people we should feel for ; 
 they are the martyrs sacrificed for earth's good. It is 
 too much glory to share with them the work of develop- 
 ing the earth's life. For that is what this suffering and 
 wrong is doing. I extend the idea of martyrdom, of 
 suffering for the progress of the right and good, to 
 all innocent suffering. When I say the noble army of 
 martyrs, I think of more than martyrs at the stake 
 and holy confessors. I think of the pale downcast 
 operative, the degraded outcast, the tortured slave. All 
 these are martyrs, sacrificed for the world. 
 
 Is there not something beautiful in the thought that 
 sin pertains to the individual and exclusively so — not 
 
264 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 to man? Only so deep as the isolated individuality 
 extends can sin extend. And thus it is that sin can be 
 "washed away; " because it is superficial; because into 
 the actual fact of man's being it does not enter. The 
 sin has stained the self, not the man. 
 
 And an entirely new thought of the world comes with 
 this. Amid all this sin is the sinless Man ; and we who 
 are sinful are to be brought into one with Him. "' By 
 Man came also the resurrection of the dead." 
 
( 265 ) 
 
 VIII. 
 ETHICS. 
 
 The practical problem is to unite work for man with the devotion 
 connected with work for God — Peace must be made heroic — We 
 need the Puritan's heroism on another level — By seeing the present 
 as the phenomenon of the eternal all life becomes religious — Our 
 Christianity cannot give the enthusiasm which alone can raise men 
 above selfishness — Whether civilization is an advance in a moral 
 direction — Faith will make common life heroic — Stoicism and 
 Actualism — Parallel of Science and the practical life — The world is 
 altruistically good — The world is good for giving in — Men are igno- 
 rant rather than evil — Happiness is altruistic — Man is one — Man's 
 business is with the present — The practical as existing for the sake 
 of the reflective — The unreality of the physical — Virtue connected 
 with the self — The evil of exalting individual over general regards — 
 The self as the devil — Genius is a sufferer, not a doer — Self-sacrifice 
 is extended politeness — Poverty does not involve loss of refinement 
 — The education of children — We need not seek results — Whether 
 the world goes best by being let alone — What martyrdom is — Men 
 are still called upon to be martyrs — The conditions must always be 
 fulfilled — The world's debt to outcasts — Vicarious suffering is the 
 law of the world — Circumstances determine virtue — The ascetic 
 instinct — Our ethical life is pre-scientific —Future times will owe 
 to this age the culture of the heart. 
 
 This is the problem : — to unite, with working for our 
 fellow-men, the zeal, absorption, and devotion which 
 went with, and naturally go with, the idea of working 
 directly for God. And how clearly, too, it is this which 
 the ''actual " view of life, and the world, solves. Is not the 
 
266 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 ethical doctrine exactly expressed thus : " Act for man, 
 as men of old acted (superstitiously) for God " ? Here is 
 the proposition, implicitly, of martyrdom for the Chris- 
 tian life ; of taking the lowest place. All the feelings, 
 all the practice, which that *' serving God " excited, are 
 reawakened and restored, and engaged in the service of 
 man. See how that devotion and intensity are neces- 
 sarily suppressed in the changing direction of men's 
 thoughts and deeds ; necessarily suppressed while they 
 are in ignorance of what man's state is, and what life is 
 for ; and yet, from larger experience and knowledge, 
 that change of direction necessarily comes. It must 
 have been ; the old God-serving, apart from serving 
 man, could not have stood (it involved, too, a radical 
 misconception of the relation of God and the creature). 
 And so, too, how naturally and necessarily (how vitally, 
 as by an organic life), that practical law arises from the 
 " actual " doctrine. It must come ; it is simply its 
 flower and expression. It gives free scope again, in 
 human channels, to that devotion and surrender, that 
 entire using and spending and surrender of one's self, 
 that man ever, and of necessity, aspires to pay to God, 
 Wonderful (and yet necessary), that in directing this 
 stream towards man, its strength and intensity should 
 have been so weakened; and infinitely beautiful too, 
 that in receiving this direction, the condition is fulfilled 
 for its rising to its highest intensity, and developing its 
 greatest strength. Stronger and more intense than ever 
 it is to be ; uniting thus all our nature. 
 
 All daily life and human intercourse is by this know- 
 ledge of what it is raised up to that level on which the 
 old "worshipper" stood; and it rises, not by thought 
 or effort, but naturally, up to the same level of heroism. 
 Nay, above it ; it is univcrsalizod by being perfected. 
 
Ethics. 267 
 
 In fact, it is that i^art of the old life taken and made the 
 whole of life. 
 
 And so again one sees how asceticism — the devoted 
 isolated life — was an ''anticipation" in another form; 
 it was an attempt to make the whole life — what it is. 
 Eight was the thought and desire to have the whole 
 world on the actual level ; but this is to be a work of 
 seeing, not of doing. So it is grand to see this in the 
 ascetic life ; a prophecy that all life is to be known as, 
 and practically made, a religious devotion. 
 
 In order to get rid of war we must make peace heroic. 
 By not seeing the nature and significance of our common 
 life, it is sordid ; and with that there exist heroic forms 
 of activity (war, etc.) which are mischievous. How 
 evidently these are two halves, which need union ; let 
 the heroism be in the common life, and the mischievous 
 forms of it will cease. The union here is in common 
 life being noble ; which it must be when it is seen what 
 it is, and what it allows scope for, and demands. 
 
 This suggested itself after reading about the Puritans. 
 The good in their life was their earnestness, their devo- 
 tion; and what we want is to bring back that. But 
 this cannot be, on their level of goodness ; for the very 
 reason that society has advanced ; for surely our life is, 
 easily (in externals, or in the kind of living aimed at), 
 what theirs was heroically. And so, if the external aim 
 continues the same, the only true good, the heroism, is 
 left out. 
 
 Thus the advance of society affords scope for new 
 advances. Is not this, indeed, its best result ? We 
 must not let the admiration we justly feel for those men, 
 and such as they, limit us ; make us fancy that to do 
 
268 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 the same things, appl}^ the same motives as they did, 
 will be good for us. And this, too, throws a light on 
 the whole of history. Abraham lived heroically a life 
 which would be a very poor life for us. Now we have 
 to outgrow the Puritans as we have outgrown Abraham. 
 And it is so clear; the only good is the heroism — the 
 mere external actions are nothing. There may be one 
 same level of true goodness through the whole course of 
 that advance. As the world advances, therefore, in ex- 
 ternal moralities, we must go on ; the good must go on, 
 so as to be kept at a constant heroism ; this being the 
 sole good. And this constant going on alone can do it ; 
 the law lies in human nature. 
 
 The practical problem in religion is to attain a means 
 of keeping the enthusiasm and vigour of the religious 
 feelings. Many doctrines, many means, excite it for a 
 time, but how is it to be made permanent, and this not 
 in a favoured few but in all ? The ascetic life, the life 
 of constant meditation, the exclusive devotion to religious 
 works, has been tried for this ; sometimes successfully, 
 though often worse than failing; but, besides its other 
 obvious objections, it is inapplicable to all. What then ? 
 Is not the exact thing we want this very result, which 
 comes from seeing the present as the phenomenon of the 
 eternal ; viz. that of making our constant occupation 
 consciously a religious occupation ? This is to make 
 the ordinary life of all the very same as the life of the 
 devotee, and perfected too ; it is a simple union of two 
 opposites, the two imperfect halves, the two phenomena 
 of the true religious life (each a + and a — ), related as 
 physical and spiritual. And see, this is an instance of 
 that law of partial opposites and why there must have 
 been both. The necessity is to have our thought con- 
 
Ethics. 269 
 
 tinually exercised on that which is religious, then 
 let all ordinary things be religious : and let religion be 
 reinforced by all that comes before us, so that the flame 
 of Divine affection is continually re-illumed. All that 
 the devotee seeks by shutting out the world, all that, 
 and all he fails of, are gained from the world. Thus 
 one sees how the spiritual and the physical have been 
 two opposing things ; each opposing the other, and 
 alternately, and in different individuals, triumphing ; 
 but neither gaining permanent victory. 
 
 Only enthusiasm can truly raise a man above enslave- 
 ment to himself, and his wants and pleasures ; can free 
 him. And our Christianity, the individual saving from 
 punishment and hope of felicity, will not, does not, can- 
 not, give us enthusiasm lastingly ; it may for a time, 
 but it dies away. We want another salvation to set 
 us truly free. This is in the absolute salvation ; it is 
 an unending, unfailing source of enthusiasm, worthier, 
 larger, more inspiring, and ever new, ever growing, ever 
 afresh revealed. Think what interest it must give to 
 life, to all events great and small, pleasant and painful, 
 near or remote, to see in them all God redeeming man. 
 Everything imparts to us a new and burning zeal and 
 joy. Enthusiasm cannot cool. The world is full of 
 God's glory, and how can we be dull and unconcerned ? 
 The wonderful fact so grows upon our perception, we 
 cannot but be overwhelmed with emotion. How could 
 we have such dull meetings, with nothing to talk about, 
 or only these paltry interests, or some things to lament 
 and groan over ? It could not be. We have no interest 
 in life, and how should we ? What an emphatic con- 
 demnation of our piety are our hymns of praise — all 
 about how happy we ought to be. 
 
2 70 Philosophy and Religion, 
 
 Iq respect to the question whether or not civilization 
 is itself an advance of man in a moral direction, may 
 not a definite answer be given ? Is it not like the case 
 of Science ? That is an essential condition for the true 
 moral position of man ; but, in the making of it, it de- 
 moralizes. So is not civilization essential to the moral 
 development of man, but demoralizing in the process 
 of attaining ? And is there not a necessity for this, in 
 each case ? viz. in the very fact that both of these are 
 destined to serve, to bring in, a higher morality ; that 
 they must (while not fully apprehended or attained) 
 operate against morality. Is there not an universal 
 necessity exhibited here ? 
 
 And does not this throw a light on many facts in 
 history ? Should we not see vastly more there if we 
 might hold this as a fact ? Nay, may we take the con- 
 verse ; and know, that when any process in human life 
 operates emphatically to suppress or put aside or lower 
 anything {i.e. any good, any positive element), that its 
 especial destiny and work must be to raise, perfect and 
 universalize that thing ? 
 
 So, if civilization put down heroism and nobleness, it 
 is to make all life heroic. If science put down devotion 
 and recognition of divinity in daily life, its office is to 
 make all life the sphere of devotion. 
 
 The negative effect of everything reveals and predicts 
 its positive effect, or end. 
 
 By what imagination, then, shall we make common 
 life romantic and heroic ? By no imagination ; but by 
 faith. " This is the victory that overcometh the world; " 
 the realization of the not-seen. So here surely is the 
 interpretation of that seeking the romantic ; its truth is 
 universal ; the error is in not recognizing the fact, and 
 
Ethics. 271 
 
 so seeking it in partial and unreal forms. Just as in 
 respect to '' good : " men seek good so vainly and 
 wrongly, not seeing the actual goodness that is. So 
 here is a meaning in the expressions, " lift Thou up the 
 light of Thy countenance," ''in Thy light we shall see 
 light." May not this be a thought well ever to associate 
 with them — that of making us see ? When we perceive 
 how good it is to *' see," how much that is, may we not 
 find this thought worthy of the terms ? 
 
 So far from coinciding. Stoicism and the Actualist 
 ethics are at the extremes of oppositeness ; they are 
 to each other as plus and minus. Paul expresses it 
 perfectly : " Not that I would be unclothed, but clothed 
 upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life." 
 Stoicism is the not regarding these things, finding them 
 little and of no account. Actualism is the regarding 
 them more, finding them great and full of an infinite 
 value and worth. The one is crushing, the other is ex- 
 panding ; emptying, and filling to overflowing ; despair- 
 ing, and being overwhelmed with wonder and delight. 
 The "actual" doctrine fills us so with joy, makes us 
 see such an infinite glory and worth in the pettiest, 
 paltriest things, that it does away with selfish feelings ; 
 makes us feel these earthly passions no more, or feel 
 them but to despise and loathe ; it raises us above our- 
 selves. Stoicism, fixing its gaze upon itself, wraps 
 itself in contemptuous disregard. It is the difference 
 between ice and fire. Think of the apostles and martyrs. 
 
 Is not here a parallel : — as, in respect to science, the 
 perfect seeing of its religiousness, the recognition of the 
 spiritual in all {i.e. of the phenomenal character of 
 the physical) gives the most perfect freedom in dealing 
 
2/2 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 with it, the most complete and unbiassed control of all 
 phenomena and of all our own thoughts: — as it is in 
 this, so is it not in respect to practical life ? Is not the 
 perfect and entire spirituality that which gives freedom 
 from the shackles of a false and partial one ? 
 
 The world is altruistically good : in cases innumerable 
 we may see it. Our loss or suffering is the good of 
 others (the phenomenal good) ; and this besides the 
 revealed, actual, altruistic good of the redemption of 
 man, which is in all. What we want is, to introduce 
 this as our conscious element of happiness, think of it, 
 be happy in it. It is just as if a person were in a 
 position to hear the best and most perfect music at will, 
 a person too with the most exquisite ear, but not 
 cultivated; and he did not care to go and hear it, 
 ignored it ; thought it was, or would be, or could be, 
 nothing. Now we should say to him : *'Here is a con- 
 tinual source of most exquisite gratification, and exactly 
 adapted to you : attend to it — cultivate your ear — you 
 will have pleasures that now you cannot conceive." 
 Every now and then we taste an altruistic pleasure ; 
 but the pleasure in altruistic action is to be known, like 
 all true pleasures, only in enjoying it ; it cannot be 
 described ; we must avail ourselves of it. Here it is : 
 we are sacrificed for others. The sweetest of all harmony 
 is' continually performed for us ; nothing is wanted but 
 that we should attend, and grow into the full apprecia- 
 tion — a joy-giving appreciation excelling all tasted or 
 conceivable before. Here, in this natural capacity and 
 disposition (like a sensitive but uncultivated ear) for 
 altruistic pleasure, lies the truth that those see who 
 insist that there is the germ of a Divine life in man, 
 that the Divine image is not wholly effaced. May we 
 
Ethics, 273 
 
 not thus attain a more perfect sympathy with the beauty 
 of this life ? 
 
 Men who suffer reap small consolation from the good 
 to others, even though to very many this is so familiar 
 as to be even a proverb, and it is no blame to them. 
 Then see here how wrong we are in our very constitu- 
 tion. This " no-blame," this naturalness of that feeling, 
 is the very telling point ; it is no blame to us that we 
 feel so ; then see how radical is the flaw. Those evils 
 and wrongnesses for which we are not " to blame " are 
 the deepest. 
 
 It is no objection to a thing that it will not work the 
 wrong way. If the world is good for giving in, it is 
 good for the best purpose. Every one knows that giving 
 is better than getting ; all this is perfectly simple. The 
 mystery and difficulty is from there being something in 
 us which perverts our feeling ; and if not remembered 
 and watched against, perverts our thinking and acting 
 too. But then to be on our guard against it is perfectly 
 simple and easy when once we know. There is some- 
 thing wanting in us. It is as if intellect were wanting, 
 and that we did not feel that two and two must make 
 four, but only learnt it, and had to remember that it was 
 so, although we had a feeling the other way. That is 
 just what we have to do in religion ; to learn and re- 
 member something true although we have a feeling the 
 other way. But there is a deeper feeling that way also ; 
 the false feeling after all is superficial ; and here is an 
 interesting thought — that the " self "-ness in man truly 
 is but superficial. 
 
 I hold that it is knowledge regulates action. I do not 
 
 T 
 
2 74 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 deny that the soul, the life, is the spring of good, or the 
 entirely subordinate place of intellect : yet I affirm it 
 necessary. It is a condition ; it is as weeding and 
 ploughing to a field; not the cause of the growth of 
 corn, by any means, but it may be the thing that is 
 wanted at a particular time. The other elements may 
 be ready, and wanting that. Now this I take to be the 
 present state of Christendom : there is power and life 
 enough for the growth of a truly good, practical life ; 
 the condition now wanting is a truer knowledge — plough- 
 ing and weeding. Men do not know what the world is, 
 nor what the Gospel, nor what is right. They are 
 rather uninformed than unwilling. Was it not so 
 in Luther's time ? Was it not the thought that was 
 altered then ? It is a permission of the goodness rather 
 than its producing, that is wanted ; and error prevents. 
 Let us have men as good as they are ready and willing 
 to be ; that would be enough. 
 
 It is true ; noble things are done now ; but what we 
 want is to have these things not the exceptions ; to have 
 all our life made so, to have this the fundamental 
 principle. It would work. And for this we want to 
 knoiv, to understand. There is the willingness : that is 
 proved by these exceptions. 
 
 Men cannot get perpetual motion, because motion is 
 perpetual, but it is altruistic. Is not this analogous to 
 our trying to get, and not being able to get, happiness 
 or good ? Is it not because it is, but altruistic ? It is 
 our relation, our mode of feeling, deceives us ; and we 
 try to get that which is, because it is not to us. Observe, 
 too, how much better even our purposes are answered 
 truly by the altruistic perpetual motion than if we could 
 
Ethics, 275 
 
 get what we wanted. Is it not so also in respect to the 
 other good? And as in respect to the former, so also 
 to the latter, is it not our part to enlarge our knowledge 
 and conform our action to the truth ? As practically 
 there is not perpetual motion, and yet practically there 
 is, so is it in respect to good. See how the oppositeness 
 in us is shown perfectly by Science also. Practically 
 motion ceases, practically it does not ; yet is the truth 
 only one, and human life is itself only in knowing and 
 acting so. We are related to nature (the phenomenal) 
 in a false way. There cannot be that perpetual motion 
 "to us; " it is against the nature of motion, altogether 
 against itself; so there cannot be that "good" to us; 
 it were against the nature of good. 
 
 Man is truly one ; therefore the true objects refer to 
 man as one ; i.e. the world exists for universal objects ; 
 in using it we must regard universal objects, or we use it 
 as it is not. Is not this the same as that the world exists 
 for spiritual objects, is spiritual ? Is not the universal 
 truly spiritual, the physical individual ? There is not 
 oneness in the physical ; this feeling of oneness is in 
 truth of the not-physical. There is no physical "man; " 
 "men" are physical; man, spiritual. Our feeling in 
 respect to the individual objects is a wrong feeling ; when 
 we are right we shall be freed from it. So the individual, 
 and its end, are not good or valuable, and so are sacri- 
 ficed. Man's ends only are regarded, and these are 
 spiritual ; we must learn to regard these only. 
 
 The only sufficient consolation in sorrow must be that 
 it is salvation ; that it makes man love, and sacrifice 
 himself. Not a balancing of less happiness against 
 greater, but of an illusion against a fact ; of sorrow, not 
 
2 76 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 against enjoyment, but Love. Future enjoyment cannot 
 repay present sorrow ; we know it cannot. Convince a 
 man that vice is against enjoyment in the long run, and 
 you are as far as ever from making him virtuous. The 
 present asserts its rightful sui)remacy in. spite of all such 
 barriers. Man's business, man's life, is in the present, 
 because it is in the eternal, of which the present is to 
 him the only representative. And that men have pre- 
 ferred, and do prefer, the future to the present — that 
 martyrs, for the sake of the world to come, have endured 
 and will endure again — this is not to the point. If it be 
 supposed that there was a balance of present against 
 future suffering or joy, it is a great mistake : that may 
 well account for our seeing so little like martyrs now. 
 It was for present love that they endm-ed. And that 
 future enjoyment cannot console for present suffering, 
 we see — it is a clear fact of all our daily life. Do we 
 not firmly believe in a future and everlasting happiness, 
 unutterable and overwhelming ? Yet does it console us 
 for our sorrows ? Do w^e not know, that in darkest ages, 
 amid least believing natures, there never was a time 
 or place when sorrow was so ill-borne, and suffering so 
 feared ? It is right that it is so ; it helps us, or should 
 and will help us, to a truer consolation. Enjoyment is 
 not the consolation for sorrow — least of all future enjoy- 
 ment—but Love which waits no lapse of time, which 
 flies no wretchedness, which alights with its soft pinions 
 there first where anguish has worn the deepest scars. 
 
 People think the reflective exists for the sake of the 
 physical or *' practical." " What is the good of moral 
 reflections, unless they be carried out in act ? " Now 
 they may be mistaken here ; it may be that the physical 
 exists /or tlie reflective; the end maybe not the attaining 
 
Ethics, 277 
 
 of such material results, but the experience, the sub- 
 jective state, which flows out of them. Now if so, it 
 does not follow that the practical may be neglected, that 
 the reflective should not be carried out into act. It is a 
 wonderful instinct, a glorious illusion, that the use of 
 the reflective is to be carried out in act. Only by that 
 carrying out into act (which seems to us the end or 
 object) can be attained the basis and materials for a 
 higher, truer, larger reflection. This is the good of the 
 practical ; it carries on and develops that subjective for 
 which it exists ; this imperfect subjective only attains 
 its perfection, its advance, by the being carried into 
 action ; each end produces a new means. Here is the 
 right relation. Be practical ; but be so in the right 
 way; attend to these physical things, but understand 
 for what reason and purpose ; they are not an end, they 
 are not of value in themselves, but are essential to the 
 attainment of that which is. There is more in them 
 than we have thought. For of course they lose no 
 value that they have, by being seen to have an altogether 
 new and higher value before unseen. Would he be 
 thought to deny the reality of a pound, to be unpractical 
 or visionary, who should say to an ignorant man : "Do 
 not use that sovereign merely for your amusement, it 
 has uses, ' meaning,' value much beyond any that are 
 apparent in itself ; it is not a mere piece of metal, it is 
 a pound ? " "As seeing that which is invisible " — how 
 exactly that applies to a man who should speak so of a 
 pound ; he sees an invisible fact respecting it. Would 
 he urge inattention to sovereigns, because he should 
 say : " The value of it is not this mere pleasure it affords 
 you ; do not regard it so ; see its relation to the great 
 facts of life " ? And observe how he would say : " Do 
 not hold it and keep it ; give it up ; use it. This thing 
 
278 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 held by you is nothing — part with it, and see what you 
 have instead." So is this physical : it is our money, 
 used by us as if it were mere metal, to please ourselves 
 vdth till we are tired of it. 
 
 All that is evil to us is for remedy of something which 
 is bad and needs remedying, and how therefore can that 
 be truly evil ? If we say that that which the evil exists 
 to remedy must be truly evil, the same thing is true of 
 that also — that is an evil to us, existing to remedy some 
 other evil, therefore how can it be evil ? We are here in 
 an endless chain ; we cannot get at that primary evil ; 
 it is not, it rises and rises, until it shows itself the love 
 of God, the creation of man. Kedemption resolves itself 
 into creation at last. Here what we call real and 
 imaginary sufferings become one. For imaginary suffer- 
 ings are not less truly sufferings, not less evil to us. 
 *' But there is no reality in them ; " true, and so of these 
 physical sufferings ; they are truly evil to us ; but there 
 is no reality in them ; the sufferings we call imaginary 
 are real to us until we know ; the sufferings we call real 
 are real to us only until we know. The world dreams : 
 I would it might awake out of this weary dream to 
 know. All is suffering which is painful to us ; and this 
 is all the evil — the relation to us which therefore is 
 necessarily one. All has that element in it, which, 
 when we recognize it, makes us call it imaginary ; we 
 only need to recognize the fact, to be aroused from our 
 dream, to see that all we call real suffering is truly such 
 as we term imaginary. The reality to us (while igno- 
 rant) of imaginary sufferings or evil, is most instructive. 
 I suffer ; but there is no evil, only an imaginary evil, 
 because I do not know what is ; a nightmare, in which 
 one struggles and struggles to be fi-ee, and cannot get 
 
Ethics. 279 
 
 so. Why are our struggles vain? because we are 
 directing our efforts to the 'phenomena. We cannot 
 regain comfort so ; there is no fact there to deal with ; 
 we only escape from the sufferings of a nightmare by 
 waking up and directing our efforts according to the 
 fact of the case. It is just so with reference to these 
 evils of life ; we cannot escape them, struggle as we 
 may, because we direct our efforts to the phenomena. 
 The only remedy is to wake up and act according to the 
 fact of the case. 
 
 Is there not even something good in ignoring the 
 distinction between virtue and vice ? That idea of 
 " virtue " goes with the thought and feeling of self : ''I 
 am good." There should be no " I," no goodness ; but 
 just this : God shall act, not the self ; here shall be 
 man, man's true Being and action and life, not " I" at 
 all. The only deliverance from self must be by feeling 
 that we )iave all; that there is nothing to get, that 
 God's love is perfect, and is wholly ours; that man is 
 redeemed. This is how Christianity can make the 
 world holy, free from self; because it reveals to men 
 that they have all, that all is good ; winning love by 
 love. 
 
 People without strong ** affections " and "sympathies " 
 are not worse than other people : we want a virtue that 
 shall appeal to and embrace both sorts. See how these 
 strong lovings are compatible with the worst lives and 
 qualities, and vice versa. There are many men who 
 scarcely have these, who yet rejoice in the utmost 
 sacrifice for the purest, most unselfish ends, who would 
 lay down their lives, endure all agony, for the world's 
 bettering. And these are often the " bad people ; " they 
 
2 8o Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 are sullen, restless, unsocial, even depraved. We want 
 a truer calendar of virtue. 
 
 It is quite the established doctrine to exalt the indi- 
 vidual personal attachments and sympathies over 
 general (what are called ** cosmopolitan ") regards. 
 Now it is just the question whether this is right. I say 
 it is not. Doubtless the personal affection is incom- 
 parably better than mere selfishness. It is better than 
 indifference also, which is what perhaps goes under the 
 name of " cosmopolitanism." And it must be, I con- 
 ceive, from having only these to compare with it, that 
 the personal regard has come to be so lauded. But I 
 say let us look calmly at this, and see if these personal 
 affections and devotions be not rather the forms and 
 pretences of virtue than the fact, if the very essence of 
 selfishness be not in them, if what we want be not a 
 true self-devotion ; not personal, not for individuals ; a 
 devotion such as Christ's, to the world; a devotion 
 having reference to the fact and not to the phenomenon, 
 the eternal and not the temporal, the actual and not 
 the physical. What can come of these acute personal 
 devotions, but self-regard? A little wider indeed, but 
 just as hostile to the universal good as the mere indi- 
 vidual. The same principle is in them. Devotion to 
 my wife, my child, what is it truly better than devotion 
 to myself? It is formally, phenomenally, better, I 
 admit — infinitely so, and a necessary step out of that 
 intensest death. This is the use of the personal affections 
 (people say it indeed) ; not to be final, or an end and 
 perfect result themselves ; but to be a means and help 
 towards a true all-embracing Divine Love. Then let it 
 be a means ; let the end come ; a means is good if it be 
 used as a means ; made an end, nothing is worse. As 
 
Ethics. 281 
 
 we see, nothing can be worse than that domestic love 
 (so-called) in England this day. Is this the universal 
 imperfection which brings suppression, a necessary- 
 suppression, owing to the imperfection of the other, 
 which was surely from its not including a seeing the 
 invisible ? 
 
 In those narratives of the casting out of devils, we see 
 self as the devil, and how it is cast out, and must be, if 
 any life is to be in us. Also, the evil spirit goes back to 
 the man from whom it is cast out, when the house re- 
 mains empty. Is it not so, when by self-righteousness, 
 self-eifort, the self is cast out ? This is no deliverance 
 from the self; the house left empty will but be filled 
 with self again, worse than before. God must cast it 
 out, and live in us, and fill us ; else is our last state 
 worse than the first. Think of this passage : " When the 
 evil spirit goeth out of the man ; " as if it were quite 
 simple and certain that there is one in man, and either 
 he must be cast out, and another spirit enter into his 
 place, or he will retain his hold. What can it mean, but 
 the self^ And that God must take its place ? The self 
 cannot cast out the self ; love cannot be from the self ; it 
 is a contradiction in terms. Love must come from with- 
 out, be given, poured into us. It cannot but be, if we 
 believe, and regard what God is doing. Of this we may 
 be sure ; if the world is in any sense wrong to us, it must 
 be because we regard it wrongly ; we regard it from the 
 self ; only so indeed can it possibly be evil. 
 
 I think we shall never get right until we do truly feel 
 about the self as a personal enemy, trying to draw us 
 into slavery and destroy us ; and that all that is man in 
 us is against it. So that we should ever recognize the 
 
282 Philosophy and Religion, 
 
 voice of self as that of an enemy, as the temptation to 
 death ; all yielding to self as abnegation and denial of 
 humanity. In every case we should feel : Now humanity 
 shall be, man's life and Being shall be in me ; no devil 
 shall destroy it. *' This self is a devil : " when we find 
 that out, with what glad, yet awful amazement it strikes 
 us — fearful indeed, and terrible, but yet replete with joy. 
 What a sense of deliverance, of hope and relief, it brings 
 with it. It is indeed glad tidings ; it makes the world, 
 and all our thoughts, hopes, desires, prospects, our very 
 Being new ; we see so differently ; our whole conceptions 
 of good and evil are altered ; we are right to the universe ; 
 we are to it as God is. 
 
 How are we to be happy under vexations? Not by 
 trying and resolving. We want something in our 
 thoughts that shall take away the disposition to grief; 
 we want to remember the redemption., But in order for 
 this we must associate it with all things; it must be the 
 thing we regard in all, or else we shall not think of it 
 till too late (even as to behave well on special occasions, 
 we must on all). The only art of associating the re- 
 demption of the world with our particular little troubles 
 when we want it, is to associate it with all things ; in 
 order to which we must only believe it. Just so for 
 glorifying God ; we shall be sure to omit to think of 
 doing it at the right time, unless we are thinking of it, 
 doing it, in all things ; for which end we must know that 
 God's glory is in all things. 
 
 Our right relation to things, in respect to joy and 
 sorrow, appears somewhat here in the fact that only 
 forms change. Surely we ought to be equally glad in the 
 fact under any form. But these changing forms involve 
 such losses to us, such evils ; we cannot be equally glad 
 
Ethics. 283 
 
 in the one fact. But now, what do we want for our 
 perfected joy ? That the forms should be petrified and 
 not change ? Surely not ; but that their changing should 
 not affect us as it does. We want to be made to have our 
 joy in and our regard to the fact ; and then the promise 
 of the eternal, where no change or sorrow comes, is at 
 once fulfilled. And that is open to us now. Let our joy 
 be in the spiritual, in redemption ; that remains the same 
 under all forms. Only our feeling of forms as realities is 
 the secret of our grief. 
 
 Talent is doing, genius is suffering. This puts suffering 
 in its right light. For see : it is genius does the work 
 of the world ; talent exists only for it, it is of no use save 
 as laying a basis for the work of genius. So man's work 
 is done, not by doing but by suffering. It is by what 
 we bear the world is redeemed ; our doing is very un- 
 important, in itself of no value. It is in our suffering 
 God's work is fulfilled ; for suffering the world exists ; 
 then we are used ; God's work is done in us ; in our 
 suffering is the Being of the universe. Christ was a 
 sufferer, not a doer. What He did was of little moment 
 comparatively, and of little efficacy ; its use was not 
 for itself but to reveal the true meaning and value of 
 His suffering. 
 
 Would it not be better merely for men to know intel- 
 lectually that the true object is not their enjoyment, their 
 edification, but the redemption of man ? Would it not 
 make them wiser, truer, in their practical life ? Are they 
 not wiser for knowing that the bodily appetites are not 
 for their mere pleasure, but for nutrition and preserva- 
 tion of the life ? Do they not act more wisely than if they 
 did not know it ? Their appetites remain the same, and 
 
284 PJiilosophy and Religion. 
 
 much abuse remains, but not such mere abuse as if they 
 did not know, not such mere abuse as exists now in 
 respect to other self-indulgence — grasping at wealth and 
 means of enjoyment or power. Men treat these just as 
 they w^ould eating if they thought it was solely for enjoy- 
 ment, and did not know that on wisely regulating it 
 depended health ; as if they merely ate and ate and ate, 
 for the pleasure of it, regardless of digestion — and having 
 a stomach-ache, ate again. Merely knowing the fact does 
 improve practice somewhat. 
 
 Yet there is no reason, I think, why, even without 
 being different or better, there should not be a much 
 better practical life ; a seeking of others' pleasure rather 
 than of our own, which all experience proves to be the best 
 and greatest happiness. To argue the contrary from 
 man's present ways, is like arguing that children who 
 are greedy can never become polite. Why should not 
 man be polite in great things as well as little ones ? If 
 the sacrifice is greater, so also is the reward. Self-sacrifice 
 is but politeness in reference to great interests. (How 
 often that goes with absence of politeness in little things 
 and vice versa.) Phenomenal people, who cannot under- 
 stand, and who blame sacrificing material interests for 
 moral or social ends, are like people who, not being able 
 to see anything beyond the mere sensual, should be 
 astonished and confounded at a polite man, should charge 
 him with neglect, and often not of himself only, but of 
 his own family. The case simply being that the polite man 
 has perceptions which the vulgar greedy man has not ; he 
 acts in reference to other objects ; he has more life, more 
 Being ; he comes nearer to manhood. (The vulgar man 
 is not necessarily the worse man of the two ; he may be 
 the better.) Between a polite and a vulgar man the case 
 
Ethics. 285 
 
 cannot be argued ; the only thing is : Can you give the 
 latter the new perceptions ? 
 
 One chief practical error is the idea that poverty, 
 especially when voluntarily encountered by truly re- 
 fined people, would involve loss of refinement. This it 
 would not do ; nay, surely it would elevate and perfect it ; 
 is indeed needed for its perfecting. The unrefined want 
 wealth to refine them (or that which is now only to be 
 obtained by wealth) ; the refined do not need to retain it ; 
 nay, perhaps rather need to get rid of it, in order not 
 to sink. The mistake then is holding to wealth after it 
 has done its work. 
 
 People do sacrifice themselves when they see it clearly 
 right, and especially when they see it a religious duty 
 (as in martyrdom for doctrines, etc.). Then is not what 
 we want to extend the sphere of this perception, that 
 we shall see it right to sacrifice ourselves where now we 
 do not see it ? And observe, how these views extend 
 especially the religious element ; they make duties that 
 seem irreligious to be emphatically religious — make all 
 so, in truth. And this also they accomplish : they bring 
 that special religious feeling, which now attaches itself 
 so exclusively to dogmatical things, into all the common 
 affairs of life. Here we see again an instance of a law : 
 a true thing misapplied, and therefore suppressed (in 
 part). This very feeling of religious duty, misapplied to 
 doctrinal things exclusively, is set aside by another class 
 of men altogether. But this is for its perfect restoration, 
 in application to all life. 
 
 See how we pity a really refined and beautiful nature 
 in a child wearing the gauds and trinkets of the stage, 
 and especially if proud of them. Now, why may it not be 
 
2 86 Philosophy and Religion, 
 
 that the real jewels and splendour men value are such 
 as this, degrading, and most to those who do not feel 
 them so ? And then, are not those natures which how- 
 ever darkly, revolt at them, and feel it better to be 
 without them, truly like the higher nature revolting 
 in such a child, though perhaps little able to feel 
 what a truer, better life would be, never having known 
 or seen it ? She might throw them off, and sulk. Is 
 not this asceticism ? 
 
 What a strange notion, that children should conform 
 to our ideas of propriety, etc., when these are themselves 
 only conventional ; and we do not know that in the future 
 they will be thought good, even for adults. What lessons 
 there is an opportunity for teaching to children, about 
 the true nature of things and of life ; for example, by 
 letting them have comfort in naughtiness, how we might 
 make them know about the relation of the pleasant and 
 the good ; get all that rooted in them ; so as, in fact, to 
 set aside and anticipate all instructions and admonitions 
 as to those points in adult life which are now so neces- 
 sary, so abundant, and so useless too. So all these were 
 done with — passed, as it were, before ; the ethical edifi- 
 cation of an adult might begin at a higher level. 
 
 These rudiments ought to be mastered in childhood ; 
 to do as we do is like leaving children uneducated, and 
 trying to teach them their letters when they are grown 
 up (almost all we try to teach men is like the alphabet of 
 morals) ; and it is very seldom any good comes of that. 
 Surely if once we could get a right understanding of the 
 phenomenalness of phenomenal things — if w^e once got 
 the right idea about them — we should be able to use 
 them properly; to give them up for the children's 
 development. 
 
Ethics. 2%"] 
 
 Here is a case of union of opposites : the instinct is 
 the value of these things (suppressed) ; the true per- 
 ception of their value is to unite this with its opposite 
 of no-value. 
 
 The object is not for children to be orderly and perfect, 
 but to grow into orderly and perfect men ; for which, 
 surely, they must be not so. 
 
 The system of tyranny on the Continent arises exactly 
 from the plan thought right with children — that of not 
 permitting evils. Is there not a practical rule, as well 
 as a theoretical one, that what men are naturally prone 
 to do (as well as to think) is not the right ? It is to be 
 suppressed, but also to be restored, and in union with an 
 opposite. The suppression will come, at some time; 
 either with or without understanding what it is. 
 
 To give up interest for duty is the alphabet of morals, 
 and it should be learnt when a child ; or, like the other 
 alphabet, the chances are it will not be learnt at all. 
 
 And here is an illustration of that beauty which is in 
 truth in all the rest of Nature. See the compensation, 
 the opposites united. Duty against pleasure is to be 
 taught to children. How ? Why, by letting them have 
 pleasures, even to repletion. So God gives the thing 
 He means us to give up. He gives men enjoyments and 
 pleasures ; lets them have them even at the expense of 
 right — but for what ? Surely that they may learn to 
 give them up. It is a *' condition" of the giving up. 
 
 Men believe that all they bear is God's will, is neces- 
 sary for His work to be accomplished. But that is not 
 Christianity ; philosophy gets so far ; but it is not 
 enough. It does not save to know only so vaguely ; does 
 not content or make happy ; we do not know that that 
 
288 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 will is anything that we should he glad at, or could be ; 
 feeling the phenomenon as fact, and feeling it evil. 
 Christ shows what it is. This is the very point of 
 Christianity ; revealing what God is, and His work. 
 That makes us truly willing to bear annoyances — saves 
 us — makes us happy and truly content in knowing God. 
 There is a radical defect in every religion that will not 
 do this. 
 
 The feeling that we ought to secure certain objects 
 inevitably depraves all things. We only can be right by 
 treating all things as the phenomenon of a good fact. 
 The lesson which all the experience of the world teaches 
 is to do right in spite of all things, to suffer any evil or 
 mischief to come — but to do right. But men do not read 
 it so ; they fix their eye on the particulars ; they learn 
 to understand that it will not answer to seek certain 
 results by violation of principle ; but do not see the true 
 teaching — that it will not do to seek any results so. 
 When a new case comes they go the same old way again, 
 they try to avoid the evil. But we learn at last to seek 
 no results, but only do right. 
 
 W^hat if the world be so arranged by God that it goes 
 best by being let alone ; not being continually interfered 
 with by us, to make it as we like it (as we find this the 
 tendency of politics, certainly, and medicine) ? May this 
 be the truth : that man, having his interest devoted 
 mainly to the spiritual, and suffering the phenomenal to 
 go with less devotion of thought and labour, would find 
 it go better by that very letting alone ? One great part 
 of our mischief is, that we continually alter (or try to) 
 all phenomena to i^lease ourselves, and so spoil things ; 
 our whole interest and thought is to them, and it is the 
 
Ethics. 289 
 
 wrong attitude of man to tliem ; they go wrong by that 
 very activity ; and the remedy for this evil is the devotion 
 of our thoughts to the spiritual, the phenomenal therefore 
 going better. May not this be in part the meaning of 
 *' Seek ye first the kingdom of God," etc. ? Do not pay 
 so much heed to make these things go as you like them, 
 and they will go the better ; for it spoils even the 
 phenomenon to make it as man likes it to be. 
 
 Mill's argument respecting liberty is simply an argu- 
 ment for not-doing. (It is as in medicine ; ever the real 
 advance is not to do something. True, something else is 
 substituted; but this is only better in so far as it is 
 simpler. The true gain is the abstaining from doing.) 
 But his position is very interesting. He says, do not 
 control for any good to the individual, only for self -pro- 
 tection. Will not the next step be not to control others, 
 even for self-protection ? Mill assumes that injury to 
 self is a reason for such control ; but it is not. Shall we 
 not come to see this ? And on Mill's own principles, is 
 not this feeling about self, at its basis, a liking merely, 
 one of those things against the authority of which he so 
 emphatically contends ? In the intellectual and moral 
 he contends against the authority of feelings, and seeks 
 to substitute only belief grounded on reason. 
 
 How essential to the martyrs must have been faith, 
 true trust in God, that it was not necessary for them to 
 do any good. Is not the want of that in us a chief reason 
 why we are so conscious we could hardly be martyrs, and 
 why we cannot take up the martyrdom that is even now 
 waiting us ? It is not that we are not good enough, but 
 that we have not faith enough. We take the responsi- 
 bility of the world so much upon ourselves ; see how this 
 is displayed in that excellent characteristic of modern 
 times — the missionary work. 
 
290 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 The nature of martyrdom is, that goodness opposes 
 goodness. The martyr is not necessarily good ; but he 
 sees. He has the sense of sight, the persecutor the sense 
 of duty ; so it is implacable war — the one cannot alter 
 his sight, the other cannot give up his sense of duty. 
 So it is the part of the sense of duty to oppose new sight. 
 Is not this universal ? Observe, too, how this sense of 
 duty of the persecutor is very likely to have more of what 
 is called " goodness " in it than the " sight " of the 
 martyr. Yet is it a sort of self-goodness ; a feeling of 
 what 1 must do ; whereas the " sight " is altruistic. 
 
 Men say, we are not now called on to be martyrs. 
 Never was there a greater mistake. Men never were 
 called on to be anything else ; nay, they never had, or 
 shall have, the chance of being anything else. For God 
 will save them, will be in them, and that is martyrdom. 
 God has shown us what His glory is, what He will give 
 us. Nay, this thought lurks even in the very idea of 
 Hell — the martyrdom of the universe. Shall we not find 
 that it is the sublime redeeming elements in the thought 
 of Hell, and kindred thoughts, that have made it possible 
 to man, and have kept it alive so long. Is not the world 
 so wonderfully made, with such an essential and inherent 
 grandeur and good, so obstinate a rightness, that there 
 is and can be nothing, not even in man's imagination, 
 which has not, amid its vileness, also its awfulness of 
 grandeur or of beauty. 
 
 Does it not thrill our hearts to think of it ? God's 
 glory, the glory of martyrdom, the glory that shines 
 feebly in the martyr's flame — iiiai is what He will give 
 to us. That is the promise ; and if we think, "How shall 
 that draw men ? " this is the glory of the promise beyond : 
 He will make us so that it shall be happiness to us. 
 
Ethics. 291 
 
 This it is to be infinite, to be eternal, to have life. And 
 think of this as the history and consummation of the 
 world, as the work God will do. 
 
 The world now does not persecute men for opinion : 
 but is not this only to prepare the way for a new 
 martyrdom ? Will it not persecute men for 'practice ? — 
 must not its practice be renovated through martyrdom, 
 as its thought has been ? and, for this martyrdom, the 
 cessation of the violence for opinion is a necessary con- 
 dition. 
 
 That the very pleasant and amiable and successful, 
 the most " complete," should be those who find it 
 hardest to see the ethics of self-sacrifice, is right enough. 
 May it not be probable that those who do best, are best 
 organized to the present system, may be even least fitted 
 for the new ? And especially were not this good ? For 
 now it is only the few who thus succeed ; in the other 
 way were it not the many ? Might not the many be 
 then as the few are now ? 
 
 May we not say that our natural tendency indicates 
 the thing that is to be done (or thought), but that there 
 is necessary first a fulfilling of conditions ; and that this 
 is an opposite, a giving up of that desired ? The instinct 
 to pursue happiness is a right one, but we must fulfil 
 the condition ; it must be altruistic ; and for this it must 
 be first a giving up of the self-happiness. This is em- 
 bodied in the saying : " Love, and then do what you 
 like": — love, but altruistically; not, "love yourself." 
 Again : in the case of children, the instinct is to make 
 them obey ; true ; but fulfil the conditions, which in- 
 volves the giving up this. The end is to be their 
 obedience ; the instinct guides to the end. 
 
292 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 We first take a self-way, and have to acquire an altru- 
 istic ; which involves, therefore, the giving up, the sup- 
 pression, of the former ; and, in ignorance of this law, of 
 course the means seems like giving up the end. 
 
 So in metaphysics : giving up the intuitive certainty 
 seems like giving up certainty ; it is giving up pheno- 
 menal or apparent certainty for altruistic, or true. 
 
 What we want in life is some motive, some power, 
 which shall grow stronger as temptation comes; not 
 weaker, and disappear. And is there not such a power 
 in these motives ? Should not the true motives be such 
 as are to be intensified and brought out into strength by 
 the very existence and stress of their opposites ? For is 
 not our weakness just in this, that in temptation the 
 motives which would help us, which we own and desire 
 to obey, grow weak and are blotted out. But is not the 
 world's redemption and our martyr's privilege then most 
 potent and present when the temptation is strongest and 
 most overwhelming ? It is not a thing apart from that 
 temptation (as even love to Christ is), but is in it, lives 
 in and grows with it, feeds upon it, overtops and slays it 
 and makes its life its own. 
 
 How cruelty and injury to the helpless fills one with 
 indignant, almost despairing, grief and rage. But is it 
 not in Christ the meaning of all this is to be seen ? He 
 was an outcast also, as well as a sufferer. These poor 
 victims of oppression are the givers ; to them the world 
 is debtor ; for a greater work, though unrecognized as 
 yet, than that which it owes to its great and applauded 
 men. True, it is not known to them, nor consciously 
 their doing. It is God's gift, unconsciously. Is the 
 person gifted with beauty or genius, so gifted by his own 
 
Ethics, 293 
 
 will or design, or making ? yet is he any the less endowed 
 by God-with a great gift ? If unconscious of his gift, is 
 it not better ? 
 
 Is it our not recognizing that the redemption of the 
 world is worked out in these sensuous things, that blinds 
 and misleads us ? Yet how should it be otherwise ? If 
 not in these — in what then ? Are not these the things 
 that do really affect and influence us ; in which we have 
 our part ? 
 
 Vicarious suffering is the Law of God's world. He 
 saves us so, but makes us also its instruments ; from our 
 own suffering He saves us, but gives us that of others to 
 bear. " Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the 
 law of Christ." And how beautiful it is : bearing our 
 own sufferings is misery and loss and ruin; bearing 
 those of others is life and joy and happiness. See here 
 the interpretation of suffering ; it is the self-form only 
 that is bad ; let it be altruistic and it becomes at once 
 glorious and Divine. 
 
 The real is of no consequence ; therefore the moral, the 
 doing properly, being virtuous, is a small matter. Cir- 
 cumstances determine that. A man brought up in 
 certain circumstances is sure to become thus depraved ; 
 this is not the fact, the actual. Thinking of these things, 
 how clearly it is that this is a state of redeeming ; that 
 man is saved. Indeed, God designs, the world being 
 dead, that it shall not be good and moral, and well-con- 
 ducted. Here one sees the instinct of referring religion 
 to the future, representing it as having to do primarily 
 with the world to come ; a perverted instinct from our 
 putting the eternal into the future. It is beautiful to see 
 how man cannot be crushed down to a religion of morals. 
 
294 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 Observe ; man cannot ; some men are ; but others will 
 not be. So of all things ; some take one view, but if it 
 be deficient, others are sure to assert the contrary. It 
 is a mechanical process ; press on one part of water, and 
 another part rises. There is a vibration in these opposite 
 opinions ; one denies by logic, but necessarily another 
 affirms. The form may vary ; the fact cannot change. 
 
 It is interesting to think of the feeHng there has been 
 continually in man's mind — even not knowing the 
 martyrdom — of the real evil of human pleasure ; shown 
 in asceticism and puritanism. This instinct has ever 
 protested that there is a higher nature in man, and that 
 his life is larger than he would have been content 
 with. 
 
 Is it not true that what men call pleasure — the best 
 and wisest self-happiness, the well-ordered home, the 
 temperate luxury, the refinement — is it not true that all 
 this is, to the true good, only as the pleasure of drunken- 
 ness is to the best and wisest phenomenal pleasure? 
 We cannot knoic it is not so ; all we know is that we 
 like it, and the nature of our liking is the very point. 
 See the instinct of asceticism, that has ever broken forth 
 among men, and now is ready to do so again ; the feeling 
 is, that the right thing for man in this world is not 
 pleasure, but its absence, or even pain. But the ascetic 
 did not know xcliy ; he did not see the martyrdom ; and 
 could not, not seeing the redemption. 
 
 Our ethical life being in a sort oi j^fe-scicmtijic era, this 
 readjustment of it, so far from being anything new or 
 special, would be simply to bring it into harmony with 
 our scientific and other life. Nay, may not our special 
 ethical difficulties and failures arise, in great part, from 
 
Ethics, 295 
 
 this very disharmony ? Of old, though ethics were in a 
 pre-scientific state, yet so was everything else ; there 
 was harmony in the life, and character showed it. The 
 ethical life was free ; free to be deep, reality-regarding, 
 etc. NoiOy by the very fact of the " scientific " character 
 of other parts of our life, is it not crushed and borne 
 down ? We cannot go back, and get harmony by laying 
 aside our science : the only way is to have our ethical 
 life scientific too — only so can harmony be restored. 
 
 Future times, looking back on this as the morally 
 dark age, will see that it is great, will see that they owe 
 to it a debt as real as to any other, tlie culture of the 
 heart. And they will feel, too, what was suffered and 
 sacrificed for that work. It will appear as a sublime 
 sacrifice. And this justifies and sanctifies it. Because 
 sacrifice is the life; that makes this age, with all its 
 evil, glorious. And the future will see, too, that the 
 men of this age have not so much been morally bad, as 
 crushed and hampered and unable to apply their moral 
 instincts; even as in the scientifically dark age men 
 were not really wanting or weak intellectually. And this 
 agrees with what has been widely felt in regard to this 
 age, that people are really quite good enough to live 
 immensely better lives, that practice falls far short of 
 willingness, that not only our habits, but our opinions, 
 forbid us from worthy action. 
 
 The work of the present age is the preparation of the 
 moral sense for its future place ; just as the " dark ages " 
 prepared intellect for its work in science, and as the 
 Greeks developed the senses. The special work of each 
 age has to be seen ; and will not the whole constitute a 
 chain like the zoological ? And it suggests itself here 
 that the two lines of growth and development go on 
 
296 Philosophy and Rch'gion. 
 
 separately in zoology though contemporaneously, as in 
 reptiles and birds. Is it so in the mental life ? For 
 example, is there not organization, intension, in respect 
 to the moral sense, and a corresponding growth, expan- 
 sion, in science ? Both are needed for the future. The 
 growth of one, the organization of the other, progressing 
 together, apparently most diverse, are yet subservient to, 
 and to be swallowed up in, a third. 
 
 Think, in respect to this as the morally dark age, of 
 the story of Lady Godiva. Whether true or merely 
 legendary, it shows how different that age was. Could 
 we imagine such a thing done by a lady now ? Not on 
 account of the greater delicacy of modern feeling (which, 
 indeed, is not proved), but that any lady should for a 
 moment think such a sacrifice might be made. There 
 must have been a totally different thought of life then. 
 And how profoundly, consenting to that which is as a 
 moral degradation, her act was like Christ's. She did 
 that which scarcely the most degraded woman would do ; 
 for always the highest good seems only possible in that 
 which might also be utter evil. 
 
 And look at it another way. See how the "good" 
 now do what, if seen differently, only the most utterly 
 and profoundly selfish could do. They do it, really and 
 truly, though not with equal clearness of apprehension, 
 as Godiva did what only a shameless woman otherwise 
 could do. Is not the parallel clear ? 
 
 These people do not act thus with their eyes open. 
 They are used for that purpose ; and with the good 
 meaning do the thing that were else utterly bad. And 
 our indignation is right, remember ; as his would have 
 been who should have witnessed Godiva, not under- 
 standing. 
 
 Is it not sublime to see this ? The thing needed is 
 
Ethics, 297 
 
 done ; sometimes consciously by us, sometimes not ; but 
 God takes care it is done. 
 
 And how glorious is the thought of this age subjecting 
 us involuntarily to moral degradation ; not sinfully, but 
 by loss imposed upon us. It exactly parallels our life to 
 Christ's. 
 
298 Philosophy and Religioiu 
 
 IX. 
 SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 Altruism as a basis for life — To obtain justice we must aim higher — 
 Is selfishness normal? — ISociety will take the place of Govern- 
 ment — The function of social evil — Tlie scientific laws of force as 
 guides in political economy — Rightness of the Sixjialist feeling 
 towards property — Parallel between capital and civil Government — 
 Results that flow from the negative element in man — Disregard of 
 the relations of things — Trade should be made a profession — The 
 reductio ad absurdum in political economy — The truth and 
 error in Socialism — The conditions of the success of Socialism — 
 Criminals should be treated like lunatics — Human life and the 
 training of children — The world was never worse than now — Men 
 seek wrong ends — The life of society — The child-state of humanity 
 — The value of good manners as showing the pattern for life — The 
 end of civilization is a return to Nature — Life is in the sphere of good 
 manners — Our life a suppression — Wonjan, like religion, needs to 
 be liberated — The law of "anticipation" in history — The law of 
 fulfilling the conditions must be applied to the practical life — The 
 present age is one of " nutrition." 
 
 " Every man of common understanding will endeavour 
 to employ whatever stock he can command, in procuring 
 either present enjoyment or future profit ... a man 
 must be crazy who does not " (Adam Smith, Wealth of 
 Nations). And yet how well it may be argued, not only 
 by the nature of life and of man, but from facts and 
 from experience, that a human life founded upon the 
 altruistic element, and throughout regulated by it, is 
 that which is to be. For see how much stronger that 
 
Sociology, 299 
 
 altruistic power is ; how it has been proved to be so. 
 To take the other for a basis is to take the weaker. The 
 self-element is not strong enough ; it is seen not to be, 
 in the presence of the other. That has made men, in 
 all times and places, perform and bear what the other 
 could not make them, and certainly never has approached. 
 
 And even in this alone, how beautiful it is to see how 
 man truly is made ; what his actual nature is, however 
 it may seem other. The native metal shines out here 
 and there, spite of the rust. And this suggests a simile 
 for political economy ; it is as if a chemist, taking up a 
 piece of precious metal, or a precious stone, rusted, or 
 encrusted with a foreign substance, should insist on that 
 as the thing, and speak of the other as subordinate. 
 And in truth that is what would come first ; would be 
 what appeared. 
 
 And here is another proof that this strongest element 
 in man is the rightful basis and orderer of the whole life 
 — viz. that while it is capable of being made perfectly 
 and consistently so, the other cannot be. It never does 
 — save now and then, to the horror of the race — furnish 
 the entire basis and rule even of an individual life. It 
 is never proposed, save as something needed to be modi- 
 fied, added to, restrained. Harmony and unity, on that 
 basis, are impossible. See, too, the weakness of the self- 
 element in this ; that it fails in doing even what its 
 exponents claim for it, preserve and establish peace. 
 Commercial relations do not prevent war. 
 
 Again, what seems an argument against the belief that 
 the altruistic elements in man are the destined basis and 
 ruler of his life — viz. that the power of the altruistic 
 part has hitherto been exhibited only by some of the race 
 — really becomes a proof on the other side, when the law 
 of man's life is known. For it is a law that that which 
 
300 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 is to be universal shows itself first in imperfect forms, 
 which are, and can only be, partial. This exhibition of 
 altruistic life is the very proof that it is, made higher 
 and more perfect, to be universal. 
 
 Might not political economy, by recognizing the self- 
 element in man to be by negation, even gain additional 
 scope and definiteness, and fuller sway ? Would not the 
 relative place of the " self" and "human" elements in 
 man then be capable of exact definition ? So that we 
 might say, of certain departments of life : " These 
 should be regulated by the self-element." 
 
 In seeking to get justice done we are striving after a 
 thing that is unattainable ; we never can get justice on 
 the self principle. 
 
 For instance, what justice is attained by punishing a 
 man who has injured another? Does he not remain 
 injured just the same ? 
 
 But we can get a habitual and satisfactory, if not 
 perfect, self-abnegation for others on the part of each ; 
 and so attain, practically, much more justice than by 
 aiming at it. To obtain justice we must aim higher. 
 
 With reference to those demands of political economy, 
 for dealing with men by inferior and selfish motives — 
 we must grant the case is so ; there u this element in 
 human nature. The question is, how is it to be 
 regarded? Is it a normal one, or one of defect, and 
 absence ? and if the latter, how should we deal with it ? 
 What do reason, common sense, and experience demand 
 in such a case? That we should act according to a 
 defective, perverted, feeling — is that ever rational, or safe ? 
 
 Is it not the necessity for this knowledge, to which 
 Socialism, in its many forms, bears witness ? Let it be 
 
Sociology. 301 
 
 granted that they fail — is it not most reasonable that we 
 should not be able to have right action without a true 
 understanding of the case ? Is not this the first 
 demand ? Give us this, and why should it not lead, like 
 any other science, to rational and successful action ? 
 Failure in ignorance never disproves success with know- 
 ledge. 
 
 We have taken hitherto (as ever man takes first the 
 false view) the idea that these elements are normal in 
 man ; and that in spite of all kinds of disproofs, theo- 
 retical and practical. All our practical failures (that of 
 Socialism included, for it also accepts this state of man as 
 normal) are a simple reductio ad ahsurdum of that view ; 
 and to see this is the interpretation they want. Then, 
 recognizing this need for change in man, at once the 
 meaning^ the cui bono, the end and object of human life, 
 is revealed. And surely this need of change in man is 
 a known thing ; it stares us in the face in Nature. Why 
 have we not seen it ? 
 
 It is objected against the view of government seeking 
 and attaining, by right means, the moral organization 
 and development of man, that this is not for " govern- 
 ment " to accomplish ; i.e. that society will do it. And 
 this is true ; but it is no objection, it is only a develop- 
 ment and farther revelation. These '' right means " 
 will not be force, but government is based on, consists 
 essentially in, force. In fact, this doctrine is another 
 prophecy of the " no-government " era. It affirms 
 society in place of it. 
 
 And is not here the meaning of the modern tendency 
 — pronounced inevitable — to democracy ? Is it not ex- 
 plained, and interpreted, here ? Is it not a prophecy of 
 the substitution of society for "government" (and the 
 
302 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 corresponding ends and means) ? Here we see this 
 fulfilment gleaming through the darkness, and it comes 
 with threatening aspect. It also has to go through its 
 course; to begin with false ends, and fail. This 
 ** threatening " of democracy is truly the promise of 
 the substitution for force, in the regulation of society, 
 of moral ends, and love. But fearful evils and destruc- 
 tions may come first ; this power, destined and fitted 
 only for those true ends and means, grappling the old 
 false ones, works fearful havoc. It is " new wine in 
 old bottles." It is to demonstrate the necessity for 
 them to pass away. 
 
 Most striking, most demonstrative of what must come, 
 is this inevitableness of democracy ; and yet the impossi- 
 bility of its wielding, even tolerably, the present elements 
 of government. There is demonstration in it of the new. 
 And when the true relation of the phenomenal and the 
 actual is seen — when it is matter of human heritage, 
 known to and recognized by all — then will there not 
 certainly be the correspondent action ; i.e. the pursuit 
 by society of actual ends by actual means ? How 
 beautiful to see new confirmation of this from so oppo- 
 site a source — that the history of government leads 
 towards and foretells it. 
 
 The accomplishment of human good is delayed and 
 resisted in order that it may form part of an organiza- 
 tion, and, when it comes, may produce a function, do 
 something beyond itself. Nature would have been 
 ashamed to make even an insect to do nothing more 
 than it could design and conceive ; shall she not use 
 man also for higher purposes than his own ? The 
 social evils of the age are a nutrition, and exist for a 
 function. Not only these evils to be put right, but a 
 
Sociology. 303 
 
 function inconceivable by us is to flow from them. We 
 think the good of man in its highest sense is the great 
 good, the end, but it is not ; we cannot foresee the 
 function. 
 
 The accumulation of facts about social life is a nutri- 
 tion essential to a true theory ; but now, when this is 
 just beginning, is not the theory of life discovered, that 
 the nutrition of Sociology may be on a higher level? 
 Before we knew what life was, we could have made no 
 sound progress in an induction respecting Sociology. 
 Just as it was impossible to have a science — even to 
 observe the facts — of sidereal astronomy until the true 
 theory of the solar system had been ascertained. Know- 
 ing that the social state is a life, and with the true 
 theory of life in our hands, we can enter upon sociologic 
 science with the certainty of a successful issue. 
 
 The solar system is among the stars as a man in 
 society ; and the social life of the heavens cannot be 
 even attempted until the life of the solar system is 
 understood ; so neither can the social life of man be 
 until the life (physiological and mental) of the individual 
 man is understood. And may it not be that Sociology 
 will present somewhat the same relation to physiology 
 in its largest sense, as sidereal astronomy does to solar ? 
 We may discover therein not only facts accordant with 
 those which have been traced in the smaller science (as 
 the mutual revolutions of the double stars) but also 
 some quite different and apparently irreconcilable, as 
 the spiral forms of the galaxies. Facts not indeed 
 really irreconcilable, but necessitating a larger view 
 of physiology to reconcile them, than, from the study 
 of physiology alone, we should have attained. 
 
 The impossibility of constructing a satisfactory Socio- 
 logy has arisen hitherto from the want of a knowledge 
 
304 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 that it is a life, that evils are nutrition, that like other 
 life it consists of nutrition and function, and develops. 
 Isolated facts and connections have been traced, but no 
 general adequate conception. It will reveal itself in due 
 proportions as a life. Two errors arise from not know- 
 ing this : — (1) The disposition to acquiesce in evils as 
 necessary. (2) The disposition to regard them as 
 merely evil. Again, the tendency of philanthropic 
 effort is merely to remove and prevent evils, not seeing 
 that they constitute the nutrition for the function. 
 Society, of course, lives, and its life develops without 
 our understanding ; but the science can be only on such 
 understanding : and the science ever becomes necessary 
 in process of time. The scientific life becomes linked 
 with and essential to all other forms of life in coiurse of 
 development; and the true science is produced when 
 required, for passion in least resistance truly is action 
 in direction of most want. Everything comes in its time. 
 
 Evils can be prevented only by turning the force 
 which produced them to good. Make the force produce 
 a good ; do not put down anything, but embrace. All 
 evils are nutritions; even moral evils are, probably, so 
 in relation to society. But moral evil is not natural evil ; 
 it is not to be included as nutrition ; it is want of the 
 natural control, and is death. It is ever an exception 
 and unnatural. 
 
 It is a radical error to attempt to represent the pheno- 
 mena as not evil. Their evil as phenomena must be 
 seen, or their good cannot be seen : it is only as real 
 that they are good. Their goodness consists in their 
 being evil, that is nutrition ; and as phenomena they 
 must be asserted to be evil in the most unqualified terms. 
 Who does not see the evil cannot see the good. The 
 evil is good, not although it is evil, but because it is evil. 
 
Sociology. 305 
 
 The competitive commercial system is a theory (pheno- 
 menal), the co-operative an interpretation (true). But 
 then the co-operative is the function which can result 
 only from the nutrition of the competitive. This wrong 
 is the necessary condition of that right. The putting 
 right of the wrongnesses of the competitive will reveal 
 the co-operative; the latter will interpret, show the 
 truth of, the former. It could not have been seen before, 
 or have been obtained by effort or design. The facts 
 must show it; it must develop. Previous attempts to 
 achieve co-operation have failed, like a priori science. 
 They have been like Berkeley's theory, perhaps even like 
 Comte's ; attempts to attain function without nutrition, 
 inorganic instead of organic. Such as Berkeley's, per- 
 haps, have been the religious co-operative efforts ; such 
 as Comte's the socialistic. Surely social life has many 
 stages yet to run. It is not yet in the stage of our 
 present art, the ideal ; but in that primary phenomenal 
 stage which precedes even that. 
 
 "England exhausts every form of error before she 
 arrives at the truth." That is, England lives, goes 
 through the nutrition, attains the organization, and thus 
 effects the function. Those immediate plans of arriving 
 at the right result that other nations try, are like in- 
 organic food; like Berkeley's science. This is England's 
 strength ; she goes through the natural course and lives, 
 accepts and undergoes the evil, is willing to postpone the 
 good ; in a word, her Sociology is phenomenal. England 
 is full of hope, the living portion of humanity. Her 
 phenomenal naturalistic Sociology shall have its inter- 
 pretation soon, shall produce its function ; a function 
 not less glorious than that of Science ; a Sociology that 
 shall truly interpret or "re-present " Nature. 
 
 It is England's living task, her function, to solve this 
 
3o6 Philosophy and Religion, 
 
 problem of the position of the labouring class, the relation 
 of employers and employed, the distribution of the pro- 
 ducts of industry. It is not hard ; it only needs to be 
 seen. We shall wonder at its simplicity when it is 
 revealed. For this function she has now the nutrition, 
 now a theory preparatory to an interpretation, and it is 
 hopeful ; it has been truly passion in least resistance, a 
 real organization produced, a real functional power, of 
 which many hopeful signs. And this is the glory ; the 
 more evil the nutrition, the more terrible the wrongness, 
 the more excellent the function. The function shall 
 justify the nutrition. This is our joy, our faith in God, 
 and in His act, which is life. 
 
 The competitive system is theory, an arrangement of 
 the elements of society by force, according to our ideas. 
 We think (as ever of theories before the interpretation) 
 that it must be so, that it is so in nature. True, the 
 phenomenon is so. But this competitive system has to 
 reveal a true, based on holiness, or passion really in 
 least resistance, and duly controlled. This revelation 
 will come, when the former has grown intolerable ; by 
 letting the elements arrange themselves in the simplest 
 common-sense and natural manner. We must not use 
 force to make it. 
 
 If life were organized, in any true sense, would not 
 getting money come under the head of division of labour, 
 be the work of some, not of all ? Instead of, as now, 
 every man being supposed to be trying to " get on " — all 
 doing the same thing — some men, surely, should have 
 this increasing of wealth for their special work. Our 
 practice is simply a reUc of barbarism ; moral life has 
 to undergo a development foreshadowed in commercial. 
 
 *' The tragic meanness of [England's] money-making 
 
Sociology, 307 
 
 life." Is it not evident what our life means, and why it 
 is as it is ? There is no remedy for it but a radical and 
 perfect one ; a true and complete interpretation. Of old, 
 partial remedies might do ; nobleness could be grafted 
 on ; could be mingled or kept in mind with it. For our 
 age, and our life, full and overburdened with its material 
 wealth and call for external energy — for this state nothing 
 can suffice but a thorough inversion, and the acceptance 
 of a new basis. Nothing but the making the altruistic 
 element the basis of life, and treating the self-elements 
 as the un-human ones. 
 
 Money, in political economy, is like force ; producing 
 equivalent results successively. Or again : the labour, 
 the human "force," is put into, embodied in, various 
 "goods" successively; even as "force" is. Also, more 
 and more labour is embodied in smaller bulks of goods : 
 is not this as more and move force is contained in higher 
 " organizations " ? Is it not like the idea of develojj- 
 ment ? 
 
 May it not prove, indeed, that the idea of " force " 
 will turn out to be the true one for political economy 
 (under the form of labour) ? or, rather, perhaps, will it 
 not be found that the idea of " force " belongs only to 
 the human science — is right only in the form of labour ; 
 and is not the true idea for physical science at all ? [For 
 one thing, it is only where there is variability that this 
 element of truly varying (free-will) rightly belongs to it.] 
 And indeed we see that it is a false element in physical 
 science, being truly subjective. So may not the true 
 scope and right application of the " force " idea appear : 
 and why it has arisen in science ; and also the use of it ? 
 For will not the results of the scientific development — 
 "the doctrine of the forces" — be found valuable in 
 the presentation of its human aspect {i.e. in political 
 
J 
 
 08 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 economy) ? will not the " laws of force," obtained in 
 science, be essential guides to ** laws of labour " ? 
 
 This thought occurred to me respecting slavery, and 
 how the instinct of men now is perplexed about it ; 
 seeing it a gross and palpable evil, and yet feeling the 
 other way. The advocate of slavery urges that the 
 rights of property, in that respect, are as sacred as in 
 any other; and, having used the term "property," he 
 seems to have satisfied himself ; as if that word involved 
 everything ; not recognizing what poiver over men that 
 supposed " property " involves. That he hides from 
 himself. 
 
 Yet surely there is a profound Tightness here ; that 
 " property " of his has as just a claim as the property 
 maintained by other men. 
 
 But consider : does not what we also term " property " 
 (wealth, in its general sense) involve essentially an iden- 
 tical power over men, though not in the same direct way 
 (viz. through the conditions of human nature, and the 
 usages of life) ? This we close our eyes to ; but it is 
 there. Is it not, indeed, inseparable from "property" ? 
 And so this case of the slave simply exhibits grossly, 
 and makes manifest what is in, the other. If manhood 
 be too sacred for property, does not this " sacredness " 
 extend so far as to exclude all ? So that the socialist 
 feeling (though absurd in calling property " theft ") has 
 an essential rightness. 
 
 In respect to the clever doing well for themselves, and 
 to the unsuitableness of a low position for a great man, 
 surely to be rich is the fool's privilege, and it is unfair of 
 the intellectual to covet it. He has no other resource 
 but his wealth. The ungifted are the paiq^eres et 
 
Sociology. 309 
 
 indigentes, however rich ; and the taking of wealth by 
 the talented (for themselves) is truly like the rich taking 
 those educational endowments meant for the poor, just 
 because they can ; not asking whether they ought, or 
 have a true right. Also, to have wealth is to take, so far, 
 a lower part ; it is to be so much more a receiver, to have 
 less of the high attitude of the giver. And the fact that 
 such wealth is got by our own power, makes it simply so 
 much the more shame. 
 
 Is not, in truth, any great man's highest gift to the 
 world the showing it a willingness to be poor ? Surely 
 that, as a haUt in the " great," would open the rich 
 men's eyes at once. 
 
 Then if this be so, is there not a rightness about that 
 character of Genius, oftentimes, which unfits it for 
 making money? Is not this truly a privilege, and a 
 mark of its rightness ? Is it not the weak things of the 
 world confounding the things that are mighty ? and is 
 the world's blame, true praise ? 
 
 Observe the parallel between the power of capital and 
 that which constitutes civil government : how the latter 
 was as much the result of private skill and individual 
 possession, and was first used for individual benefit, as 
 ever the latter is or can be. So we see the growth of 
 that now beneficial power of civil government. Just so 
 is capital. It is a power in its genesis ; a ]30wer to be 
 beneficial wholly, but now perverted and abused. We 
 must look to the end, when, like the civil power, it shall 
 be employed for public purposes wholly, and be w^holly 
 beneficial alike to all. 
 
 It is beautiful, too, to see the becoming altruistic here ; 
 that which first was private becoming universal. The 
 power of the magistrate, who does not now govern for 
 
3IO Philosophy and Religion, 
 
 liimself, had its origin in the strongest man governing 
 for himself. And first the strongest man had the power ; 
 now it is placed by society in the hands of him who can 
 best use it [except so far as the imperfect state of society, 
 in respect to the capital-power, interferes]. So now the 
 strongest, " cleverest " man has the capital ; will it not 
 hereafter be placed by society in the hands of him who 
 can best use it ? 
 
 Here is one instance of the un-human results which 
 flow from the self-element in us ; that the very life and 
 death of men are regulated by mere demand of things, 
 and changes in amount of capital. Is it not worth 
 while to draw up a list of consequences of this sort, 
 involved in political economy, that we may have visibly 
 before us the facts which demonstrate how the self- 
 element inverts all the order of human life; which 
 otherwise almost escape our thought, or are merely 
 recognized as curious facts, of no particular significance ? 
 The thing to observe, then, would be that such and 
 such results necessarily follow from the operation of the 
 negative element in man (that which inflicts " free will " 
 upon him) ; and would it not also be a revelation (by 
 the opposite) of that which would be the true life of 
 man ? 
 
 How strangely men overlook the bearings of things on 
 others ! For example, a man rejoices (legitimately, as 
 he thinks) in having sold certain shares before they went 
 down to a degree which would have ruined him had he 
 held them — never thinking who was ruined by buying 
 them. Is not this alone enough to explain \X\Qi failure of 
 life? What ignoring of the relations of things ! How can 
 they be right or successful so ? There must be ceaseless 
 
Sociology. 3 1 1 
 
 deception and disappointment. Try this principle in 
 reference to material things. Suppose a man laying hold 
 of a rope or plank to save himself from drowning, and 
 being satisfied with laying hold, with merely having 
 it in his hands, regardless of its other connections ; 
 whether it were not broken off just above, — however 
 much he might be satisfied with feeling it in his hands, 
 it would not prevent him from sinking. This absurd 
 disregard of the relations of things is like a drowning 
 man catching at a straw ; it not only does not save, but 
 often prevents his being saved. 
 
 The fact of Nature is non sibi, and so must be the / 
 fact of humanity. This is the only way to make trade 
 honest. Trade must be carried on not primarily for 
 personal advantage, but for the good of others, for the 
 good of society; this is the only possible purification 
 of it. And surely this is possible to our humanity. 
 How beautiful a science is trade, thus considered ;; 
 how natural to man to work thus as a true merchant, 
 desiring his own advantage subordinately. Surely 
 tradesmen should study sociology, and practise trade 
 as a profession. Thus it would come to be above the 
 medical or the legal professions, as being of a wider 
 scope, and involving broader interests. This is the 
 renovation of trade ; and all trades or speculations 
 which are not socially useful should be held dishonour- 
 able. This is only carrying out and affirming the 
 universal instinct. It should be dishonourable, un- 
 natural (as it emphatically is), to act for ourself. 
 
 The phases and processes of the social life are large, 
 and take a long time ; but they must be, essentially, 
 the same as the physical. So that the physical may be 
 seen, as it were, set out for our observation. We shall 
 
312 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 learn organic life from the social. It is as astronomy- 
 is on the other hand ; from astronomy and sociology we 
 shall learn organic life. 
 
 See how the world has starved or murdered its men of 
 genius. Why ? In order that that evil, that not, in 
 men, which made them do this, should be removed. It 
 is for this they have suffered; and less than their 
 sufferings could not suffice. Whether men of genius 
 be starved or not is of no consequence ; they would say 
 so were they asked ; but that man should be redeemed 
 from starving them, that is something; for that, the 
 loss of innumerable thousands were a small price. 
 
 All attempts to put a stop to crime (which is hypo- 
 thesis, result of ignorance, or not-love) by punishment, 
 to suppress it, without giving the love, are '* anticipa- 
 tions." They will not do. Thank God, we cannot 
 succeed : no crime and yet no love we cannot have : 
 that were sad indeed. All this failure is nutrition ; the 
 interpretation, the function, will be curing crime by love. 
 
 It is the evil in the world that is the working, useful 
 part of it. The evil is the good of the world ; it is the 
 idea of it ; not enjoyment, which is, in truth, but a delu- 
 sion, a feeling good that which is not good, a little 
 momentary relief. What can be stranger than for men 
 damned and in hell to think that the idea of the place 
 is enjoying themselves, and admiring ! 
 
 Is not ** political economy" a working out of what 
 comes from treating the "minus" as the "plus" (i.e. 
 in respect to man) : as the " mercantile system " is a 
 deliberate working out of the results which arise from 
 treating money as the " plus " with regard to wealth? 
 
Sociology. 3 1 3 
 
 *' The plan is natural and well accounted for; but here 
 are the results,'' we say, " so that is not the true plan," 
 But in order to recognize the falsity an understanding 
 of the case is necessary too. Facts prove it, but facts 
 alone never overthrew anything however disastrous. 
 The " facts " did not overthrow the mercantile system, 
 only a truer understanding of the nature and source of 
 wealth ; so the facts will not overthrow the self-plan 
 of life, plainly as they speak ; it wants a better under- 
 standing of man and life. However patent the failure 
 and immense the evils of any system, facts alone can 
 never overthrow it ; because the evils, the mysteries, are 
 accepted when they come, as if they were right — were 
 necessities. So we now think, "there must always be 
 rich and poor," etc. ; and acquiesce in the world being 
 so painfully mysterious in respect to the destiny of the 
 mass of men. These facts do not overthrow the system, 
 and never would, without a better understanding. Yet 
 perhaps it is not altogether so ; for surely there is more 
 or less of revolt against, and repudiation of the facts : 
 more or less of the feeling that they ought not to be. 
 And perhaps that feeling plays an important part in 
 bringing about that better understanding by which the 
 false system falls. But it does not come directly from 
 that : it does not seem to be that those who have these 
 feelings get the better understanding. Does it not rather 
 come from those who have accepted the results, seeing 
 them to be necessarily involved in the system (or pre- 
 mises), and yet are not without the feeling of their 
 evil ? Surely this comes under the same head with the 
 doctrine of " correcting the premises." 
 
 And here one sees the nature and use of that class of 
 men in whom the logic is wanting ; they can deny results 
 without denying causes (or system) : can deny conclusions, 
 
314 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 leaving the premises uncorrected. Now, so far this is 
 a defect, doubtless ; but does it not enable a thing to be 
 done which otherwise might not be ? That is, it is by 
 such people that the evil and wrong of certain facts or 
 results are felt and insisted on. To these men it is 
 owing, surely, that others (in whom the logical connection 
 of things will not be ignored) are made to feel the wrong- 
 ness and impossibility of the results ; and so the system 
 gets altered. 
 
 Thus, in fact, three sets of men work out the reductio 
 ad absurdum. One set deduces the impossible results, 
 and gravely sets them forth as facts ; another desires 
 and denounces the results, and insists they are not 
 legitimate consequences, etc. ; then a third sees what 
 each of the others points out, and so makes visible the 
 demand to correct the premises. Is it not a beautiful 
 organic co-operation, an admirable evidence of "design"? 
 
 It is interesting to note the dependence of the class 
 who correct the premises upon the other two : how 
 they need not be able — doubtless are not able — to do 
 either of the other work ; not logical enough to make 
 the deduction, nor sensitive enough to feel decisively, 
 for themselves, the wrongness ; but capable of seeing 
 both when shown them, and putting them together — 
 endowed, that is, with the faculty of seeing what the 
 new premise must be. And doubtless they do that work, 
 not by more or stronger perception, but by a less resist- 
 ance: i.e. others may see, as clearly as they, both the 
 proofs of the results and the objections to them ; but, 
 not perceiving any way of escape, they remain passive. 
 The man who finds the new premise may do so simply 
 because those forces, as it were, are able to move in 
 that direction ; there is an opening, a channel, in him 
 there. His perception of a new fundamental conception 
 
Sociology, 315 
 
 is a direction of not-resistance. So it does away with 
 the stress or tension. 
 
 With regard to Socialism : — we have seen that it is 
 more philosophic than the philosophers who sneer at it, 
 as including and allowing scope for the impulse to self- 
 denial which was manifested in asceticism. 
 
 Is not men's error much more frequently that of 
 neglecting to include something in their schemes, than 
 of assuming too much ? or if there is this latter error, 
 does it not always arise from the former — a corre- 
 sponding error of adding made necessary by the omitting ? 
 Thus the error ever seems to be (is, phenomenally) the 
 latter — that of inventing ; but the true error is ever that 
 of failing to see what is — of seeing too little. 
 
 Here is an illustration of theory and interpreta- 
 tion. Theory would represent the nature and history 
 of human error as it is phenomenally; a series of in- 
 ventions : interpretation would go to the root of the 
 case, and show the omissions which caused the inven- 
 tions to be. 
 
 But perhaps Socialism, though right in embodying 
 the ascetic element in human nature, errs in its dealing 
 with it ; does not fulfil the conditions of it, or obey its 
 laws ; does not use motives to which it responds. For 
 has it not ever a necessary relation to religious or ideal 
 ends ? not to mere comfort, or physical or mental well- 
 being or development. So does not Socialism fail by 
 trying to draw power through a channel into which it 
 will not pass — a non-conductor, in fact ? 
 
 Then see : applying this " non-conductor " to the self- 
 denying power in man, the political economist smiles, 
 and says, " There is no such thing : " the Socialist holds 
 it and says, " See, it comes ; or it would come, if you 
 
o 
 
 1 6 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 would but let me get it right." Mistaken, both ! Only 
 apply the right wire, and see what flash, what shock you 
 will get. There is a tension now, and it waits for the 
 conductor. Here surely is the reconciliation. This 
 power will flow through the channel of a faith in the 
 redemption of manldnd, and a participation in the work. 
 That is what the old asceticism wanted ; for want of 
 which it failed, and was suppressed; by the supply of 
 which it is perfected and restored. 
 
 May not this idea of a *' conductor " be seen applicable 
 to all fulfilling of conditions? Surely it has a wide 
 application in physical science : is not indeed every 
 " stimulus " virtually such ? 
 
 And all affirmations and denials, which cannot be 
 reconciled, mean that a "non-conductor" is used: and 
 so the one knows the " force " is ; the other sees that it 
 will not come. 
 
 Think how an electrical experiment might, in early 
 stages of the science, have been foiled, and to what 
 ridicule subjected, and how the whole thing might have 
 seemed hopeless, by inere ignorance of the laws of con- 
 duction. It is so now in our social science ; these laws 
 not being known, men are liable to errors which seem to 
 put the attainment of certainty quite out of the question. 
 But the remedy is simple : — learn the laws of conduction. 
 Both in physics and morals surely this is the thing to 
 do. So that old stumbling upon the division of sub- 
 stances into conductors and non-conductors of electricity 
 had a grand significance. 
 
 Here again see the condemnation of secularism : it 
 also needs this self-denying force, but refuses the con- 
 ditions. And here, too, is a curious illustration of how 
 near opposites are together. The secularists are so 
 severe on nothing as on that ascetic spirit; yet it is 
 
Sociology. 317 
 
 exactly that spirit on which they depend, and for want 
 of being able to command which, they fail. 
 
 And here is there not a light on Socialism ? True, it 
 has failed; but is not the clearer understanding that 
 man's self-state is itself a perversion and the belief of 
 this the condition of its succeeding ? [This, and belief 
 in altruistic redemption, helping us to see all evil good.] 
 Has it not been tried hitherto without recognition of 
 this ? And here do we not see the mutual working of 
 opposites ? The practical people have set aside Socialist 
 schemes. They thought they were proving them im- 
 possible; but, in fact, they fulfil the very condition of 
 them. It is just as science and positivism are in respect 
 to a true philosophy. 
 
 May not an argument for the treatment of criminals 
 be justly based on the results of the treatment of 
 lunatics ? The ceasing of the supposed necessary 
 coercion removes the violence. Might not the ceasing 
 of the coercion in like manner remove the crime ? 
 Society of old supposed that, if not coerced, madmen 
 would be violent ; and they were violent so long as 
 coercion was employed. Is not the belief that criminals, 
 who are criminal so long as coercion is employed, would 
 be so if it were not, like that other — false ? Is not the 
 question, truly, whether or not society will make the 
 effort, the sacrifice, to deal with criminals in a corre- 
 sponding way to that it has done with the insane. We 
 say " corresponding : " doubtless the difference between 
 crime and disease is to be fully recognized, and practi- 
 cally as well as theoretically. But is it not likely that 
 the former, as it is the worse evil, should require the 
 greater sacrifice from society to treat it rightly ? And 
 
3i8 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 consider also, how entirely the criminal class are as 
 truly the victims of ijiisfortune as the mad : truly evil, 
 doubtless ; but that only as all are ; in so far as they 
 differ, how often strictly " unfortunate." So that the 
 arguments which avail for the mad are really, in a 
 certain way, applicable to the criminal also. 
 
 We train up children as if it were true that " honesty 
 is the best policy;" and then wonder because it is a 
 failure. It is a case of palpable and most matter-of-fact 
 misapprehension ; the fact is not as our action implies. 
 Of course few turn out truly honest, as the facts of 
 business and daily life attest. We have not given 
 children the habit, the only truly available habit for life, 
 of doing duty against interest. 
 
 And surely in this, too, the Socialist is right; in 
 affirming that there is a generous faculty in man to 
 draw upon. How constantly it is the case; the youth 
 is full of enthusiasm for the world, longing even for a 
 martyrdom. Would not this continue, and grow into 
 a vigorous practical reality, if the child were taught that 
 life is this longed-for martyrdom ? But as it is, taught 
 that he must live a life of self-interest, what wonder 
 that he plunges into all extremes ? 
 
 May we not arrive at a right attitude towards human 
 life through seeing the training of children ? Thus, for 
 example, a mother is apt to see in the results of chil- 
 dren's faults — say, a nursery left in disorder — a sort of 
 absolute evil : it oppresses her with a feeling as if it were 
 bad. But evidently the entire question depends on what 
 is being done in and for her children : a disorderly 
 nursery is, in itself, a thing altogether unimportant ; 
 and if it be the means of the moral development of her 
 
Sociology. 3 1 9 
 
 children, it is a positive good. That little phenomenal 
 thing, by not being seen in its right relations, becomes 
 altogether distorted and perverted. 
 
 We see at once how indifferent these things truly are, 
 by supposing a case in which a child is taken ill : then 
 the disorder of the nursery is nothing, and perceived at 
 once to be nothing. Now, it is such an effect as this the 
 consideration of the moral condition of the child should 
 produce on us. The question is, "Is the child being 
 made better? " And is not the difference here just that 
 of whether we look on a child as needing moral curing, 
 or not ? 
 
 Now, if we can thus get in the right attitude to physical 
 things in respect to children, have we not virtually 
 attained it also in respect to the whole of life ? The 
 case is really the same ; the event, whatever it may be, 
 is necessarily unimportant, except so far as it affects 
 man's feelings ; and that (like a disordered nursery) 
 depends very much on how we choose to take it ; on what 
 we are regarding, rather. The true question is, "Is it 
 making men better ? " — if so, then it is good. In a 
 word : consider the effect on man, and not the thing ; 
 bad things (i.e. things we feel bad) are wanted to produce 
 good effects on him. 
 
 Was the world ever worse than now ? Were the evils 
 we shudder at in former days worse than those of the 
 present, or more affecting human life ? Nay, is not now 
 the worst of all, the devil's best, because his time is 
 short ? When the devil has his way, the world will not 
 be miserable, but bad. See what there is now : com- 
 merce, the most selfish of all the forms of human 
 activity and pursuit ; and, with it, a self-religion. Chris- 
 tianity perverted to self and commerce — what should 
 
320 Philosophy a7id Religion. 
 
 tliej^ give us, but what they do ? Gin palaces at every 
 corner, and miserable drunken women and worse men, 
 and children reared and steeped in vice, and streets 
 crowded with harlots ; and, on the other hand, beautiful, 
 refined, luxurious households — because these also must 
 be, to make up the full blackness of the picture. If 
 there were not these, the other were not so bad ; these 
 are the dark background on which the lurid colours of 
 sin and wretchedness may be shown. It is not that 
 there is any good in them ; they intensify the badness 
 of the other. A world all that were not bad ; it is this 
 with it makes it so. And yet, if the one is not truly 
 good, so is the other not truly bad ; the one is the remedy 
 for the other. But how inverted is our view ; we look on 
 the comfortable and refined as the healthy part of man, 
 and think if we could make the miserable and degraded 
 all like that, then the world would be well. Not so ; this 
 comfort and content is the disease ; the misery and vice 
 the remedy. 
 
 It is not that people are foolish (as it is not that they 
 are had) that the world goes so ill. They are wise 
 enough, as they are good enough, for quite a different 
 kind of life. It is that they are labouring for a mistaken 
 end ; getting or enjoying, or making best to sense, the 
 physical. This mistaken object necessarily baffles them ; 
 no skill, no goodness, can avail while not seeing the true 
 good — wliich is, how far can we live an altruistic life ? 
 For example, the fortune that is made by limiting the 
 supply of a necessary of life, so controlling it that the 
 possessor may rapidly enrich himself — this is not wrong 
 on our recognized principles, and yet how evidently it is 
 wrong. The entire idea of commerce is that a man 
 should turn the needs — even the misfortunes — of others 
 
Sociology, 321 
 
 to his benefit. Surely this is the wrecker's principle ; 
 not essentially, only formally, changed. Also, does not 
 this imply that we have a right to withhold our services, 
 unless paid ? Of old, these principles were so applied as 
 to include the lives of men : they were deliberately and 
 openly sacrificed (by bloodshed, wrecking, etc.). 
 
 But think : if we have come to see that plan is not 
 admissible where human life is concerned, is not that a 
 step which must lead to others ? Must we not extend 
 this feeling to other things also? If we must not let 
 another lose his life for our gain, then we also must not 
 let him lose in other ways — nay, lose at all. Must it 
 not come to this ? especially when we come to see the 
 physical life aright. For is not this the fact : that that 
 feeling about another's life is right, not because it is life 
 that is concerned, but because it is another's ? That is 
 the element which is really the one to be considered ; and 
 that applies just as much to the rest. 
 
 This is what the heart requires to know : what end 
 does our life answer ? Can there be all this mass of hope, 
 and aspiration, and toil, and strife, and misery, and 
 nothing done ? And if once we come to this question, is 
 it not evident what is done ? We must look fairly and 
 see truly what is evil in the world ; how the worst results 
 come necessarily, come by the truest, best designed, sin- 
 cerest efforts of men for right and good. See those old 
 trials for witchcraft. Is it not the same with many of 
 the evils now, which perhaps are quite as horrible as any 
 past ones, only felt not so because we are familiar with 
 them ? Are not they too unavoidable ; coming out of 
 our very efforts to do our best ? 
 
 The idea that that only which is bad needs to be 
 
32 2 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 reformed, superseded, or done away with, is perhaps the 
 greatest hindrance to our progress in every respect. We 
 must learn to see that everything, the good and necessary 
 just as much as any other, requires to be reformed and 
 superseded by the opposite, when it has had its day ; that, 
 in truth, everything that is is good and needs to be 
 replaced by the opposite, because it is good, and has 
 therefore prepared for the opposite ; that progress is 
 spiral, and all things are unipolar and demand their 
 opposite. To recognize this thoroughly and wisely would 
 put a complete end, it appears to me, to all the intellec- 
 tual errors that oppose progress. Nor should we say that 
 as we have advanced blindly hitherto without knowing 
 what or why, so we can go on. We have arrived at a 
 higher stage, at which an intelligent progress is to take 
 the place of a blind instinctive one. Do we not see this 
 in animal life, in man, as compared with other parts of 
 Nature ? 
 
 How shall the means of remedying social evils be 
 found ? By seeing the life of society. Does not society 
 progress thus : the instinct is for self ; this is suppressed 
 more or less ; thus nutrition ? Then it is seen that this 
 self-sacrifice is the very best means of attaining the good 
 desired by self. This is a development. 
 
 Yes, love is the remedy, the only remedy, for the 
 world's evils, not contrivance in any form. Love is God's 
 remedy. To save the world He gives Himself, and so 
 must we. Nor, in truth, does God's remedy fail ; it 
 seems indeed to do so, but this is seeming only. God 
 saves the world by love, as we shall see when time no 
 longer makes us blind, or rather when, being no longer 
 blind, we no longer see time. God saves the world 
 eternally ; it is for us to save it temporally ; but there is 
 only one way, the way God has shown us — love. How 
 
Sociology, 323 
 
 long it seems to be before it comes ! Yet it is not truly 
 wanting. It is absolute, eternal, infinite ; only we cannot 
 see it because we have it not. 
 
 Against our not taking comforts when the poor have 
 them not, it is argued that those who are used to go 
 without them are content, and do not feel the privation 
 as we do ; so inferring that we should continue to take 
 for ourselves. But see this in the light of Christ's sac- 
 rifice : " though rich ... He became poor ; " the parallel 
 is put exactly. Is it not true of Him that He felt more 
 at taking our poverty than we ? We were used to it, had 
 never known better ; and, worst of all, were content. 
 How much more He felt ; yet He gave up, to raise us 
 who did not feel our need of raising. And if the work 
 is greater and more, so also is the price paid. What is 
 it we should lose by taking the place of the poor ? Is 
 not here the example, that we should walk in His steps ? 
 Nay, further, is there not evidence and proof here that 
 that is the Divine, because it is the human ? Must it not 
 be that so God has done, because so man must do ? 
 Here is the interpretation of asceticism and the vow of 
 poverty ; that is to be restored after the suppression ; to 
 be embraced, not for self's sake, but for raising others. 
 
 The getting and keeping to ourselves is the child state 
 of humanity ; it is as the child is with reference to its 
 little enjoyments. Men rise above that ; politeness is 
 the giving up of those ; it is manhood in reference to 
 trifles. Would not the true manhood, the true life of 
 humanity, be the same thing carried out in reference to 
 the greatest physical things ; a perfect politeness in 
 reference to all the interests of man ; a giving up, and 
 putting others before us, in reference to all ? And even 
 
324 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 so, this would be done only with reference to phenomena, 
 only with reference to things which are truly trifles. Is 
 not this the fact ; that the giving up and sacrificing is of 
 phenomena only, that we do truly have and keep all the 
 true, the good ? 
 
 Is not this a reconcilement ; a fulfilling through sup- 
 pression of that feeling that we ought to attain and have ? 
 We do so in giving up phenomena. That which is phe- 
 nomenally sacrificing is truly getting. 
 
 A polite man sees this in reference to trifles : that 
 giving them up for others' sake is not truly sacrificing 
 but gaining. He sees this through seeing more in life ; 
 he regards things in a different relation, and sees that 
 his natural feeling about them is a wrong one. [He 
 suppresses the child-feeling, yet has it interpreted and 
 restored.] Observe, too, how well it works ; how those 
 very trifles and comforts are so most obtained, most 
 enjoyed. 
 
 And then again, how beautiful it is to see why good 
 manners exist, and what they have taught us ; they are 
 the type and pattern for our life. And especially they 
 have proved this : that the plan is safe, and will work ; 
 the comfort of life is nowhere and by no means so 
 secured and perfected, as where all act on the principle 
 of giving up. Good manners have proved to us that the 
 plan will answer; for this end they existed. Lie as 
 they are, they have their root in a truth, and bear a 
 truth as their fruit. So that which might seem the 
 destruction of the well-being of life is, in truth, its very 
 basis. One might say: "If we regard these things as 
 trifles, will they not be neglected and ruined ? " Not so ; 
 then, and then only, will they go right and well. But 
 observe : to have a politeness extending to the real 
 
Sociology. 325 
 
 (physical) interests, demands quite a different motive 
 from one affecting only manners. The difference is 
 between a true and a false, a spiritual and a phenomenal. 
 
 And with this look at another thing : — is not our civi- 
 lization 'perfected, for a return to Nature ? Is it not a 
 lower thing, introduced by suppressing a superior, im- 
 perfect and failing ? and it also by failure leading to 
 restoration of the former, but now renewed? This 
 links itself with the choice of poverty by those who have 
 wealth, the going back to simplest life and common 
 pleasures, but now truly and aright. This is the end of 
 civilization. 
 
 Is not here a key to life : that these "real interests " 
 of life are truly matters within the sphere of politeness, 
 of good manners ? These are its true sphere ; not what 
 we call manners only. Made perfect so, and so uni- 
 versalized (for thus only can good manners be univer- 
 salized ; the mass will never deal one way in trifles, and 
 another in important things), there would be no more 
 inconsistency and insincerity. And if it is right to be 
 polite about a trifle, can it be right to be unpolite, greedy, 
 about an important thing ? The more important the 
 thing the more necessary it must be to use politeness 
 about it. This may seem absurd to us ; but how does 
 giving up a good place at a dinner seem to a boor ? The 
 question is simply of what we value most. May we not 
 attain to the treating the whole of this life as a polite 
 man treats a day or an hour ? 
 
 There is something worth considering in the French 
 novels of the eighteenth century : the representation of 
 a heroic nature, carrying the maxims of polished society 
 
326 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 into serious life ; and the sway of women. Surely there 
 is the nature of a real anticipation in this dream, some- 
 thing of a prophecy. Would it not at least be beautiful, 
 and a vast progress intellectually, to be able to see real 
 meaning and roots going deep into human nature and 
 society in such facts as these ? Is there not the most 
 complete contrast between the way in which the facts of 
 social life are treated, and the facts of external nature ? 
 See how the latter are used by Science : now, it is such 
 a hold, surely, we want to get of the former ; such a 
 clue to them, and habit of treating them. 
 
 It has been noticed that there was formerly a link 
 between the classes of society which is not now — a 
 paternal relation, an esteem and regard, a power there- 
 fore of giving on the part of the lower, which is quite 
 done away : the connection now is merely one of egoism 
 and interest. This, then, is a suppression for restora- 
 tion ; there is another to come. So there is a truth in 
 the idea of a transition period [is this such ?] ; it means 
 a period of suppression. It is, too, a period of tension. 
 
 Is there anything in 's ideas that the future social 
 
 condition is to be a restoration {i.e. interpretation) of 
 the Eastern state — the social idea ? So may not our 
 Western state be characterized as really a suppression of 
 that, a nutrition for a function ? May one so compre- 
 hend both its positive and negative characteristics, and 
 through it get a light on the state of suppression alto- 
 gether ? And see, we are fulfilling the conditions of it — 
 excluding some negation ; and this present state has 
 some positive as well as negative element in it, which 
 is to be united (to the exclusion of its negative) with 
 the positive of the other. What is the positive it is 
 supplying ? 
 
Sociology. / 327 
 
 What is the positive, the articulata supply ? and what 
 the negative in it as compared with the moUusca ? Is not 
 this state like the articulate — full of inventions, indus- 
 tries, social activities, etc. ; the ancient (or Eastern) like 
 the mollusc ; and the future restoration to be like the 
 vertebrate ? 
 
 What, also, is the imperfection of that former which 
 rendered its suppression necessary ? and was it also an 
 organization arising out of a previous suppression ? 
 
 Surely we see, respecting the condition of women, that 
 what they want is to have their hearts liberated. In our 
 society they have no fair chance ; they cannot show what 
 they are ; they are bound up like men of genius so often 
 are ; the entire bearing of society is hostile to them : 
 this getting, negative, selfish state. Women are crushed 
 and appear necessarily to disadvantage; they must 
 appear lower than man while the physical is reckoned 
 the highest. But their day is coming. 
 
 Not so much in social disabilities is woman ruined, but 
 in this : that she is so petted ; so made, against all her 
 nature, to be a getter. We can hardly see the woman 
 at all. She cannot show herself — as religion cannot — 
 beneath this established theory and practice of selfish- 
 ness. Love is lost and bewildered ; it thinks it must be 
 wrong and mistaken ; it puts on the garb of its enemy, 
 and falls into a weak imitator, and, of course, inferior. 
 As a getter, religion cannot compete with the world ; 
 the mistake is that it ever tried. So woman cannot 
 compete with man. She, too, must appear in her true 
 colours, as the giver : so shall she be glorious and all- 
 powerful. 
 
 Religion and woman are in like case ; this is their 
 suppression for a glorious function. The spirit of the 
 
328 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 world is profoundly opposite to both ; necessarily so, and 
 rightly, doubtless. They represent the coerced force. 
 They have both, as it were, tried to throw themselves 
 into the spirit of the world, and therefore have failed, 
 and seemed so weak. Woman cannot compete with 
 man in the physical, the selfish ; even as religion can- 
 not compete with the physical, in its appeals to the 
 selfish feehngs. Engaging in that contest both must 
 suffer ignominious defeat. Woman has had a great 
 nutrition-state of coercion, subordination, suppression, 
 all these ages; and there is a glorious promise in it. 
 And see how her unhappiness and discontent prove it. 
 
 The law of " anticipation " and " theory " is seen 
 in history very perfectly. I think, e.g., of Schlegel's 
 remarks respecting Charlemagne's reign, " exhibiting 
 the paramount influence of religion on public life, con- 
 stituting the happiest era, the truly golden period, of 
 our annals." We see how that state was essentially the 
 right ; but the increasing development of knowledge, 
 and especially of man's physical resources and powers, 
 puts it aside — must do so. It was founded without em- 
 bracing those elements of human life, and was not large 
 enough for them; and so they necessarily put human life 
 in a radically false and inverted attitude. What a light 
 the recognition of the law casts ; what warranty it gives 
 for expecting an entirely renovated social and political 
 condition ! 
 
 And then see how we may use the phenomena of his- 
 tory from this point of view for purposes of explanation 
 — for elucidating the same process in other aspects. 
 Thus, are we not now experiencing that very tension — 
 that feeling of the wrongness of the "theoretical " plans 
 — which leads to " interpretation " ? Do we not see 
 
Sociology. 329 
 
 this in the social institutions, the charitable societies, 
 "social congresses," etc.? These betray the feeling; 
 and more, they show us (being themselves instances) 
 the direction this feeling first takes, namely, not towards 
 a radical inversion and putting right, but towards a 
 smoothing over particular difficulties and felt wrong- 
 nesses. Thus these social efforts all receive an intelli- 
 gible place, are completely, and not partially, manifest 
 in their nature and their effects alike. They are the 
 stirrings, but vain and inadequate, of the right part 
 within us, and the part that is destined to rule. And 
 also it is by the failure of these partial attempts the 
 great and total triumph is to come. 
 
 Is not that idea of obtaining things by fulfilling the 
 conditions true also for the practical ? The dreams of 
 men as to the abolition of capital, competition, etc., 
 shall all be realized, if the conditions be fulfilled. The 
 practical error is trying to get them without : so 
 '' strikes " are trying to get, without fulfilling the condi- 
 tions. See how Bacon's work was just this : pointing 
 out that for knowledge we must fulfil the conditions; 
 and showing what they were (in part), viz. the use of 
 the senses. 
 
 That attempt to fix knowledge on the authority of 
 consciousness, etc., is attempting to gat without fulfil- 
 ling the conditions ; and it cannot be. Is not all failure 
 this, i.e. all failure in that which proves possible after- 
 wards ? Past failure cannot disprove future success ; 
 nothing can, but a clear perception that the conditions 
 cannot be fulfilled. Is not this religion : to have life by j 
 fulfilling the conditions ? And, indeed, what is cause i 
 and effect — our whole idea of applying causes — but just 
 this " fulfilling conditions " ? So may one see better 
 
330 Philosophy and Religion. 
 
 into that '' causative power " (or force) ; regarding it 
 thus as a fulfilling of the conditions — so connecting 
 it with ''action" and rightness? Thus each "cause" 
 is truly such as to " fulfil the conditions " for the 
 result. 
 
 As in artistic representations, there must be evil to 
 make us know and appreciate the good, so must it not 
 be in life also ? So seeing offences necessary, should we 
 not regard with a quiet, yes, a sacred, pity those who 
 are evil, regarding them as sacrificed ? With them come 
 the words with a new solemnity, " crucifixus etiam pro 
 nobis.'" It is by the criminal classes society advances ; 
 to them it is most indebted. We easily find arrange- 
 ments good enough for us, plans of living with which 
 we are content ; and we should rest in them, and not 
 advance, were it not for the classes who will not con- 
 form. To bring them within any tolerable conditions, 
 our best must be made better. 
 
 London must cease, not only to grow, but to be a 
 great city (quite independently of the "destruction of 
 the world"). London, as other human things, in its 
 present form must end. Then it follows that there must 
 be causes which involve that result. By inquiring what 
 they are, and learning them, might we not know more 
 of life ? 
 
 Does not this explain why men think ill of the present 
 age ? The old life comprised fewer elements, but men 
 were more masters of them ; they had them ordinated 
 and right. The present age embraces more elements, 
 but man has not mastered them yet, has not put them 
 right ; he cannot live the same free, manful, unembar- 
 rassed, right-on course ; i.e. cannot see. So when in 
 modern times that has been tried, it fails. The time is 
 
Sociology. 331 
 
 not ready, the elements are not interpreted and ordered 
 yet. In a word, in relation to that old time this is a 
 "nutritive" period. But such as that must come again; 
 and, embracing these elements, be so much higher 
 than it. 
 
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 THE UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA LIBRARY