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Gninr OF 
 Miss Frances M. Moleri 
 
SS OF THE AGE; 
 
 OR, 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY C. PEDDER. 
 
 "Everything that we now deem of antiquity was at one time 
 new; and what we now defend by examples will at a future period 
 stand as precedents." Tacitus. 
 
 YORK: 
 
 ASA K. Burrs & 'Co., 36 DEY STREET. 
 
 1874 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 
 
 ASA K. BUTTS, & CO., 
 In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 
 
 ENNI8 BRO., PRINT, 42 DEY ST., K.Y. 
 
T37 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGES. 
 
 Introduction. - - V - IX 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Scientific Spirit and Its Consequences. 
 
 Science and Theology. Enlarged Views of Nature Con- 
 sequent on the Scientific Spirit. Fallacy of Appear- 
 ances. Possibility of a Science of Human Nature. 
 Benefits Conferred by Science. Science and Religion. 
 Advantages of the Socratic Method of Reasoning. 
 Evil Effects of Prejudice. Science in its Relationship 
 to Human Happiness and Advancement. - - 10-28 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Skepticism: Its Function and Importance. 
 
 Necessity of Skepticism. Doubt and Knowledge. Skep- 
 ticism and Civilization. Skepticism and Protestantism. 
 Reason and Sentiment. Skepticism and Christi- 
 anity. Skepticism of the Present Age Defined. - 29-45 
 
IV. 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Ancient Faith and Modern Culture. 
 
 Characteristics of Modern Thought. A Plea for Darwin- 
 -ism. Higher and Lower Aspects of Science. Analy- 
 sis of the Religious Sentiment. Beauty of Christian 
 Character. Laws of Nature. Culture and Religion 
 Not Necessarily Antagonistic : Their Aim Identical. 46 - 74 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Supremacy of Law: Its Physical and Psychical 
 Conditions. 
 
 Civilization and Barbarism. Law in Nature. Mythology 
 and Science. Consequences Involved in the Supremacy 
 of Law. Anthropomorphism Not Irrational. Berke- 
 ley's Philosophy. Evidences of an Intelligent Cause. 
 
 Identificatisn of Personality with Intelligence. Man's 
 Freedom and Moral Sense. Science and Morality. 
 Physical and Moral Science. Prayer and Natural Law. 
 
 Definition of Prayer. Man as an Animal and as a 
 Spiritual Being. Psychical Aspect of Law. - 75 - 108 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Doctrine of Human Progress. 
 
 Evidences of a Higher and Lower Nature in Man. Doc- 
 trine of Original Sin. Aversion of Modern Thought 
 to the Theological Estimate. The Fact of Sin Con- 
 sidered. Science and Theology. Lord Palmerston and 
 the Scotch Clergy. Idea of a Personal Devil Repudiated 
 by Modern Thought. The Existence of Evil Consider- 
 ed. Evidences of Continuity in Human Development. 
 Moral Sequence, Education ; What it is, and What 
 
V. 
 
 it is not. Ideal Influences. Advantages of the Pro- 
 gressive Theory. Demands of Man's Higher Nature. 
 Neo-Platonism and Modern Thought. Philosophy of 
 Progress Denned. 109-155 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Concluding Remarks. 
 
 Aim of Modern Thought. Evil Consequences of Bigotry. 
 Evidences of Man's Progress. Conditions of Progress. 
 Man the Columbus of Creation. Prospects and 
 Possibilities of the Future. 156-166 
 
 INDEX, - - - - - - - - - -169-175 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Page 77, line W, physical should be psychical. 
 " 87, " 15, Those " Thou. 
 
 " 117, " 21, phenomena " phenomenon. 
 
 " 166, " 5, precussor " precursor. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 TUB contents of this volume being intended as a contri- 
 bution toward the better understanding of modern thought, 
 and the consequences which must necessarily result from 
 the peculiar intellectual type of the age, it needs no ex- 
 haustive preface to explain the cause of its production. 
 As a sufficient reason for its conception and birth, it is 
 enough to say that it proposes to indicate rather than 
 exhaust the nature of those problems of life and mind by 
 which we are, in the present day, so abundantly surrounded. 
 An uneasy, restless searching after something broader, 
 deeper, and more satisfactory, is the predominant charac- 
 teristic of the present age; and in view of this, it seems 
 to us that it is the duty of every reflective mind to 
 devote at least some attention to so important a subject. 
 How far such a result may be accomplished in the fol- 
 lowing remarks, time and experience alone can determine. 
 The intention is, however, a good one; and as such we 
 can confidently recommend the following pages to those 
 who are disposed to bestow an unprejudiced and thoughtful 
 consideration on questions which are obviously of such 
 vast importance: believing also that, although the searching 
 analysis and skeptical spirit of the present age may cause 
 many years' sojourn in the wilderness of perplexity and 
 
IV 
 
 doubt, We are nevertheless certain in ihe end to enter the 
 Promised Land and find peace. 
 
 In this view, therefore, should the accompanying 
 thoughts answer the purpose of oases in what may seem 
 to some a desert of negation and unbelief, they will amply 
 have fulfilled their mission. 
 
 Lastly, we can only say, should it be found, as we think 
 it will, that the ideas embodied in the different chapters 
 deal with the silent depths of the soul, rather than the 
 noisier but more superficial conditions of feeling, and also 
 pertain to the serenity of intelligence, rather than the 
 turmoil of irrational prejudice, it is hoped that they 
 will, for this reason, be all the more welcome to those 
 who, after many intellectual wanderings, have at last 
 learned to realize a grandeur and usefulness in those 
 transitional stages of thought and feeling which seem 
 inseparable from the conditions 01 human existence, and 
 which at the same time indicate so powerfully that man's 
 destiny is progressive. 
 
 Brooklyn, August &, 1S74- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 CEETAIXLY if there ever was a time in the history of the 
 human race when the spirit of the age was fairly indica- 
 tive of restlessness and change, there can be no doubt 
 that the present tendency of modern thought affords us 
 many of the most general and most striking illustrations 
 in this direction. True to that spirit which has actuated 
 thoughtful men in all ages, and which, from the dawn of 
 Grecian philosophy, has been especially operating with more, 
 or less increasing force on every successive generation, 
 we are still brought face to face with those problems of a 
 speculative character which have always been, and must 
 always be, the most important branch of inquiry pertaining 
 to man as a rational and sentient being. To us as truly as 
 to the first Greek philosoper there comes an urgent demand 
 that we should understand the meaning of this wonderful 
 panorama by which we are surrounded; the meaning of 
 these mysterious instincts in our nature perpetually driving 
 us forward in the pursuit of knowledge, and at the same 
 time producing in our consciousness a realization of that 
 fundamental need of our nature which constitutes the 
 basis of all philosophy: " J do not possess wisdom, Tmust 
 look for it," 
 
VI 
 
 The higher the nature, the greater the demand; so that 
 while we are enabled to reproduce in our imagination the 
 grandeur of those efforts which, beginning with Thales, 
 the Milesian, placed Grecian thought on its exalted 
 eminence, we are also enabled, through our communion 
 with the intellectual giants of Greece, to appreciate more 
 thoroughly, perhaps, than in any other way the necessity of 
 understanding the present. In this sense, the great minds 
 of the past speak to us with an eloquence more powerful 
 than the most brilliant orations of GEschines or Demos- 
 thenes. They indicate the necessity of that delicate and 
 subtile analysis which enables us to enter into the con- 
 sciousness of the age, and which, because it induces us to 
 separate things apparent from things real, brings us into a 
 more vivid realization of those formative influences by 
 which our future, as well as our present, is determined. As 
 we examine these various phases of human thought that 
 have come down to us, it may be true that they indicate a 
 series of more or less unsuccessful attempts to master the 
 difficulties of those complex problems of human nature and 
 human destiny with which the progress of civilization is 
 so intimately associated and so inseparably connected. To 
 some extent, we are in every intellectual problem reminded 
 of Sisyphus. And yet discouraging as this view may be in 
 some respects, it is equally encouraging in others. Admit- 
 ting, as we must, that the mightiest intellects have been 
 those most keenly alive to the magnitude and inexhaustible 
 nature of the problem, they have nevertheless inspired us 
 with their hopes, and encouraged us by their example. 
 The history of philosophy is a history of these gradations 
 of the human intellect the approaching to and receding 
 from the science of principles as its objective point; but it 
 
VII 
 
 is none the less a record of those marvelous processes of 
 thought which would seem amply to justify the opinion of 
 Hegel: "Philosophy is the science of the absolute in the 
 form of dialectical development, or the science of the self- 
 comprehending reason." As inheritors of an advanced 
 civilization, and as actors in a wonderful drama which 
 every new phase of thought renders more deeply significant 
 and interesting, we are therefore compelled, in some 
 measure at least, to enter into and discover the true 
 significance of that restlessness and searching analysis 
 which constitute the prevailing features of the present age. 
 " It is not," as Mr. Greg has said in his admirable work, 
 'Enigmas of Life,' "by shirking difficulties that we can 
 remove them or escape them; nor by evading the perplex- 
 ing problems of life or speculation that we can hope to 
 solve them; nor by saying, Hush, hush! to every over-sub- 
 tile questioner that the question can be answered or the 
 asker silenced. Men cannot go on forever living upon 
 half-exploded shams; keeping obsolete laws with admittedly 
 false preambles on their statute-books; professing creeds 
 only half credited and quite incredible; standing and sleep- 
 ing on suspected or recognized volcanoes; erecting both 
 their dwellings and their temples on ice which the first 
 dreaded rays of sunlight they know must melt away. 
 We cannot always keep clouds and darkness round about 
 us; and it is a miserable condition alike for men and 
 nations to feel dependent upon being able permanently 
 to enforce blindness and maintain silence; to live, as 
 it were, intellectually on sufferance; to shiver under an 
 uneasy semi-consciousness that all their delicate fabrics of 
 thought and peace lie at the mercy of the first pertinacious 
 questioner or rude logician." No matter how true it may 
 
VIII 
 
 be, as before said, that in every thing pertaining to the 
 phenomena of mind we land sooner or later in the region 
 of the unknowable. It is equally true that the measure of 
 our investigation must always be the measure of our knowl- 
 edge. Under the limitation of human conditions, and in 
 view of that perpetual blending of light and shadow which 
 surrounds even our most ordinary perceptions, it is obvious 
 that no mind can expect to explore the whole realm of 
 truth. The most that any system of thought can con- 
 sistently claim is to stimulate the mind and to quicken our 
 intellectual activities. Here and there we catch glimpses 
 of the truth ; but this is all that can reasonably be expected. 
 It is all that the present work expects to accomplish. As 
 Sir William Hamilton has well said in his treatment of the 
 philosophy of the conditioned: "The grand result of 
 human wisdom is thus only a consciousness that what we 
 know is as nothing to Avhat we know not." 
 
 " Quantum est quod nescimus ! " 
 
 An articulate confession, in fact, by our natural reason, of 
 the truth declared in revelation, that "now we see through 
 a glass, darkly." Independently of this, however, man is 
 a rational being; and as such, even admitting that all knowl- 
 edge is but qualified ignorance, it still remains true that he 
 must doubt to investigate, he must investigate to believe. 
 Following out the idea conveyed by Plato's definition of 
 man as " the hunter of truth," the pursuit is the main con- 
 sideration, the success comparatively unimportant. The 
 disposition to think for ourselves, even if it fails in the 
 realization of its brightest expectations, is at least a sign 
 of manliness, while it also indicates a commendable appre- 
 ciation of intellectual freedom. In our moments of per- 
 plexity, we may again and again have occasion to repeat 
 
IX 
 
 the last words of the immortal Goethe: "More liyht!" 
 The demand is inseparable from the conditions of human 
 thought and experience; and, as such, must come to us all. 
 But let us not be deceived. It is a prayer that is always 
 answered in a manner commensurate with the demands of 
 the age and the measure of our receptive capacities. As 
 Lowell has beautifully expressed it: 
 
 "God sends his teachers into every age, 
 To every clime, and every race of men, 
 With revelations fitted to their growth 
 And shape of mind; nor gives the realm of truth 
 Unto the selfish rule of one sole race." 
 
 With these preliminary observations in view, let us there- 
 fore endeavor to gain at least a partial insight into the 
 spirit of the age in which we live. The character of the 
 future depends largely on our estimate of the present. 
 
10 
 
 THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT, AND ITS 
 CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 ACCEPTING Professor Tyndall's " Prayer Test" as a fair 
 illustration of the scientific mode of interpreting nature, 
 and at the same time bearing in mind the unlimited 
 supply of theological thunder which this able and con- 
 scientious scientist has called forth, we are certainly 
 warranted in believing that the time has fairly arrived 
 when it becomes us to enter somewhat philosophically into 
 the cause of so significant a phenomenon a phenomenon 
 which, to say the least of it, is remarkable as indicating 
 in a peculiar manner the antagonism between scientific 
 and unscientific views of the same subject. 
 
 Philosophy and science on the one hand, and theology 
 on the other : it is an old feud, but never was it more 
 strongly marked than at present, when the scientific 
 yeast is penetrating into the innermost recesses of our 
 consciousness, and when the expansion of knowledge is 
 gradually undermining the foundation of creeds which 
 until now have been deemed infallible. But, says some 
 extremely conservative individual, it is altogether wrong- 
 to agitate a question which can only tend to weaken the 
 bases of our faith, diminish the importance pf long-estab- 
 lished usages and traditions, and ultimately even to render 
 the existence of religion impossible. 
 
11 
 
 Such may and doubtless will be the expression of 
 many, but it is not a statement of the truth ; nor does it 
 penetrate beneath the surface in its estimate of those 
 forces which in their concurrent action make up the 
 spirit of the age. As rational beings, we possess certain 
 faculties, which, besides demanding a constant process 
 of intellectual exercise, also necessitate an incessant and 
 diligent search in the cause of truth : a search, too, which, 
 although it will at times be subversive of the existing 
 order of things, is nevertheless incumbent on us as 
 possessors of talents which God has given us to use, and 
 not to bury in the earth. 
 
 In a certain sense, it may be true that the sentiment 
 which confounds the inarch of intellect with the opera- 
 tions of the Devil is a pardonable one. In another, 
 however, and that by far the most important sense, it is 
 undeniably a hindrance to the general cause of truth. 
 For instance, as in the fourth century, when the belief 
 in the antipodes was considered unscriptural, although it 
 may have been excusable in the pious Lactantius to 
 oppose the . growing idea, the opposition certainly did 
 not facilitate the cause of progress.* Or, to select another 
 instance, when Galileo asserted the revolution of the 
 
 *In connection with the controversy on the subject of the antipodes, it 
 is amusing, from our present stand point, to notice the peculiar views advanced 
 by one Cosmas, who was evidently considered the champion on the orthodox side. 
 According to this authority: " The world is a flat parallelogram. Its length, which 
 should be measured from east to west, is the double of its breadth, which should 
 be measured from north to south. In the center is the earth we inhabit, which is 
 surrounded by the ocean, and this again is encircled by another earth, in which 
 men lived before the deluge, and from which Noah was transported in the ark. To 
 the north of the world is a high conical mountain, around which the sun and moon 
 continually revolve. When the sun is hid behind the mountain, it is night; when 
 it is on our side of the mountain, it is day." See "History of nationalism in Eu- 
 rope," by W. E. H. LECKT, M. A. Quotations being made by him from the Ben- 
 edictine Latin translation of the original. 
 
12 
 
 earth, although it was somewhat natural that the church 
 should warmly defend the Ptolemaic system of the 
 universe, it can hardly be denied that the cause of 
 progress was seriously obstructed, and the interests of 
 truth made subservient to the dominations of an ignorant 
 and oppressive prejudice. Similarly must the value of all 
 unscientific and circumscribed opinions be measured by 
 us at the present day. 
 
 The world has moved ; the fact of the antipodes has 
 been established, and, although we are not liable to be 
 put to death for entertaining opinions contrary to the 
 dictum of authority, there still remains a very large 
 residue of that unscientific spirit which Whewell so aptly 
 describes as " the practice of referring things and events 
 not to clear and distinct notions, not to general rules 
 capable of direct verification, but to notions vague, 
 distant, and vast, and which we cannot bring into 
 contact with facts ; " arid which, it will be easily seen, is 
 therefore necessarily opposed to everything like a 
 scientific interpretation of man and nature." We have 
 advanced, it is true ; and the ratio of our advancement 
 has been in exact proportion to the measure of our 
 knowledge and the progress we have thereby made 
 in, first of all, understanding nature, and then utiliz- 
 ing our discoveries. Should we desire to continue 
 advancing, our tendencies must be in the same direc- 
 tion. Indeed, so truly is this the case, that we may 
 well say, in the language of the late Prince Consort 
 of England: "No human pursuits make any material 
 progress until science is brought to bear upon them, 
 We have seen, accordingly, many of them slumber 
 for centuries ; but from the moment that science has 
 touched them with her magic wand, they have sprung 
 
13 
 
 forward, and taken strides which amaze and almost awe 
 the beholder. Look at the transformation which has gone 
 on around us since the laws of gravitation, electricity, 
 magnetism, and the expansive power of heat have become 
 known to us. It has altered the whole state of existence, 
 one might say the whole face of the globe. We owe 
 this to science, and to science alone ; and she has other 
 treasures in store for us, if we will but call her to our 
 assistance, "f 
 
 " Let there be light," says science ; and, in obedience to 
 the mandate, mind has attained a supremacy over matter 
 which in earlier and unscientific ages was deemed 
 impossible. Nor must it be supposed that in thus 
 emphasizing the physical advantages of science, it is 
 intended to limit the field of scientific application to the 
 realm of physical forces. In this respect, there exists, 
 unfortunately, a very general and very erroneous impres- 
 sion that science means merely the accumulation of facts 
 relating to the world of matter ; whereas the truth is that 
 although this is certainly a very important branch of 
 scientific pursuit, and may be even said to constitute its 
 sine qua non, there still exists a higher and wider sense in 
 which it applies to psychical as well as physical activities ; 
 and which, because it invests the term Nature with a fuller 
 and more perfect meaning, necessitates a profounder 
 estimate of man and the conditions by which he is 
 surrounded. But, says' some one, in the language of 
 Froude, "If it is free to a man to choose what he will 
 tio or not do, there is no adequate science of him." ;f 
 
 t Extract from an address delivered at Birmingham by his Royal Highness 
 Prince Albert. See ''Culture Demanded by Modern Life,' 1 ' 1 page 444. 
 
 $ " Short Studies on Great Subjects,"" by JAS. ANTHONY FROUDB, Vol. I, page 11 . 
 
14 
 
 On the surface, this may seem a serious objection ; tin 
 obstacle perhaps which to some minds may seem entirely 
 to dispose of any claim to universality on the part of 
 science. According to Phaidrus, however : 
 
 " Non semper ea sunt qua videntur, decipit 
 . From prima miiltos." 
 
 Appearances are almost always deceptive there never 
 was a greater truth but they are especially so when 
 applied to subjects that border on the abstruse and pro- 
 found. Allowing that we cannot predicate an exact 
 science of man, and admitting also that scientific pre- 
 visions have necessarily various degrees of definiteness, 
 it certainly does not follow that we are therefore 
 compelled to abandon our position ; nor is it because 
 we cannot claim for the science of human nature a 
 place beside astronomy as an exact science that we 
 must therefore pronounce the impossibility of its being a 
 science at all. Apply this argument to some of the 
 physical sciences, meteorology, for instance, and see what 
 the result would be. Surely no one would dream of 
 calling meteorology an exact science, nor would they, nor 
 could they, say because it is not exact, it is therefore no 
 science. It gives evidences of some prevision, and there- 
 fore there is some science. And precisely similar is it 
 when we attempt to apply the scientific spirit to the 
 science of man. 
 
 "It is no disparagement, therefore, to the science of 
 human nature that those of its general propositions 
 which descend sufficiently into detail to serve as a 
 foundation for predicting phenomena in the concrete are, 
 for the most part, only approximately true. But in order 
 to give a genuinely scientific character to the study, it is 
 
15 
 
 indispensable that these approximate generalizations, 
 which in themselves would amount only to the lowest 
 kind of empirical laws, should be connected deductively 
 with the laws of nature from which they result ; should 
 be resolved into the properties of the causes on which 
 the phenomena depend. In other words, the science of 
 human nature may be said to exist in proportion as 
 those approximate truths which compose a practical 
 knowledge of mankind can be exhibited as corollaries 
 from the universal laws of human nature on which they 
 rest ; whereby the proper limits of those approximate 
 truths would be shown, and we should be enabled to 
 deduce others for any new state of circumstances, in antic- 
 ipation of specific experience." Nor is there anything 
 chimerical in this definition of the highest and noblest 
 aspect of science. As scientists, we are bound to commence 
 our investigations on the basis of physical life. As 
 philosophers, we are warranted in enlarging the horizon 
 of scientific uses, and thus postulating the possibility 
 of a science of human nature. Nor is the transition of 
 thought, even in a remote sense, arbitrary or unnatural. 
 Situated, as we are in a world where everything is 
 governed by law, and surrounded as we are by innumer- 
 able evidences that the discovery of law means the 
 enlargement of our spheres of usefulness, the ameliora- 
 tion of sickness and suffering, the utilization of hidden 
 resources, and the augmentation of our happiness, it cer- 
 tainly is but natural that the deepest and most earnest 
 thinkers should feel themselves thoroughly imbued with 
 the idea that there is and must be a science of man as 
 truly as there is a science of botany, chemistry or geology. 
 
 " System of Logic, Hatiocinadve and Inductive," by JOHN STUAHT MILL, 
 
16 
 
 Observe, too, in this connection, that, in the event of our 
 so far circumscribing the sphere of science as to preclude 
 its application to human nature, we are compelled either 
 to seek for our justification in the ridiculous theory that 
 all human affairs are determined by chance, or by special 
 and miraculous interpositions of the Supreme Being, and 
 therefore beyond the limits of scientific investigation ; or, 
 otherwise, to resort to that still greater absurdity which 
 induces the supposition that although science is relevant 
 when applied to the forms and forces of matter, it is 
 irrelevant and useless when applied to man : a position 
 which, in addition to the dilemma in which it inevitably 
 places us, can only meet with the same fate, from the 
 gradual but certain encroachments of a strictly scientific 
 spirit, that the ipse dixit of Canute did from the waters of 
 Southampton. True, it may be many years before we are 
 enabled fairly to realize the exact nature of those laws 
 which govern the mental and moral constitution of man ; 
 the nature of social tendencies and aggregations, and 
 how from their primitive and chaotic condition they have 
 attained that state in which we now find them. 
 
 From the magnitude and importance of the subjects 
 involved, this must of necessity be the case. Follow- 
 ing as a consequence derived from that law of hereditary 
 transmission which renders every age in some sense the 
 resemblance of its predecessors, we are still influenced by 
 certain conditions of a retrospective rather than a pro- 
 gressive character ; and which, therefore, impede to some 
 extent the dissemination and application of scientific 
 principles. As Goethe says, " It is much easier to perceive 
 error than to find truth ; " a maxim especially applica- 
 ble to the mass of ignorance and bigotry which the 
 scientific spirit has to contend against. 
 
17 
 
 Here, however, let us be sure we do not deceive our- 
 selves. In a certain sense, and that a limited one, it is 
 perfectly true that we are hampered by the relics of an 
 unscientific age ; but in another sense, and that a general 
 one, it is equally true that 
 
 "Earth outgrows the mythic fancies 
 Sung beside her in her youth." 
 
 So it has always been ; so it must always be. So it was 
 when the world laid aside the beautiful dreams of its 
 childhood, for the truer, though somewhat more prosaic, 
 sentiments of a maturer age. So it is now, while we are 
 passing from the simpler to the more complex and more 
 rational views consequent on the scientific spirit of the 
 age. Tenderly as we may regard, and fondly as we may 
 dwell upon, those earlier lispings of the human race, of 
 which we have so many evidences in the Veda, the Zend- 
 avesta, and the mytholog}^ of the Greeks and Romans, 
 we are nevertheless compelled to realize both the useful- 
 ness and importance of that change which, although it 
 dissipates many beautiful illusions, gives us at the same 
 time what is of infinitely more value, viz., a clearer and 
 fuller appreciation of the truth. Standing, as we do, 
 upon the platform of modern thought, it is, indeed, as if 
 in ages long past there had been many beautiful ideas 
 suggested, many notes of exquisite and delicious harmony 
 passing over the lyre of the human soul ; whereas, in 
 these clays, we have a symphony of thought not so full 
 of pathos, perhaps, but yet more thoroughly blended 
 into a harmonious tune. Considered in the light of our 
 superior enlightenment, it is no longer possible for us to 
 regard the cloud upon the mountain-top as a conclave of 
 divinities; but, under the same enlightenment, we are 
 
18 
 
 enabled to transmute the mythological thought into a 
 scientific estimate; our superior knowledge thus dis- 
 closing to us an infinite concatenation of causes and 
 effects, whereby we are led from one point to another 
 along the entire network of nature ; 'and which, in point of 
 intrinsic value, is really superior to the discordant elements 
 of an earlier age, proportionately as truth is better 
 than error a progressive condition, in fact, in which 
 we pass from the irregular and disorganized forces of an 
 unscientific age, to the systematic application of princi- 
 ples discovered through patient and diligent research. 
 Syllogistical theses have had their day : it is now the 
 season of scientific experiment. To some extent, it is 
 true that we live in the same world as that inhabited by 
 our ancestors, and yet so changed are our conditions 
 that it is equally true that the present measure of 
 scientific attainments, if predicted a thousand years ago, 
 would have sounded much more like a chapter from the 
 Arabian Nights' Entertainments than the prophetic 
 promise of a reality. 
 
 But, says some one, the question still remains an open 
 one, whether scientific investigation, in spite of all its 
 advantages, does not tend to the disintegration of all 
 religious ideas, thus inculcating, in place of the lofty 
 idealism of Christianity, a merely unsatisfactory doctrine 
 of Materialism. In a measure this objection has already 
 been anticipated, but, in order to answer it more fully, it 
 may not be amiss to examine the foundations on which 
 the possibility of such an objection is founded. To 
 accomplish this, it seems to us, the first and most 
 important consideration consists in ascertaining clearly 
 what we mean by the terms Nature and Religion. In 
 this connection, -unless we can so far imitate the 
 
19 
 
 Socratic form of argument as to understand, in something 
 like a definite form, the meaning of the subjects we are 
 discussing, it would be possible to go on forever without 
 in the least effecting our purpose. Indeed, it is the most 
 obvious thing in the world that as long as these terms 
 signify to the scientific mind one tiling, and to the 
 unscientific mind quite another, we may go on ad 
 infinitum exchanging our intellectual artillery, and in the 
 end find that it has all been to no purpose. 
 
 As an example of this, we have only to look at the 
 extent anft f ruitlessness of theological discussions ; thereby 
 noticing that their irreconcilable differences proceed quite 
 as much from mutual misunderstanding as they do from 
 any inherent antagonism in the opinions discussed. 
 Each polemic confines himself to his own partisans, and 
 makes no impression on his adversary. In fact, so 
 extremely surperficial and fruitless have these discussions 
 been, that even if we consider Martial's sarcasm, " Iras et 
 verba locant" too severe in its application to these dis- 
 putants, it still remains true that, in their desire to quarrel 
 more about the shadow than the substance, the result 
 has been the production of those manifold isms which so 
 sorely perplex the minds of ordinary observers ; and 
 which, although in their petty doctrinal disputes they 
 have invested the fair and beautiful form of Christianity 
 with a theological garment of as many colors as Joseph's 
 coat, in their last analysis resolve their differences into 
 an unnecessary war of words, rather than into an actual 
 contest of principles. 
 
 " Men's tongues are voluble, 
 And endless are the modes of speech, and far 
 Extends from side to side the field of words."|| 
 
 I) BRYANT'S " Homer-Iliad," Book XX, 
 
20 
 
 Far be it from us, however, to fall into a similar error ; 
 while, the more fully to illustrate this branch of the 
 argument, we will cite a good example furnished by 
 Professor Blackie in his masterly essay on Socrates. It 
 reads thus : " Suppose I get into an argument with any 
 person as to whether A or B, or any person holding cer- 
 tain opinions, manifesting certain feelings, and acting in 
 a certain way, is a Christian. I say he is, my contradictor 
 says he is not ; how then shall we settle the difference ? 
 Following the example of Socrates, the best procedure 
 certainly will be to ask him to define what he means by a 
 Christian. Suppose then he answers, a Christian is a 
 religious person who believes in the Nicene creed. I 
 immediately reply, the Nicene creed was not sent forth 
 till the year 325 after Christ ; what then do you make 
 of the thousands and hundreds of thousands of Christians 
 who lived before that? To this objection the answer of 
 course will be that the Nicene creed, though not set 
 forth in express articles, did virtually exist as a part of 
 the living faith of all true Christians. Then, if I doubt 
 this, I say, was Origen a Christian, was Justin Martyr a 
 Christian ? Are you sure these two fathers believed every 
 article of that creed? My opponent now, in all likeli- 
 hood, not being profoundly versed in patristic lore, is 
 staggered ; and I proceed, we shall suppose, to cite some 
 passages from some of the ante-Nicene Fathers which 
 imply dissent from some of the articles of the orthodox 
 s}^mbol. He is then reduced to the dilemma of either 
 denying that this Father was a Christian, or (as that will 
 scarcely be allowable) widening his original definition so 
 as to include a variety of cases which, by the narrowness 
 of the terms, were excluded. I then go on to test the 
 comprehensiveness of the new definition in the same way ; 
 
21 
 
 and if I find that it contains any elements which belong 
 to the species and not to the genus, any peculiarities, 
 say, of modern Calvinisn, or of medieval Popery, that do 
 not belong to the general term ' Christianity,' I push 
 him into a corner in the same way as before, till I bring 
 out from his own admissions a pure and broad definition 
 of the designation of Christian, as opposed to Heathen, 
 Jew, or any other sort of religious professor." 1" 
 
 Such was the Socratic method of arriving at a sound 
 .basis on which to reason ; and we can easily see from the 
 example that, in proportion as the definition is widened, 
 so far does there exist a possibility of ignoring all minor 
 differences, and giving to the term involved a breadth of 
 meaning which it did not at first seem to possess. 
 
 Correspondingly, it is only by an enlargement and 
 expansion of the terms Nature and Religion that the 
 scientific mind can hope to be fairly understood. For 
 instance, if, from a theological standpoint, we mean by 
 tjie term Nature merely the result of a creative fiat, as 
 represented in the Mosaic cosmogony ; and, from a scien- 
 tific point of view, mean by the same term a whole 
 series of geological changes so vast that even the most 
 stupendous intellectual efforts fail to estimate their 
 immensity ; or, again, when speaking of Eeligion, if we 
 mean, on the one hand, a mere assent to certain creeds 
 and forms of ceremonial worship, and, on the other hand, 
 mean, by the same term, that deeply seated sentiment 
 of reciprocity between the creature and the Creator which, 
 although it embraces all creeds and formulas, assigns to 
 them the position of minor auxiliaries, or, at best, mere 
 
 1 "Four Phases of Morals," by JOHN STUAKT BLACKIE, Professor of Greek in 
 the University of Edinburgh. 
 
22 
 
 adumbrations of the truth it is clear, in the face of 
 these facts, that there can be no common ground on 
 which we may effect a reconciliation, or even an under- 
 standing. Not so, however, when once we have stripped 
 the matter of all extraneous issues, and thus find that 
 there is a common ground on which Science and Religion 
 may meet, not as antagonists, but as twin sisters, both 
 having equal claims to a celestial birth, and both, in their 
 different functions, tending to elevate man into a condi- 
 tion of wisdom and happiness. 
 
 In its highest and profoundest sense, science as truly 
 as religion participates in that beautiful sentiment : 
 
 " Be worthy of death; and so learn to live 
 That every incarnation of thy soul 
 In other realms, and worlds, and firmaments, 
 Shall be more pure and high." 
 
 In the consciousness of a strictly scientific man there is 
 nothing which precludes the possibility of his being a 
 religious man also. Of course, the quality of -his religion 
 must necessarily differ very materially from that of the 
 01 TToAAoz,- but this does not deny the possible coexist- 
 ence of the religious with the scientific sentiment 
 No ; the fact is (in spite of the many confused ideas on 
 the subject), the principles which actuate a pure religion, 
 and the principles which actuate a noble and useful 
 science, although not identical, are certainly not antag- 
 onistic or even inimical. In these days there is much 
 said about the atheistical and disastrous tendencies of 
 modern science; but to those who think calmly and 
 profoundly on the subject, the alarm is a false one; 
 or at least one in which the truth is so dreadfully dis- 
 torted that we cannot help pitjnng the strait to which 
 theologians are reduced when they are so far com- 
 
23 
 
 pelled to sacrifice principle to fury. Nor can it be 
 denied that it becomes impossible, in this connection, for 
 any one to look candidly and carefully at those dogmas 
 which theologians are pleased to prescribe as the measure 
 and fullness of truth, without being somewhat reminded 
 of the fabled lamps in the tomb of Terentia, which 
 burned for many years under ground, but which as 
 soon as they were exposed to the air, and saw a 
 brighter light, immediately went out. We have passed 
 from the twilight of superstition into the sunshine of 
 reason ; and the result is visible in the quality as well 
 as in the quantity of the world's knowledge. In other 
 words, we have become dissatisfied with the settled 
 opinions of our ancestors, and the consequence is that, 
 even though we are in duty bound to give them decent 
 burial, we are at the same time compelled to yield our 
 zealous admiration to that scientific spirit which has 
 already done so much toward bringing the forces of 
 physical nature under human control, and which also 
 promises, by a process of gradual enlightenment, to 
 illuminate many hitherto dark corners in the regions of 
 philosophy and psychology.* 
 
 Omnium rerum vicissitude est. 
 In the destruction, however, of unimportant creeds 
 
 * "In no age so conspicuously as in our own hag there been a crowding in of 
 new scientific conceptions of all kinds to exercise a perturbing influence on 
 speculative philosophy. They have come in almost too fast for philosophy's 
 power of conception. She has visibly reeled amid their shocks, and has not yet 
 recovered her equilibrium. Within those years alone which we are engaged in 
 surveying, there have been developments of native British science, not to speak 
 of influxes of scientific ideas, hints, and probabilities from without, in the midst 
 of which British philosophy has looked about her scared and bewildered, and has 
 felt that some of her oldest statements about herself, and some of the most im- 
 portant terms in her vocabulary, require re-explication." Recent British Philo- 
 sophy, by Prof. MASON, of the University of Edinburgh. 
 
24 
 
 and dogmas, and the habit of restlessness which the 
 scientific spirit necessitates, the essence of religion still 
 remains ; nor is it the desire of science to diminish its 
 importance. Or, to emphasize as distinctly as possible 
 the attitude of scientific thought in this respect, it is 
 perfectly clear, to the most reflective minds, that the 
 ovffia of religion may be and is indestructible ; while 
 the media through which it expresses itself, and the forms 
 constituting its method of expression, are of necessity 
 governed and directed by the intellectual type of the age, 
 and the prevailing tendency of thought and sentiment. 
 True, the measure of human prejudice is so powerful 
 that it has taken the world ages to realize the truth of 
 this statement ; but it is no less valid on that account. 
 In the history of human development, if there is one 
 feature more strongly marked than another, it is that the 
 special characteristic of every age consists in its power 
 of assimilation ; and thus of incorporating such thoughts 
 and sentiments as are, by an apparently orderly process, 
 adapted to the measure of growth and the capacity 
 of digestion. 
 
 To appreciate, therefore, the peculiarly advanced 
 condition of modern thought, it will be well for us to 
 bear in mind two very important considerations which, 
 though superficially remote, are nevertheless very closely 
 related : i. e., the numerous advantages derived from the 
 application of scientific principles, and the many grada- 
 tions and fluctuations of thought which have all in some 
 way contributed toward the formation of our present 
 intellectual status. 
 
 In our present transitional process, and in view of the 
 increasing supremacy of scientific thought which accompa- 
 nies it, there is no suspension or violation of this principle. 
 
25 
 
 "The eternal Pan, 
 Bidetk never in one shape, 
 But forever doth escape 
 . Into new forms," 
 
 is true not only as a poetic divination, it is also true 
 when applied as a principle to those processes and 
 transformations upon which our intellectual as well as our 
 physical life depends. From the nature of its methods, 
 and its persistency and breadth of investigation, the 
 * scientific spirit must necessarily encroach upon the 
 domain of theology and philosophy ; but what of that, 
 since the consecration of its energie's to the discovery of 
 truth is an unquestionable guaranty as to its purposes. 
 Indeed, with respect to the theological aspect of the sub- 
 ject, it were better for the human race had the Church at 
 an earlier day learned to appreciate and utilize the 
 glorious mission of Science. 
 
 As has been truly remarked : " No one can study 
 the progress of modern civilization without being con- 
 tinually reminded of the great, it might be said the 
 mortal, mistake committed by the Roman Church. Had 
 it put itself forth as the promoter and protector of 
 science, it would at this day have exerted an unques- 
 tioned dominion over all Europe. Instead of being the 
 stumbling-block, it would have been the animating 
 agent of human advancement. It shut the Bible only 
 to have it opened forcibly by the Reformation ; it shut 
 the book of Nature, but has found it impossible to keep 
 it closed. How different the result had it abandoned the 
 obsolete absurdities of patristicism, and become imbued 
 with the spirit of true philosophy had it lifted itself to 
 a comprehension of the awful magnificence of the 
 . heavens above and the glories of the earth beneath had 
 
26 
 
 it appreciated the immeasurable vastness of the universe, 
 its infinite multitude of worlds, its inconceivable past 
 duration ! How different if, in place of ever looking 
 backward, it had only looked forward bowing itself 
 down in a world of life and light, instead of worshiping, 
 in the charnel-house of antiquity, the skeletons of twenty 
 centuries ! How different had it hailed with transport 
 the discoveries and inventions of human genius, instead 
 of scowling upon them with a malignant and baleful 
 eye! How different had it canonized the great men 
 who have been the interpreters of Nature, instead of 
 anathematizing them as atheists ! "f Of the correctness 
 of these views there can be no doubt. Were science 
 better understood there would be fewer false alarmists. 
 Were she better appreciated, there can be no reasonable 
 doubt that the course of progress would be much more 
 uniform and rapid. 
 
 The habit of thought which has already done so much 
 toward giving us an almost absolute supremacy over the 
 forces of Nature must of necessity prove beneficial when 
 applied to those complex conditions growing out of 
 human life. In the spirit of men, let us, therefore, 
 cultivate those scientific influences which have already 
 done so much to render man the crown and glory of the 
 universe ; and which, by a judicious application of its 
 principles, must necessarily tend more and more to lift 
 us out of the shadowy region of hypothesis, into the 
 clearer atmosphere of theory grounded on fact ; and 
 when, also, by an enlarged application of the same prin- 
 ciples, we shall realize the possibility of a universal 
 
 t "Deficiencies of Clerical Education," by JOHN W. DRAPER, M.D., L.L.D., of 
 the University of New York. See " Culture Demanded by Modern Life," page430. 
 
27 
 
 science, embracing in its widest and profoundest sense 
 the science of life. Nor is this expectation by any 
 means an unreasonable one. 
 
 On the. contrary, just so surely as our habits of 
 scientific thought compel us to enlarge our views of 
 religion, and to purify and enlighten our theological 
 ideas, just so surely will we witness the inauguration of 
 that grand and comprehensive philosophy which Bacon 
 describes as " the union and co-operation of all in build- 
 ing up and perfecting that House of Solomon, the end 
 of which is the knowledge of causes and of the secret 
 motions of things, and the enlarging of the bounds of 
 human empire to the effecting of all things possible." 
 As we pass from the phenomena of life to those of 
 mental and moral emotions, it is indeed true that we 
 enter a region of almost impenetrable mystery. As we 
 enter this mysterious region, it is well to remember the 
 delicate and sensitive nature of the subject. It is also 
 well, however, to remember that, even at the risk of 
 doing some temporary violence, the scientific spirit is 
 bound to enter. 
 
 In many instances, some of our fondest sentiments 
 will be trampled under foot ; but this is inevitable in any 
 process which professes to eliminate the false from the 
 true. It is due to the searching analysis of a scientific 
 age. Destructive in some respects, science is, however, 
 reconstructive in others. Under one aspect, we see onty 
 the demolition and decay of many venerable creeds and 
 dogmas. Under another, and that by far the most im- 
 portant, we'cannot resist the conviction that there is 
 something grand and encouraging in that condition of 
 thought which results from a careful study and proper 
 appreciation of the scientific spirit. The method of 
 
28 
 
 scientific inquiry may be severe ; but it is, for this reason, 
 all the more healthy and beneficial. Like a skillful 
 surgeon, it inflicts pain merely to cure disease. 
 
 The advancement of science means necessarily a 
 clearer insight into the laws of nature; a better ac- 
 quaintance with nature means necessarily the promotion 
 of our welfare and happiness, and the ultimate dominion 
 of mind over matter. It is, therefore, a fallacious mode 
 of reasoning which would seek to restrict the sphere of 
 scientific influences, or, in any sense, impede the progress 
 of scientific ideas. To understand ourselves we must 
 understand the conditions which surround us. It is 
 needless to say that this is impossible without the aid of 
 science. 
 
29 
 
 SKEPTICISM: ITS FUNCTION AND IMPORTANCE. 
 
 Phcedrus. Do you see that tallest plane-tree in the 
 distance ? 
 
 /Socrates. Yes. 
 
 Phcedrus. There are shade and gentle breezes, and grass 
 on which we may either sit or lie down. 
 
 Socrates. Move on. 
 
 Phcedrus. I should like to know, Socrates, whether the 
 place is not somewhere here at which Boreas is said 
 to have carried oif Orithyia from the banks of the 
 
 Ilissus. 
 
 Socrates. That is the tradition. 
 
 Phcedrus. And is this the exact spot? The little stream 
 is delightfully clear and bright ; I can fancy that there 
 might be maidens playing near. 
 
 Socrates. I believe that the spot is not exactly here, but 
 about a quarter of a mile lower down, where you 
 cross to the Temple of Agra, and I think that there 
 is some sort of Altar of Boreas at the place. 
 
 Phcedrus. I don't recollect ; but I wish that you would 
 tell me whether you believe this tale. 
 
30 
 
 Socrates. The wise are doubtful, and if, like them, I also 
 doubted, there would be nothing very strange in 
 that* 
 
 Such is the dialogue, as Plato represents it, between 
 the two friends, as they enter into a shady retreat for the 
 purpose of discussing the merits of Lysias' speech. 
 
 The conditions are truly inviting: the country is 
 beautiful, the air exquisitely pure and full of sweet 
 scents, as they pass on to their goal, and to the consider- 
 ation of their subject. For us, however, it is only the 
 passing remark that " the wise are doubtful, etc," which 
 at present concerns us ; and which we have selected 
 because it in a measure forms an introduction to the sub- 
 ject embraced in the present chapter: viz., that spirit of 
 doubt, and disposition to investigate, which, having 
 become synonymous with the spirit of the age, are at 
 once the terror of extreme conservatism, and the hope 
 and promise of liberal and progressive thought. Tradi- 
 tion says the latter is well ; but rational and clear- 
 sighted investigation is better. And thus we pass into a 
 habit of thought in many respects hostile to that of 
 the past, and which, when viewed from an ecclesi- 
 astical standpoint, is thus described : " Doubt is every- 
 where. Skeptical suggestions are wrapped in narrative ; 
 they bristle in short, shallow, self-asserting essa} 7 s, in 
 which men who really show their ignorance, think they 
 show their depth ; the^y color ^>ur physical philosophy ; 
 they mingle themselves with our* commonplace theology 
 itself, "f Thus, according to orthodoxy, in addition to 
 
 * "Dialogues of Plato.'''' Pbrcdnis. Translated by B. JOWETT, M.A., Master 
 of Baliol College, Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford. 
 
 t" Faith and Free Thought" Preface. By SAMUEL WILBERFORCE, D.D., 
 Bishop of Winchester. 
 
31 
 
 the frightful ignorance which modern skepticism rests 
 upon for its support, its mere existence constitutes a sort 
 of descensus averni from which we ought to shrink with 
 all the instinct of self-preservation, accompanied by a 
 due preponderance of pious horror and intensified 
 repugnance. According to modern thought, on the 
 other hand, the idea is rapidly gaining ground that as 
 the discovery of all truth is necessarily progressive, so 
 there is not, and cannot be, any such thing as a divorce, 
 or even alienation, between skepticism and progress. 
 
 " Who never doubted never half believed, 
 Where doubt there truth is 'tis her shadow." 
 
 Indeed, so rapidly is this feeling spreading, and so 
 powerfully is it disseminating its influences, that we 
 scarcely meet with a person of any intellectual caliber 
 who has not in some way become touched by the 
 skeptical tendency; and who, if he does not evince a 
 spirit of bold and candid skepticism, at least so far 
 qualifies his opinions that they amount virtually to the 
 same thing. " We know accurately only when we know 
 little ; with knowledge doubt increases." So said 
 Goethe ; and so says the nineteenth century, at least so 
 far as a powerful and daily increasing number of its 
 representatives is concerned. J 
 
 JJust here, however, it may perhaps be as well to observe that, although 
 modern skepticism partakes necessarily to some extent of the character of 
 Pyrrhonism, it at the same time differs from it in one important particular: viz., 
 that whereas the skepticism of Pyrrho leads to the conclusion that nothing truly 
 is, the modern skeptic merely doubts and questions the existing order of things 
 the more fully to arrive at the fundamental bases of truth. 
 
 "He that says nothing can be known, overthrows 
 His own opinion, for he nothing knows, 
 So knows not that." LUCRETIUS. 
 
32 
 
 Passing over from the earlier and more rudimentary 
 state of our intellectual development, we have entered 
 on that condition when the mind refuses to rest satisfied 
 with the dicta of a hundred years ago, and when, even 
 admitting that we have lost in some directions through 
 the change from credulity to incredulity, it surely will 
 not be denied that we have gained considerably in the 
 cultivation of a spirit of earnest and fearless criticism. 
 The change has been gradual, but it is for this reason no 
 less potent or real. However much, therefore, the attempt 
 may be made in some quarters to denounce and suppress 
 the spirit of inquiry which is abroad at the present 
 day, it is of no avail. When once the human mind has 
 been as thoroughly shaken as it has been within the last 
 century, there is no way out of the difficulty but by 
 meeting the subject in a manly, straightforward manner. 
 
 True it may be that we may often wish we had, 
 like Theseus, an Ariadne to help us through the laby- 
 rinth ; but even in these moments of temporary depres- 
 sion, there is no reason why we should give up the prob- 
 lem in despair, or even sigh for a return to the simpler 
 faith of the world's childhood. Born as we are under a 
 sharper and more invigorating atmosphere than that of 
 preceding ages, it is well for us to remember that even if 
 we are deprived of much of the calm and sweet serenity 
 . consequent on an abiding faith and childlike acceptance 
 of traditional beliefs, we are, from the activity of the 
 forces around us, more likely to develop into a full and 
 perfect manhood. And, then again, there is certainly 
 some encouragement in the fact that an intelligent skepti- 
 cisni is decidedly better than an ignorant superstition. 
 In the latter, we grow into a sort of abnormal condition, 
 in which, through the exaggerated cultivation of our sen- 
 
33 
 
 timents at the expense of reason, we venerate and 
 listen to superstition. In the language of Southey : 
 
 " A nurse's tale 
 
 Which children, open-eyed and mouthed, devour; 
 And thus, as garrulous ignorance relates, 
 We learn it and believe." 
 
 In the former, even if we do no more, we rise at least to 
 a better conception of those constituent elements without 
 which progress is impossible, and through which we are 
 enabled, first of all, to discover the extent and quality of 
 our false knowledge, and then to remove the evil accord- 
 ing as reason and an increased enlightenment shall 
 dictate the remedy. So far, then, from our fears being 
 excited by this daily increasing spirit of skepticism, it is 
 the duty of every rational mind to encourage a process 
 which, however painful it may be to some, is ultimately 
 destined to be a benefit to all. 
 
 In fact, what an eminent historian has said respecting 
 Greece in the time of Socrates, and the effect of the 
 Socratic principles upon the public intellect, may be 
 strictly applied to our modern civilization, and to the 
 consequences which this growing spirit of skepticism has 
 already produced. The feeling of hesitancy and un- 
 certainty lies at the very basis of all philosophy ; the 
 principles of philosophy at the root of all real and 
 
 The Socratic dialectics, clearing away from the mind its fancied knowledge, 
 and laying bare the real ignorance, produced an immediate effect like the touch 
 of the torpedo. The newly created consciousness of ignorance was alike unex- 
 pected, painful, and humiliating a season of doubt and discomfort, yet combined 
 with an internal working and yearning after truth never before experienced. 
 Such intellectual quickening, which could never commence until the mind had 
 been disabused of its original illusion of false knowledge, was considered by 
 Socrates not merely as the index and precursor, but as the indispensable condition 
 of future progress." d-rote's History of Greece," Vol. VII, pages 614, 615. 
 
34 
 
 permanent advancement. Without these elements our 
 intellectual life would be a blank ; there could be no 
 change, no progress, no civilization. Who, therefore, will 
 forbid a wise and honest skepticism, seeing that there 
 are necessarily gradations and fluctuations in all our 
 ideas of truth ? Who will attempt the suppression of an 
 earnest and manly doubt, when the best and wisest of us 
 but too well know that he who believes his ideas on 
 secular or religious matters to be so fully the truth that 
 there is nothing beyond is invariably made up of 
 arrogance and ignorance, and in every sense unfit to be a 
 representative of the intellectual tendency of the present 
 age ? No ; the movement has commenced ; and though 
 there may be some who willfully shut their eyes to the 
 increasing light, preferring to be 
 
 " The slaves of custom and established mode, 
 With pack-horse constancy to keep the road, 
 Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells, 
 True to the jingling of their leader's bells," 
 
 there are yet others for whom truth is indeed a form 
 divine : 
 
 " Her right hand holds a sun with burning rays, 
 Her left a curious bunch of golden keys." 
 
 And thus it comes to pass that the interrogation of cus- 
 tom at all points is an inevitable stage in the growth of 
 society, and the strongest evidence we can have of man's 
 progressive nature ; the necessary condition, in fact, of 
 those alternate states of transition and purgation through 
 which we are made first of all to discover, and then to 
 repudiate, all phases of error and falsehood. 
 
 Eemove the possibility of skepticism, and we destroy 
 the very basis of progress ; and in place of a world 
 
85 
 
 wherein all life is synonymous with process and change, 
 we reduce everything to a deplorable state of inaction 
 and torpor, inevitably ending in decomposition and decay. 
 But, says some one, the world moves well enough, and 
 therefore we can only regard the inroads of skepticism as 
 positively dangerous. Well ; there are doubtless many 
 who think in this manner, and who are unquestionably 
 perfectly sincere and honest in their convictions. Let 
 us, however, see how their opinions look in the light of 
 reason and common-sense ; remembering also that such 
 a position necessitates two things which no philosophical 
 mind can for a moment entertain : first, the altogether 
 erroneous idea that truth derives its existence from 
 passive and not active conditions ; and second, that spirit 
 of narrow-mindedness and exclusiveness which would 
 denounce as false and dangerous every opinion that does 
 not coincide with our views : conditions which, it seems 
 to us, are in themselves sufficient to determine the 
 advantage or disadvantage of skepticism. For the 
 purpose, however, of illustrating this branch of our 
 subject more clearly, it may be well for us to look 
 candidly at the condition of those countries where the 
 spirit of skepticism has invariably been stifled, and then 
 compare the result with those wherein the mind has 
 been allowed free action. To do this the more effectu- 
 ally, we will quote from Buckle's " History of Civiliza- 
 tion" in England, a few remarks which are strongly 
 pertinent to the subject: "In Spain,'' says he, "the 
 Church, aided by the Inquisition, has always been strong 
 enough to punish skeptical writers, and prevent, not, 
 indeed, the existence, but the promulgation, of skeptical 
 opinions. By this means, the spirit of doubt being 
 quenched, knowledge has for several centuries remained 
 
36 
 
 almost stationary and civilization, which is the fruit of 
 knowledge, has also been stationary. But in England 
 and France, which, as we shall presently see, are the coun- 
 tries where skepticism first openly appeared, and where 
 it has been most diffused, the results are altogether 
 different ; and the love of inquiry being encouraged, 
 there has arisen that constantly progressive knowledge 
 to which these two great nations owe their prosperity." 
 
 And this is true ; for the more thoroughly we examine 
 into the nature of skepticism, the more clearly we 
 shall see that it is the necessary accompaniment, and, to 
 a very great extent, the cause, of every progressive move- 
 ment in our moral and intellectual life. The prejudice 
 which attaches to the term, and which is especially 
 strong in the least cultivated minds, is, after all, a matter 
 of no importance. It is by its consequences that it 
 must be judged. Anything short of this is not only a 
 fallacious mode of reasoning, it is also the quintessence 
 of ignorance and prejudice. 
 
 And then, again, as an additional means of answering 
 our anti-skeptical friend, and especially so supposing 
 him to be a conscientious religionist, it is well to bear in 
 mind that the skeptical tendencies of the present day are 
 to a very great extent the legitimate results of Prot- 
 estantism ; Protestantism, it may be, more directly 
 related to the learned and polished Erasmus than to the 
 enthusiastic and inspiring Luther ; but still the natural 
 consequence of that tone of thought and spirit of 
 freedom which, beginning with a protest against the 
 abuse of the sale of indulgences, has gradually been 
 gaining in strength, and extending its sphere of action. 
 Of course, if we hold, with the Eomish Church, that the 
 Reformation was an evil, and that the impetus it gave to. 
 
37 
 
 the human mind was altogether in the wrong direction, 
 then we become consistent in our opposition to anything 
 and everything which indicates or encourages a freer and 
 fuller development of our intellectual capacities. Not 
 so, however, as Protestants. The right to protest once 
 necessitates the right to protest again and again ; and so on, 
 as frequently as occasion may demand, and ne'w ideas 
 require new forms of expression.! 
 
 To accomplish this is the function of skepticism. In 
 one sense, it may be denned as a general and con- 
 current action among a certain class of minds who, for 
 the time being, rise above the prejudices of their age ; 
 in another, it is an open and avowed proclamation in 
 favor of the supremacy of reason, and the reasonable- 
 ness of reasoning. Certainly in this character it is not, 
 as some would have us believe, a monster of unpropitious 
 birth ; or, as more frequently represented, a destructive 
 fiend whose very presence " strikes an awe and terror to 
 my aching sight," 
 
 In its central conception, it is the elevation of our 
 noblest faculty into a field of legitimate exercise and 
 development. In its last analysis, it is a sublime realiza- 
 tion of Sir William Hamilton's sentiment : " On earth 
 there is nothing great but man ; in man there is nothing 
 great but mind." But it may still be urged that, even 
 if we admit the fact, and acknowledge skepticism to 
 
 ill " The Protestant Reformers, in transferring their allegiance from the Church to 
 the word of God, practically asserted a right of private judgment. Their proceed- 
 ing was founded on a subjective, personal conviction. Deny to the individual this 
 ultimate prerogative of deciding where authority in matters of religion is right- 
 fully placed, and then what the acknowledged rule of faith means, and their whole 
 movement becomes indefensible, irrational. Hence, intellectual liberty, freedom 
 of thought and inquiry, was a conseqence of the Reformation that could not fail 
 to be eventually realized.' 1 History of the Reformation, by GEO. P. FISHER, 
 D.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Yale College. 
 
38 
 
 be the inevitable accompaniment of civilization and 
 cause of progress, there still remains' another point at 
 issue : viz., that as it is no easier to subdue the baser 
 parts of our nature in the nineteenth century than it 
 was in the first or second, our boasted accumulation of 
 wisdom, and increased intellectual activity, are of no 
 practical benefit In fact, that even while we pursue 
 knowledge as the summum bonum of human life, there 
 are still moments when we are compelled to feel 
 that, in the earlier ages of the world, and especially 
 with reference to the primal glory of Christianity, there 
 existed an all-pervading atmosphere of trust in and 
 childlike reliance on a superior Power, the loss of 
 which more than counterbalances our improvement 
 in other directions. Certainly the assertion is a natural 
 one, and at the same time possesses a considerable 
 element of truth. Indeed, it may unhesitatingly be said 
 that *it is a subject which every thoughtful mind is 
 compelled more or less to recognize. In our moments 
 of deepest and most earnest reflection, it causes us to 
 pause, to weigh more carefully the phases of thought 
 coming up for our consideration, to enter more fully 
 into the spirit of the age, and as nearly as possible 
 to determine where we are drifting. In other words, it is 
 even possible in our prof oundest moments to enter so far 
 within the kernel of our spiritual consciousness as to 
 realize the exquisite beauty of that faith which could 
 produce a St Francis, and which in its most sublimated 
 form, enables every devotional spirit to catch its highest 
 and brightest glimpses of the Infinite. 
 
 " Like earth, awake, and warm, and bright 
 With joy the spirit moves and burns; 
 So up to thee, O Fount of Light, 
 Our light returns." 
 
39 
 
 Certainly it is a beautiful sentiment, and one which 
 elevates the drooping spirit into an atmosphere wherein 
 the conditions are exquisitely pure and invigorating. 
 
 " Niglit is the time to pray : 
 
 Our Saviour oft withdrew 
 To desert mountains far away; - 
 
 So will his followers do; 
 Steal from the throng to haunts untrod, 
 And commune there alone with God." 
 
 Or, again, to pass from Montgomery to Bailey's Festus : 
 
 "Any heart turn'd Godward feels more joy 
 In one shor^hour of prayer than e'er was rais'd 
 By all the feasts on earth since their foundation." 
 
 Here, however, the thoughtful man comes necessarily to 
 a pause ; and, in so doing, discovers, not only that human 
 nature is not all sentiment, but also that, as in the case 
 of St. Francis, the reaction from the sensualism of 
 Pompeii produced an extreme measure of spirituality 
 which we can only consider an abnormal condition ; so 
 in the last analysis of this devotional spirit we are com- 
 pelled to assign to it a- static and not a dynamic 'con- 
 dition. 
 
 Says Mr. Froude : " Submissiveness, humility, obedi- 
 ence, produce, if uncorrected, in politics, a nation of 
 slaves whose baseness becomes an incentive to tyranny ; 
 in religion, they produce the consecration of falsehood, 
 poperies, immaculate conceptions, winking images, and 
 the confessional. The spirit of inquiry, if left to itself, 
 becomes in like manner a disease of uncertainty, and 
 terminates in universal skepticism. It seems as if, in a 
 healthy order of things, to the willingness to believe 
 there should be chained as its inseparable companion a 
 
40 
 
 jealousy of deception ; and there is no lesson more 
 important for serious persons to impress upon themselves 
 than that each of these temperaments must learn to 
 tolerate the other; faith accepting from reason the 
 sanction of its service, and reason receiving in return 
 the warm pulsations of life. The two principles exist 
 together in the highest natures ; and the man who, in the 
 best sense of the word, is devout is also the most 
 cautious to whom or to what he pays his devotion. "T 
 And so it really is ; toleration being an indispensable 
 ingredient in every form of honest and philosophical 
 doubt. 
 
 Nor is skepticism an evil, as is popularly supposed, 
 when applied to the fundamental principles of Chris- 
 tianity. According to its views in this respect, religion 
 forms no exception to the general law of progress ; for 
 although it seems inevitable that the religious ideas of 
 one age should become in a certain sense the poetry of 
 the next flickering, as it were, in an expiring beauty 
 on the horizon of the past yet with reference to the 
 cardinal principles of Christianity it recognizes them as 
 possessing a power and beauty more and more capable 
 of realization as the human mind passes into new phases, 
 and thus approaches nearer to a spiritualized conception, 
 and an enlarged application of its beneficent influences, 
 its sublime teachings, its comprehensive and ennobling 
 views of human progress. In fact, it may in all truth 
 be said that this spirit of toleration which a truly 
 philosophical skepticism necessitates runs in a strictly 
 parallel line with that world of tolerance transfigured 
 
 If "Shwt Studies oa Great Subjects, " by JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, M.A. 
 ''Essay and Criticism on the Gospel History." 
 
41 
 
 into human love which lies at the very basis of Chris- 
 tianity. And here we rest the grounds of relationship 
 between skepticism and the devotional side of our 
 nature. As has been said : " The moral element of 
 Christianity is as the sun in heaven, and dogmatic 
 systems are as the clouds that intercept and temper 
 the exceeding brightness of its ray. The insect, whose 
 existence is but for a moment, might well imagine that 
 these were indeed eternal, that their majestic columns 
 could never fail, and that their luminous folds were the 
 very source and center of light. And yet they shift and 
 vary with each changing breeze ; they blend and sep- 
 arate ; they assume new forms and exhibit new dimen- 
 sions ; as the sun that is above them waxes more 
 glorious in its power, they are permeated and at last 
 absorbed by its increasing splendor; they recede, and 
 wither, and disappear, and the eye ranges far beyond 
 the sphere they had occupied into the infinity of glory 
 that is above them."* In the process of transition 
 which skepticism necessitates, we certainly will (as has 
 been already said) have cause again and again to 
 exclaim, in the language of Mrs. Hemans : 
 
 " A thousand thoughts of all things dear 
 
 Like shadows o'er me sleep, 
 
 I leave my sunny childhood here 
 
 Oh, therefore let me weep ! " 
 
 Yet such are the conditions which the law of progress 
 renders inevitable. 
 
 All through the entire range of human history this 
 has been the case ; this gradual remodeling of sentiment 
 
 * " History of (he Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe," 
 by W. E. II. LECKY, M.A, 
 
42 
 
 through the analytical action of reason. As it has been, 
 so it is, and will continue to be. Like Thales, we may 
 at times fall into a pit while gazing at the stars ; and 
 like him, too, we may experience the mortification of 
 being mocked by ignorant and garrulous old women. 
 But even should this be the case, it matters not. The 
 skepticism which can be daunted by trifles such as 
 these, if fairly tested, will be found to amount to nothing 
 more than a species of shallow egotism, differing for the 
 sake of being different, rather than that conscientious 
 and fearless love of truth without which there can be no 
 such thing as philosophical doubt, no form of skepticism 
 that is not a miserable sham no better than the error or 
 imposture which it seeks to supplant, Not so, however, 
 the spirit of honest doubt and earnest inquiry which we 
 conceive as the legitimate form of skepticism, and which, 
 from the keenness of its intellectual vision, but too well 
 knows that the maximum of human power consists in its 
 ability to scrutinize carefully each fragment of evidence, 
 to study closel}', to generalize slowly and thoughtfully, 
 to think reverently and philosophically; and, in so doing, 
 to realize gradually the truth of Tacitus' remark that 
 " Truth is brought to light by time and reflection, while 
 falsehood gathers strength from precipitation and bustle." 
 In one sense, therefore, although the functions of skepti- 
 cism are to some extent those of a destructive agent, it 
 is equally true that, its existence being derived from 
 the progressive tendency of man's nature, it is the 
 legitimate product of our advanced civilization, and not 
 the result of an unnatural and diseased condition, as is 
 sometimes represented. "If to philosophize be right, 
 we must philosophize to realize the right ; if to philoso- 
 phize be wrong, we must philosophize to manifest the 
 
43 
 
 wrong; on any alternative, therefore, philosophize we 
 must." So said Aristotle of philosophy; and the mode 
 of reasoning is equally applicable to skepticism. In the 
 one case, as in the other, the principles are determined 
 by that inherent tendency in the human mind which 
 impels us ever in the pursuit of knowledge, and which 
 in rendering philosophy a necessity gives also a similar 
 position to that skeptical tendency or attitude of doubt 
 without which philosophy would be impossible. 
 
 Or, again, as Lessing has beautifully expressed it: 
 " Did the Almighty, holding, in his right hand, Truth, 
 and, in his left, Search after Truth, deign to proffer me 
 the one I might prefer, in all humility, but without 
 hesitation, I should request Search after Truth." In 
 the world of mind, as in in the world of matter, there 
 can be no life where there are no energizing and active 
 influences at work. We exist as men only as we 
 think as men. In this connection, surely no one will 
 deny that the power to think implies the right to 
 doubt ; in fact, that besides their being in the strictest 
 sense correlated, the existence of the one is inconceivable 
 without the existence of the other. In other words, the 
 normal state of development being that of process and 
 change, skepticism is to civilization what the forces of 
 action and reaction are to the material world. In either 
 case, the object is the preservation of an equilibrium, the 
 perpetuity of certain principles upon which all life, physi- 
 cal and psychical, depends, and, finally, the preclusion of 
 that stagnant condition from which the mind instinctively 
 recoils. Or, again, to reduce the whole subject to a 
 simile which is by no means inapplicable: Life to 
 Endymion was no better than death. Without skepti- 
 cism, and the spirit of intellectual activity which it 
 
44 
 
 engenders, society would be no better than the youthful 
 Endymion lost in a perpetual sleep. Or, in the last 
 place, to say with Hamlet : 
 
 " What is a man, 
 
 If his chief good and market of his time 
 Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more. 
 Sure, he that made us with such large discourse, 
 Looking before and after, gave us not 
 That capability and god-like reason 
 To fust in us unus'd." 
 
 It is true that, in following this principle to its logical 
 consequences, we will in many instances find ourselves 
 reduced to a condition of intellectual nakedness; but 
 even this is better than the most superb and costly dress 
 of error. Learn what is true in order to do what is 
 right ; this is the aim and purpose of the wise man. It 
 is the last analysis of reason, and the dictate also of 
 common-sense. It is the result of incessant thought 
 and severe intellectual Discipline. It is, in short, accord- 
 ing to Goethe, " the active skepticism whose whole aim 
 is to conquer itself ; " and not that other spurious sort 
 whose characteristics are flippancy and conceit, and whose 
 aim, consisting in a desire merely to perpetuate itself 
 without any regard to the ultimate goal of truth, ought 
 only to be deplored, and not encouraged. 
 
 Says the founder of the Cartesian philosophy, after 
 describing the gradual process of his negative criticism, 
 and under a due appreciation of the difference between 
 a genuine and a spurious skepticism: "For all that, I did 
 not imitate the skeptics, who doubt only for doubt's 
 sake, and pretend to be always undecided ; on the con- 
 trary, my whole intention was to arrive at certainty, and 
 
45 
 
 to dig away the drift and the sand until I reached the 
 rock or the clay beneath." 
 
 Philosophically considered, it seems, therefore, almost 
 like a truism to assert that skepticism is a condition of 
 progress ; and that in its action there is a positive as well 
 as a negative side to be considered. 
 
 So long as we recognize the existence and supremacy 
 of mind, skepticism is not only a condition, it is also a 
 necessity. Eational, philosophical doubt, however, is one 
 thing ; irrational, superficial doubt quite another. 
 
 "Sands form the mountain, moments make the year." 
 So said Young in his appreciation of the stupendous 
 works of time, and the principle is equally applicable to 
 the process of our intellectual growth ; a principle of 
 gradual accumulation, which, it will be easily seen, 
 makes skepticism indispensable as a condition of pro- 
 gress, while it also gives an additional emphasis to the 
 Italian proverb, "He who knows nothing doubts of 
 nothing." Skepticism and curiosity are the great springs 
 of knowledge. 
 
 In conclusion, therefore, the spirit of .the age being a 
 spirit of inquiry, we are not for this reason warranted 
 in supposing, as some would have us believe, that it is 
 the result of a feverish excitement, an unnatural and 
 delirious condition. On the contrary, it is the returning 
 glory of that intellectual empire whose power and 
 beauty having temporarily departed with the decline of 
 Grecian culture, reappears on the horizon, giving us 
 promise of a brighter day; while it also indicates an 
 enlarged and growing appreciation of that truth so beau- 
 tifully and so powerfully expressed by Sophocles in his 
 Antigone : 
 
 " Reason, my father, by the gods is given 
 To men, the noblest treasure we can boast." 
 
46 
 
 ANCIENT FAITH AND MODERN CULTURE. 
 
 ADMITTING, as we must, if we are candid with our- 
 selves, that, in many respects, the prevalent idea of 
 education is scarcely in advance of that spirit of 
 sophistry which Socrates so forcibly and effectually 
 denounced, it cannot, at the same time, be denied that 
 there exists also a large class whose sentiments decidedly 
 favor a revival of the Socratic spirit, at least so far as its 
 search after principles is concerned ; a disposition, in fact, 
 which, because it is so deeply imbued with the elements 
 of rationalism, necessarily separates many of the deepest 
 and most earnest thinkers of the present day from those 
 earlier forms of faith so heartily venerated by their 
 cotemporaries, and, to a certain extent, inseparable from 
 the spiritual life of our ancestors. Or, to express the 
 same subject in another form : The modern mind has 
 become deeply impressed with the idea that the world 
 moves intellectually, as well as physically, and that, as a 
 consequence of this motion, it is not only incumbent on us 
 to cultivate in an individual sense the spirit of restless- 
 ness and intellectual discipline alluded to in the preced- 
 ing chapter, but also to . embody it in a general or 
 universal sense under the form of Culture. On the one 
 hand "there is the church, with its ecclesiastical usages ; 
 
47 
 
 its Sunday school for the children ; its devotional meet- 
 ings in the week, and its Sunday teaching and worship 
 all acknowledged as good for those who like them, and 
 are willing to accept what people thought or believed 
 was true a hundred years ago." On the other, there is 
 this rationalistic and progressive spirit to which we have 
 referred ; and whose influences, however much they may 
 be mis-understood or underestimated now, are, neverthe- 
 less, destined to make a forcible and lasting impression 
 on the civilization of the future. Besting as it does on 
 the basis of a scientific interpretation of human nature, 
 and rebelling against that commonly received theological 
 estimate whereby an intelligent progress of culture is 
 supplanted by a miraculous transformation of grace, it 
 not only repudiates the idea of progress through the 
 assistance of ecclesiastical nostrums, crutches and ambu- 
 lances, but also insists upon a general recognition of 
 natural laws, in place of miraculous interpositions and 
 special dispensations of grace; which are, after all, nothing 
 but the outgrowth of our intense egotism and ignorance. 
 True it may be, as Mr. Tylor has remarked in his 
 admirable work on "Primitive Culture," that "the world 
 at large is scarcely prepared to accept the general study 
 of human life as a branch of natural science, and to 
 carry out in a large sense the poet's injunction to 
 'account for moral as for natural things.' " Certainly, to 
 the "world at large," this is the case; and is likely to be 
 for some time to come. If, however, we are prepared to 
 enter more fully into an examination of what the "world 
 at large " really means, we shall most certainly discover 
 that this dissentient spirit is largely, if not entirely, due 
 to the existence of a certain amount of mental imbecility, 
 rendering possible a belief in causeless freaks, chance, 
 
48 
 
 nonsense, and indefinite unaccountability. Occasionally 
 there may be some honorable exceptions, whose opposi- 
 tion is the result of a philosophic caution; but these, 
 "like angel's visits, are few and far between;" while 
 with the majority, it is, indeed, true, as Cicero has ex- 
 pressed it: "The common rabble estimate few things 
 according to their real value ; most things according to 
 the prejudices of their mind." A sentiment which has 
 lately been demonstrated to a considerable extent in the 
 treatment bestowed upon Darwin's " Descent of Man ; " 
 and according to which the scientific argument has been 
 altogether swallowed up in that feeling of popular 
 arrogance which not only refuses to test the subject in 
 the clear, dispassionate light of reason, but also would 
 regard all Darwinists either as apes themselves, or, at 
 least, as advocates of a dark and portentous theory 
 unworthy of our position as men, and bidding fair to 
 annihilate every lofty aspiration, and every worthy con- 
 ception of , human destiny. Is, however, this position a 
 reasonable one ; and is there anything so very monstrous 
 in the mode of reasoning which, in pursuing our gene- 
 alogy, refuses to stop short at " who was the son of 
 Adam ; " but carries it back a step further to " who was 
 the son of a monkey ? " Certainly the answer, to every 
 enlightened mind, must necessarily be in favor of Dar- 
 winism, and opposed to the arrogant prejudice which 
 would cling to the nearly obsolete idea of an angelic 
 parentage, instead of considering the subject under the 
 light of an unbroken line of continuity, and a gradually 
 ascending process in the scale of creation. Nor is it 
 when we look at some few of the results which Darwinism 
 produces that we find that moral chaos which has fre- 
 quenty been predicted as its inevitable consequence. 
 
49 
 
 Even as a Darwinian, no sane man believes for a moment 
 that there is no beauty in a virtuous and moral life ; nor 
 that property is any the less sacred because it may have 
 originated in mere physical force ; nor even that religion 
 is less worthy of thoughtful consideration and respect 
 because in its earlier forms, as an outgrowth of savage 
 life, it bears the same relationship to our civilized con- 
 ceptions that astrology does to astronomy, or alchemy to 
 chemistry. No ; in this respect, the fact is that as with 
 culture, so with Darwinism. Men outgrow the ideas of 
 their childhood; and as they ask for some broader 
 and more comprehensive basis on which to rest their 
 opinions, and from which to start in their method of 
 reasoning for the future, so do they necessarily meet 
 with opposition from those stagnant forces which have 
 lain like an incubus on the world for years ; and which, 
 whatever the weight of their authority, are in the end 
 compelled to be discarded, their influence neutralized, 
 and the world made wiser and better for their loss. 
 
 As an example of this, we can easily understand how 
 it was that, at an earlier period of our history, it was 
 believed, with as much genuineness as persons believed 
 in their own consciousness, that all disinterested love, and 
 all beauty of thought and sentiment, would leave the 
 world, should it be made to appear that it is riot literally 
 true that we are the descendants of a man and woman 
 who were turned out of Paradise for following the 
 instructions of a talkative serpent. Indeed, as it has 
 been well said : " Even the statement that it might be an 
 allegory, instead of an historical record, nearly frightened 
 our prosaic ancestors out of their wits." According to 
 their mistaken but conscientious opinion : " Remove one 
 brick from the cunningly-adjusted fabric of orthodoxy, 
 
50 
 
 prove that a line of the Hebrew Scriptures was erroneous, 
 and* God would vanish from the world, heaven and hell 
 become empty names, all motives for doing good be 
 removed, and the earth become a blank and dreary wilder- 
 ness." Like all false methods of reasoning, however, the 
 result has contradicted the prediction ; and the course of 
 human progress, although in some respects Sisyphean in 
 its character, still moves on in obedience to that law of 
 intellectual and moral development whereby each gene- 
 ration finds itself in advance of the past : 
 
 "That each to-morrow 
 Finds us further than to day." 
 
 And here we come to the direct cause of that difference 
 and apparent antagonism betwen ancient faith and 
 modern culture, which forms the subject of the present 
 chapter, and which is so clearly visible to any one who 
 will examine for a moment the tendency of the present 
 age. In fact, that peculiar form of intellectual vigor and 
 activity which we may not improperly define as the con- 
 sciousness of" the age ; and from which it follows, as a 
 necessary consequence, that, in proportion as society 
 becomes permeated by the influences of modern thought, 
 just so surely, will the relics of medievalism, now so 
 prevalent, become gradually weaker, and ultimately 
 obsolete : the discussion of " how many angels can dance 
 on the point of a needle," giving place to the more 
 rational task of discovering nature's laws, and tlieir 
 relationship to man as a member of the genus homo. 
 Not that, in this sense, there will be any necessity to 
 deny the existence of what we now call the supernatural ; 
 but that, in the enlargement of our views, the natural 
 will have extended its dominion to the sphere of the 
 
51 
 
 supernatural ; and all things be reduced to that harmo 
 nious action of law and -order which alone gives us a 
 worthy conception of nature as' the effect, and God as 
 the cause. Or, in other words : When the scientific spirit, 
 instead of debasing our ideas and enslaving us, as is 
 sometimes said, in the search for men with tails, shall 
 have given us a. fabric of truth, possessing, like the 
 Grecian Aphrodite, a two fold character ndvd^^oa ? as 
 expressing its function in a general sense; Ovpctvia, as 
 especially related to the higher instincts of man's nature 
 his spiritual aspirations, and the nobler development of 
 his faculties. 
 
 But to return to that feeling of terror with which some 
 persons regard the spirit of the age, and which causes 
 them to anticipate nothing but the most deplorable 
 consequences from the encroachments of modern culture 
 consequences, indeed, which it is customary for our 
 theologians to denounce as leading to the destruction of 
 the religious sentiment, the inauguration of an atheism 
 laden with iniquity and subject to no moral restraint-* 
 we can only say that, in this respect,' the more thoughtful 
 we are, the more careful will we be not to commit 
 ourselves to any such hasty and unwarrantable con- 
 clusion. At least we will be entitled to demand from 
 our opponents what they understand to be the constituent 
 elements of religion and morality ; and, according to 
 their answer, determine how far they are, or are not, 
 competent to decide upon the subject. For them, it may 
 be but the echo of that narrow and exclusive spirit 
 which has nothing but hostile zeal to lavish upon 
 Brahmanism, Buddhism, Zoroastrism, and all other phases 
 of religious or ethical thought not identical with their 
 own. For us, we may prefer, as we most certainly shall, 
 
52 
 
 the comprehensiveness of Baring Gould, denning the 
 motive force in religion to be " the stretching toward some 
 spiritual aim which we call truth." Or, as he remarks in 
 another place, and where he certainly expresses in the 
 clearest manner the modern idea, that the essence remains, 
 although the forms of its expression are subject to varia- 
 tion and change : " The world, in all ages, has teemed 
 with religious beliefs of the most diverse forms of cere- 
 monial expression, strongly contrasting in system and 
 opposed in dogma. Here the priest smears with human 
 blood the idol which will be overthrown on the morrow 
 by the missionary of another creed. The gods of one 
 nation are the devils of their neighbors. Here fathers 
 pass their children through fire to a god ; and here men 
 shelter and feed orphans as a work acceptable to their 
 deity. These transfix their flesh with skewers, and those 
 indulge in every lust, and both from a religious motive. 
 One worships an ideal of beauty ; another an ideal of 
 ugliness. Jacob leans on his staff to pray ; Moses falls 
 flat on his face : the Catholic bows his knee, and the 
 Protestant settles into a seat."f Or, again, for them it 
 may be an assent to the Thirty -nine articles of the Epis- 
 copal church; or, perchance, an endorsement of the 
 dogma of the Pope's infalibility ; while for us, it may be 
 that truly liberal and strictly philosophic definition as 
 given by Max Miiller, and which, from its exquisite 
 beauty and force of expression, we quote at length : "It 
 was supposed at one time that a comparative analysis of 
 fhe languages of mankind must transcend the powers of 
 man ; and yet, by the combined and well-directed efforts 
 of many scholars, great results have been obtained, and 
 
 t " Origin and Development, of Religious Kelief," by S. B. GOULD, M.A. 
 
53 
 
 the principles that must guide the student of the science 
 of language are now firmly established. It will be the 
 same with the science of religion. By a proper division 
 of labor, the materials that are still wanting will be 
 collected and published and translated ; and when that 
 is done, surely man will never rest until he has dis- 
 covered the purpose that runs through the religions of 
 mankind, and till he has reconstructed the true Civitas 
 Dei on foundations as wide as the ends of the world. 
 The science of religion may be the last of the sciences 
 which man is destined to elaborate; but when it is 
 elaborated, it will change the aspect of the world, and 
 give a new life to Christianity itself.";}: 
 
 In this connection, too, it is gratifying and encourag- 
 ing to us to discover that, even as far back as the second 
 century, Clement of Alexandria, and Justin Martyr, both 
 advocated, with manly courage and remarkable ability, 
 this very doctrine of liberality and universality for which 
 we moderns are now contending so earnestly ; and which 
 we cannot otherwise than regard as the fundamental 
 basis of all our ideas respecting religion and its relation- 
 ship to those other educational influences classified 
 under the comprehensive term, culture. Upon this sub- 
 ject, says Clement of Alexandria : " God is the cause of 
 all that is good. Only, of some good gifts, he is the 
 primary cause as of the Old and New Testaments ; of 
 others, the secondary as of (Greek) philosophy. But 
 even philosophy may have been given primarily by him 
 to the Greeks : before the Lord had called the Greeks 
 also. For that philosophy, like a schoolmaster, has 
 guided the Greeks also, as the Law did Israel, toward 
 
 " Chips from a German Workshop" by MAX MULLKB, M.A. 
 
54 
 
 Christ." And again : " It is clear that the same God to 
 whom we owe the Old and New Testaments gave also to 
 the Greeks their Greek philosophy, by which the 
 Almighty is glorified among the Greeks." j In a similar 
 manner, although somewhat more powerfully, also speaks 
 Justin Martyr in his ''Apology " (A. D. 139) : " One article 
 of our faith, then, is, that Christ is the first begotten of 
 God, and we have already found him to be the very 
 Logos (or universal reason) of which mankind are all 
 partakers ; and, therefore, those who live according to the 
 Logos are Christians, notwithstanding they may pass 
 with you for atheists ; such, among the Greeks, were 
 Socrates and Herakleitos, and the like ; and such, among 
 the Barbarians, were Abraham, and Ananias, and Azarias, 
 and Misael, and Elias, and many others, whose actions, 
 nay, whose very names, I know, would be tedious to 
 relate, and therefore shall pass them over. So, on the 
 other hand, those who have lived in former times in 
 defiance of the Logos, or reason, were evil, and enemies to 
 Christ, and murderers of such as lived according to the 
 Logos ; but they wlio have made the Logos, or reason, the rule 
 of their actions are CJiristians, and men without fear and 
 trembling." Nor is this an exaggerated statement; for 
 although it seems inevitable that there should exist in all 
 ages a certain class, who whether from short-sightedness 
 or mental imbecility, would so far circumscribe the sphere 
 of religion as to make it dependent on certain dogmatic 
 forms, instead of fundamental principles, inhering in the 
 nature of things, there are yet others who prefer the 
 comprehensiveness, as well as the profounder estimate, of 
 Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria. 
 
 Stromata, Liber I, chap. 5, l Stromata, Liber VI, chap. 5, 
 
55 
 
 Following in the footsteps of Lucretius, and perceiv- 
 that the evils of superstition, bigotry, and fanaticism have 
 their root in religion ; and believing, also, that Epicurus 
 conferred a lasting benefit when he " first dared to lift 
 the veil from the eyes of man, and assert his natural 
 liberty" we may find at least a partial justification for 
 those who, in the first impulse of their antagonism against 
 these evils, would totally destroy the religious sentiment. 
 In the nature of things, this is, however, impossible. 
 Keligion, in some form or other, as the history of the 
 world has shown, is not only indispensable to, but is 
 actually inseparable from, all that we know of human 
 nature, or can predicate concerning human existence. In 
 fact, that, after all the analytical and crucial tests we can 
 apply to it, it still remains what W. Yon Humboldt has 
 said of it : " Eeligion is implanted in the very nature of 
 man ; " its quality depending, of course, on that stage of 
 culture to which we have arrived. 
 
 Admit this, and we have at once a different estimate ; 
 an estimate, too, which, in addition to the general enlarge- 
 ment which it gives to our views of human nature and 
 human destiny, convinces us also that, however formida- 
 ble the differences between culture and religion may 
 seem superficially, they do not really exist otherwise than 
 as a part of those deceptive phenomena which it is the 
 especial function of all knowledge to relegate to their 
 true condition as appearances only. 
 
 Following out this train of thought, therefore, it will 
 be easily seen that, although there certainly does exist a 
 spirit of alienation, and to some extent antagonism, 
 between modern thought and the faith of our ancestors, 
 it by no means follows, that, in consequence of thisj'we are 
 to witness nothing but the disintegration of society,' the 
 
56 
 
 destruction of all moral and spiritual beauty, and the 
 introduction in their stead of a chaos so dreadful that 
 virtue's only office will be to sit and weep among the 
 ruins : 
 
 " There is a temple in ruin stands, 
 Fashioned by long forgotten hands ; 
 Two or three columns, and many a stone, 
 Marble and granite, with grass o'ergrown." 
 
 But no ; this cannot be. For the gloomy spirit of Byron, 
 we will readily accept that of Bowring ; and, as an 
 illustration of the beneficent influences of enlightenment, 
 cheerfully indorse his sentiment : 
 
 ' Culture's hand 
 
 Has scatter'd verdure o'er the land; 
 And smiles and fragrance rule serene, 
 Where barren wild usurp'd the scene." 
 
 Because, therefore, modern culture is averse to certain 
 dogmas constructed on an emasculated idea of progress, 
 and whose influence on the world can only be compared 
 to that of a terible nightmare, it surely does not follow 
 that the spirit which venerates the supremacy of mind, 
 and believes that the world is ruled by God, and not by 
 the Devil, must of necessity be injurious to what it 
 cannot destroy, viz., " that indestructible granite of the 
 human soul religious faith," as Max Miiller calls it. 
 For it must be observed, in this connection, that while it 
 is one thing to repudiate theology as a system of unweildy, 
 inconsistent, inflexible, and, in many respects, monstrous 
 creeds and dogmas, it is quite another to include in the 
 same category the essence of religion, pure and simple. 
 Under the first condition, the original sentiment is so far 
 dwarfed and perverted that it is only here and there that we 
 
57 
 
 catch glimpses of the beauty concealed beneath the dense 
 mist of incongruities and absurdities. Under the second 
 condition, we understand at once, in using the term religi- 
 ous sentiment, that we are endeavoring to express in finite 
 terms a principle which is quite as universal in a spiritual 
 sense as the law of gravitation is in a material sense. A 
 sentiment, in fact, which, because it is so truly grand in 
 in its universality, and so exquisitely beautiful in its 
 individually, is in every sense worthy of its author ; 
 while it also acts on man like some force of spiritual 
 light and heat which expands, develops, and irradiates 
 according to the measure of our true humanity, and the 
 conditions consequent on the intellectual type of the age. 
 Differ from theology we must : it is of man ; and, therefore, 
 fraught with error. Venerate the religious sentiment we 
 most certainly and most cordially do : it is of God ; and, 
 therefore, rests on the indestructible bases of truth. 
 Theology is human : religion is divine. Coeval, as the 
 origin of our religious instinct necessarily was, with the 
 formation of the human soul, it may be as truly said of 
 it, as of our psychical capabilities : 
 
 "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; 
 
 The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 
 Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
 And cometh from afar." 
 
 Or, again, as Keble expresses it, when referring to the 
 same sentiment under its higher form of manifestation, 
 
 As an example of this spirit of beauty, which, at times, rises to the ecstatic 
 sense of saintly devotion, we have, perhaps, no better illustration than that 
 afforded us by the artist Gioito "that gentle monk, 11 as Mr. Lecky observes, 
 " who was never known to utter a word of anger or bitterness ; who refused with- 
 out a pang the rich mitre of Florence ; who had been seen with tears streaming 
 from his eyes as he painted his crucified Lord, and who never began a picture 
 without consecrating it by a prayer." 
 
58 
 
 \ 
 
 and more especially in its sublimated character of Chris- 
 tian love and purity : 
 
 " They seem to dwell 
 Above this earth so rich a spell 
 Floats round their path where'er they move, 
 From hopes fulfilled and mutual love." 
 
 And so it is that this religious sentiment, this yearning 
 after the Infinite, is everywhere present ; it is universal ; 
 it is indestructible; it is indispensable. In the far-off 
 utterances of the Veda and the Zendavesta its voice 
 may be heard ; it rises into the majestic specula- 
 tions of Plato ; it speaks to us with an exquisite beauty 
 and indescribable pathos in the Sermon on the Mount ; 
 it is with us now, and in many a soul beats with the 
 rich pulsations of a noble life. Instead, therefore, of 
 culture being the natural enemy of religion, it follows 
 necessarily that the more fully we understand the true 
 character of their respective functions, the more clearly 
 will we perceive that, although the cultivation of our 
 faculties necessitates a constant change in our views 
 generally, it is one thing to attempt the dissipation of 
 theological beliefs which are no longer fitted to our 
 intellectual growth, and quite another to attempt the 
 destruction of a principle that lies at the very founda- 
 tion of human existence. And this brings us to a more 
 direct examination of that law of continuity and endless 
 development which, independently of its attractiveness 
 as a theme of abstract science, is, also, a necessary link 
 in the chain of argument which would emphasize 
 culture as a chemical process, through which the dross 
 of ignorance and superstition is separated from the pure 
 gold of truth ; a process, indeed, which, however enig- 
 matical or even contradictory it may sometimes appear, 
 
59 
 
 is, nevertheless, moving us on gradually to the realization 
 and attainment of a higher and nobler purpose of life ; 
 and which, because it recognizes the potency of influence 
 as embodied in the hereditary character of social, moral, 
 and intellectual forces, at once connects the present with 
 the past, and binds the future to the present, according 
 to the same immutable law. Or, as was remarked by an 
 uncivilized chief to Casalis, the African missionary: 
 "One event is always the son of another, and we must 
 never forget the parentage." A fact which we must all, 
 sooner or later, realize as an indispensable feature in our 
 conceptions of progress. Indeed, it may, with all 
 safety, be assumed, that if we expect to look modern 
 life in the face, and comprehend it by a merely superfi- 
 cial estimate, we shall certainly find ourselves grievously 
 mistaken. What we are, is in the strictest sense, the 
 result of what we have been becoming through a 
 gradual process, connecting at every step, the higher 
 forms with the lower, and thereby adding, at every stage 
 of advancement, an additional link to that golden chain 
 of cause and effect ; which not only gives permanence 
 and consistency to civilized life, but which, also, connects 
 the whole human family in one comprehensive network 
 of interdependence and similarity of interest. In the 
 process and development of culture, as in the phenom- 
 ena of the material world, the' more thoroughly we 
 examine the subject, the more clearly will we discover 
 that causeless spontaneity can only exist as the product 
 of ignorance and superstitious imagination ; while chance 
 and irregularity in the method of Divine government 
 are only possible with the vulgar and uneducated. 
 For them there may be no evidence of design and 
 regularity of procedure in those methods through which, 
 
60 
 
 for instance, our views of nature have been gradually 
 transformed from the diseased and monstrous ideas of 
 savage life to their present condition ; no evidence 
 of order and harmony of development in the transition 
 which, at one end, gives us the ridiculous superstition 
 prompting the. women of Greenland to pinch their dogs 
 by the ears during an eclipse, so as to ascertain whether 
 the end of the world is at hand, and at the other end gives 
 us Newton pointing his telescope and measuring the 
 heavens ; no indications of a gradual change in that 
 process of thought through which we pass from the 
 sun-worship of the Mexicans and Peruvians to that 
 condition which enables us to determine the existence 
 of particular metals in the sun, as revealed by the 
 spectrum analysis. For us, however, this process of 
 reasoning, or, more correctly, this absence of reasoning, 
 can have no part Beginning our point of observation 
 at any given period in human history, we are still met 
 by the same universal fact that human nature is 
 governed in its development by law, and that those 
 instances which seem to constitute glaring exceptions to 
 the general rule are only so because our ethnographic 
 knowledge is too limitited to comprehend the true 
 circumstances of the case. 
 
 Thus, it is a mere truism to assert that modern 
 civilization is the result, in a more highly developed 
 form, of mediaeval civilization, which is also a develop- 
 ment from the order of civilization represented in 
 Greece, Assyria, and Egypt; while this, again, by a 
 process of analogous reasoning, is also the result (subject 
 to intermediate conditions) of those earlier ages when 
 man in his primitive condition first looked upon the 
 majestic aspect of nature, and when the faculty of 
 
61 
 
 reason existed rather as a possibility than as a potent 
 influence. Nor is it to be denied, even if we regard 
 this law of continuity as a philosophical thesis rather 
 than an established fact, that it commends itself under a 
 peculiar form of attractiveness to every thoughtful mind, 
 while it also induces a more vivid realization of progress 
 as a process of gradual growth, and not some legerde- 
 main method of instantaneous transition. Says Froude, 
 in his " Essay on the Philosophy of Catholicism : " " We, 
 with this glorious present which is opening on us, we shall 
 never enter on it, we shall never understand it till we 
 have learned to see in the past, not error, but installment 
 of truth, hard-fought-for truth, wrung out with painful 
 and heroic effort. The promised land is smiling before 
 us ; but we may not pass over into the possession of it 
 while the bones of our fathers, who labored through 
 the wilderness, lie bleaching on the sands, or a prey to 
 the unclean birds. We must gather their relics, and 
 bury them, and sum up their labors, and inscribe the 
 record of their actions on their tombs as an honorable 
 epitaph." 
 
 And, so we must, since it is only by approaching 
 the subject under this condition of thought that we 
 can safely insure ourselves against that inflation of self- 
 esteem which would lead us to consider the present age 
 a sort of oasis in the desert ; a solitary ray of light, in 
 striking contrast to the darkness that preceded it. In 
 this respect, the truth is that the more carefully we 
 examine the historical and philosophical aspect of 
 culture, and the more generally sound principles of 
 knowledge are disseminated, the more clearly will we 
 perceive the force and beauty of the progression-theory 
 of civilization as contrasted with its rival, the degenera- 
 
62 
 
 tion theory; at the same time that our position 
 necessitates an attachment and grateful remembrance of 
 those who, in former ages, have labored in the cause of 
 truth. For instance, Socrates, in his grand and noble 
 sublimity ; Plato, in his wonderful depth of thought and 
 keeness of spiritual insight ; Aristotle, in his profound 
 and comprehensive system of physics, ethics, and 
 metaphysics; Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and others 
 among the Patristic philosophers ; Plotinus, and 
 Porphyry among the Neo-platonists ; and last, but 
 not least, the intellectual luminaries of more modern 
 times ; all these will live, not only in name, but in actual 
 verity, to the student of the future. Time, as it operates 
 on the nations of the world, affecting their destiny now 
 in one way, and now in another, is not the result so 
 much of any great and sudden upheaval, as it is the 
 product of a long chain of influences operating, for the 
 most part, like the vital forces in the material world, 
 silently, but effectually. And so it is with culture. In 
 a manner no less grand than that which geology reveals 
 to us as the history of the earth, the human mind passes 
 necessarily through a variety of phases in its process 
 of education. Like geology, it has had its different 
 ages, each' one characterizing some particular phase in 
 our process of gradual advancement. Like geology, 
 also, although there has been everywhere the strictest 
 uniformity in the method, the results have been 
 characteristic of a wonderful diversity and develop- 
 ment. 
 
 Nor is this all that can be said in favor of that 
 method of reasoning which connects the present with 
 the past, the future with the present, and, according to 
 which, although there may seem an occasional hiatus in 
 
63 
 
 the history of humanity's progress, there still exists a 
 higher law which precludes the possibility of isolation, 
 and renders every age the legitimate offspring of its 
 predecessor. 
 
 As a further illustration of the subject, and more 
 especially so as exemplifying the indestructible character 
 of influence when applied to the emotional side of our 
 nature, we have only to bear in mind the enormous 
 influence which medievalism still exercises over a very 
 large portion of the civilized world ; and which, although 
 not so directly applicable to us as Protestants, still 
 possesses a considerable charm, in spite of its errors, 
 for every thoughtful and earnest mind. 
 
 From the days of Albertus Magnus, and his efforts 
 to distinguish between the vegetable, the sensual, and 
 the intellectual life, we certainly have made the most 
 wonderful progress ; but, wide as the distance between 
 us may appear, there still exists a bond of connection 
 which makes it beautifully true, as said by Kogers in 
 his " Pleasures of Memory " : 
 
 " Lull'd in the countless chambers of the brain, 
 Our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain ; 
 Awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise, 
 Each stamps its image as the other flies." 
 
 For instance, let us take Albertus Magnus as an 
 example, and is there not a fascination about the old 
 schoolman, as we think of him in his monastery, 
 prosecuting his studies and investigations with a spirit 
 of earnestness and devotion, and at the same time 
 cherishing the fond hope that he was gradually realizing 
 the golden chain that connects the lowest form of insect 
 life with the highest angelic intelligence? Certainly the 
 answer of every candid mind can only be one at least 
 
64 
 
 of partial appreciation. A sentiment, too, which will 
 enable us to enter more fully into the spirit of Matthew 
 Arnold's remark when, in speaking of Oxford as his 
 alma-mater, he says: "Beautiful city! so venerable, so 
 lovely, so unravaged by the fierce intellectual life of our 
 country, so serene ! 
 
 There are our young barbarians, all at play ! 
 
 And yet, steeped in sentiment as she lies, spreading 
 her gardens to the moonlight, and whispering from her 
 towers the last enchantments of the Middle Ages, who 
 will deny that Oxford, by her ineffable charm, keeps 
 ever calling us nearer to the true goal of all of us to 
 the ideal, to perfection, to beauty, in a word which is 
 only truth seen from another side."|| A beautiful 
 tribute certainly. What shall we say of it, however ? 
 Is it for us but a dream, wherein we invest the past with 
 a beauty and a power which it did not possess ? No ; 
 certainly not. For although medievalism, as we all know, 
 was marvelously productive of many forms of error, 
 there still lingers a spirit of beauty about it which we 
 cannot consistently ignore, and which, as measured 
 through the dim vista of the past, still fascinates and 
 allures us with the power of an irresistible charm ; a 
 charm, indeed, which, if we ca-refully consider the 
 present condition of the religious world, is scarcely less 
 influential than the spirit of Greece is in an intellectual 
 sense. Examining, therefore, our position in its true 
 light, it will be seen at once that the only philosophical 
 condition of thought consists in fully recognizing the 
 principle of continuity as an indispensable condition of 
 progress ; and, also, by fairly estimating the services 
 
 I "Essays in, Criticism" by Matthew. Arnold. 
 
65 
 
 rendered us by the past, to so far apply the many 
 valuable lessons they have afforded us as to insure 
 more fully our own advancement, and the consequences 
 we necessarily entail on the age succeeding us. Here, 
 however, the allegiance ends ; here the paths diverge ; 
 and modern culture, much as it may respect its antece- 
 dent conditions, finds, also, that there is to every age an 
 especial function assigned, a peculiar form of thought 
 and sentiment, without which it could possess no leading 
 characteristic destiriguishing it from its predecessor, 
 no individuality determining its position in the history 
 of the world and the great problem of human progress. 
 And thus we arrive at a more definite understanding 
 respecting the relationship between ancient faith and 
 modern culture ; a position which, in proportion as it 
 is realized and appreciated, so far will it remove many 
 idle fears and, unfounded anticipations. Ages change, 
 minds oscillate, the past is looked on as a dream, and 
 though the future, in the language of Milton, 
 
 " Is all abyss, 
 Eternity, whose end no eye can reach," 
 
 yet there still exists an indestructible chain of causes 
 and effects, a gradual process of advancement, which 
 encourages and supports us under the most trying 
 emergencies, and which induced so high an authority as 
 Gibbon to remark : " We may, therefore, acquiesce in 
 the pleasing conclusion that, every age of the world 
 has increased, and still increases, the real wealth, the 
 happiness, the knowledge, and perhaps the virtue, of the 
 human race." || 
 
 " Decline and Fall of the ftornan Empire," Chap. xxxviU, 
 
66 
 
 But, it may be said, the culture of the present age 
 seeks to accomplish that which has always been regarded 
 as doubtful, and which Pascal even went so far as to 
 declare was impossible, that is, to make moral truth 
 geometrically convincing ; and, having done so, to make 
 it harmonize with faith, the essence of which consists 
 in denying, to a great extent, the utility of rational 
 bases. Is this, however, really the case, or is it a mis- 
 conception, growing out of what we are so apt to 
 consider the natural estrangement and antagonism 
 between religion and culture? Is it not possible for 
 culture and religion to so far blend into a harmonious 
 and beautiful system of truth ; and, in so doing, to 
 transmute those dry and merely dogmatical forms of 
 faith, to which we are so largely accustomed, into 
 sentiments that are higher, purer, and better ; a revivified 
 faith, in fact, more comprehensive, more glorious, more 
 beautiful than that which is, more deeply expressive of 
 that strange, mysterious sense that binds us to the 
 Infinite. Or, to put the same sense in other words : 
 
 " Science was faith once ; faitli were science now, 
 Would she but lay her bow and arrow by, 
 And arm her with the weapons of the time." 
 
 Elements which at first sight seemed antagonistic 
 are gradually made to assimilate. Indeed, in a manner 
 somewhat analogous to the fabled properties of the 
 philosopher's stone, a process of gradual transmutation 
 is induced, caused by the thoughts of one age 
 becoming blended with those of another, and thus 
 producing the result which we call progress. Old ideas 
 and formulas pass away, new ones are formed, and man, 
 the two-sided being, the creature of reason as well as 
 sentiment, is again and again made" to feel that he is a 
 
67 
 
 progressive animal. For, it must be remembered, that 
 whatever explanation we may offer as to the cause of 
 it, our world has been from the beginning an arena of 
 contest, an alternation between light and darkness ; 
 first, of angry and discordant elements, according to the 
 theory of Laplace ; then, a prolonged and severe struggle 
 for the revival of the fittest, according to Darwin ; and, 
 to the present day, a constant warfare between the 
 higher and lower nature in man. To aid us in this, 
 religion takes poor human nature in her arms, 
 and, like an affectionate mother, wipes away all 
 tears, pours healing balm into our wounds, and tells 
 us of that brighter world, to which we are all tending 
 fast. To assist us also in the same direction, and to 
 determine more fully the triumph of virtue over 
 vice, culture places us under a process of perpetual 
 purification, elevates and ennobles our moral and 
 esthetical judgments, while it also teaches us more 
 and more to realize and appreciate all forms of 
 moral beauty, all forms of intellectual grandeur ; in 
 short, encourages everything which exalts our concep- 
 tion of human nature and ennobles our views of life. 
 In the words of Mr. Shairp : " Culture proposes as its 
 end the carrying of man's nature to its highest perfec- 
 tion, the developing to the full all the capacities of our 
 humanity. If, then, in this view, humanity be contem- 
 plated in its totality, and not in some partial side of it, 
 culture must aim at developing our humanity in its 
 Godward aspect, as well as its mundane aspect. And it 
 must not only recognize the religious side of humanity, 
 but if it tries to assign the due place to each capacity, 
 and assign to all the capacities their mutual relations, it 
 must concede to the Godward capacities that paramount 
 
and dominating place which rightfully belongs to 
 them, if they are recognized at all. That is, culture 
 must embrace religion, and end in it." | 
 
 But, says the same writer, in another place : " Goethe, 
 the high-priest of culture, loathes Luther, the preacher 
 of righteousness. The earnestness and fervor of the 
 one disturb arid offend the calm serenity which the 
 other loves. And Luther, likely enough, had he seen 
 Goethe, would have done him but scant justice." And 
 here, it seems to us, Mr. Shairp falls into a train of 
 4espondency which is hardly consistent with his pre- 
 ceding remarks, and which is certainly at variance with 
 an enlarged conception of those laws determining the 
 growth and development of human nature.- From the 
 nature of man, and the conditions by which he is 
 surrounded, culture necessarily creates a series of 
 gradations, separating the few from the many ; but this 
 being the case with culture, it surely is not reasonable 
 to satisfy ourselves with an imperfect estimate of 
 religion, and, in so doing, deny to it the potency of a 
 sentiment which is quite as powerful in the moral 
 universe as the laws of attraction and repulsion are in 
 the material world ; a sentiment, indeed, which compels 
 us to acknowledge that, in religion as well as in culture, 
 there are different degrees, affiliating those who stand 
 upon a common intellectual and moral plane, repelling 
 those who stand beneath it. 
 
 ||" Culture and Religion in Some of their Relations," by J. C. SHAIRP, 
 Principle of the United College of St. Salvator and St. Leonard, St. Andrews. 
 
 Tfln this connection, we are, of course, aware of all that can be said in 
 favor of that common principle of equality upon which all religion hinges; 
 but even in admitting this, it cannot be overlooked that this is a statement 
 rather as regards man in the sight of God) than it is of our reciprocal relation- 
 ship as members of society. In this sense, it is impossible to have everything 
 reduced to a dead JeveJ. 
 
69 
 
 It is the possession of a common spirituality that 
 makes us one ; it is the diversity requisite to unity that 
 makes us many. Nor can it be otherwise so long as 
 civilization retains its present complex character. Of 
 one thing, however, we may be sure, and that is, that in 
 proportion as ignorance is dissipated, and animalism 
 subdued, just so surely will we witness a diminution of 
 vice. In this sense, especially, culture comes to our 
 aid, supplementing, not destroying, the functions of 
 religion. Nor is this but a vain and idle dream, 
 existing only in the culturist's imagination. Its funda- 
 mental postulate is mind, and in that postulate it 
 rests upon the most substantial verity in the universe. 
 
 "It is sure, 
 
 Stamped by the seal of nature, that the well 
 Of mind, where all its waters gather pure, 
 Shall with unquestion'd spell all hearts allure. 
 Wisdom enshrined in beauty oh ! how high 
 The order of that loveliness." 
 
 In fact, the realization of the dream of ages, the hope 
 of humanity, the promise of the future. Admit, there- 
 fore, that, in many respects, culture is compelled to make 
 war upon some of our dearest and most beloved forms of 
 faith, some of our most venerable traditions. Admit, 
 also, that, in the process of transition, we will at times 
 exclaim with Young : 
 
 " How like a widow in her weeds the night, 
 Amid her glimmering tapers, silent sits ! 
 How sorrowful, how desolate, she weeps 
 Perpetual dews, and saddens nature's scene." 
 
 Yet is it only transitory ; and the process which, for the 
 time, seems made up of dissolution and decay, will ere 
 
70 
 
 long reveal itself in its true character of progress and 
 development. 
 
 " Night wanes the vapors round the mountains curl'd 
 Melt into morn, and light awakes the world." 
 
 To conclude, therefore, although modern culture may 
 seem unfriendly to those forms of ancient faith which we 
 are accustomed to regard as embodying our highest 
 interests, it is, after all, but a remedial application 
 inseparable from our growth as rational and sentient 
 beings. Stand still we cannot ; and the act of moving 
 forward necessitates changes which, although in some 
 degree painful, are, nevertheless, essential. The existence 
 of progress depends upon the possibility of change : the 
 act of progression on the process of change. 
 
 And so it is that, in our day, we are compelled to recog- 
 nize the existence of a process not unlike that alluded to 
 by Lecky when, treating of the decline of medievalism, 
 he says : " For the long night of medievalism was now 
 drawing to a close, and the chaos that precedes resurrection 
 was supreme. The spirit of ancient Greece had arisen 
 from the tomb, and the fabric of superstition crumbled 
 and tottered at her touch. The human mind, starting 
 beneath her influence from the dust of ages, cast aside 
 the bonds that had enchained it, and, radiant in the 
 light of recovered libert} r , remoulded the structure of its 
 faith. The love of truth, the passion for freedom, the sense 
 of human dignity, which the great thinkers of antiquity 
 had inspired, vivified a torpid and downtrodden people, 
 blended with those sublime moral doctrines and with 
 those conceptions of enlarged benevolence which are 
 at once the glory and the essence of Christianity ; intro- 
 duced a new era of human development, with new 
 
71 
 
 aspirations, habits of though^ and conditions of vitality ; 
 and, withdrawing religious life from the shattered edifice 
 of the past, created a purer faith, and became the promise 
 of an eternal development." * So it was then, and so it 
 is now. By gradually elevating our estimate of human 
 nature, and, at the same time, taking a more definite stand 
 in favor of liberty and reason, we are not only perpetuat- 
 ing the influence of that glorious Greece, whose very 
 name has been the support and consolation of every great 
 and noble mind, but we are, also, learning more and 
 more to appreciate the fundamental fact that all human 
 progress depends upon the sublimation and purification 
 of the sentiments through the reason ; and not the exag- 
 gerated cultivation of the former, at the expense of the 
 latter. If, then, from the time of Socrates, and especially 
 so from the picture which we have of him in Plato's 
 Phasdrus that dialogue which has so deeeply moved 
 the most thoughtful minds in all ages there has been, 
 at occasional intervals, an increasing tendency to apothe- 
 osize the attribute of reason, and if, also, in the present 
 age, this tendency exists to a marked degree, it surely 
 
 does not follow that we are moving in the wrong direc- 
 tion. Certainly not. To argue in this way would, indeed, 
 be to place a strange estimate on the educational import- 
 ance of culture, and the relationship which it bears to civi- 
 lization. Take away the fact of mind its indestructi- 
 bility, its boundless capacity and civilization becomes a 
 sham, the idea of progress an impossibility. Admit it, 
 however, and the claims of culture will be at once apparent. 
 Indeed, it is not too much to say, that, when we have 
 fairly realized the present aim and scope of culture, we 
 
 * "History oftht Rise and Influence of the Spirit of TtationallMn in Europe," 
 hyW.E. H LKCKr, M.A. 
 
72 
 
 will at once discover a semblance, if not an analogy, 
 between the present age and that wonderful revolution 
 in English literature which took place in the sixteenth 
 century, and which has been well described as the 
 " Renaissance of the Saxon Genius." Actuated by a 
 spirit similar to that which gave a new stimulus to the 
 English mind, we are no longer content to believe that 
 human nature is a mass of putrid corruption, rather 
 than a wonderful organism meant to vibrate in harmony 
 with the music of the spheres. On every side we are 
 influenced by the quickening impulses of a new age; 
 and it is impossible for us to withstand its influences. 
 Now, as then, we are laying aside the incubus of 
 sadness and despair ; and, instead of seeing in the world 
 nothing but universal ruin and iniquity, we are growing 
 more and more into a condition of consciousness the 
 very opposite of asceticism. Not that we have lost a 
 proper appreciation of those qualities of chastity, purity 
 and religious force, which constitute the bases of asceti- 
 cism, not that we are unable to appreciate the exquisite 
 pathos, with which Milttfn immortalized religious purity 
 and poetic grandeur : 
 
 "Come pensive nun, devout and pure, 
 Sober, steadfast, and demure, 
 All in a robe of darkest grain, 
 Flowing with majestic train, 
 And sable stole of Cyprus lawn, 
 Over thy decent shoulders drawn. 
 Come, but keep thy wonted state, 
 With even step, and musing gait," 
 And looks commercing with the skies, 
 Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes."f 
 
 t " V Allegro." 
 
78 
 
 Not that we are unable to enter occasionally into those 
 moods of thought which bring home to us a becoming 
 sense of the solemnity and importance of life. Were this 
 so, then were we, indeed, in a lamentable condition. It 
 is not, however, in this that the change consists. 
 
 The great heart of humanity remains the same ; but 
 the intellectual type of the age is changed. And in this, 
 it seems to us, is comprised the whole of that change 
 which an increasing spirit of culture promises. The 
 limited ideas of theology are fast giving way before the ' 
 more comprehensive views of philosophy ; but in the 
 change, the idea of virtue is not destroyed nor impaired. 
 On the contrary, the very ideas of beauty which culture 
 generates are, in themselves, the best evidences that the 
 the culturist's whole aim and purpose consists in empha- 
 sizing purity of character, as the one great end of all our 
 hopes and efforts. For, it must be observed, in this 
 connection, that although the present age is characterized 
 by a greater freshness of feeling than the past, and 
 although it indicates very strongly a return to the Grecian 
 spirit, which sought for beauty everywhere, we are, also, 
 very powerfully influenced by those conditions of rigid 
 morality which Christianity has demonstrated to be 
 beyond a doubt the safeguard of nations and individuals. 
 Tn one sense, the aim of culture is necessarily to dissipate 
 many absurdities which now exist under the guise of theo- 
 logical dogmas ; but in another, and still more important 
 sense, its object is to elevate our views of Grod and Man, to 
 enlarge the horizon of our intellectual life, and thus to 
 lift us gradually into a higher condition of consciousness 
 and nobler existence. In the transition, what matters it 
 if some of our pet theories and long-cherished dogmas 
 are proved untenable. In the midst of this ever-changing 
 
74 
 
 panorama, there must always remain one supreme and 
 fundamental fact, viz. : Error is inprtal, and cannot live 
 forever ; truth is immortal, and cannot die. 
 
 At times we may be called upon to slied tears as we 
 consign our long-cherished ideas to the grave ; but, in all 
 such instances, .it is but an earnest of a better immortality. 
 
 " I look, aside the mist has rolled, 
 
 The waster seems the builder too ; 
 tlpspringing from the ruined old, 
 I see the new ! 
 
 *Twas but the ruin of the bad, 
 
 The wasting of the wrong and ill; 
 Whate'er of good the old time had. 
 Is living still." 
 
 And thus the world moves on ; each age fulfilling its 
 special work, and all combining toward a common end. 
 To a great extent it seems unavoidable that a very 
 large portion of our time should be spent in unlearning 
 the errors of the past. This is true of nations and ages, 
 no less than of individuals and their brief period of 
 existence. Yet, true as it is, it is also evident, on a care- 
 ful examination, that there is a beautiful law of con- 
 tinuity controlling and pervading the general progress of 
 the human race. Discouraging as the conditions may 
 seem to some of us, it will alwaj^s be found, in the long- 
 run, that all fluctuations of thought, all gradations of 
 intellect, all revolutions in the world of mind, are but so 
 many confirmations of the sublime and important truth 
 expressed by Pascal : " Humanity is but a man who lives 
 perpetually, and learns continually." 
 
75 
 
 THE SUPREMACY OF LAW: ITS PHYSICAL 
 AND PSYCHICAL CONDITIONS. 
 
 ACCEPTING it as an established fact that, in many 
 respects, civilization bears a striking resemblance to bar- 
 barism, there is at least one important particular in which 
 they are as far asunder as the poles, viz., the ideas 
 associated with Nature and her methods of operation. 
 In other words, the marked contrast between the crude 
 ideas of the savage, believing all things subject to the 
 capricious whims of the most capricious deities ; and the 
 truly grand and comprehensive estimate of civilized man, 
 believing all things to be governed by law. For instance, 
 during the earlier ages of the world, when day and night 
 seemed capricious phenomena ; or, when, as in the 
 Australian legend, " the moon was a native cat who fell 
 in love with some one else's wife, and was driven away to 
 wander ever since" there could be little wonder that 
 those who beheld the phenomena should regard them as 
 consequences resulting not from any regular process, but 
 simply as the effect of contrary and opposing powers. As 
 yet the human mind had risen no higher than the sentiment 
 of wonder ; and, as a consequence, it was but natural that 
 the soul, seeking for its own prototype, should invest the 
 
76 
 
 world of nature with those peculiarly mixed forms of 
 imagination which we find everywhere existing; and 
 which, entering in an especial sense into the constituent 
 elements of civilization, determine all our estimates of man 
 and nature. 
 
 Thus the main points of difference between an edu- 
 cated and uneducated people. Thus also the difference 
 in different degress of civilization ; all hinging on their 
 approximation to the supremacy and universality of Law. 
 
 And this brings us to the realization of a principle 
 which, because it embodies the whole realm of nature 
 determining its existence, and preserving its integrity is 
 also proclaimed by the more advanced minds, not 
 merely as a truth dimly seen or vaguely surmised, but 
 as the foundation of all sound philosophy ; the sine qua 
 non of all consistent reasoning, both with respect to the 
 world of matter, and the world of mind ; the measure, 
 in fact, of our civilization, and the formative principle 
 which, more than any other, so distinctly characterizes, 
 the thought of the present age. Born, as we now are, 
 among these ideas, and experiencing, as we do, their 
 influence from our earliest years, it is somewhat 
 difficult for us to realize their true value and import- 
 ance. But still the . fact remains. The fables of our 
 ancestors, and the glorious imagery with which they 
 invested all natural objects, have all faded away. To 
 some extent they still linger in the fairy lore of the 
 nursery ; but this is all that remains. By an effort of 
 our imagination we may succeed in transplanting 
 ourselves to those earlier and more rudimentary condi- 
 tions which induced an uneducated people, living in 
 the solitude of some dismal forest, to believe that the 
 rustling of wind among the trees was but the echo of 
 
77 
 
 voices in a distant country ; or that the fresh and 
 beautiful flowers of the morning had risen on the 
 footsteps of an early god. In point of fact, however, 
 they are for us but as the dreams of the past ; dreams, 
 it may be, which we sometimes like to dwell upon, but 
 which, so far as their actual value is concerned, are 
 strongly suggestive of Shakspeare's estimate : 
 
 " Dreams are the children of an idle brain, 
 Begot of nothing but vain fantasy ; 
 Which is as thin of substance as the air, 
 And more inconstant than the wind." 
 
 As the matter now stands, and as the result of those 
 circumstances under which we are placed, we have 
 passed from the rudimentary condition of wonder to 
 the more advanced condition of intelligence. 
 
 Proportionately as science has established the idea of 
 unity, and the supremacy of law in the realm of 
 physical nature, just so surely has it acted in another 
 direction, and produced a corresponding change in all 
 our .estimates of physical life, and the laws which 
 determine man's progress as a rational and sentient 
 being. 
 
 As the Duke of Argyll has said : " The reign of 
 Law is this, then, the reign under which we live ? Yes, 
 in a sense, it is. There is no denying it. The whole 
 world around us, and the whole world within us, are 
 ruled by law. Our very spirits are subject to it those 
 spirits which yet seem so spiritual, so subtle, so free. 
 How often in the darkness do they feel the restraining 
 walls bounds within which they move conditions out 
 of which they cannot think ! The perception of this is 
 'growing in the conscigusness of men. It grows with 
 
78 
 
 the growth of knowledge ; it is the delight, the reward, 
 the goal of science."* 
 
 And, in giving this definition, the Duke is, beyond 
 all question, perfectly correct. And so, also, is he, 
 when a little further on, in the same work, he asserts 
 that, "The instinct which impels us to seek for 
 harmony in the truths of science, and the truths of 
 religion, is a higher instinct and a truer one than the 
 disposition which leads us to evade the difficulty by 
 pretending that there is no relationship between them." 
 
 As human beings, we stand upon the, confines of 
 two worlds, and, therefore, the very moment we establish 
 the fact of law in the material world, we are, from the 
 necessities of our nature, compelled to seek for a 
 similar process in the realm of spiritual activities. But, 
 it may be said, admitting all this, the question still 
 remains an open one, whether, after all, there is not 
 something sad and solemn in this change which our 
 modern civilization imposes, and which, because it 
 brings man more directly under the conditions of law, 
 at the same time destroys much of that importance 
 which we had hitherto associated with the idea of 
 freedom. 
 
 Let us, therefore, examine the subject accordingly. 
 Can it be that we have been dreaming in a pleasant 
 sleep, which the sunrise of enlightenment renders no 
 longer possible? Can it be that the very moment 
 we commence to think profoundly, that instant we are 
 compelled to feel the saddening influence of a voiceless 
 universe, an inaccessible God? Can it be that only 
 in proportion as we deal with the surface of things, and 
 
 " Reign of Law," page 55, 
 
79 
 
 lead a calm, unquestioning life, we can realize a sense of 
 happiness ? 
 
 " Happy the many to whom Life displays 
 Only the flaunting of its Tulip-flower ; 
 Whose minds have never bent to scrutinize 
 Into the maddening riddle of the Root, 
 Shell within shell, dream folded over dream." 
 
 Can it be that, as we pass from the passive condition 
 of a thoughtless existence, to the active condition of 
 a thoughtful life, just so surely are we led into a sad 
 and solitary state of utter helplessness ; no sympathetic 
 intercourse to cheer, no sense of reliance on a benevolent 
 Creator ? Is it so that, after all our noble aspirations, 
 our long cherished-hopes, we are ultimately drifting 
 into a vortex, where everything resolves itself into the 
 doctrine of blind necessity, and our fondest dreams 
 appear but so many spectres, signifying disappointment, 
 despair, and nothingness ? Is it true that, after all 
 
 " An immense solitary spectre waits : 
 It has no shape, it has no sound; it has 
 No place, it has no time, it is, and was, 
 And will be ; it is never more nor less, 
 Nor glad nor sad. Its name is Nothingness. 
 Power walketh high ; and misery doth crawl ; 
 And the clepsydron drips; and the sands fall 
 Down in the hour glass ; and the shadows sweep 
 Around the dial; and men wake and sleep, 
 Live, strive, regret, forget, and love, and hate, 
 And know it. This spectre saith, ' I wait,' 
 And at the last it beckons and they pass ; 
 And still the red sands fall within the glass, 
 And still the shades around the dial sweep ; 
 And still the water-clock doth drip and weep, 
 And this is all" 
 
80 
 
 Alas ! poor human nature, is this so , then have we lost, 
 indeed, by the change from our earlier and simpler 
 modes of thought, to those of the present day. 
 
 That it is not so, however, I propose to show. And 
 this for the following reasons : 
 
 It Because the idea of law does not necessarily 
 exclude the possibility of a personal God. 
 
 d. Because the supremacy of law does not destroy 
 the moral sense in man. 
 
 3d. Because prayer, when correctly understood, is 
 essentially a function of our spiritual nature, and 
 not the ridiculous impossibility which the 
 common and merely vulgarized estimate repre- 
 sents. 
 
 As to the first of these considerations, therefore, 
 what are really the facts of the case ? 
 
 Not that there is one particle more of inconsistency 
 in a theistical than in an atheistical or pantheistical 
 conception of the .universe. Not that it is a violation 
 of reason to believe ourselves, in some sense, created in 
 the image and likeness of God. Not that it is an 
 absurdity to encourage those anthropomorphic ideas 
 which reason and analogy compel us to associate with 
 the existence of Divinity. Not that it is, in any sense, 
 less reasonable, or less philosophical, as we stand in 
 silent awe before the mystery of life, to believe in an 
 intelligent rather than in an unintelligent Cause. Not 
 that it is better for us to apotheosize Diodorus of lasus, 
 surnamed Cronus the Slow who, having written a 
 treatise on the Awful Nothing, died in despair than it 
 
Si 
 
 is to immortalize the memory of his antagonist Stilpo, 
 who made the idea of virtue the especial object of his 
 consideration. 
 
 Not that it is wiser or better to regard human nature 
 as a lone and wandering outcast than to believe in the 
 possibility of a sympathetic intercourse between the crea- 
 ture and the Creator. Passing however, from the negative 
 to the positive side of the subject, we are at once intro- 
 duced into a group of ideas, which, even if we limit their 
 operation to phenomenal subjects, afford us at least a terra 
 firma on which to build the pyramid of our thoughts. By 
 this we refer to that fundamental fact of human conscious- 
 ness which compels us, even after we have passed over 
 the scientific bridge of secondary causes, to recognize a 
 First Cause as the beginning of all things ; and which, at 
 the same time, resting on an inherent need in our nature, 
 suggests the idea of a personal Grod as the most rational 
 and the most satisfactory explanation a sentiment too, 
 which, because it embraces the axiom Quod sentio esl as 
 truly as it does Cocjito ergo sum, is at once, both the 
 Alpha and the Omega of philosophy. 
 
 Man exists ; he is. His existence cannot be subjected 
 to a process of proof. It is in itself its own evidence, and 
 carries its own conviction with it. The material universe 
 also exists. This also, as Berkeley f has shown, is inca- 
 
 t The favorite argument against Berkeley's theory of the non-existence of 
 matter, and the most popularly effective, next to a " grin " an argument, moreover, 
 which is not confined to " coxcombs," nor to men like Samuel Johnson, of practi- 
 cal understanding, without any particular turn for metaphysical speculation, but is 
 the stock argument of the Scotch school of metaphysician*, is a palpable ignm-alio 
 denchi. The argument is perhaps as frequently expressed by gestures as by words, 
 and one of its commonest forms consist in knocking a stick against the ground. 
 This short and easy computation overlooks the fact that in denying matter Berkeley 
 did not deny anything to which our senses bear witness, and therefore cannot 
 be answered by any appeal to them. His skepticism related to the supposed sub- 
 stratum or hidden cause of the appearances perceived by our senses, the evidence 
 of which, whatever may be its collusiveness, is certainly not the evidence of 
 senee. JOHN STUART MILL. 
 
82 
 
 pable of proof: "When you call me to believe in matter, 
 you call me to assume a certain substratum to the things 
 which I see, hear, taste. I cannot see, hear, taste that 
 substratum. Why am I to assume it? Has not the 
 course of all moral philosophy been to discard such as- 
 sumptions as fictitious? " 
 
 Thus matter hinges on mind ; and mind gives reality 
 to the existence of matter. In proportion as we realize 
 the truth of our own existence, so far, and so far only, are 
 we assured of the existence of the world outside of us. 
 Nor is this theory of Berkeley's the unreal and unfounded 
 idealism which it is frequently supposed to be. Standing 
 before the great and glorious volume of nature, in a truly 
 philosophical attidude, the conclusion becomes irresistible 
 that while it is strictly the prerogative of science to 
 trace the laws and demonstrate the unity pervading the 
 universe, it is, also, the legitimate function of philosophy 
 to recognize the deep-seated instincts of humanity as indi- 
 cative of mind's supremacy, accompanied by a conscious- 
 ness of God's existence as an intelligent and benevolent 
 Being. In fact, the existence of that primary and dis- 
 tinctly human concept which induced evenPyrrho, in his 
 moments of deepest abstraction, to exclaim: "It is impos- 
 sible to shake off human nature." And so it is impossible 
 to shake off human nature ; and this, too, not merely 
 when we regard the term human nature as an environ- 
 ment influencing our philosophical speculations, but as 
 that fundamental condition which gives us the disposition 
 and ability to philosophize, and which, in order to produce 
 a healthy action, demands the allegiance of our sentient 
 as well of our rational faculties. 
 
 Through the suppression of our finer feelings, it may 
 perhaps be possible to regaitl the idea of a personal God 
 

 as the relic of an earlier and unsophisticated age ; but, just 
 as surely as the sun shines, it becomes impossible to 
 eradicate the sentiment; As we grow wiser and enlarge 
 our conceptions generally, there can be no doubt that we 
 will rise gradually to a higher and purer form of theism ; 
 but to suppose that the growth of civilization and the march 
 of intellect will ever destroy the belief in an intelligent 
 and personal Creator does seem to us the most inconsistent 
 as well as the most discouraging view that can be taken 
 either of man or nature. Nor is there more than a 
 specious show of reasoning in those arguments which are 
 so frequently urged against anthropomorphism Admit- 
 ting that, in earlier ages, and possibly even now among 
 contracted thinkers, anthropomorphism has been carried 
 too far, the fact still remains, that any conception of 
 Deity which does not recognize the quality of personality 
 is either an absolute negation, or, at best, an unmeaning 
 abstraction which distorts rather than exhibits the idea it 
 seeks to represent Whether we regard the subject in the 
 light of a theological dictum, or a philosophical thesis, it 
 cannot be too strongly insisted on that, although the suprem- 
 acy of law necessarily neutralizes many of our earlier 
 anthropomorphic conceptions, it does not destroy the idea 
 of a personal God. 
 
 In fact, the more strictly philosophical we are, and the 
 more extensive the evidence collected, the more clearly 
 will we regard the universe, not merely as a wonderful 
 .piece of mechanism regulated by the presence of some 
 blind force, but rather as the manifestation of an intelli- 
 gent Being, whose qualities and characteristics are 
 expressed in the wonderful combinations, collocations 
 and adjustments in the material world, even as we 
 express our own character and personality through the 
 
84 
 
 natural language of external life. Nor is this all that can 
 be urged in favor of this view, even if we rest our 
 evidence mainly on the existence and universality of law ; 
 for, although it is evident that the conception, of Deity 
 in a scientific age must of necessity be different from 
 that prevailing in an unscientific age, we cannot, at the 
 same time, lose sight of the important fact that, as the 
 theistical argument depends less upon the mode of 
 production than on the character of the resulting pro- 
 duct, therefore the creation of the world, whether effected 
 mediately or immediately, through the operation of law, 
 we are still warranted in believing in an intelligent, and, if 
 an intelligent, inferentially in a personal Cause. In the 
 words of Mr. Martineau : " We are told that it is fetishism 
 to look on the world as instinct with living mind. If so, it is 
 that imperishable element which fetishism has in common 
 with the highest theism. We are told that it is the -effect 
 of philosophy to exorcise every spirit from the universe, 
 and reduce it to an aggregate of unconscious laws. If 
 so, it is at least that effect of philosophy which it shares 
 with mere stupefying custom an infirmity of technical 
 habit ; not any vision of what is special to its field, but an 
 acquired blindness to what remains beyond. There is 
 doubtless a different reading of the world present to the 
 mind of the man of science, and to the soul of the poet 
 and the prophet : the one spelling the order of its phe- 
 nomena; the other, the meaning of its beauty, the 
 mystery of its sorrow, the sanctity of its Cause. But 
 seeing that it is the same world which faces both. 
 and that the eyes are human into which it looks, we can 
 never doubt that the two readings have their intrinsic 
 harmonies, and that the articulate thought of the one will 
 
85 
 
 fall at last into rytlun with the solemn music of the 
 other " 
 
 And really, 011 a careful examination of the subject, 
 this does look like the only consistent and common-sense 
 view we can take of it Between the experimental pro- 
 cesses of the scientific man, and the intuitive glances of 
 the poet, there may, indeed, appear a very wide discrep- 
 ancy ; but, after all. who will deny that there is a proba- 
 bility, as well as a possibility, of their harmonious action. 
 In a certain sense, it is perfectly true that the anatomist 
 concerns himself merely with structure, the naturalist 
 with order and organization, the geologist with the strati- 
 fication and changes of the earth, the paleontologist with 
 the fossil remains of extinct plants and animals, while 
 the poet and'the philosopher are necessarily limited to a 
 less specific knowledge in this direction. Possibly we 
 may even go further, and accept the assertion of some 
 scientists: "Apprehensible by us, there is no God.' 1 
 But even here, the possibility of a reconciliation is not 
 destroyed or set aside. By a process of intellectual con- 
 tortion and perverted reasoning, it may be possible to 
 reduce temporarily, the fabric of nature to the condition 
 of an indefinite pantheism, or an unmeaning nihilism ; 
 .but that this can be anymore than an evanescent form of 
 error no one who thinks deeply will venture to assert. 
 At the basis of the whole question, there still remains 
 the very important fact that there is something more 
 than mere process and change to be accounted for, i.e., 
 the fundamental fact on which all life, all change, all 
 processes of evolution depend. 
 
 To deal, therefore, with the manifestations of growth 
 
 " Essay*, Philosophical and Theological " 
 
and development, and to exclude from our ideas the Cause 
 of these processes, is altogether an erroneous and superficial 
 estimate of .the subject 
 
 Set aside the idea of an intelligent Cause, and what 
 we see in nature as law, order, and the most exquisite 
 beauty and adaptation, resolves itself into a series of 
 accidental combinations, a fortuitous concourse of atoms : 
 a condition of thought which, it is hardly necessary to 
 say, is quite as repulsive as it is absurd. Besides, if 
 there be any merit in ontology as a science, it can only be 
 because it embraces the possibility of an endless fruition, 
 and not because it promises nothing but perpetual bar- 
 renness. 
 
 As science advances, and the supremacy and universal- 
 ity of law become more generally recognized and estab- 
 lished, there must also be a corresponding development 
 in the sphere of our higher consciousness, and a pro- 
 founder recognition of God's presence, even in the 
 simplest and most rudimentary forms of life. It is a 
 postulate derived from our enlightened consciousness that 
 God must be infinite ; it is also a postulate of our human 
 consciousness that he must be personal. 
 
 The early identification of personality with intelli- 
 gence can never be wholly destroyed. Occasionally it 
 may seem to decline, but as long as human nature remains 
 unchanged, its destruction is impossible. Uncivilized 
 man looks upon the world, and all things seem endowed 
 with the elements of personality. 
 
 Civilized man looks on the same objects, he investi- 
 gates their nature, discovers their uses, and applies them. 
 For him there are no spirits in the wind, no awful eyes 
 embodied in t the stars, and yet he cannot escape the 
 consciousness of an all-pervading personal Intelligence. 
 
87 
 
 In the case of uncivilized man. the sentiment becomes 
 pluralized, and thus produces polytheism. In the case of 
 the cultivated man, the idea of the many is absorbed in 
 the one ; and thus, the course of civilization, although 
 distinctly identified with the recognition of law and 
 order, in place of irregularity and caprice, is also inti- 
 mately associated with, and in a measure absolutely 
 dependent on, the fuller and clearer appreciation of a 
 Grod-made, and Grod-governed universe. In brief, the 
 elevation of the affections along with the enlargement of 
 the reason ; thereby realizing the truth of Mrs. Heman's 
 beautiful sentiment : 
 
 " Spirit whose life-sustaining presence tills 
 
 Air, ocean, central depths, by man untried, 
 Those for thy worshipers hast sanctified 
 All place, all time ! The silence of the hills 
 Breathes veneration ; founts and choral rills 
 
 Of thee are murmuring; to its inmost glade 
 The living forest with thy whisper thrills, 
 And there is holiness in every shade." 
 
 And now, as to the second branch of our subject : 
 The relationship between the supremacy of law and the 
 moral sense in man. Let us ask ourselves whether it 
 is not possible to so far adopt a middle course as to 
 avoid the Scylla of fatalism on the one hand, and the 
 Charybdis of absolute freedom on the other. For, it 
 must be observed that, although we are compelled to 
 recognize man's freedom in some sense, we are also 
 compelled to acknowledge his liabilility to law. In 
 other words, if man is free at all, he can only be free 
 within certain conditions, and not in that absolute sense 
 which a superficial estimate has hitherto associated with 
 his possession of rational and discriminating powers. 
 
88 
 
 As men, we think, feel, and act under a sense of 
 consciousness which, from its very nature, and the 
 relationship it bears to our estimate of vice and virtue, 
 demonstrates the possession of an ethical capacity which 
 would be wholly unintelligible under a dispensation of 
 fatalism. As men, we also derive much of our char- 
 acters through the laws of hereditary transmission, the 
 conditions under which we make our entrance into the 
 world, the long chain of circumstances influencing us 
 at every step, and that inseparable connection between 
 cause and effect quite as real in the moral as in the 
 material world. 
 
 Thus we are placed, as it were, between the contend- 
 ing elements of two opposing forces, each, apparently, 
 indispensable, and yet so seemingly antagonistic that 
 to admit the one is in the very admission apparently 
 destructive of the other. Is this, however, really the 
 case, and must we, in acknowledging the supremacy of 
 law, deny to man the usefulness of his glorious attribute, 
 reason ; put out the eyes of conscience, and deny the 
 usefulness and beauty of moral excellence ! Surely this 
 cannot be. Far down in the nature of things, in the 
 constitution of man, in the order and government of 
 the universe, there must be some point of contact at 
 which these two antagonistic propositions may meet in 
 harmony and friendly recognition. Omit the moral 
 sense, and we lose half the beauty of the world ; 
 certainly all the beauty of the world as it applies to 
 man. On the contrary, admit it, and even if we do not 
 reproduce the fabled music of the spheres, we recognize, 
 at least, those stupendous depths and heights in our 
 souls which give to human nature such a momentous 
 significance. To attain this desirable end, therefore, 
 
89 
 
 and thereby to demonstrate the possibility of the co- 
 existence of law and man's moral sense, it seems to us 
 that our only- consistent course is to recognize man's 
 discriminating powers as a part of this very law a 
 reflex of Divinity, by means of which the Almighty, 
 without in any sense destroying or even suspending the 
 existence and operation of law, is enabled to communi- 
 cate to his creatures a portion (infinitesimal though 
 it be) of his own powers of appreciating the right and 
 condemning the wrong. True, it may be urged in this 
 connection, that there is a mystery connected with 
 freedom which does not attach to the doctrine of 
 fatalism ; but, even if we acknowledge this, and admit, 
 for the sake of argument, that the existence of evil is a 
 barrier against the recognition of God's wisdom and 
 benevolence, as well as against the validity of man's 
 moral sense, it still remains true that, although the 
 doctrine of necessity changes, it does not remove the 
 difficulty. Of course, it is possible, by descending to 
 the substratum of pantheistical philosophy, to elude 
 the mystery of evil, by denying that there is any 
 absolute difference between moral good and moral evil. 
 In other words, to sum up the whole subject in the 
 ontology of pantheism by declaring that, " Whatever 
 is, is ; and there is neither right nor wrong, but all is fate 
 and nature." For us, however, who prefer to recognize 
 in our moral nature the root of religion and ethics, this 
 view is not only unsatisfactory, it is also, in the strictest 
 sense, repulsive. 
 
 The realization, therefore, of man's relationship to 
 law, and his dependence upon previous causes in which 
 he has had no part, quite as much as on present effects 
 in which he is the immediate agent, although they may 
 
90 
 
 change our ideas as to the extent of human responsi- 
 bility, do not, and cannot, destroy the existence and 
 potency of the moral sense. The realization of an 
 orderly sequence in nature is the direct result as well 
 as the strongest evidence of our advancing civilization. 
 The realization of our moral sense, and, in some degree, 
 the potentiality of human freedom, are also direct 
 results and indisputable evidences in the same direction. 
 Corresponding with our appreciation of beauty and our 
 depreciation of ugliness in insentient beings, we learn 
 also to appreciate the beauty of virtue, and to deprecate 
 the loathsomeness of vice in sentient beings possessed 
 of a moral nature. Indeed, as an apt illustration and 
 important corollary drawn from this analogy, it has 
 been well said by an eminent authority : " The close 
 connection between the good and the beautiful has been 
 always felt ; so much so that both were in Greek 
 expressed by the same word, and in the philosophy of 
 Plato moral beauty was regarded as the archetype of 
 which all variable beauty is only the shadow or the 
 image. We all feel that there is a strict propriety in 
 the term moral beauty. We feel that there are different 
 forms of beauty which have a natural correspondence 
 to different moral qualities ; and much of the charm of 
 poetry and eloquence rests upon this harmony. We 
 feel that we have a direct, immediate, intuitive percep- 
 tion that some objects, such as the sky above us, are 
 beautiful, that this perception of beauty is totally 
 different and could not possibly be derived from a 
 perception of their utility, and that it bears a very 
 striking resemblance to the instantaneous and unreason- 
 ing admiration that is elicted by a generous or heroic 
 action. We perceive too, if we examine with care the 
 
91 
 
 operations of our own mind, that an esthetical judg- 
 ment includes an intuition or intellectual perception, 
 and an emotion of attraction or admiration, very 
 similar to those which compose a moral judgment." || 
 
 So, also, it is well to remember that the fruit of religion 
 belongs, in all ages and under all conditions, much more 
 to its code of morality and its ethical influences than to 
 its theological dogmas or its ritualistic ceremonies. In 
 fact, could we suppose a condition under which the latter 
 had altogether ceased to exercise any influence, so long- 
 as the former retained their integrity, human progress 
 would still remain a possibility; the beauty of virtue ap- 
 pearing more beautiful with every ethical advance, while 
 vice in a corresponding ratio becomes more hidious, more 
 detestable. Although we are therefore compelled to 
 admit, from a scientific standpoint, that there is a perpetual 
 developement in nature, and that this developement is at 
 every stage subject to the conditions and requirements of 
 law, we are not for this reason called upon to rule man's 
 moral sense out of existence. Certainly we, in the mere 
 admission of the existence of law, are very mucli modify- 
 ing the generally received opinion of man's freedom and 
 responsibility, but we are not denying that man has a 
 moral consciousness which places him at the head of all 
 created objects. According to the prevalent idea, man 
 is free, independently of all conditions. According to the 
 modified and more rational view, he is free only -within 
 certain conditions conditions which, because they make 
 up and determine the circumstances or relations under 
 which we exist, are, therefore, the exact limitations of 
 freedom. As the Duke of Argyll very forcibly observes : 
 
 i ' 4 History of European Morals," by W. E. H, LBCKY, M-A. 
 
92 
 
 " It seems to be forgotten that freedom is not an absolute, 
 but a relative, term. There is no such thing existing as 
 absolute freedom ; that is to say, there is nothing existing 
 in the world, or possible even in thought, which is abso- 
 lutely alone entirely free from inseparable relationship 
 'to some other thing or things."* This, and this only, is 
 the definition which the profoundest thought and the 
 most careful observation warrant us in arriving at ; and 
 yet there is another branch of this subject which we are 
 compelled to regard in an equally profound and earnest 
 spirit. As a rational, sentient being, man must be 
 free in some sense. Were it not so, then are all our 
 purest thoughts, our noblest aspirations, but so many un- 
 real existences which the march of science will soon scat- 
 ter to the winds. Considered merely in this light, well, 
 indeed, may we shudder as we hear the clanking of that 
 adamantine chain of law with which scientific discovery 
 seeks to manacle nature, binding her, Prometheus-like to 
 the rock of necessity. Considered in this light, well 
 indeed may we weep for the loss of that moral beauty 
 which, in a less scientific age, so elevated and ennobled 
 the formation of human character. But as we have pre- 
 viously intimated, this is but one side of the picture. To 
 a certain extent, we will be compelled to abandon many 
 false ideas of man's freedom; and in place of the crude 
 and imperfect views now so prevalent, to recognize in 
 the fullest possible sense that, although man's condition is 
 to a certain extent that of freedom, he is, nevertheless, only 
 free within the bounds of law. But some may say this is 
 a contradiction, for if it be true that law enters into and 
 controls the realm of thought and volition, then is it not self- 
 evident that freedom of action and moral responsibility 
 
 * "Reign of LawS 
 
93 
 
 are simply impossible. Contradictory, however, as this 
 may seem, it is nevertheless soundly philosophical and 
 consistent in fact. Indeed, if we may be permitted to use 
 the argument of one who has bestowed much thought 
 upon the subject, and whose views, it appears to us, pre- 
 sents this question in the strongest possible light : "Law, 
 universal and invariable, in the realm of nature law, 
 universal, invariable, in the realm of human history 
 law, universal and invariable yes,it must be so the realm 
 of individual consciousness. Everything happens accord- 
 ing to law ; and since law is the expression of Divine will, 
 everything happens according to Divine will : i.e., is in 
 some sense ordained, decreed. You will ask, then, does 
 not this absolute universality and invariability of law in 
 every realm of nature, extending even to the inner realm 
 of consciousness itself, annihilate the free-will of man ? I 
 answer, No; it only limits free-will to its legitimate domain.'' || 
 And, really, after all that can be said by the most 
 zealous opponents of modern science, this is the sum and 
 substance of the matter ; while it is, also, the only rational 
 estimate we can place on man as a part of nature, and 
 therefore, as subject to those arrangements and conditions 
 of law and order which make up the integrity and 
 guarantee the perpetuity of the moral as well as the 
 material universe. Standing, therefore, before the majes- 
 tic aspect of nature, and, at the same time, recognizing in 
 every movement and every form of adaptation the exist- 
 ence of law, we are not warranted in abandoning the 
 idea of a moral sense in man. The deepest researches of 
 science, and the profoundest reflections of philosophy, 
 both indicate the possibility of moral sense. In our 
 earliest moments, and during our first impressions 
 
 E " Religion and Science," by Joa. LB CONTK, Professor of Geology and Natural 
 History, in tha Univertity of California. 
 
94 
 
 respecting the supremacy and uni versality of law, it may 
 be possible for us to be so far carried away in our neo- 
 phytic zeal, and our momentary idolatry of science, as to 
 rule man out of the universe altogether. We may even 
 become momentarily spell-bound by the fascinations and 
 the grandeur of physical science, and forget that there 
 ever was a Socrates, a Plato, or an Aristotle. Beside the 
 grandeur and immensity of the starry heavens, man may 
 seem, indeed, to dwindle into insignificance ; his individu- 
 alty appearing more an idea than a fact The immensity 
 of the creation may overpower him, and cause him to 
 sink into a condition which, were it permanent, would 
 virtually annihilate or at least reduce him to a hopeless 
 and helpless condition of littleness and limitation. Like 
 the clouds, however, that sometimes conceal the brightness 
 of the sun, these conditions are but of temporary duration ; 
 while time, that general panacea for all ills, causes us at 
 last to awake to a realization of the truth. At last, ex- 
 periences rouses us to a sense of consciousness, and the 
 scene is changed. Science still retains its grandeur, its 
 beauty, its usefulness ; but in the return of our more sober 
 thought, we have found that we can neither justify nor ap- 
 preciate the processes by which we interpret external nature 
 unless we recognize at the same time the nature of man. 
 Certainly we cannot clo this without, in someway, recog- 
 nizing the fact of our moral consciousness ; while we may 
 even go further, and insist that in proportion as the adapta- 
 tion of certain means to certain ends constitutes the most 
 powerful evidence of an intelligent cause in the domain 
 of physical nature, so, likewise, must this moral sense in 
 man be given for a high and noble end. In some form, 
 as experience proves, its existence is inseparable from 
 the conditions of human life. In some sense, therefore, 
 
96 
 
 We are not only compelled to recognize its existence ; 
 we are also bound to provide for its action and influence 
 even under the most rigid conditions of law. Turning 
 over the pages of geology, we find that the air, which 
 we now breathe so freely, was once so loaded with 
 poisonous carbonic acid that it was absolutely unfit for 
 the support and sustenance of life. Gradually, by a 
 chemical process, through which the quantity of carbonic 
 acid was constantly being diminished, or absorbed into 
 other forms of existence, the earth passed slowly but 
 surely through the different phases of development 
 which ultimately rendered it a fit habitation for man. 
 This done, this point arrived at in the mighty process 
 of creation, man comes upon the scene. All along, 
 the entire movement has been regulated by the exist- 
 ence and supremacy of law ; and in the new conditions 
 of human life, there is no break in the chain. In an 
 analogous sense, it would seem to us, we are fully 
 warranted in interpreting the fact of our moral con- 
 sciousness. Most certainly, unless it was designed to 
 accomplish some useful purpose, it would neither have 
 been implanted in the breast of man, nor yet would it 
 be capable of those manifold gradations, ranging from 
 the crude and imperfect ideas of savage life, to the 
 chaste and humane sentiments of refined society. Like 
 the earth, as it passed through its different geological 
 changes, the soul of man is, in the strictest sense, 
 amenable to law. Like the earth, it is also governed by 
 a regular and irreversible mode of adaptation, which, 
 while it enables us to recognize and appreciate the forms 
 of beauty in the material world, at the same time pro- 
 duces in us a realization of moral and spiritual beauty, 
 as the thing most to be desired by man. 
 
" Beauty was lent to nature as the type 
 Of Heaven's unspeakable and holy joy, 
 Where all perfection makes the sum of bliss." 
 
 By all means, therefore, let us hold fast to the truths 
 of science, and the universality and supremacy of law 
 which all scientific discoveries demonstrate ; but let us, 
 at the same time, beware of that hasty generalization 
 which would reduce man's nature to a level with the 
 oyster, and which, in overlooking more than it looks at, 
 refuses to recognize in him the existence of a thinking 
 and responsible soul, as well as an organized body 
 possessing the elements of materiality. Estimating the 
 probabilities of the future, by the indications of the 
 present, we know that there is much reason for believing 
 that what we term the moral sciences will not rise 
 directly to a much higher standpoint than they at 
 present occupy. For the time being, it is probable that 
 they will, in a measure, be subservient to the demands 
 of physical science, and, therefore, receive only in a 
 partial sense that thoughtful attention which they are 
 fairly entitled to. Whether we regard it as an evil, or 
 a natural consequence, in our process of development, 
 there can be no doubt that there is, at least for the 
 present, so strong a reaction against everything pertain- 
 ing to the supernatural, that the demands of moral 
 science, although incapable of being silenced or extin- 
 guished, are yet likely to suffer in the consequences of 
 the reaction. From the fact that our ideas of moral 
 progress have been hitherto derived from the shadowy 
 regions of theology, it seems inevitable that there must 
 be an interval of unlearning before the scientific period 
 can fairly be inaugurated. Come, however, it must ; and 
 in the change, men will realize that the science of 
 
97 
 
 nature presupposes and includes the science of man ; 
 the science of man embracing all those higher and 
 nobler capabilities of our nature which induced the 
 ancients to believe that man's knowledge of himself 
 were worthy of emanating from the skies. 
 
 And this brings us to the examination of our last 
 proposition, viz., the compatibility of prayer with the 
 supremacy of law. 
 
 Under a due sense of its importance, let us, there- 
 fore, endeavor to enter into something like a proper 
 appreciation of its claims, not merely as a philosopheme, 
 but as a real and important condition in our estimate of 
 man, and the circumstances under which we cultivate 
 the growth and development of our higher conscious- 
 ness. For, it must be observed, that unless we can dis- 
 cover some evidence of rationality or consistency in that 
 attribute of our nature which expresses itself in prayer, 
 then have we no alternative but to admit that we have 
 been victimized by a barren idea, and that, instead of 
 our prayerful instincts being the expressions of a deeply 
 seated, fundamental law of our being, they are but the 
 embodiments of a foolish and fanatical process an 
 illusion and a sham. Indeed, it is not only prudent, it 
 is absolutely indispensable, if we would retain the idea 
 of prayer as an intellectual conception, or a psycholog- 
 ical necessity, that we should look the question fairly 
 in the face. 
 
 Is it said that the moment we attempt to analyze the 
 subject, so surely do we destroy its beauty, and demon- 
 strate the impossibility o'f its efficacy ; while reason, 
 failing in its efforts to penetrate into the inner temple of 
 our spiritual consciousness, reduces us to that condition 
 
. 98 
 
 of deplorable blindness so powerfully expressed by 
 Milton, in his " Samson Agonistes" : 
 
 " Oh ! dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, 
 Irrevocably dark, total eclipse, 
 Without all hope of day ! " 
 
 To many minds, this is doubtless a fair example of their 
 views ; an earnest and conscientious conviction certainly, 
 but, nevertheless, a mistaken one ; while it is also one 
 which arises solely from the very common, but very 
 erroneous, idea that we can annihilate the passion for 
 solving what is called the insoluble, and yet retain our 
 human nature in its integrity. The dimulties which 
 beset the question of prayer are, therefore, not to be 
 overcome by attempting to reduce our intellectual 
 facilities to a merely passive condition. 
 
 Like Banquo's ghost, our troublesome questionings 
 may disappear for a time, but just as surely will they 
 reappear. Nor will it avail us aught to cry 
 " I'll see no more." 
 
 Not so, for 
 
 " Yet the eighth appears Avho bears a glass, 
 Which shows me many more." 
 
 In fact, so clearly and so closely is the function of 
 reason, blended with the elements of human life, that 
 the very statement which denies the validity of reason 
 is, in itself, a process of reasoning. From the possession 
 of our rational faculties, we exist as men. From the 
 cultivation of our rational faculties, we progress as 
 .men. " Quot homines, tot sentential" is not only true as a 
 maxim ; it is also expressive of that diversity in human 
 nature which is fundamental because it rests upon the 
 basis of reason. 
 
Surely, therefore, it is of no avail to beg the question 
 of prayer, by asserting that it is impossible to entertain 
 rational ideas upon subjects which transcend the powers 
 of reason. "Shall we dare to say that this advantage 
 of reason, of which we so much boast, and upon the 
 account of which we think ourselves masters and 
 emperors over all other creatures, was given us for a 
 torment." J 
 
 Besides, in every other direction, the thoughtful man 
 can very clearly discern the indications of law ; and 
 shall he be asked to consider prayer alone as being 
 abnormal ? Certainly not. If there be any value in 
 prayer, it can only be because it rests on and derives 
 its existence from certain conditions inhering in the 
 nature of things; and not because man, as a spiritual 
 being, is exempt from the conditions of law. The 
 moment we lose sight of this important fact, and regard 
 the subject according to the superficial and commonly 
 accepted estimate, just so surely does the idea of prayer 
 become but an imaginary and unreal existence; an 
 impossibility, an absurdity, and not a legitimate result 
 arising from the demands and necessities of man's 
 
 o 
 
 nature. 
 
 By getting, however, something like a rational insight 
 into the subject, the view is completely changed, and 
 the existence of prayer demonstrated as a process 
 whereby we open more fully the tendrils of our higher 
 consciousness, thereby producing that change in our- 
 selves which is always commensurate with the receptive 
 attitude and capacity of the recipient. In other words, 
 a process of action and reaction which, taking place 
 
 Essays.' 1 '' 
 
100 
 
 in the realm of our spiritual activities, enables every 
 earnest soul, in some sense, to realize the everlasting 
 canons of the Christian's faith: "Ask, and }^e shall 
 receive." "Draw nigh unto God, and he will draw nigh 
 unto you." 
 
 Considered in this light, the act of prayer is not 
 something foreign to man's condition as a part of 
 nature; on the contrary, it is the perfectly natural 
 expression of the highest and most important part of 
 our nature ; the conscious exercise of certain functions 
 which enable us to rise above what Sir William 
 Hamilton was so fond of calling " the dirt philosophy ; " 
 the realization of something answering to the demands 
 of our higher nature, which enables us* to appreciate the 
 beauty of Montgomery's sentiment : 
 
 " Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, 
 
 UtterM or unexpressed ; 
 The motion of a hidden fire, 
 That trembles in the breast. 
 
 " Prayer is the burden of a sigh, 
 
 The falling of a tear; 
 The upward glancing of an eye, 
 When none but God is near." 
 
 It is not a superfluous effusion dependent on paroxysms 
 of religious excitement; it is a regular and orderly 
 procedure, based on man's needs and capabilities as a 
 spiritual being. 
 
 Or, again, to place the subject in another form, it is 
 perfectly reasonable to define the spirit of prayer as 
 strictly identical with that remarkable experience of 
 something answering to the demands of our psychical 
 necessities, which can only be accounted for as a conse- 
 
101 
 
 quence taking place in the realm of spiritual activities' 
 not as an act of caprice, but as the embodiment and 
 expression of fixed and irreversible laws a psycholog- 
 ical principle, in fact, upon which we may safely rest 
 that form of Christian consciousness which bears witness 
 to the efficacy of prayer as a mode of spiritual suste- 
 nance, and which also insists that the efficacy is so closely 
 allied to the measure of frequency and earnestness as 
 to suggest, in the most pointed manner, the existence 
 and operation of an orderly sequence. 
 
 As rational beings, we cannot help thinking ; as sentient 
 beings, we cannot help feeling ; and thus it is that in our 
 moments of deepest despair, as well as in our moments of 
 most refined existence, we cannot smother, we cannot 
 dissociate, that movement of our spiritual consciousness 
 which impels us to the act of prayer. 
 
 As Clement of Alexandria expresses it: "Prayer is, 
 then, to speak more boldly, concourse with God. Though 
 whispering, consequently, and not opening the lips, we 
 speak in silence, yet we cry inwardly. For God hears 
 continually all the inward converse. So, also, w r e raise 
 the head and lift the hands to heaven, and set the feet in 
 motion at the closing utterance of the prayer, following 
 the eagerness of the spirit directed toward the intellectual 
 essence ; and endeavoring to abstract the body from the 
 earth, along with the discourse, raising the soul aloft, 
 winged with a longing for better tilings, we compel it to 
 advance to the region of holiness, magnanimously despising 
 the chain of the flesh, "f So said the illustrious head of 
 the Catechetical school at Alexandria ; and, although we 
 are nearly seventeen centuries older, the force and beauty 
 
 t " Stromata," Book VII. 
 
102 
 
 of his views still possess a charm for every thoughtful 
 mind. What he defines as the Gnostic's conception of 
 prayer is fundamentally true as the only rational and 
 consistent estimate we can place upon the subject. 
 Indeed, so visibly is this sentiment a postulate of 
 our higher consciousness, that it seems almost like a 
 truism to assert that, in the uplifting of our spiritual 
 emotions and the projection of our individuality into a 
 sphere of devotional thought and sentiment, we are 
 reasonably and consistently arranging certain conditions, 
 which, by a law of reflex action, produce the most 
 important consequences on the human soul. True, it 
 may be urged in this connection, that this attidude 
 postulates in some sense the identity of the ideal with the 
 real ; thus attempting the impossibility of merging two 
 distinct' existences into one. In answer to this possible 
 objection, it may, therefore, be well to recall the important 
 fact that "the world is governed by its ideals." A 
 position which amply justifies the spirit of prayer, even 
 allowing that it did no more than foster a spirit of 
 contemplation, having for its aim the beautiful and 
 true. 
 
 The influence between the spirit of God and the soul 
 of man, may be, as it is^in many respects, hopelessly inscru- 
 table ; but it is, for this reason, (as the experience of many 
 an earnest soul can testify), no less real and genuine.:}: 
 
 The aspiration and sense of communion with God, 
 which necessarily make up every earnest prayer, are, 
 therefore, not dependent on either a suspension or a viola- 
 tion of law, but on the functional action of man's spiritual 
 organism, and the necessities growing out of his psychical 
 
 J " Real inward devotion knows no prayer but that arising from the depths of 
 its own feelings." W, Von HUMBOLDT. 
 
103 
 
 growth and development So, also, as a further elucida- 
 tion of this principle, when it is said in St. John's Gospel : 
 "God is a spirit; and they who worship him, must 
 worship him in spirit and in truth ; " we have the 
 statement not merely of a general truth, but also the 
 profound expression of a psychological principle, quite as 
 imperative and universal in its operation as are any of the 
 well-known laws in the world of matter the introduction, 
 in fact, of a rational element into the spirit of prayer ; 
 and thus, the transformation from the absurdity of mere 
 parrot-like utterance, to the perfectly reasonable and 
 legitimate expansion of our spiritual faculties. If we 
 attempt to consider prayer as an effort to influence or to 
 change the result of certain physical conditions, we fall, 
 unavoidably, into two monstrous absurdities, i. e. : we 
 place ourselves in the ridiculous position of asking God 
 to reconsider his purposes, and to change his decrees 
 conditions which necessarily imply the characteristics of 
 imperfection and caprice while we, also, forget the 
 important fact that, as the material wants of individuals 
 are as diverse as their conditions, it would be impossible 
 for God to entertain them all, even if he were willing ; at 
 the same time that the subjection of law and order to the 
 demands of human caprice could only end in chaos and 
 confusion. 
 
 In offering, therefore, any prayer with the view of 
 affecting nature in a physical sense, it is well for us to 
 ask ourselves what we are demanding. For example, 
 the amount of rain which fell yesterday, or at any other 
 given time in this State, being the exact result of a long 
 line of antecedent circumstances, and these circumstances 
 being again dependent on the irreversible process of natural 
 law, it becomes obvious that when we pray either that 
 
104 
 
 God will send or withold the rain, we are. asking, not 
 merely that he will change circumstances as they exist at 
 present, but also that he will, by substituting irregularity 
 and caprice forlaw and order, destroy the regular sequence 
 of natural phenomena a supposition which is manifestly 
 too absurd for any enlightenened mind to entertain for 
 a moment. 
 
 Tested, therefore, as to its physical efficacy, prayer is 
 beyond all question an absurdity ; the lingering vestige 
 of an earlier age, when the conception of God was of a 
 grosser and inferior character ; but no more suited to the 
 present condition of the world's requirements than the 
 swaddling-clothes of infancy are to the full grown man. 
 
 Not so, however, when we consider the subject in' the 
 light of man's spiritual nature, and his necessities as a 
 spiritual being. Measured from this point, and tested at 
 every step of our psychological experience, the efficacy 
 of prayer follows directly as a reflex influence produced 
 through the instrumentality of law, and not an abnormal 
 condition dependent on an unhealthy overflow of religious 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 To be genuine, its action must be steady, and, for the 
 most part, silent. To be either of these, it must be based 
 on those principles of law and order which render it a 
 mode of spiritual sustenance, rather than an effort to 
 influence the character or change the disposition of 
 Deity. 
 
 Consistently, therefore, with these views, while it is 
 impossible, without properly appreciating the supremacy 
 of law, to estimate the nature of man, and his relationship 
 to surrounding conditions, so is it equally impossible to 
 properly estimate the supremacy of law, without, at the 
 same time, appreciating that mysterious commingling of 
 
105 
 
 thoughts and sentiments, now seeming heterogeneous, 
 now seeming homogeneous, which make up the sum 
 total of human nature ; and which, from the dawn of 
 philosophy, have more or less agitated every thoughtful 
 mind. With the expansion of scientific knowledge, and 
 the enlargement of that intellectual empire the inaugura- 
 tion of which now seems so propitious, we will most cer- 
 tainly witness a gradual displacement of old and errone- 
 ous superstitions by new and enlightened forms of 
 thought ; but, after all, the change can only be considered 
 philosophically and scientifically perfect in so far as it 
 bears on the science of man, and, therefore, on the 
 science of life. 
 
 As an animal, man touches the earth, and is governed 
 by the laws of physical nature. As a spiritual being, 
 he rises into those. higher regions which the immortal 
 Plato loved so dearly to contemplate ; 'and which, though 
 not exempt from law, are, nevertheless, so adjusted as to 
 admit the exercise of our noblest faculties, and our 
 development, according to law, into a full and perfect 
 manhood. 
 
 The supremacy of law means, therefore, a clearer and 
 better appreciation of God and Nature ; a more enlight- 
 ened and more correct estimate of the conditions under 
 which we live ; it does not mean the immolation of our 
 highest aspirations and our finest sentiments on the altar 
 of materialism ; it does not, and cannot, destroy the 
 beauty of virtue ; it does not, and cannot, deny that 
 prayer, in its last analysis and highest conception, is a 
 sublime necessity. As truly as there exists the law of 
 gravitation in the material universe, so truly does there 
 exist a law in human nature which impels us toward a 
 higher ideal ; an everlasting longing for something better, 
 
106 
 
 which, though disappointed and crashed to-day beneath 
 the petty cares and troubles of life, still rises to-morrow, 
 more beautiful for its temporary suffering, more hopeful 
 for its ultimate triumph in the future. 
 
 Surely this marvelous appreciation which enables us 
 to enthrone the fair and beautiful form of virtue in our 
 hearts, this ideal longing which fills the soul of poet and 
 painter with the most glorious imagery, and this 
 esthetic sense which enables us to appreciate the excel- 
 lence of moral beauty, were not given us to be a mockery 
 and a delusion. Not so, not so ! With " Excelsior " as 
 its motto, the human mind moves ever on. Systems will 
 change, and creeds decay ; but, in the midst of it all, 
 there must always remain the solemn and important fact, 
 that man is the possessor of a psychical nature which no 
 philosophy can consistently ignore, no merely materialis- 
 tic science destroy. Nor does it invalidate this branch 
 of the subject to argue that everything human seems so 
 transitory and unreal. In a certain sense, it is perfectly 
 true that, as we contemplate the great problem of human 
 life, it does seem as if we exist but for a moment ; a short 
 flutter of joys and sorrows, and we are gone. Indeed, 
 so evanescent do the phenomena appear, that we may at 
 times be amply justified in exclaiming : 
 
 " Between two worlds life hovers, like a star 
 
 'Twixt night and morn upon the horizon's verge. 
 
 How little do we know that which we are ! 
 
 How less what we may be ! The eternal surge 
 
 Of time and tide rolls on, and bears afar 
 
 Our bubbles : as the old burst, new emerge, 
 
 Lash'd from the foam of ages ; while the graves 
 
 Of empires heave but like some passing waves." 
 
 This, however, is but one view of the subject In 
 
107 
 
 another, and no less real sense, we are fully warranted 
 in postulating the indestructibility of mind, and its 
 accompanying probability that we shall realize in another 
 world those beautiful dreams which we so often fail to 
 realize in this.- Indeed, the more thoroughly we know 
 ourselves, the more clearly will we discover that in our 
 best moments, as in our seasons of deepest depression, 
 there is an instinctive longing in our nature for some- 
 thing better, purer, and more in consonance with the 
 dictates of virtue and true nobility. 
 
 Philosophically considered, the very idea of person- 
 ality necessitates this perpetual expansion and endless 
 growth of our powers. 
 
 Standing on the " frontier-land between animal and \ 
 angelic natures,'" we are necessarily governed to a great 
 extent by physical conditions ; but standing also on the 
 same border-land, and directing our attention more 
 especially to the psychical side of the subject, there is a 
 profound significance in those suggestions of a purer 
 existence, those glimpses of an undying spiritual peace 
 and beauty, which come with a greater or lesser degree 
 of vividness and frequency to us all those sublime 
 realizations of the true, the beautiful, the good, which 
 must always remain unshaken amid the waves of tem- 
 pestuous doctrines, because they are not only derived 
 from the order of the universe, but are also founded in 
 the very nature of man. 
 
 As Sir William Hamilton expresses it : " Once 
 consciousness is ruined as an instrument, philosophy is 
 extinct." 
 
 In view, therefore, of these facts, it will be easily seen 
 that, although the idea of law is necessarily hostile to 
 to many theories peculiar to an unscientific estimate of 
 
108 . 
 
 man and the conditions by which he is surrounded, it 
 does not consequently destroy or even mar the beauty of 
 moral perfection ; it does not, and cannot, deny the 
 possibilities of human nature, by relegating to a hopeless 
 obscurity the noblest instincts of our manhood. 
 
 Without law in the material world, there could be no 
 order, no harmony, no regular succession of causes and 
 effects. 
 
 In the world of mind, the principle is the same ; the 
 only important distinction being that, in all our estimates 
 of psychical phenomena, we keep clearly before us the 
 important fact that man's rational and discriminating 
 powers, his moral sense, and his constant longing for an 
 ideal life in which the conditions are purer, better, and 
 more beautiful than in the present, are, in themselves, 
 important elements in that orderly process of Divine 
 government which we necessarily mean when we speak 
 of the supremacy of Law. 
 
109 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 
 
 PROMPTED by a habit of introspection somewhat 
 similar to that which induced Plotinus to despise his 
 body, and influenced, also, by that aspiration toward a 
 better state which has been the dream of the greatest 
 minds in all ages, it is still the sad experience of every 
 thoughtful man that there is an antagonism between our 
 higher and lower natures, which sorely perplexes us the 
 very moment we attempt to examine into the nature of 
 human destiny and the measure of human responsibility. 
 
 Indeed, that wonderful combination of opposing forces, 
 which, at one time represents man as a highly rational 
 being, endowded with the keenest and most exquisite 
 spiritual susceptibilities ; and at another represents him as 
 the abject slave of those grosser appetites which, besides 
 shutting out the music of the spheres, ends invariably in 
 that deplorable wreck of human nature wherein, accord- 
 ing to Milton : 
 
 " The soul grows clotted by contagion, 
 Imbodies, and iinbrutes, till she quite lose 
 The divine property of her first being." 
 
 Certainly the condition represented by this latter class 
 may well cause us many anxious and depressing 
 
110 
 
 thoughts ; while it also enforces the question, /s it 
 necessarily so, or does it proceed from some temporary defect 
 in human nature ? 
 
 To some, the difference involved in the answer may 
 be but slight : but really it is of very great importance 
 the foundation, in fact, of all our ideas respecting man's 
 progressive capacities being largely dependent on our 
 views respecting the existence of evil ; and whether it be 
 of permanent or transitory duration. In answering the 
 question, so far as we can, let us, therefore, glance, in the 
 first place, at those theories which have hitherto pre- 
 dominated ; then passing on to the ideas on the subject 
 as embodied in modern thought, determine whether it is 
 better for us to believe that sin, as well as damnation, is 
 the inheritance of the whole human race; or whether 
 man's sinful condition is the result of a rudimentary con- 
 dition, rather than the fulfillment of a curse. To assist 
 us in our purpose, let the different authorities speak for 
 themselves. 
 
 According to the doctrine as stated by the West- 
 minister divines : 
 
 " The covenant being made with Adam, not only for 
 himself, but for his posterity, all mankind descending 
 from him by ordinary generation sinned in him, and fell 
 with him in his first transgression. 
 
 " The sinfulness of that estate wherein to man fell con- 
 sists in the guilt of Adam's first sin, the want of 
 original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole 
 nature, which is commonly called orignal sin, together 
 with all actual transgressions which proceed from it." 
 
 According to another doctrine,* the subject reads thus : 
 
 * * Ratio Disciplince, "Confession of Faith." Chap, VI. 
 
Ill 
 
 " By this sin they (the first parents) and we in them, 
 fell from the original righteousness and communion with 
 God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in 
 all the faculties and parts of soul and body. They 
 being the root, and, by God's appointment, standing in the 
 room and stead of all mankind, the (jidlt of their sin is 
 imputed, and corrupted nature conveyed to all their 
 posteiity descending from them by ordinary generation. 
 
 Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression 
 of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto, doth 
 in its own nature bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he 
 is bound over to the wrath of God and curse of the law, 
 and so made subject to death, with all miseries, spiritual, 
 temporal, and eternal." 
 
 According to the articles of the Church of England, 
 the doctrine is thus defined : 
 
 " Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam (as 
 the Pelagians do vainly talk) ; but it is the fault and cor- 
 ruption of the nature of every man that naturally is ingen- 
 dered of the offspring of Adam ; whereby, man is very 
 far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own 
 nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always 
 contrary to the spirit ; and, therefore, in every person born 
 into this world, it deserveth God's wrath and damnation." 
 
 Such is the theological estimate ; and if repulsiveness 
 were the only consideration, we need trouble ourselves no 
 more about it. That it comprises, however, the sum 
 total of all that can be said upon the subject, no one who 
 thinks seriously and consistently can for a moment 
 believe. Indeed, did the statement embodied in these 
 creeds so far exhaust the problem as to leave no margin 
 for speculation, well may we fall into a state of perpetual 
 despondency; while the mightiest genius may appro- 
 
112 
 
 priately make for itself a crown of thorns, the profoundest 
 minds consider life but an abyss of woe, the serenest 
 intelligence weep away its fondest dreams, and, with a long- 
 drawn sigh, exclaim with Macbeth : 
 
 " I ' gin to be a weary o' the sun, 
 And wish the estate o' the world were now -undone." 
 
 Sad, indeed, is the picture, and dismal the shadow which 
 it throws over all our estimates of God and man. 
 Can we, therefore, as rational beings, continue to endorse 
 a theory so horrifying, so debasing? It is one of the 
 issues of the age ; and must in some form be answered. 
 To a contiuance of the theory it need hardly be said 
 that modern thought is decidedly hostile. As an 
 anomaly, in view of our enlightenment in other direc- 
 tions, is is perfectly true, as said by Strauss, in his last 
 work, " The Old Faith and the New " : " It is astonish- 
 ing how a conception equally revolting to man's reason 
 and sense of justice, a conception which transforms God 
 from an object of adoration and affection into a hideous 
 and detestable being, could at any time, however bar- 
 barous, have been found acceptable, or how the casuistries 
 by which people strove to modify its harshness could ever 
 have been listened to with common patience." Certainly 
 there is, as has been already admitted, much to sadden 
 and perplex us in our contemplation of human nature ; 
 but does it follow from this that the whole subject is 
 necessarily embraced in that form of theological dyspepsia 
 which, to say nothing of its absurdity in the light of the 
 axiom that " no man can be guilty for what took place 
 before he was born," leads us, also, unavoidably, to believe 
 that " if our native propensities are themselves a sin, then 
 the conclusion seems to be plain and inevitable that God 
 
113 
 
 is the author of sin ; not merely that he made beings who 
 can commit sin, biit that he has made beings a part of 
 whose very nature, as it comes from his hand, is sin." f 
 
 Are we willing to accept the consequences involved 
 in such a belief? Scarcely can we, unless so purblind 
 as to be unable to realize its true character ; while, on the 
 other hand, as participants in the civilization of the 
 nineteenth century, although we are compelled to ac- 
 knowledge the existence of evil as a disease or imperfec- 
 tion in our nature, we cannot, at the same time, yield our 
 assent to that doctrine of original and inevitable sin, which, 
 although strong enough in the earlier ages of the Church 
 to cause the anathematizing of Pelagius and his disciple 
 Coelestius, is, under the criticism and analysis of modern 
 thought, falling gradually into disrepute among the most 
 cultivated and intelligent minds. 
 
 In fact, if we carefully examine the subject, we will 
 not be very long in discovering that the doctrine of total 
 depravity, though still adhered to and persistently 
 preached, commends itself to independent thinkers mainly 
 on account of its character as a fossilized vestige of a 
 former theologic world; still exercising an important 
 influence, it is true, but, at the same time, destined, in view 
 of the general expansion of culture, to become gradually 
 powerless and obsolete. The fact of sin will still remain, 
 but because our deepest reflections are opposed to a 
 belief in the existence of a personal devil, and the inde- 
 structibility of evil which such a belief necessitates, we 
 must, ultimately, pass over to a deeper faith in human 
 nature, accompanied by a growing conviction that, 
 although sin is undeniably a spiritual disease, it is not 
 
 t Professor STUART? 
 
114 
 
 imposed upon us as a curse, nor is it exempt from the cura- 
 tive power of certain hygienic laws pertaining as truly 
 to the moral universe as do our sanitary precautions 
 to the domain of physical nature. In either case, the 
 conditions are dependent, not on any arbitrary enactment 
 of an angry Deity, but on the willful or ignorant viola- 
 tion of law. As the late Lord Palmerston, in his appre- 
 ciation of this fact, replied to the Scotch clergy's request 
 to set apart a season of general humiliation, fasting, and 
 prayer, as a means of preventing the cholera: u Lord 
 Palmerston would, therefore, suggest that the best course 
 which the people of this country can pursue to deserve 
 that the further progress of the cholera should be stayed 
 will be to employ the interval that will elapse between 
 the present time and the beginning of next spring in 
 planning and executing measures by which those portions 
 of their towns and cities which are inhabited by the 
 poorest classes, and which, from the nature of things, must 
 most need purification and improvement, may be freed 
 from those causes and sources of contagion which, if 
 allowed to remain, will infallibly breed pestilence, and be 
 fruitful in death,in spite of all the prayers and fastings of 
 an united but inactive nation." 
 
 Of course, the Scotch clergy, in accordance with their 
 belief, took it for granted that the cholera was sent as a 
 scourge by an angry Deity ; but the inferiority of their 
 conception, compared with that entertained by the Eng- 
 lish statesman, must be easily apparent to any one who 
 thinks candidly and philosophically upon the subject 
 
 In the language of an eminent writer : " This corre- 
 spondence between the Scotch clergy and the English 
 statesman is not to be regarded merely as a passing episode 
 of light or temporary interest. On the contrary, itrepre' 
 
115 
 
 sents that terrible struggle between theology and science 
 which, having begun in the persecution of science, and 
 in the martyrdom of scientific men, has, in these later 
 days, taken a happier turn, and is now manifestly destroy- 
 ing that old theological spirit which has brought so much 
 misery and ruin upon the world. The ancient supersti- 
 tion, which was once universal, but is now slowly though 
 surely dying away, represented the Deity as being 
 constantly moved to anger, delighting in seeing his 
 creatures abuse and mortify themselves, taking pleasure 
 in their sacrifices and their austerities, and, notwithstand- 
 ing all they could do, constantly inflicting on them the 
 most grievous punishments, among which the different 
 forms of pestilence were conspicuous. It is by science, 
 and by science alone, that these horrible delusions are being 
 dissipated. Events which were formerly deemed super- 
 natural visitations, are now shown to depend upon natural 
 causes, and to be amenable to natural remedies. Man 
 can predict them, and man can deal with them. Being 
 the inevitable result of their own antecedents, no room 
 is left for the notion of their being special inflictions. 
 This great change in our opinions is fatal to theology, 
 but is serviceable to religion. For, by it, science, instead 
 of being the enemy of religion, becomes its ally. Re- 
 ligion is to each individual according to the inward light 
 with which he is endowed. In different characters, 
 therefore, it assumes different forms, and can never be 
 reduced to one common and arbitrary rule. Theology, 
 on the other hand, claiming authority over all minds, and 
 refusing to recognize their essential divergence, seeks to 
 compel them to a single creed, and sets up one standard 
 of absolute truth, by which it tests every one's opinions; 
 presumptuously condemning those who disagree with that 
 
116 
 
 standard. Such arrogant pretensions need means of 
 support. Those means are threats, which, in ignorant 
 times, are universally believed, and which, by causing 
 fear, produce submission. Hence it is that the books of 
 every theological system narrate acts of the grossest 
 cruelty which, without the least hesitation, are ascribed 
 to the direct interposition of God. Humane and gentle 
 natures revolt at such cruelties, even while they try to 
 believe them. It is the business of science to purify 
 theology, by showing that there has been no cruelty, 
 because there has been no interposition. Science ascribes 
 to natural causes what theology ascribes to supernatural 
 ones. According to this view, the calamities with which 
 the world is afflicted are the result of the ignorance of 
 man, and not of the interference of God. We must not, 
 therefore, ascribe to him what is due to our own folly, or 
 to our own vice. We must not calumniate an all-wise 
 and all-merciful Being, by imputing to him those little 
 passions which move ourselves, as if he were capable of 
 rage, of jealousy, and of revenge ; and as if he, with out- 
 stretched arm, were constantly employed in aggravating 
 the sufferings of mankind, and making the miseries of 
 the human race more poignant than they would otherwise 
 be." J Such is the 'attitude of the present age on the 
 question whether pestilence and death are of natural or 
 of supernatural origin ; and, it is hardly necessary to say, 
 that, with respect to the existence of a personal devil, 
 whose business is to disseminate the seeds of spiritual 
 disease and death, the tendency is in the same direction. 
 True, it may be urged, with some degree of plausibil- 
 ity, that, as there is in every mythology a Power some- 
 
 $ BUCKLE'S " Histwy of Civilization in England.'" 
 
117 
 
 wliat corresponding to our Prince of Darkness, so there 
 must be some fundamental fact on which a belief so 
 general is found to exist. But, even if we admit this, and 
 accept it at its maximum value, it does no more than 
 indicate that peculiar tendency in human nature accord- 
 ing to which man, in all earlier stages, and sometimes in 
 more advanced conditions, seeks to endow the different 
 forms and qualities of life with the elements of personality 
 a sentiment, however, notwithstanding its universality 
 in all rudimentary conditions, is, nevertheless, found 
 always to diminish as we ascend the scale of civilization. 
 The impersonation of principles is necessarily the 
 product of an early and uncultivated condition of thought 
 their abstraction and philosophical analysis the result of 
 an advanced stage of intellectual culture. Should we 
 pride ourselves on having attained the latter stage in our 
 development, we must, therefore, confess one of two 
 things : either that the belief in a personal Devil is an 
 unmeaning and hollow pretense, the life of which has 
 long since departed ; or, if real, that it is, in view of our 
 proposed enlightenment, an extraordinary phenomena, if 
 not an inexplicable anomaly. To say the least of it, 
 its existence 4n the nineteenth century is a marvel. How 
 long it will continue to exist, and exert its baneful innu- 
 
 At this point it does not seem irrelevant also to call attention to the fact 
 that the doctrine of "fallen amjels," who, on account of the war in heaven, 
 were " delivered into chains of darkness, 1 ' rests after all, apparently on Apocry- 
 phal and not on Canonical authority. 
 
 It is true that the tests generally used for its support are found in Jude and 
 Peter, but, as neither of these writers delivers the circumstances otherwise than as 
 derived from another source, it is very convincing evidence that we have discovered 
 the said source when we find in the book of Enoch (an Apocryphal work 
 discovered in Abyssinia) a complete record or pretended history of the exact 
 circumstances mentioned by;Jude and Peter. 
 
 This subject is well treated by SCALIGEK. 
 
118 
 
 ence, must necessarily depend on tlie result of the coming 
 contest between Reason and Superstition. Should victory 
 perch upon the banner of the latter, it is needless to say 
 that the manhood of the future will be branded with the 
 stigma of a detestable slavery. Should victory rest upon 
 the banner of the former, it is as needless to say that 
 posterity will amply realize the truth of Cowper's remark : 
 
 " 'Tis liberty alone that gives tlie flow'r 
 Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume, 
 And we are weeds without it." 
 
 Or, again, with Southey: 
 
 " Easier were it 
 
 To hurl the rooted mountain from its base 
 Than force the yoke of slavery upon men 
 Determined to be free." 
 
 In passing these strictures upon the current theolog- 
 ical estimate, it is, of course, to be expected that our 
 motives will be assailed, and the tendency of the 
 argument pronounced audacious as well as injurious. 
 The moment we attempt to criticise anything that has 
 become deeply imbedded in the popular consciousness, 
 just so surely do we stir a hornet's nest, and, in the 
 fullest possible measure, reap the reward of our inter- 
 ference. According, however, to the Latin maxim : 
 
 " Magna est veritas et praevaleMt. r 
 
 With this assurance, we may safely enter the field, 
 leaving the results to take care of themselves. Granted 
 the fact of man's sinfulness, is it indispensable that WQ 
 should preserve intact the idea of a personal tempter, 
 or continue to regard, as a historical truth, the account 
 of the fall ? Scarcely will any enlightened mind 
 
119 
 
 Venture on so rash an assertion. Certainly there is, as 
 we all know, something in the best of us which fetters 
 us to earth, and, in some instances, comes upon us with 
 the agonizing rush of a fearful temptation. Certainly, 
 also, there is with all of us, in a greater or lesser degree, 
 a power of introspection, and consciousness of the inter- 
 dependence between the world within and the world 
 without, which enables us to endorse the experience of 
 St. Augustine : "I sought whence is evil, and sought 
 in an evil way, and saw not the evil in my very 
 search. I set before the sight of my spirit the whole 
 creation, whatsoever we can see therein (as sea, earth, 
 air, stars, trees, mortal creatures) ; yea, and whatever in 
 it we do not see, as the firmament of heaven, all angels, 
 moreover, and all the spiritual inhabitants thereof. 
 But these very beings, as though they were bodies, did 
 my fancy dispose in place, and I made one great mass 
 of Thy creation, distinguished as to the kinds of bodies, 
 some real, some what myself had feigned for spirits. 
 And this mass I made huge, not as it was (which I 
 could not know), but as I thought convenient, yet every 
 way finite. But thee, O Lord ! I imagined on every 
 part environing and penetrating it, though every way 
 infinite ; as if there were a sea everywhere, and on 
 every side, through unmeasured space one only bound- 
 less sea -and it contained within it some sponge, huge, 
 but bounded ; that sponge must needs, in all its parts, be 
 filled from that unmeasurable sea ; so conceived I thy 
 creation, itself finite, full of thee, the Infinite, and I 
 said, behold God, and behold what God hath created ; 
 and God is good, yea, most mightily and incomparably 
 better than all these; but yet he, the Good, created 
 them good ; and see how he environeth them, and 
 
120 
 
 fulfills them. Where is evil, then, and whence, and how 
 crept it in hither? What is its root, and what is its 
 seed." Nor does this view, in any sense, indicate, an 
 exaggerated or abnormal state of mind. On the con- 
 trary, so strongly is the condition here represented a 
 reliable indication of a " sana metis in corpore sano" 
 that we may safely define this keen realization of evil, 
 and the many anomalies and contradictions it involves, 
 as being strictly the result of a healthy state of our 
 faculties, and at the same time a sure evidence of the 
 clearness of our intellectual vision. As the matter 
 stands, and as we are bound to accept it, man comes 
 into the world possessed of certain imperfections, which 
 very much diminish his usefulness, and impair his 
 happiness. It is of no use, by any process of sophistry, 
 to endeavor to change the true state of the case. There 
 it is ; and, whatever the cause may be, the effect still 
 remains. In fact, as human nature is at present con- 
 stituted, we are compelled, at almost every moment of 
 our daily experience, to recognize the existence of those 
 glaring inconsistencies, those lamentable failings, even in 
 the best natures, which induced the remark, " If man 
 was made in the image of God, he was also made in the 
 image of the ape," and also to propound the startling 
 question, "Thus standing on the frontier-land between 
 animal and angelic natures, what wonder he should 
 partake of both ?'' | To the modern thinker, therefore, 
 as truly as to the most orthodox divine, the disastrous 
 consequences caused by the existence of evil are clearly 
 perceptible. 
 
 " Mwal and Metaphysical Philotyphy" by FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE, 
 Professor of Causaistry and Modern Philosophy in the University of Cambridge. 
 || HALLAM, Introduction to " Literature of Europe.' 1 '' 
 
121 
 
 Here, however, the resemblance ceases; here we 
 approach the point of divergence which separates the 
 thought of the present from the thought of the past, in 
 this respect. As has been already shown, the ideas of 
 the past have been strictly of a retrospective character. 
 As we will discover, as we proceed, the ideas of the 
 present are essentially of a prospective character. 
 Hitherto it has been the custom to regard man's earliest 
 condition as one of innocence and happiness that 
 Grolden Age when, according to Hesiod : 
 
 "Men liv'd like gods, with minds devoid of care, 
 Away from toil and misery ; there was not 
 Timid old-age, but aye in feet and hands 
 Equally strong the banquet they enjoyed, 
 From every ill remote. They died as if 
 O'ercome with sleep, and all good things were theirs. 
 The bounteous earth did of herself bring forth 
 Fruit much and plenteous, and in quietness 
 Their works midst the numerous blessings they pursued." 
 
 Such, according to the estimate of the past, was man's 
 earliest condition ; while, on the other hand, there is a 
 decided disposition, on the part of modern thought, to 
 regard the earliest stage of human existence as one of 
 barbarism ; possibly removed by an almost imperceptible 
 gradation from the higher order of the Simla. Not the 
 departed glory of a condition of primal innocence, 
 leaving but the ruins and desolations of an ancient 
 temple, where all was peace and beauty, but the 
 suggestive outlines of a gradual growth; man, in one 
 sense, touching the earth as an animal ; in another, 
 turning his back on the geologic ages, and looking 
 toward a future of endless progress. In this connection, 
 it is not, of course, to" be denied, that the modern 
 
122 
 
 theory can only hope to overcome, very gradually, the 
 opposition which it has to expect from the dictates of 
 popular consciousness, so strongly supported as the 
 latter is by the creed of every religious denominatoin. 
 A word, therefore, to those, who in all such matters, 
 refuse to be governed by anything but tradition, 
 whether written or oral. Upon this subject, says one, 
 who spent ten years in carefully collecting and arranging 
 ethnological facts : " Traditions may be urged in support 
 either of the progression theory, or of the degradation 
 theory. These traditions may be partly true, and must 
 be partly untrue ; but whatever truth or untruth they 
 may contain, there is such difficulty in separating man's 
 recollection of what was, from his speculation as to 
 what might have been, that ethnology seems not likely 
 to gain much by attempts to judge of early stages of 
 civilization, on a traditional basis. The problem is one 
 which has occupied the philosophic mind, even in -savage 
 and barbaric life, and has been solved by speculation, 
 asserted as facts, and by traditions which are, in a great 
 measure, mere realized theories. The Chinese can show, 
 with all due gravity, the records of their ancient 
 dynasties, and tell us how, in old times, their ancestors 
 dwelt in caves, clothed themselves in leaves, and ate raw 
 flesh, till, under such and such rulers, they were taught 
 to build huts, prepare skins for garments, and make fire. 
 Lucretius can describe to us, in his famous lines, the 
 large-boned, hardy, lawless, primeval race of man, 
 living the roving life of the wild beasts, which he 
 overcame with stones and heavy clubs, devouring berries 
 and acorns, ignorant as yet of fire and agriculture, 
 and the use of skins for clothing. From this state, the 
 poet traces up the development of culture, beginning 
 
123 
 
 outside, but ending inside, the range of human memory. 
 To the same class belong those legends which, starting 
 from an ancient savage stage, describe its elevation by 
 divine civilizers : this which may be called the super- 
 natural progression-theory, is exemplified in the familiar 
 culture-traditions of Peru and Italy. "* Of course, we 
 expect to hear it said, in answer to this, that the 
 scriptural record settles the question. But is this 
 really so? 
 
 For argument sake, let us admit the genuiness of the 
 Mosaic statement ; and, even in the face of this, it does 
 no more than render Adam at least a typical savage. 
 As Sir John Lubbock remarks, in commenting on the 
 position assumed by the Duke of Argyll respecting the 
 primitive condition of man : " The Duke appears to 
 consider that the first men, though deficient in knowledge 
 of the mechanical arts, were morally and intellectually 
 superior, or at least equal, to those of the present day ; 
 and it is remarkable that, supporting such a view, he 
 should regard himself as a champion of orthodoxy. 
 Adam is represented to us in Genesis, not only as naked, 
 and subsequently clothed with leaves, but as unable to 
 resist the most trivial temptation, and as entertaining 
 very gross anthropomorphic conceptions of the Deity. 
 In fact, in all three characteristics in his mode of life, 
 in his moral condition, and in his intellectual concep- 
 tions Adam was a typical savage, "f Add to this the 
 moral and intellectual defects contained in the Mosaic 
 record, and the position of the Duke, as the champion 
 
 *" Primitive Culture^ by EDWARD B. TYLOK. 
 
 t" Origin of Civilization and Primitive Condition of 3fn,"by Sir JOHN 
 LUBBOCK, Bart., M.P., F.R.S. 
 
124 
 
 of orthodoxy, becomes even more inconsistent, even 
 more indefensible. 
 
 Besides, to return to first principles, and endeavor, as 
 far as we can, to enter into the notions which actuated 
 the author of the scriptural account of the creation of 
 man and his fall, it is evident, the more closely and 
 carefully we scrutizine the subject, that his intention 
 must have been to give expression to a mythical 
 narrative, rather than a historical fact. 
 
 The form is necessarily that of an allegory, because 
 this is just what would suggest itself to the mind during 
 that state which we may not inappropriately describe 
 as the dawn of reason ; a position, which we are all the 
 more fully warranted in assuming in view of that child- 
 like simplicity which pervades the entire narrative. 
 Then, as now, the contest between man's higher and 
 lower natures was an extraordinary phenomenon, an 
 exhaustless problem. 
 
 Standing, as it were, on the threshold of an infant 
 world, and realizing, in the first movement of intel- 
 lectual consciousness, that there is something strangely 
 mixed in the constituents of human nature, we can 
 enter into, and appreciate at once, the beauty and 
 the adumbration of truth which this myth conveys. 
 Here, however, we must be careful to guard against a 
 very common error respecting that remarkable creature 
 which enters so largely into, and which forms so im- 
 portant a feature in, the* figurative record : in using the 
 serpent as a simile, the writer, of course, meant to convey 
 the principle of evil ; but, in doing so, we must carefully 
 discriminate between the idea which it really embodied 
 and the significance attributed to it by commentators 
 generally. In employing the symbol, the writer 
 
125 
 
 evidently deiived the suggestion from the peculiar 
 characteristics of that remarkable creature, which, in 
 addition to the marvels related of it in antiquity, was 
 especially prevalent in the lands in which the scriptural 
 account was composed. As it went hissing about OH its 
 belly, it was everywhere the mortal foe of man ; and 
 thus the symbolism would not only seem in accordance 
 with dictates of nature, but also, under the circumstances, 
 the best representation that could possibly be given. 
 The notion, however, of its identity with Satan as the 
 Prince of Darkness belongs to a later age possibly 
 some centuries later than Moses and did not then 
 originate with the Hebrews ; having come to them from 
 foreign sources: most probably, as Strauss suggests, 
 " Having emigrated from the Zend religion into the 
 Jewish." 
 
 Indeed, so strongly is this important point settled by 
 the nature of the records themselves, that it requires 
 very little observation to discover that the notion of 
 Satan as the author of evil appears only in the later 
 books, composed after the Jews had been brought in 
 contact with Persian ideas and sentiments. $ 
 
 Nor can it be denied that this later idea, in which 
 the meaning of a simple allegory is so strangely converted 
 into a theological dictum supporting the belief in a 
 personal devil, is, in many respects, inferior to that 
 earlier symbolism, in which the serpent is used simply 
 
 % In the words of M. BREAL, "Satan assumes, in Zacharias and in the first 
 book of Chronicles, the character of Ahriman, and appears 'as the author of 
 evil. Still later he becomes the prince of the devils, the source of wicked 
 thoughts, the enemy of the word of God. He tempts the Son of God ; he 
 enters into Judas for his ruin. The Apocalypse exhibits Satan with the 
 physical attributes of Ahriman: he is called the dragon, the old Serpent, who 
 fights against God and his ^angels. The Vedic myth, transformed and exagger- 
 ated in the Iranian books, finds its way through this channel into Christianity." 
 
126 
 
 as the representative of our lower or sensual desires a 
 transition of thought which, it is also well to remember, 
 has necessarily produced, in the order of its growth, 
 that grotesque compound of elements which the Devil 
 of the Middle Ages represents ; and which, to some 
 extent, still casts its dismal shadow over modern civiliza- 
 tion. || 
 
 Under the influence, therefore, of this retrospective 
 estimate, and the sense of degradation which it associates 
 with man's nature and destiny, it is not to be wondered 
 at that there should be no possibility of so far applying 
 the Procrustean method as to reduce the proportions of 
 modern thought to the dimensions of such a theory. 
 
 From whatever cause it may originate, and however 
 much we way differ in our opinions as to its ultimate 
 consequences^ there is no denying the fact that the 
 tendency of the present age is toward an enlarged 
 mental horizon, a greater breadth of thought, and a 
 higher estimate of the possibilities of human nature. 
 Apparently, we are living in the same world as that 
 inhabited by our ancestors; while, really, the difference is 
 almost as great as that between Asiatic and European 
 civilization. In the one, the conditions were mainly of 
 a static character. In the other, the dynamic influence 
 preponderates. 
 
 With our forefathers, the universe was, to all intents, 
 " a seven-storied structure, in which the Hebrew and 
 early Christian imagination found room for everything 
 earthly, devilish, and Divine." With us at least with 
 
 II For some interesting particulars respecting the characteristics which have 
 at times been attributed to this Piince of Darkness, see Buckle's remarks on 
 the Scotch theologians of the seventeeth century History of Civilization. 
 Also, the peculiar Monkish tale, " Celestlnus arid the Miller's Horse." Gesta 
 Roinanorum. 
 
127 
 
 those of as who belong to the progressionist school 
 " everything has turned out grander in the reality than 
 in the perception : the heavens that open to the eye of a 
 Herschel ; the geologic time whose measures direct the 
 calculations of a Lyell ; the chain of living existence 
 whose links are in the mind of a Hooker, Agassiz, or 
 Darwin infinitely transcend the universe of Psalm- 
 ist's song and Apocalyptic vision." And as with the 
 physical, so with the intellectual side of the subject. 
 Proportionally as we enlarge our ideas of the material 
 universe, we also enlarge our views of human nature, 
 the measure of human capabilities, and the grandeur of 
 that destiny for which, as members of the genus homo, 
 we were intended. 
 
 Hitherto, it has been the custom to regard everything 
 human, as being largely devilish, and under the penalty 
 of a curse involved in an act of disobedience. Hence- 
 forth, the indications are that our opinions will be 
 framed according to a very different estimate. 
 
 "The human will," said Luther, "is like a beast of 
 burden. If God mounts it, it wishes and goes as God 
 wills ; if Satan mounts it,, it wishes and goes as Satan 
 wills. Nor can it choose the rider it would prefer, or 
 betake itself to him, but it is the riders who contend for 
 its possession." Or, as St. Augustine expresses it in the 
 case of a mother having two infants : " Each of these is 
 a lump of perdition ; neither has ever performed a moral 
 act. The mother overlies one, and it perishes, being 
 unbaptized] the other is baptized, and is saved." 
 
 But enough of this; accepting as a more agreeable 
 subject of contemplation the brighter and the more 
 encouraging picture suggested by modern thought. 
 According to this view, although man is largely a 
 
128 
 
 creature of anomalies, he is, nevertheless, so constituted 
 that he needs but the healthy development of his 
 faculties to insure his progress. In fact, that he is, in 
 the strictest sense, a progressive animal, and not a 
 degraded angel. True, we do not escape, under this 
 estimate, any more than we do under the degredation 
 theory, from that dreadful mass of corruption which 
 surrounds us on every side. . In the one case, as in the 
 other, we are met by the fearful results of ignorance, 
 brutality, poverty, squalor, and intemperance ; those 
 distressing instances of .moral shipwreck and spiritual 
 barrenness which so sadly depress every thoughtful mind. 
 But, in contradistinction to the retrospective theorist, 
 the modern thinker, while he surveys this deplorable 
 chaos, at the same time asks, Is it unphilosophical to 
 believe that the God who spent ages in adapting the 
 earth to those conditions requisite 'to human life may 
 yet spend ages in adapting man for the final triumph of 
 his higher over his lower natures? As Lord Dunraven 
 forcibly expressed it, in his opening address to the 
 Cambrian Archaeological Association : " If we look back 
 through the entire period of the past history of man, as 
 exhibited in the result of archaeological investigation, 
 we can scarcely fail to perceive, that, the whole exhibits 
 one grand scheme of progression, which, notwithstanding 
 partial periods of decline, has for its end, the ever- 
 increasing civilization of man, and the gradual develop- 
 ment of his higher faculties, and, for its object, the con- 
 tinual manipulation of the design, the power, the 
 wisdom, and the goodness of Almighty God." || 
 
 For a formidable array of facts in opposition to the degradation theory, 
 see Sir JOHN LUBBOCK'S " Prthtetwic Times.' 1 '' 
 
 \\ " Origin of Civilization and Primitive Condition of Man," by Sir J. 
 LUBBOCK, Bait. 
 
129 
 
 Instead of reducing man to that deplorable condition, 
 which represents him as subject to a curse imposed by 
 an angry Deity, on the one hand, and liable to the 
 endless machinations of the Devil, on the other; the 
 disposition of modern thought is to regard sin as a 
 negative rather than a positive condition : a state indica- 
 tive of the absence of virtue, rather than a condition in 
 which evil becomes the substratum of human nature. 
 Persist in the old idea, and we place the noblest part of 
 our nature under the pressure of an incubus, which, 
 (to say the least of it), is far from conducive to a healthy 
 anticipation of the future. 
 
 Accept the later estimate, even on the ground of a 
 philosophical thesis, and we rise to a more consistent and 
 more rational view of man's nature, the measure of his 
 destiny, and the relationship he bears to those conditions 
 by which he is surrounded. Indeed, even if we with- 
 hold our assent, on the point of actual superiority, we 
 must admit, that the modern mind encourages a belief, 
 which is wider in its scope, more sanguine in its expecta- 
 tations, and more comprehensive in its estimate, both of 
 Grojd and man. Evils, which a hundred years ago, were 
 piously deemed especial visitations of Providence, are 
 now resolved into their constituent elements, as products 
 of natural law. The causes that have produced this 
 change of sentiment, are of secondary importance. 
 Enough for our present purpose that they, exist; among 
 its most prominent characteristics being that spirit of 
 philosophical consistency which refuses to recognize the 
 idea of a discordant universe, one half governed by 
 God, and the other by the Devil. 
 
 In a limited sense, it may be true that the modem 
 mind is compelled to acknowledge the force of St. Paul's 
 
130 
 
 statement, in his Epistle to the Ephesians, in which he 
 says : " We battle not with flesh and blood, but with 
 principalities and powers ; with evil spirits that rule in 
 the air." As a general statement, indicative of those 
 alternations and evidences of frailty which every human 
 being, more or less, realizes, no thoughtful man will 
 reject the simile. But, to press the statement further, 
 and insist on its literal acceptation, is to make a demand 
 which modern thought will not assent to. 
 
 The specific difference between the ancient and 
 modern theories consists in the fact that while the one 
 adheres literally to the idea of an immensely powerful 
 demonology as the cause of evil, the other relegates the 
 whole subject of the Devil and his imps to that region 
 of myth in which the human mind, in its earlier stages, 
 delights to dwell ; and which, as in the Persian mythol- 
 ogy, embodied the idea of evil in the person of Ahriman, 
 as the author of darkness, the creator of wild beasts, 
 poisonous serpents, etc., and the cause of diseases, earth- 
 quakes and storms; the opposite idea of good being 
 correspondingly expressed in the person of Ormuzd, as 
 the creator of the sun, moon, and stars, and the cause of 
 everything that contributes to man's happiness. In the 
 one case, the sentiment is the result of the earlier and 
 more rudimentary condition of Animism. In the other, 
 it is indicative of that higher stage of intellectual culture 
 which not only denotes a more advanced condition of 
 civilization, but which, at the same time, refuses to 
 believe that there is such a thing as intrinsic evil. In 
 other words, while it recognizes the fact of man's imper- 
 fections and inconsistencies, it holds fondly and persist- 
 ingly to the idea that evil is but an evanescent 
 phenomenon, which time and experience will gradually 
 
181 
 
 remove. Nor does it avail to argue that trie testimony 
 of history is opposed to this theory of gradual develop- 
 ment, which regards nothing as thoroughly and essentially 
 vile, and which, also, would apply the principle of 
 continuity, and gradual growth, to the problem of human 
 progress. That there do exist instances of retrogression, 
 as well as of progression, in the records of history, is 
 undeniable ; but that these instances may be fitly com- 
 pared with the periods of declination in the magnetic 
 needle is equally obvious to any one who tests the 
 subject by a comprehensive estimate. They indicate 
 temporary variations, not permanent disturbances. In 
 the long line of the past, nation after nation has taken 
 up the beacon-light of civilization, leading others on- 
 ward and upward until some defect has gradually 
 produced ruin and decay. 
 
 " Another day is added to the map 
 Of buried ages." 
 
 We mourn over the monumental remains of civilizations 
 long since passed away ; we shudder at the possibility of 
 Macaulay's New Zealarider ever contemplating the ruins 
 of St. Paul's ; we are depressed at the the Sisyphean 
 character of our civilization ; and we wonder, in our 
 sadness, why such things are permitted. 
 
 In our perplexity, we may be inclined to give up the 
 problem in despair ; but this is unmanly, unphilosophical. 
 For a time, there may exist a transitional phase of 
 darkness, but it cannot, in the nature of things, be 
 permanent. Evidences which, at 'first sight, appear to 
 contradict the idea of continuity and the perpetuity of 
 progress as a component part of man's destiny, upon a 
 closer examination are found to prove, rather than to 
 disprove, the theory. It is for a time, and for a time 
 
132 
 
 only, that the march of advancement seems to he 
 arrested, and the hopes of humanity to be buried beneath 
 the ruins of departed greatness and promise. In the 
 revolution of ages, empires and dynasties have passed, 
 away, but the elements of good that they contained are 
 indestructible they are with us still. 
 
 For instance, who that studies carefully the charac- 
 teristics of modern thought can be otherwise than 
 impressed with the fact that, although the glory of 
 Greece and the grandeur of Eome have long since 
 departed, the present age is, in a very large measure, 
 a reflection of their ideas and sentiments. The strict 
 sense of Eoman justice has given us our modern 
 jurisprudence ; * the spirit of Koman manliness, combined 
 with the Saxon love of freedom, is, to a very great extent, 
 the terra firma of our republican principles and insti- 
 tutions. 
 
 As for Greece, it would hardly seem necessary to 
 dwell upon a fact which is, more or less, familiar to every 
 school-boy ; and which we all, in some measure, realize, 
 either through the productions of her artists, her poets, 
 or her philosophers. There is a charm in her name, a 
 fascination in her literature, and a majestic grandeur in 
 her intellectual stature which speak so forcibly for 
 themselves as to scarcely require any additional empha- 
 sis. And yet there is a tribute, paid by Macaulay, 
 
 * The vain titles of victories of Justinian are crumbled into dust, but the 
 name of the legislator is inscribed on a fair and everlasting monument Under 
 his reign, and by his care, the civil jurisprudence was digested in the immortal 
 works of the Code, the Pandects, and the Institutes; the public reason of the 
 Romans has been silently or studiously transfused into the domestic institutions 
 of Europe, and the laws of Justinian still command the respect or obedience 
 of independent nations. GIBBON'S "History of the Decline and Fall of the 
 Roman Empire.' 1 '' 
 
183 
 
 to the influence of the literature of Athens which we 
 cannot refrain from quoting. It is so beautifully 
 expressed, and, at the same time, so just, that it will, 
 perhaps, in a fuller measure, enable us to appreciate the 
 magnitude of the debt which we owe in this direction. 
 Says he : " It is a subject on which I love to forget the 
 accuracy [of a judge, in the veneration of a worshiper, 
 and the gratitude of a child. If we consider merely the 
 subtlety of disquisition, the force of imagination, the 
 perfect energy and eloquence of expression, which 
 characterize the great works of Athenian genius, we 
 must pronounce them intrinsically most valuable ; but 
 what shall we say when we reflect that from hence have 
 sprung, directly or indirectly, all the noblest creations of 
 the human intellect that from hence were the vast 
 accomplishments and the brilliant fancy of Cicero ; the 
 withering fire of Jnivenal ; the plastic imagination of 
 Dante ; the humor of Cervantes ; the comprehension of 
 Bacon ; the wit of Butler ; the supreme and universal 
 excellence of Shakspeare ? All the triumphs of truth 
 and genius over prejudice and power, in every country 
 and in every age, have been the triumphs of Athens. 
 Wherever a few great minds have made a stand against 
 violence and fraud, in the cause of liberty and reason, 
 there has been her spirit in the midst of them inspiring, 
 encouraging, consoling ; by the lonely lamp of Erasmus ; 
 by the restless bed of Pascal ; in the tribune of Mira- 
 beau ; in the cell of Galileo ; on the scaffold of Sydney. 
 But who shall estimate her influence on private happi- 
 ness? Who shall say how many thousands have been 
 made wiser, happier, and better, by those pursuits in 
 which she has taught mankind to engage? To how 
 many the studies, which took their rise from her, have 
 
134 
 
 been wealth in poverty, liberty in bondage, health in 
 sickness, society in solitude? Her power is indeed 
 manifested at the bar, in the senate, in the field of 
 battle, in the schools of philosophy. But these are not 
 her glory. Wherever literature consoles sorrow, or 
 assuages pain, wherever it brings gladness to eyes which 
 fail with wakefulness and tears, and ache for the dark 
 house and the long sleep, there is exhibited, in its noblest 
 form, the immortal influence of Athens. The dervise, in 
 the Arabian tale, did not hesitate to abandon to his 
 comrade the camels with their load of jewels and gold, 
 while he retained the casket of that mysterious juice 
 which enabled him to behold at one glance all the 
 hidden riches of the universe. Surely it is no exaggera- 
 tion to say that no external advantage is to be compared 
 with that purification of the intellectual eye which 
 gives us to contemplate the infinite wealth of the mental 
 world, all the hoarded treasures of its primeval dynasties, 
 all the shapeless ore of its yet unexplored mines. This 
 is the gift of Athens to man. Her freedom and her 
 power have, for more than twenty centuries, been 
 annihilated ; her people have degenerated into timid 
 slaves, her language into a barbarous jargon; her 
 temples have been given up to the successive depreda- 
 tions of Kornans, Turks, and Scotchmen; but her 
 intellectual empire is imperishable. And when those 
 who have rivaled her greatness shall have shared her 
 fate ; when civilization and knowledge shall have fixed 
 their abodes in distant continents; when the scepter 
 shall have passed away from England; when, perhaps, 
 travelers from distant regions shall, in vain, labor to 
 decipher on some mouldering pedestal the name of our 
 proudest chief shall hear savage hymns chanted to 
 
135 
 
 some misshapen idol over the rained dome of our 
 proudest temple, and shall see a naked fisherman wash 
 his nets in the river of the ten thousand masts her 
 influence and her glory will still survive, fresh in eternal 
 youth, exempt from mlitability and decay, immortal as 
 the intellectual principle from which they derived their 
 origin and over which they exercise their control/' So 
 it is as regards the influences of the past upon the 
 present; so it must also be as regards 'the influences of 
 present upon the future. Through the principles of 
 hereditary transmission, the qualities of one age con- 
 tribute, in a very important sense, toward the formation 
 of character in the next. In the realm of human 
 activities, as is the case with physical nature, there is no 
 condition of growth independent of antecedent circum- 
 stances. 
 
 Civilization is a process governed by natural and 
 immutable laws, and not an introduction into fairy-land 
 where everything can be determined by the influences 
 of magical instrumentality. And just here we arrive at a 
 phase in our subject in which Ave cannot too clearly 
 realize that inexorable relationship between causes and 
 their effects which determines the fate of nations as 
 well as individuals. 
 
 It is written in indelible characters in all -the records 
 of departed civilizations ; it stands to-day as the obvious 
 danger of our present condition a sad and solemn 
 specter, which no thoughtful man can help seeing ; and 
 which, while it reminds us of the experience of -the past, 
 prophetically indicates our danger in the future. 
 
 By this, it is hardly necessary to state that we allude, 
 in an especial sense, to that pernicious estimate which 
 fails to discover the indestructibilty of sequence in the 
 
136 
 
 moral universe that purblind sentiment which settles 
 into a sense of complacency and inanition, while our 
 social, political, and moral atmosphere is daily becoming 
 more and more contaminated through the detestable forms 
 of vice and corruption which surround us on every side ; 
 and when even our sense of patriotism seems to have so 
 far left us that we hand over the preservation of our 
 liberties to base, unprincipled demagogues, while men 
 of honor, purity, and culture, are kept in a hopeless and 
 helpless minority. 
 
 Conceal it as we will, it is an undeniable fact that the 
 moral tone of the country is at an ebb. Deceive our- 
 selves as we will, it is, also, tr^ue that this decline cannot 
 exist without producing the most disastrous consequences. 
 Descending for a moment from the higher to the lower 
 strata of society, can we suppose that our prisons would 
 contain one half their present number of inhabitants if 
 society was pervaded by a different moral atmosphere ? 
 Certainly not. Acting under a Pharisaic sense of superi- 
 ority, accompanied by a willful blindness to facts as they 
 are, we have been too apt to regard these unfortunate 
 creatures as exceptional and unnatural productions of 
 society ; whereas, the truth is that they indicate a guilty 
 society, quite as truly as they indicate guilty individuals. 
 In other words, as it is impossible for any malaria to 
 exist under healthy atmospheric conditions, so is it 
 impossible for crime to exist, either in an endemic or 
 epidemic form, without the presence of certain impurities 
 in our moral atmosphere, operating as so many deleterious 
 influences and causes of disease. It. is not that our state- 
 prisons and our penitentiaries are so many luxuries which 
 we cannot afford to dispense with, so many museums in 
 which the virtuous man may study the curiosities of 
 
137 
 
 crime, and congratulate himself on the contrast. That 
 this is a common opinion, arising from a Combination of 
 ignorance and egotism, may possibly be true ; but that 
 it is a sentiment diametrically opposed to the dictates of 
 reason and reflection is equally apparent. Let us persist 
 in holding to the idea which represents criminals as 
 abnormal productions, and we are deceiving ourselves, 
 and dealing unjustly with them. Let us, on the other 
 hand, realize the important fact that they are, to a very 
 great exteiit, the representative men of the nation, and we 
 will very soon discover the measure of the responsibility 
 which rests upon us. It is a mistake to suppose that \v o 
 can remedy the evil by merely caging these unfortunates 
 for a season, as if they were wild beasts, and then letting 
 them loose on society again to re-enact their former lives, 
 and reap the same results. In its way, punishment is 
 well, it is a necessity ; but until we have thoroughly 
 realized that it has a remedial as well as a retributive 
 aspect, we are sadly wanting in the most indispensable 
 element of progress, viz., a proper appreciation of that 
 immutability of sequence in the moral world to which, 
 we have before alluded, and which, in the most emphatic 
 manner, proclaims the necessity of our elevating this 
 seething mass of ignorance and corruption by which we 
 are surrounded. By all means, let our laws express the 
 greatest possible abhorrence of crime and uncleanness, 
 the greatest possible veneration for purity of character 
 and an unblemished integrity. Let them canonize 
 virtue, and denounce vice. It is an indispensable part of 
 our ethical culture that it should be so. But this is not 
 all. As we examine into the subject, and endeavor as 
 far as possible to separate the seeming from the real, we 
 are met .by the startling fact that there is something 
 
138 
 
 radically wrong in our entire moral system ; that much 
 of the glitter of society, and almost all the usages of our 
 businesss life, are but so many forms of shining putres- 
 cence; so many instances of moral decomposition and 
 decay. The moral distemper which disgraces our places 
 of public trust, no less than the seething mass of igno- 
 rance and pauperism which produce our burglars and 
 murderers, is an excrescence which demands our imme- 
 diate attention. 
 
 In view of our national resources and wonderful 
 elasticity of character, the day of retribution may be 
 indefinitely postponed ; but that it must come, sooner or 
 later, unless we can rid ourselves of these demoralizing 
 influences, no sane man can for a moment doubt. With 
 us, as with those civilizations that have preceded us, all 
 real progress depends upon the quality of our principles ; 
 the quality of our principles, upon the character of our 
 moral ideal. 
 
 And this brings us to the question of a complete and 
 universal system of education as the most satisfactory 
 foundation on which to build our hopes of the future. 
 "We must educate our masters " is not only true in the 
 sarcastic sense in which Mr. Lowe applied it to the 
 growth of democracy in England : it is also true as a 
 principle underlying the whole subject of political 
 economy, and strictly pertaining to the philosophy of 
 progress ; a principle, also, which, if applicable to the 
 British form of government, is especially applicable to 
 this country, where a man's right to a voice in the 
 government consists in the simple fact of his being an 
 American citizen. 
 
 To some extent we have already realized the import- 
 ance of this subject, and in the erection of our public 
 
139 
 
 schools made a very commendable effort toward its 
 general application. But the trouble is we do not realize 
 sufficiently that education is not a process of unnatural 
 cramming apparently adopted from the method of 
 enlarging the liver of the Strasburg goose. Neither does 
 it consist in that circumscribed theory which would lead 
 us to suppose that education is a thing of schools and 
 books merely, or even mainly. In their way, they are, 
 of course, indispensable ; but to draw the line here, and, 
 in so doing, lose sight of the immense space which life 
 and experience and personal thinking and feeling must 
 necessarily fill in, is, indeed, to fall miserably short in our 
 estimate.. 
 
 There can, of course, be no education without some 
 instruction, but there may be a great deal of instruction 
 without education. Indeed, the Latan word educo, from 
 which our English word education is derived, meaning, as 
 it does, a leading forth, is in itself conclusive evidence 
 that the best-educated man is not, strictly speaking, he 
 ivho knows most, but he who can do most- 
 
 The extent and quality of our knowledge must 
 always influence the character of our habits ; but, after 
 all, the highest wisdom, combined with the grandest aim 
 of education, does not so much consist in what ive 
 know, as ivhat we are. 
 
 This, it will be seen, necessarily brings us to the 
 indispensability of an appropriate moral ideal as an influ- 
 ence coordinate with the development of our intellectual 
 faculties. Owing to the intense bustle and activity of 
 the present age, we know that it is especially difficult to 
 obtain for this question of interdependence between our 
 practical and ideal life the consideration which it merits. 
 In this busy, money-making metropolis, more, perhaps, 
 
140 
 
 than in any other part of the world, any attempt to 
 analyze or enter into a subject so delicate in its nature is 
 particularly beset with difficulties. 
 
 Unfortunately for us, we live in too great a hurry; we 
 think in too great a hurry ; and, therefore, have no time 
 for these finer shadings of thought so indispensable to 
 our culture and real progress. That this is the case, 
 however, by no means denies the validity of the claim ; 
 it merely denotes a deficiency in our mode of life, which 
 cannot be too soon remedied. The circumstances pro- 
 ducing this state of unnatural excitement, and threaten- 
 ing us with a condition of turpitude, are, of course, to 
 be regretted ; but their existence does not, and cannot, 
 set aside the fact that there can be no consistent estimate 
 of progress which does not recognize those subtle but 
 extremely potent influences derived from the ideal side 
 of our civilization. Not that the conditions of human 
 existence render the existence of such influences merely 
 probable, but that they do more : they go beyond this, 
 and render them absolutely imperative and indispensable. 
 
 It is a law of nature, and not a chimerical idea evolved 
 from the culturist's imagination. It is a principle of 
 human growth and development, and not a mere abstrac- 
 tion of philosophy. 
 
 It is demonstrated by that fact of observation through 
 which we recognize that every man, in some sense, 
 resembles the objective point toward which his desires 
 tend ; it marks the difference between the cultivated and 
 the uncultivated man ; it indicates the difference between 
 those persons described by Professor Blackie, in his 
 admirable essay on Self-culture, as "human lobsters," and 
 those noble specimens of humanity, who, besides s'eizing 
 upon the beautiful and good as their proper aliment, are, 
 
141 
 
 also, always intent on performing some useful work, 
 something that may help the cause of progress, and so 
 lift humanity nearer to the realization of happiness, 
 accompanied by a sense of its grand and noble destiny. 
 It is especially illustrated in the elevating and purifying 
 influences of Christianity ; in connection with which, as 
 another has truly said : " The great characteristic of 
 Christianity, and the great moral proof of its divinity, is 
 that it has been the main source of the moral develop- 
 ment of Europe, and that it has discharged this office not 
 so much by the inculcation of a system of ethics, how- 
 ever pure, as by the assimilating and attractive influence 
 of a perfect ideal. The moral progress of mankind can 
 never cease to be distinctively and intensely Christian as 
 long as it consists of a gradual approximation to the 
 character of the Christian founder. There is, indeed, 
 nothing more wonderful in the history of the human 
 race than the way in which that ideal has traversed the 
 lapse of ages, acquiring new strength and beauty with 
 each advance of civilization, and infusing its beneficent 
 influence into every sphere of thought and action." J A 
 beautiful tribute to Christianity certainly ; but no more 
 beautiful than true. 
 
 As such, may we, therefore, appreciate it ; and in our 
 application of the principle to our growth as a nation, 
 and our responsibilities as individuals, endeavor as far 
 as possible to estimate the true character of our ideal 
 life, and the probable consequences resulting therefrom 
 to ourselves and posterity. As has 1jeen shown at an 
 earlier stage in this chapter, one of the most striking 
 characteristics of modern thought consists in its repudia- 
 
 !i " History of Rationalism in Europe,"" by W. E. H. LECKY, M. A. 
 
142 
 
 tion of that theory which regards man as a worm, rather 
 than a creature of grand and glorious possibilities ; but 
 this is not all ; nor is it the most important consequence 
 demanded by our transitional process of thought. As 
 a means of changing our general estimate of God, 
 Man and Nature, it is undeniably a move in the right 
 direction ; but the danger is that we stop here ; forgetting 
 that this change of sentiment is, after all, a germinal 
 principle of thought, and not a positive force of action. 
 
 That we have gained much by the change which sub- 
 stitutes the progression theory for the degradation theory 
 no candid mind will deny, but that the change is imper- 
 fect, except so far as it becomes a living reality, elevating 
 our consciousness, and enlarging our view of human char- 
 acter, is equally apparent. 
 
 As long as the change represents merely an intel- 
 lectual conception, its function is rather regulative than 
 formative. In its combination with sentiment, however, it 
 becomes an immensely potent influence, encouraging, 
 sustaining, and impelling us ever onward in the contempla- 
 tion of the beautiful and true ; demanding, in fact, as the 
 proper nourishment of our enlarging faculties, that 
 exquisite adaptation of thought and feeling without which 
 there can be no distinctly human development, no possi- 
 bility of our rising to that grandeur and beauty of char- 
 acter which depends upon the united and harmonious 
 action of an enlightened reason and a purified sentiment. 
 
 In dealing with this question of our ideal life, and the 
 influence it exerts on the formation of individual and 
 national character, it may be true, as Taine expresses it: 
 " In regard to the Ideal, it is the heart which speaks ; we 
 then think of the vague and beautiful dream by which is 
 expressed the deepest sentiment ; we scarcety breathe it in 
 
I4; 3 > 
 
 the lowest voice, with a kind of subdued enthusiasm ; 
 when we speak of it otherwise, it is in verse, in a can- 
 ticle ; we dwell on it reverently, with clasped hands, as 
 if it concerned happiness, heaven, or love." Such is, un- 
 doubtedly, one aspect of the subject ; and as such, it 
 brings us into a condition in which we suspend, for the 
 moment, the hard, dry facts of every-day life a moment- 
 ary insight into the finer susceptibilities of our nature. 
 
 " The gleam, 
 
 The light that never was, on sea or land, 
 The consecration, and the poet's dream." 
 
 In addition to this, however, there is a philosophical side 
 to be considered, a process of thought in which although 
 the beauty of the poetical conception is not lost, it is for 
 the moment superseded by that intellectual analysis 
 which enables us to see as well as feel. 
 
 '"The ideals we frame of life and happiness must in- 
 volve a more or less positively ethical character. We 
 cannot imagine what we are to be, and to become, in fortune 
 and success, without proposing, more or less distinctly, 
 what we ought to be in character, and to perform in action. 
 Hence, in a certain sense, what a man aspires to become, 
 has already ethically decided what he is. His aims and 
 standard are the reflex of his wishes and his wills, as well 
 as the assurance of what he can achieve in the future."* 
 
 It is so in the formation of individual character : it 
 must, by the same rule, be -so in the formation of national 
 character. In carrying out this idea, it matters not 
 whether we regard Religion as subsidiary to Culture, or 
 Culture as subsidiary to Eeligion. In both instances, the 
 
 * "Elements of Intellectual Science," by NOAH PORTER, D.D., L.L.D., Presi- 
 dent of Yale College. 
 
144 
 
 result is the same. In either case, we start with the con- 
 viction that there are certain conditions inhering in our 
 nature which " the flesh-pots of Egypt " can never sat- 
 isfy. In either case, the same need of human nature 
 is assumed, viz., the indispensability of an ennobling ideal 
 which shall elevate and enlarge our views of life, and 
 which, in unveiling more and more the grandeur and 
 perfection of moral beauty, will bring us nearer to the 
 attainment of that noble humanity which we justly 
 regard as constituting the crown and glory of the 
 universe. 
 
 Glancing over the range of modern civilization, and 
 enumerating the evidences of material prosperity and 
 progress by which we are surrounded, is well ; it is per- 
 fectly natural and proper that we should pride ourselves 
 on our attainments in this direction. Looking around 
 us, and observing the numerous instances of intellectual 
 advancement which present themselves for our encourage- 
 ment, is also well. The diffusion of knowledge, and the 
 restless spirit of inquiry which follows necessarily as its 
 consequence, are undeniable evidences that we are 
 moving in the right direction. It is a glorious promise, 
 and well may encourage .us to hope for the future. In its 
 last analysis, the power of the intellect is the mightiest 
 power in the universe ; it is the angel of light, removing 
 the fetters of ignorance and superstition, and bidding 
 the human mind to stand erect in its freedom. All this 
 it does ; but without an ennobling moral motive-power 
 as its accompaniment it is incomplete. Man is neither 
 all reason, nor all sentiment; but a combination made 
 up of both. It is only in this sense, therefore, that we 
 can consistently regard him. Exaggerate the one at the 
 expense of the other, and the consequence is an abnor- 
 
145 
 
 mal development. Combine them, and allow them to 
 interpenetrate each other, and we produce a normal devel- 
 opment, as well as a distinctly human being. In the 
 moral world, as in the intellectual, there is a beauty 
 which we cannot afford to dispense with. No matter 
 whether we have attained "to our present position through 
 a process of evolution, or whether the more prevalent 
 theory be correct. Tested in the light of consciousness and 
 experience, it is obvious that we are possessed of certain 
 capabilities which were never, intended to rust in us 
 unused. Indeed, the grandest and profoundest interpret- 
 ation we can give to the doctrine of Evolution is when 
 we apply its principles to the endless development and 
 progress of spiritual ideas, as truly as to the consequences, 
 of its action in the world of matter. 
 
 In one sense, the moral side of our nature must be 
 governed by the intellectual ; but this by no means denies 
 the necessity of their united action. The aim of true 
 progress is the full and harmonious development of all 
 our faculties ; the bringing our entire nature, physical, 
 moral, and intellectual, into the highest state of perfection, 
 and the most exquisite harmony that sweet accord so 
 well portrayed by Tennyson : 
 
 "Let knowledge grow from 'more to more, 
 But more of reverence in us dwell ; 
 That mind and soul, according well, 
 May make one music as before. 
 
 But vaster " 
 
 Such, it seems to us, are the true conditions of progress. 
 To estimate the subject merely by glittering superficiali- 
 ties is a fallacy. Before this continent was discovered, 
 other nations made their estimate on these principles, and 
 
146 
 
 they paid the penalty of their folly. They have gone 
 down to their graves teaching us the important lesson 
 that even in the proudest, and, to all appearances, even in 
 the most flourishing civilizations, there may exist the 
 causes of dissolution and decay. Again and again, the 
 world has seemed to realize the idea of happiness ; but 
 as frequently has it eluded men's grasp, and passed 
 away, remaining still an ideal rather than a real state. 
 For instance, the Symposium of Plato is as a beauti- 
 ful dream, in which Love and Philosophy join hands, 
 and, in their union, seek for that sublimation of feel- 
 ing which ends in the contemplation of the beautiful 
 and good. So, also, the most pathetic and beautiful 
 strains of Virgil are directed toward the attainment 
 of that tranquility which gives such an imperishable 
 charm to his poetry. So, also, Pindar, as he intro- 
 duces us into the Fortunate Islands, paints with wonder 
 ful vividness and exquisite beauty, the happiness of 
 the blessed, f So, indeed, it has been in every instance 
 in which the mind has risen above the petty cares and 
 ills of life. From the pressure of circumstance, our daily 
 routine may be more or less a groveling in the 
 dust. Yet there are seasons when we may rise to the 
 
 ' All, whose steadfast virtue thrice 
 Each side the grave unchanged hath stood, 
 Still unseduced, unstain'd with vice, 
 They by Jove's mysterious road 
 Pass to Saturn's realm of rest, 
 Happy isle that holds the blest ; 
 Where sea-born breezes gently blow 
 O'er blooms of gold that round them glow, 
 Which Nature's boon from stream or strand, 
 Or goodly tree, profusely pours ; 
 Whence pluck they many a fragrant band, 
 And braid their locks with never-fading flowers," 
 
 " Olympic Ode," 2, Antistrophe k. 
 
147 
 
 sublime heights of contemplation, and, in our moments 
 of tranquility, venture to look forward to a better and 
 happier condition for humanity. To the poet, it comes 
 with the rapid rush of intuition or inspiration. To the 
 philosopher, it comes more slowly, but all the more 
 powerfully, through the process of induction. To the 
 commoner class of minds, it comes, perhaps, more nearly 
 in the form of a vague dream, rather than as a ra- 
 tional expectation. Yet, different as the forms of mani- 
 festation may be, the idea has always existed, and in all 
 probability will always exist. In fact, it is a condition 
 of human consciousness, and we cannot escape from it. 
 No matter if, in exceptional instances, as in the case of 
 Strauss, J the most severe thinking leads to that condition 
 of helplessness which he so graphically depicts ; it is 
 evident that there must come a reaction, and the mind, 
 instead of beholding the universe as a piece of mere 
 mechanical Deism, will ultimately realize it as the 
 expression of an Immanent and Living God. The 
 moment we attempt to expand the idea of Law into that 
 of Universal Necessity, and, in so doing, endeavor to 
 suppress our higher and finer emotions, even though they 
 cry out in agony, just so surely do we commit a scientific 
 as well as a philosophical blunder. 
 
 The more carefully we examine ourselves as human 
 beings possessed of a wonderful complexity of organs, 
 
 $ In the enormous machine of the universe, amid the incessant whirl and hiss 
 of its jagged iron wheels, amid the deafening crash of its ponderous stamps 
 and hammers, in the midst of this whole terrific commotion, man, a helpless 
 and defenseless creature, finds himself placed, not secure for a moment that on 
 an imprudent motion a wheel may not seize and rend him, or a hammer 
 crush him to powder. This sense of abandonment is at first something awful. 
 But, then, what avails it to have recourse to an illusion ! " The Old Faith 
 and the New." 
 
148 
 
 and allied by our faculties to a supersensual existence, 
 the more impossible it becomes for us to regard human 
 nature as a mere automaton. It is only when we 
 recognize the existence of a moral motive-power in man 
 that we appreciate the true measure of human greatness. 
 It is only when we recognize God in Nature that we 
 appreciate the glory and beauty of the universe. Shall 
 we witness the development of the oak from the acorn, 
 and not believe that there may be a similar process taking 
 place in the world of human nature; a transformation, 
 which, however slow it may appear, will ultimately 
 establish virtue on everlasting foundations, and wipe 
 away all tears. Like the geologic changes that have 
 taken place on the earth, it may require ages for its 
 accomplishment ; but that it will ultimately be realized 
 no sane man can doubt. By all means, therefore, let us 
 have faith in progress ; it will aid us in mastering those 
 difficult problems by which our individual, social and 
 political life are beset Besides, it is infinitely better to 
 anticipate the Golden Age as a thing of the future than to 
 mourn its loss as a thing of the past. The one indicates 
 a season of manhood characterized by a spirit of bold 
 inquiry and calm induction. The other denotes that 
 period of old age and decay when the main business 
 consists in re-affirming and verifying the conclusions of 
 earlier years, and when there is an almost ungovernable 
 disposition to regard everything new as false and danger- 
 ous. That this later condition is one diametrically 
 opposed to the true order of development it needs but 
 very little penetration to discover. That the former is 
 more strictly in accordance with all known principles of 
 growth is equally obvious. 
 
 And thus it is that in the" existence of the progression 
 theory there is so much which encourages and supports 
 
149 
 
 us under the most perplexing of our trials. The color- 
 ing which theology has given to the current ideas in this 
 respect can never satisfy the demands of an earnest and 
 rational desire. 
 
 Instead of diminishing, it has rather increased, the 
 gulf which has always more or less existed between 
 Christianity and Philosophy. On the other hand, the aim 
 of modern thought is obviously to produce a glorious 
 synthesis between the two. And this brings us, in the 
 next place, to an examination of that analogy between 
 Neo-Platonism and Modem Thought which, it has been 
 urged, constitutes itsprevailing characteristic and inferen- 
 tially, its main defect. 
 
 Certainly there are points of extraordinary resemblance 
 between the two ages, but there are also points of very great 
 difference. For instance, although we must admit, " The 
 decline of ancient faith without mature successor to take the 
 vacant throne ; the attempt of metaphysics to fit the soul 
 with a religion ; the pretensions of intuition and ecstasy ; 
 the sadden birth, from the very eggs, of a high-flown 
 spiritualism, of rnystagogu.es and mesmerists, as larvse 
 are born of butterflies ; the growth of world-cities and 
 world-science, with their public libraries and institutes, 
 their botanic and zoologic gardens, their cheap baths and 
 open parks ; the joint diffusion of taste and demoraliza- 
 tion, of asceticism and intemperance ; the increase of a 
 proletary class amid the growing humanity of society and 
 the laws ; the frequency of frightful epidemics ; the com- 
 bination of gigantic enterprises and immense commerce, 
 with decay at the heart of private life afford, undoubtedly, 
 a curious group of symptoms common to the Europe of 
 that day and of this " although all this must be 
 admitted, there is yet an important difference which we 
 
150 
 
 are equally bound to consider. To us it seems that the 
 divergence between the two ages consists in this, viz. : 
 whereas the Alexandrian school was founded on an 
 unnatural confluence of Indian, Persian, Greek, and 
 Egyptian thought, the spirit of the present age, although 
 in many respects nearly as cosmopolitan, is nevertheless 
 composed of elements possessing a much greater chemical 
 affinity, and, therefore, much more likely to produce a 
 satisfactory result. In the present age, as in the days of 
 Neo-Platonism, there is a decided effort to erect a 
 platform on which Religion and Philosophy may meet ; 
 but the conditions in favor of the present age are simply 
 immense. 
 
 In its last analysis, Neo-Platonism can only be defined 
 as a condition consequent on the negation of prior faiths, 
 accompanied by the desire to harmonize, if not to blend, 
 the philosophy of Plato with Christianity. As a period 
 marking the progress of the human mind in its everlast- 
 ing search after the Infinite, it certainly constitutes a 
 highly important chapter in history. As Mr. Martineau 
 expresses it : " It bears the mingled colors of an old 
 world and a new ; and is the twilight dream of thought 
 between the sunny hours of Pagan life and the night- 
 watches of Christian meditation." Beyond this, however, 
 the application fails, and the analogy has no meaning 
 for the present age. On a careful survey, and after we 
 have tested the subject in its various phases, the disposi- 
 tion of modern thought will be found far more friendly 
 to the development of whatever is best and purest in 
 Christianity than may at first sight appear. Naturally 
 enough, the age rebels against many absurdities and 
 monstrosities that have been propagated under the 
 sanction of theology ; but independently of this, and the 
 
161 
 
 many polemical disputes we may yet witness, there must 
 always exist in the breast of every sensible man a pro- 
 found respect for those principles of gentleness and 
 purity which make up the essentiality of the Christian 
 religion. In fact, no matter how vast may be the meas- 
 ure of our attainments, or how profound the method of our 
 reasoning, we will always exhibit a dwarfed and imper- 
 fect humanity in the absence of those conditions of 
 ethical and spiritual culture peculiar to the teaching of 
 Christianity. 
 
 The Philosophy of Progress is only perfect in so far as 
 it embraces and provides for our spiritual susceptibilities as 
 truly as the demands of our intellectual nature. Thus equip" 
 ped, we may reasonably expect that we shall learn more 
 fully how to live, and, in learning this, learn also how to 
 die; the realization indeed of that sweet tranquility 
 when we shall find ourselves more fully in harmony with 
 God and Nature, and when, as we approach the last and 
 most important scene in our existence, we can properly 
 appreciate the true meaning of life. 
 
 "Or we can sit 
 
 In serious calm beneath deciduous trees, 
 And count the leaves scarce heavier than the air, 
 Which leave the branch and tremble to the ground ; 
 Or out at midnight, in a gliding boat, 
 Enjoy the waning moon, and moralize, 
 And say that Death is but a mediator 
 Between the lower and the loftier life." 
 
 Death has always been the great terror of the human 
 race. It is not, however, impossible, as we grow wiser and 
 better, and enter more understandingly into those processes 
 of change through which nature perpetuates the principles 
 of life, that we will learn to regard it in a new light, 
 
152 
 
 realizing it as an introduction into a higher- state of 
 existence, instead of a cold and repulsive descent into the 
 awful stillness of the grave. It is no figure of hyperbole 
 to assert that a comprehensive theory of progress neces- 
 sarily embraces the demands of our spiritual nature. 
 The glorious theme of our immortality is one to which 
 we cannot consistently assign an inferior position. Up 
 to a certain point, it is, perhaps, possible, to construct a 
 philosophy of .progress without it; but, after all, we 
 cannot deny that, in its absence the world loses half its 
 beauty, and human life almost all its grandeur and 
 significance. The absurd idea which associates our future 
 existence with the resurrection of the material body must 
 of necessity be relegated to its proper position as a relic 
 of an earlier and more ignorant age; but the fact of our 
 immortality will still remain. Science and enlightenment 
 will demonstrate the impossibility of our re-assuming 
 bodies which, after our death, become, through the 
 ordinary processes of nature, component parts of other 
 living organisms to whom they would be quite as valuable 
 and indispensable in the event of a general resurrection as 
 to ourselves. This, however, represents merely that unim- 
 portant branch of the subject in which theology has 
 made itself ridiculous, Considered in another sense, 
 and that the important one embraced in the doctrine of 
 the immortality of the soul, independently of any attempt 
 to systematize the subject, we are bound to recognize the 
 necessity for regarding the indestructibility of our nature 
 as an indispensable feature in any theory which recog- 
 nizes the possibility of man's development in accordance 
 with the demands of his nature, and in keeping with that 
 great and glorious design which has placed him in his 
 present position; a little world within himself, aecoin- 
 
153 
 
 panied by an unceasing demand for something wiser and 
 better than that which is. 
 
 Such is man in his better moods, when he retires 
 most fully within himself for contemplation. It is a 
 feeling which ought to lead us earnestly and sincerely 
 to impress the solemn lesson that man is only worthy of 
 his race in so far as he realizes the meaning of his 
 existence and the measure of his responsibilities. In 
 fact, the more carefully and deeply we think the subject 
 over, the more 'inclined will we be to cast ourselves on 
 our bended knees, lost in wonder and admiration before 
 that marvelous design which has made man as great as 
 he is, and which yet promises to make him greater. 
 
 We have already emphasized the fact that the 
 gradual progress of humanity constitutes the central 
 principle in our creed. We would again say, in conclu- 
 sion, that the more carefully we study man in connection 
 with his conditions, past and present, the more fully are 
 we convinced 'that the future will verify our predictions. 
 It may be a long time in coming, but, just as surely as 
 the sun rises, experience will demonstrate what philos- 
 ophy anticipates, viz., that the human race, notwith- 
 standing its many instances of individual retrogression, 
 is still moving, as to its totality, toward the-attainment of 
 a higher and better life. Deny to us this possibility, 
 and we destroy the meaning of those noble aspirations 
 which characterize human nature under its best condi- 
 tions, and which, if meant to be thwarted instead of 
 realized, would lead xis to believe in an uncertain and 
 capricious Deity, rather than that infinitely perfect 
 Being removed from all possibilities of contradiction 
 and change, which modern thought so strongly insists 
 upon as an indispensable condition in all attempts to 
 
154 
 
 solve the enigma of life. As we look back toward the 
 causes which have produced what we may term the 
 orthodox idea of progress, we cannot consistently 
 wonder at its character. Intensely dissatisfied with the 
 moral evil by which they were surrounded, it was but 
 natural that the great phophets and teachers of Judea 
 should dwell most forcibly on the dark side of human 
 character. This may be fitly called that age of the 
 world when the terrible problems of suffering and guilt 
 come most boldly to the surface. According to the 
 same rule, it is not to be wondered at that Mediaeval 
 thinkers regarded the world as being so extremely 
 rotten that its speedy destruction was inevitable, in the 
 course of Divine vengeance. 
 
 To some extent, it was a noble ardor, a becoming 
 protest against unrighteousness, but experience has 
 shown how sadly it was mistaken. The condition of 
 thought grew naturally enough from the circumstances 
 of the age ; it was possibly the best estimate that could 
 be expected in view of all the facts, but the progress 
 which the world has since made has abundantly demon- 
 strated the futility of many of their most important 
 theories. 
 
 And here, it seems to us, we may consistently rest 
 our argument for a law of endless progress for the 
 human race. Keeping in mind the different transitions 
 of thought through which we have attained to our 
 present intellectual status, and remembering, also, that, 
 in view of our position in the long line of human 
 history, we are better able than our ancestors to dis- 
 cover a symmetry and beauty in what to them appeared 
 a chaos, it does not seem Utopian to reason from what 
 has been to what may be, viz., that as humanity must 
 
155 
 
 necessarily have made some progress before it could 
 look back on a less perfect past, so it. may, and 
 probably will, continue to advance, each age bringing 
 us higher and higher in a never-ending career of 
 wisdom and happiness. Of course, we are well aware 
 that we are equally bound, in this connection, to 
 remember that, as .the course has been rugged and 
 tortuous hitherto, it will probably so continue. It is 
 of no use to endeavor to overlook this phase of the 
 subject; it exists as one of the most evident facts of 
 history and experience, and as such we are compelled to 
 recognize it. On the other hand, however, we must 
 carefully remember that as our idea of progress consists 
 in a process of development, involving the gradual 
 ascendancy of the nobler and better parts of our nature, 
 it will be easily seen that there is, at least, a certain 
 amount of trial and tortuousness necessary. The greatest 
 growths are invariably the most gradual. 
 
156 
 
 CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 HAVING endeavored, in the preceding chapters, to 
 gain a partial insight into some of the leading character- 
 istics of the age, we have now reached that stage in 
 the treatment of our subject when we approach more 
 nearly the verdict of an intelligent community. That 
 we have fully accomplished our purpose we do not 
 pretend to anticipate. That we have, however, partially 
 done so, we venture modestly to hope. In these flays, 
 standing as we do at the close of a centu^ which we 
 may fairly consider without a parallel in the history of 
 the world, and surrounded as we are by conditions 
 which daily render civilization more complex, it would 
 be the merest absurdity for any one to think that he 
 could so far master the situation as to grasp the ivhole 
 truth. In has never been in the power of man to attain 
 such a magnificent result ; and it is fair to suppose it 
 never will be. No matter how severe may be the 
 intellectual discipline, or how earnestly and thoughtfully 
 we may dwell upon the mysteries of man and nature, it 
 seems an inevitable law that the solution of one problem 
 should always suggest the existence of another yet 
 unexplained ; an ever-receding horizon, in fact, growing 
 always wider and more attractive as we approach what 
 
157 
 
 seems, to our finite view, the limit of truth. The 
 physical world, as we all know, is extremely grand and 
 beautiful ; but in the intellectual universe there is a far 
 greater immensity and a higher order of beauty, as well 
 as a deeper meaning and greater complexity in its 
 phenomena. Standing, therefore, in the presence of a 
 subject so vast and imposing as the intellectual aspect 
 of the present age, it is hardly possible for even the 
 most successful investigator to discover more than a few 
 definite tendencies from which he may reasonably 
 conjecture the probable character of the general result. 
 
 That our interpretation of modern thought rests 
 mainly on the theory of a gradual education of the 
 human race, we have already demonstrated. 
 
 That we may the more fully emphasize this,, we 
 would again urge the statement, that our present intellec- 
 tual activity represents a healthy state, and not an unheal- 
 thy condition, in which reason, like a sick man's appetite, 
 has becomed depraved. On the contrary, as before stated, 
 the more clearly we realize the true impetus of scientific 
 thought, and the more nearly we approach a strictly 
 philosophical estimate of its tendencies, the more forcibly 
 will we recognize the fact that its character is best 
 expressed in Carlyle's abhorrence of falsehood and vener- 
 ation of truth : " A lie should be trampled on and 
 extinguished wherever found. - 1 am for fumigating the 
 atmosphere when I suspect that falsehood, like pesti- 
 lence, breathes around me." 
 
 That there does exist the possibility of falsehood or 
 error in the thoughts and ideas which have come down 
 to us, we suppose no one will denv- That the possibility 
 once granted, there should also exist a probability that 
 modern thought may do some good, we think is equally 
 obvious. 
 
158 
 
 Indeed, the one may be said to follow the other as a 
 legitimate sequence or necessary corollary ; and, therefore, 
 answers effectually all those who see in every new idea 
 a likeness of the devil. The fact is, this sable personage 
 is far more frequently served under the guise of bigotry * 
 than under an enlightened condition of doubt and pro- 
 gressive thought, f It is true that the phenomenon of 
 darkness in the physical world, which rendered possible 
 the conception of a devil, has also its counterpart in the 
 psychical or supra-sensible world in which we are called 
 upon to fulfill the conditions of our intellectual existence. 
 But what of this, since reason and experience both 
 indicate that, although darkness has always been 
 associated with everything human, and probably in some 
 sense will always continue to be so, it nevertheless is 
 susceptible of various degrees of modification arising 
 from the measure of our intelligence. For example, if 
 we compare ourselves with the earliest inhabitants of our 
 globe, what is the result of the comparison? Simply 
 this : man in his first condition shared the possession of 
 
 * " He was a man 
 
 Who stole the livery of the court of heaven 
 To serve the devil in." 
 
 POLLOK'S " Course of Time." 
 
 t As an apt illustration of how far an unbridled superstition will sometimes go 
 even under civilized conditions, the following incident, selected from Hallam's 
 ''Middle Ages," will convey a salutary lesson. The words of this eminent writer are: 
 " In the tenth century an opinion prevailed everywhere that the end of the world was 
 approaching. Many charters began with these words, 'As the world is now draw- 
 ing to a close:' An army marching under the Emperor Otho I. was so terrified 
 by an eclipse of the sun, which it conceived to announce this consummation, as to 
 disperse hastily on all sides. As this notion was evidently founded on some 
 confused theory of the millennium, it naturally died away when the seasons pro- 
 ceeded in the eleventh century with their usual regularity." Also see the many 
 other forms of ignorance and superstition which, in this ape, like FO many dis. 
 mal shadows left their impress on everything pertaining to man ;nd the world. 
 
159 
 
 the earth with the mammoth, the cave-bear, and thewooly- 
 haired rhinoceros: man in his present condition has 
 gained an almost absolute supremacy over the forces of 
 nature. Having passed through a variety of experiences, 
 and aided in his ascent by a gradual accumulation of 
 knowledge, he has ceased to be a dweller in caves, and 
 become the founder of magnificent cities ; he has ceased 
 to be a poor ignorant creature trembling with fear before 
 every change in the aspect of nature, and become the 
 cairn and intelligent astronomer who can measure the 
 heavens, predict the appearance of comets, and deter- 
 mine the density and distance of the planets; he has 
 laid aside the rude jargon of uncultivated life for the 
 refined and elevating strains of a Shakspeare, a Milton, 
 and a Dante. 
 
 In short, having passed from the simple beginning of 
 rudimentary knowledge to his present magnificent attain- 
 ments, shall we be asked to believe that he has reached 
 the maximum of his powers, and that the world is now 
 about to stand still ? Let us not be guilty of such a 
 fallacy ; for, as long as the human mind exists, there 
 must always be an everlasting future, at every stage of 
 which we may hear the encouraging words, "Come up 
 higher." The eminence of thought on which we stand 
 to-day is but the stepping stone to a higher one to-mor- 
 row. Indeed, if we ask ourselves seriously what this 
 perpetual striving after a better future really means, will 
 we not be forced to the conclusion that although man is, 
 in some respects, the feeblest branch of nature, he is at 
 the same time, in the strictest sense, the crown and glory 
 of the universe ? The most insignificant forces in nature 
 will sometimes cause his death ; but what of this, since 
 
160 
 
 even in his dying moments he may, with the immortal 
 Socrates, bid death welcome with a smile.:); 
 
 Besides, when we have once realized the peculiar 
 beauty and attractiveness in this phase of the progression 
 theory, we cannot regard the records of history otherwise 
 than as an accumulation of evidence tending in this 
 direction. The existence of an occasional hiatus is an 
 appearance rather than a reality. The science of history 
 has yet to be satisfactorily written ; but when it is, it will 
 undoubtedly remove many false impressions in this 
 particular, while it will also reveal, in instances which we 
 now deem almost if not entirely barren, a persistently 
 progressive, although enigmatical, course in the direction 
 and conduct of human affairs. Nor is there anything 
 irrational or paradoxical in the idea which suggests the 
 possibility of our understanding the past in proportion 
 as we recede from it. The principle has been demonstrated 
 again and again in the light of experience. In fact, it is 
 one of the most obvious lessons of history that events 
 which at the time of their occurrence seemed inevitably 
 fraught with disaster have at a later period been regarded 
 as so many links in the chain of human development, 
 Is it impossible for the same rule to apply to modern 
 thought? As we have before stated it is not a valid 
 argument to urge the possibility of dangers which may 
 
 Then holding the cup to his lips, quite readily and cheerfully he drankoff the 
 poison. And hitherto most of us had been able to control our sorrow ; but now, 
 when we saw him drinking, and saw, too, that he had finished the draught we 
 cottld no longer forbear, and, in spite of myself, my own tears were flowing fast; 
 so that I covered my face and wept over myself, for certainly I was not weeping 
 over him, but at the thought of mvown calamity in having lost such a companion. 1 ' 
 Such were the words of u htedo, the beloved disciple, as he related the death 
 scene of this truly great man ; and in their presence to-day, notwithstanding the 
 lapse of ages, it is impossible for us to escape from the influences of that moral 
 glow and inspiration which belong so especially to the son of Sophroniscus as the 
 representative of all that is best and noblest in philosophy. 
 
never arise. It is not the first time that this method has 
 been applied ; nor is it likely that in the present instance 
 it will meet with any greater measure of success than its 
 predecessors have done. Liberty of reason means the 
 liberty of our manhood in its highest, widest, and noblest 
 sense, and it is, therefore, an insult to our intelligence, 
 and a hindrance to our advancement, to attempt to suppress 
 or limit its action. Besides, even admitting that it is 
 in some respects a terrible ordeal which compels us to 
 witness, day after day, the interment of some long-estab- 
 lished theory or venerable tradition, it is well for us 
 to remember that we are simply repeating the history 
 of man's past experience, while we are also fulfilling 
 those inexorable laws which render a process of constant 
 intellectual activity synonymous with life; and which, 
 under our present/jonditions, render it impossible for us to 
 attain to that state of sweet serenity and calm repose : 
 
 " Where never creeps a cloud, "or moves a wiml, 
 Nor ever falls the least white star of tnow, 
 Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans, 
 Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar 
 Their sacred everlasting calm." 
 
 As the world is at present constituted, such peace can 
 never be ours ; nor would it perhaps be well for us did 
 we possess it. We begin with the faint lispings of an 
 infantile intelligence; we learn by practice, trial, and 
 perseverance, to ascend to those empyrean heights where 
 wisdom sits enthroned in all her loveliness. As Max 
 Miiller has beautifully expressed it : " There is one kind 
 of faith that revels in words ; there is another that can 
 hardly find utterance : the former is like riches that 
 
 TENNYSON'S "Lucretius" 
 
162 
 
 come to us by inheritance ; the latter is like the daily 
 bread which each of us has to win in the sweat of his 
 brow." || Is it possible, therefore, in view of these 
 conditions, and especially so in view of the manifest 
 superiority of the latter form of faith, that we can 
 regard man's attribute of reason as a sort of Tantalus, 
 rather than a blessing by means of which we may 
 gradually ascend to the highest conditions of human 
 wisdom and happiness ? As we pass from one stage of 
 thought to another, it is better for us to feel lost at times 
 in a labyrinth of doubt and perplexity nay, even to 
 experience an occasional pang of despair than to 
 fossilize in that condition of intellectual torpor whose 
 only consequences are ignorance, bigotry and super- 
 stition. Better "Let the dead bury their dead" than 
 have the impetus of the age paralyzed by any mistaken 
 estimate of approaching danger. At present the scientific 
 voice is like one crying in the wilderness. Let us hope 
 that the day is not far distant when it shall have 
 entered every household, thereby fulfilling the scriptural 
 prediction, "Behold I make all things new." In an 
 important sense, man is the sublime Columbus of 
 creation : it is essentially his business to discover, and, 
 in doing so, to remove, whenever it may seem, necessary, 
 the accumulated dust of ages, as well as to displace the 
 mists of error by the sunshine of intelligence. It may 
 be true that, even in our best moments, and under our 
 most sanguine views of human possibilities, we cannot 
 hope to escape the experience of Goethe's Faust, as he 
 ponders the mystery of life. Like him, we may find our- 
 selves ready to exclaim : 
 
 i! "Lecture on Mission*," delivered in Westminster Abbey, December, 1873. 
 
16$ 
 
 " I feel it, I have heap'd upon my brain 
 The gather'd treasure of man's thought in vain. 
 And when at length from studious toil I rest, 
 No power, new-born, springs up within my breast, 
 A hair's breadth is not added to my height, 
 I am no nearer to the Infinite." 
 
 These temporary seasons of discouragement seem to be 
 inseparable from our discipline. Indeed, it is not too 
 much to say that the best and most intellectual natures 
 are apt to experience them the most frequently and 
 forcibly. They come from the ever-receding character of 
 that horizon to which we have before alluded, and which 
 we may strictly define, in spite of its seasons of 
 momentary depression, as the great attractive power 
 perpetually drawing us onward, without, however, 
 the possibility of our ever reaching that state when, 
 like Alexander, we may weep for more worlds to 
 conquer. As we extend our views and venture on oar 
 voyage of discovery, we will necessarily leave the Pillars 
 of Hercules behind us; but to suppose that in doing this 
 we can ever reach that point when there shall be nothing 
 beyond, is to indulge in a dream which can never be 
 realized. Our position to-day is the result of a long line 
 of antecedent conditions, all contributing in some way 
 toward the formation of the present. Let us remember 
 that the same rule applies to our relationship to the 
 future. If, in view of our present opportunities, we are 
 simply wasting our energies on the discussion of vain and 
 fruitless dogmas, rather than concentrating our energies 
 with a passionate devotion to the discovery of truth as it 
 exists in the laws of Nature, and therefore inferentially as 
 the revealed will of God, we are simply repeating the 
 history of a darker age in which the noblest attributes 
 
164 
 
 of man's nature were tyrannized over, and kept in an 
 ignominious bondage, by the combined influences of an 
 unhealthy asceticism and the most irrational superstition. 
 From the disastrous consequences which medievalism 
 has entailed upon us, let us learn a lesson which* we 
 cannot consistently ignore ; and in estimating the influences 
 by which we are at present surrounded, let us remember, 
 also, that it is only as we test them in the light of dispas- 
 sionate judgement that we can reasonably expect to under- 
 stand their tendencies, or to anticipate their consequences. 
 The habit of thought, no matter how well-intentioned, 
 which execrates the representatives of progressive thought 
 the moment they invade, in their legitimate investiga- 
 tions, certain creeds which have slumbered undisturbed 
 for ages, is necessarily a barrier to our progress and an 
 enemy to our interests. It is of no avail to urge the 
 unfitness of the world for the reception of advanced 
 views. Were there not some deeply rooted and impera- 
 tive necessity in the age which demands these views they 
 would never have existed. They come to us not as 
 exotic plants imported from another world, but as the 
 natural outgrowth of certain conditions inhering in 
 man's progressive nature, and at the same time inseparably 
 connected with that law of change which is no less a law 
 of life in the intellectual than in the material world. 
 Lastly, as we lay aside the pen, we would offer one 
 parting suggestion which may possibly assist in removing 
 many of the misunderstandings and misapprehensions 
 which now exist, viz.: if theologians would but examine 
 calmly the history of the past, they would find much to 
 convince them that although theology may sustain 
 defeat, religion has invariably come brighter and purer 
 from the contest. 
 
165 
 
 The age of the world, as it widens into centuries 
 upon centuries, tends more and more to confirm our 
 belief in an all-wise and infinitely-perfect God ; but in 
 accomplishing this, it is absolutely indispensable that we 
 should witness many changes in -the form of our con- 
 ceptions, laying aside always the lower for the higher. 
 
 It is an encouraging fact that the more deeply and 
 carefully we study the tendencies of the present age, the 
 less afraid are we of falling into a bottomless abyss. If 
 we cannot avoid acting as mourners beside many a 
 venerable creed or dogma, we may, at least, do so in the 
 hope of that resurrection when Truth shall come forth 
 brighter and more beautiful, because, in our weakness, 
 we believed her dead. " Thou fool, that which thou 
 sowest is not quickend, except it die," is true, not only 
 when applied to the subject of man's immortality ; it is 
 also true in its application to those changes and alterna- 
 tions which are necessarily inseparable from intellectual 
 growth. It is the business of a merely animal existence 
 to sleep and feed. It is the privilege and glory of man 
 that he may rise to Alpine heights of knowledge, higher 
 and yet higher ; at each ascent gaining a wider prospect 
 of truth, and entering thereby into a clearer and better 
 appreciation of the undying beauty of a virtuous life. 
 According to Emerson : 
 
 " Profounder, profounder 
 Man's spirit must dive : 
 To his aye-rolling orbit 
 No goal will arrive. 
 The heavens that now draw him 
 With sweetness untold, 
 Once found for new heavens 
 He spurneth the old." 
 
166 
 
 Thought is alive, and therefore we cannot expect to 
 find, in its movements a merely mechanical process. 
 
 Besides, it is a law of man's nature that he should 
 instinctively recoil from intellectual stagnation as his 
 deadliest enemy and the precussor of decomposition 
 and decay. The greatness of an age is always commen- 
 surate with its intellectual freedom. The measure of 
 our intellectual liberty must always be determined by 
 our appreciation of reason. Nor need it be feared that 
 there is, under the unlimited exercise of our rational 
 faculties, any danger of ending in a hopeless negation of 
 our finer feelings. It is not possible, as we have before 
 said, for reason to annihilate sentiment. 
 
 It is possible, under every advance of thought, for 
 man to discover a deeper beauty and a higher meaning 
 in Nature, accompanied by a more vivid realization of 
 Virtue as the indispensable ally of "Wisdom. 
 
Antipodes, Controversy Respecting, 11 
 
 Animalism Subdued by Culture, ------ 69 
 
 Argyll, Duke of, on Law, ... 77 
 
 Anthropomorphism not Irrational, - 80 
 
 Augustine, St., on the Existence of Evil, - - 119 
 
 Athens, Influence of, - ... 133 
 
 33. 
 
 Bacon, on Knowledge, - - 27 
 
 Beauty and Culture, - - 73 
 
 Barbarism Compared with Civilization, .... 75 
 
 Berkeley, on Matter, , - 81 
 
 Beauty and Virtue, Connection between - . - - 90 
 
 Buckle, on Science and Theology, 115 
 
 Bigotry, Evil Consequences of ... 158 
 
 C. ' 
 
 Cosmas, his Theory of the Universe, - - - - 11 
 
 Chance, Impossibility of - 16 
 
 Christianity and Theology, - - * - - - - 19 
 
 Civilization and Skepticism, - 85 
 
 Christianity, Characteristics of 38 
 
 Cicero on Prejudice, 48 
 
170 
 
 Culture and Modern Thought, ...... 49 
 
 Clement of Alexandria his Liberality of Thought, - - 53 
 
 Culture and Religion, ........ 55 
 
 Continuity, Law of - 58 
 
 Civilization, Growth of 60 
 
 Culture Denned, .... 67 
 
 Change Synonymous with Life, ...... 70 
 
 Chastity, Beauty of - ..... 72 
 
 Culture and Theology, - 73 
 
 Consciousness, Testimony of - - . ..... 81 
 
 Civilization Defined, - 135 
 
 Crime Its Lessons, ... ..... 136 
 
 Character, Formation of ..... ... 143 
 
 Christianity, the Beauty of its Ideal, ----- 141 
 
 Carlyle, on Falsehood, ........ 157 
 
 Doubt and Knowlege, their Relationship, 31 
 Darwinism not Irrational, ....... 48 
 
 Diodorus of lasus, on the Awful Nothing, 80 
 
 Deity and Personality, - 83 
 
 Devil Destroyed by Culture, - 113 
 
 Devil, Characteristics of, - 126 
 
 Death, Ideas Respecting, - 151 
 
 E. 
 
 Earth, Geological Changes of, - 95 
 
 Evil, Existence of, - 110 
 
 Education Defined, ...... 139 
 
 Evolution, Doctrine of, - - - 145 
 
 Emerson, on Man, ........ 166 
 
 F. 
 
 Francis St. his Beauty of Character, 38 
 
 Faith and Culture, ... 47 
 
in 
 
 Fall of Man, 49 
 
 Faith and Science, 66 
 
 Fatalism, Objections to 88 
 
 Freedom Defined, 92 
 
 Faith, Different Kinds of .... 161 
 
 O. 
 
 Goethe, on Knowledge, - - 31 
 
 Giotto, his Beauty of Character, 57 
 
 Gibbon, on Progress, - ------- 65 
 
 Greece, Spirit of 70 
 
 Geology Suggestive of Gradual Improvement, 95 
 
 God in Science and Theology, - - - . " - - - 116 
 
 Golden Age, . 131 
 
 Greece, Influence of 132 
 
 Gibbon, on Justinian, 132 
 
 H. 
 
 Human Nature, Science of, 14 
 
 Hamilton, Sir Willian, on Man, .:.... 37 
 
 Hamlet, on Man, 44 
 
 Humanity defined, 74 
 
 Hallam, on Man, 120 
 
 Hesiod, on the Golden Age, 121 
 
 Intelligence and Superstition, ....... n 
 
 Infants, St. Augustine's, Views Respecting, - 127 
 
 Ideal Influences, - - 139 
 
 Intellect, Power of 144 
 
 Intellectual Stagnation, Dangers of - - - - 167 
 
 J. 
 
 Justin Martyr his Liberality of Thought, .... 53 
 
 Jews Influenced by Persian Ideas, 125 
 
 Justinian, Virtues of, . 132 
 
172 
 
 Lactantius on the Antipodes, - . . H 
 
 Life, Mystery of, - . 27 
 
 Lecky, on Christianity, - ... 41 
 
 Lucretius his Hatred of Superstition, - - - 55 
 
 Laplace, Theory x>f . 67 
 
 Law, Supremacy of - ... 76 
 
 Law, Definition of 77 
 
 Law, Universality of - 84 
 
 Law, and Man's Moral Sense, 87 
 
 Law a Divine Instrumentality 89 
 
 Law and Freedom, . . 91 
 
 Law in the Realm of Thought, - - - - . . 92 
 
 Luther on the Human Will, - - - - . . . 127 
 
 Man as a Rational Being, - - - 11 
 
 Mill, John Stuart, on the Science of Human Nature, - - 15 
 
 Modern Thought, - - - 17 
 
 Mediaevalism, Influences of 63 
 
 Modern Culture, - - - 65 
 
 Moon, Australian Legend Respecting, .... 75 
 
 Mind and Nature, - 82 
 
 Man, Civilized and Uncivilized, 86 
 
 Man and Nature, - - - 93 
 
 Moral Consciousness, - - - - 94 
 
 Moral Science, Present Condition of - . . 90 
 
 Man as an Animal "and as a Spiritual Being, - - . 105 
 
 Man his Earliest Condition, -' 121 
 
 Man as a Progressive Animal, - . - - . . 128 
 
 Modern Thought, Characteristics of .... 130 
 
 Macaulay, on Athens, .... 133 
 
 Moral Sequence, - - - - 136 
 
 Man, Demands of his Nature, 144 
 
 Middle Ages, Characteristics of 158 
 
173 
 
 Nature, Scientific and Unscientific Views of - - - - 10 
 
 Do. do. do. do. - 75 
 
 Nihilism, Effects of - - ...... 79 
 
 Neo-Platonism and Modern Thought, ..... 149 
 
 O. 
 
 Orithyia, Myth of - - 29 
 
 Orthodoxy and Skepticism, 30 
 
 Oxford University its Influences, - - - 64 
 
 Ontology, Science of - - - - 86 
 
 Original Sin, Doctrine of - 110 
 
 *. 
 
 Philosophy Influenced by Science, 23 
 
 Pyrrohnism and Modern Skepticism, 31 
 
 Philosophy, Basis of 33 
 
 Protestantism and Skepticism, 36 
 
 Prayer, its Sustaining Power, 
 
 Primitive Man his Views of Nature, - 7G 
 
 Pantheism and Nihilism, - 85 
 
 Prayer Analyzed, - - 97 
 
 Pelagius, Anathematizing of - - - - 113 
 
 Piilmerston and the Scotch Clergy, - - 114 
 Progress, Evidences of - - - 128 - 158 
 Progress, Condition of - 144, 161, 166 
 
 Progress, Philosophy of 151 
 
 Pindar, on Happiness, 146 
 
 K. 
 
 Religion and Nature, - - - - - - - - 18 
 
 Religion and Science, - - - ... . ." 22 
 
 Religion, Elements of - 51 
 
 Roman Church, its Polly in Opposing Science, 25 
 
 Reason, Use of --';*''--.'-'-'- 44 
 
.174 
 
 Rationalism a feature of Modern Thought, ... 46 
 
 Religious Beliefs, Diversity in 52 
 
 Religion, Possibility of a Science of 53 
 
 Religion and Morality, - - 91 
 
 Reason and Superstition, Contest Between - 128 
 
 Rome, Influence of 132 
 
 Reason, Greatness of 163 
 
 Science and Progress, 12 
 
 Science, its Twofold Aspect, - 13 
 
 Scientific Prevision, Degrees in 14 
 
 Science, Advance of 17 
 
 Science, Advantages of ,18 
 
 Socratic Method of Reasoning its Advantages, - - 19 
 
 Science and Religion, - 22 
 
 Skepticism and Progress, ----- 31 
 
 Skepticism and Philosophy, 43 
 
 Sophocles, on Reason, - 45 
 
 Science its Higher and Lower Aspect, 51 
 
 Spirit of the Age, - 72 
 
 Science, Changes Effected by - 77 
 
 Spiritual Beauty, - - - 96 
 
 Satan, Characteristics of - - 125 
 
 Serpent its Meaning in the Account of Man's Fall - 125 
 
 Sin, Modern Idea of 129 
 
 Socrates, Death of - 160 
 
 r r. 
 
 Theology and Science, 10 
 
 Truth, Discovery of 16 
 
 Theological Discussions, Fruitlessness of - 19 
 
 Theology Purified by Science, - 27 
 
 Truth, Beauty of 34 
 
 Toleration a Condition of Skepticism 40 
 
 Terentia, Tomb of -,,.,.... 23 
 
175 
 
 Truth, Indestructibility of ....... 74 
 
 Theism and Civilization, ........ 83 
 
 U. 
 
 Universeits Manifestations of an Intelligent Cause, - - 83 
 
 Virtue, Reward of ...... - 146 
 
 Virtue the Ally of Wisdom, ....... 167 
 
 W. 
 
 World Ruled by God, and not the Devil, ... 56 
 
 WorM, Adjustments in ...... - - 83 
 
THE MARTYRDOM OF MAN. 
 
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THE SAFEST CREED, 
 
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 MATERIALISM : 
 
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 God the Image of Man, Man's Dependence upon 
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M505438 
 
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