THE SCIENTIFIC BASES OF FAITH. 'UNIVERSITY THE SCIENTIFIC BASES OF FAITH. BY JOSEPH JOHN MURPHY, Author of " Habit and Intelligence" "The laws of nature cannot account for their own origin." JOHN STUART MILL. [UNIVERSITY; 'VV$ roitSm : MACMILLAN AND CO. 1873. f TJtc Riylit of Translation and Reproduction is reserved.] LONDON : R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, BKKAD STREET HILL. UNIVERSITY PEBFACE. THE present work was promised in the preface of my work on " Habit and Intelligence," which was published in the summer of 1869. When that preface was written, I hoped to publish the present work at the end of 1870 : but it has been delayed by my feeling it a duty to take an active part in the re-organization of the Church of Ireland after its disestablishment : and I have not the power which I admire in some men of getting rapidly through a great quantity of work. The only words of explanation or defence which I design to prefix to this book concern the way in which I have treated the authority of the Holy Scriptures : for it is possible that some whom I may hope to influence might otherwise be repelled by what they may think inconsistent if not insincere language on that subject. As this work is not a treatise on the historical authorities of revelation, the preface is the best place to meet such objections. It may be said that I am inconsistent, and have treated the Scriptures in a way contrary to the principles on which evidence ought to be dealt with, by admitting their evi- dence as valid in some places and not in others : admitting the discourses of Christ, for instance, as not only genuine VI PEEFACE. but authoritative, while denying the authenticity of any part of the history previous to Abraham, and questioning the doctrine of a personal tempter. My reply is that I have no general theory to maintain on the subject of the authority of the Scriptures, and that concerning their credibility on particular questions I have come to the conclusions which I hold, by applying the ordinary prin- ciples of evidence. It is first to be observed that the expression authority of a Book, and still more inspiration of a Book, though I do not call them inaccurate, are elliptical expressions. Authority, which in this sense is the right to be believed, and the Divine inspiration which gives authority, are not attributes of books, but of men : and there is no ground whatever for supposing that the writings of a Prophet or an Apostle are more inspired or of higher authority than his spoken words. Inspiration and authority admit of degrees : and there is no reason for thinking that all the many writers whose works the Church regards as Holy Scripture are of equal inspiration and of equal authority. The facts are alto- gether opposed to such a theory. What man, unless he had a theory to support, could compare the inspiration of the Proverbs of Solomon with that of the Psalms of David ? There is no proof that the Holy Scriptures are inspired throughout, and there is no proof that they are the only inspired documents in the world. It is a priori utterly improbable that any purely historical book, such as the Chronicles or the Book of Ezra, should be inspired, because the writing of history is a strictly human work, and it cannot be supposed that God would inspire men to do what they could do without special inspiration. " God PREFACE. Vii has not wrought miracles for nought." 1 And conversely, there are documents outside the Scriptures which bear marks of Divine inspiration. Any theory must be wrong which would deny inspiration to the Collects of the Church, or which would refuse to place the inspiration of the Te Deum, which is a Christian hymn of the fourth century, on a level with that of the Venite, which is a Hebrew psalm. If there were really a sharp and im- passable line of distinction between inspired and un- inspired writings, we may be sure that the Scriptures would have settled their own canon. But so far is this from being the case, that the idea of a canon of Scripture does not appear to have been formed until after the age of inspiration had ceased. If inspiration admits of degrees, and if it is not to be expected on subjects with which the unassisted intel- lect of man is quite competent to deal, we must admit the further conclusion that inspiration is no guarantee against error. A Prophet or an Apostle may have the fullest inspiration concerning Divine things, while he may share the errors of other men on history, and science. This, which is mere common sense, is of course opposed to the theory of what is called the " plenary inspiration " that is to say, the miraculously guaranteed infallibility of the Holy Scriptures : a theory which grew up in an age when inspiration was dead and criticism not yet born, and has been perpetuated not because it is felt to be true, but as a controversial defence against error. In most cases we have scarcely any data for forming an opinion on the character, the genuineness, and the trustworthiness of a book, except what are contained in the book itself. This is approximately true of nearly all 1 " Dens non fecit rairacula frustra." viii PREFACE. ancient books, and is absolutely true of such books as the Pentateuch and the Homeric poems, which are each the .only literary monument of an age. All this may be summed up in the somewhat common- place axioms, that in general, and especially when we have to do with ancient history, we can know nothing concerning any book, except by means of an examination of the book itself: and that inspiration cannot be denned and ought not to be taken for granted, but, if it is to be believed in, must prove itself. If this is true, it follows, or rather it is a statement of the same truth in other words, that the authenticity of any particular portion of the Scriptures is a question for historical criticism, and its inspiration a question for the spiritual instinct. On this last subject let ine not be misunderstood : I do not say that every man must decide for himself unassisted what books he is to regard as containing the teaching of the Spirit of God : on the contrary, the authority of the Church, like the inspiration of the Scriptures, is real though undefi- nable. 1 But though there is inspiration in the Scriptures, it is superstition to think that they are inspired through- out, or that they are in any way exempt from criticism ; and though the Church has authority, it is superstition to think that any age can be deprived of its right to re- consider that on which a former age has pronounced its decision. When we critically examine such a vast mass of docu- ments as the Holy Scriptures, we must expect to find, and we do find, that the various documents are trustworthy in various degrees, and that the same document may be trust- worthy in different degrees on different subjects. Thus the New Testament is much more trustworthy than the 1 See page 174. PREFACE. ix Old ; and the Scriptures are in general more trustworthy on moral and spiritual questions than on historical ones, and not trustworthy at all on questions which border on science. Supposing their inspiration to be real, this is what might have been expected ; and it is either stupidity or unfair controversial hostility to treat their historical errors and what appears to us their childlike ignorance of science, as if it had the slightest tendency to disprove their spiritual inspiration. We ought never to forget this simple and obvious critical canon, that if a writer is honest (and in primitive literature there is seldom any ground for suspecting conscious dishonesty) he will presumably know more about the subject which he professes to teach than about any other; and errors on other subjects ought not to injure his authority on the subject which he professes to understand. In a word, the scientific ignorance of the Biblical writers and their historical errors do not cloud their spiritual inspiration ; and their inspiration must be perceived by its own light. I am aware that these remarks do not by any means exhaust the question. They are not meant to be a full defence of my position, but only a statement of it. I am also aware that they are in no degree original ; but there may be many readers to whom they will not be common- places; and I am desirous that no one who loves truth may be repelled from the reading of this work by any initial difficulties. OLD FORGE, DUNMURRY, Co. ANTRIM, 15th October, 1872. CORRECTION. On pages 110 and 111 the discovery of conical polarization is attributed to Prof. M'Cullagh. This is a mistake. It is due to a still more illustrious Irishman, namely Sir William Kowan Hamilton, the inventor of the cal- culus of quaternions. See Lloyd's "Wave Theory of Light," page 174 et seq. ERRATA. Page 258, line 4, for influence read inference. Page 334, commencement of paragraph, for one read our. [xi] CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. PAGE It is not possible to harmonize the words of Scripture with the facts of Science ; nor is it to be desired ...... 1 Science prospers only when free from theological control ... 1 Many infer that Science and Faith have no connexion whatever . 2 Proposed treaty of peace on this basis ...... 2 Why this is impossible to be kept ....... 2 Probability of a connexion from the religious point of view, and from the scientific 2 It is too early to pronounce it impossible . . . . . 3 The transformation of scientific ideas must colour religious ones . 3 Butler's Analogy : influence of Bacon and Locke in it . . 3 We have at the least to adapt its reasoning to our science . . 4 Religion will be ultimately recognized as not the basis of Science, but the crown .......... 4 Sense in which Science can be a basis for Religion .... 4 The lower is always the basis of the higher : Matter of Life, and Life of Mind .......... 4 Objection that Religion is older than Science ..... 5 Answer, that the relation of two sciences is not manifest till both are advanced . . , , ...... 5 Science is the basis of Religion, but does not contain its germ . . 5 Illustration from the relation of Matter to Life .... 5 The peculiar truths of Religion are known only by Revelation . 6 Contrast of Science and Religion 6 Similar contrast of the abstract and the physical sciences . . 6 This involves no antagonism ........ 6 The antagonism of science and religion is imaginary ; that of their teachers is but temporary ....... 6 I aim not at harmonizing or reconciling, but at showing logical and organic connexion ......... Common fundamental conception of Science and Faith . Xll CONTENTS. PAGE Similarity of religious and scientific spirits ..... 7 Love of truth the same in Religion and in Science . . . .7 Intellectual humility ......... 8 Intellectual independence ........ 8 The scientific spirit may regenerate theology ..... 8 Various effects of science in modifying our conceptions of the universe, moral as well as physical 8 Possibility of natural science . . . . . . . . 9 Discovery of an order in the universe ...... 9 Astronomical discoveries . . . . . . . .10 Things are not what they seem . . . . . . .10 Our earth is one of many worlds . . . . . . .10 Moral bearing of this truth . . . . . . . .10 It has not had the influence it merits. This may be due to the dogma of the Fall, which is now no longer credible . . .11 Science has become historical . . . . . . . .11 The nebular theory . . . . . . . . .11 Geology ............. 11 The evolution of living forms, and of human society . . .11 Continuity of all history . . . . . . . .11 All evidence is against a Fall . . . . . . . . 12 Science has changed our ideas of the relation between matter and mind 13 Two causes of this . 13 Prominence now given to dynamic conceptions in physical science . 13 These are not altogether new, but are more obvious now than formerly ........... 13 Progress of mental science . . . . . . . .14 Psychology gives no ground for the belief in a distinct mental substance ; but shows mind as a concomitant of nervous action 14 Summary ........... 15 NOTE. Explanation of the word Energy as distinguished from Force . . 16 CHAPTER I. METAPHYSICAL AND POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY. The Positive Philosophy 17 Better called negative . . . . . . . . .17 Comte's fundamental dogma, that all knowledge is only phenomenal 18 Inference that theology and metaphysics are impossible ... 18 Revelation possibly consistent with Comte's dogma . ... 18 Statement of his view . . . . . . . . .19 Religion and Philosophy are attempts to explain the universe . . 19 Three kinds of attempted explanations : theological or mythological, metaphysical, and inductive . . . . . . .19 CONTENTS. Xlll PAGE These have been successively developed ...... 21 Difficulty of proving such an historical theory from the indefinite- ness of the facts 21 The three modes of philosophizing are in some degree mutually exclusive .... ....... 22 Contrast of theology and science, and of metaphysical and inductive science ........... 22 Comte rejected theology and metaphysics, because only inductive science throws light on the facts of the universe . . .22 Syllogistic statement of his argument . > . . .22 JL admit one premise, but deny the other ...... 23 We cannot reason from God to nature, but we may reason from nature to God . . . 23 If theology is true, it is all-important ...... 23 Inductive Science is the same as Positive Science, except that mathe- matics is not inductive : it begins from observation ; it includes mental science, and the science of language and of history . 24 What is the province of metaphysics ? . . . . .24 Metaphysics defined . . . . . . . . .24 Inductive Science begins from Observation, Metaphysics from Consciousness . . i . . . . . . .24 They are opposite^ and mutually supplementary . . 25 Their problems are different k ....... 25 Metaphysical error of Descartes, that what is clearly conceived is true 25 Converse error of applying inductive methods 'to metaphysical questions k k . > . . . . 26 Mr. Buckle on moral freedom . . . . . . . .26 Metaphysical and Inductive philosophy in ancient Greece . . 26 Eleatics and lonians . . . . . . . .26 Plato and Aristotle . . . > , , . . .26 Quotation from Browning's Paracelsus , . . . . .26 What are the metaphysical problems ? 4 * , . .26 They are distinct from the inductive ones . . . . .27 The inductive problems are to ascertain the laws of native . . 27 The problems of inductive science may be regarded as equations, and its result f s as the discovery of their roots -. k . . 27 Roots may be* found, while their interpretation remains unknown . 27 The solutions of inductive science are of this kind . . . .28 To interpret the roots is the work of Metaphysics .... 28 Illustration from Chemistry k k . 28 Matter and Force are explicable by Inductive Science only in terms of each other ..%, t ,. 29 Metaphysics has to interpret them as functions of known terms . 29 Inductive Science inquires into the laws of nature, Metaphysics into the underlying reality ....... 29 Space and Time .......... 30 Sensations can only be known directly 30 Science can tell, not what they are, but how they are produced . 30 Optics and Acoustics 30 xiv CONTFA T T?. PA OK The sensations of light and sound are functions of physical cir- cumstances . . . . . . . . . .31 Luminous undulations interpretable only in terms of the sensation of light 31 Matter is interpretable only in terms of sensation .... 32 Berkeley 32 This does not exhaust the question ....... 32 Double meaning of light and sound ...... 32 Cause of sensation inexplicable 33 Sensation from the Inductive and from the Metaphysical points of view 33 Physical facts from the same two points of view .... 33 Mind from the same two points of view 33 Inductive Psychology 33 Metaphysical Psychology : it; affirms Personality, Freedom, and Responsibility 34 The Moral Sense 35 Relation of Mind to Matter : the form of the question has been changed ........... 35 Illustration from the magnet 35 Why men believe in distinct substances of mind and matter . . 36 Summary: Contrasted results of Inductive and Metaphysical science 36 Both are true ........... 36 Why are the points of view of Observation and of Consciousness different? 37 Because the centre of our consciousness does hot coincide with that of the universe . . . . . . . . .37 Our consciousness is developed out of sensation .... 37 But with Divine consciousness it is otherwise ..... 37 To what purpose are these inquiries ? , , . . .38 In what sense metaphysics is unpractical ..... 38 Its value in the formation of character ...... 39 NOTE A. Relation of Logic and Mathematics to the Inductive and Meta- physical sciences . ..... 40 Classification of the Sciences ........ 40 Position of Logic ........... , .48 Had the universe a beginning ? . . . . v . . 49 The affirmative and negative answers equally inconceivable , . 49 The affirmative is proved by inductive science . . . , .49 The nebular theory . . . . . . . . .49 " Dissipation of energy " ........ 50 A change in the laws of nature would be an absolute beginning . 50 Question of the origin of the universe . . . . . .50 If any answer is possible, it must be that it is of God . .51 Summary ........... 51 Belief in a Divine Creator w 51 CHAPTER III. THE MEANING OF THE MORAL SENSE. Two distinct questions : What is Duty? and What is Conscience? . 53 Deontology 53 Ethics . . . . . . . , . , 53 These may be treated inductively . . v . , 54 Further metaphysical question 54 The morality of actions is tested by their tendency . . , .54 But this will not explain the moral sense .... 54 XVI CONTEXTS. PAGE Utilitarian or experience theory of the moral sense . . . .54 Origin of the love of money by association ..... 55 The only test of snch a theory is whether the alleged causes exist and are adequate . . . . . . . . .55 In this case the causes exist, but it is not certain that they are adequate .......... 55 Analogy to the question of the nature of life ..... 56 Utilitarian and Ethical theories . . . . . . .56 Ethics treats of character, Deontology of actions . 56 The question stated 56 The charge of selfishness against the utilitarian theory is unjust, but it is unfavourable to moral elevation. It is not false, but insufficient .......... 57 On the utilitarian theory, happiness is the only absolute end ; on the Ethical, goodness is one also . . ... . .57 The question is to be decided by the moral sense itself . . .58 On the utilitarian theory, moral admiration ought to resemble the admiration of useful things . . . . . . .58 But it does resemble the admiration of beautiful things . . .59 The beautiful is not the useful 59 Beauty is that which gives a peculiar and elevated pleasure . . 60 Mill distinguishes pleasures as higher and lower . . . .60 This admits an ethical principle and surrenders the utilitarian . 60 The value of the pleasure of self-approbation does not depend on duration for its value . . . . . . . .61 Blessedness ........... 61 Martyrdom to duty . . . . . . . .61 Care for the dead : not resolvable into love of happiness . . 62 Rationality of the moral sense . . . . . . .62 On the utilitarian theory, the love of moral good is like the love of money .......... 63 Actual contrast between the two . . . . . .63 Utilitarianism will not justify the sacrifice of happiness to duty . 64 Case of the virtue of kindness . . . . . . .64 Belief based on experience may be changed by experience . . 65 This is most recognized by the most cultivated minds ... 65 This is not true of belief in logical axioms, nor in moral principles 65 Belief in the unchangeableness of moral truth is weak in the ig- norant, strong in the cultivated *..... 66 We believe it of a future life 66 This has no basis in logic, nor in experience . . . .66 Double contrast of moral and physical beliefs . . . .67 We believe in moral law because we are part of the spiritual universe 68 Happiness is not the ground of goodness, though its result . . 68 Objection answered . . . . . . . . .68 Results of the two theories in the spiritual region .... 69 Illustration from mathematics 69 Effect of the two theories on the formation of character ... 69 Independent value of holiness ..... 70 CONTENTS. xvn NOTE. THE SIXFULNESS OF 8TJICIDF. FAGK "Why suicide is condemned by utilitarianism . . . .70 Christian condemnation of suicide ....... 71 CHAPTER IV. THE FilEF.DOM OF THE WILL. Our idea of Will is given by our consciousness . . . .72 Will is a case of Causation 72 What is Causation ? 72 Inductive science alone cannot answer this ..... 72 It defines causes as only conditions, and the law of universal causa- tion as synonymous with the uniformity of nature ... 73 From the inductive point of view, causation is known by generaliza- tion ; from the metaphysical, it is known by consciousness of mental process . . . . . . . . .73 Further question : What is the connexion between the fact of Causation and the law of Uniformity ? . . . .74 Belief in the uniformity of nature is due to experience . . .75 It is not specially connected with the idea of causation ... 76 Uniformities of succession and of co -existence 7fi Summary ........... 77 Agency a better word than Causation for the present purpose . . 77 Reason asserts that Action implies an Agent, but it tells nothing of the uniformity of causation . . . . . . .77 The effect of a cause acting on the mind from without is capable of being predicted . . . . . . . . .78 But is the same true of voluntary determination ? . . , ,78 The uniformity of causation is known by experience only . . 7i> Is the will of man an exception ?....... 79 Obvious analogies are against this : but they mislead ... 79 Illustration ........... 79 Life is an exception to the universality of physico-chemical laws ; why not will to the uniformity of causation ? . . . .79 The Creator has self-determining power : may not this reappear in Man ? 80 Freedom is more mysterious than Necessity ..... 80 But the doctrine of Necessity only changes, not solves, the difficulty 80 Verbal ambiguity cleared up . . . . . . . .81 The question stated ......... 81 The will of man is not an originating cause. The question is whether it is able to alter the direction of causation . . 81 Self-determination is higher than determination by motives, and is developed out of it . . . . . . . . .82 Can the will do anything more than weigh motives ? . . .82 b XV111 CONTENTS. fAGK Freedom begins with the conflict of motives ..... 82 Summary ........... 82 The a priori arguments on both sides are indecisive ; but the burden of proof is on the advocates of freedom . . . . .82 The proportion of life to matter is infinitesimal, and so is the pro- portion of the sphere of freedom to that of necessity . . 83 Matter exists for the sake of life, and so necessary law may exist for the sake of free beings . . . . . . .83 Argument for necessity from statistical regularity, inconclusive . 84 May not many freedoms make one necessity 1 . , . .84 Argument from consciousness, on the side of freedom, inconclusive . 85 Guilt and Merit not identical with Sin and Holiness . . .85 Ground of the distinction . . . . . . . .86 Guilt is voluntary sin ......... 86 The distinction is made by consciousness 86 Self-disapprobation and self-condemnation 86 On this ground I conclude moral freedom to be a reality . . 86 Sense in which the question of freedom is unpractical . . .87 Effect of belief on this subject on the formation of character . . 87 Eational conceptions of the universe are possible only to a religious philosophy .......... 88 Force, Intelligence, Consciousness, and Freedom arc divine . . 88 NOTE A. Quotations from Newman's " Grammar of Assent" ... 89 NOTE B. God's Omnipotence does not exclude freedom ; nor does His Fore- knowledge 90 Poeni Eternity . . . . . . . . . .90 THE BASES OF KNOWLEDGE. Faith is the proof of things not seen . . . . . .91 Example : belief in a future life ....... 91 Paradoxical nature of Faith . . . . . . . .92 Defence of the paradox ......... 92 The capacity for belief is an ultimate fact ..... 92 Belief is of something external to consciousness . . . .92 Science also is the proof of things not seen ..... 93 Demand for verification ......... 94 There may be proof which cannot be reduced to scientific form . 94 Verification rests on assumptions that neither need nor admit of verification .......... 94 Natural beliefs 94 Logical and mathematical beliefs are self -justified, ami do not approach to faith . . . . . . . .91 CONTENTS. XIX PAGE Belief in the past, the future, and the external, approaches to faith 95 Belief in the trustworthiness of memory ..... 95 Belief in personal identity involved in this, and made known by consciousness only ......... 95 Belief in the uniformity of the order of nature .... 96 All reasoning respecting that which has existence implies this . 96 It does not refer only to the future ..,..., 96 It is not due to experience . ....... 96 Association of ideas alone cannot produce belief . , , .97 Should we expect to find nature uniform if it were not so ? . . 97 In that case the mind would have been developed under different laws 98 Belief cannot originate in experience ...... 98 The beliefs in the veracity of memory and in the order of nature do not justify themselves . 98 They may be imagined untrue ....... 98 They are not absolute, only preponderant ..... 99 They are consequently without verification, yet on them all verifica- tion rests . . . . . . . . .99 Consistent scepticism is impossible 100 Argument for Scepticism, that we are fallible, and cannot be sure of anything ' , 100 Reply, that natural beliefs belong not to the individual, but to the race 100 Objection, that to trust other men is to trust our own judgment of their trustworthiness . . . .. , . . ,101 This is not the fact 101 We think with the intelligence not ef the individual but of the race 101 Mysticism 102 Practical scepticism is impossible, but speculative scepticism is not so 102 Statement of the argument for the latter . . . . .103 Kant's so-called Idealism 103 The mind in thought is not isolated from the universe . . . 103 The laws of mind are so because they are laws of the universe . 103 This cannot be proved : but it harmonizes and rationalizes our knowledge .......... 104 "We end the inquiry where we began, but not as we began . . 104 Transcendent element in thought and belief . . . . .104 The logical intelligence is not untrustworthy but limited . . 105 Summary 105 Three bases of knowledge . , . . . . . .105 Immediate consciousness . . . . . . . .105 Logical intelligence . . . . . . . . .105 Instinctive intelligence ......... 106 My theory is due to the physiological school of psychology . . 106 It is a better basis for faith than the rival idealist theory . .106 NOTE. Extract from Mozley's Uainpton Lectures on Miracles . . . 107 12 XX CONTEXTS. CHAPTKU VI. THE MEANING OF FAITH. PAOT5 Evidence without demonstration may be as good as demonstration . 109 This suggests that there may be reasonable certitude without veri- fication : though not without proof 110 Relation of verification to original proof 110 Its position in mathematics ........ 110 Relation of faith to proof .... Faith in principles 110 Instances: free trade : conical refraction . . . . .110 Effort of faith Ill Unobvious verification . . . . . . . . .112 Faith was needed to believe in the earth's motion when the proof was new ....... . . 112 In what sense science rests on faith 112 Science and faith are from the same root . . . . .112 Their root in the instinctive life . . . . . . .113 In their rudimentary form, they are shared by animals . . .113 Faith in man 113 Faith expects and anticipates verification . . . . .114 Ethical judgments are independent of formal proof . . .114 The same is apparently true of other judgments . . . .114 Difference of the cases 114 In ethical judgments, there is not ahvays any common measure between minds ......... 115 The same is true of moral judgments ...... 115 Proof in morals is impossible . . . . . . . .115 All depends on insight . . . . . . . . .116 Questions as to the trustworthiness of insight . . . .138 Logical difficulty , . .116 NOTE. Extracts from Mozley's Bampton Lectures on Miracles . . .117 CHAPTER VII. THE POSSIBILITY OF FAITH. Summary of two preceding chapters . . . . . .118 Faith is not lowered by referring it to its root in the instinctive trust of man in man . . . . . . . .119 The objects of our faith are generally superior beings to ourselves . 119 Formation of character is mainly due to the influences of higher natures acting through faith . . . . . . .120 CONTENT*. XXI VACK Justification by faith rather than by verification .... 120 Logical difficulty as to the possibility of faith .... 120 We do not judge of character by results . . . . . .12!) Certitude is possible respecting the character of superior as well as equal natures to our own . . . . . . . .121 Such certitude is reasonable, though without logical basis . . 121 Logical difficult}'- about knowing God . . . . .121 How can an object of worship be anything but the ideal of the worshipper? . . . . . . . . . .121 How can God-reveal Himself? 122 Reply: the objection is refuted by facts . ..... 122 Quotation from "EcceHomo" ....... 123 Analogy is in favour of the possibility of a revelation of God to man 123 Re-statement of the difficulty : How is faith possible ? . . . 123 Reply, that it is in fact possible . . . . . . .12-1 Faith is only a higher form of the power of ordinary belief . .32* CHAPTER. VIII. THE LIMITS OF OUll KNOWLEDGE. Relativity of knowledge ..... 125 Knowledge is relative to the mind which knows . . . .125 This is merely an identical proposition* . . . . . .125 Only relations are objects of knowledge . . . . . .126 Definitions ]26 We understand things only as related . . . . . .125 Insoluble mystery at the ground of all Being . . . . 12f> Question . . . . . . . . . . .127 Reply . 127 S:iying that knowledge is only phenomenal . . . . .127 In the obvious sense, this is not true : the highest knowledge tran- scends phenomena most . . . . . . . .127 This is equally true of metaphysical knowledge .... 128 Origin of metaphysical and of inductive knowledge . . .128 Quotation from Kant . . . . . . . . .128 Question of the possibility of a revelation . . . . .121) Can Man know God, supposing a revelation of God ? . . .129 Objections from our finite nature and our exclusively relative know- ledge 129 Meaning of the word Absolute . . . . . . .130 It is the ground of relation . . . . . . . .130 Applied to God, it means Self-Existent 130 The objection that the Absolute cannot be known applies to all real knowledge alike, though not to formal ..... 13.1 Objection from cur finite nature . . . . . . .131 Reply J3i Mystery begins not with the Infinite, but with the ground of being 132 In what our knmvlerlgp of a Being >-onsis(s . . . . 132 XX11 CONTENTS. PAGE Confusion of thought with imagination 133 Mathematical infinities . . . . . . . . .133 Case of an infinite being with mind like ours . . . . .133 Negative and imaginary numbers . . . . . . .133 Large finite magnitudes are unimaginable, and so are infinitesimals . 133 The Divine Nature is incomprehensible because it is unlike ours in kind 134 Fundamental truth in morals is true on all scales alike . . .134 The conception of the absolute baffles thought : that of the infinite baffles imagination ; that of the perfect baffles neither . . 135 Perfect holiness is conceivable . . . . . . .136 Objection, that men's conceptions of holiness differ . . . 136 Keply, that they do not differ fundamentally 136 Confusion of perfect with infinite . . . . . . .136 The holiness of God transcends but does not contradict our concep- tions 137 Distinction between holiness and virtue . . . . . .137 Actions may be right for God which are not so for man . . .137 This does not apply to truth and falsehood . . . . .138 Theory of some Calvinists 138 Of Dean Hansel 138 These would logically prove that we have no reason to trust the Divine veracity 139 Validity of an argumentum ad hominem . . . . . 13& We can know where we cannot imagine ...... 13& Definition of incomprehensible : of mysterious: of anomalous . .140 These words have a meaning relative only to us . , . .140 NOTE A. MANSEL'S KELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY. Mansel on the Limits of Religious Thought 1 41 His inconsistencies . . . . . . . . .141 NOTE B. (Quotation from De Morgan's " Formal Logic" . . . .142 NOTE C. Mansel on the mystery of evil 142 CHAPTER IX. THE POSSIBILITY OF A REVELATION. Results of preceding chapter . . . . . . . .144 Anti-theological argument from the exclusively phenomenal nature of our knowledge . , . . . . . . .144 The distinction between the scientific and the theological regions of thought is groundless . . . . . . . .145 CONTEXTS. XXlil PAGE How we must qualify the axiom of the phenomenal nature of all knowledge 145 Ambiguity of the word phenomena . . . . . . .145 Ground of belief in material substance . . . . . .146 Mill's denial of it 146 Logical proof is impossible . . . . . . . .147 Argument that it is impossible to receive knowledge of God by revelation, even though authenticated by miracles . . .147 Reply : we are able to infer from data of perception truths which are not facts of perception . . . . . . .148 Objection : the inferences are truths of the same order as the data ; while a fact concerning God would be of a different order from any sensible data, miraculous or not , . . . .148 Reply : we have no right to assume that conclusions must be of the same order as their data . . . . . . . .149 "We infer mind and character from action, speech, and expression : here the data and the inference are of different orders . .150 Parallel reasoning from sensible data to the Divine being and character ........... 150 Summary ........... 150 Reply to objection . . . . . . . . . .151 NOTE. Extract from Newman's " Grammar of Assent " , 152 CHAPTER X. THE PROOF OF A REVELATION". Man in general needs verification in order to believe with confidence 153 What constitutes verification in physical science . . . .153 It is needed because of the feebleness of our powers . . . 154- In w r hat sense mathematical reasoning needs verification . .154 Difference between mathematical and physical data . . . . 155 Mathematical and logical axioms . . . . . . .155 Peculiarity of the fundamental axiom of metaphysics . . .156 Summary . ......... 156 Morality, like mathematics, is true independently of verification, yet receives verification . . . . . . .157 In physics the possibility of verification constitutes the law . . 158 Relation of mathematics to physics, parallel to that of morals to theology 158 Where the analogy fails 159 In physics the ultimate appeal is to experimental fact : in theology, it is to moral principles . ] 59 The New Testament on this subject . . . . . .160 Summary ........... 160 Christ's view of this subject ....... 160 xxiv CONTESTS. JACK Objection to miracles that they are useless, and lower the character of revelation 161 Reply : the purpose of Christ's miracles is not to prove that His doctrine is worthy to come from God, biit that it has come from Him 162 No improbability in miracles . . . . . ..163 Position of those who believe in a personal God, yet reject miracles . 163 Ideas of an imaginary Asiatic on science 164 Objection, that physical miracles belong to a different order from holiness 164 Reply, that actions may reveal character 164 Purpose of Christ's miracles, neither to prove power nor holiness, but to prove their union . . . . . . . .165 Objection, that the exceptional is unsuitable as proof of the perma- nent and fundamental . . . . . . . .165 Reply : in natural science the ordinary constitution of nature is explained by means of experimental facts which are called into existence for the purpose . . . . . . . .166 Imaginary ideas of an ancient Greek philosopher on modern science. 166 NOTE A. Quotation from Arnold of Rugby . . . . ... .168 NOTE B. THE MOEALITY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. Secondary importance of the subject . . . . . .168 The historical questions of the Old Testament ought to be regarded as open ........... 168 Present state of the historical question . . . . . .169 The morality of the Old Testament is not heathen . . . .169 Presumption against its having any Divine sanction . . . 169 Its practical effect 169 Quotation from Butler 170 Where Butler is right 171 Where he is wrong . . . . . . . . . .171 CHAPTER XL THE FUNCTION OF AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. Two meanings of the word Authority . . . . . .172 Two opposite views of authority in religion . . . . .172 The one practically denies that such authority is possible . . 172 Reply to this 173 The other, that there can be no religious authority which is not infallible 173 The two arc from the same logical root . .173 CONTENTS. XXV PAGE Reply to the second ......... 174 Authority of the Church . . .174 Its ground 174 Quotation from Wordsworth . . . . . . . .175 Axioms. Holiness is unchangeable, and is the end of religion . 175 Any doctrine must be untrue if it contradicts either of these . . 175 Trial of faith is needed by our moral nature . . . . .176 Saint Peter's answer ......... 176 "We are not beings of pure intellect, to walk by sight . . . 176 Authority ought to be disbelieved if it teaches anything self-con- tradictory, or contrary to holiness . . . . . .177 Examples: vicarious punishment : everlasting torments . . 177 Christ's demands on faith . . . . . . . .178 The doctrine of the Incarnation ....... 178 Christ's morality 178 Imaginary individual case . . . . . . . .178 Prevalent error as to the claims of authority . . . . .180 NOTE. THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH. The authority of the Church is that of common consent . . .180 Instances of its force : Church government : the Sacraments : the union of Church and State 181 Errors are often made as to the fact of general consent . . .181 nstauces : the claims of Romanism and of Calvinism . . . 181 Where such authority is conclusive 182 Where it leaves questions open to reconsideration .... 182 CHAPTER XII. JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. Justification by Faith denned ........ 183 How is it characteristic of Christianity ?. . . . . .183 Christ made new applications of old truths rather than discovered new ones .... . . ..... 184 Originality of the idea of reigning by the power of truth . . 184 The ancient ethical systems were based on habit and education, and enforced by coercive power . . . . . . .184 Justification by works . . . . . . . . .184 Christ's discovery was a moral motive power : and the motive power was His own character ........ 185 This excluded the use of coercive power by Him . . . .186 His anticipation of modern ethical discovery 186 The Temptation of Christ 186 Subject of His mi-'iital conflict ....... 186 XXVI CONTENTS. PAP.E Impulse to use miraculous power to establish a kingdom and reign in righteousness . . . . . . . . . .187 Quotation from the 72nd Psalm 187 Two uses of knowledge : to guide action and to mould character . 188 Religious knowledge acts in the latter way 189 Consequently there is in theology no distinction between speculative and regulative truth . . . . . . . .189 Deau Mansel's doctrine . . . . . . . . .189 It is impossible to act on the truth of religion without sincerely believing it 190 Faith is opposed to sensible perception, and so is Science . .191 Resemblance between man's scientific and his moral education . 192 NOTE. MEANING OF THE WOED JUSTIFICATION IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. Harmony between St. Paul and St. James . . . - . .192 Meaning of an expression of St. James ...... 193 Verbal contradiction between the two . . . . . .193 Meaning of the word Justification with St. Paul and St. James . 193 Summary of the doctrine of both . . . . . . .193 Possible extension of the meaning of St. James . . - . .193 The doctrine of imputed righteousness irrational, and contrary to the New Testament 194 CHAPTER XIII. THE PROOF OF DEITY FROM POWER. Apparent variety in the universe, affirmed by science . . .195 Instinct of unity .......... 195 Pre-Socratic philosophy . . . .. . . . .195 Discovery of unity the aim of science ...... 196 Physical science can never penetrate to the ultimate unity . . 196 Proof of this. The nebular theory 196 Proof in less hypothetical language . . . . . .197 Proof in more general form . . . . . . . .198 The belief in fundamental unity is a priori . . . . .199 Universality of Causation . . . . . . . .199 The axiom of Causation is a case of that of Unity . . . .199 The ultimate Cause, like the ultimate Unity, transcends Nature . 199 These two conclusions are not identical ...... 200 The argument from Causation was always probable, and is now scien- tifically certain . 200 What is the nature of the Absolute Cause ? 201 It can be conceived of only as a Will, guided by Intelligence : and if intelligent, then holy . . . . . . . .201 Theism and Pantheism : their effects on character . 202 CONTENTS. XXV11 PAGE Pantheism promotes reverence only: Theism ministers also to the moral sense .......... 202 Summary 202 Theism adds to without contradicting Pantheism .... 202 If the answer of Theism is not accepted, these questions must remain without answer . . . . . . . . .203 NOTE A. THE UNALTERABLENESS OF CHEMICAL ELEMENTS. Extract from Dr. Clark Maxwell's address to the Mathematical and Physical Section of the British Association, 1870 . . .203 NOTE B. SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON ON CAUSATION. Extract from Sir William Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics . 204 Criticism on it ......... 205 CHAPTER XIV. THE PROOF OF DEITY FROM INTELLIGENCE AND DESIGN. Argument from Design 206 Nature of its difficulties 206 The metaphysical objection to it is equally valid against all theo- logical reasoning . . . . . . . . .207 Objection that the analogy from human design is defective, because the works of man are constructed, and those of nature are evolved ........... 207 Reply : the truth that design proves a designer is not a generalization from experience, but a truth of the reason . . . .208 Instances of human skill are not proofs but only illustrations . .209 Summary ........... 209 Works of art \vhich are evolved within the mind .... 209 Universal order in creation . . . . . . . .210 Spherical form of raindrops and of planets 210 Purpose served by the form of the earth . . . . . .210 We cannot infer design from this . . . . . . .211 The problem might be altered if we knew the relation of space and time to the Creator . . . . , . . . . 211 Hexagons of basalt . . . . . . . . .211 Other harmonies without apparent purpose . . . . .212 Organic adaptations . . . . . . . . .212 The argument from design is sound, but needs modification to suit the evolution theory 212 Inaccuracy of the term final cause ....... 213 Is there anything in organic adaptation beyond the law of causation ? 213 CONTENTS. I'AGL- This is a question for inductive science . ... . . . -H Purpose is most evident where cause is least so .... 214 Organizing Intelligence is not Divine, but is fundamentally identical with mental and instinctive intelligence 215 Eeasons in favour of this view . . . . . . .216 The argument from Design ought to be called the argument from Intelligence 216 Statement of it 217 Suggestion of an absolute purpose in creation . . . .217 CHAPTER XV. THE PROOF OF DEITY FROM CONSCIENCE. The proofs of God from Power and from Intelligence are co-extensive neither with infinity nor with each other . . . . .218 The Divine Infinity is an a priori truth . . . . . .218 Proof of God from Conscience 219 It is not demonstrative . . . . . . . . .219 Argument against it, that moral law is not grounded in Will but transcends it . . . . . . . . . .219 Reply, that conscience speaks with a command .... 220 Moral law belongs to our nature because we arc part of the spiritual universe ........... 220 The argument from conscience has the most effect on men . . 220 Ancient Israelite belief in God . . . . . . 220 The religious instinct is an argument for the existence of its Object : but it cannot supersede the necessity of further reasons for belief 222 NOTE. THOMAS ERSKINE OX THE COXSCIKN' : , Revelation in conscience of Divine purpose and character . . 2: 3 CHAPTER XVI. THE STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE. Analogy of the order of this work to the procedure of science . . 224 The physical and spiritual order constitute one universe . . . 224 The simplest laws and properties are the most general . . . 224 Consequently the highest products are the least abundant . .225 This is recognized as right by the artistic sense .... 225 Series of functions in nature increasing in complexity as they decrease in generality . . . . . . . . . .226 Variety increases with complexity ....... 99.7 XXIX PAGE Variety appears to be a purpose in nature ..... 227 Illustrations of this in organic classification ..... 227 Different kinds of excellence are in some degree incompatible . . 228 Each member of the series is dependent on the preceding one . . 228 In the organic world one function works through another . . 229 Illustration of the engine and its driver ...... 229 Argument against life being a resultant from physical forces . . 230 Summary 230 Disturbance of harmony . . . . . , . .231 Disease arising in a revolt of the lower forces against the higher . 231 Insanity 232 Sin 232 Disease in human society ........ 232 Storms, volcanoes, and earthquakes .... . 232 Deserts ............ 232 The beauty of the world is not so distributed as to be of the greatest possible service to man ........ 233 Mounts Erebus and Terror 233 Life is adapted to the inorganic world rather than the converse . 234 The changes of the inorganic world disregard life .... 234 The preparation for life in matter consists in general laws, not in special facts . . . . ^ . . . . . . 234 Total effect of physical change in promoting vital progress . .234 Analogy to this in the political world ...... 235 Natural selection in history ......... 235 Want of harmony between mental faculties ..... 236 Summary 236 The greatest beauty is lavished on the smallest things . . . 237 Imperfection of Man ......... 238 Legend of the Fall 238 NOTE A. THE EFFECT OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF LAND AND SEA ON CLIMATE. Effect of masses of ice on climate . . . . . . 239 Possible improvement of climate by changes in the Polar regions : by submergence of burning deserts : by change in the position of the Asiatic continent ........ 239 Room for new continents in the Pacific Ocean .... 240 The purpose of creation is not the maximum of human comfort . 240 NOTE E. ORGANIC PROGRESS IN GEOLOGICAL HISTORY. Organic progress is general though not universal . . . .240 Instances 240 These are not cases of the descent of one order from another . . 241 X XX CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVII. THE DIVINE PURPOSE OF CREATION. PAOB Objection, that we are too insignificant to be the special objects of the Creator's care ......... 242 This addresses the imagination . . . . . . .243 Reply : what is small is not insignificant to the Infinite God . . 243 The telescope and the microscope ........ 243 Hypothesis that the purpose of creation is rather like that of a work of art than a mechanical work 244 Objection to this 244 There may be many Creative purposes 244 Those discoverable by us probably have relation to sentient beings . 244 Suggestion that happiness is the purpose, disproved by facts ' . . 244 Pain tends to its own extinction . . . . . . .245 The capacity for physical pain exceeds that for physical enjoyment . 245 Physiological ground of this fact ..... . 245 Suggestion that the ultimate purpose may be virtue . . .245 Objection to this from man's sinfulness 246 The purpose is not the most virtue, but the highest virtue . . 246 Partial attainment of a high type of virtue is worthier than perfect attainment of a lower type . . . , . . . . 246 These assumptions are consistent with the constitution of things, and interpret the facts of that constitution . . . . .246 There may be differences of moral government in different planets . 247 Variety is a purpose in the moral as in the organic world . . 248 Summary 248 Suggestion that the purpose of creation is to give the greatest reward to virtue contradicted by the facts that the reward is often lost and is unfairly distributed . . . . . . .249 These failures of justice are necessary to the production of a higher kind of virtue 250 Sometimes Nature does not minister to man at all . . . . 250 Pain and ruin are not misunderstood harmonies .... 250 Appearance of needless waste and suffering . . . . .251 Question why evil is permitted . ...... 251 Answer, that there are virtues which could not be developed with- out it 251 Original sin and voluntary guilt 251 The highest degree of evil is the least inexplicable . . . .252 Injustice at the root of the social relation 252 Tendency of virtue to ultimate success, if sufficient time is allowed . 253 Ethical laws are laws of tendency only ...... 253 Purpose of this 253 Conflict of duties 253 Often no resultant is possible ........ 254 Casuistry , 254 CONTENTS. XXXI PAGE Historical instances . . . . . . . . .254 Application of the same principle to belief ..... 254 Peculiar kinds of virtue arise out of the conflict of duties . . 256 Summary ........... 256 Reply to arguments against Christianity from its apparent failure . 257 Practical importance of the subject , . . . . .257 Ethical systems must be tested by tendencies, not by results . . 257 How ethical principles are to be experimentally verified . . . 258 Summary ........... 258 Objection that the doctrine here stated tends to selfishness . . 259 Reply, that it is not the entire truth : salvation will finally be general 259 Objection to Christianity that it does not act on the mass . . 259 Reply, that it acts on the mass through the individual . . .259 Tendency to lower Christianity into a system of ordinances, in order to benefit the masses 260 Objection to signs and to philosophy .... 260 It is right that religion should make demands on faith as well as obedience 261 CHAPTER XVIII. ORIGINAL SIN. Original sin defined ....... . 262 Two errors : that original sin is a theological dogma ; and that dependence on God belongs to the sinful nature . . . 262 How far the moral difficulty of the subject is soluble . . . 263 I speak of the subject psychologically ...... 264 Sin begins with self-consciousness ....... 264 Self-consciousness defined ........ 264 Self-consciousness deranges even the bodily functions : much more the mental , 264 Mental nature of monkeys . . . . . . . .265 Contrast between unconscious intelligence in Nature and conscious intelligence in Man ........ 265 Contrast between natural beauty and human art . . . .266 Savage perversities in ornament . . . ' . . . 266 Morbid instincts 267 Other perversities of practice . . . . . . .267 Derangement of thought by self-consciousness .... 267 Mythology, how produced . . . . . . . .268 Instance : deification of chance ....... 268 Animism . .......... 269 Primitive philosophy is logical but irrational ..... 269 Effect of self-consciousness on the appetites ..... 269 The allegorical myth of the Fall 270 Its possible historical meaning ....... 270 XXXll CONTENTS. PA UK The personality of tlie Tempter in incapable of proof or disproof . 271 The Devil moans the principle of purely spiritual evil, as distin- guished from the world and the flesh . . . . .271 Christ overcame all the three 271 NOTE A. THE MUTILATIONS OF SAVAGES. Mutilations are sometimes sacrifices . . . . . .272 Instance among the Mandans ....... 272 This explanation does not appear applicable to all . . . .272 NOTE B. THE "SPECTATOR" ON SAVAGE CUSTOMS. The capriciousness of savage customs . . . . . .273 Instances ........... 274 Tattooing : Distortion : Mutilation . . . . . .274 These, being injurious, cannot be accounted for by the Darwinian theory ........... 274 Ideas of a Kandyan on marriage . . . ^ . . .274 Savage capriciousness appears to show the first inovings of a spiritual nature ........... 275 NOTE 0. CUSTOM OF TIIK COUVADE. Description of the Couvade ........ 275 Belief whereon it is grounded . ....... 276 Probable origin of this belief 276 The trial of Orestes 276 CHAPTER XIX. NATURE AND THE RELIGIOUS SKNSK. The truth that the highest products of nature are the least abundant, and the higher forces liable to be impeded by the lower, as regarded by the scientific mind, by the artistic or poetical mind, and by the religious mind . . . . . .278 Origin of the religious sense in a cry for deliverance from sin . . 280 CHAPTER XX. IMMORTALITY. Origin of the religious sense in a longing for deliverance . . 282 Will the deliverance be in this life or another ? . . . .282 Possible origin of the belief in immortality in mere savage super- stition 283 CONTENTS. PAGE If so, it not the less owes its significance to the moral sense . . 283 Wonderfulness of such a belief ....... 283 Three threads of relation in physical science : Cause, Resemblance, Purpose 284 Causation gives no reason to think that life or mind is immortal . 284 The moral sense is not exclusively utilitarian 285 What is its origin ? 285 It is from that spiritual universe whereof we are part . . . 285 Probability that moral laws, like mathematical, have a world wherein to work themselves out ........ 286 Resemblance 286 Natural analogies of immortality . . . . . . .287 Germination 287 Insect metamorphosis 287 We may be larvae 287 The theory of evolution makes the analogy better than it formerly appeared 287 What is the nature of immortal life ? 288 We do not know, because it is beyond our experience . . . 288 It may differ from the nature which we know, only as life from matter ........... 288 Connexion of the belief in immortality with that in a personal God 289 Purpose ............ 289 Objection, that the end is not sufficiently attained .... 289 Quotation from Matthew Arnold's " Resignation" .... 289 Probability that the end will be fully attained in a future life . . 290 Aspiration after immortality . . . . . . . .290 Poetical quotation 290 Suggestion of a future life from premature death .... 291 Christ's miracles of raising the dead ...... 291 Argument for immortality from the incompleteness of the present order of things 291 St. Paul on this subject . . . 292 Dr. Vaughan's paraphrase of St. Paul ...... 292 The imperfection of nature is proof not of ruin but of incompleteness 292 Quotation from " In Memoriam " ....... 293 Quotation from Matthew Arnold's " Resignation " .... 293 Quotation from Ecclesiastes ........ 293 On any merely physical theory the universe appears to be created in vain ........... 295 Suggestions of something better ....... 295 In all languages, higher means more excellent ..... 295 As matter is a preparation for life, so all nature may be for eternal life , 295 Summary . . 295 XXX1Y CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXI. STOICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. PAGE Stoical objection to immortality, that a reward lowers the character of virtue 296 How far this is true . . . . . . . . .296 Reply : the objection is not true when the reward is the necessary consequence of virtue . . . . . . . .297 The same is true of human love ..%..... 297 Virtue needs the stimulus of hope 298 Stoicism was virtue cultivated without hope . . . . .298 It had an independent value . . . . . ' . . 298 Nature of the f -attire reward : not only in approval of conscience, but in seeing the triumph of right, and in seeing and knowing God 299 Christ's teaching on this subject ... .... 299 Citizenship in the kingdom of Heaven . . . . . .300 Is loyalty to a personal God better than to an impersonal law ? . 301 Faith of ancient Israel contrasted with Stoicism .... 301 Degeneration of the faith in a righteous God ..... 302 Summary 302 The same principles are true of punishment as of reward . . 302 CHAPTER XXII. NATURE AND GRACE. Belief ought to influence character ....... 303 If the legitimate effect of a belief is injurious, it cannot be true . 303 High excellence is the purpose of creation, yet it is rare . . . 303 Objection to this, that it tends to promote selfishness . , .303 Love needs the stimulus of hope for its objects .... 304 The above-stated doctrine is true in the world of nature, but not in that of grace .... ...... 304 There will be mercy for all . . . . . .304 This belief is favourable not only to heroism, and self-devotion, but also to hope and love ....... 305 Justice is natural law among beings having a moral nature . . 305 Error of thinking that punishment can expiate sin ... 306 Misleading analogy ........ 306 Punishment does not heal sin, as pain does not heal disease . . 306 The duration of punishment is not a difficulty .... 307 Expiation is needless if sin is healed, impossible until then . . 307 The New Testament teaches that salvation is healing . . . 307 The healing of sin is repentance ....... 307 Permanence of the consequences of sin . . . . . . 308 Restoration on repentance is ensured by justice .... 308 We may reap the fruits of both sin and repentance at the same time 30S CONTENTS. XXXV PAGK Perpetuity of the consequences of sin 309 Possible beneficial effects of sin . . . . . . 309 It is not true that every sin wilJ ultimately tend to holiness . .309 Sins of calculation must be purely evil in their consequences . . 310 Summary ........... 310 "Will punishment destroy sin by destroying the sinner ? . . .310 The analogy of nature is in favour of this view, and opposed to end- less suffering ; but it is untrustworthy because it has not a properly moral basis . .. . . . . .311 Does not punishment tend to produce repentance ? . . . .312 This cannot be asserted generally . . . . . . .312 Possible difficulty of repentance in a future life . . . .312 Connexion of this with the belief in everlasting torment . .313 The dispensation of grace is distinct from that of nature and law . 313 Purpose of this 313 The difficulty is not how repentance is to be efficacious, but how it is to be possible . . . . . . . . .314 We live in a kingdom of God as well as under a reign of Law . .314 To impersonal law it is indifferent whether its subjects are righteous : not so to God .......... 315 God must desire righteousness in His creatures . . . .315 Mercy in the Creator is one with justice 315 Meaning of the name of Father as applied to God . . . .316 The purpose of grace is to lead to repentance 316 Punishment is easier to believe in than forgiveness . . . .316 Auger and forgiveness belong to personal beings only . . .316 Forgiveness is absolute : restoration is progressive . . . .316 Forgiveness has a value independent of consequences . . .317 The prodigal son .......... 317 God's anger, independently of consequences, will be the severest part of the punishment of sin ........ 817 But it will be removed on repentance, and the rest will be endurable 317 Grace is righteousness among free personal beings .... 317 Kighteous beings will desire not only the punishment, but the destruction of sin : and this if possible by the repentance of the sinner ........... 318 Justice and mercy imply each other, and are from the same root . 318 Analogy from science . . . . . . . . .319 Grace is higher than justice, but justice must be obeyed first . . 319 Analogy of the vital and inorganic forces . . . . . 319 Grace works through justice . . . . . . . .319 Grace is a higher development of justice, and has been developed later 320 Perplexities of the Israelite and of the Christian .... 320 The answer to both : all that is contrary to either justice or grace is but for a time .......... 320 In some cases, sin may be destroyed only by the extinction of the sinner ........... 320 XXXVI CONTENTS. PAGB The sin against the Holy Spirit 321 We approve of punishment only so far as necessary for the defeat or cure of sin 322 Similar feeling as to rewards . . . . . . . .322 The destruction of sin in the future life will be a painful process . 323 Being destructive, it will come to an end ..... 324 Suggestions in the New Testament of the salvation of all . . 324 Summary ........... 324 The relation of grace to nature is prefigured by that of life to matter 326 Being a new creation, grace can be known only by revelation . . 327 NOTE A. THE LANGUAGE SPOKEN BY CHRIST. Reason for thinking that Christ usually spoke Greek . . . 327 NOTE B. THOMAS ERSKINE ON GRACE AND JUSTICE. In God, mercy and justice are one ....... 328 Punishment consistent with forgiveness . . . . . .328 God's righteousness as a Father . . . . . . . 328 Punishment no cure for sin ........ 328 The purpose of grace ......... 328 The purpose of punishment . . . . . . . .328 Punishment is irreversible . . . . . . . .329 Erskine's merits . . . . 329 CHAPTER XXIII. LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL RELIGION. Meaning of natural religion ........ 330 Its doctrines are consistent with the facts of the world . . . 330 Purpose of Butler's Analogy . . . . . . . .331 Immortality can be certain only by revelation . . . .332 Value of the Analogy . . 332 All religion is revealed . . . . . . . . .332 The true distinction is Legal and Evangelical ..... 332 Definitions 332 Legal religion has an analogy with nature ..... 333 Evangelical religion is contrasted with nature .... 333 Butler's initial error, that revelation should reproduce the diffi- culties of nature ......... 333 Dean Mansel on the same argument ...... 335 Unbelief among the ancient Israelites 335 The argument is as good against Divine justice as against Divine mercy ........... 336 Summary ........... 336 CONTENTS. XXXVii PAGE In what sense this is a mere argumentum ad hominem . . . 336 Argument for the universality of mercy from instinctive moral feeling 336 The dogmas of original sin and of election . . . . .337 Butler's comparison of the waste of souls to that of seeds . . 338 Eeply : the waste of seeds belongs to unmoral nature, and the analogies of the moral creation are opposed to it . . 338 Family life 339 Christian philanthropy ......... 339 The Darwinian principle in nature and in morals .... 340 The analogy of the spiritual world will be with the moral rather than with the unmoral part of nature ..... 340 Legal and Evangelical religion cannot be separated . . . 340 NOTE. HANSEL ON THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL. Extract from Hansel's Bampton Lectures 341 His inconsistency . . . . . . . . . .341 Miiller on the same subject . . . . . . . .342 Moral position of his theory . . . . . . . .342 Legitimate result of Hansel's doctrine . . . . . .342 Hansel, Butler, Pascal, and the Casuists ..... 342 CHAPTER XXIV., THE RELATION OF HISTORY TO RELIGION. History is not part of science .343 Religion must be in closer connexion with history than with science 344 A revelation addressed to the affections must be historical . .344 These ideas are not new ......... 345 Summary ........... 345 CHAPTER XXV. RECAPITULATION OF THE FOREGOING CHAPTERS. Nature suggests, without proving, God and immortality . . . 34(5 I am opposed to Deism and mystical Transcendentalism as well as to materialistic positivism ....... 346 The alleged opposition between Theology and Science is a petitio principii , . . . . . . 346 Science here includes metaphysics as well as inductive science . 347 Origin of inductive and metaphysical science, F and of faith . . 348 Their respective functions : that of inductive science is to make known the laws of the universe : that of metaphysics and of faith is to mould character 348 IXXV111 CONTENTS. PAGE The questions of metaphysics are real, whether capable of solution or not 349 Spiritual nature of the universe ....... 349 Ground of the moral sense in uncreated law 349 Freedom of the Will 349 Reasonableness of faith 350 Its ethical value 350 Behind nature there must be an invisible ground of being and prin- ciple of unity : and this must be infinite ..... 351 Suggestion that the forces of the universe may be the expression of Will 351 This is strengthened by the discovery that the universe had a beginning 352 Moral law is part of the Divine nature . . . . . .352 Conscience, not nature, is the chief source of the knowledge of God 352 The only absolute ground of certainty is in the moral sense . . 352 Moral law is uncreated ......... 353 The force of the argument from conscience depends on the mind whereto it is addressed ........ 354 Faith in God is good for man ; and that which is good for the moral nature cannot be false 354 Special value of this argument for the scientific spirit . . . 355 This proof is scientific in form 356 Its relevancy can be denied only by denying the existence of a moral cosmos ........... 356 The Stoical argument 357 Reply to it 357 Cumulative nature of proof . . . . . . . .357 Proof of Deity from Intelligence ....... 358 Problem of the purpose of creation ....... 358 Science tells only of causes which are also effects, and purposes which are means to other purposes . . . . . . .359 It is the religious instinct which regards evil as an anomaly . . 359 The anomaly is capable of partial solution ..... 359 The greatest evil is the most explicable . . . . . .359 The lower functions minister to the higher 360 Variety is an absolute end 360 High perfection is rare, and the smallest things are the most highly finished -. 360 Imperfection of the natural world . . . . . . . 3(jo Imperfection of man ......... 360 The purpose of creation cannot be the highest average of virtue, but it may be virtue of the highest type . . . . .361 The Creator seeks variety in the moral creation, and our moral world is only one among many ........ 361 The belief in an excellence which is not meant to be shared with mankind must tend to selfishness 362 Escape from this in the doctrine of a general restoration . . . 362 CONTENTS. XXX IX PAGE Nature may prepare for immortality as matter does for life . . 362 Argument for immortality from the sense of incompleteness . . 363 Argument that, moral law must have a world wherein to work out results 363 Justice in the natural world ........ 363 Justice and grace ........... 363 Universal justice and universal mercy ...... 364 Hope of a revelation ......... 364 The revelation will probably be made through history . . .364 Legal and Evangelical religion : their analogies with nature . . 365 Proof of revelation by miracle ....... 365 Relation of mathematical to experimental science, parallel to that of morals to theology ......... 366 "Where the analogy is reversed ..... 4 . 366 In physics, the ultimate appeal is to fact : in theology, it is to moral principles .......... 367 All verification is a condescension to our weakness .... 367 The Christian miracles are not only proofs but illustrations . . 367 The highest knowledge is the result of intuition .... 367 Practical inference from this . . . . . . f .368 Distinction between the Reason and the Understanding . . . 368 Its ground , . , . 4 368 Accordance of this with inductive science ; , 368 NOTE A. R. H. Hutton on the testimony of the moral nature to God . . 369 NOTE B. THE CERTAINTY OF GEOMETRICAL AXIOMS. Our knowledge of space comes at first through the senses . . 370 When found, is it necessary knowledge ? ..... 371 Our knowledge of three dimensions is purely experimental . . 371 There may be any number of dimensions in space .... 371 But, so far as it exists, our knowledge of the properties of space is trustworthy 371 Our conception of space is a result of experience which has become a form of thought .... ..... 871 Space is objectively real ..... i .. . 371 Are our ideas of space absolutely or only approximately true ? . . 372 Case of an imaginary world . . . . . . . .372 Truths which cannot be denied without contradiction 373 CHAPTER XXVI. THE DISTINCTIVE DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. We await a revelation, to confirm what nature and conscience suggest 374 Further purpose of Christian revelation ...... 37 1 \1 ENTS The Trinity, tho Incarnation, and tho Atonement .... Opinion that those doctrines arc of heathen origin historically un- tenable . . . . . . . .;",.'> presentation of tho doctrine of tho Trinity in the so-called Athanasian Creed ......... Practical importance of the doctrine ...... rnitarianisni and tho faith of tho Church ..... Tho Pivino Son ........ Without this belief we lin.l no prototype for human goodness in tho Divine. and wo cannot see how Cod can lv lovo .-.no of l.inlathon on this subjivt ...... ^7S Tho Divine Sou is the Ihvul of tho spiritual crontion K. 11. lint ton on this subject Tho belief in the Pivine Sou insutlieiout for lu-ings like us The Incarnation .......... o>0 A ilitHeulty \\hich it meets ........ ;>SO Sununary ........... .'^1 Objection ........... :*1 The Incarnation and the Atonement both include the entire life of Christ .......... A manifestation of love can scarcely be genuine unless it has some purpose other than manifesting itself .... The sacrifice of Christ has been made not as a mere display of love, but for atonement, or reconciliation, by making repentance pos- sible and giving a new nature ...... Incarnation and Atonement are different aspects of tho same truth . We cannot explain the process of Atonement, but \ve can see its moral tit ness ......... Kolation of the Atonement to Faith ...... Influence of Christ independently of human cor. f it Objection to these doctrines from their strangeness .... Koply. that the real anomaly is sin ....... Id evidence for the doctrines: Christ's authority, and their own character .......... Christ's authority, both miraculous and moral Faith cannot be reduced to logi> . it belongs to persona' 'hysieal objection that the Incarnation implies a contra- diction .......... j . that we do not know wherein personal identity but it is compatible with the .,1 in . K. 11. Hutton on this subject ........ Summary ........... ?M My obligations to F.rskine ........ CONTKNTS. xli CHAPTER XXVII. J'AL'L AND JOHN ON THE PERSON OF CHRIST. PAGE The distinctive doctrines of Christianity stand or fall with the vera- city of the Gospel of St. John 391 The first three Evangelists record, the very words of ^Christ : not so St. John 392 St. John's Gospel is the especially theological one . . . .392 The first three Gospels agree with the fourth 393 Paul and John are two independent witnesses ..... 394 Theory that the distinctive doctrines of Christianity originated with St. Paul, refuted by the Gospel of St. John . . . .394 Paul and John state the same doctrine in different language . . 394 If the Fourth Gospel were a work of later date, it would contain St. Paul's expressions . . . . . . . . .394 The Epistles of St. John stand with his Gospel . . . .395 The theory that the Gospel of St. John is genuine but not trust- worth} 7 will not account for St. Paul's agreement with it, nor will the theory that Christianity was a spontaneous product of the Jewish mind 393 The Apostles' own account of the source of their doctrines . . 396 Summary ........... 396 Summary of the teaching of Paul and John as to the Person of Christ 397 The Apostolic doctrine of Atonement . 398 Detailed proof of the agreement of John and Paul . . . . 399 Deity of Christ 399 Pre-existence of Christ 400 Christ the Creator . . . . . . . . . .401 The love of the Father to the Son 401 Incarnation of the pre-existent Word ...... 402 Christ associated with God on terms of equality .... 402 Christ identified with God 404 Christ's voluntary humiliation 404 Christ's present power and glory ....... 405 Christ the way of access to the Father ...... 406 Christ the fountain of grace ........ 407 Christ the object of faith . . . ... . .407 Justification by faith in Christ ....... 408 Atonement made by Christ . . . . . . . .410 Christ's death necessary for our life . . . . . .412 Christ's human life the source of spiritual life to us . . .412 Adoption of Christ's people as children of God .... 413 Union of Christ's people with Him . . . . . .413 Our relation to Christ like His to the Father . . . . .415 Christ the giver of the Holy Spirit 415 Christ identified with the Holy Spirit 416 d xlii CONTENTS. PAGE The union of Christ's people with each other in Him . . .417 Transformation of Christ's people into His likeness at His coming again 417 Agreement of the other Evangelists with St. John . . . .417 Christ associated with God on terms of equality . . . .418 Christ's present power and glory . . . . . . .418 Christ identified with the Holy Spirit 418 CHAPTER XXV III. THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE. The instinctive hope for both justice and mercy can be fulfilled only by the extinction of sin . . , . . . . .419 Only Divine power can effect this ....... 419 It is done through Christ . . . . . . . 419 Connexion between Regeneration and Resurrection, denied by Uni- tarian theology and Pelagian ethics . . . . . .420 Harmony of Christian ethics with modern physiological psychology 421 Consistency of the Resurrection with the laws of vital development 422 Is the resurrection to condemnation reconcilable with the doctrine here maintained ......... 425 The difficulty arises from the false notion that justice and mercy are opposed . 425 Christ could not be the Saviour were He not also the Judge . . 425 CHAPTER XXIX. THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF A FINAL GENERAL RESTORATION. The blessedness promised in the New Testament is not happiness but life, which is eternal ,.,.... 427 Death, on the contrary, is not called eternal . 427 Christ's Parable of Judgment teaches eternal life for the merciful, and eternal punishment far the unmerciful, whether they know Christ or not 430 This separation cannot be literally true, because none are all good or all bad ........... 430 Reward and punishment will be proportional to deeds , . . 430 Christ here says nothing of forgiveness ...... 430 Judgment by works is the doctrine of the New Testament . . 431 Eternal punishment means that the law of retribution is never to be reversed ...,., 431 But in the future life, as in the present, this may be compatible with forgiveness ..,,...... 432 Future punishment is spoken of as fire ...... 432 Fire is primarily destructive 432 CONTENTS. xliii PAGE Fire as a symbol of purification 432 Summary 433 The sin against the Holy Spirit 434 Difficulty of reconciling all Christ's sayings 435 Reasonableness of accepting apparent inconsistencies . . . 435 General statement of Christ's teaching on the subject . . . 436 Suggestion of future deliverance from prison . . . .437 Christ makes no assertion as to the final destiny of the majority . 438 Indefiniteness of the word eternal . ...... 438 Analogy in the use of the word Heaven 439 Eternal must mean the same applied to punishment as to life . . 439 Possibility that both punishment and life are to end in some higher glory 439 The Synoptic Gospels contain no promise of final restoration . . 439 St. Paul asserts universal salvation the most clearly . . . 440 "Why has Christ not stated it with more prominence ? 440 Eeply, that justice must be revealed before mercy . . . .440 Besides, the shadow of the Cross is over Christ's teaching ; but it is now removed 441 Why Christ so felt it 441 St. Peter on a final restoration 442 St. Paul on the same subject . 442 Quotation from Dean Stanley 444 St. Paul on the future of Israel 446 The theology of Eliphaz 447 Why has not the doctrine of a final restoration been generally believed? 451 Tradition affords only a presumption . . . , . .451 Men do not see what they do not wish to see ..... 452 Men's dependence on their teachers ...... 452 Sabbatarianism . . . . . . . . . .452 The doctrine of everlasting torment is not part of the Catholic faith 453 Divine guidance shown in this ....... 453 Difficulty of understanding why this belief does not destroy thank- fulness and happiness 453 This is partly due to stupidity and selfishness, but partly to the purity that Christianity teaches . . . . . .454 The horror of the doctrine protects the imagination against it .454 We cannot have evidence of its actual effects ..... 455 No one who has the Spirit of Christ can really acquiesce contentedly in it ........... 455 Its legitimate effect is to strengthen what is worst in human nature ... ........ 455 The indifference to cruelty which Christendom inherited from heathenism was cured by unbelieving philesophy . . . 457 Connexion of this reform with disbelief in everlasting torment . 458 Practical importance of the question of future punishment . . 458 CONTENTS. PAGE Absurdity of thinking that the doctrine of a final restoration is opposed to a high standard of holiness . . . . . 459 Fear that it tends to relax the force of moral law .... 459 Injustice of thinking that the revolt against the dogma of everlasting torment is selfish . . . . . . . . 459 The deterrent power of punishment depends not on severity but certainty 460 Testimony of conscience . . . . . . . . .460 Justice and mercy are both affirmed by conscience, and must both be true, whether we can harmonize them or not . . . 461 Attempt to harmonize them . . . . . . .461 "We shall be accepted not according to what we have done or believed, but according to what we are ...... 461 From this follow retribution and forgiveness . . . . . 462 Atonement ........... 462 Quotation from Erskine ........ 462 Permanence of the consequences of sin ...... 463 Further question 463 Summary ........... 463 NOTE. MEANING OF THE WORD HEAVEN IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. Heaven in the Epistles means the spiritual world as opposed to the visible 464 CONCLUSION. In what sense I assert a scientific basis of faith .... 466 Relation of Life to Matter, and of Intelligence to both . . . 466 Connexion between the truth of a doctrine and its moral tendency . 467 Misapplication of this to be guarded against ..... 468 Application of the principle to prayer ...... 469 The supernatural is a reality of the universe, but it may easily be excluded from thought ........ 470 Present temptations to do so . , . . . . . . . 471 Revival of Stoical ethics ......... 472 The present tendencies will not continue ...... 473 My differences from received doctrines ...... 473 Conclusion 474 INTRODUCTION. FT1HE reader who glances at the title of this book may - probably suppose that it is one more attempt at what is called "harmonizing Scripture with Science;" that is to say, trying by how little distortion of the sense of Scripture, and by how little misrepresentation of the facts of Science, the narratives of the Old Testament may be made to coincide with the facts disclosed by scientific research. It is best to state at the outset, that I have no such purpose. I believe that no such harmonizing is either it is not necessary or possible ; and if it were to be effected, it harmonize would raise far greater difficulties than it would solve ; the words for it would be one of the greatest conceivable difli- culties in the way of understanding, or believing, a th ? facts of Divine revelation, if it were made to appear that the nor is it' to Inspiring Spirit had begun His work by communicating be desired - truths of merely physical science. But not only do I admit that no such "harmonizing" as this is either needful or possible ; I admit also that when we begin to investigate the mutual relations of Eeligion and Science, the first fact which meets us is this, that every science has prospered only when it has been freed from the influence of theological teachers. It was the dream of the Science scholastic philosophy and a magnificent dream it was oniy P \vhen that all science, physical, mental, and moral, should be free from deduced from theology ; or, to use less abstract language, control!^ that man's knowledge of the universe should be deduced B 2 INTRODUCTION. from his knowledge of the God who created it and ap- pointed its laws. But never was any dream more com- pletely contradicted by the waking reality. No science has made greater discoveries than Chemistry, and it was obviously necessary from the very first to place Chemistry on some other than a theological basis. Astronomy and Geology also did not start on their career of progress until they had escaped from theological control ; and we may now say the same of the sciences of Life, of Mind, and of Language. This is not such a state of things as a believer in revealed religion might have expected, and perhaps reasonably expected. But it is as certain as history and philosophy can make it, that Science is absolutely inde- pendent of Theology. It is now impossible for any educated man to deny this Many infer truth ; and the educated men of this generation appear Science very generally to go on to the further conclusion, that the and Faith things of Science and the things of Faith have no points connection of contact, and have absolutely nothing to do with each whatever. o t ne r. This conclusion is probably the more readily Proposed acquiesced in, because it affords a basis for a treaty of peace on peace between what are regarded as the rival claims of this basis. Religion and of Science. Religious men and scientific men have often proposed a treaty of peace on this simple basis, that each of the two should leave the province of Why this the other alone. But it is, in the nature of things, im- sible^tcTbe P oss ^ e f r sucn a treaty to be permanently observed ; kept. and the attempt to observe it will continue only so long as neither party is quite in earnest. For, however un- answerable may be the proof that science has not, and cannot have, a theological basis ; yet no one who is really in earnest can rest in this conclusion as final. Every Proba- religious man believes that God is in all His creation ; connoctfon ^ ie ma ^ therefore reasonably expect that those discoveries from the which reveal the structure of the universe, and the pohft^of 8 processes by which it has assumed its present form, view, w in throw a reflected light, not perhaps on the Divine Nature, but on the Divine Government; and if he is unable to see any such connection between the things INTRODUCTION. 3 of Science and those of Faith, his natural inference will be, not that there is no such connection, but that it is yet to be discovered. And every student of science knows that all scientific progress discloses new and unexpected rela- tions between branches of science that formerly appeared to be altogether unconnected ; and w r hy should he expect und from Eeligion to be alone an exception ? Whether the student sc i 6 ent if lc of science is a believer or an unbeliever in religion or, to use language which is less liable to the charge of ambi- guity, whether he believes theology to be true or false he ought to expect to find such a connection. If he believes it to be true, he ought to expect that the truths of Science and the truths of Faith will have much light to cast on each other; if, on the contrary, he believes it to be false, or at least uncertain, his most logical conclusion will be, not that science has no bearing on theology, but that science will be found full of proofs of the untruth, or of the uncertainty, of theology. It may be said that the existence of any such connection is only a presumption, which, however plausible, has been disproved by the actual progress of knowledge. I admit that it is only a presumption, which the progress of knowledge might conceivably disprove. But even if no It is too such connection does exist, it is too early in the history pronounce of science for us to rest in any such negative conclusion ^ impos- as final. And it can scarcely be conceived as possible The trans- that the vast change we may say transformation which ^nation J J of scien- the last two generations have effected in all our ideas con- tific ideas cerning the universe in which we live and of which we are io lir re _ a part, can remain without any effect in colouring our Hgious thoughts concerning the things of Faith. Such an effect may be very indirect, and yet not the less real and unmis- takeable. Butler's " Analogy of Eeligion, natural and Butler's revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature," con- j na ogy : tains few, if any, distinct allusions to the physical philo- sophy of Bacon or to the metaphysics of Locke, yet the influence whole work is coloured by the style of thought to which ud a Bacon and Locke gave origin ; and it could not have been in it. written as it stands in any age previous to that of Locke. B 2 INTRODUCTION. Science, but the crown. If such a work is written in this or in any future age, it will, in the same way, be coloured by the new aspect which physical philosophy has assumed in the present century. We have The least that the present generation has to do, in order attheleastfr) do justice to the subiect of the relation of Science to to adapt its * reasoning Keligion, is to adapt Butler's mode of reasoning to the Icience. present state of science. This, I say, is the very least we have to do ; I believe we have to do much more. Religion I hope and believe, that when the world is older, and uTthimtely wnen tne mutual relations of all branches of knowledge recognized are as well understood as are now, for instance, the relations blsisof ie of chemistry to the theory of electricity, the scientific pro- gress, which began by rejecting religion as the basis of science, will finally accept religion as not indeed the basis, but the summit and crown. Of course it would be im- possible to justify this belief in a single paragraph. It is the purpose of this whole book to endeavour to justify it. It is necessary here to explain the words used. When I speak of science, I mean, not physical science only, but all those sciences, physical, mental, moral, political, and historical, which disclose the constitution of that universe in which we live and of which we form a part. And when I speak of this as forming a basis for religion, I mean a logical basis, somewhat in the same way that Mathematics is the logical basis of the dyna- mical sciences ; or that the sciences' of inorganic matter, collectively, form a basis for the science of Life. Such is always a relation of Keligion to Science, if it can be established, will be in accordance with the analogy of the relation of the sciences among themselves, among which the higher is always based on the lower ; or, to use unmetaphorical language, the higher presupposes the lower. Thus Life presupposes Matter, and is based on it; Mind presupposes unconscious Life, and is based on it. So, as I believe, are the truths of Keligion based on those of Science ; or to use language which gives my meaning better, the knowledge of the Supernatural has its logical basis in the knowledge of the Natural. It is a very obvious, and at first sight a conclusive, Sense in which Science can be a basis for Religion. the basis of the higher Life of Mind. nTiioof ir y> Of THR INTRODUCTION. objection to this view, that in point of historical Eeligion is older than Science. How can the newer be the ^ ? ell ~ basis of the older? The answer to this objection is given older than by the history of science, which shows that when one Answer, science is the logical basis of another, their logical relation that the relatioifUf- does not become manifest until both are far advanced. 1 two The sciences of Matter, that is to say Physics and ? Chemistry, logically form the basis of the science of Life, manifest or Biology ; but historically, we know that systematic are a( . Zoology, which is an important branch of Biology, was vanced. commenced by Aristotle, before either Physics or Chemistry had an existence ; and I believe I am correct in saying that Biology was first placed on its true physico-chemical basis by the establishment of Liebig's chemical theories of nutrition and respiration, not more than a generation ago. The study of most of the sciences was begun independently and in isolation from other sciences were it not so, a beginning could scarcely have been made at all ; and the perception of the relations of each separate science to the rest is not an original condition of its commencement, but a late result of its progress. It is needful here to guard against a very probable mis- conception. I have said that I believe it possible to place Science is religion on a scientific basis. But if this is true it does not R e nJion follow that science contains the germ of religion. These ex- but does , . , , T , i T i n notcontaiu pressions are metaphorical, and need to be explained ; and its germ. they may be best explained by the analogy just referred to, of the relation of the laws of Life to those of Matter. Life presupposes Matter ; that is to say, there cannot be Illustra- Life unless there is Matter to be vitalized, and the laws of thTrela^ Life to a certain extent imply those of Matter, and cannot tion of be stated without presupposing them. But the converse is Lif e . not true : there can be Matter without Life, and the laws of Matter do not in any degree presuppose the laws of Life. Thus Matter constitutes a basis for Life, and the sciences of Matter constitute the basis for the sciences of Life ; but the germ of Life is not to be found in Matter ; the vital forces i See the Chapter in " Habit and Intelligence " on the History of Science (Chapter 44). (5 INTRODUCTION. are not resultants from the physical ones, and the proper- ties of living things are not deducible from the properties of dead matter. As I conceive it, the relation of Eeligion to Science is of this kind : Science is the basis of Eeligion, "because supernatural truths imply natural ones, and cannot culiar be stated without presupposing them. But Science does not RelfSflf contain the germ of Keligion ; on the contrary, the peculiar are known truths of Religion are, as I believe, incapable of being dis- Keveia? covered by man for himself, and have been communicated to tiou - mankind in an altogether peculiar manner, by Revelation. Contrast For this reason there is, and ever must be, a contrast and 80161106 between Science and Religion. The contrast consists in Religion, this, that man finds the facts of Science for himself, but those of Religion are revealed. But this contrast ought Similar not to imply antagonism. There is a similar contrast the^ab-* f between the abstract sciences of logic and mathematics on stract the one side, and the physical sciences on the other; the physical contrast consists in this, that the data of the abstract sciences, sciences are self-evident, while those of the physical ones have to be sought out by a laborious process of observation This in- and experiment. But this is a contrast which implies no anta^on- an tagonism ; on the contrary, the physical sciences are in ism. a great degree based on the mathematical. The mutual relation of Science and Religion ought to be just the same. The anta- The antagonism between Science and Religion themselves science f ^ s P ure ty imaginary. The antagonism between the men and reli- who study and teach Science, and the men who study and ' teach Religion, is, unfortunately, sometimes real, though it that of i s the fashion to exaggerate it : but, in so far as it is real, teachers it is a mere accident of the present time, which will dis- Q " appear, and indeed is already visibly disappearing. Let me repeat, that the purpose of this book is not to I aim not mediate between parties. I do not aim at " harmonizing " iziu^oTre" -^ith with Science, for they need no harmonizing ; nor at coiiciling, reconciling their respective votaries, whom time and the showing increase of knowledge are rapidly reconciling. What I logical and a i m a ^ i s to show their logical connection in thought, and conuec- their organic connection as parts of the same divinely constituted order of things. To do this must be the work, INTRODUCTION. 7 not of the Introduction but of the whole book. I will, Common however, remark here, that the fundamental conceptions of t Science and of Faith, far from being opposed, are identical, tion of The fundamental conception of both is that of a system and* Faith, of truths which man has not made and cannot alter, but which it is his privilege to understand. And from this Similarity identity of fundamental conception it follows, that the ^1cen- S religious and the scientific spirits, when they are both in tific spirits, their purity, are very closely akin. Love of truth, intel- lectual humility, and intellectual independence, are at once religious virtues, and virtues which are involved in scientific habits of mind. By the love of truth I mean something different from Love of mere veracity. I mean that higher kind of truthfulness l il *' which consists " not merely in making our words conform to our opinions, but in endeavouring to make our opinions conform to truth." l This love of truth for its own sake is self-evidently a scientific virtue. Science has no object except the discovery of truth ; and the man who does not value truth, or who values it for any reason except that it is true, is no genuine votary of science. Now, this love of truth for its own sake is equally a thesamein religious virtue. This may be denied : it may be said that ^^fn 011 the purpose of Eeligion is not knowledge, but life ; and Science, consequently, that in Eeligion knowledge of truth is not an end in itself, as it is in Science, but only a means to an end. I reply, that this is a misrepresentation, and a caricature, of the true and Christian doctrine concern- ing Faith. It is a result of that kind of logic which endeavours to be precise and is inaccurate which endea- vours to be subtle and is clumsy. It is a misrepresen- tation, I say, to call the knowledge of what God has to teach a mere means of life, or to call assent to any doctrine, however true, a condition of life. On the contrary, to know what God has to teach is to be in the way of life, and to know God is life. This is the teaching of Christ. 2 1 I quote these words from some discourse by the Rev. F. Robertson of Brighton. 2 "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent" (John xvii. 3). 8 INTRODUCTION. Intel- Intellectual humility is also a religious virtue as well ImmHity as a scientific one. By intellectual humility, I mean a readiness to admit an error when we find ourselves in error ; a willingness to confess our ignorance when we are ignorant ; and a disposition not to make our own notions the tests of truth, but to remember that the standard of Intel- truth is outside of ourselves. The same is true of the independ- v i r t ue f intellectual independence. Without it, scientific ence. progress and religious progress would be alike impossible. Neither the scientific reformation of Copernicus and Galileo, nor the religious reformation of Luther, would have been possible without men who had the independ- ence of mind which could think, doubt, and believe against the pressure of the opinion of a hostile majority. But though the intellectual humility which can bear to confess ignorance or error, the intellectual independence which can endure and overcome all opposition to the search after truth, and the love of truth for its own sake which is the foundation of the other two though these are eminently religious virtues, it can scarcely be said that they are, in the present age at least, at all specially characteristic of religious men. The love of truth is probably more common in England and Germany now than it ever was in any country before ; but this is to be attri- buted altogether to the growth of the scientific spirit that spirit which seeks after knowledge as an end in itself, and The scien- not merely as a means to some other end. And it is not may re-" ^ mucn to hope that the scientific spirit may before long generate put new life into theology. Since the subsidence of the Eeformation, nearly all the best intellect of Europe has been drawn away from theology ; but I hope and believe that this separation between the highest intellects, and Various the highest subjects on which intellect can be employed, effects of . -, n -. . , . science in 1S already tending to disappear. modifying our con- tSfuni- f Before g in g an 7 further, let us consider the various ways verse, in which science has changed and is changing our habitual welUs* 8 thoughts respecting the entire universe, moral as well as physical, physical, in which we live and of which we are a part. - INTRODUCTION. 9 The first lesson of natural science, and in a purely intel- Possibility lectual sense the most important of all, is that natural *-" * SOlcIICo. science is possible. To us, this appears self-evident it appears like asserting that thought is possible. But it was not so at first. The possibility of natural science Discovery implies, and indeed means, the existence of an order in ^ c ^ e lde nature which we are able to discover and understand. It universe, needs an effort of thought for us to imagine a time when this conception was unknown; but history makes it certain, and an effort of thought will make it intelligible, that such a conception was unknown to the early generations of mankind. Instead of power acting under invariable laws, they saw in nature in the heavens, the air, the ocean, and the earth the action not of one Power but of many, and not of law but of caprice. Very slowly was a truer set of conceptions substituted. The first discovery which tended in any great degree to substitute the idea of a reign of law for that of a reign of caprice, was probably the discovery that the eclipses of the sun and moon came in regular course and could be predicted; but it was not for ages afterwards that men learned to understand that such phenomena as lightning, storms, and earthquakes, which most completely set man's powers of prediction at defiance, are also beyond doubt the results of forces that act according to regular law. This is to us a commonplace, but it will not produce on our minds the effect which is properly due to it unless we remember that it was not always a commonplace ; that for our familiar knowledge of this truth we have to thank the meditations and the toils of many a " Spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge, like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost verge of human thought. " l The truth that in nature there is an intelligible order a Cosmos is thus the first revelation of science; and in knowing this, we have the conception of science as possible and attainable. In a word, the first revelation of science is its own existence. 1 Tennyson's Ulysses. 10 1NTIIODUCTION. But more is implied in this than the mere existence of regularity in nature. The truth that this regularity, this reign of law, is not self-evident but is capable of being discovered, implies the possibility of scientific discovery ; and it implies also that nature, when scientifically ex- plored, proves to be at least in some degree unlike what Astrono- it appears to our merely spontaneous perceptions. The coveries 1S " mos ^ striking instance of this truth is that afforded by the discoveries of astronomy that the earth, which appears to be flat and motionless, is really spherical and in motion ; that the sun and many of the stars are larger Things are than the earth. These truths, addressing the understand- theyseem * n 8 an( ^ ^he imagination at once, have taught us, more effectually than would be possible by any other means, that " things are not what they seem." There is another way in which the discoveries of astro- nomy have modified, or at least may modify, profoundly our conceptions of the universe, not only physical but pur earth spiritual. Astronomy has taught us that this earth many f ours i no ^ as men at first naturally thought, the worlds. geometrical centre of the universe that it is one of many planets revolving round the sun, and that the sun is but one of an almost infinite number of stars with which the depths of space are strewn, every one of which may have its own attendant planets. It shows marvellous stupidity that this conception of the universe should ever have been thought irreligious. It not only magnifies the Creator's glory, but to my mind it lessens the weight of the moral perplexities of this earth, to " Look up through night : the world is wide ; " l to remember that the same laws of matter and force are at work in our planet and in every one of " Yonder hundred million spheres ; " 2 and to think it possible that many of the worlds above this truth, and around us are portions not only of the same material 1 Tennyson's Two Voices. 2 The same. INTRODUCTION. 11 universe, but also of the same moral and spiritual universe with our own world ; and that as the laws of life are the same in organisms of every species, so the same mental, moral, ar.d spiritual laws may be working in many worlds to different results in each, and all of them admirable. This conception has not taken hold of men's imagina- it has not tions as it deserves to do. This, however, may be on^^^ account of the general assent to the dogma of the Fall, it merits, which has made men think of the moral administration of this world as ol something altogether abnormal. But the tlie dogma of the Fall, more recent progress of science has made it no longer possible to believe in the Fall as an historical event. We which is may see in it the expression of a truth belonging to a 1 now no higher order than that of nature or history or external credible, fact ; but as history we now see it to be untrue. Science has become historical. 1 A very great part of our Science modern science is occupied with tracing the actual history of i as 'Become J Historical, change and development. This is most conspicuously true of geology, but geology is only one of a series of chapters of historical science, or scientific history, which we are slowly but surely deciphering. The first of these chapters The nebu- is the nebular, or condensation, theory of the origin of the lartneoi T- universe, which, shows how all the suns with their planets have probably come into existence by the slow condensa- tion of a nebula. Geology, which tells of the process by Geology, which the earth's surface has received its present character, is the second of the series. The third is the history of the The evo- evolution of living forms tracing the process by which j]^ n of the most highly organized vegetable and animal species forms, have been derived by descent with modification from the first vitalized but unorganized germ which was endowed with the marvellous powers of life. And, lastly, the and of history of the evolution of human society, with its Ian- g 1 guages, its arts, and its political systems. These histories which may briefly be called the Cos- Continuity mogonic, the Geological, the Biological, and the Human ^ a11 lns " are each continuous in itself, and all continuous with one 1 See the Introduction to " Habit and Intelligence." 12 INTRODUCTION. another. Science shows no change in the laws of nature since the first beginning of things. It seems most probable that the origin of life was due to no physical or chemical action, but to a direct exertion of the same Creative Power which at the beginning gave origin to the world of matter and force: and in the same way the spiritual nature of man is not a mere development of the mental nature of the animals from which his bodily frame is descended, but has been directly imparted by the Divine Spirit. But these, through fresh actions of direct Creative Power, introducing new forces into the universe, have introduced those new forces without altering the laws under which the previously existing forces acted, and without breaking the continuity of the formative history of the universe, any more than the continuity of the formative history of a coral reef is broken by the arrival of the first seed which is washed on it by the waves and gives origin to the vegetation that covers it in after years. All evi- Now in this history of the universe and of man, the out- againsta ^ mes ^ wn i cn we have deciphered, there is no evidence of Fall. a Paradisal state or of a Fall from original perfection ; but, on the contrary, the most conclusive evidence that all the analogies of nature are against any such theory ; and that death is not a consequence of sin, but a universal and necessary concomitant and condition of life. And the further back we search in human history not written history, which could not possibly begin until man's intel- lectual development had made considerable progress, but in prehistoric annals and in the indications of primitive thought yielded by language the further back, I say, we search in the earliest vestiges of the history of mankind, the less we shall see that can be mistaken for the ruins of an angelic nature, and the more nearly will man appear to approach in character to the animals. 1 In another and a totally different way the progress of science is profoundly modifying our conceptions of the spiritual world and its relation to the world of matter. 1 See especially Sir John Lubbock's " Prehistoric Times," and " Origin of Civilization and Primitive Condition of Man." INTRODUCTION. 13 We do not know what matter is, and we do not know what mind is ; nor is it possible that science can ever teach us. But we have learned to look on both matter Science and mind in a different way from that in which we used Changed to do ; the old opposition between matter and mind, our idea., though it has not disappeared and never can disappear, re i a tion has changed its form, and is now seen to be less profound between matter and than it- formerly appeared to be. Tnis change is due to mind, two causes : it is due on the one side to our increased Two knowledge of the subjects of the strictly physical sciences, J^ 868 that is to say of force and matter; and on the other, to our increased knowledge of the mind and of its relation to the bodily organism. As regards the former of these two causes namely, our changed conceptions of matter. In what may be called the metaphysical physics of the last century, as in our spontaneous thoughts about matter, the chief emphasis was laid on its passive properties of impenetrability, extension, and inertia. But we now know that Force, or Promi- to speak more accurately, Energy l evepyua has as real J?y e ^to W and as indestructible an existence as matter. The world dynamic of matter the merely physical world, not to speak of life tSns in and mind is a world of matter and energy ; and any physical conception of it is imperfect and untrue which does not give the same prominence to the existence and the inde- structibility of the one as of the other. Now, matter is altogether outside of our consciousness ; but energy, or force, is not so. "We are conscious of our own will as a force ; and we have no consciousness, and strictly speaking no conception, of force except that which is derived from our own will. And as will is mental, a relation is thus established, at least in thought, between the internal world of mind and the external world of matter and force or energy. I do not say that this conception has been first intro- These are duced or made possible by the scientific discoveries of j^J r to " recent times. On the contrary, it was always capable new but 1 For the distinction between Force and Energy, see Note at end of Introduction. 14 INTRODUCTION. are more of proof by metaphysical analysis, that matter is only no^than ex P^ ca ^^ e as a function of Force, and Force only expli- formerly. cable as a function of conscious Mind and Will. But the prominence given by modern science to dynamical views of the physical world has made such conceptions as these much more obvious and much more impressive than they were formerly. Progress While the progress of the purely physical sciences science** 1 ^ as ^us increased the prominence, in our ideas of the material world, of the conception of force, which is essen- tially a mental or spiritual conception, the progress of mental science has tended in another and a much more direct way. to break down the distinction between the Psycho- worlds of matter and of mind. This has been done chiefly no g gfoimd ^7 making it more obvious than ever, that there is no for the be- scientific basis for the old belief in a distinct mental distinct substance. The only answer that science has to give to < any question concerning the nature of mind, is that the but shows' mental functions consciousness, thought, and will are comjomi- 3 ^ concomitants of the internal action of the brain. Mind tant of can only be defined as conscious life ; mind is the name nervous . .-, . ,. f ,, action. we 8 lve ^ ^ ne conscious action of the nervous system. 1 And it is utterly impossible to state with any precision where the unconscious functions end and the conscious ones begin. Conscious and unconscious life, mental and bodily action, are inextricably mixed up together ; the conscious or mental life is but an outgrowth, or higher development,, of the unconscious or bodily life ; and the highest psychological science does not enable us to conceive of the existence of mind apart from the bodily organism. No doubt we may think of the mind apart from the body, but this is a mere abstraction of the intellect, like speaking of force apart from matter. But it would not be true to infer that the tendency of modern science is towards materialism ; for, as we have seen above, if science tends to identify mind with the functions of the body, it tends on the other hand to give a 1 This is not strictly accurate, for there is thought which is not conscious. See " Habit and Intelligence," Chapters 28 and 29. INTRODUCTION. 15 spiritual character to all our ideas of the material universe, by reason of the prominence with which it puts forward the conception of force ; and force can only be thought of as spiritual. To sum up what has been said on the subject of the Summary, various ways in which science has modified, and is modify- ing, our conceptions of both the physical and the spiritual universe. We have learned first and most important lesson of all that there is a Cosmos ; that is to say, an intelligible order of nature ; and that consequently a science of natural things is possible and attainable. Astronomy has taught us that "things are not what they seem " that the entire relation of the earth to the heavens is such as to contradict our spontaneous belief. The same science has shown us that this earth of ours, in a physical sense, is one among many worlds ; and if this is true in a physical sense, it is probably true in a spiritual sense also. Astronomy, geology, and the science of life, all unite to show that the history of the universe, from its first creation till now, has been a continuous history. Geology and the science of life also show that all evidence, both direct and analogical, is opposed to the idea of a fall from an original Paradisal state ; and they prove the notion of physical death being the consequence of sin to be but a dream. Lastly, psychology has shown that mind is but a con- comitant of nervous action, and that it is impossible to draw any line of separation between the mental and the bodily functions; while dynamical physics have shown that force, or energy, is as real and as indestructible as matter, and that matter is capable of being understood only as a function of force ; thus suggesting a spiritual concep- tion of the universe of matter. The subject of the mutual relation of the worlds of matter and of mind is to be considered at greater length in the next two chapters. 16 INTRODUCTION. NOTE. Explana- ENERGY, as a scientific term, is a word which is not easy to word 16 define i n familiar language. It is not synonymous with force. Energy as distin- guished from Force. Force is that which produces motion, and equal forces are those which are capable of neutralizing each other when acting in oppo- site directions ; as in the case of two weights which balance each other at the opposite ends of a lever. But force can act only when it has space to act through : the ocean, for instance, presses on its bed with a force proportionate to the depth, but that force has no space through which to act. Energy is due to the action of force through space, and the quantity of energy is due to the intensity of the force which produces the energy, multiplied into the space through which that force acts. Consequently no energy is due to such a force as the pressure of the ocean on its bed ; but to the position of the water in a mill-pond a quantity of energy is due, proportionate to the weight of the water mul- tiplied into the height through which it can fall. The energy due to the position of the water in the mill-pond is potential energy : the energy due to the motion of the falling water or of the machinery which it sets in motion, is actual energy. The quantity of actual energy, or energy of motion, of a moving body, is proportionate to the mass of the body multiplied into the height from which it would have to fall in order to acquire its velocity. As now defined, no law of conservation applies to force ; but the law of the conservation of energy is strictly true. Energy is incapable of being either produced or destroyed, but it is con- stantly changing its form. Heat, electricity, and light, are forms of energy. It often appears to be destroyed, as when a moving body comes to rest, but it is in reality only trans- formed, generally into heat. For more detailed information on this subject, see the first six chapters of Habit and Intelligence, especially the first chapter. CHAPTER I. METAPHYSICAL AND POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY. T HE hope expressed in the Introduction, that some of The Po*i- the best intellect of Europe is now turning once more in the direction of theology, will appear baseless to those disciples of the so-called Positive Philosophy who believe that it is destined to supersede all others. Of course I do not deny, what is indeed an obvious fact, the great prevalence of what is called by the inappropriate name of the Positive Philosophy. It may perhaps be truly called the dominant philosophy of the present age ; but that which is the dominant philosophy of the present will not necessarily be the dominant philosophy of the future. I believe that it does not embody the deepest intellectual tendencies of the present age, and that the reaction against it has already begun. I must justify what I have said above, as to the inap- propriateness of the term positive when applied to the philosophy of Comte. Without meaning to prejudge any Better question as to its merits, I say that it would be far more accurate to call it negative. By this remark I do not mean that it is a philosophy of mere denial, or that it contains nothing of any real value ; far from it such a condem- nation would be totally untrue. To Comte's philosophy may be applied the saying that philosophical systems are generally right in what they affirm, but wrong in what they deny. 1 But in Comte's system, unfortunately, the negative i This saying is, I believe, usually attributed either to Cousin or to Cole- ri'lgp, but it has been taken with but little change from Pascal. "Tons C 18 METAPHYSICAL AND POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY. [CHAP. or denying part, which as I believe is false and worthless, comes at the beginning and is the most conspicuous part. Comte's His fundamental dogma (in using the w r ord dogma I fundamen- ,-1 -, T n -, . ....,..,. tal dogma, think I do him no injustice) is this : that we can know that all nothing but phenomena, and the laws of the resemblances, knowledge . is only phe- co-existences, and successions of phenomena ; and that con- nomenal. se q uen tl v a ll knowledge of the real nature of things, their origin, and their purpose, must be for ever inaccessible to Inference us. It follows by necessary logical consequence from this logy and fundamental assumption, or rather it is a translation of the meta- same from philosophical into common language, that no physics are , . impossible- such thing is possible as either metaphysical or theological knowledge that we may know the bare facts of nature and of mind, and may systematize our knowledge of these facts into sciences, but can never penetrate to the know- ledge of any invisible underlying reality, and can never ascend to the knowledge of any Being that is above nature. (Jomte was far too consistent a reasoner to miss this inference, or to endeavour to evade it. Nothing is more prominent in his writings than the emphatic and reiterated denial of the possibility of any knowledge that transcends mere phenomena, and the assertion of the utter worthlessness of all systems of metaphysics and of theology. Revelation I ought to remark in order to do justice to the present consistent su ^j ect > though it may not be quite relevant here, that with ^ although Comte's philosophical system totally excludes dogma. a ll natural theology, it is not so evident that it excludes theology on a basis of revelation. So far there is nothing original in the philosophy of Comte ; it. is only a more systematic and more un- flinchingly logical statement of the results previously arrived at by Hume. What is really original with Comte, is the application of this view of the nature and the limitations of our knowledge to the explanation of religious and philosophical history. lenrs principes sont vrais : des Fyrrhoniens, des Stoiqnes, des athees, etc. Mais lenrs conclusions sont fausses, parce qne les principes opposes sont vrais aussi." Pense&s r -\ n 11 of his ar- form of a regular syllogism, thus : gument. ^11 philosophy which throws no light on the facts of nature is worthless. Theology and metaphysics throw no light on the facts of nature. Therefore theology and metaphysics are worthless. Now, a syllogistic argument may be controverted by denying either of the two premises. The conclusion does not hold unless both the premises are true. In this case I admit one of the premises, but I do not admit the other. I.] METAPHYSICAL AND POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY. 23 I admit that theology and metaphysics throw no light on I admit one the facts of nature, and do not help us to understand {Ju^deny them ; but I do not admit that all philosophy is worthless the other. except in so far as it throws light on the facts of nature. Let me first speak of theology. In the foregoing paragraphs of this chapter, and in the Introduction, I have emphatically stated my conviction that theology cannot be a basis for physical science. In this I agree with Comte ; and I may have used language that looks We cannot like the language of one of his disciples. I have stated, fro^God not as a concession to an opponent, but as a fundamental to nature, datum of my own system, that it is impossible to reason downwards from God to nature. The laws of nature are the same to us, whether or not we believe in a God who appointed them ; belief in God does not enable us any better to understand the laws of Matter, of Force, and of Life. But though this is true, it does not in any degree prove that theology is false and worthless; it does not even prove that theology has no points of contact with physical science. We cannot reason downwards from God to nature, but it is the chief purpose of this work to show but we how we may reason upwards from nature to God. If, however, it could be shown that theology and physical ture to science have no points of contact, and threw no light whatever on each other, this would not, so far as I can see, necessarily prove . theology to be false ; and if theology If theology is true or, to use what is really more appropriate |g JJ? 1 lt language, if there is a God and we live under His govern- important. ment the knowledge of these truths is not worthless but infinitely important. On the subject of theology it is not necessary to say any more at present. We go on to consider the relation of metaphysics to inductive science. It is necessary first to explain the terms that are to be used. In speaking of Inductive Science, I use the expression in exactly the sense in which Comte speaks of Positive inductive Science (except that Positive Science includes Mathe- ?, cience is . . T . . the same as matics, which is not inductive 1 ). Inductive Science may Positive 1 See Note A at end of chapter. 24 METAPHYSICAL AND POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY. [CHAP. Science, except that mathe- matics is not induc- tive : it begins from obser- vation ; it includes mental science, and the science of language and of history. "What is the pro- vince of metaphy- sics ? Metaphy- sics de- fined. Inductive Science be- gins from Observa- tion, Meta- physics from Con- sciousness. be defined as science whereof the data are observed facts, and which consists in nothing but the results of such observation, with whatever may be legitimately general- ized and inferred therefrom. As thus defined, Inductive Science includes mental science as well as physical ; for mental science is based on the observed facts of mind, exactly as physical science is based on the observed facts of the world of matter; and the circumstance that the methods of observation in the two cases are quite different, does not make any important difference in the significance of the facts when ascertained, or in the method of reason- ing from them. And, as thus defined, inductive science includes the science of language, and the historical and political sciences, in so far as these latter can as yet be called sciences at all. 1 When inductive science has received this very exten- sive definition, it will be natural to ask : Leaving Theology provisionally out of the question, does not my definition include all science whatever, except only mathematics and formal logic ? and if so, what room is left for metaphysics, as in any sense a distinct subject of inquiry ? The answer to this involves the definition of metaphysics. I agree with Comte in regarding Metaphysics as rather a method of philosophizing than a branch of science. But I do not agree with him as to its proper definition. As already stated, Comte regards Metaphysics as the inquiry after the essences of things. I think, on the contrary, that it is no part of true metaphysical theory, but only the crudest form of metaphysical error, to think that we can possibly discover any " essence of a thing " from which the properties of the thing can be deduced. I propose to define Metaphysics thus : That while the Induc- tive method begins from the facts of Observation, the Meta- physical method begins from the facts of Consciousness ; or, to state the same in other words, that the data of in- ductive science are external to the mind, and the data of metaphysics are within the mind itself. It needs no proof 1 See " Ha nit and Intelligence," vol. ii. p. 207. I.] METAPHYSICAL AND POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY. 25 that the facts and laws of Matter, Force, and Life, which constitute the data of the physical sciences, are external to the mind. They are known by observation only, and could not possibly become known by any interrogation of con- sciousness. 1 But, on the contrary, such truths as those of our Personality, Freedom, and Eesponsibility, belong to the opposite category ; they are known only as reve- lations of consciousness, and could not possibly become known by observation, or by any reasoning based on observation. The two methods, the Inductive and the Metaphysical, They are are thus opposite ; but though they are opposite, I do not oppos agree with Comte in regarding them as mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they are mutually supplementary, and mutu- Each can do what the other cannot do ; just as mathe- pi rnatical methods and experimental methods deal with dif- taI T- ferent classes of problems, and neither can in general solve lei the problems of the other. It necessarily leads to error when different - an attempt is made either to apply the inductive method to the solution of what are properly metaphysical prob- lems, or to apply the metaphysical method to the solution of what are properly inductive problems. The whole philo- sophy of antiquity and of the Middle Ages was vitiated by the attempt to apply metaphysical methods to what are properly inductive problems; and though Descartes was free from any belief in the " essences of things," yet he introduced metaphysical methods in another form into what ought to have been the province of purely induc- tive science. He formulized his error in the axiom that Metaphy- whatever can be clearly conceived by the mind is true : by true, meaning correspondent with some reality of the cartes, universe. This is a metaphysical error indeed, it may be called the summary of all that class of error which consists conceived in the application of metaphysical methods to what are properly inductive problems because it consists in begin- ning from data of consciousness, which is the essentially metaphysical method, instead of beginning from data of observation, which is the inductive method. Such 1 See Note B at end of chapter. 26 METAPHYSICAL AND POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY. [CHAP. mistakes are not likely to be made now, and if Descartes were to live in the present state of science lie certainly Converse would not fall into them. Bat the converse error is applying equally possible, and is far oftener met with now : I mean inductive the employment of inductive methods to solve ques- methodsto . . ln . metaphy- tions which really belong to metaphysics; such as, to sical ques- quote the best example I can think of, Mr. Buckle's Mr. Buckle attempt to disprove the purely metaphysical doctrine of freedom 11 tn e freedom of the will by means of that law, or rather fact, of averages, which is shown by statistical evidence. Metaphy- The inductive tendency, to begin from data of obser- Inductive vation, and the metaphysical tendency, to begin from philosophy data of consciousness, have always divided, and probably Greece. will always continue to divide, the world of thought. Eleatics I n ancient Greece, the Eleatic school of philosophy was * n< l. avowedly metaphysical ; the Ionian school was, or at least endeavoured to be, inductive, though no doubt much meta- physical error was mixed up with its physics. At a later Plato and period, Plato was metaphysical and Aristotle essentially Aristotle. j nc [ uc tive. It is a saying ascribed to Friedrich Schlegel, that every one who thinks on philosophical subjects at all is either a Platonist or an Aristotelian ; by which is evidently meant, in my language, either a metaphysical or an inductive thinker. The metaphysical doctrine, in its most extreme and exaggerated form, has been admirably expressed by Browning in the person of his Paracelsus : Quotation " There is an inmost centre in us all fr m "Where truth abides in fulness : and To KNOW Brown- ing's Para- Rather consists in opening out a way ce f sus "Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape, Than in effecting entrance for a light Supposed to be without." Enough has been now said of metaphysical errors, and of w T hat the metaphysical method is unable to do ; and we "What are come to the question, What are the problems that properly physical* belong to metaphysical science, and what is it able to problems? achieve ? We know what the problems of inductive science are, and we know what problems it has solved : I.] METAPHYSICAL AND POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY 27 it has made known the laws of Matter and of Force ; it has measured the heights of heaven and the speed of light, and has restored to knowledge the geological history of the earth ; "but what problems comparable to these has meta- physical science solved, or even stated ? In answer to this question it is to be observed, that the They are inductive and the metaphysical problems are totally unlike tetin t ^ in kind. The problems of inductive science are, briefly, inductive to ascertain the laws of nature ; or, in more precise and The ind technical language, to ascertain the resemblances, co-exist- tive ences, and sequences of phenomena; and its greatest achieve- S-G ttfaa* ments consist in reducing a vast variety of phenomena certain the under a few simple laws. The greatest single achievement nature. that inductive science has ever made, is the explanation of the planetary motions by the perfectly simple laws of motion and gravitation ; and probably the next in import- ance to this, is the explanation of the laws of heat as being the laws of motion on an atomic scale. We may The prob- conceive of the problems of. inductive science as a set of len i s / 1 metaphy- equations for solution ; and of its results as the discovery sicsmaybe of the roots, or simplest possible terms, of those equations. Thus in astronomy, the roots, or simplest terms, of the and its re - . . 1.11 o suits as the equations are the laws of motion and gravitation ; in discovery chemistry, the roots are the combining equivalents of the f simple substances, and the laws of their combinations. Now, no one can be further than I am from any desire to disparage such results as these, or the labours by which they have been arrived at ; but I say, and in this I do not express any mere opinion I say what every one must agree to who is able to understand the subject that there is a further set of questions which inductive science is utterly unable to answer. When the roots of an Roots may algebraic equation are found, they still in many cases whSe^eir need interpretation. 1 An equation may be so far solved interpre- as to be reduced to its roots or simplest terms, while yet remains those terms remain uninterpreted, though the value of unknown - 1 I use the word interpretation throughout in its mathematical sense. It may be denned as stating the meaning of a term in terms (or in lan- guage) whereof the meaning is already known. 28 METAPHYSICAL AND POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY. [CHAP. each of them may be expressed in terms of the others ; but it is obviously no interpretation of a term to state its value in other terms which themselves need interpretation. The solu- Now, it is only such solutions as this that inductive science ductive m " * s a ^ e to S^ ve ^ * ue equations in which we may conceive science are its problems to be expressed; the roots that it discovers kind! 16 are f unknown interpretation, arid are capable of being expressed only in other terms which are also of unknown interpretation. To inter- It is here the problems of metaphysics arise. To state pret the ^ re i a ti n of metaphysical to inductive science in the roots is the work fewest words : It is the work of inductive science to find physios' 1 " the roots of the equations in which its problems may be expressed ; it is the work of metaphysics to interpret those roots. To those readers who are familiar with metaphysical speculation, this statement of the metaphysical problem will probably appear a mere truism, though somewhat strangely expressed ; but to those who are not so, it will need illustration ; and perhaps the most intelligible Illustra- illustration is that afforded by chemistry. Most of the Chemist? properties of chemical substances consist in their relations to other substances, and cannot be stated without refer- ence to those others ; and it is impossible to state the properties of any substance without taking the properties of other substances as known. This indeed is true of all chemical properties as distinguished from physical ones. Thus if mercury, for instance, were the only substance in the universe, it would still have the physical properties of assuming the solid, the liquid, and the vaporous states at varying temperatures ; but it would be impossible to speak of it as having chemical properties, because chemical properties consist exclusively in the power of forming combinations with other substances. In a word, the pro- perties of one substance cannot be described without those of others being implied the properties of no substance can be described alone. This, which is true when we attempt to define those properties of the various kinds of matter which constitute . METAPHYSICAL AND POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY. 29 the subjects of chemical science, is also true when we attempt to define the functions of the material world in the most general terms. The most general terms in which Matter and it is possible to speak of the material world, are those of Matter and Force ; and the terms Matter and Force, from by the point of view of Inductive Science, are capable of science interpretation only in terms of each other. It is self-evi- only m terms of dent that Force can only be interpreted as a function of each other. Matter ; or, to use less technical language, Force is a term which has no meaning except in relation to Matter ; and a little consideration will show that the converse is equally true that is to say, Matter is a term which has no mean- ing except in relation to Force. For, excepting form and position in space, the only properties of matter which are universal are Resistance, or the power of resisting force ; Inertia and Elasticity, which are capacities for being acted on by force ; and Gravity, which is itself a force. Thus in answer to the questions, What is Force ? and What is Matter? Inductive Science can only reply that Matter is a function of Force, and Force is a function of Matter. The final, or simplest terms, remain uninter- preted ; their values are assigned only in terms of each other, but not in terms of known interpretation. Now it is exactly at this point where the inductive problems end, that the metaphysical ones begin. It is the problem of Metaphy- metaphysics not the only metaphysical problem, but jjjj^ 1 ^* the primary and elementary one to find the interpre- them as tation of those simplest terms which inductive science ofTnown is unable to interpret that is to say, to assign them a terms, meaning in terms whereof the meaning is known. It is merely repeating the same thing, in perhaps more Inductive intelligible language, to say, that the problem of Inductive qS^into Science is to ascertain the laws of nature ; and the problem the laws of of Metaphysics, to ascertain the underlying reality. Of ^tapiiy- course, the word Nature, when used in this sense, includes sics into the world of Mind as well as that of Matter. lying But when we say that the final and simplest terms in reallt y- which inductive science is able to state the facts and laws of nature are such as to need interpretation, we must not 30 METAPHYSICAL AND POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY. [CHAP. Space and forget two remarkable exceptions. Space and Time are final terms, not capable of expression by inductive science as functions of any simpler terms than themselves, and, as I think, not needing interpretation. The metaphysical peculiarity of Space and Time, as distinguished from all other objects of thought, consists in this, that they alone among the final terms in which Inductive Science ex- presses the facts and the laws of nature, are not capable of interpretation in terms of anything but themselves. The sole difficulty in the interpretation of these two terms, which has been the subject of so much contro- versy, consists in this, that there is nothing that needs interpretation. 1 Thus inductive science arrives at Space and Time as final terms of which the interpretation is known; and arrives also at such final terms as Matter and Force, which it cannot interpret, though it can express each in terms of the other. I now go on to speak of a set of terms, which, in the equations of inductive science, are not final terms but initial ones. I mean simple sensations. Sensations It is not by science that the nature of sensations is or can only ^ Q known. If ariv one either feels or remembers anv be known * J directly, sensation, he knows what it is ; if he neither feels nor remembers any sensation like it, no science can explain to Science him what it is. Yet inductive science has very much in- can tell, formation to give us about sensations ; not about what not what & ' they are, they are, but about the conditions under which they are produced. There are two distinct, highly elaborate, and produced, refined sciences, of each of which the subject-matter con- sists, almost exclusively, in the physical conditions under which the sensations of a single sense are produced : Optics and these are Optics, or the science of Light, and Acoustics, or Acoustics. .Q ie sc j ence O f Sound. Beginning also from sensations, but working in a different direction, inductive science traces 1 This conclusion, however, does not solve all the questions connected with the relation of the mind to Space and Time. On the subject of this relation, see " Habit and Intelligence," Chap. 37, where the question is treated not from a metaphysical but from an inductive point of view. i.] METAPHYSICAL AND POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY. 31 the laws according to which nervous currents give rise to sensations ; and this subject occupies a large and important chapter in the science of physiology. Thus The sensa- the sensation of sight is a function of luminous undula- tions, and of the nervous currents which they excite in sound are P . . , ,, ,, , . functions the nerves of vision ; and the sensation of sound is a O f physical function of sonorous vibrations, and of the currents which circum- stances. they excite in the nerves of hearing. But what are sonorous vibrations and luminous undulations ? Son- orous vibrations are mostly formed in air, and of the existence of air we have independent proof. But lumin- ous undulations are formed in a medium, the existence of which we infer only from the fact that the undulations are formed in it. Of the existence and of the properties of the undulations, the principal evidence is of course derived from their power to excite the sensation of light, though there is some independent evidence on the subject, derived from the properties of radiant heat. 1 But let us suppose, Luminous for the sake of the argument, that we knew nothing what- J^ns inter- ever about luminous undulations except as the excitors of potable the sensations of light and colour ; of what interpretation terms of would the term luminous undulations in that case be ^ s may be conveniently called Deontology, or the science of Duty. That which is concerned with the inquiry concern- Ethics, ing the nature of conscience may be conveniently called Ethics, or the science of Character. Deontology is most nearly connected with Jurisprudence, or the science of the formal and technical rights and duties of men towards each other in society ; and with Political Economy, or the science of the material well-being of human societies. THE MEANING OF THE MORAL SENSE. [CHAP. These may be treated induc- tively. Further metaphy- sical ques- tion. The mora- lity of actions is tested by their tendency. But this v/ill not explain the moral sense. Utilitarian or expe- rience theory of the moral sense. Ethics in tliis sense is, on the contrary, most nearly con- nected with Psychology, or the science of Mind, of which indeed it is a part. Deontology and Ethics are sciences which admit of being treated inductively. But beyond the inquiries that belong to those sciences, is the question whether the laws of duty and the laws of conscience have any ground and root in the uncreated nature of things. On this subject the inductive method cannot conceivably throw any light, but metaphysics possibly may. This, however, is anticipating the order of the argument. I agree with Mill and the rest of the Utilitarians, that the only possible test of the Tightness or wrongness of actions, or rather of classes of actions, consists in their calculable consequences, or in other words their tendency. 1 But I do not agree with them that this truth affords an explanation of the nature of the intellectual judgments and the moral feelings with which we regard right or wrong actions. In a word, I agree with their Deontology, but I differ from their Ethics. The Utilitarian theory of the moral sense may thus be briefly stated : Ever since man became a social and moral being, both observation and reasoning have constantly shown that some classes of actions as for instance speak- ing truth tend on the whole to promote the happiness of mankind ; and that the opposite classes of actions as for instance speaking falsehood tend on the whole to injure the happiness of mankind. In virtue of the law of the association of ideas, or, to use a less technical expres- sion, the law of mental habit, 2 the one class of actions, being associated in constant experience and in habitual thought with what is productive of happiness, become themselves the objects of approbation ; and the other class, being associated in the same way with what is destructive of happiness, become themselves the objects of condemna- 1 See Note at end of chapter. 2 The law of the association of ideas, which is justly regarded as a fundamental law of mind, is only a case of the law of habit. See " Habit and Intelligence," Preface and vol. ii. pp. 48, 49. HI.] THE MEANING OF THE MORAL SENSE. 55 tion. This theory is to be taken with Herbert Spencer's modification, or rather extension, of the entire association theory : namely, that every mental tendency accumulates by hereditary transmission ; so that mental tendencies which have been formed by habitual association in the parent may become congenital in the offspring ; and, as a case of this law, such moral sentiments as the love of truth and the hatred of falsehood, though originally formed by the habitual association due to experience, may have become congenital in the most highly cultivated races of men. It may assist in understanding this theory to be re- Origin of minded that such is, beyond all doubt, the way in which money" by the love of money has come into being. The love of associa- money, unlike the love of food, cannot be a primary feel- ing, because money, unlike food, is not a desirable thing in itself ; it is desirable only on account of the desirable things that may be obtained by its means. The love of money is a secondary feeling, produced by association with the thought of the desirable things which it is able to purchase. But when the love of money has once been formed, it is exactly like a primary feeling ; and it may not improbably have become hereditary in some classes of society among the civilized races of men. In criticising the attempt to account for the origin of the moral sense by this theory, it is obvious that there is no possibility of applying the method either of demonstra- tion or of experiment. The only available method in such The only an inquiry is first to ascertain whether the alleged causes SU cha exist ; and then, if they exist, whether they are adequate theory is to produce the effect. This method however is by no means the alleged confined to psychological questions ; it is the only one g^sTand which is applicable to a vast variety of questions in are ade- physical science, including most geological ones, and ( l uate - nearly all those concerning the origin of species. In the present case there is no doubt that the alleged In this case causes exist ; there is no doubt whatever of the law of the habitual association of ideas, nor of. the law of the heredi- & is not tary transmission of mental tendencies. But it is not so that they 66 THE MEANING OF THE MORAL SENSE. [CHAP. are ade- quate. certain that these causes are adequate to account for the origin of so peculiar a mental fact as the moral sense. Of course it is not denied that the Jaws of habitual association, and the law of the hereditary transmission of tendencies, act in every mental function and in all formation of cha- racter. But it does not follow that those laws alone will suffice to explain every mental function and all formation Analogy to of character. The question is an analogous one to that of the tim^oTthe na ture of the vegetative life. It is certain that the vegeta- nature of tive or formative life acts in conjunction with, and through, the chemical forces ; but it does not follow that this life is in any sense a mere resultant from the chemical forces. 1 Just so, it is certain that intelligence, and the moral sense, which is a particular manifestation of intelligence, are developed under the laws of habitual association and hereditary transmission ; but it does not follow that intel- ligence and the moral sense are mere resultants from those laws. This analogy, however, is not itself an argument, though it may assist us in understanding the arguments. The- theory which refers all the complex facts of the moral sense to association with pleasure and pain, is that which is usually called the Utilitarian theory. The theory which, on the contrary, maintains the existence of an element in morals not derived from the sense of pleasure and pain may be called the Ethical theory. It is to be observed that what any theory of the moral sense has to give an account of, is not only our judgments and our feelings respecting actions, but also our judgments and our feelings respecting character. The moral aspects of character constitute the subject-matter of the science of Ethics, as the moral aspects of action constitute the subject- matter of the science of Deontology. These are merely the definitions of the subject, and do not prejudge any of its conclusions. The question under discussion may now be stated with The ques- more definiteness than hitherto : Is the sense of happiness tion stated. or pi easure ^ w ith the correlative sense of pain, acting 1 See "Habit and Intelligence," Chapters (The Chemistry of Life). See also the Appendix to the same work. Utilita- rian and Ethical theories. Ethics treats of cha- racter, Deonto- logy of actions. Hi.] THE MEANING OF THE MORAL SENSE. 57 through the habitual association of ideas, adequate to account for our moral judgments and feelings respecting actions and character ? Or, in other words : Does the moral sense present the characteristics that it would present, if it had been formed out of no other materials than the sense of pleasure and pain, and by no other process than the association of ideas ? If it can be shown that the moral sense is in some important respects quite unlike any thing that could possibly be produced by asso- ciation with the ideas of pleasure and pain, it follows that the utilitarian theory is, not indeed totally false, but alto- gether inadequate; and that some form of the ethical theory must be true. Before going any further, it is right to admit that the The charge oft-repeated charge of selfish tendency against the utili- ness tarian theory of the moral sense is unfounded and unjust, against the If the utilitarian theory is true, all right and wrong are theory is ultimately resolvable into tendency to produce happiness un J ust ; or pain; if the ethical theory is true, the ideas of right and wrong contain an element which is not so resolvable ; one or the other of these rival theories must be true ; but whichever opinion we adopt, the truths are not only obvious but fundamental, that selfishness and cruelty are vices, and their opposites, unselfishness and kindness, are virtues. On the ethical theory, we believe this because the conscience of mankind declares it ; on the utilitarian theory, it follows from the very definitions of the theory, according to which that which consciously and of purpose tends to promote happiness is virtue. This definition of virtue, and the utilitarian theory founded thereon, are quite adequate as a basis for benevolence ; but it may be but it is maintained, and as I think truly, that they are unfavour- abk 1 " able to moral elevation. moral ,, ., . elevation. Of course no one says that it is false to define virtue as it is not that which purposely tends to promote happiness; but those [ who maintain the ethical theory of morals think it insuffi- cient. dent. It is now time to give the grounds of this opinion. If the utilitarian theory is true, happiness is the only thing Or } * he . which is an absolute end, or in other words an end in itself ; theory, 5 THE MEANING OF THE MORAL SENSE. [CHAP. happiness moral goodness is good only because it is a means to the absolute* y en d f happiness. If, on the contrary, the ethical theory e i ld ' ?r * s * me ' na Ppi ness i g no doubt an end in itself all sentient cal, good- beings, from insects upwards, are agreed on this ; 1 but it also 1S De * s not t ^ ie onl y en( * ' ^kt deeds ought to be done and the formation of noble character ought to be aimed at, not only because they tend to promote happiness, though they do tend to promote happiness, but also, and chiefly, because they are good in themselves independently of conse- quences. These are not merely logical inferences from the rival theories ; they are statements of the theories, in different language from that used before. Now, which is true ? Is moral goodness good in itself, or good only on account of the happiness it produces or tends to produce ? The ques- This question can be decided only by an appeal to the com- bTdeeid'ed mon sense, the real belief of mankind ; in other words, by moral 6 ^ a PP ea * to ^ e moral sense ^self when properly analysed. sense What, then, is the moral sense like ? If the utilitarian theory were true, and if moral good were good only because On the of the happiness which it produces, we should regard good theory, actions and noble characters with feelings similar to those moral ad- w ith which we regard other agents and agencies which tend miration ought to to produce happiness. .Now it is not to be denied that th^admi- a ver ^ ^ ar e amount of real happiness, though not of a ration of high kind, is due to such agencies as those of productive things ; gardens, convenient houses, good roads and railways, and efficient tools and appliances of all kinds. These things are good because they minister to happiness ; or, if happi- ness is too high a word, at least to comfort and enjoyment. Let us call these, genetically, useful things. If then worthy actions and noble characters are good only because they minister to happiness, they are good only for the same reason that useful things are good : namely, because both minister to happiness alike; and the emotions excited 1 Ascetics may have maintained that happiness ought not to be sought, because it can never be sought without injury to what is of more impor- tance than happiness. This is intelligible though wrong. But it is not possible for any sentient being to doubt that happiness is desirable in itself. A.S Coleridge somewhere says, " It is not possible for us to deny our nature as sentient beings. " in.] THE MEANING OF THE MORAL SENSE. 59 by worthy actions and noble characters ought to be similar to those excited by useful things. But this is but it does not the case ; on the contrary, the emotions excited by moral worth have nothing in common with those ration of excited by useful things ; while they have very much things. in common with the emotions excited by the sight of beauty. This is a familiar fact of consciousness, and is witnessed to by our habitual language ; in which we apply such words as beautiful, which primarily belongs to visual objects, to the moral nature of characters and of actions ; and apply to visual objects such words as nolle and lovely, which primarily belong to characters. This, however, must not be over-stated, as if the moral sense were nothing more than the sense of a higher kind of beauty than any which can be seen with the eyes. The moral sense is this, but it is also much more. It might be nothing more than this, to beings who should look on actions and on character as mere spectators ; but such an attitude is impossible to us ; we have to act as well as to criticise ; and to us, as beings capable of action, the moral sense is more than merely a power to discern excellence ; it is a law of obligation, an imperative command. In reply to the argument drawn from the un-utilitarian nature of the sense of beauty, it may be urged that the sense of beauty itself is capable of explanation on utili- tarian principles ; or, in more familiar language, that the sense of beauty is itself capable of being resolved into the sense of enjoyment. If this means that the beautiful is the useful (and this has been maintained), the assertion is a mere absurdity ; were it so, spades and millstones would The "bean- be among the most beautiful of all objects, 1 and there would be more beauty in a kitchen-garden than in a flower-garden. But when it is said that the sense of beauty may be explained on merely utilitarian principles, it is more probably meant that beauty gives pleasure in the beholding; and that the definition of beauty is that it is what gives pleasure in the beholding. This is true so far as it goes, but it does not exhaust the subject ; 1 This remark is made in Ruskin's "Modern Painters," vol. ii. 60 THE MEANING OF THE MORAL SENSE. [CHAP. for, if the merely utilitarian theory of beauty were true, few things would give more pleasure in the beholding than a kitchen-garden. What then do we mean when we attribute beauty to the objects of sight and sound and thought, and not to those objects which minister to the enjoyments of the lower senses? Beauty is What we mean is, that the pleasures of sight, of sound, clvesa* 1 anc ^ ^ thought, have a character of superior dignity of peculiar nature to the pleasures of mere sense. Beauty is not vated plea- identical with that which gives pleasure; beauty gives a sure. peculiar and elevated kind of pleasure. Mill dis- Mill in his work on " Utilitarianism," admits, or rather pleasures 8 P^ aces i n the front of his theory, this distinction of as higher pleasures one from the other as higher and lower, ' worthier and less worthy. Unquestionably this distinction is true ; the moral sense of mankind does unquestionably make it ; but what does it mean, and how have we come by it ? The distinction between pleasures as more or less intense is a matter of course ; but if the whole of our moral nature is ultimately resolvable into the sense of pleasure and pain, how do we learn to distinguish one This ad- pleasure from another as more or less worthy ? This can ethical 1 be done on ly on ethical grounds ; and Mill, by adopting principle this distinction, has really surrendered the purely utilitarian renders the character of his system, and has taken the first step to a utilitarian. p ure iy an( j avowedly ethical system of morals. Tor if it is admitted that one pleasure may excel another not in intensity but in the purely ethical property of being higher or lower, more worthy or less worthy, so that the pleasures of sight and sound are higher than those of mere sense, the pleasures of thought higher than those of sight and sound, and the pleasure of a self-approving conscience higher than all the rest ; so that, to use Mill's expression, a little of one of the higher pleasures is worth as much as a great quantity of one of the lower; where is the incon- sistency of thinking that objects are worthy to be sought, and that deeds ought to be done, without any reference to enjoyment or happiness at all ? There is no more logical difficulty in admitting the most fully matured and thorough- in.] THE MEANING OF THE MORAL SENSE. 61 going ethical system of morals, than in admitting the ethical element in Mr. Mill's partial and hesitating way. 1 Concerning the pleasure of a self-approving conscience The value (though pleasure is a totally inadequate word), there is u j e e $ ea " this remarkable fact to be observed ; that, unlike all pleasures of a lower kind, its value does not in any doesnot way depend on its duration. In the case of the pleasures of taste, or sight, or sound, the value of any pleasure of given intensity is proportionate to the duration; that is to say (supposing, what is not practically the case, that the capacity for enjoyment continues unchanged), the pleasure of hearing music, for instance, during two hours, is twice as great, and worth twice as much, as that of hearing it during one hour; and this is self- evidently true of all pleasures which are nothing but pleasures, even though of a high kind. But it is not Blessed- true of that blessedness (to use a higher word than that liess ' which denotes the highest of mere pleasures), it is not true, I say, of that blessedness which springs out of a good conscience. To a man who, like Leonidas, or Decius, or the martyrs of Christ, goes to certain death in order to perform a duty, the approbation of his conscience in the moment of death is as blessed and as precious as if he had a long life left to enjoy the remembrance of his heroism. This faithfulness unto death, this martyrdom to duty, is Martyr- shown by an abundance of historical instances to be capable of existing independently of any belief in immortality. I will here anticipate the argument of this work. If we had served for a whole life long a perfectly good Being whose form we had never seen, nor heard his voice ; and if we were to hear at last his voice saying, " Well done, good and faithful servant ! thou hast been faithful over a few things ; thy services are accepted and thy sins forgiven ; now lie down for an eternal sleep : " this would be reward enough for a life of self-sacrifice. But the truth that men are capable of caring, and do 1 This inconsistency of Mr. Mill's theory has been pointed out by Mr. Leeky iii the Introduction to his "History of European Morals." 62 THE MEANING OF THE MORAL SENSE. [CHAP. care, for other ends than happiness, may be proved by an appeal to much commoner facts than these. Men care for what will be thought of them after death, although they know that such an agency can have no effect on their happiness. This feeling has beyond doubt been a motive power of sensible magnitude in history ; posthumous fame has a wonderful charm for many of the strongest minds. Care for Moreover, men care for the dead for dead bodies ; they the dead : care Qr ^ dj S p OSa i o f fa Q \)Qfa QSl o f their friends who have died, and for the disposal of their own bodies after death. This feeling is probably connected, as Vico thought, with a sort of blind instinct of immortality ; but it has no con- nection with the hope of happiness in a future state ; for whatever may have been the fancies of Homeric Greeks, or whatever may be those of modern Hindoos, as to the effect of the funeral rites on the soul of the departed, this has totally passed out of the belief of modern Europeans, among whom, nevertheless, the sense of reverence for the dead is strong ; and it is often strongest with individuals or with nations as, for instance, the Chinese among whom the sense of immortality is weak or absent. This reve- rence for the dead is one of the most remarkable of all human instincts ; it is certainly more general, and pro- not resol- bably older, than that belief in immortality with which it love^of 11 h as become entwined ; and it is in no way capable of being happiness, resolved into the love of happiness. Its great philosophical importance was clearly seen by Vico, but it is doubtful whether succeeding writers have recognized it so fully. Let us return to the subject of the characteristics of the moral sense. Rational- One of the most remarkable of these is its rationality moral the or reasonableness. Now if the utilitarian theory were sense. true, the moral sense would not be the eminently rational thing that it is ; it would have only a habitual basis. This, it must be admitted, is not self-evident; and utili- tarians will probably say that the reverse is true, and that it is the utilitarian theory alone which can place morals on a rational basis by showing that right is right because H.t VS III.1 THE MEANING OF THE MORAL SENSE. %S&fai it tends to produce happiness; while the ethical theory, by giving no reason for the distinction between right and wrong, makes morals irrational. It is not denied by any that the moral sense is rational ; the question under discussion is, whether the ground of that rationality is utilitarian or ethical. Now if the utili- On the tarian theory is true, the origin and the justification of the moral sense, or the love of what is morally good, are .exactly love of parallel to the origin and the justification of the love of money. As money is good because it is able to procure love of enjoyment, and the love of money is generated by habitual association in the mind with the enjoyments it procures, until, by the force of habit, money comes to be loved and sought for its own sake, without a thought of the enjoy- ments it is able to procure, and even after the power of enjoyment has been lost ; so, according to the utilitarian theory, moral excellence is good because it tends to produce happiness, and the love of moral excellence is generated by habitual association in the mind with the happiness it tends to produce, until, by the force of habit, duty comes to be done and holiness comes to be sought for their own sake, without a thought of any happiness that they are to bring, and even at the conscious and deliberate sacrifice of happiness. Now is there really any Actual such parallel? So far from it that the notion is refuted J^een by the bare statement. The love of money is due to mere the two. habitual association; and when, from the force of habit, the pursuit of money is carried on at the sacrifice of happiness, the common sense of mankind recognizes that this is a sacrifice of the end to the means, and calls such conduct irrational and foolish. But when, on the con- trary, whether from the force of habit or from a higher because consciously intelligent principle, duty is done and holiness is sought at the sacrifice of happiness, the common sense of mankind recognizes that this is a sacri- fice of a lower end to a higher one, and calls such conduct rational and wise. It is no answer to this argument to urge that the sacrifice of happiness to duty is really a sacrifice of selfish 64 THE MEANING OF THE MORAL SENSE. [CHAP. happiness to the general happiness. This is not by any means invariably true ; the definition of moral good, ac- cording to the utilitarian theory the criterion of moral good, as I admit is not that it produces happiness neces- sarily and in every instance, but that on the whole it tends to do so. Now a theory of morals is utterly worthless and does not deserve the name, unless it provides for those cases, exceptional no doubt but still numerous, in which the doing of duty, so far as it is possible to judge from the circumstances, will not bring happiness either to the doer Utilita- or to any one else, but the reverse ; and on the utilitarian wilTnot theory that moral goodness is good only because its ten- justify the dency is to produce happiness, it would be impossible to sacrifice of . f . , i -. happiness resist the conclusion which is moreover the easiest one to duty. ^ a |. i n those exceptional cases where this tendency appears to be reversed, the law of duty is reversed with it. This is exactly that kind of exception which tests the rule. Now when the rule is thus tested, what does the conscience of mankind declare? It declares that the law of duty is not altered by altered circumstances. It declares that " Because right is right, to follow right Is wisdom in the scorn of consequence." * But utilitarianism would make this to be not wisdom but folly : it is difficult to see how utilitarianism can ever " scorn consequence," because it teaches that the calcu- lable consequences of actions not only test the moral character of the actions, which I admit as a generally applicable rule, but constitute it, which all who maintain the ethical theory deny. 2 Case of the These remarks will not apply without modification to kindness. suc ^ v i rtues as kindness, which are constituted as virtues by the fact that they tend, or rather that they are intended, to produce happiness. But they fully apply to 1 Tennyson's (Enone, 2 The foregoing remarks on the rationality of the moral sense have been suggested by an article in Macmillan's Magazine for July 1869, by R. H. Hutton, entitled "A questionable Parentage for Morals." The "ques- tionable parentage " is that according to the utilitarian theory, as modified by Spencer's theory (which, as a statement of fact, is true) of the here- ditary transmission of mental influences. in.] THE MEANING OF THE MOEAL SENSE. the virtues of truthfulness and justice, which, although they do beyond doubt tend to produce happiness, yet according to the ethical theory are virtues, and are recog- nized as virtues, independently of that tendency. This truth, of the eminently rational character of the moral sense, is capable of being applied in a way that will at once test the soundness of the foregoing conclusions, and carry the argument further. When belief is based on experience, it is capable of Belief being modified or reversed by further experience. Thus, to quote the most obvious instance, the belief in the ma y fixity of the earth, which was based on an obvious though erroneous interpretation of the commonest facts, has been P enence - overthrown by a more accurate interpretation of the facts, and has given place to the belief in its motion ; or, to mention an instance which is perhaps more to the purpose, the belief in the unchangeableness of species is rapidly giving way, under the influence of increased biological knowledge, to the belief in their mutability. The truth that all belief which is based on experience is in its nature liable to modification is so obvious and so generally recog- nized, that it is needless to insist on it at length ; but it is This is important here to remark that this truth is most freely re- "^i^ cognized by the most cultivated minds, and those which by the best understand the grounds of belief. Even our natural Jated* 5 belief in the necessary and unchangeable character of the minds- properties of space and time may, in the opinion of many of the best intellects from Kant onwards, be true only of the universe in which we live and of which we are a part ; and it is possible to believe, though it is not pos- sible to conceive (that is to say, not possible to represent to oneself in imagination), that there may be orders of being which do not exist under the conditions of space and time. But there are other beliefs, concerning which we can neither conceive nor believe that they are capable of change by any change in the nature of our experience. No This is not one, for instance, really believes that there can be in any f e f j n circumstances, or in any world, any exception to that first logical principle of logic that a contradiction cannot be true ; or, a ' ms ' I (5() TTTE MEANING OF THE MORAL SENSE. [CHAP. in other words, that the same proposition cannot be at once true and false. Now, to which of these two classes of our beliefs does the belief in moral truth belong ? Is it one of the beliefs which are capable of a total change in consequence of a change in our experience, or one of those which are not so change- able ? Unquestionably it belongs to the unchangeable class, nor in The minds which have attained to the highest degree of m ra / i, culture are those which find it easiest to recognize the essential changeableness of all beliefs that rest on a basis of experience ; or, to use familiar language, it is the most cul- tivated minds which are the most free from prejudice or pre- judgment ; but it is also the most cultivated minds which have the strongest conviction of the absolute unchangeable- ness of moral law, and its validity for all beings whatever Belief in that have intelligence enough to understand it. This con- viction scarcely exists in children and in uncultivated men ; ableness their notion of moral law is usually that it is the arbitrary tmthis command of a Being of superior power ; and this barbaric weak in conception is an actually influential one in the Christian ignorant, Church to this day. But in men who have attained to thecuiti mora l intelligence, the belief in the unchangeableness of vated. moral law has such absolute supremacy, that no reasonable man would hesitate to stake his everlasting happiness on We believe the truth, that even though the existing cosmos should futureNife. P ass ou ^ ^ being an d be replaced by another, 1 and even though we should acquire new and unimagined powers, and be able to know God even as we are known by God ; 2 yet, if there is a moral government of the universe at all, that government will prove to be good and not evil ; if there is a spiritual world at all, its foundations will prove to be laid in right and not in wrong. This lias Now this belief, profound and unchangeable as it is, has no basis whatever in either logic or experience. It has 1 "Heaven and earth shall pass away," said Christ, "but my words shall not pass away." That is to say, the existing cosmos, spiritual as well as physical, shall pass out of being, but the principles of justice and mercy shall remain. 2 "Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known" (St. Paul). in.] THE MEANING OF THE MORAL SENSE. 67 no basis in logic ; for logical proof consists in this, that the truth to be proved cannot be denied without either contra- dicting some other truth previously admitted, or making a statement that shall contradict itself. But the truth of the unchangeable and eternal character of moral law is not capable of logical proof in either of these two ways ; it is not capable of being deduced from any other truth, and it may be contradicted without any self-contradiction ; for, profound as is the absurdity, there would be no self-contra- diction, and no impossibility to the imagination, in ima- gining the .Ruler of the universe to be an evil being. E"or nor in ex- has this belief any basis in experience ; we have no such P erience - - , experience of the righteousness of the government of this world that we should feel any strong confidence of meeting with righteousness in another. The hope of a future world where righteousness shall reign has a different, even an opposite, basis to that of experience. "We trust that God is love indeed, And love Creation's final law, Though nature, red in tooth and claw With ravin, shrieks against our creed." 1 We thus see a remarkable double contrast between Douhle moral and physical beliefs : namely, that with advancing mental culture, physical beliefs become more liable to physical change on the discovery of new evidence, while moral beliefs become more steadfast ; and that it is impossible to believe moral law to be reversed though easy to conceive it in imagination, while on the contrary it is easier to believe than to conceive of a fundamental change in physical law : as when we believe, without being able to conceive, that there may be intelligences to which the properties of space and time appear different from what they do to us. 2 "Who trusted God was love indeed, And love Creation's final law, Though nature, red in tooth and claw With ravin, shrieked against his creed." TENNYSON'S In Memoriam. 2 " I see no absurdity in thinking that the number of dimensions in space may be not three but infinite ; only that the universe to which we belong F2 68 THE MEANING OF THE MORAL SENSE. [CHAP. We believe m moral law be- cause we the tual uni Happiness mound* of goodness, resuit. 1S Objection What then is the ground and origin of this belief in moral law as binding on us, and not on us only, but on all intelligent beings in the universe ? The only answer is that as space and time are facts of the physical universe, and are forms of our thought because we are a part of the physical universe; 1 so moral law is a law of the spiritual universe, and has become identified with our mental being ... because we are a part of the spiritual universe. But the truths of the spiritual universe are more universal than those of the physical universe. We may hereafter attain to a state of being where we shall transcend space and time, but we shall never transcend holiness. The argument against the absolute nature of morality from the fact that men differ so much about it, is scarcely worthy of notice. Truth is not the less true because men's powers of perceiving it differ indefinitely. Nor does it follow, because man has been late in attaining to moral intelligence, that moral principles are therefore not primary and underived. The saying of Aristotle is often true, that what is first in the logical order is last in the order of discovery. 2 We therefore conclude that moral excellence has a value ^ ^ s own > independently of its effects on happiness. Instead o f saying, "Moral goodness is that which tends to pro- mote happiness," we ought to say rather, "The universe is so constituted that moral goodness tends to promote happiness." If it is said that the results of the two theories, the utilitarian and the ethical, coincide in all but exceptional cases, I reply that it is the exceptional cases which test a principle ; and I have already stated the reasons for con- cluding that while the utilitarian theory provides well enough for those cases in which the general tendency is fulfilled for virtue to promote happiness, it does not and is capable of motion in but three of the dimensions ; so that we have ex- perience of but three, and cannot form a conception of any more." Habit and Intelligence, vol. ii. p. 215, note. 1 See "Habit and Intelligence," Chapters 37 and 38. fjLtv alrirj, s.G~a.TOV 8' in.] THE MEANING OF THE MORAL SENSE. 69 cannot provide for those exceptional and therefore testing cases where, because right is right, it is wisdom and virtue to follow right in scorn of consequence. But even if it were true that the results of the two Results of theories perfectly coincided in that terrestrial region theories in of which alone we have experience, they still would not coincide in the spiritual and heavenly region ; for region. in this latter the utilitarian theory gives no result whatever; being avowedly based on experience only, it cannot possibly give any result in a region that transcends all experience. Just as in mathematics, two formulae may niustra- within moderate limits give results that shall not sensibly J^ "/ differ, and yet beyond those limits may give totally dif- matics. ferent results. Further, if it could be shown that the Utilitarian and the Effect of Ethical theories of morals gave exactly the same results i deontology, it would not necessarily follow that they gave t} 16 forma- the same in ethics. To use less technical language : if the character. rival theories give origin to the same rules of duty, they may yet widely differ in their effect on the formation of character; if they agree as to the deeds which they enjoin, they yet may cause the same deeds to be done from very different motives. It is true that honesty is the best policy; and this purely utilitarian axiom may no doubt have caused honest deeds to be done, but it can never have really made a man honest. Mere calculation of con- sequences and tendencies, even though it may be unselfish calculation, that is to say, even though it may take all the consequences to others into account, as well as to oneself, any such calculation is a wretched basis for the love of holiness and the fear and hatred of sin. The love of holiness and the hatred of sin will have one character if we think of holiness as conformity to the uncreated law of the universe and to the will of its Author, and of sin as the violation thereof; and they will have another and quite a different character if we think of holiness as merely that disposition which has the strongest ten- dency to promote happiness, even though it be happiness 70 THE MEANING OF THE MORAL SENSE. [CHAP. of the highest kind; and of sin as something which is hateful because it is in the highest degree destructive of happiness. Indepen- It would be blessed to cultivate a self-forgetting temper, 'of holiness 6 even though there were no kingdom of heaven to enter. It would be blessed to mourn for one's own sins and for the sins of mankind, even though the mourners were never to be comforted. It would be blessed to be gentle and for- giving, even though the prospect of the gentle and forgiving inheriting the earth were always as hopeless as it appeared to be on the evening when Christ was taken down from the cross. It would be blessed to hunger and thirst after righteousness, even though such hunger and thirst were never to be satisfied. It- would be blessed to be merciful, even though the merciful should not themselves obtain mercy. It would be blessed to be pure in heart, even though there were no God for the pure in heart to see. It would be blessed to be a peacemaker, even though there were no God to be called the Father of the peacemakers. It would be blessed to endure persecution for the sake of righteousness, even though the kingdom of heaven should prove a dream. NOTE. THE SINFULNESS OF SUICIDE. IT has been said that the question of the lawfulness or sinful- ness of suicide is the difficulty the crux of moral theories ; and it may appear that the theory which tests the morality of actions exclusively by their effect on happiness that is to say, the utilitarian theory cannot absolutely forbid suicide, but on the contrary tends rather to enjoin it on those whose life, from "Wh sui disease, has become a hopeless burthen to themselves and to cideiscon- those around them ; and even to justify putting them to death utmta^if the y insist on h vin g as lon g as tn ey can. The Utilitarian nanism, theory, however, when properly understood, condemns such in.] THE MEANING OF THE MORAL SENSE. 71 actions. It tests the morality of any action not by immediate results, but by general tendency. Now if the prevailing morality of any age or country were to sanction suicide or murder as a means of ridding the world of the burthen of infirm old persons, hopeless invalids, or sickly children, it is impossible to deny that a great amount of misery would be prevented; but the loss would be infinitely greater than the gain; for such morality would be in the highest degree unfavour- able to the formation of that most precious and lovely kind of character which delights in ministering to the aged, the sick, and the helpless ; and would thus poison happiness at its source. But though suicide is thus condemned by utilitarian reasoning, Christian it does not follow that it is discouraged by the tendencies of utili- cpndemua- tarian morality. The strong condemnation of suicide which is su icide. universal in Christian society is due neither to any calculation of its effect on happiness, for such considerations are not really influential, nor to any command of Christ, for none such is on record j but to the sense which Christianity has succeeded in implanting of responsibility and loyalty to a personal though invisible Kuler, who has assigned to each man his several duty, whether to work or to wait, whether to act or to endure. But if that sense ever loses strength and gives place to Stoical loyalty to an impersonal moral law and an impersonal order of the universe, then, even if morality is otherwise uninjured, a most impro- bable supposition, the Christian feeling on the subject of suicide will disappear, and we shall learn to look on it with the eyes of the ancient Romans or of the modern Chinese. It is sometimes said that suicide is the worst of sins, because it leaves no possibility of subsequent repentance. But if it were proved to be true that repentance is impossible in a future life, this would not make suicide a sin if it were otherwise sinless. [72] CHAPTEE IV. THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. T the close of the chapter on the Metaphysical Inter- pretation of Nature, 1 we have seen that if the origin and ground of the universe is capable of being understood by our faculties at all, it can be understood only as the result and expression of a Self-existent and Intelligent Will. No other solution of the problem is possible ; the alternative is between accepting this solution and despair- ing of any solution whatever. Our idea The suggestion of a Will as the origin and ground of oiven^y 8 ^ e un i verse leads us directly to the subject of the Will in our con- man and its freedom ; for our idea of Will is obviously sciousness. -, . , n -, . ^ derived solely irom our consciousness ot our own volun- tary powers. But inasmuch as the idea of Freedom is profoundly, though not very obviously, connected with that of Morality, it has been necessary to discuss the meaning of the Moral Sense before coming to the subject of the Freedom of the Will. 2 Will is a It will be denied by none, that Will is a case of Causa- Causation. ti n > tnat * s to Sa 7^ tne action of the Will is the action of a particular kind of cause, or of a cause acting under What is particular conditions. But what is Causation? and how Causation? Qf a Inductive I maintain that this question cannot be fully answered aionTcan- fr m an J data afforded by inductive science alone. As not answer defined from the point of view of inductive science, causa- tion is nothing more than "invariable and unconditional 1 Chapter 2. 2 See the preceding chapter. CHAP, iv.] THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 73 sequence :" thus when we say, for instance, that fire is the cause of heat, the only meaning that inductive science can assign to these words is that fire emits heat, and nothing more than the fire is needed in order to have heat. From this point of view the causes of a thing or of an it defines event are nothing more than the conditions on which its JJX^JJ. production depends ; there is no real distinction between ditions, causes and conditions ; and the law of universal causation ^" w of 6 the law that whatever has a beginning has a cause is universal ... .-i-i causation identical and synonymous with the law of the uniformity as synony- of the course of nature : it means only that every event so ^TunT^* 1 depends on preceding events, that where the preceding formity of events, or causes, are known, it is always possible, pro- llc vided that our knowledge is sufficient, to predict the consequent events, or effects. This is what Mill, in his Logic, has advanced as a complete account of causation. Mill, however, though the best and the best known expo- sitor of this doctrine, is not its author. This law of the uniformity of the course of nature, or, in other words, the law that the same antecedents are always followed by the same consequents, is unquestion- ably true of the entire world of matter ; and moreover, it is all that needs to be admitted for the purposes of physical science ; but it is not a full account of our idea of causa- tion. Metaphysics has something more to say on the subject. Consciousness makes known, within the sphere of consciousness itself, a relation of cause and effect which is not capable of being resolved into mere " invariable and unconditional sequence." We know that fire is the cause From the of heat, because we have observed that fire emits heat, and that nothing more than the fire itself is needed in order to view, can- have heat. Thus the law that fire is the cause of heat known by is inferred, or rather generalized, from a multitude of gperaliza- . . tion ; from instances. But this is obviously not the case when the the meta- relation of cause and effect occurs within the sphere of P3 y f ical) consciousness. If we hear good news and it causes joy ; by con- if we hear sound reasoning and it causes conviction ; or if of^ntTf we mentally determine to act and the determination causes process. action ; in all these cases our knowledge of causation 74 THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. [CHAP. is obviously no mere generalization from a number of instances : causation is in these cases directly made known in the act of causation, and could not be made more clearly or certainly known by a thousand instances than it is by one. It is made known by direct cognition, just as time is made known by direct cognition when we become conscious of feelings succeeding one another in time ; and the relation of cause and effect, thus learned, is as elementary, and as incapable of being resolved into any other relation, as that of succession in time, or that of likeness and unlikeness ; relations which are admitted by all to be absolutely elementary. And having thus learned the fact and acquired the conception of causation by direct consciousness, we apply the conception analogi- cally to the external world, and conclude that the relation of fire to heat is one of causation, similar to those relations of causation of which we have direct consciousness. Thus the fact of causation that is to say, the fact of one event depending on another, as in the case of the emission of heat depending on the lighting of a fire is made known both by that experience of the external world which we derive from observation, and by that experience of the mind which we derive from consciousness ; but ob- servation makes known the mere fact, while consciousness makes the fact intelligible. It may be said that the fact of action being caused by mental determination in a word, the fact of voluntary determination, or Will is a fact of a different kind from that of good news causing joy, or sound reasoning causing conviction. This may be so ; but all that we need insist on at the present stage of the argument is, that all these are cases of causation ; which will not be denied. Further But this does not exhaust the subject. The question WhatTs '* remains : What is the connection between the fact of the con- causation as made known by direct consciousness, and the tweerrthe" law of the uniformity of causation as generalized from ob- Causation servat i n ? What is the relation between the fact of causa- the tion of which we become conscious because it takes place 1 ? 1 " within the sphere of consciousness, as when good news IV.] THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 75 causes joy ; and the law that all causes act with perfect uni- formity, so that an exactly similar cause is always followed by an exactly similar effect ? The two are not identical in the mere statement : causation as made known by direct consciousness is not a belief at all, but only a conception : and the question may thus be stated : Does the concep- tion of causation as made known by consciousness, involve the belief that causation acts according to invariable law ? This question is left not only unanswered but unasked by Mill and his school, who simply ignore what consciousness has to tell of causation, and when they speak of causation, mean only (to use Mill's own definition) " invariable and unconditional sequence." Mill, however, is right in maintaining that our belief in Belief in the uniformity of causation is not a priori but due to expe- fo^ 1 " rience. It is true we have an instinctive confidence that nature is the future will resemble the past ; that the present order of things will continue to go on ; that our experience of what we know will prove on the whole to be a trust- worthy guide among things of which we have not yet had experience. This confidence is not due to experience ; on the contrary, it anticipates experience, and is often ap- parently contradicted thereby. 1 But this is very far short of a scientific conviction of the uniformity of the order of nature. A scientific man believes that the order of things is constant, and that the same cause will in the future produce the same effects which it has produced in the past ; but what an unscientific man believes is that the order of things is constant ; that some causes or agents have been shown by the experience of the past to act regularly, and others to act irregularly; and that the same may be expected to continue in the future. Ask 1 " The foremost rank among the intuitive tendencies involved in belief is to be assigned to the natural trust that we have in the continuance oftlie present state of things, or the disposition to go on as we have begun. This is a sort of law of perseverance in the human mind, like the first law of motion in mechanics. Our first experiences are to us decisive ; and we go on under them to all lengths, being arrested only by some failure or con- tradiction." BAIN'S The Emotions and the Will, 2nd edition, p. 537. The italics are the author's. 76 THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. [CHAP. an unscientific man, for instance, whether he believes that the same bullet discharged with perfect accuracy at the same mark out of the same gun will always hit precisely the same point, and he will answer Yes. But ask him if he believes that the same die, if thrown in exactly the same way on the same surface, would always fall with the same side up, he will most probably answer No- And yet it is quite certain that he is wrong ; and that the effect follows the cause with a sequence which is as rigid in the one case as in the other, only less traceable. We thus see that, so far as the unanalysed evidence of instinctive belief has any weight, the belief in the absolute uniformity of causation is not intuitive, but is an attain- ment of science. It is not Further: the belief in the uniformity of the order of connected ^hings, both that indefinite expectation of the future con- with the tinuing to resemble the past which man has in common causation. wn ^h animals, and that belief in the absolute uniformity of the action of all physical causes which is an attainment of science, is not in any close way connected with the con- Uniformi- ception of causation. The laws of causation, that is to cession* 1 " 5 " Sa 7 ^ ne ^ aws according to which natural agencies produce and of co- their results, are what Mill has happily termed " uni- formities of succession ; " and it is only these uniformities that belong to causation. But there are also, to use an- other of Mill's admirably chosen expressions, " uniformities of co-existence " which are not cases of causation, and yet belong to the general uniformity of the order of nature. The general statement of all uniformities of succession is that the same causes are followed by the same effects ; the general statement of all uniformities of co-existence is that the same properties are always accompanied by the same properties : as, for instance, when a chemical test indi- cates the presence of iron, we infer that the substance present has all the properties of iron. This is a uniformity of co-existence ; it has nothing to do with succession, and is consequently not a case of causation according to Mill's definition of causation. We thus conclude : 1V .] THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 77 1. That the law of the uniformity of causation is not an Summary, ultimate law, but is only one half of the law of the uni- formity of nature; the law of the uniformities of co- existence being the other half. 2. That the law of the uniformity of causation is not an intuitive truth, but is a discovery of science : and 3. That the law of the uniformity of causation is not implied in the fact of causation as made known in con- sciousness. The school of Mill will not deny that our belief in the uniformity of nature is a result of experience alone, for this doctrine is a prominent one in their system. But perhaps they will say that causation which does not act according to a uniform law is a contradiction; that a uniformly acting cause is the only possible definition of a cause. This throws us back on the question with which we began : namely, What does Consciousness tell us about Causation ? The word Causation has been so appropriated by Mill Agency* and his school to mean merely uniform sequence, that in W e *!(ithan speaking of the testimony of consciousness on the subject Carnation it is better to drop the word Causation and substitute the p res ent word Agency ; and to say that when we are conscious of P ur P se - such a fact as that of good news producing joy, we are conscious of the relation (not of Causation, but) of Agency between the good news and the feeling of joy which it produces. Instead, then, of repeating the axiom that whatever had a beginning had a cause, let us say that all action presupposes an agent. This, like the truth of the Keason as- infinity of time and space, is a truth of reason asserted in Action Un- consciousness ; observation has nothing to do with making plies an it known ; were it possible to believe that there might be action without an agent, no observation could prove that belief to be wrong. Observation can only inform us of actions; it is reason, speaking in consciousness, that refers the actions to agents. Thus when I myself act, I am conscious of myself as an agent ; when I become aware of any action which is not my own, I refer it to an agent outside of myself. 78 THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. [CHAP. l>ut it tells But the axiom that where there is action there must be theimf- an agent, tells nothing about the uniformity of causation; fonnity of j n other words, while it asserts that every action must be causation. . , ,, ,, due to some agent, it does not assert that the same agent, under the same circumstances, must always of necessity act in the same way. 1 The effect It may be said in reply to this, that in the instance o ca*** 5 already mentioned, of good news being the cause or agent the mind that produces joy, the agent does act under a necessary aw ; for given the news, the character of the person who of hears it, and the manner which his circumstances are dietecL ^ affected by what he hears, it would be possible to predict the effect of the news on his mind with the same kind of certainty with which the action of a physical agent can be predicted. This is true, but it does not exhaust the question. In this case the mind is passive; not itself But is the acting, but acted on. But in voluntary determinations, in o?voluii- which the mind is not acted on but active, is it certain tary deter- that the action always takes place according to a necessary Ion? law? Is it certain that in all cases of voluntary deter- mination the mind so acts according to law that it would be possible to a person who knew all the data to predict the result with unerring accuracy ? The certainty or necessity of an event is due to the action of the agent that produces the event being de- termined by antecedent circumstances. Thus the place where a projectile shall strike is determined by the size, form, and properties of the gun, the force of the charge of powder, the form and weight of the projectile, the direction and force of the wind, and, most impor- tant of all, the way in which the gun is pointed. The same is true in all cases of physical causation what- ever; the immediate agent never determines its own action; its action is determined for it by the previous events which are the causes of the action ; in other words, the same or an exactly similar agent, under the same circumstances, will always act in the same manner. This is the statement of the law of the uniformity of 1 See Note A at end of chapter. iv.] THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 79 causation. But we have already seen that this is not The uni- a truth of the reason ; it is known by experience cauTatfon* only ; and the truth of a conclusion from experience is known can never be free from all possibility of limitation or enc^ouly." exception. The question we have now to discuss is whether there Is the will is such an exception to the ordinary law of causation in exception! the action of the human will ; or, in other words, whether the mind of man, unlike all other agents of which we have any direct knowledge, is in some degree capable of determining its own action, instead of being determined in its action by external causes. It must be admitted that the belief in any truly self- Obvious determining power in the will of man is contrary to the a^anSnst most obvious view of all the analogies of the universe, this ; Nowhere in the world of matter, and nowhere, so far as appears, in the animal world, is there any such power of self-determination; every action of every agent is deter- mined not by the agent itself but by previously acting causes. But such obvious analogies may very easily mis- but they lead. If a Being with powers of perception like our own mislead - were to come near to our universe out of infinite space, it Illustra- would at first see nothing of the worlds of which the uni- verse is composed except the light of the stars and their motions ; and it would infer, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, that all matter was exactly alike ; but a closer view would show this conclusion to be wrong. Our imaginary Being would then think that though there were indeed many kinds of elementary matter, yet they all acted according to tolerably simple physical and chemical laws. But this also would be wrong ; and a nearer view would Life is an show the exception that exists in the case of living beings. toTli^mii- He would still, however, think that the law of uniform versality causation was absolutely universal, and that in this uni- chemS" verse there was no such thing as an agent capable of true Iaws ;. wn 7 not will to self-determination; but supposing that he had faculties the uni- for metaphysical as well as for physical research, might causation*? not he find an exception here also in the will of man ? Further, it is certain that a self-determining agent 80 THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. [CHAP.* does exist. Every event in the universe of matter is determined by the events which precede it, but physical reasonings make it certain that this chain of causes and effects cannot have been of absolutely endless length through past time. 1 There must have been a first link in the chain ; there must have been a first act of causation ; and this act must have been determined not by any pre- vious act of causation when as yet there was none, but by The Crea- the free self-determining power of the Agent. The first *f *JJ act of causation we call Creation ; the freely Self-deter- self-deter- \ . * mining mining Agent we call God. 2 Now if this self-determining maTnot P ower exists in God, the Author of the universe, is there this re- any absurdity in thinking that it may reappear in Man, appear in . , . . , , , , . Man ? the highest product of the universe ? It is not to be denied that there is a mystery about Freedom Freedom which there is not about Necessity. It is not to mysterious ^ e denied that it is easier to understand how the action than Ne- O f an agent may be determined by previous causes, than to understand how the agent may determine its own action. But the But if we were to admit the theory of universal necessity, NecesSt* f or * n ^ er wor ^ s the doctrine that every action of every only agent is absolutely determined by previous causes, this not^fves would n t solve but would only shift or transform the thodiffi- ' difficulty of believing in the existence of a Self-deter- mining Agent. For either the Agent in the first act of Causation was free and self-determined, or there has been an infinite chain of cause and effect reaching from a past eternity. Both of these two hypotheses are incon- ceivable by our understanding, yet either the one or the other must be true. Metaphysics brings us thus far, and gives no hint of any answer to the question which of these two hypotheses is the true one. But, as we have seen already, there is evidence from physical science which proves that the chain of cause and effect cannot have been of absolutely infinite length ; consequently the other alternative must be true : namely, that there has been an absolute beginning. 1 See p. 49. See also " Habit and Intelligence," Chapter 6. 2 See the concluding paragraphs of Chapter 2. iv.] THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 81 It may be needful here to clear up a verbal ambiguity Verbal as to what is meant when we speak of an action being determined, not by previous causes, but by the agent itself. It is evident that the nature of the agent is one of those causes which determine its action ; thus when carbon burns in oxygen, the act of combustion is determined by the nature of the carbon and the oxygen. But this is not a case of self-determination ; for the carbon and the oxygen have not endowed themselves with the power of burning, nor is it at their choice whether to burn or not to burn. Their properties have been determined not lyy them, but for them ; their properties are part of that chain of neces- sary causation wherein the entire universe of matter is held, and their actions consequently, though determined by their nature, are not determined by themselves. Now in dis- cussing the question of the freedom, or self-determining power, of Man, we do not raise the question whether our actions are in any degree determined by our characters and the motives that act thereon, in the same sense in which the burning of carbon is determined by its combustible nature and by the flame that sets it on fire ; for no one doubts that our actions are so determined. The question is, Th Whether this determination is absolutely rigid ; whether, supposing the character given, the action is, as in physical causation, in all cases so determined by the motives actiDg on the will that if we knew all the circumstances it would be possible to predict the man's final determination? or has the will of Man, like the will of God, a power to determine its own action independently of motives acting on it, transcending the relation of invariable and uncon- ditional sequence, and setting prediction at defiance ? It must here be observed that no one supposes the will The will of of Man to be like that of God, an absolute Cause, or origin JJ^22 of a chain of causation. The most which is claimed for it ting cause. is, that it is capable of altering the direction of the chain ^ on i s u "" of cause and effect, by acting, " not in the line of causation, whether it 'is able to but upon it. alter the e tionstated - Or, to put the question in another form : Self-determi- nation of the Will is a higher thing than determination by tion . G 82 THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. [CHAP. Self-deter- motives, just as the rational powers of the mind are higher ishieher' ^ an ^ ne i rra tional powers of the mind and of the body. than deter- The rational powers of thought are developed later than the by mo- irrational powers of habit and memory, and are developed tives, ou t O f them ; so, the power of voluntary self-determination and is de- -, i i veioped w developed later than the power of acting under the out ot it. determination of a motive, and is developed out of it ; that is to say, if we had not first acquired the power to act under the determination of motives, we could never have acquired the voluntary power which, as I maintain, is above motives and controls their action. As in thought there is an element of intelligence not derived from habit and memory, though working in conjunction with habit and memory; and as in organization there is a principle of life not derived from the physical and chemical forces, though working through the physical and chemical forces ; T so is there, in the highest voluntary determination, a force which implies the exist- ence of motives, and yet is not under their absolute control. run the No one will deny that the will is a self-acting machine for anything weighing motives one against the other; the question is more whether it is only this, or this and something more. than weigh J motive I say weighing motives one against the other, because those who believe in the free self-determination of the will Freedom are all agreed that we [become conscious of freedom, and consequently become really free, only through the con- of fiict of motives. Freedom would be unth ought of, and lves ' consequently impossible, if we had never been under the influence of more than one motive at a time. So far, the arguments may be summed up as follows : Summary. Reason, speaking through consciousness, asserts that where there is action there must be an agent ; but it makes no assertion as to whether the agent must necessarily act as determined by previous causes, including its own nature among those causes ; or whether an agent may be capable The A of free self-determination in its actions. There is thus no punpnts" conc l us ive a priori argument either for or against, and the on both question is so far left open. The possibility of free self- determination is shown by the truth that the first creative 1 For a discussion of this set of subjects, see "Habit and Intelligence." IV.] THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 83 act of causation must have been freely self-determined. But on the other hand it is certain that rigid necessity is but the universal in the world which we know by observation ; blml | n of * ' proof is ou and the burden of proof consequently lies on those who the advo- would make the will of man to be in any degree an f^J^ exception to the law. But this presumption in favour of the universality of the law of necessity is in its nature a mere presumption which may be totally set aside by contrary facts. As already remarked, to a being ignorant The pro- of our universe, and seeing it from a distance, there would \^^ be a presumption against the existence of anything like matter i-< life ; but life does exist, though the amount of vitalized mal/and matter in the universe is infinitesimally small when com- so is th ? pared with that which is not vitalized. So it is with O f the " freedom. The sphere of freedom is infinitesimally small in JJ^ 1 ^ comparison with the sphere of necessity which surrounds to that of it. The sphere of necessity includes not only the entire nc universe of matter, but the habitual life of man, as dis- tinguished from his truly voluntary life ; and not only so, but it includes all cases of action where the conflict of motives does not arise. It is probable indeed that the greater part of mankind pass through life \vithout ever making a single determination which is in the highest sense voluntary. The question is, not whether free self- determination is the rule in human action, for it is quite certain that it is not ; but, whether such a power exists as it were in reserve. And against this there is no strong Matter presumption ; for, as the domain of life is infinitesimally ^fsak^f small as compared with that of matter, and yet, so far as life, ami s . . -, pi- necessary we can make out the purpose of creation, matter appears j aw mav - to exist for the sake of life ; so the domain of freedom is ,, infinitesimally small as compared with that of necessity, O f free and yet it may be chiefly for the purpose of ministering bei % r -- to the life of morally free beings like ourselves that the vast network of physical law and the immense chain of necessary causation have been created. Having now got rid of all a priori presumptions, let us proceed to consider this question of the freedom of the will on its own grounds. G 2 THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. [CHAP. Argument for neccs- from sta- * ulaiit - 1 inconclu- The argument most commonly used in favour of the Doctrine of universal necessity is that observation shows the actions of men to be in fact determined by their characters and by circumstances, so that they are capable of being predicted. There is no doubt whatever of the general truth of this ; those who know a man best are best able to predict how he will act in any given circumstances. This argument is put in a very strong light, though nothing -* s rea lty added to its logical force, 1 by the fact that human actions of all kinds which admit of being registered and made the subject of statistics, conform to a law of averages ; not only such involuntary actions as death, but, quite as much, such voluntary actions as marriage. After what has been said on the smallness of the sphere of free self-deter- mination, this argument will not appear of much weight. The statistical regularity of such actions as marriage is not absolute ; it is only approximate, and is always liable to small fluctuations which do not admit of being reduced to law ; and so long as there are any fluctuations at all, even though they be of infinitesimal magnitude as compared with the total, statistical regularity does not exclude all room for freedom. But further : does the law, or rather fact, of the statistical domamake re g u ^ ar ity of such voluntary actions as marriage bear oil one neces- the question at all ? May not many freedoms make one approximate necessity, in somewhat the same way that many contingencies make one approximate certainty the truth on which the possibility of insurance is founded? 2 I 1 One of the strangest logical blunders ever made by an able man was that of Mr. Buckle in his notion that it is possible for statistics to throw light on the laws of human nature. He has himself unconsciously left on record the answer to this by pointing out, in some magazine article to which I have not the reference, that causes must be studied in themselves, and not in their resultant effects. He is here speaking of physical science, but of course the same is true of mental science. Tc explain by an instance what is meant : Atmospheric phenomena depend almost entirely on the properties of gases and vapours and the laws of heat and evaporation : but those properties and laws could never be made known by any examination of atmospheric phenomena as recorded in meteorological registers : they must be experimentally studied by themselves. 2 Something like this appears to be the meaning of those words of Christ, " It must be that offences come ; but woe unto him through whom they come." May not iv.] THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 85 make this suggestion without offering any decided opinion on the subject. Let us now turn to the other side of the question. The argument most commonly used in favour of the Argument doctrine of freedom is that we are conscious of freedom. fl '? rn c ^i"_ SC10US" This is a presumption, no doubt, but only a presumption, ness, on Consciousness may give a certainty of what we are doing freedom or of what we have done ; but any assertion of conscious- inc nclu- sive ness as to what we may possibly do is inconclusive until we prove the truth of the assertion by doing it ; and any assertion of consciousness as to what we might have done but have not done, is altogether inconclusive. The direct argument in favour of the doctrine of freedom derived from consciousness therefore breaks down, as well as the direct argument against it derived from observation. But an indirect argument remains. The feeling of respon- sibility is unmeaning unless it presupposes the reality of freedom. In the foregoing chapter I have stated my reasons for believing that the Moral Sense, or the sense of sin and holi- ness, is an ultimate fact of our nature, not resolvable into any other. But however well this truth may be established, it does not exhaust the question of the nature and mean- ing of the Moral Sense. The opposition of Guilt and Merit Guilt and is not identical with the opposition of Sin and Holiness : ^enticaf* all guilt involves sin, but all sin does not involve guilt ; all with Sin merit involves holiness, though it may not be of a high kind, but all holiness does not involve merit. This dis- tinction is recognized by the conscience of mankind, though it be clearly expressed but seldom. We think of holiness as admirable, and of sin as detestable; attributes which holiness and sin share with beauty and ugliness in in- sentient beings, which can have no moral nature, good or bad. But merit and guilt are also thought of as not only admirable and detestable, but also as praiseworthy and blameworthy ; qualities which it would be unmeaning to attribute to insentient beings. All sin is moral disease and needs healing, crayTrjpia, but only guilt needs for- giveness : all sin is a proper object of punishment, when 86 THE FREEDOM OP THE WILL. [CHAP. punishment is needful either to eradicate or to heal it, but only guilt is a proper object of anger. Tendencies to sin, like any other habitual tendencies, are capable of becoming hereditary, but guilt is always and necessarily personal. Ground of ISTow, what is the ground for this distinction ? Tt is, that tinction. guilt is sin of the will ; voluntary sin. When siri is not Guilt voluntary that is to say, when it is the result of bad edu- tary sin. cation or of congenital, perhaps hereditary, evil nature it may be in the highest degree detestable, but no guilt attaches to it, and it is not blameworthy. This truth may perhaps be seldom clearly expressed, yet it is strongly felt by the conscience of mankind : the enlightened con- science, while condemning the sin as worthy of all abhorrence, is able to make a distinction between the sin and the sinner, and to judge that in so far as the sinner and Ids sin are the mere creatures of circumstance, he deserves no blame and no anger, and has incurred no guilt. The dis- How have we learned to make this distinction ? Not by made 1 by 1S observation, for observation has nothing to tell on such conscious- subjects, but by consciousness ; by the feeling of self-con- demnation. This is more than self-disapprobation. When, Self-dfeap- in thinking of a past sin, we conclude, " My action was probation . ., . .. and self- wrong, but in my state ot ignorance and weakness it was condemna- impossible that I could have acted in any other way," there may be the most crushing sense of self-disapprobation and of sinfulness, but there is none of self-condemnation or of guilt. But if we conclude, " I might have acted right and did act wrong," this is the sense of self-condemnation and of guilt, in addition to the sense of self-disapprobation and of sinfulness. It may be said in reply to this, that sinfulness is pri- marily an attribute of character, and guilt of actions. This is mainly true, but it does not affect the truth of the dis- tinction drawn above. Guilt does not attach to actions, however sinful, when they are not truly voluntary; and guilt and blame do attach to characters when they have been formed by the persons that possess the characters, ground I ^ * s on ^ s ground, and on this alone, that I conclude conclude moral freedom to be a reality. Without it, the sense of iv.J THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 87 responsibility and of guilt appear unintelligible, if not moral free- ' Jin to bt reality. indeed false ; the sense of responsibility for future and ( present actions, and the sense of guilt incurred by past actions, would be either false or unmeaning if we were not really free to do the right OR the wrong : free, that is, not only in the negative sense of being externally uncon- strained, but in the positive sense of having an internal power which is not absolutely determined by motives. It is in my view more credible that the will of man should be a partial exception to the otherwise universal law of necessary causation, and that the mystery of free self- determination should be true, than that the highest utter- ance of the highest of man's faculties namely the moral sense should be based on a fallacy or a confusion. It is not to be denied that the inquiry of this chapter is Sense in in the narrow sense of the word altogether unpractical ; for, ^^Jtimof as Bishop Butler has shown, 1 and as all men of sense are freedom is agreed, the effect on action of the belief in freedom and of ticai. the belief in necessity ought to be exactly the same. But Effect of their effects on the formation of character will not be be j iet u the same ; and the formation of character is the most im- j ec t on the portant of all conceivable purposes. In the formation of formatlou character few things are more important than a sense of racter. responsibility not only legal responsibility to an external authority, but moral responsibility to the internal authority of conscience. Now, if we have no real power of self-deter- mination, or, in other words, if moral freedom is an illusion, what does moral responsibility mean? and how can we evade the conclusion that the feeling of self-condemnation, or, as we call it when in great strength, remorse, is due to an unhealthy stimulation of the conscience at the expense of the understanding, and is what no reasonable being ought to give place to ? If on the contrary moral freedom is a reality, then self-condemnation and remorse for sin are in the highest degree reasonable. It is easy to see that the effect of the belief in necessity and of the belief in freedom must in this respect be very different ; and it is not 1 "Analogy of Religion, " Part i. Chapter 6. 88 THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. [CHAP. difficult to judge which of the two will be most favourable to the formation of noble, virtuous, and holy character. Rational It is only when viewed in the light of its Divine origin tionTof ^at ^ * s P oss ibl e to attain to any such really rational the uui- conceptions of the universe as ought to be satisfying to possible 6 rational beings. Merely inductive science confesses its only to a O wii weakness by raising questions which it is unable to phifo- 118 answer. Inductive science reveals force as the one funda- sophy. mental reality of the physical universe, and discovers a chain of causation extending to the present from a very remote though not infinitely remote beginning; but having established these facts, it leaves them without Force, interpretation ; and then the philosophy which I have endeavoured to expound in the preceding chapters comes in and interprets physical force as the result and expres- sion of Divine power, and the origin of the universe as the Intelli- action of Divine will. Likewise observation and consci- gence, ousness jointly make known the existence of consciousness Conscious- ness, and intelligence in the world of living beings, and of the moral sense in man ; facts which, as I have endeavoured to show in the preceding chapters of this work, and also in my work on Habit and Intelligence, do not admit of being resolved into anything other than themselves, and cannot be interpreted by inductive science at all : but in the philosophy which I regard as true, the consciousness and intelligence of created beings are interpreted as results of the Divine knowledge and wisdom reappearing in the and Free- higher ranks of the Divine creation. Finally, the moral dpm are freedom of the human will, which to inductive science appears unreal, or if real, then unintelligible, is interpreted by the same philosophy as the result of the Divine free- dom reappearing in the highest being in this universe. NOTE A. SINCE writing the foregoing chapter, I have met with the following passages from Newman's " Grammar of Assent," which state with admirable clearness the distinction between the IV.] THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 89 physical fact of the uniformity of the order of nature and the metaphysical truth of the universality of causation or, as I have expressed it, the truth that action necessarily implies an agent : " Since causation implies a sequence of acts in our own case, Quotation and our doing is always posterior, never contemporaneous or from , New- prior, to our willing, therefore, when we witness invariable ante- Gram- cedents and consequents, we call the former the cause of the mar of ^ latter (though intelligence is absent) from the analogy of external appearances. At length we go on to confuse causation with order : and because we happen to have made a successful analysis of some complicated assemblage of phenomena which experience has brought before us in the visible scene of things, and have reduced them to a tolerable dependence on each other, we call the ultimate points of the analysis, and the hypothetical facts in which the whole mass of phenomena is gathered up, by the name of causes, whereas they are only the formula under which these phenomena are conveniently represented." P. 64. " There are philosophers who go further, and teach not only a general but a necessary uniformity in the action of the laws of nature, holding that everything is by law, and exceptions im- possible ; but I do not see on what ground of experience they take up this position. Experience, rather, is adverse to such a doctrine ; for what concrete fact exactly repeats itself*" P. 67. "But it may be urged, if a thing happens once, it must happen always : for what is to hinder itl Nay, on the con- trary, Why, because one particle of matter has a certain pro- perty, should all particles have the same 1 Why, because par- ticles have instanced the property a thousand times, should the thousand and first instance it also ? It is primd facie unaccount- able that an accident should happen twice, not to speak of its happening always. If we expect a thing to happen twice, it is because we think it is not an accident, but has a cause. What has brought about a thing once may bring it about twice. What is to hinder its happening ? rather, What is to make it happen ] Here we are thrown back from the question of order to that of causation." P. 69. NOTE B. IF it is urged that the omnipotence of God leaves no room God's Om- for the freedom of the creature, I reply, that if God is not ^f^oT physical but Spiritual Omnipotence if He is a freely self- exclude 90 THE FKEEDOM OF THE WILL. [CHAP. iv. freedom; determining agent He is able to leave room for freedom in His Fore ^ is creatures an d to communicate to them a portion of His know- own power of self-determination. ledge. N or d oes tne tmt k tne foreknowledge of God exclude the reality of man's freedom. God does not exist under the condi- tions of time : "He does not foresee: He sees." On this subject I subjoin a poem of my own, not previously published. ETERNITY. Poem Eternity is not, as men believe, Eternity. Before and after us, an endless line. No, 'tis a circle, infinitely great, All the circumference with creations thronged God at the centre dwells, beholding all. And as we move in this eternal round, The finite portion which alone we see Behind us, is the past : what lies before We call the future. But to Him who dwells Far at the centre, equally remote From every point of the circumference, Both are alike, the future and the past. CHAPTER V. THE BASES OF KNOWLEDGE. IN" the three preceding chapters we have considered the three most important special questions of meta- physics; namely, the Metaphysical Interpretation of Nature, the Ground of the Moral Sense, and the Freedom of the Will. It is the plan of this work to ascend from the commonest facts of observation and of consciousness to the highest spiritual truths ; and consequently, before we go on to the properly theological questions, it is neces- sary to consider the nature of Faith and its possibility. The word Faith is here used in its customary sense of Faith is the proof (eAey^o?) of things not seen; 1 or, as it may be / tilings paraphrased in philosophical language, certitude concerning uot seeD - matters in which verification is unattainable? We know that such certitude is possible. We know, as Example a fact, that many men feel the most unquestioning certitude of the reality of a future life a certitude which proves its reality by influencing their character and their conduct ; although such a belief does not admit of verification of any ordinary kind. Were it nothing more, the existence of such a belief would be a psychological fact of the highest interest and importance. But we have now to discuss, not the psychological character of such a belief, but the ques- tion whether it has any rational basis. It is the purpose 1 Epistle to the Hebrews, xi. 1. 2 Certitude is distinguished from certainty as subjective from objective. " Certitude is a state of mind : certainty is a quality of propositions." (Newman's ' Grammar of Assent. ") 92 THE BASES OF KNOWLEDGE. [CHAP. of this work ! to show that faith has such a rational or scientific basis. It is best to say here, that in using such expressions as these I do not mean to prejudge any of the questions which are associated with that very indefinite word Ra- tionalism. When I say that anything is rational, I only mean, according to the ordinary usage of our language, that it is worthy to be believed ; and in this sense no one will admit that his belief is irrational. Paradoxi- It is primd facie a paradox to say that belief, so cal nature s t r ong as to amQunt to certitude, may exist without the possibility of verification, and may yet be in the highest Defence degree reasonable. This paradox, however, is what I of the undertake to defend ; and my defence of it consists paradox, primarily in this, that the paradox, the difficulty, and the apparent contradiction involved in such faith, are only the extreme forms of what are involved in all belief whatever respecting existing things external to our own consciousness. The capa- Belief not particular beliefs, but the general power and beiLfTs an tendency to form beliefs is an ultimate fact of mind, ultimate not resolvable into "association of ideas," or into any- thing other than itself. This is virtually admitted even by those who endeavour to resolve all the facts of mind into the " association of ideas." l Belief is of Belief is defined always to have reference to something extema/to no ^ P resen * to the immediate consciousness something conscious- past, or future, or external. We are immediately conscious of our actual present feelings ; and we are immediately conscious of self as having the feelings. But immediate consciousness ends here. We have no immediate con- sciousness that is to say, in the usual sense of the word, 110 consciousness at all of anything past, future, or absent ; and though we usually say that we are conscious of the objects which we perceive, yet perception is really an inference from sensation an inference which is made too spontaneously, too rapidly, and too surely, for us to 1 See the quotation from Bain, p. 75, note. V.] THE BASES OF KNOWLEDGE. 93 be conscious of the process. 1 Thus the sphere of our immediate consciousness is very small ; it is but the centre of the sphere of our knowledge, which latter ex- tends around it in every direction. We know that of which we are immediately conscious ; but we know very much more of which we are not immediately conscious. Now, within the sphere of consciousness there is no room for the exercise of belief ; but there is necessarily an ele- ment of belief in all knowledge that transcends immediate consciousness. There is no difficulty whatever as to the knowledge of what lies within the sphere of consciousness within that sphere knowledge and consciousness are identical. But how is knowledge possible or, to put the question in other words, how is belief to be justified in the region of that knowledge which is external to any immediate consciousness ? All knowledge begins from experience ; but how is it that we are able to reason, and to reason truly, from the data of experience to conclusions respecting matters of which we have no experience ? We believe in the earth's motion ; this belief ultimately rests on data of experience; but the earth's motion is certainly not itself a fact of experience. The same is true of the geological history of the earth, of the ex- istence of luminous undulations, and of the whole of that marvellous world of truths of the intellect, as dis- tinguished from truths of merely sensible perception, which has been opened to us by science. In order to appreciate the purely rational (as distinguished from merely perceptive} character of scientific truth, we must reflect that very many may we not say all ? of the most characteristic truths of science are known by thought only, and could not conceivably be objects of perception ; such as to mention one of the simplest possible instances the law of the inverse square. We may thus say of Science science, as we have said of faith, that it is the proof of the proof things not seen. of things "True," it will be said, "science is the proof of things 1 See " Habit and Intelligence," Chapter 36. 94 THE BASES OF KNOWLEDGE. [CHAP. not seen; but faith has been defined as the certitude of Demand thing? not verified. There are various kinds of verifica- for venfi- ^ on . s jaht is one, demonstration is another : but some cation. ' kind of verification we must have for whatever we are asked to believe, unless we are to give up our claim to be called reasonable beings." There may In reply to this two remarks are to be made. In the be proof fi rs fc p\& CQ) a s there are various kinds of verification, so it cannot be is not primd facie irrational to think that there may be scfen^mc* reasonable grounds for certitude which nevertheless do form. not admit of being reduced to rigidly scientific form ; just as proof may be as good as demonstration, though it may not be capable of being put into a demonstrative form. Verifica- We shall have to speak of this farther on. But further : tion rests sc i eu tific verification rests on assumptions which are them- onassump- ^ tionsthat selves unverified and incapable of being verified. Let needier n0 ^ ^ s ^ e m isunderstood : I do not desire to disparage admit of scientific certainty : if the assumptions, or postulates, tion. on which verification rests do not admit of verification, neither do they need it. We have now to examine what these postulates are ; and this is the same thing as examining the fundamental postulates of all thought ; for the fundamental postulates of all thought are the same : if a postulate is true in science it cannot be untrue elsewhere. Natural The fundamental postulates of all thought consist in e s ' certain natural beliefs^ to use Eeid's expression, which neither need proof nor admit of it. These are implied and involved in every act of belief, and consequently in all knowledge that transcends immediate consciousness ; and, as we shall see further on, they are not capable of being- generated by any mere " association of ideas." They are Logical of various kinds. One of them is the belief in the funda- malical men ^ a l axiom of logic, that a contradiction cannot be true ; beliefs are and similar to this are the beliefs in the infinite extent and fied, JU uniform properties of space and time, which are the funda- mental truths of mathematical science. These beliefs may be said to contain their own justification : they not only are certainly true, but they are not conceivably v.] THE BASES OF KNOWLEDGE. 95 untrue; and consequently, though the recognition of their truth is belief, in the sense of being a recognition of some- thing as true which is not within the sphere of immediate consciousness, yet it is perhaps not to be regarded as in an( * ^ no approach any degree approaching to the nature of faith. to faith. But this remark applies only to our belief in the prin- ciples of the abstract sciences. It does not apply to the belief and knowledge that we have respecting anything that has existence. All recollection of the past, and Belief i all expectation of the future, involve belief which is in some degree of the nature of faith. And if this is true of and the the memory of the past and the expectation of the future, approaches it is also true of the perception of that which is external to faith - to us ; for, without going into the question of the nature of our idea of substance, it is obvious that merely momentary impressions on the sight or on any other sense, unconnected with any memory of the past or any expectation of the future, could not give origin to the belief in an external world. Let us speak first of memory. The knowledge that memory gives, is knowledge to the Belief in truth of which no witness is borne by immediate conscious- worthiness ness ; and such knowledge consequently implies belief of memory. the belief in the trustworthiness of memory : in other words, the belief that our recollections correspond to past realities. This belief is instinctive. It is an ultimate fact of mind, 1 additional to, and distinct from, the mere capa- city for feeling. But the belief that a recollection corresponds with a Belief in past reality implies more than the belief itself. It is im- jj^ 1 possible to say, " I had a feeling an hour ago which I have involved now no longer," without implying that " I, who had a m tllls ' feeling an hour ago which I have no longer, am never- theless the same person." Thus the truth of our own per- sonal identity through time and change is made known to us. It is made known to us in memory ; but it is an ultimate truth ; and unless we instinctively believed it, we 1 " Our belief in the veracity of memory is evidently ultimate." (Mill's Examination of Hamilton's Philosophy.) 96 THE BASES OF KNOWLEDGE. [CHAP. could have no sense of any past reality to which memory bears witness. 1 These two truths, of the trustworthiness of memory in bearing witness to past realities, and our own personal identity through time and change, each in- volves and implies the truth of the other. and made The truth of our personal identity is a purely metaphy- conscious^ s ^ ca ^ truth : that is to say, it is borne witness to by con- ness only, sciousness only, and is in no sense a fact of observation. We could not if we would get rid of all the meta- physical elements of our thoughts ; and the belief in this metaphysical truth of our continued personal identity underlies our entire mental life from the earliest dawn of consciousness. Belief in The next of the natural beliefs of which we have to speak the um- j s connected rather with the external world than with the lorrmty ot the order world of consciousness. I mean our spontaneous confi- 11 e> dence in the order of nature. This is not only, as it is usually stated, an expectation that the future will continue to resemble the past. It has not necessarily anything to do with past or future. It is, that similar consequents will always be found to follow similar antecedents, and that similar circumstances will always be found to accom- All reason- pany similar circumstances. All reasoning whatever re- Pectin specting that which has actual existence, as distinguished that which from the abstractions of logic and mathematics, is based on enceTnv this belief: whether the subject of the reasoning is future, plies this. as j n astronomical predictions : past, as in the questions of geology : present in time though out of sight, as when we It does reason concerning the constitution of the centre of the onf r to 6r eai% th : or inaccessible to sense though accessible to reason, the future, as when we reason concerning the laws of force or the nature of luminous waves. It is not This belief in the uniformity of the order of nature is an perienc?" ultimate * ac t of mind. It is not produced by experience ; on the contrary, it anticipates experience. 2 It is thought by many that this belief in the uniformity of the order of nature is a mere consequence of experience 1 See the Essay on Personal Identity appended to Butler's "Analogy of Religion." 2 See the quotation from Bain, p. 75, note. v.] THE BASES OF KNOWLEDGE. 97 producing mental habit. 1 We are accustomed to find the order of nature uniform, and we therefore expect always to find it so. But this is no explanation at all. The question is, how we are able to reason from known things to unknown things ; why we believe, and believe truly, that the data of our experience are applicable to the solution of questions respecting things of which, by the terms of the case, we have not yet any experience : and the answer is, that we believe in the accustomed order of nature obtain- ing among things of which we have no experience, because we are familiar with it among those of which we have experience. Surely this is no explanation. Mental habit, or, what is the same thing, the association of ideas, cannot generate belief; it may, no doubt, determine particular beliefs, but it cannot originate the tendency and the power to believe : just as all force acts under the laws of motion, yet the laws of motion will not account for the origin of force. Mental habit will account for the associa- tion between the thoughts of two things, but it will not account for the belief that the things are themselves inva- riably or generally associated, because it will not account for the sense of reality external to the mind. Suppose for instance that lightning has been in our experience followed by thunder so often that we always think of thunder when we see lightning. This is a case of association of ideas : 4 ssoci ; 1 " tion of experience, acting through the law of habit, is adequate to ideas alone account for it; but how can this account for the belief produce that lightning will be followed by thunder ? Mere habit belief, cannot account for the step from thoughts to things for the association of ideas to the belief in the association of the corresponding things.' expert tT If it is asked, whether we should have this spontaneous find nature expectation of finding uniformity in the order of nature if it were the order of nature were not really uniform ? I reply that not so ' the mind is part of the order of nature, and has been 1 Or what is technically called the "association of ideas." The asso- ciation of ideas takes place l>y reason of habit, and it is only a case of the Inw of habit. See " Habit and Intelligence," Chapter 31. - See Note A at end cf preceding chapter. See also Note at end of this Chapter. 98 THE BASES OF KNOWLEDGE. [CHAP. developed in accordance therewith : the mind, like every- thing else that lives, is of necessity developed in accordance with the laws of that nature which surrounds it : the uni- formity of nature, like the infinity of space and time, is a fact of the universe which has become conscious of In that itself in the brain of man. But if the order of nature mind were not uniform, we should not expect to find it uniform : have^een Because the m i n d, being a part of that order, would have developed received a different development from that which it actually different has received. laws. ^y e consequently conclude that the belief in the veracity of memory and the belief in the uniformity of the order of nature, though they receive confirmation at every moment of our waking lives, are not in their origin due to ex- perience, but to the spontaneous tendencies of the mind. Belief This, it must be understood, is not because experience is originate insufficient to produce these beliefs, but because experience in expe- alone cannot of itself produce any belief whatever. It has been already remarked that the spontaneous belief in the elementary truths of logic and mathematics carries its own justification with it, and is consequently not of the The beliefs nature of faith. But the same is not true of the spon- veracityof taneous belief in the veracity of memory and in the uni- mempry f orm it y O f the order of nature. The two kinds of belief and in the J order of differ fundamentally. The belief in the truths of logic and notlustify mathematics is a rational belief ; those truths cannot be them- imagined not to be true. The belief in the trustworthiness of memory and the belief in the uniformity of nature, on the contrary, are not in the highest sense of the word rational : they do not carry their own justification with They may them ; and though their truth cannot be doubted, they gmed*" ma y ke imagined to be untrue. That is to say, it is im- untme. possible to imagine that a contradiction is true, or that time or space has a limit : but it is possible to imagine that memory is an illusion, and everything to which it bears witness unreal : or that the uniformity of nature will be suddenly interrupted, so that the past will be utterly unlike the future, and all experience will be inapplicable. Further : the former class of beliefs, the logical and the v.] THE BASES OF KNOWLEDGE. 09 mathematical, are absolute beliefs : the latter class, on the They arc- contrary, the belief in the veracity of memory and in the (|Jk*o5y uniformity of nature, are not absolute but only preponde- prepon- ' rant. That is to say, we believe that the axioms of logic and mathematics are true without any possible exception : but we do not so believe in the other class of truths : we believe in the veracity of memory as a general truth, for if we did not we should not believe in the reality of the past : but we distrust memory in particular cases. So with the belief in the uniformity of nature : we feel no practical doubt of it, yet we cannot say that there is anything impossible in its coming to an end : and no one can say that he feels any strong confidence in the present laws of nature continuing to be in force for a thousand millions of years to come. Thus the two beliefs on which the whole of our external life rests : namely the belief that memory is trustworthy, or in other words that experience is true : and the belief that the order of things is and will be uniform, or in other words that experience is applicable : are both of them They are without logical justification, because they might be denied q e t ~ l7 without contradicting any necessary law of thought : and without without the possibility of verification of any other kind, ^cm, ' because if any one were to declare his belief that all memory was an illusion, or that the laws of nature might not improbably be totally changed the next moment, there is no possible proof, w 7 hether of the demonstrative or of the experimental kind, by which he could be shown to be wrong. Many apparent proofs might be offered, but yet on they would really assume the truth of the beliefs which the ? a11 * v vermca- they would appear to prove. Everything in science and everything in ordinary life is verified by the assumption that those two natural beliefs are true ; but they are them- selves unverified. All proof, all knowledge, ultimately rest on faith. Science and faith are equally " the proof of things unseen : " things past, things future, things absent, and things invisible though present. As Pascal pointed out long ago, 1 consistent scepticism 1 See his fragment on Dogmatism aud Scepticism (Pe^sdes de Pascal. H 2 100 THE BASES OF KNOWLEDGE. [CHAP. Consistent is impossible. No one can prove his elementary natural iTimpos Beliefs, an( l yet no one can doubt their truth. Consistent sible. and absolute scepticism would not require the denial of the immediate dicta of consciousness : that is to say, it would not require us to deny that we exist, and that we have feelings. NOT would it, perhaps, require us to deny the dicta of our logical intelligence : that is to say, it would not require us to question the self-evident truths of logic and mathematics. But it would require us to question the affirmations of that instinctive intelligence for which we can find no logical basis : it would consequently require us to question the general trustworthiness of memory, and the confidence that we feel in the order of nature. And, as already remarked, it is obvious that the belief in an external world must be given up with the belief in the perpetuity of the order of nature: for we could have no knowledge of an external world if our knowledge were limited to the present moment if memory gave no trust- worthy information of the past, and we could not look forward to the future. Argument The sceptical argument is, that these natural beliefs have ticisnT 1 *" no lgi ca l basis. But it is capable of being put in a that we stronger form than this mere brief statement. It may be and cannot stated in the following argumentum adhominem: "You be sure of admit that you are fallible : how then can you be certain of the truth of anything whatever ? You cannot be wrong, it is true, as to the fact of your own existence and your own sensations : and perhaps though this is a great concession from the sceptical side you have a right to believe in the dicta of the logical intelligence. But a being like you, who by his own confession is very liable to error, has at least no right to believe anything which has not and cannot have logical proof." Reply, It mav be sa id i n re ply t this, that the beliefs in question that are not those of an individual but of mankind. But this, beliefs be- though true, is not, logically considered, a reply to the * sceptical argument : for, as already shown, the existence of Faugere's edition, vol. ii. p. 100). The entire argument of this chapter and of the two following has been suggested by that fragment. v.] THE BASES OF KNOWLEDGE. 101 a world external to our own consciousness, and consequently individual, the existence of our fellow-men, who are a part of that but to tlie TAG 6. external world, could not be made known to us if we did not take for granted the trustworthiness of memory and the order of nature. The mere momentary sight of one of our fellow-men, unconnected with anything in memory, would be nothing more than an impression on the sense of sight. And, what is more immediately to the purpose of objection, the present argument, it may be urged by the advocate on the side of scepticism that the belief of all mankind can men i add nothing to the force of one's own belief : for if I our own believe that other men are right, I still only trust to my judgment own belief that they are so : the strength of my belief that trustwor- all men are right, cannot transcend the strength of my thmess - belief in the trustworthiness of my own faculties which conclude that they are right. On logical grounds this appears to be unanswerable, and yet we instinctively feel that it is wrong. For when one man agrees with all or nearly all the rest of mankind, and another dissents and sets up his own opinion against that of the rest : we do not say that each trusts his own judgment alike : we say that the dissentient trusts his own judgment This is not in a way in which the other does not: and though it is possible that the man may ultimately prove to be in the right whose opinion is against that of the world, as Copernicus proved to be, yet we instinctively feel that the presumption is against the dissentient ; that the burden of proof rests on him ; and that his trust in his own judgment, though it may possibly be justified, needs justification. The ground of this spontaneous and irresistible conviction We think is, that our natural beliefs do not belong to the individual ^^i! 16 but to the race. We think with a wider and consequently gence not a surer mind than each man's own. Intelligence is pri- i^jivklual marily unconscious and impersonal; it is not Intelligence but of but Consciousness and Will that specially belong to the personality of the individual. Modern psychology has shown that Consciousness is not co-extensive with Intel- ligence ; that the conscious intelligence of the mind has its root in the unconscious life ord in most if not in all 102 THE BASES OF KNOWLEDGE. [CHAP. cases retains an unconscious element. 1 Thus we think with the intelligence not only of the individual but of the race : and the certainty of our beliefs is not limited by the power of the individual mind. 2 This, as now stated, may appear paradoxical, but it is no more than the rational foundation for what we mean when we say that our belief is not our own private belief, but is common to all men. Mysticism. Of course this will be objected to as mystical. Any theory will be called mystical that lays a strong emphasis on that element in thought which at once underlies and transcends the individual consciousness. It is not worth while to discuss the question whether this use of the word mysticism is accurate. But there is no tenable medium between this, and pure rationalism ending in pure scepti- cism : for any theory that ignores this unconscious element must base all knowledge on the conscious logical in- telligence of the individual; and if our knowledge can- not transcend both our immediate consciousness and our logical intelligence, then, as we have seen, we can believe in neither the trustworthiness of memory nor in the order of nature, and absolute scepticism is inevitable. But absolute scepticism is impossible : we must believe whether we will or not. It is not possible for any sceptical arguments to shake our confidence in the trustworthiness Practical of our natural beliefs, regarded as practical guides. That n is to say, practical scepticism is impossible : but speculative possible, scepticism is not so. By speculative scepticism is meant lative ' the doctrine that our natural beliefs are true for our own scepticism intelligence only: (the intelligence not of the individual is not so. J ^ merely but of the race :) but that absolute truth that is to say, truth which is true independently of the constitution of any particular intelligence is unattainable by us, and may possibly have no existence. This doctrine is obviously quite untouched by either of the two arguments just used : it is untouched by the argu- ment either of the universality or of the necessity of our 1 See "Habit and Intelligence," Chapter 27. 2 I suppose that something like this must have been Coleridge's meaning when ha spoke of "the impersonal character of Reasen." v.J THE BASES OF KNOWLEDGE. natural beliefs : that is to say, by the argument that they belong to mankind, or by the argument that we cannot get rid of them if we would. The reply from the sceptical side is obvious. " They are no doubt true for our intelli- Statement gence, and they are laws of our nature : but what ground argument have we, or can we have, for believing that they are true for tbe irrespectively of our intelligence, or that they correspond with any reality in the external world ? " This is the view of Kant. It is really speculative Kant's scepticism, though it is usually called Idealism. The force ideTlism, of the argument will chiefly depend on our view of the nature of the mind. It appears to be the commonest view, that though the mind comes as it were into contact with the external world in sensation and perception, yet in thought it is absolutely shut in and isolated. This is a fundamental postulate of the psychology of Kant, accord- ing to which Space, Time, and Causation are not facts of the universe but only forms of our own thinking faculty, under which we are compelled by our mental constitution to perceive and to think of things and events ; but which have not, or at least may possibly not have, any reality external to our own minds. Logical disproof of this is no doubt impossible, but all the progress that psychology has made since Kant's time tends to a different conclusion. Modern psychology is teaching us that the mind is not some- The mind thing isolated in the midst of the universe of matter which l n thou 8 ht is not surrounds it, but is a part and a product of that universe : isolated and that the laws of mind are so only because they were universe laws of the universe before they became laws of mind. That is to say, the laws of logic : the universal and The laws necessary character of Space, Time, and I would add ^r^o Causation : the uniformity of the order of nature, and that because power of impressions to perpetuate themselves, which ^J ofthe when it takes place in consciousness constitutes memory : universe ' all these are facts of the universe, of which we are con- scious because we are conscious portions of the universe. 1 This conclusion, it is true, does not admit of logical proof. I have endeavoured to show that every belief 1 See " Habit and Intelligence," Chapters 37 and 38. 104 THE BASES OF KNOWLEDGE. [CHAP. This can- which takes the order of nature for granted, involves an proved unproved and unverified assumption. But the conclusion but it now stated has this in its favour, that it harmonizes our and ra- knowledge with itself and gives it a rational basis. It tionalizes harmonizes our knowledge with itself by abolishing that ledge. fundamental discord which both scepticism and idealism at least the idealism of Kant introduce into our concep- tions. The discord is introduced by teaching that our natural and inevitable conceptions of things do not cor- respond with any reality of the things themselves ; and it is abolished by teaching the opposite doctrine, stated above, that our spontaneous conceptions do correspond with the reality of the things, because the mind derives its laws from that universe of things whereof it is a part. And at the same time it gives our knowledge a rational basis : in other words, a true basis in the reality of things. We end The conclusion now stated is no new discovery : it is ^ ne natural and spontaneous belief of mankind : phi- where losophy has only enabled us to give it expression. So that we began, . . . . . but not as here, as in other metaphysical inquiries, we end where we began. we b e g an< But we do not end as we began. If I have Tran- made my meaning intelligible, I have shown (to use some- element in what inappropriate expressions where our language has no thought perfectly appropriate ones) that there is something tran- and behef. * f ' . . scendent, wonderful, and almost mysterious in the most common and commonplace thought and belief. There is something transcendent and wonderful in the facts that our knowledge transcends our immediate consciousness : and that it is possible to reason, and to reason truly, from data of experience to conclusions which transcend experience. " The process of induction includes a mysterious step by which we pass from particulars to generals, of which step the reason always seems to be inadequately rendered by any words which we can use." l It is needful to guard against a misconception as to what has been said respecting the absence of logical proof for many things which we most surely believe. If we were i Whewell's "Philosophy of Discovery, " p. 284. v.] THE BASES OF KNOWLEDGE. 105 to demand logical proof before we believe anything, we should be unable to believe in either the reality of the past or the probability of the order of nature continuing in the future. But though our belief in these has no logical basis, it has, as I have been arguing, a rational basis : that is to say, a basis in the reality of things. Logical demonstration is not the only basis of certainty. This is perfectly well understood in physical science, in which mathematical proof (which is proof of the logical kind *) and experimental proof, though different, are recog- nized as of equal validity. No proposition can be true The logical which is contradicted by logical proof : but a proposition ^^is may be true independently of logical proof. Because many not un- true beliefs are independent of logic, it does not follow Jorthy that the logical intelligence is untrustworthy, but only but ,, . ., , . ,. ., * limited. that its sphere is limited. To sum up the conclusions of this chapter : Summary. There are three distinct bases of knowledge : Three 1. Immediate consciousness : that is to say consciousness of one's own feelings and of oneself as having the feelings, ledge. Here knowledge does not transcend consciousness : con- immediate sciousness and knowledge are here identical, and there is n ess C1 US ~ no room for belief. 2. Logical intelligence : that is to say, the intuitive Logical in- knowledge of what cannot be denied without contradic- te lgence - tion. To the logical intelligence belongs the knowledge of the elementary principles of logic : and, I would add, the knowledge of the universal and necessary character of space, time, and causation : but the argument is in no way affected if these are to be classed rather with the instinctive intelligence. The knowledge of the truths of the logical intelligence transcends immediate consciousness, and thus contains an element of belief: but as those truths cannot 1 This must however be understood with the qualification, that the ultimate data of our mathematical reasonings in physical science, such as the laws of motion and gravitation, are not logical axioms but only experimental facts of the highest generality. But, once these data are established, the mathematical deductions from them have the nature of logical proof. 106 THE BASES OF KNOWLEDGE. [CHAP. be believed nor even imagined to be untrue, there is no room in believing them for anything approaching to faith. 3. Instinctive intelligence : that is to say, the intuitive tellio-ence. knowledge of what transcends immediate consciousness, and is not known by anything resembling a logical process. To the instinctive intelligence belong the belief in the veracity of memory and consequently in the reality of the past ; and the confidence that the order of nature will go on in future. These transcend immediate consciousness, and consequently contain an element of belief: they are independent of logic, for they might be denied without self-contradiction, and they may be imagined to be untrue : they have not the absolute certainty of logical conclusions, but only a preponderant probability which is however practically equivalent to certainty. In such belief, there is consequently an element of faith : that is to say, trust in what is unseen and unverified. My theory The doctrine that our primary conceptions and beliefs the phy- correspond with the facts of the universe because the s a P ar ^ an d- a product of the universe, is due to psycho- that psychological school which bases psychology on phy- siology, and regards mind as the result of nervous action. These theories are often regarded as materialistic. It is not worth while to discuss the merely verbal question whether this application of the word materialism is accu- rate. I have already declared myself to be at once a It is a materialist and a spiritualist. 1 But it is worth while to bastTfor remark that the theory here expounded is a far better faith than basis for faith than the idealism of Kant can be. If space idealist an( l time and other fundamental conceptions are only forms theory. o f thought with which nothing in the universe around us necessarily corresponds, then they are, or may be, unreal : and absolute truth that is to say, truth which is true independently of the constitution of any particular intelli- gence is unattainable by us, and perhaps has no existence. But if it is true, as I maintain, that these conceptions were facts of nature before they became forms of thought, 1 Page 3-3. v.j THE BASES OF KNOWLEDGE. 107 and are forms of thought because they are facts of nature, then it follows that the forms of thought correspond with the facts of external nature : w r e know things as they are : our knowledge of the universe, though very limited, is real so far as it extends. So that the idealistic theory, according to which our necessary forms of thought belong to the mind alone, notwithstanding its vast pretensions leads by a direct and logical path to total theoretical scep- ticism : while the opposite theory, according to which the mind derives its forms from the external world, though it may be despised as being materialistic, is a possible basis for faith. NOTE. ON the subject of the ground of our confidence in the order of nature, I extract the following from Mozley's Bampton Lectures on Miracles. " Let us imagine the occurrence of a particular physical pheno- Extract menon for the first time. Upon that single occurrence we should ^j e s have but the very faintest expectation of another. If it did Bampton occur again once or twice, so far from counting on another recur- rence, a cessation would come as the more natural event to us. cles. But let it occur a hundred times, and we should feel no hesita- tion in inviting persons from a distance to see it : and if it occurred every day for years, its recurrence would then be a certainty to us, its cessation a marvel. But what has taken place in the interim to produce this total change in our belief? From the mere repetition do we know anything more about its cause? No. Then what have we got besides the past repeti- tion itself 1 Nothing. Why then are we so certain of its future repetition 1 All we can say is that the known casts its shadow before : we project into unborn time the existing types, and the secret skill of nature intercepts the darkness of the future by ever suspending before our eyes, as it were in a mirror, a reflexion of the past. We really look at a blank before us, but the mind, full of the scene behind, sees it again in front. " Or is it to give a reason why we believe that the order of nature will be like what it has been, to say that we do not know 108 THE BASES OF KNOWLEDGE. [CHAP. V. of this constancy of nature at first, but that we get to know it by experience ? What do we mean by knowing from experience f We cannot mean that the future facts of nature have fallen within our experience or under our cognizance ; for that would be to say that a future fact is a past fact. We can only mean, then, that from our past experience of the facts of nature, we form our expectation of the future : which is the same as saying that we believe the future will be like the past : but to say this is not to give a reason for this belief, but only to state it. " Or do we think it giving a reason for our confidence in the future to say that though ' no man has had experience of what is future, every man has had experience of what was future 1 ' This is a true assertion, but it does not help us at all out of the present difficulty, because the confidence of which we speak relates not to what was future, but to what is future. It is true indeed that what is future becomes at every step of our advance what was future : but that which is now still future is not the least altered by that circumstance : it is as invisible, as unknown, and as unexplored as if not one single moment of the past had preceded it, and as if it were the very beginning and the very startiDg-point of nature." P. 36. [109 ] CHAPTER VI. THE MEANING OP FAITH. TN the preceding chapter, Faith has been defined as certi- tude in those matters in which verification is unattain- able : and we have seen that there is at least an approach to faith in our ordinary knowledge ; because, while we verify all particular facts by the assumption that the past is a reality and that the order of nature is uniform, these as- sumptions are themselves incapable of verification. Thus there is no approach to faith in our belief that a contra- diction cannot be true, or that two right lines cannot enclose an area : but there is an approach to faith in our belief in the facts of physical science and of history, and in all mere facts whatever other than our own bodily and mental feelings. If then no belief as to matters of fact admits of what is strictly verification, what is the distinction between faith and ordinary certitude ? Has not any such distinction been overthrown ? I reply, that the common sense of mankind does regard the assumptions of the reality of the past and the uni- formity of the order of things as sufficient grounds of verification, equally with the self-evident principles of logic and mathematics. That is to say, the common sense Evidence of mankind regards evidence, when sufficient, as equi- JgJJ* valent to demonstration, though distinct from it. In such stration matters common sense is right : there is no appeal beyond ^d as M it. Sound metaphysics cannot contradict common sense : demon- I have laid emphasis on the non-demonstrative nature of 110 THE MEANING OF FAITH. [CHAP. our ordinary beliefs, not for the purpose of calling their certainty in question, but for the purpose of showing that This sug- the common sense of mankind gives the stamp of certitude there may to beliefs which are verified by means distinct from de- be reason- rno-nstration : and verification which is not demonstrative able certi- tude with- suggests, though it does not prove, the possibility of fication. 1 " reasonable certitude without verification : in other words, the possibility and the reasonableness of Faith, though not I define Faith as certitude without verification : not proof? 1 * certitude without proof. The distinction is important. Verification is not original proof, but corroborative proof. Kelation . . r of veri- Jrroot in science is frequently deductive, sometimes inathe- ncation to m atical i n form, while the corroborative verification is ovi^riiicii proof. experimental. Thus the entire science of physical as- tronomy has been w T orked out by deductive reasoning in Its posi- mathematical form, and verified by observation. The same nmthe- ^ s ^ rue ^ P ure mathematics. It is true that we habitually matics. take the results of mathematical calculation as true with- out demanding further verification : we do not require to test them by counting or measuring. But this is only because experience assures us of their trustworthiness. If the whole algebraic calculus had been invented before any part of it was applied to actual use, a reasonable man would not have been justified in feeling absolutely certain of the truth of its results until they had been tested and verified. This however is not because of anything un- certain in mathematical truth : it is only the limitation of our powers that makes it necessary to verify by trial the results of reasoning. Relation of Now certitude following on proof, but waiting for verifi- ca tion> is faith. This is no arbitrary definition nor ques- tionable inference : it is consistent with the ordinary usage Faith in of the word. We habitually speak of faith in moral, or principles, philosophical, or political principles. There is no impro- Instances priety in speaking of that faith in the conclusions of a sound philosophy which led Adam Smith to see the wisdom of p-jrfectly free trade, at a time when the means of veri- fying the theory scarcely existed. And it would be no misine of the word to speak of the faith of Prof. M'Cullagh vi.] THE MEANING OF FAITH. Ill in the process of mathematical reasoning, when he made what is perhaps the most remarkable prediction recorded in the history of science : namely, that a ray of light? conical passing through a biaxial crystal in a particular direction, re would be refracted into an infinite number of rays forming a hollow cone. This was totally unlike anything pre- viously known to experience, yet on trial the prediction proved to be true. Faith is not an inferior degree of certitude : the certi- tude of faith may be perfect. Where faith differs from ordinary or scientific certitude is not in being in any degree weaker, but in being associated with some degree of effort and trial. The expressions " effort of faith " Effort of and " trial of faith " are familiar : and it is obvious falth ' that they could not without absurdity be applied to ordi- nary certitude : but it may be said with perfect accuracy that it needed an effort of faith in Adam Smith and the rest of the early political economists, firmly to believe in the benefits of free trade when as yet free trade was almost untried : or that it needed an effort of faith in Prof. M'Cullagh to believe (if he did believe with any firm belief) in conical refraction before it was verified by expe- riment. But so soon as there was sufficient experimental verification in these cases, belief ceased to need an effort, and there was no longer any room for faith. The discovery of conical refraction is an instance of a theoretical deduction being at once verified by a single conclusive experiment. In most cases of scientific dis- covery, however, the verification is not so immediate, and not of a nature so directly to compel belief. In the case of all the great discoveries, indeed, such as the astrono- mical theories of Copernicus and Newton, the undulatory theory of light, and the thermo-dynamic theory, the verifi- cation did not consist in a single decisive observation or experiment, but in a cumulation of proof, partly deductive and partly experimental, showing that the theory was con- sistent with the general laws of nature, and was the only possible explanation of the facts. All experimental verification consists in showing the 112 THE MEANING OF FAITH. [CHAP. needed to believe in the earth's motion new. In what sense science rests on faith. Science root. Unobvious harmony between theory and fact. But even when it is tion ! complete it may not be obvious. In the case of conical refraction it was perfectly obvious : it was performed to the eye : a ring of light was seen on the white paper where single refraction would have given one spot of light, and double refraction would have given two. But such perfect obviousness in the verification is rather the ex- ception than the rule : the motion of the earth in her orbit, Faith was for instance, cannot be thus shown to the eye ; and when, as in this case, the true theory contradicts spontaneous belief and common opinion, and the verification, though perfect for the understanding, is incapable of becoming obvious to the sight, a time may elapse, and no doubt did elapse, during which an effort of faith was needed, even by scien- tifically-instructed men, in order to believe what was nevertheless proved to their minds. Such certitude was not certitude without verification, and consequently it was not faith according to the definition already offered : but it was certitude without visual verification ; it was held in opposition to spontaneous belief, to common opinion, and to habit : and consequently, though its logical basis was different, its moral nature was that of faith. 1 But the proper region of faith, as already defined, is not where verification is expected though unattained: it is where verification is by the nature of the case unattainable. It may be added, that verification, and consequently science, ultimately rest on faith : for, as we have seen, verification rests on postulates which cannot themselves be verified. This is true, but only in a purely logical sense ; in an ethical sense, or in other words as bearing on the for- mation of character, it is not true : for no effort of faith, and consequently no faith at all in an ethical sense, is needed in order to believe in the reality of the past and in the uniformity of the order of nature. But though science and faith in their developed state exclude each other as occupying different regions, yet they the same spring from the same root and are identical at their origin. They both begin from the knowledge, whether instinctive 1 See Note at end of chapter. vi.] THE MEANING OF FAITH. 113 or acquired, that there is an order in nature : that things and qualities co-exist, and events succeed one another, in a definite order. The first step in conscious science consists in learning such facts as that stones are heavy, that day and night follow each other, and that water freezes in cold weather. The first step in conscious faith consists in learning that our fellow human beings are trustworthy, and in trusting them. I here speak of conscious knowledge and conscious faith. But the acquisition of conscious knowledge would Their root be impossible if we did not begin our mental life with " an unconscious knowledge of those truths of the reality of life. the past and the constancy of the order of nature, which are not learned by experience but presupposed in expe- rience : and it is scarcely possible to doubt that in like manner the impulse to trust precedes any experimental discovery of trustworthiness in our fellow human beings : that the trust of children in their parents, especially, is instinctive, and does not wait for experimental proofs before it comes into existence. Science and Faith, in this rudimentary form, are neither lu their of them peculiar to man : they are shared by man with the {^"fifrm more intelligent of the animals. Animals observe the co- they are ' existences of things and the successions of events : and animals^ this is the root of science. Animals trust in one another : young animals, especially, trust in their parents : and this is the root of faith. But though the instinctive trust of animals and of human beings in their fellows and in their parents is the root and germ of faith, it has not yet acquired the distinctive characteristic of faith : it does not transcend the possibility of verification. It anticipates verification, but does not transcend it : on the contrary, it receives verification every day. Faith begins when we trust, Faith in with perfect certitude, that one whom we have found man * to be trustworthy till now will continue to be so, not only under circumstances similar to those under which we have seen him tried, but under all possible circum- stances. I 114 THE MEANING OF FAITH. [CHAP. It may be said that this is a case in which verification Faith ex- is not impossible. This is true ; but it is a case in which Jntici- and we ft' en ^ ave to act w i tnout waiting for verification : we pates veri- often have to decide whether we will act on the belief in n ' a man's trustworthiness in totally untried circumstances. To do this is to act in faith. Faith acts without verifica- tion : not however independently of it, but in anticipation of it : the highest religious faith hopes to be ultimately verified, but only in a future life. As already remarked, it is correct to speak of faith in principles : it is at least akin to faith to believe that a principle will continue to be found true under untried cir- cumstances. But the chief object of faith is personal Ethical character. Now it is to be observed that conclusions of m^mde^ 8 ^ ie J u ^g men ^ respecting personal character, whether or pendent not they take the form of faith, not only are capable of proof anticipating verification, but are in a great degree incle- The same pendent of formal proof of any kind. This, which is is appa- really true of judgments concerning character, is appa- trae of rently, but only apparently, true of judgments of many other other kinds. Thus a sailor may be able to make a tolerably judgments. accurate prediction about the weather, and may yet be unable to state his reasons for it. This is partly because he has not the habit of reasoning in words, but partly also, and chiefly, because the experience from which he judges consists of a vast number of observations which cannot be called to remembrance separately. In like manner we may have perfect and legitimate certitude respecting our judgment of a man's character, while yet we are not only unable to give reasons for our judgment which are satis- fying to another, but unable to state such reasons, even to ourselves, as ought to be satisfying to a reasonable man. This is no doubt partly, as in the case of the weather-wise sailor, because the data of our conclusion are immensely Difference numerous, and are imperfectly remembered. But there is another reason, which is peculiar to judgments respecting ethical and moral questions. In physical as in mathe- matical reasoning, what is demonstration to one mind is demonstration to all normally constituted minds : and proof, VI.] THE MEANING OF FAITH. 115 though it may not be of a demonstrative nature, is proof to all minds alike which are able to understand it. But In ethical in our judgments respecting character, there is this addi- J t ^^ nts> tional reason for the impossibility of always stating the not always grounds of a conclusion : that there is not always any J^ 001 common measure between minds. 1 What is proof to one is measl } r for minds. not always proof to another. My reasons for a particular judgment respecting character may be incapable of expla- nation to another, not because I am unable to put them into words, but because he is unable to understand them. We have been speaking of judgments respecting character. The same But the same is true of what are in the special sense 6 moral judgments. Here also there is not always any judgments. common measure between minds. Thus, if one man says that the moral ideal of Christ's Sermon on the Mount is the highest ideal ever thought of, and so admirable that the presumption will be in favour of Christ if he asserts that he is a teacher specially sent from God : and another says that it is a lower ideal than that of Plutarch's heroes : between two such minds there is no common measure of belief, and it is impossible for either to prove himself in the right. It may not be self-evident that there is any common measure for belief for all minds in mathematical and physical questions which there is not for ethical and moral ones. But it may be shown by the following instances. If we find a man who does not believe in the high antiquity of the earth, or the undulatory theory of light, or any other well-established truth of science, we reason by laying the proofs before him. But if we find a man who does not recognize the transcendent excellence of the moral ideal taught by Christ, we cannot so reason, because there are no proofs to show. It is impossible impossible, that is to say, Proof in in the sense of involving a contradiction that the excel- lence of a moral ideal should be proved by either demonstra- tion or experiment. If any one denies it, the only possible way to set him right is so to train his intellectual vision that he shall be able to see it. Truth, in such matters, is 1 The words in italics are from Newman's "Grammar of Assent. I 2 116 THE MEANING OF FAITH. [CHAP. All de- " not to be proved but seen." 1 " Blessed are the pure in insight! 11 hearfc > for tne 7 slm ll see God >" said C nrist : nofc meaning that the sight of God is assigned as a reward for purity of heart, but that the pure in heart shall be able to see God : that purity confers insight, not as an arbitrary reward but as a necessary consequence. Questions But is certitude reasonable when it depends on indi- trust the visual insight, and admits neither of a priori proof nor of worthiness & posteriori verification ? "Li * On this subject, as on all others, the ultimate appeal is to the common sense of mankind : and this answers in the affirmative. In the first place, as has been remarked in treating of the meaning of the moral sense, the belief is universal that if there is a moral government of the universe at all, it will prove to be a righteous government. This is totally without proof or verification, yet no belief is more deeply seated or more ineradicable. 2 But this is a belief which belongs not to any individual man but to the human race : and is certitude ever to be justified when it is only the unproved and unverified belief of the individual ? To this I reply, that the common sense of mankind does not recognize one individual as necessarily equal to an- other, but recognizes on the contrary a difference between men, one being wiser than another : this difference is great on all subjects, and practically infinite on ethical and moral ones : so that in proportion as a man is wise and good he is capable of attaining to ethical and moral cer- titude for himself; and, instead of taking his belief from the mass of mankind, is able to instruct them as to what they ought to believe. Logical But it may be said that there is no possible way of difficulty. k now i n g whether any man is wise except by the wisdom of the conclusions he arrives at : and these can be judged of only by his equals or superiors in wisdom : so that the truth, unquestionable as it is, of one man's superiority in wisdom to another, is of no use for guidance : for he who is 1 Matthew Arnold. 2 See p. 66. vi.] THE MEANING OF FAITH. 117 able to judge of another's wisdom, may as well judge ques- tions directly for himself. It is reasoning in a circle to judge that a man is wise because he concludes and acts wisely, and at the same time to judge that his conclusions and actions are probably right because he is a wise man. This looks unanswerable, but practically it is not true. We shall have to consider this subject in the next chapter. KOTE. THE following passages are extracted from Mozley's Bampton Lectures on Miracles. " When reason, even in ordinary life or in physical inquiry, is Extracts placed under circumstances at all analogous to those of religion, ^ ey i g reason becomes, as a consequence of that situation, a kind of Lectures faith. We have a very different way of yielding to reasons in com- . mon life, according as the conclusions to which they lead accord with or diverge from the type of custom. We accept them as a matter of course in the former case \ it requires an effort to accept them and place dependence on them in the latter : which dependence upon them in the latter case therefore is a kind of faith. Indeed the remark may be made that a kind of faith appears to be necessary for practical confidence in any reasoning whatever and any premises, when we are thrown back upon our- selves and do not act mechanically in concert with others. And we frequently see persons who, when they are in possession of the best arguments, and, what is more, understand those argu- ments, are still shaken by almost any opposition, because they want the faculty to trust an argument when they have got one." P. 102. " Faith, then, is unverified reason : reason which has not yet received the verification of the final test, but is still expectant." P. 104. [ 118 ] T CHAPTER VII. THE POSSIBILITY OF FAITH. HE conclusions arrived at in the two preceding chapters may be thus summed up : Summary All knowledge and belief respecting the external world preceding ^ s verified by the assumptions that the past is a reality, chapters. a nd that the order of nature is constant : but these as- sumptions are incapable of proof, and are believed only in consequence of an irresistible natural tendency to believe them. In a logical sense, there is consequently an approach to faith in our ordinary knowledge. But in an ethical sense, that is to say in its bearing on the formation of character, this is not the case : for faith involves trial and effort, and no effort is needed in order to believe in the reality of the past and in the order of nature, and in all the special facts which are verified by these two general assumptions. But the fact that the largest part of our knowledge is veri- fied by assumptions which cannot be proved, suggests that it may be reasonable to feel perfect certitude in cases where nothing approaching to ordinary scientific verifica- tion is possible. Such certitude as this is Faith. Science is thus verified belief, and Faith is belief awaiting verifica- tion. They both originate in the discovery of the facts of the world around us. The root of science is knowledge of such common facts of nature as the succession of day and night. The root of faith is trust in our parents and in our fellow-men, founded either on the instinctive belief or on the acquired knowledge that they are trustworthy. But so long as we only trust others in the same circumstances CHAP, vii.] THE POSSIBILITY OF FAITH. 110 in which we are accustomed to find them trustworthy, our trust is only a particular case of confidence in the order of things. That which is properly called faith arises when we trust another under such untried circumstances that his continued trustworthiness, though it may be a matter of reasonable certitude, cannot be known as a matter of verified knowledge. The chief objects of science are the facts and laws of the universe. Laws and principles may also be objects of faith : but, as a matter of fact, the chief object of faith is personal character : in its lower deve- lopments the characters of human beings, in its highest development the character of God. The faith is instinctive in man though altogether without verification, that if there is any moral government of the universe, it must be a righteous and not an unrighteous government. Let it not be said that the idea of faith is lowered by Faith is referring it to so lowly a root as the instinctive trust of J^QJ^J human beings in their parents and in each other. It is by by re- means of the justice, the mercy, and the truth of man, > its' root imperfect as these are, that it becomes possible for us to ! n f ! ie . r believe in the justice, the mercy, and the truth of God : it is trust of by having fathers that we understand what is meant when man m man. God is called our Father : and it is by having faith in man that we learn to have faith in God. It has been remarked above, that as a matter of fact, the The ol> objects of faith are in most cases personal beings : and it Jjj is equally true that, probably in most cases, and certainly are in all those cases in which the influence of faith is strongest, the objects of faith are beings whom we feel to bein s s to ourselves. be in some way superior to ourselves. This, it is obvious, is necessarily the case when its parents are the objects of the faith of a child : for the parents are stronger and wiser than the child. It is no doubt possible for trust in an equal to rise to faith, but more commonly such trust is rather of the nature of verified knowledge. Although there is such a thing as moral science, and it would be absurd to deny its importance, yet our moral nature belongs on the whole not to the region of science but to that of faith : and, as has just been remarked, the 120 THE POSSIBILITY OF FAITH. [CHAF. faith which is the most important to it is faith not in Formation equals but in superiors. In other words, the formation of racter" numan character, in so far as it is due to any higher in- is mainly fluences than those of mere habit and imitation, is much influences 6 more the result of faith than of science : it is due in but of higher a slight degree to any influences of a kind that can be acting expressed in formulae ; it is mainly due to the personal i nnuence f higher, or at least stronger and more deve- loped, characters revealing themselves to lower, weaker, and less developed ones, and becoming the objects of their Justifica- faith. Now as the formation of character, which is thus faith y effected mainly by faith, is, without exaggeration, infinitely rather more important than the acquisition of verified knowledge verifies- an d of the power that such knowledge confers, I adhere to tlon - St. Paul's doctrine of Justification by Faith, in preference to Professor Huxley's of Justification by Verification. But in considering the influence of such faith in the formation of character, we have to consider the logical difficulty which has been suggested at the end of the Logical preceding chapter. The question was there asked, ho\v is difficulty ., f . ,, , . , as to the " possible lor one man to judge ot another s wisdom, so as possibility to trust in it, unless he is the equal of him of whose of faith. wisdom he is judging? It may be said that we judge by results : that those men are regarded as the wisest who prove their wisdom by their actions, and that the wisdom of an action is proved by the event. Such an answer would be intelligible, but it would not be consistent with fact. As a matter of fact, it is not thus that we judge of We do not character : and, especially, it is not thus that we judge character f those characters which impress themselves on us. To by results, mention the highest instance of all : By what means has Christ impressed his character so wonderfully on men? .Not by rising from the dead, though this was the experi- mental verification of his claims as a teacher and a ruler of men : but by the impression of superhuman wisdom and goodness which was made by his words and his life. The truth is, as stated in the preceding chapter, that in moral questions and questions concerning our estimate of cha- racter, it may be not only possible but in the highest degree vii.] THE POSSIBILITY OF FAITH. 121 reasonable to feel certitude where tliere is neither verifi- cation nor any kind of proof that is necessarily capable of being made intelligible to another mind : and this is true Certitude not only of our power of estimating characters which are on ^ eetLa 6 the level of our own or beneath it, but also of those w T hich the cha- are above it. It may be, and I think it is, impossible to give superior as any logical explanation of the way in which such certitude wel1 as is formed : but it is a fact that such certitude is formed, natures to and it is impossible to doubt that it is justifiable. To our own- doubt its justifiableness would be to doubt whether a child or a man has any right to be influenced for good by a father or a friend whose character is only partially in- telligible to him, but is felt and recognized with the cer- titude of faith as being worthy of all reverence and trust. In saying that no logical account can be given of such Such certitude as this, it is not meant to imply that it is in any sense contrary to logic, but only that logic has nothing to able, do with it. But this is not peculiar to faith. I have w ithout already endeavoured to show that it is impossible to give logical i . i n i T . basis. any logical account ot such common, natural, and uni- versal beliefs as those in the reality of the past and the uniformity of the order of nature. 1 The logical difficulty now stated, applying to all know- ledge of a superior Being by an inferior one, applies with special force to the possibility of religious knowledge : that is to say, to the possibility of our knowing the greatest of all Beings. As applied to religion it may be thus stated : " How is any worship possible which is not idolatry ? Logical We may no doubt bend the knee to an invisible God : we have got beyond the idolatry of mere sense. But how can we ever get beyond the idolatry of the intellect? 'God made man in His own image/ said the earliest of religious How can historians. Is not this an inversion of the true statement ? *f worship Is not every God that man ever has worshipped or can be . anv ' worship made by the worshipper in his own image ? When the ideal all that is impure and unworthy in religion has been cast of l |j e - aside, and when we have learned to ascribe all holiness to per ? 1 See }>a ^ is a fact that a higher nature refuted by may reveal itself to a lower one, and may be to that lower nature something more than a mere personification of the highest ideal which the latter is able to form. The power of the lower nature to appreciate the wisdom or the holi- ness of the higher, is not, in point of fact, limited by the wisdom and holiness, or the want of them, in the lower nature. A dog's master may be more to the dog than the personification of its highest ideal : a child's father may be i Tennyson's In Mcmoriam. vii.] THE POSSIBILITY OF FAITH. 123 more to the child than the personification of its highest ideal : and " the savage, who can do little else, can wonder Quotation and worship and enthusiastically obey. He who cannot ^ ce know what is right can know that some one else knows ; Homo." he who has no law may still have a master ; he who is in- capable of justice may be capable of fidelity." 1 As stated before, this is probably incapable of logical explanation, but it is true. If it is thus possible among finite natures Analogy is for the higher to be revealed to the lower and for the JJ thepos- lower to have faith in the higher, why should it not be sibility of possible for God to reveal not only His purposes but His tionof God character that is to say, to reveal Himself to His intel- to man - ligent creatures, so as to become infinitely more to them than the mere personification of their highest ideal : and that they may have a faith in Him infinitely transcending all mere results of their own thoughts, and raising them in the scale of being far above any ideal which they could have thought out for themselves ? The logical difficulty about the possibility of faith Re-state- which has been already stated, may be stated again in a j^diffi- somewhat different form. "No structure whereof the cult J; parts are all mutually dependent, can be stronger than f a ith pos- its weakest part : and hence it follows that one's faith in another cannot be stronger than one's faith in oneself : for, if I am to believe that another is trustworthy, I must first believe that I am competent to form a judgment of his trustworthiness : and if my trust in the trustworthiness of any Being whatever is to be absolute, it can be so only by my regarding my own judgment, in trusting to Him, as infallible. But I well know that, like all men, I am very fallible. It is absurd to say that ' he who does not know what is right may know that some one else knows,' for he could not be sure of this unless he was morally the equal of the person whom he trusts, and if he were so there would be no need for faith." This is the same argument as that stated at the end of the preceding chapter. The only possible reply to it, so 1 " Ecco Homo," p. 63. 124 THE POSSIBILITY OF FAITH. [CHAP. vn. Reply, far as I see, is that already given : namely, that the fact is intact 1S n t so : that the certitude of our faith is not limited by possible. our confidence in our own powers. No reasoning can Faith is explain how this can be : but it is not an isolated fact : it higher i s on ty another and a higher form of that inexplicable form of power by virtue of which we believe, and believe truly, in of ordinary the reality of the past and in the uniformity of nature, belief. without proof and independently of verification. [ 125 ] CHAPTER VIII. THE LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. THE purpose of the foregoing three chapters has been to show the reasonableness of Faith in matters that tran- scend the region of our experience, where consequently verification is impossible. The purpose of this chapter is to show the possibility of knowledge in the same sphere. The former conclusion no doubt implies the latter : Faith is reasonable only in a sphere where knowledge is possible. But for the purpose of this work the two inquiries have to be kept distinct. The present question is, under what conditions and within what limits knowledge is possible. " All knowledge is relative." This is generally assented Relativity to as an important and fundamental truth : but it is understood in so many different ways, that nothing but confusion would be the result of simply stating it as an axiom without explanation or comment. This axiom is sometimes understood only to mean, that Know- all knowledge is relative to the mind which knows : or, in J^gj^ less technical language, that it is possible for us to know to the only that which we have a faculty for knowing. This i unquestionably true, not of man only but of all Beings knows - whatever, created and uncreated alike : l but it is so purely This is an identical proposition that we cannot but wonder how it merely an could ever come to be paraded as a discovery. Though a mere commonplace, however, it ought to be always borne tion - in mind : and it would be well if those who are fondest 1 This remark is made in Mill's Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy. 126 THE LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. [CHAP. Only re- lations are objects of know- ledge. Defini- tions. "We under- stand things only as related. Insoluble mystery at the ground of all Being. of reminding us that we can know only in so far as we have a faculty for knowing, arid think only in so far as we have a faculty for thinking, would also bear in mind that we can believe only in so far as we have a faculty for believ- ing, and love only in so far as we have a faculty for loving. But there is another sense in which the axiom that all knowledge is relative is no merely identical proposition, but a really important truth. The true meaning of the axiom that all knowledge is relative, is that only relations can be the objects of knowledge. We can know the relations of things, but not things apart from their relations. We can know the properties of things, but not the substance of the things apart from their properties. We can under- stand action, but not the agent apart from its actions. It is to be observed that property and action are but particular cases of relation. It is to be observed also that when we speak of things, of substances, and of agents, we include in these categories all that exists, whether mind or matter. We can understand relations, properties, and actions : but what are the things related ? What are the substances that have properties ? and what are the agents that act ? We have no faculties that could enable us to answer these questions. Only this we know, that there is something which we cannot know. 1 We know things only as related to each other, yet things are more than the mere terms of relations. We only know agents as acting, yet an agent is more than a mere possibility of action. We only know substances as having properties, yet a substance is more than a mere bundle of properties. Thus we have run out the entire length of the sounding-line of our under- standing, and have not touched the bottom. There is an insoluble mystery at the ground of all Being whatever, spiritual as well as material, finite as well as infinite. It is impossible to deny the existence of such a mystery unless we agree with Hegel that nothing exists except relations. 1 See the chapter on the Metaphysical Interpretation of Nature (Chapter 2). VIIL] THE LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 127 But though we only know things as related, substances as having properties, and agents as acting : it is equally true that we know, as a truth made known by reason in consciousness, that relations imply things related, property implies substance, and action implies an agent. What then Question. - is meant by saying that only relations are the objects of knowledge ? In what sense do we know, or understand, relations, properties, and actions, rather than things re- lated, substances, and agents ? If we know that the existence of the one implies that of the other, in what sense do we affirm that the one are the objects of know- ledge rather than the other? The answer to this question is that it is possible for rela- Reply. tions, properties, and actions, to be so detached, or isolated, in th ought, as to become the objects of thought and knowledge by themselves. The possibility of mathematical science, or of any abstract thought whatever, depends on this. We think of the relations and forget the things related : we think of the properties and forget the substances : we think of the actions and forget the agents. But the converse of this is impossible : if we try to detach in thought things from their relations, substances from properties, and agents from action, we shall find there is nothing that we can think of. To express this more briefly, let us speak of relation, property, and action under the single category of relation : then we arrive at this statement : We know that relation implies Being, and that Being implies relation : but beyond this bare affirmation, it is only relations that are the objects of thought and knowledge. The saying has also obtained currency that " all know- that know- ledge is only phenomenal." If this saying means that only relations can be the objects of knowledge, it is true : but nomenal. it is not true in its most obvious sense. It is not true In ^ G that we know nothing but phenomena : 011 the contrary, sens e, this the highest knowledge is that which most completely f not ,, J true : the transcends mere phenomena. In the logical order of highest inductive science, which however does not always coin- transcends cide with the historical order of discovery, the first grade pheno- of scientific knowledge consists in the generalization and 128 THE LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. [CHAP. classification of observed facts. The second consists in the discovery of truths which might conceivably be facts of observation, but are not so, in consequence of the limitation of our powers of sense : to this grade belongs such know- ledge as that of the size and form of the earth, and the lengths of the waves of sound and light. The third con- sists of knowledge which could not conceivably be the result of mere observation, though it may be expressed in language or algebra ;* such as the law of gravitative force in the inverse ratio of the square of the distance. This is It is the same with metaphysical knowledge : that kriow- true^f ledge is the highest which most completely transcends meta- mere sense. All knowledge, inductive and metaphysical know- Ca alike, begins from sensation, though mere sensation is not ledge. knowledge. Knowledge begins when we discover the truth of our personal identity through the changing series of our sensations, and discover at the same time the existence of a world of things external to ourselves. We share this grade of knowledge with the animals, yet it constitutes the first step in both inductive and metaphysical science. Origin of The spontaneous knowledge of personal identity is the sicaf P y " ^ rs ^ s ^ e P i* 1 metaphysical science, and the spontaneous and of knowledge of an external world is the first step in induc- know- tive science. The highest step in inductive science consists ledge. j n the knowledge of truths which could not conceivably be evident to sense ; and the highest step in metaphysical science consists in the knowledge, or faith, that the moral law is unconditional and universal, not in this present state of being only but in all possible states. Quotation " Two things there are," said Kant, " which, the oftener Kant anc ^ ^ ie more stedfastly we consider, fill the mind with an ever new, and ever rising admiration and reverence, the starry heavens above, the moral law within. ****** ' " The one departs from the place it occupies in the outer world of sense : expands, beyond the limits of imagina- tion, the connexion of my being with worlds rising above Yin.] THE LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 129 worlds, and systems blending with systems : and protends ' it also to the illimitable times of their periodic movement, to its commencement and continuance. The other departs from my invisible self, my personality : and represents me in a world truly infinite indeed, but whose infinity is to be fathomed only by the intellect; with which also my connexion, unlike the fortuitous relation I stand in to the world of sense, I am compelled to recognize as necessary and universal." 1 It is now time to consider the question of the possibility Question of religious knowledge being communicated to Man. This of ^.-.^ , question is not to be settled by a mere statement of the of a reve- Omnipotence of God : the question is not whether it is latlon - possible for God to make a revelation of Himself, but whether it is possible for Man to receive it. God could not reveal Himself to cattle : not because of any deficiency of power in Him to nmke the revelation, but because of deficiency of capacity in them to receive it. (He could no doubt confer on them a nature capable of receiving it, but then they would be cattle no longer.) Now the question Can Man is, to put it as briefly and intelligibly as possible, whether know Go(1 ' Man in his present state of being has a nature which is capable of knowing God. It is necessary here to distinguish two questions which supposing are often confounded. The right meaning of the question whether Man can know God, is this : Supposing God to reveal Himself to Man, is Man able to recognize the reve- lation and accept it as such ? This question I answer in the affirmative. But it is often understood to mean : Has Man the power of knowing God independently of reve- lation ? and this I answer in the negative. Before going any further, we must consider the following objections to the possibility of any real knowledge of God: - We, and all that belongs to us, are finite, and how can we objections know Him who is infinite ? Our knowledge is exclusively j. m our relative, and how can we know Him who is absolute ? I nature and 1 The above quotation is made from Sir Win. Hamilton's Essay on the Study of Mathematics as an Exercise of Mind. K 130 THE LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. [f'UAP. our ex- clusively relative know- ledge. Meaning of the word Ab- solute. It is the ground of relation. Applied to God, it means Self- Existent. regard these difficulties as utterly baseless, or rather unmean- ing, but they are occupying men's thoughts too much to be set aside summarily. What is the meaning of the word Absolute ? What is meant by calling God The Absolute? The word Absolute is opposed to the word Eelative : but in what sense is it opposed? Our language, and probably all languages, in the variety and accuracy of its terms falls far short of the requirements of thought. Is the absolute opposed to the relative as excluding it, or as implying it ? Examples from the world of material things will serve as well as any other to illustrate this distinction. An acid and an alkali are opposed as excluding each other, because they cannot exist together: if they come into atomic contact, they neutralize and destroy each other. The two poles of a magnet, on the contrary, are opposed as implying each other : neither pole can be isolated, and if the magnet is broken in two, each part presents the two poles. Now, does the absolute exclude relation or imply relation ? Certainly the latter. An ^ absolute excluding relation would be as unmeaning as a substance without properties, or an agent incapable of action. If Absolute Being is understood to mean Being which excludes relation to other beings, there is no such thing as Absolute Being in the entire universe. The Creator is in relation to all created beings, and all created beings are in relation to the Creator. The true meaning of Absolute is not that which is out of relation, but that which is the ground of relation. Thus, the relation of succession implies time ; time is absolute, and is the ground of the relation of succession. The relations of position imply space : space is absolute, and is the ground of the relations of position. In like manner, the existence of finite beings having a beginning in time implies the existence of an infinite Being without beginning in time : in other words, of a Self-Existent Creator. If the word Absolute as applied to God is not utterly unmeaning, it is only an inaccurate and misleading synonym for Self- Existent. VIIL] THE LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 131 The objection to the possibility of Man having know- ledge of Divine things, grounded on the fact that Man's knowledge is relative while God is absolute, is thus seen to be baseless. It is true that God is Absolute; that is to say Self-Existent, and that we cannot know the Self- Existent Creator as He is. But it is equally true that we know not the lowliest of God's creatures as it is. We know nothing, neither ourselves nor anything else, in its inmost, ultimate being ; Self-Existent Being is no doubt The ob- totally incomprehensible to us, but created being is equally that^he so : and any objection on this ground to the possibility of Absolute . ; ,. -r,. . ,, . . cannot be our understanding Divine things, is equally applicable to known the possibility of our understanding the worlds of nature a ppl ies to and of mind. In all real knowledge whatever, as clistin- know- guished from formal : that is to say in all knowledge of ^jj that which has existence, all knowledge of nature, of though man, and of God, as opposed to the abstractions of logic formal. and of mathematics, we are ultimately brought up against a mystery which we have no power to penetrate. But this does not prevent our knowledge from being valid and true so far as it goes. But God is infinite : and how can finite beings like us Objection know Him who is infinite ? finite 1 The reply to this objection is analogous to the reply to nature, the former one. It is true that we cannot know the Reply. Infinite Being as He is in His inmost nature : but it is equally true that we cannot know our own inmost nature, or that of any other finite being. " All our knowledge is relative : " we know not the inmost nature, the ultimate essence, of any being whatever: we can only know its relations, its properties, and its actions. But as we are totally ignorant of the ultimate essence of any being, finite as well as infinite : so we are capable of receiving true knowledge of the attributes, the relations, and the actions of Beings, infinite as well as finite. In so far as knowledge is otherwise possible, the infinitude of its object causes no impossibility. In mathematics the truth of this is undisputed, and there is no proof whatever that it is otherwise in metaphysics. It is a vulgar error to think K 2 132 THE LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. [('TIM'. that we, being finite, can know the finite and cannot know the Infinite : or, in other words, that the distinction be- tween what we can know and what we cannot know coin- cides with the distinction between the finite and the infinite. The distinction between what we can know and what we cannot know, and the distinction between the finite and the infinite, do not coincide but intersect. All that we can know all knowledge possible to us belongs to the category of attributes, relations, and actions, and these are equally objects of knowledge whether they are on a scale of finite or of infinite magnitude : but the ultimate essence of any being whatever lies beyond the boundary of our knowledge, whether our own being or any other, whether Mystery finite or infinite. Mystery begins, not where the finite wifiTthe en( ^ s an( ^ the Infinite begins, but where we come to the infinite, ultimate ground of any being whatever, whether finite or but with . c ., the infinite, whether greater or smaller than ourselves. bein" d f "^ ^ S} * n m ^ pi n i n > admits of no reasonable doubt : but as it is controverted, I go on to inquire what is meant by knowledge when it is said that the Infinite cannot become an object of knowledge to us. Things, or to use a better word, Beings, are not in themselves objects of our knowledge ; but, to use an appropriate though col- loquial expression, we can know about Beings. 1 In what In what then does our knowledge about a Being consist ? Know- ledge ofl" l e dg e about a Being consists in true belief, on sufficient Being grounds, respecting that Being : and the test of such s s * knowledge is to be able to make true assertions re- specting it. Knowledge of one's own self no doubt goes deeper than this, for it consists in immediate conscious- ness. But all knowledge that one can possibly have of any other Beings than one's own self, including the knowledge of the existence of one's fellow-men, consists in nothing more than true belief and the power of making true asser- tions respecting them : for all our knowledge of other beings than ourselves, whether material beings or spiritual, whether finite or infinite, does not consist in immediate consciousness, but is mediate or inferential knowledge. 1 See Note B at end of chapter. via.] THE LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 133 The misconception that the Infinite, as such, is beyond Confusion the region of our possible knowledge, has most probably witMmL* been produced by confounding thought with imagination :- gination. that is to say, confounding the power of drawing true inferences and making true assertions about a Being, with the power of making a mental representation of that Being to oneself. It is impossible to imagine anything of infinite mag- nitude, but this does not prevent us from making infinite magnitudes objects of thought, and reasoning about them to true results. We see in mathematical calculations that Mathe- symbols which represent infinite magnitudes, or the rela- Amities, tions between them and other magnitudes whether finite or infinite, are equally manageable, and operations on them give equally true results, with those symbols which have none but a finite meaning. The reason why we are unable to imagine infinite magnitude is that we are ourselves finite. But there is no difficulty in conceiving a nature Case of an physically infinite, though of a mental constitution li^^Jgwith ours ; such a being would be as easily able to imagine mind like infinite magnitudes as we are to imagine finite ones, but l this would not give it any higher kind of knowledge than what we are able to attain to : and infinity would be the same to its thought as to ours, though different to its imagination. But it is not necessary that an object of thought should be a possible object of imagination at all. Negative numbers and imaginary quantities cannot be Negative represented to oneself in imagination, and could not be Imaginary though the power of the imagination were increased to numbers, infinity : arid yet they are objects of reasoning. Further : it is misleading to say that infinity is unima- ginable, as if all finite magnitudes were imaginable. All Large magnitudes are unimaginable which are of an order greatly exceeding those with which our senses make a ? us familiar. Such a magnitude as the distance of Sirius, gm<) for instance, is quite as unimaginable as the absolute infinity of space. 1 And not only so, but infinitesimal or 1 For many mathematical purposes also, very large magnitudes are said to be indistinguishable from infinity. This may seem logically anomalous ; 134 THE LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. [CHAP. and so are infini- tesimals. The Divine Nature is incompre- hensible because it is unlike ours in kind. Funda- mental truth in morals is true on very small magnitudes are equally unimaginable with infinite or very great ones. If such a number as the tenth power of ten is unimaginable by reason of its great- ness, such a fraction as one divided by the tenth power of ten is equally unimaginable by reason of its smallness : and neither case has anything whatever to do with the incomprehensibility of the Divine Nature by us. It is no doubt true that the Divine Nature is incompre- hensible by us, in a higher sense than the same is true of our own nature. But this is not because of the infinite greatness of the Divine Nature : it is because of a differ- ence of kind, independent of the difference of magnitude. Were a human nature magnified to infinity, but with its powers of perception, thought, and imagination unchanged in kind, it would be as intelligible to us as are the finite human natures that we know ; and the change of magni- tude would not make it better able to know the Divine Nature. The superior mysteriousness of the Divine Nature is, at least in part, due to this, that our consciousness and our knowledge are developed out of our bodily sensations, and we are consequently unable to form the most distantly approximate conception of any Being whose consciousness and knowledge, like those of God, are not developed out of such a germ, or developed at all. But it is not in the least unlikely that there may be created and finite beings which have consciousness and knowledge of a totally different origin from ours : and if so, their being finite will not make their nature conceivable by us. When the subject is thus cleared of its confusions, we find this very simple and elementary truth, not indeed now first discovered, but cleared of obscurity and mystifica- tion : that is to say, that fundamental truth in morals is independent of magnitude, and that we are as well able to recognize it on an infinite as on a finite scale. As in mathematics, lines which are parallel in a finite distance for if the largest finite magnitude is subtracted from a really infinite one, infinity is still left. But when we say that a finite magnitude is practically indistinguishable from infinity, I apprehend the real meaning of this is that its reciprocal is indistinguishable from nothing. viii. J THE LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 135 continue parallel though prolonged to an infinite distance : all scales so in morals, such elementary principles as those of truth, a justice, and mercy are laws for all intelligent Beings, Infinite as well as finite. We now see what to think of the saying that it is not for man to " measure the infinite morality of God." In- finite morality is in itself an unmeaning expression, but what is meant is either perfect holiness on an infinite scale, or, what means nearly the same, the principles of the moral government of the infinite universe. It ought to be observed The con- for though this is, or ought to be, axiomatic, it is a sub- ject on which confusion is common that the conception lute baffles of perfect is altogether distinct from the conceptions of infinite and absolute, and is one which presents no difficulty whatever either to thought or imagination. That which is absolute, as has been argued above, is known to exist as the ground of relation, but, unlike the relation, it cannot be made an object of thought. That which is infinite, as has that of the been argued above, may become an object of thought as easily as that which is finite, but it cannot be made an object imagiha- to the imagination : in other words, the mind is unable to picture to itself anything which is infinite. But there is no corresponding limitation of our powers when we try to think of that which is perfect. The conception of the that perfect baffles neither thought nor imagination. Perfect ^J^. truth is one of the most intelligible of all conceptions, baffles and every one who knows a little mathematics has m received at least some perfect truth into his mind. A perfectly straight line or a perfect circle or sphere are not only easily conceived, but more easily conceived than imperfect examples of the same : and perfect purity in substances, such as air or water, is at least as easy to conceive as impurity. 1 The same is true of our concep- tions of moral nature. Beings who are able, as we are, to 1 Purity may be regarded as a magnitude, the highest possible valu of which is unity. If water, for instance, is perfectly pure, its purity is to be represented by 1 : if it is impure to the extent of containing one part in a thousand of foreign matter, its purity is to be represented by '999. The impurity is thus unity minus the purity, the purity is unity minus t impurity, and the sum of the purity and the impurity is unity. 136 THE LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. [CHAP. Perfect holiness is con- ceivable. Objection, that men's con- ceptions of holiness differ. Reply, that they do not differ funda- mentally. Confusion of perfect with infinitt. conceive of purity of moral nature at all, are able to con- ceive of a moral nature in a state of perfect purity as easily as in a state of imperfect purity : and perfect purity of the moral nature is synonymous with perfect holiness. It may be objected to this, that men's conceptions of holiness, unlike their conceptions of lines, circles, and spheres, are very diverse. To take what is by no means an extreme instance, the Stoical and the Christian con- ceptions of holiness are in some respects very unlike. This is true, but it is not true to the extent that would be required in order to overthrow the present argument. If it could be shown that men of different races, or men under varying systems of culture, had developed moral natures .so radically unlike that the ideas of the one were inca- pable of translation into the language of the - other, the argument would be at least plausible, that the moral sense of man is worthless except as a guide in the par- ticular circumstances of his own age and country, and d fortiori worthless as a guide to supersensual and spiritual truth. But such is not the fact : the moral nature of man- kind, like the bodily nature, is everywhere fundamentally the same. The diversities by which this truth is so much disguised are due in part to differences in moral develop- ment, chiefly arising from historical circumstances : in part also to the fact that the moral and mental nature of man, as of all animals that show any mental nature, are more variable and more plastic than the bodily nature, 1 and partly for that reason in man at least, for on this subject we have no evidence as to the animals more liable to morbid perversions. Like all confusions of words, the confusion between infinite and perfect has given rise to confusion of thought. It has been gravely argued that every finite being must, as such, be imperfect, and must therefore, if it has a moral na- ture, be liable to sin : 2 as if it were beyond the possibilities of nature, and beyond the power of God, that a finite being should be perfect within the limits of its own finite nature. 1 See " Habit and Intelligence," vol. i. p. 198. 2 See note U at end of chapter. viii.] THE LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 137 Of course it is not asserted that our understanding of The holi- the perfect holiness of the Infinite God is, or can be, other s | ^ n _ than very imperfect and inadequate. God's holiness no scends , . . 1 , , i but does doubt infinitely transcends our conceptions, but it does not con . not therefore contradict them : and to say that principles tradict our con- which would be unholy in the finite sphere of earth can be ceptions. holy in the infinite sphere of Heaven, is the same kind of absurdity as to say that it is possible for lines which are parallel in finite space to meet or to diverge in infinite space. We have a right to affirm that the principles of moral law are valid for all Beings, infinite as well as finite, who have intelligence enough to understand them. This, it is true, cannot be proved, but, as already pointed out, it is the deepest of all beliefs. 1 It is no objection to this, that 110 law of obligation can be conceived as applying to God. When moral law applies to ourselves, it is no doubt usually conceived under the form of a law of obligation, but it is not always so. Many good actions are done, not under any sense of external law either compelling or requiring, but because it is the agent's nature to do them. This indeed is what constitutes holiness as distinguished Distinc- irom virtue : a man who habitually acts aright from a consciousness of duty, or moral law, is virtuous but not holiness holy. Now the practice is so universal in Christian virtue. theology as to need no formal statement, of ascribing to God not virtue but holiness: and this is the expression of a deeply rooted and profoundly true belief, that the moral law is not something external to the Divine Nature, as it always is in a great degree to ours : but is part of the Divine Nature, and determines the Divine actions. In saying that the moral law which we recognize as such is essentially the same as that which is part of the Divine Nature, or, to speak more familiar language, that the Actions deepest truths and the highest laws are the same on earth ^hubr and in Heaven, it is of course not meant that only those God which actions are right for God which would be right for man. for man* To mention an obvious instance : man has certain rights to life and property as against other men, but not as against 1 See the chapter on the Meaning of the Moral Sense (Chapter 3). 138 THE LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. [CHAP. God : and consequently if one man takes away the life or property of another, except under strictly defined con- ditions, he does a wrong : but if God, in the course of His providential government, takes away life or property, He This does does no wrong. But this distinction between Divine and to truth 7 human rights is not absolute: on the contrary, it may be e " rigllt ^ iat *^ e r P r P ert y should be taken away under lawful human authority, when the same action would be wrong if done without authority. But there is one branch of the moral law which presents probably the simplest case of all, and on which all men who believe in a God are practically agreed. This is the law of truthfulness. Every one admits that God is above the law which enjoins men to respect the lives and properties of one another. But no one will no one dares assert that Theory of God is above the law of truthfulness. It is maintained by Calvinists some Calvinists that moral distinctions have no meaning for God ; that the only meaning of right is that which G od pleases to command, and that it is possible for Him to repeal or to reverse the entire moral law by mere decree. This, though absurdly and revoltingly untrue, is intel- ligible and consistent. It is maintained by others who Of Dean do not call themselves Calvinists, especially by Dean Hansel, j^ng^ that though God has a moral nature, to which the moral law as we understand it bears some sort of relation ; yet, because God is infinite while we are finite, and because He is absolute while our knowledge is relative, therefore we are unable to tell what kinds of actions are to be expected from the perfectly righteous God, or to assert anything concerning the Divine Righteousness except only that it exists. This has little more than the shadow of a meaning : for it is impossible to attach a meaning to a Divine Eighteousness which may, for anything we know to the contrary, be capable of manifesting itself in actions that the highest human righteousness would not approve. Such language is as self-contradictory as it would be to speak of two right lines which may possibly enclose an area. But what I wish to lay emphasis on is this, that such a doctrine cuts up Faith by the roots. If those who viii.J THE LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 139 say and think that all our human ideas of morality, at These their highest and purest, form no basis whereon to reason logically upwards to the moral principles which we may reasonably P 1 " tliat expect to find in the Divine Government of the universe ; no reason if those, I say, who think thus, were to draw the legitimate conclusions of their premises, they would be at a loss to veracity, know whether God's veracity could be trusted : and whether the revelation which, as they believe and I believe, God has made to man, is a deception on God's part or not. Most men will think it a sufficient reply to this, that such a sup- position would be blasphemous : that is to say, one from which the moral nature instinctively revolts : and I agree with them. But if it would be blasphemous to think that God is not truthful as men understand truthfulness, how is it otherwise to think that God is not just as men under- stand justice, and not merciful as men understand mercy? This may be called a mere argumentum ad hominem. No Validity of doubt it is so : but this expression is ambiguous. A valid argumentum ad hominem addressed only to an individual, is valid for that individual only : but a valid argumentum ad hominem addressed to mankind, is valid for mankind. As already remarked, 1 the power of knowing is distinct We from the power of imagining. We cannot imagine either extremely large or extremely small magnitudes, whether of cannot space or of time : but we can make them objects of thought, lmagmc and reason to true results about them. But though infinite space and time are unimaginable, it does not follow that they are incomprehensible. In my opinion the peculiarity which distinguishes space and time from all other objects of thought is that there is nothing about them needing explanation nothing that we do not understand. 2 I speak of space and time regarded purely as objects of thought : the question of their relation to the mind is a different one, belonging not to Metaphysics but to Inductive Psychology. 3 By incomprehensible, I mean needing an explanation, 1 Page 133. 2 Page 29. 3 See "Habit and Intelligence," Chapter 37 ("The Relation of the Mind to Space and Time"). 140 THE LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. [CHAP. Definition which explanation we are incompetent to find : raising a ^rehen' q. ues tion ^ which our powers are unable to find an answer. sibie : All existence is incomprehensible : we can neither explain our own existence nor the existence of so much as a pebble. (Time and space are defined as having being but not exist- ence.) Concerning the inmost being or, in the technical language of metaphysics, the Substance or Noumenon of anything that has existence, we know and can know nothing. As already stated, 1 it is only relations that can be the objects of our knowledge : it is only relations that we can understand. But it is not all kinds of relations that we can under- stand. Such relations as those of succession in time and relative position in space, are perfectly comprehensible : as indeed are all those classes of relations with which mathematics and abstract logic have to do. But other classes of relations are equally incomprehensible with the inmost being of things : the relation between the body and the mind is totally incomprehensible : and it is equally so whether we adopt the hypothesis of two distinct but inti- mately united substances, or that which has been almost proved by our modern physiological psychology, of one sub- stance with both physical and mental properties. 2 The best of myste- word in our language for this incomprehensibility of rela- tions, is mystery. Creation that is to say the relation between the Self-Existent Being and all other existences is mysterious : and no Pantheistic theory can deprive it of its mysteriousness : a truth which Pantheists will pro- bably be the first to admit. A mystery does not necessarily imply any apparent con- of anoma- tradiction. When it does contain an apparent contradic- tion, it is best called an anomaly. An anomaly is defined as an insoluble apparent contradiction. The greatest of all anomalies is the existence of evil in a Divinely created universe. These These w T ords have a meaning relative only to our powers. havel ^ Omniscience nothing is incomprehensible, nothing is meaning mysterious, nothing is anomalous. relative only to us. 1 Page 126. * Page 34. VI1F 'J THE LIMITS OF OUll KNOWLEDGE. 141 NOTE A. MANSEL'S RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY. IT will be perceived that the reasoning of the foregoing Mansel on chapter is directed against Dean Mansel's Barapton Lectures on ^ mts the Limits of Religious Thought. The aim of that work is thus gious stated by its author in the preface to the third edition : Thought. " When therefore a critic objects to the present argument that . . . . * the argument places all religions and philoso- phies on precisely the same level : ' he merely charges it with accomplishing the very purpose which it was intended to accomplish." But he is either unable or afraid to carry his principles His incon- to their legitimate consequences. Thus (besides taking the slstencies - Divine veracity for granted, which on his own principles I maintain that he has no right to do l ) he makes the following admission : " The evidence derived from the internal character of a reli- gion, whatever may be its value within its proper limits, is, as regards the Divine origin of the religion, purely negative. It may prove in certain cases (though even here the argument requires much caution in its employment) that a religion has not come from God : but it is in no case sufficient to prove that it has come from Him." P. 238. This may be true ; but it contradicts the former quotation, and surrenders the entire theory which the work is written to maintain. If it is true that " the evidence derived from the internal character of a religion may prove in certain cases that it has not come from God," no argument can be sound that " places all religions and philosophies" (independently of the miraculous sanctions of revelation) " on precisely the same level." 1 Page 139. 142 THE LIMITS OF OUK KNOWLEDGE. [CHAP. Quotation from De Morgan's ''Formal Logic." NOTE B. THE following is the commencement of the chapter on Proba- bility in De Morgan's " Formal Logic : " " The most difficult inquiry which any one can propose to himself is to find out what a thing is : in all probability we do not know what we are talking about when we ask such a question. The philosophers of the Middle .Ages were much concerned with the is, or essence, of things : they argued to their own minds, with great justice, that if they could only find out what a thing is, they should find out all about it : they tried, and failed. Their successors for the most part have inverted the proposition : and have satisfied themselves that the only way of finding what a thing is, lies in finding what we can about it : that modes of relation and connexion are all we can know of the essence of anything." Mansel on the mystery of evil. NOTE C. " Tins mystery [of evil], vast and inscrutable as it is, is but one aspect of a more general problem : it is but the moral form of the ever-recurring secret of the Infinite. How the Infinite and the Finite, in any form of antagonism or any other relation, can exist together : how infinite power can co-exist with finite activity : how infinite wisdom can co-exist with finite con- tingency : hoio infinite goodness can co-exist ivith finite evil : how the Infinite can exist in any manner without exhausting the universe of reality : this is the riddle which Infinite Wisdom alone can solve." (Mansel's Bampton Lectures, p. 223. The italics are mine.) Now, the Existence of God is at least as mysterious as the co-existence of the Infinite and the finite : in untechnical language, the Existence of God is at least as mysterious as the fact of creation : so that if the reasoning of the above-quoted passage were worth anything, it would prove that the mystery of evil is no deeper than the mystery which surrounds all Being whatever, and is only a particular case thereof. This really appears to be Dean Mansel's view. If THE LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 143 this is true, the existence of evil ought not to perplex us at all, and all the passionate pleadings of David, Asaph, and Job are founded on a misconception. The fact is that the word mystery is used ambiguously. Pure mystery the mystery of " existence and of creation does not perplex. That mystery of evil which perplexes us ought rather to be called an anomaly. The expression "how infinite goodness can co-exist with finite evil" is wrong from Dean Hansel's point of view. It ought to be " how infinite goodness can co-exist with infinite evil : " for Dean Mansel believes that sin, remorse, and anguish are never to cease, that all enemies are not to be abolished, and that Christ is never to gather together all things in one. [ 144 ] CHAPTER IX. THE POSSIBILITY OF A REVELATION. TN" the preceding chapter I have endeavoured to show that there is nothing in the nature and conditions of our knowledge which makes a knowledge of God necessarily impossible to us. In the present chapter we have to con- sider the same question but from a different point of view. Eesultsof I have stated in the preceding chapter what I believe chapter^ ^ ^ e ^ ie truth contained in the current philosophical phrases that " all our knowledge is relative/' and that " our knowledge is only phenomenal : " the truth, namely, that only relations can be objects of knowledge. But I have at the same time argued that this limitation of our knowledge does not prevent the Infinite and Uncreated from being an object of our knowledge, in the same sense in which finite and created things may be so : and I have now to argue against the parallel objection to the possi- bility of our knowing God, drawn from the exclusively phenomenal nature of our knowledge. This objection is easily stated. " We only know, and we only can know, the phenomena of things, or their modes of appearance to us : we cannot know their noumena, Anti-theo- or what they are in themselves. But all inquiries about argument ^ ne or i^ n ^ things an( l about the Creative purpose of the from the universe transcend the merely phenomenal region to which siveiyplie- our knowledge must ever be confined, and are attempts to nomenal ascend into that noumenal region where all successful nature of . . ., , , r ,, . our know inquiry is for ever impossible to such faculties as ours, ledge. Knowledge, properly so called, of Divine things is thus . [l THE POSSIBILITY OF A REVELATION. 145 mpossible : if religion is possible at all, it is so on a basis not of reason or of science but of faith." It is denied by none that religion does belong to faith : The dis- but it is the purpose of the present work to show that faith Between is not, as is so often thought, separated from reason and the sci- opposed to it : that, on the contrary, faith has a rational ^ the and scientific basis : and that there is no ground for the theological imagined distinction between the scientific and the theo- thought logical regions of thought, as if the one were accessible j s gy und - and the other not so, or as if they were accessible by means of different mental faculties. We have seen in the preceding chapter, that " it is not rue that we know nothing but phenomena ; on the con- trary, the highest knowledge is that which most completely transcends mere phenomena." The highest science "consists of knowledge which could not conceivably be the result of mere observation, though it may be expressed in language or algebra : such as the law of gravitative force in the inverse ratio of the square of the distance." l In the obvious sense of the words, this is an unquestionable truth : and if the saying that our knowledge is exclusively phe- HOW we nomenal is not a manifest absurdity, it must mean that m u l ^ f the we can know nothing of things except their phenomena, axiom of and whatever may be legitimately inferred from the phe- the phe " nomena. This is a qualification of the statement which the nature of most extreme phenomenalist cannot reject, unless he is ledge willing to avow that he will reject legitimate inferences : and as no one will avow this, the question is raised, What classes of inferences from phenomena are legitimate ? Can we reason from phenomena to that which transcends phenomena ? There is an ambiguity in the word phenomena which Ambiguity must be guarded against. In ordinary usage it means facts of observation only. Now in this sense it is not true that our knowledge consists exclusively in phenomena : it is not even true that it begins exclusively from phenomena. The facts of consciousness are as important and as primary as the facts of observation: the fact of our 1 Pp. 127, 128. L 146 THE POSSIBILITY OF A REVELATION. [CHAP personal identity through time and change is as important a fact, and as much a primary element of our knowledge, as the fact of the existence of an external world. Ground of It has been stated in a previous chapter, as a truth of material reason made known in consciousness, that where there is substance. ac tion there must be an agent. 1 This axiom includes the axioms that where there is a property there must be a sub- stance, and where there is an effect there must be a cause. The existence of an external world is an inference from this axiom: our sensations make us aware of actions which have not their source within our consciousness, such as the blowing of wind and the falling of rain : and our intelligence refers these to agents to which collectively we give the name of the external world. The axiom that where there is action there must be an agent is in my opinion the fundamental axiom of metaphysics, holding in that science the same place which the axiom of the im- possibility of a contradiction holds in logic. The external world, or the world of matter, has thus an existence inde- pendently of our perceptions of it : though we are unable to say what it is in the external world that exists inde- pendently of any sensations or perceptions of ours. Mill's The accuracy of this analysis of the subject, however, is denial of no ^. undisputed. Mr. Mill says not only that matter is known to us as a " permanent possibility of sensation," which of course is true : but that we have no reason to think that matter is anything more than this: or, as he elsewhere expresses the same conclusion in more technical though not more accurate language, " the non-ego may be nothing more than a form under which we represent to ourselves the possible modifications of the ego." 2 I have argued against this conclusion, and in favour of the reality of material Sub- stance, in the Chapter on the Metaphysical Interpretation of Nature : 3 but as the validity of the belief in Substance, Causation, and Agency is disputed, while no one disputes the validity of the belief in the constancy of the order of nature, 1 Page 77. 2 See Mill's " Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy." The " ego" and the "non-ego" are Germanisms for " self" and "the external world." 3 Chapter 2. ix.] THE POSSIBILITY OF A REVELATION. 147 or in the reality of the past and in our continuing personal identity through time and change, I have endeavoured, so far as possible, to base the reasoning of the preceding three chapters exclusively on the undisputed beliefs. When it is maintained that, in the world of matter, action gives us no valid reason to infer the existence of an agent (and this seems to be implied in Mill's saying that we cannot affirm matter to be anything more than a permanent Logical possibility of sensation), we may think this absurd, but we must admit that there is no logical argument and no ex- perimental test by which it can be disproved. It may thus appear that the question has come to a logical dead-lock : the one party maintaining and the other party denying the validity of such reasoning, with no possible criterion by which to decide between them. But I hope to show that such is not really the case, and that there is a way out of the dead-lock. The argument against the possibility of attaining to a Argument knowledge of God from the assumed impossibility of get- ^Vs^iWe ting beyond merely phenomenal knowledge, if it is valid to receive at all, is valid not only against any knowledge of God by O f Q O( J by inference from the common facts of the physical and revelation, moral world, but also against the reception of any know- ledge of God by revelation. If it is said that God has sent a message to us by prophets and spoken to us in Christ, the truth of the statement is not to us a phenomenal fact, neither is it a truth of immediate consciousness : if we believe it, we can believe it only as an inference. The words in which the revelation is announced are pheno- menal facts : the Divine origin and character of the reve- lation is a question belonging to a region which tran- scends that of mere phenomena : and, according to the doctrine which I am combatting, it is impossible to reason from phenomenal data to conclusions belonging to the extra-phenomenal region. Nor is the argument altered if we believe that the claims even of a revelation have been authenticated by miracles. A ^thfnti- miracle that is to say an interruption of the order of na- cated by ture is a phenomenal fact : it claims to be such : but if it m L 2 148 THE POSSIBILITY OF A REVELATION. [CHAP. is true that we cannot legitimately reason from any phe- nomenal fact to that which is beyond phenomena, it is only asserting a particular case of this general principle to assert that a miracle, no matter how well proved or how wonderful, can give 110 information about a supersensible world. This is the form which is now assumed by the argument against revelation, or at least against the miracu- lous element in revelation. In the last century the objec- tion was that no conceivable evidence would be strong enough to prove the fact of a miracle. If I understand aright the deepest thoughts of my contemporaries, this is now seen to be altogether untrue. The objection now is that a miracle, though it might conceivably be proved, would itself prove nothing. Eeply. In answer to this kind of argument it has been already to Infer & remarked that we are able to infer from facts of perception from data truths which are not, and in some cases could not conceiv- ception ably be, facts of perception themselves. The facts of geo- truths- logical history are not facts of our perception, because we which are / not facts were not present to perceive them : nor is the existence ot ee P t!on luminous undulations, because they are inaccessible to our perceptions : nor is the law of attractive force in the ratio of the inverse square of the distance, which indeed could not conceivably be an object of perception at all. If we can thus infer from the facts of perception other truths which are not and cannot be facts of perception, and therefore in the most obvious sense of the word are not phenomenal facts, where is the impossibility of in- ferring, from such a phenomenal fact as a miracle, a conclusion as to its being the means of authenticating a message from God ? The reply to this will probably be something like what follows : " The facts of the physical world which we Objec- infer, are facts of the same order as those which we tion: the p erce i vet Perception is indeed only an inference from are truths sensation. 1 The facts of geological history which we infer, order as 1716 are ^ ac ^ s ^ ^ ie same r( ler as the similar facts of physical the data : geography which we see. Luminous undulations are facts 1 See "Habit and Intelligence," Chapter 36. ] THE POSSIBILITY OF A REVELATION. 149 of the same order as waves of water. And the law of the inverse square, though it is not a fact of the same order as any mere fact of perception, is not a new fact in addition to those which perception makes known : it is nothing more than the law according to which the facts of perception occur. But any fact involving a revelation from God would be a fact while a of a different order from any fact of the sensible world, and, as such, could not be legitimately inferred from any such God would facts. It makes no difference if the visible facts are mira- different culous. The true meaning of miraculous is its etymological meaning, namely marvellous : and an event is marvellous sible data, only because it is exceptional. A miraculous cure would "J"^ prove 110 more than a natural cure : a resurrection would prove no more than life : indeed less : for all that any fact can prove, relates to other facts connected with it in the same order : but a miracle, by its definition, is isolated from all other facts." My answer to this is that the argument assumes what it Reply: has no right to assume without proof. It assumes that ^ ri ^t to reasoning is possible in particular directions and not in assume others. It assumes that thought lies in distinct planes, and elusions that it is impossible to reason legitimately from data in one U! ^ be plane to conclusions in another : -impossible to reason from same order data of the world of sense to conclusions respecting a world which transcends that of sense. This kind of assumption has a certain plausibility, but it is scarcely possible to con- ceive that its truth could be either proved or disproved by any d priori reasoning. It is a question for trial. If we reason from data of sense to conclusions transcending sense, and if the universal and instinctive judgment of mankind, to which, when properly analysed, the final appeal lies in all philosophical questions, decides that the conclusions are sufficiently verified, then the assumption in question will be disproved. Now, there is such a way of testing its truth. The existence of a mind in another man is not to me a truth of immediate consciousness, but is known by infer- ence. We know nothing of the minds of our fellow-men except what we infer from their actions, their words, and the expression of their countenances. These are data 150 THE POSSIBILITY OF A REVELATION. [CHAI-. belonging to the world of sense, mere facts of perception, and yet we are able to draw inferences from them concern- We infer ing objects which are totally unlike them. That is to say, chTrac^er m ^ n( i an ^ character are totally unlike action, speech, and from expression, and yet we are able to reason truly from the speech, data afforded by action, speech, and expression to the facts and ex- o f mind and character. It is not needful for the present pression: . . here the argument to explain how it is, that both man and the the^infer an i ma l s > from the earliest dawn of consciousness, learn to ence are of recognize a personality like their own in their fellow-beings. orders. 11 -^ ma y ^ e questioned whether this is to be accounted for without postulating the existence of a higher kind of instinctive intelligence than that which is needed for the recognition of an external world. 1 But however this may be, the fact that we are able to reason, and to reason truly, from the merely phenomenal facts of action, speech, and expression to their causes in the facts of mind and character which are not merely phenomenal, is an experi- mental disproof of the doctrine that the inferences which may be drawn from any set of phenomenal facts must be of the same order with the facts themselves. Parallel Now if, from data to be found in the physical and the reasoning m oral world, or from data to be made known by Divine from sen- . . . sible data words and actions in revelation, we draw inferences as to Divine ^ e being an ^ the character of God, these will be infer- being and ences of exactly the same kind as those which we draw from the words and actions of a man as to the exist- ence and the character of the mind in that man : though our knowledge of God transcends our knowledge of each other, in the same way that the highest scientific know- ledge of the physical world transcends that merely per- ceptive knowledge thereof which we share with the lower animals. The argument of this chapter may be thus briefly summed up: Summary. It is a fundamental axiom that all action presupposes an agent. We are consequently able, when the data are sufficient, to reason from actions which are known to us 1 See Note at end of chapter. . bv TTIPTP, ! THE POSSIBILITY OF A EEVELATION. 151 by mere sensible perception to agents which are not and cannot become the objects of mere sensible perception. To speak more concisely and technically, we are able to reason from phenomena to that which is extra-phenomenal. If it is said that matter is nothing more than an assem- blage of phenomena, or in other words nothing more than a possibility of sensation; and that material substance is a word which has no meaning except to express the permanence of that possibility; this perhaps cannot be disproved: but even if it were granted of matter, it is not true of mind. 1 The minds of other men are not phenomena that is to say not objects of perception to us : yet, explain the process as we may, we are able to reason, and to reason truly, from the phenomena of actions, words, voice, and expression to inferences concerning the facts of character, which are not phenomenal, and are facts of a different order from the phenomenal facts from which they are inferred. When it is thus possible to reason from the phenomenal facts of human action to the facts of character behind the phenomena, there is no a priori logical impossibility in reasoning from phenomenal facts, whether natural or miraculous, to a Divine origin and ground of those facts. If it is urged that mental character is nothing more Reply to than permanence of the type of mental phenomena, I Jec1 reply that a man's actions are indeed only phenomena to other men, but his consciousness cannot be a phenomenon to another man : yet we no more doubt the existence of consciousness in other men than in ourselves. 1 Mill in his " Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy " defines matter as nothing more than a "permanent possibility of sen- sation : " but he goes on to say that it would not be an adequate definition to call mind a permanent liability to sensation. He makes however no attempt to explain how it is that we learn the existence of mind in our fellow-men : and I maintain that his philosophy is unable to explain this. 152 THE POSSIBILITY OF A REVELATION. [CHAP. ix. NOTE. THE following is extracted from Newman's " Grammar of Assent," p. 107 : Extract " This instinct of the mind, recognizing an external Master in fr. om , the dictate of conscience, and imaging the thought of Him in "Grammar the definite impressions which conscience creates, is parallel to of Assent." that other law of not only human but of brute nature by which the presence of unseen individual beings is discerned under the shifting shapes and colours of the visible world. Is it by sense or by reason that brutes understand the real unities, material and spiritual, which are signified by the lights and shadows, the bril- liant ever-changing kaleidoscope, as it may be called, which plays upon their retina 1 Not by reason, for they have not reason : not by sense, because they are transcending sense : therefore it is an instinct. This faculty on the part of brutes, unless we were used to it, would strike us as a great mystery. It is one peculiarity of animal natures to be susceptible of phenomena through the channels of sense : it is another to have in those sensible phenomena a perception of the individuals to which certain groups of them belong. This perception of individual things is given to brutes in large measure, and that apparently from the moment of birth. It is by no mere physical instinct, such as that which leads him to his mother for milk, that the new-dropped lamb recognizes each of his fellow lambkins as a whole, consisting of many parts bound up in one, and before he is an hour old makes experience of his and their rival indi- vidualities. And much more distinctly do the horse and the dog recognize even the personality of their masters. How are we to explain this apprehension of things which are one and individual in the midst of a world of pluralities and transmuta- tions, whether in the case of brutes or of children ? But until we account for the knowledge which an infant has of his mother or his nurse, what reason have we to take exception at the doc- trine, as strange and difficult, that in the dictate of conscience, without previous experience or analogical reasoning, he is able gradually to perceive the voice, or the echoes of the voice, of a Master, living, personal, and sovereign ?" CHAPTEK X. THE PEOOF OF A REVELATION. TT7E have seen in the foregoing chapters, that man is capable of faith; and that, so far as the argument has yet reached, there is no reason to think it impossible that God should so reveal Himself as to become an object of faith to man. In this chapter we have to con- sider under what conditions an alleged revelation from God ought to be accepted as credible and authentic. It is necessary to begin with some remarks on the general theory of proof. What follows on that subject makes no claim to originality, but it has to be stated in order to make the succeeding reasonings intelligible. It may be stated as a general though not an absolutely Man in invariable truth, that the thinking powers of man are so constituted as not to be independent of verification. That fication .. -i-ii IT , i in order to is to say, we are not in general able to believe with any believe strong confidence either in propositions as self-evident or th con ~ . . ., . fidence. in the conclusions ol reasoning, until we have corroborative proof. It must be understood that this is not asserted of such simple and elementary truths as the axioms of logic and mathematics. But it is universally admitted with respect to the inductive sciences. The perfection of what con- proof is not attained in any inductive, or physical, science, ^fica 8 until the deductions of theory are verified by observa- tion in tion or experiment, and the facts of observation or science! 1 experiment interpreted as deductions from theory. 1 Thus, 1 " The ground of confidence in any concrete deductive science [such as astronomy or optics] is not the CL priori reasoning, but the consilience between its results and those of observation a posteriori" (Mill's Logic, vol. ii. p. 563.) 154 THE PROOF OF A REVELATION. [CHAP. M'Cullagh's mathematical deduction about conical refrac- tion was confirmed by 'experiment ; l and Kepler's laws of the planetary motions were interpreted "by Newton as deductions from the laws of motion and gravitation. These two instances differ only in the subordinate cir- cumstance that in the first-mentioned case the theoretical deduction came before the ascertainment of the fact by observation, while in the other case it came afterwards. It ig There are two causes of the necessity for verifying our needed reasonings on the subjects of the inductive sciences : the - feebleness of our reasoning powers, and the feebleness of ness of our our observing powers. In consequence of the feebleness powers. . i -I -i or our observing powers, we can seldom be certain that we know all the facts of a case, and our reasoning can lead to a true conclusion only on condition that no material fact has been omitted from the premises. And in consequence of the feebleness of our reasoning powers, we cannot always be certain of arriving at a true conclusion, even from premises in which there is nothing in any degree inaccurate or deficient. Both of these sources of error occur in the inductive sciences : error is possible in them either from wrong data or from inaccurate reasoning. In pure or abstract mathe- matics it is only the latter source that occurs ; there is no danger of wrong data, but there is a possibility of inac- curate reasoning. Consequently mathematical reasoning needs verification, like reasoning in any other branch of science ; and our confidence in the results of mathematical reasoning, as of any other reasoning, rests not on the reason- ing alone, but on the agreement between the results of the reasoning and those of the observations whereby it is verified. It is true that w r e trust in the results of mathe- In what sense matical reasoning without thinking it needful to verify them matictl ^7 counting or measuring in each individual case. But reasoning though our confidence in the individual applications of fication. " mathematical reasoning is thus independent of verification, the same is not true of the entire science of mathematics. That is to say, we believe in the trustworthiness of mathe- 1 Page 111. THE PROOF OF A REVELATION. 155 matical reasoning, not without verification, but because it has been amply verified already : because all experience shows that it is trustworthy. But when mathematical reasoning in its higher branches is applied for the first time to a new subject, or applied in an original manner, we do not always feel confidence in its results until they have been verified by trial, lest some inaccurate assumption may have got into the reasoning unawares. And, to suppose a case which involves no absurdity though it is impossible with beings of merely human powers, if the whole algebraic calculus had been invented before any part of it was brought into actual use, we could not have accepted its results as certainly trustworthy without waiting for veri- fication. 1 This, however, is not because there is anything contingent in the nature of mathematical truth ; it is only because of deficiency of force in our intellects. In the inductive sciences, on the contrary, the necessity for verifi- cation is not a mere concession to the feebleness of our reasoning powers : were our intellects incapable of error, it would still be needful to verify the results of reasoning on physical subjects by comparison with observed fact ; for though in the supposed case there could be no error of reasoning, yet the conclusion might be wrong in conse- quence of inaccurate or insufficient data. But though the mathematical and the inductive sciences agree in the necessity for their conclusions to be verified, they are contrasted as to the nature of their fundamental principles. The fundamental principles of the inductive Difference sciences are facts which are known to be facts only because ^athT- 11 they have been found to be so in all cases without a single matical exception ; such as (to mention those which in simplicity gi ca i data, and generality most nearly resemble mathematical axioms) the laws of motion and gravitation. The fundamental Mathe- principles of mathematical science, on the contrary (and the same is true of those of logic), are not known by axioms generalization from a multitude of instances : they are seen to be true in the contemplation of a single instance, i Page 110. 156 THE PliOOF OF A REVELATION. [CHAP. of the funda- mental axiom of meta- physics. with a certainty to which nothing could be added by the experience of any additional number of instances, how- ever great. The truths that a contradiction cannot be true, that the whole is greater than its part, and that two right lines cannot enclose an area, are seen to be true the moment they are understood, and are not made more certain by the observation of a thousand instances than of one. 1 Confidence in the results of mathematical reason- ing, as we have seen, depends on verification ; but this, though true of the results, is not true of the axioms. To the axioms of mathematics and logic I would, add what I regard as the fundamental axiom of metaphysics, Peculiarity namely that every action presupposes an agent. 2 This axiom, like those of logic and mathematics, needs no confirmation from experience ; but, unlike them, it admits of none. Were it possible for any one to think that a contradiction may be true, that a part may be equal to the whole, or that two straight lines may enclose an area, he would be set right by experience every hour of his life. But were any one to think that action is no proof of the existence of an agent, and to think it possible, (which would be the logical consequence of such a doubt,) that the human beings around him had no real existence, 3 no possible experience could set him right. The belief in such axioms as that all action presupposes an agent, is (to use, I believe, Coleridge's expression) "not the result of experience but implied in experience." We therefore conclude that the fundamental principles of the abstract sciences, that is to say the sciences of logic, mathematics, and metaphysics, differ from those of the inductive or physical sciences in this, that those of the abstract sciences are seen to be true in the mere state- ment, while those of the physical sciences are learned by a slow process of generalization from a multitude of instances. And we conclude also that verification is 1 On the subject of our intuitive knowledge of the truth that two right lines cannot enclose an area, see " Habit and Intelligence," Note to Chapter 36. 2 Page 77. 3 On the subject of the recognition of a mind in our fellow-men, see page 150. Summary, THE PROOF OF A REVELATION. 157 needed for the results of both mathematical and physical science ; but that it is needed in mathematics only because of the feebleness of our reasoning powers, which leaves a possibility of some error having got into the reasoning unawares ; while in physical science it is needed not only because we may have made errors in the reasoning, but because we seldom can be quite sure that our knowledge of the data is complete. Having made this statement of the theory of proof in mathematical and physical science, we go on to consider the theory of proof in the sciences of morals and theology. We have seen that the truths of mathematical science are true independently of verification ; and yet they are constantly receiving verification. The same holds of the Morality, truths of moral science. Their experimental verification thematics, is, that the world of human life is so constituted as on ! s J rue indepen- the whole to reward with happiness the observance ofdently moral law, and to punish with unhappiness its violation. It has been shown in the chapter on the Meaning of the receives Moral Sense 1 with, in my opinion, as near an approach to ^n. ' demonstration as the subject admits of, that the moral sense is not grounded on the experience of the tendency of morality to produce happiness. But it is certain that the dicta of the moral sense are confirmed by the experi- ence that such is its tendency : and though, with the moral training which we have received through past cen- turies, and with the moral intelligence to which that training has enabled us to attain, we are able to see the universal and necessary character of morality for all beings who have intelligence enough to understand it: yet we are so constituted that in moral as in mathematical truth, we are unable to be independent of verification. Were the world in which we live so constituted that we could not discern the faintest tendency in the nature of things to reward virtue and to punish vice, although moral dis- tinctions would in themselves be still what they are, we can scarcely think that our power to recognize them would 1 Chapters. 158 THE PROOF OF A REVELATION. [CHAP. ever have been developed. The case imagined is probably an impossible one, but there is no doubt an approach to it in the lives of many unhappily circumstanced human beings. Thus the truths of both mathematics and morals are true independently of verification, though our certainty of them is strengthened by it : while our knowledge of the truths of physical science depends altogether on verification. In physics This however is not a full statement of the difference. In bffityof ^ ie physical sciences the possibility of verification con- verifica- stitutes the truth of a law : that is to say, a physical law, tion con- , . . . . , stitutes such as the law of gravitation, is a law only because it is the law. always found to be true : the law means that the fact is always so, and has no other meaning. A mathematical law, on the contrary, is a law not only because it is always found to be true, but because its untruth would be impos- sible in the sense in which a contradiction is impossible. In a word, mathematical truth is seen to be such by its own light, but with the truths of the physical, or experi- mental, sciences it is otherwise. In this character, moral truth resembles mathematical. Relation Now, the relation of mathematical science to the ex- of mathe- perimental facts of the natural world is paralleled by the matics to . . l J physics, relation of the self-evident truths of moral science to thafof 1 10 tlie theological truths made known by revelation. The morals to analogy, it is true, is not perfect, but it will prove equally ogy * instructive where it holds and where it fails. Mathematics has no information to give about real ex- istence. Mathematics cannot tell us whether anything exists or moves in the universe. But supposing anything to exist and its form to be ascertained, mathematics can tell all its properties in so far as they depend on its form : and supposing two or more motions to be given, mathe- matics can tell what their resultant will be. So with moral science: it has no information to give about real exist- ence : it cannot tell whether, in any other worlds than our own, there are beings who have moral intelligence : it can- not tell d priori whether there is any moral government of the universe. But it does assert that moral law is binding on every Being in the entire universe who has intelligence THE PROOF OF A REVELATION. enough to understand it : and it does assert that if there is a moral government of the universe at all, that government must be a righteous one. 1 In physical science, experimental facts are interpreted and made intelligible by their agree- ment with mathematical theory : so in theology, a revela- tion is made credible and significant by its agreement with moral theory. But in physical science facts are not proved to be facts by their agreement with theory : they must be proved to be facts by observation and experiment. So in theology it does not suffice for proof that a religion is so accordant with the highest and purest morality that it is worthy to have come from God: it must also have experimental proof : and this must consist in miracle of some kind : either in that display of supernatural power which is usually called miracle, or in that display of supernatural knowledge which is called prophecy. But, as stated above, the analogy is incomplete : and Where the the contrast between the two cases is as instructive as the fSi s gy analogy. In physical science, the ultimate appeal is to observed fact : if theory is contradicted by fact, the theory must be wrong. 2 But in theology, the opposite is true : In physics the ultimate appeal is to moral principles, and if an alleged mat e revelation from God contains anything that contradicts a PP eal is * to experi- morality, it ought to be condemned as no genuine revela- mental tion. It is impossible that the Divine origin of a revela- {heoio m tion should have the direct and immediate certainty of it is to an observed fact. A miracle may be an observed fact : (I maintain that it has been so :) but a fact, alone and apart from all other facts, proves nothing beyond itself. The Divine authorship of a miracle is not an observed fact : it is an inference : and it is not an inference from the miracle alone, regarded as a mere display of power : but from the fact of the miracle combined with the moral character shown in the miracle itself, and the moral character of the teaching whereby it is accompanied. 1 Page 66. 2 Supposing, of course, that the facts have been correctly noted. But this is by no means to be taken for granted ; on the contrary, accurate observation is at least as difficult as correct reasoning. 160 THE PROOF OF A REVELATION. [CHAP. But if an alleged revelation contains anything which the highest and purest morality refuses to recognize as worthy to come from God, no weight of miraculous evidence could prove that it has come from God. Miraculous evidence in such a case would not be insufficient so much as irre- levant. Were a revelation to be, attested by unmistake- able miracles, and yet to contain immoral doctrines, the inference ought to be not that the miracles and the doc- trines had both come from God, but that they had both come from a supernatural but evil power. I do not admit the possibility of such a case : but the conclusion that such a revelation ought, to be regarded as coming not from God but from the Devil, is in accordance with The New the teaching of the New Testament. Christ is recorded to orchis 611 * nave sa id that men might show signs and wonders, and subject, yet be prophets of falsehood : and Saint Paul wrote to his converts the warning, "Though we, or a messenger from Heaven, preach any other Gospel than that which ye have received, let him be accursed." Summary. In a word, Miracles are not experimental proofs of holi- ness : holiness must be its own proof : it cannot be proved by anything but itself. What miracles prove is super- natural power : a revelation attested by miracles must be of supernatural origin : and if this is proved, its moral character must decide whether or not it is Divine. 1 It is now necessary to reply to objections which may be made from opiposite sides to this view of the subject. It may be thought by some, that when once a revelation is recognized as supernatural, it ought to be accepted as Divine : and that it is presumptuous in man to scrutinize its claims any further. Those who think so are probably believers in Christ, and endeavour to adopt and represent His teaching : and to them the sayings quoted above from the New Testament ought to be a sufficient reply. The view here stated of the place of miracles as evidence of the Divine origin of a revelation is that of Christ, so far as we can learn His view of the subject from scattered Christ's view of this subject. 1 See Note A at end of chapter. THE PROOF OF A REVELATION. 161 hints. He never wrought a miracle in order to compel belief: and when brought before Herod, He refused to prove His power by working a miracle. The immediate motive of not one of His miracles was self-assertion : of nearly all it was benevolence. They were matters of notoriety : but He rebuked the craving for signs and wonders, and desired to be received as a divinely commis- sioned teacher by reason not of His miracles, but of His teaching : He desired that it should be recognized as Divine by its own light, not accepted on the strength of any corroborative proof. " Why do ye not even of your- selves judge that which is right ?" The teaching in His view was the primary matter, the miracles only secondary : the miracles were corroborative proofs of such cogency as infinitely to aggravate the guilt of rejecting the teaching, but they were not the ground on which the teaching was to be received. " If I had not done among them the works which no other man did, they had not had sin ; but now they have no cloak for their sin." He spoke almost with contempt of a faith which had no better foundation than miracles. " If ye believe not me, believe the works." But this would be an imperfect statement if we were to overlook the fact, that Christ attached more importance to His miracles as evidences of goodness than of power. On one occasion, when asked whether He was indeed that Christ for whom the best men of Israel were looking, Pie replied by enumerating His works : giving sight to the blind, hear- ing to the deaf, and life to the dead : but ended with the climax, " glad tidings are proclaimed to the poor." The other class of objections is from the opposite side, namely from those who either doubt the reality of miracles or disparage their importance. The simplest form of such objections may be thus expressed : " It is admitted that holiness must prove itself, and Objection cannot be proved by anything else. If the teaching of tha/u^ 18 any one who makes claim to have a revelation from God are use- is holy, it proves itself as Divine : if it is not holy, no lowerThe evidence, miraculous or any other, can prove it to be character Divine. Miraculous evidence rather detracts from the tion. M 162 THE PROOF OF A REVELATION. [CHAP, purity and dignity of a revelation, by offering proof to the eye where all that ought to be sought for is proof to the soul. If the miracles of Christ are so entwined with His teaching that they must be believed, still they are not grounds of belief, but only results and objects of belief. The miracles cannot prove the doctrine : if they can be proved at all, they must be proved by the doctrine." This argument rests on a mere confusion, a mere mis- conception of the proper function of miraculous evidence : but it has too much weight with the present generation to be dismissed summarily. Heply : It is quite true that holiness could not conceivably be pose^crf" proved by any evidence whatever. But the purpose of Christ's Christ's miracles is not to prove that His doctrine is is not to worthy to have come from God, for this neither needs prove that p roo f nor admits of it : but to prove that in point of fact trine is it has come from God : and this could not be proved c'omeTrom beyond doubt without miracles. If any one of Christ's God, but hearers were to have thought : " No doubt His doctrine is come 1 from worthy to have come from God. But has it really come Him. fr om Q. O( J i When He speaks of a Heavenly Father, of judgment, of forgiveness, and of eternal life, does He speak of what He knows, or is it only that He has brooded over these thoughts till they have become real to His imagina- tion?" to such questions as these the miracles of Christ would have been the answer, and the only possible answer that could have been perfectly conclusive. Christ did not undertake to prove the excellence of holiness : He assumed this to be true without needing any proof. What He, undertook to prove was that the principles of holiness which He taught are those on which. His Heavenly Father governs the universe, and that where these principles of government are not made manifest and acted on now they shall be hereafter. It needs no miraculous revelation to know that holiness is excellent, and that moral law is binding on all intelligent Beings in the universe : but it does need a miraculous revelation to teach us that holiness shall yet be triumphant and dominant, and that every violation of moral law shall be avenged. v.j THE PROOF OF A REVELATION. 163 The question whether the doctrine is supposed to prove the reality of the miracles, or the miracles to prove the truth of the doctrine, is really unmeaning: as unmeaning as would be the parallel question, whether in astronomy or any other mathematico-physical science, the mathe- matics prove the accuracy of the observations or the observations prove the soundness of the mathematics. Each primarily rests on its own foundation, and each secondarily confirms the other. In the mathematico- physical sciences this is the relation between the mathe- matical element of our knowledge and that derived from observation : in theology this is the relation between the moral and the miraculous elements. If the foregoing is admitted as sound, it will be seen No impro- that there is nothing anomalous in miracles, and no ^^j^ in priori presumption against them, provided only that they are wrought for a worthy purpose. That is to say, if there is a God who is able to reveal Himself to us : if we are capable of receiving a revelation of Him : and if miracles are, I do not say the means of such a revelation being made, but a necessary condition of its being fully authen- ticated : then the presumption is rather in favour of the reality of miracles than against it. I know there are men who cannot see this. I do not speak of those who deny or doubt the being of a Personal God : they are consistent in denying the a, priori pro- bability of any such Divine interference with the ordinary course of nature as constitutes a miracle. But there are Position of men who believe, not only in a personal God, but in the beHevetn possibility of man's holding communion with God : and a personal consequently in the reality, the duty, and the blessing of f^ect^ 1 prayer : who nevertheless reject all that is miraculous, and miracle - consequently reject revelation in the ordinary or Biblical sense. Such men probably come much nearer to. the spirit of Christ than do those, if indeed there are any such in this age, who infer Christ's holiness from His power, and believe in Him on the evidence of His mighty works alone. But their position, in believing in a God w r ho can be known by men, and yet rejecting the corroborative M 2 104 THE PROOF OF A KEVELATION. [CHAP. proof which miracles are capable of giving, is logically quite untenable. Suppose, what is certainly no impos- Ideas of an sible case, that a European in Central Asia or Western AsS^on China were to tell a native of the country about some of science, our scientific theories, with their practical results: and were to receive for reply : " I have no difficulty in believ- ing in the thermo-dynamic theory, but you must not ask me to believe in the marvels of the steam-engine : I have no difficulty in believing in the theory of electric currents, but you must not ask me to believe in the marvels of the telegraph :" what inference would be possible, except that in assenting to the theoretical part of the European's statements he only gave an unintelligent assent to that which he did not understand ? Yet how does this differ from the logic of those who admit the theoretical part of theology, namely the power, the wisdom, and the holiness of God, and the possibility of His being known by man, and yet deny the possibility of the corroborative proof of miracle ? I do not however mean that those against whom the pre- sent arguments are directed, are such imbecile reasoners as our imaginary Asiatic. If I understand them, they will probably reply that the experimental facts of the steam- engine and the telegraph belong to the same order with the theoretical truths of thermo-dynamic and electrical Objection, science ; while physical miracles, being merely physical sicai phy ' f acts > ^ not belong to the same order with justice, mercy, miracles and holiness. In so far as this is a merely logical or a diffident metaphysical difficulty, the reply to it has been stated order from a l r eady : l namely, that whenever we reason from human action to human character, we reason from facts belong- ing to the physical or phenomenal order to truths of a Reply, different order. Actions, which are visible, may reveal that character and purpose, which are invisible. This is true may reveal of man, and why should it be less true of God ? No character. doubt, mere power cannot prove holiness. I have stated this already, not as a concession to an opponent but as an axiom of my own system : and it is conclusive against 1 Page 148, et seq. X.] THE PEOOF OF A REVELATION. 165 those who maintain as a doctrine of revelation, anything which is rejected by the moral sense. But it has no weight against the miracles of Christ. It has been already re- marked that Christ appears to have attached importance to His own miracles much more as proofs of benevolence than as proofs of power. Their function as evidence was Purpose of not to prove power, for power cannot prove holiness, and mi "J^i c s s holiness is the all-important matter : nor was it to prove neither to holiness, for holiness cannot be proved it can be seen power nor only by its own light : but to prove that power and holi- Jj ol t iness ' ness were united in His person; that the revelation to prove their mankind which He professed to have, not only deserved to umon - be from God but was really from God. There is another argument against the miraculous Objection, element in religion which is more a matter of feeling than g x **p_ e of reasoning, but ought nevertheless to be stated and tional replied to. It may be thus stated : " Miraculous evidence a bi e is unsuitable to religion. Eeligion has to do with eternal a ? P oof oi tiie truths : truths which were true before the foundations of permanent the universe were laid, and will be true after the stars are a " burnt out : but miracles are, avowedly and by their defini- tion, transitory and exceptional facts. Christ's parables are eminently rational, illustrating as they do the principles of the spiritual world by the ordinary course of the natural world. But proof of the laws of the spiritual world must be sought in those facts in the natural world which approach most nearly to the spiritual : that is to say in the facts of Force, of Life, and of Mind, and in every thing which yields any indication of a Creative Purpose. To prove religion by miracles is proving the eternal by the transitory, and the fundamental by the exceptional." My reply to this is, that while it would be wrong to underrate the importance of those proofs of the Divine Character and the Divine Government which are to be found in the ordinary constitution of the world as known to us, there is nevertheless no absurdity in thinking that we can learn fundamental and eternal truths from tem- porary manifestations of those truths. In natural science 166 THE PROOF OF A REVELATION. [CHAP, Heply: in natural science the ordinary constitu- tion of nature is explained by means of experi- mental facts which are called into existence for the purpose. Imaginary ideas of an ancient we have to study the ordinary constitution of nature : the motions of the planets, the changes of the weather, and the mutual positions of rock-strata : but it is not the less necessary to study facts which, though they are produced according to strictly natural laws, are not to be found in the ordinary course of nature, but owe their existence to the experimentalist. It is by means of these latter by means of the knowledge derived from the study of facts which never occur except when they are produced by the experimentalist for his own purposes that the ordinary constitution of nature has been scientifically explained. This is true even of astronomy : the first step, and an all- important one, towards the elucidation of the " mechanism of the heavens " consisted in Galileo's experimental proof of the law of the velocity of falling bodies. 1 And it is still more obviously true of our knowledge of such phenomena as those of evaporation and rain, which have been ex- plained by means of experimental research, but could not have been explained by means of any amount of observa- tion of the facts as they occur in nature. Now, as observation of the facts which belong to the ordinary constitution of nature, and experimental investi- gation of facts which do not occur in the ordinary constitu- tion of nature, are both necessary, and equally necessary, in physical science : so I maintain that knowledge of the facts of the ordinary world of matter, life, and mind in which we live, and knowledge derived from the excep- tional facts of miracles, are alike and equally necessary in theology. Were a philosopher of Greece in its pre-Socratic period an Anaxagoras or a Heraclitus to come to life among us and become acquainted with the results of our science, his first commentary on them would perhaps be something like this : " Not even in my native language can I find words to express my admiration of your astronomy and 1 It is true that falling bodies are to be seen in the ordinary course of nature. But Galileo's observations on the fall of heavy bodies from the Leaning Tower of Pisa were not the less experiments : for the Leaning Tower was chosen by Galileo, and indeed looks as if it might have been constructed, specially for the purpose. vnnr o-pnlr TE1E PROOF OF A REVELATION. 167 your geology. But it is otherwise with your chemistry and Greek optics, and the sciences of electricity and heat. Astronomy ^p^", and geology reveal to us the constitution of the universe : modern but I do not see the value of sciences which deal not with the broad facts of nature, but chiefly with facts which are called into existence in the laboratory by the experimen- talist." To this the reply would be : " Until you have become familiar with scientific ideas and methods, you will not be able to understand in what sense it is that a fact which has been witnessed only once is as im- portant as one which is witnessed every day. But for that purpose which alone you know how to value, namely for the understanding of the universe, the study of those facts which are produced only in the laboratory of the experimen- talist is as important as the study of the facts which are set before us in the universe. The nature of lightning has been made known only by means of laboratory experi- ments on electricity. The same is true of heat. And in order to learn the nature of light we must break up its rays with the prism and split them by means of doubly refracting crystals." Now, the mental attitude of this imaginary Greek with respect to science is analogous to the attitude with respect to theology of those who believe in a personal God and yet deny or undervalue miraculous evidence. And the reply to both is the same. It is consistent with the ways of nature and of God that the highest truths should not be self-evident, and that universal truths should be proved or interpreted by means of unusual facts. The parallel is perfect for the present purpose. In science, it is an axiom that every individual fact is a result of general laws ; and in theology it is equally true, as Pascal remarked long ago, that " If God has acted once, He exists eternally." 168 THE PEOOF OF A KEVELATION. [CIIAF. NOTE A. THE following is part of a letter from Dr. Arnold of Kugby to the Rev. Dr. Hawkins : Quotation " You complain of those persons who judge of a revelation ^ om , ^ f not by its evidence but by its substance. It has always seemed Rugby. to me that its substance is a most essential part of its evidence : and that miracles wrought in favour of what was foolish or wicked would 'only prove Manicheeism. We are so perfectly ignorant of the unseen world that the character of any supernatural power can be only judged of by the moral character of the state- ments which it sanctions : thus only can we tell whether it be a revelation from God or from the devil. If his father tells a child something which seems to him monstrous, faith requires him to submit his own judgment, because he knows his father's person, and is sure therefore that his father tells it him. But we cannot thus know God, and can only recognize His voice by the words spoken being in agreement with ari idea of His moral nature." STANLEY'S Life of Arnold, vol. ii. p. 227. NOTE B. THE MOKALITY OP THE OLD TESTAMENT. Secondary IN the present state of English thought, it is impossible to import- motion the subject of morality in relation to revelation without subject. suggesting the controversy on the morality of the Old Testament. This is unfortunate, because it is not well to begin with the difficulties of a subject. The subject, however, is not of first- rate importance. If we accept the Old Testament as part of our creed, we do so because it is believed to be entwined with Chris- tianity, and because any difficulties that it may contain are of an order of magnitude which is not to be weighed in the balance against the overwhelming proof of Christianity. The his- It is, however, my opinion that faith in Christ is logically consistent with almost aDy opinion on the subject of the rela- of the Old tion of the Divine to the human element in the Old Testament. Testament This is no doubt opposed to the general belief of the Christian be re- Church, but it is the opinion of a growing minority. The entire su kject i g practically a new one. There was no possibility of approaching ifc with the least hope of attaining to any result of value so lo THE PROOF OF A EEVELATION. 169 Lue so long as men were sharply divided into " believers " in every statement of the Bible, including Balaam's conversa- tion with his ass, and " unbelievers " in all, even the resurrection of Christ. All who are competent to form an opinion on the subject Present are probably now agreed on these two points : that there is in th^his- the Bible nothing which can be relied on as historical previous torical to Abraham : and that from Abraham onwards there is a thread (luei of true history. But the separation of this from all legendary elements is a most difficult task, for which the time is perhaps not yet come. Concerning the morality of the Old Testament, we have to The remark that it does not by any means stand on the same level with that of the heathen systems to which the religion of the Testament Old Testament is opposed. They consecrated impurity ; and j^then when a religion does this, it cannot possibly have any claim to be received as Divine ; if it has miraculous evidence in its favour, the miracles ought to be regarded as not Divine but diabolical. But the morality of the Old Testament is not of this kind ; it is not perverted but only imperfect. When we are asked to believe that God at one time, and only for a time, gave an express sanction to the imperfect morality of a bar- barous age, it appears to be asserting what we have no right to assert, if we say that this is absolutely incredible and incapable of being proved by any evidence whatever. But the farther the morality of such a system from the ideal and perfect morality of Christ, and the more agreeable it is to the primitive and unenlightened mind of man, the stronger is the presumption Presump- against its being in any way sanctioned by God, and the greater tl ( ^ )n . ., ought to be the weight of miraculous evidence to outweigh such having presumption. It needs no very strong confirmation from miracu- lous evidence to make us believe that the injunction to love our enemies comes from God ; it would need very strong confirma- tion to make us believe that God commanded the Israelites to exterminate their enemies, which they were no doubt ready enough to do of their own accord ; and yet the miraculous evi- dence for Judaism is by no means so well attested as that for Christianity. Whatever may be thought of Bishop Colenso's historical Its practi- criticism, he only speaks common sense when he says that the ea * effect< Old Testament ought not to be put in the hands of newly 170 THE PKOOF OF A KEVELATIOX. [CHAP. converted barbarians. And much may be said in favour of the opinion that the acceptance of the Old Testament in mass by the Christian Church has been a great misfortune for mankind. What may be called the orthodox or Scriptural view of the question is well stated in the following passage from Butler's Analogy of Religion (Part II., Chapter 3) : but the concluding sentences betray the weakness of the case as clearly as the open- ing ones show its strength. Quotation " There are some particular precepts in Scripture given to Butler particular persons, requiring actions which would be immoral and vicious were it not for such precepts. But it is easy to see that all these are of such a kind as that the precept changes the whole nature of the case and of the action : and both constitutes and shows that not to be unjust or immoral which, prior to the precept, must have appeared and really have been so : which may well be, since none of these precepts are contrary to immu- table morality. If it were commanded to cultivate the principles and act from the spirit of treachery, ingratitude, cruelty : the command would not alter the nature of the case or of the action in any of these instances. But it is quite otherwise in precepts which require only the doing of an external action : for instance, taking away the life or property of any. For men have no right to either life or property but what arises solely from the grant of God ; when this grant is revoked, they cease to have any right at all in either ; and when this revocation is made known, as surely it is possible it may be, it must cease to be unjust to deprive them of either. And though a course of external acts which without command would be immoral, must make an immoral habit, yet a few detached commands have no such natural tendency. I thought proper to say thus much of the few Scripture precepts which require, not vicious actions but actions which would have been vicious had it not been for such precepts ; because they are sometimes weakly urged as immoral, and great weight is laid upon objections drawn from them. But to me there seems no difficulty at all in these precepts, but what arises from their being offences : i.e. from their being liable to be perverted, as indeed they are, by wicked designing men, to serve the most horrid purposes : and perhaps to mislead the weak and enthusiastic. And objections from this head are not objections against revelation : but against the whole notion of x.] THE PROOF OF A REVELATION. 171 religion as a trial : and against the general constitution of nature." I shall have to say in a future chapter what I think of this favourite theory of Butler's, that revelation may be reason- ably expected to reproduce the difficulties and anomalies of the order of nature. But to confine the present remarks to the point now under discussion : Butler is certainly right in Where saying that it is possible for God to make an action right by ^i^ 1 commanding it, which would be wrong were it not so com- manded. Thus a Divine command would be a moral justifica- tion for taking life or property, but it would not be a moral justification for impurity or falsehood. If the command to exterminate the Canaanites was associated with a revelation of moral purity and spiritual truth : and if the Israelites were in such a state of moral development that it was no injury to their moral nature to be made the executioners of such a command : it would certainly be right for them to obey it. But the reason- Where lie ing is much less satisfactory where Butler goes on to say that 1S wron g- such commands, supposing them to be Divine, present no diffi- culty except what arises from their liability to perversion as examples. Whatever has been written, says Saint Paul, has been written for our instruction : and it is surely a strong pre- sumption against the Divine origin of a command if its most natural and obvious may we not say its legitimate ? effect on those who read of it is what Butler is compelled to denounce as a perversion : if it has to be recorded with the warning, Go and do not thou likewise. [172] A CHAPTER XL THE FUNCTION OF AUTHOKITY IN KELIGION. FTER what has been said in the preceding chapter, and in the chapters on the Meaning and the Possi- bility of Faith, 1 the position and use of authority in religion will present no difficulty. It will, however, be well ex- plicitly to state it. Two mean- We must bear in mind that the word Authority has thTword acquired two meanings. It means, according to the con- Authority, text, either the right to be obeyed, or the right to be believed. 2 In the present inquiry we have to do with the latter sense only with the relation of Authority to Belief. In this sense Authority may be defined as that which is the legi- timate object of Faith. Authority and Faith are thus correlatives. Twooppo- It may assist us in understanding this subject if we of autho- begin by mentioning two opinions thereon, which are the ri *7 ! n opposite of each other as to practical result, though they spring from the same or very nearly the same logical root. One of these is, that when we believe, or put faith in, an authority, we really rely on our own judgment ; because, if we trust the authority of another, we can only trust our own judgment in deciding that such authority is trust- The one worthy. If this argument is sound, authority is impossi- denies Ca y tie: we can trust another only in so far as we trust ourselves : author!? ^ * s se ^" con ^ rac ^^ c ^ on to Sa 7 that we can possibly trust is possible, another any farther. And if Authority is impossible, Faith 1 Chapters 6 and 7. 2 This remark is made somewhere by Archbishop Whately. CH. XL] THE FUNCTION OF AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. 173 is equally so. An authority which attracts and commands faith is impossible because unmeaning: and the only authority which is possible in matters of belief is that which a man may have among his equals who have ascer- tained that his knowledge is greater than theirs, and have found by experience that his predictions have been fulfilled in a larger proportion of cases. But in the chapter on the Reply to Possibility of Faith 1 we have seen that, inexplicable as it il may be to the merely logical understanding, it is possible for a superior Being to become an Authority, and an object of Faith, to an inferior one: and this, not by reason of superior knowledge, which the inferior being may be un- able to test : but because of a power which consists in superiority of nature : a power w^hich is not chiefly felt in e communication of knowledge, but controls the judg- .ent and the will, and yet develops the power of both so as ultimately to educate them into the exercise of true freedom. Authority is possible, and Faith is possible : these are not two assertions, but opposite sides of the same. The other erroneous view of which we have to speak, is The other, that in religion there can be no authority short of an infal- can^no lible one : that an authority which may possibly err is no religious suitable object of faith, and no authority in any true sense : which is y that, consequently, if we admit the principle of authority at all, the only consistent course is to follow blindly what- ever authority we have decided to believe, and abide by its decisions, however revolting they may be to the reason and the moral sense. It will be observed that these two conclusions that The two which denies all authority and that which asserts that su : authority must be infallible though opposite, may be logical deduced from the same premises. Let a man be con- vinced that an authority which does not claim infal- libility is a contradiction, and that the criticism of an independent judgment is so inconsistent with faith that the two cannot co-exist, but one must destroy the other ; and it will depend rather on mental habit and tempera- ment than on reasoning whether he will reject authority 1 Chapter 7. THE FUNCTION OF AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. [CHAP. altogether or bow clown before some supposed infallible authority, either that of a Church or of a Book, Reply If on the contrary the ground of Authority and Faith tothe . . .. P --j second. 1S in the power ot a superior nature over an interior one, and the capacity of the inferior nature to recognize that superiority and to be raised in the intellectual and moral scale by recognizing it, then it is possible for authority, even in religious matters, to exist without being infal- lible, and for a faith to exist which does not destroy but rather quickens the power of independent judgment. What has been said about the relation of Faith to Authority must be understood with a qualification which is now to be stated. The only authorities with which we have to concern ourselves are the Christian Church and the Holy Scriptures. The authority of the Scriptures is in reality the authority of Christ and His Apostles ; and to this is to be applied without any qualification what has been said about the root of authority in superiority of nature. Christ's nature is higher than ours ; and, though this is not true of the Apostles, yet they were more fully inspired by the Spirit of God and of Christ than it has been necessary for any to be in times subsequent to theirs. Authority But a somewhat different rationale must be given of the Church, authority of the Church. The Church does not think Jtsground. with a higher mind than ours : it would be a contradiction to say that it did, for we are the Church : the Church con- sists of all who believe in Christ. But the Church thinks with a wider mind than any individual, 1 simply because it consists of all. The Authority of the Church is the expression of the truth, that where men are approximately unanimous they are probably right : and that this pro- bability increases with time, which eliminates the acci- dental circumstances that may warp the judgment of a single generation. Thus, granting the truth of Christianity, the truth of the Nicene exposition of Christianity derives immensely strong confirmation from the fact of its being assented to by the entire Church, with very insignificant exceptions, through all subsequent ages. 2 1 Page 101, et seq. 2 See Note at end of chapter. .] THE FUNCTION OF AUTHORITY IN RELIGION, 175 I do not however mean that any purely naturalistic and rationalistic explanation of history can be adequate, any more than an atheistic account of nature. " In the unreasoning progress of the world Quotation A wiser spirit is at work for us, from A better mind than ours. " Words- worth. We have next to inquire into the conditions and limita- tions under which authority exists. It is to be regarded as axiomatic that the distinction Axioms. between moral good and evil is unchangeable, being grounded in the uncreated nature of things. This subject able has been fully discussed in the chapter on the Meaning of the Moral Sense, 1 and the arguments need not be repeated here. It is also to be regarded as axiomatic that the purpose of an( l is the a revelation is to enable those who are instructed by it to ei increase in holiness. This will not be contested by any who are able to understand the meaning of words. For- giveness, salvation, the favour of God, light, eternal life, and all other blessings which are hoped for through the agency of revelation, are either synonyms for holiness, or its conditions, or its results. A religious faith, or a faith towards God, implies, and begins from, a desire for holi- ness : and it consists in trusting to the guidance of One who is able to enable us to attain to holiness. If this is true, it follows that faith exists under the condition that Any doc - any teaching must be rejected which defeats the purpose of ^e unSu all religion, and tends in a direction opposed to holiness. if it con- This is not a limitation of faith. Faith exists in order to eithefof guide us into holiness, and it is not a limitation of faith if these - it must not deny its own nature. If that in which we have trusted as a guide into truth and holiness say the Church or the Holy Scriptures teaches anything which the con- science rejects as unholy, it is not unbelief, or want of faith, to refuse to believe it : on the contrary it is the highest faith faith in the highest axioms of religion by which all must be tested ; namely that, whatever appearances may 1 Chapter 3. 176 THE FUNCTION OF AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. [CHAP, Trial of faith is needed by our moral nature. Saint Peter's "We are not beings of pure intellect, to walk by sight. be to the contrary, God is righteous and holy, and holiness and righteousness cannot change their meanings. What then ? Is there no such thing as trial of faith ? Are we to trust and to follow our authority only so long as it teaches nothing but what we are prepared to receive, and to abandon it when it ceases to be plausible and to agree with our previous opinions and expectations ? This is not my meaning. It would be unwise so to treat the authority of merely human teachers. Not Christ alone, but every teacher who aims at anything more than merely storing the pupil's mind with information, has often to say, " I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now." "Whither I go thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards." It might no doubt have been other- wise. Christ might have taught religion as Euclid has taught geometry : that is to say in a form in which every- thing is self-evident as soon as it is fully presented to the mind, and there is no demand, and no room, for the exer- cise of faith. But it would be contrary to every analogy of the world in which we live, if that which is intended to mould our moral nature were to be taught in such a way as to demand no effort and no trial of faith, " Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life," was the conclusion of the disciple Peter at a time when lie was in utter perplexity as to Christ's meaning. The form- ing of such a resolution was at that time no doubt more beneficial to Peter's moral nature than any intellectual comprehension of Christ's meaning could have been ; and such moral lessons would be excluded if it were possible for us to learn religion as we learn geometry or any other subject in which every step is clear. If all were perfectly clear, the great moral lesson and discipline of trust would be lost : and there would be no place, or at least there would be much less room than there actually is, for that influence of a higher nature on a lower one which, as we have seen, is the most important of all agencies in the formation of character. Were we beings of pure intellect, it would be well for us to walk by sight rather than by faith : faith indeed, as I understand the word, would be impossible to XL] THE FUNCTION OF AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. 17? such beings : but for beings like what we are, whose minds are inexplicable by any principles of mere logic, and who have a moral nature which is of more importance than all else, it is better it is needful to walk by faith rather than by sight. But though a child's faith in his teacher is right and neces- sary, and though he must be content to believe much on his teacher's bare word of which he does not yet see the proof ; yet if his teacher tells him anything that is plainly Authority self-contradictory, it is his duty to disbelieve it : for nothing e g ciis- can be more certain than the impossibility of a contra- Relieved if diction : it is not a single doctrine to be believed, but an anything axiom lying at the base of all belief : if any one were to question it, he would assail not an individual object of belief, but belief itself : not a single truth, but the possi- bility of anything being true. Just so, the fundamental axioms of religion are that holiness cannot change its nature, and that holiness is the end of religion : and if we or con . are desired in the name of faith to believe anything that * rai 7 to contradicts these, we ought to refuse to believe. Holiness is the end, Authority and Faith are the means ; and to believe at the bidding of Authority anything that contra- dicts Holiness, is sacrificing the end to the means. If it could be shown that the clauses about the Persons of the Godhead in the so-called Athanasian Creed had the authority of Christ, every one who believes in Christ ought to conclude that the doctrine of that Creed is true, and will be made clear to us in another state of being if not in this : just as we believe a human teacher when he assures us of the truth of something which we are as yet unable to understand. But when Christ's authority is Examples: claimed for a doctrine that contradicts the fundamental a axioms of righteousness, such as the possibility of Eternal ment : Eighteousness accepting the sufferings of the innocent as an expiation of the sins of the guilty ; or for a doctrine everlasting whereof the natural and legitimate effect is to make those torments - who believe it selfish and cruel, such as the doctrine of everlasting torments : the conclusion ought to be, not that holiness has changed its meaning or that a true faith has N 178 THE FUNCTION OF AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. [CHAP. become the minister of unholiness, but that either Christ is wrong, or, what is a much less violent supposition, that He has been misunderstood. But I maintain that Christ has in no case demanded our assent either to what is simply unintelligible, or to what is contrary to the fundamental principles of righteousness, or to what tends to injure the moral nature of those who believe Christ's de- it : Christ does no doubt make demands on our faith and mauds on obedience, but they are not of such a nature as to defeat the our i tii tli. purpose of faith and obedience. The demands He makes on our faith are of two kinds, which may be called the The doc- theoretical and the practical. By the theoretical demands thTln^ on our ^ a ^ ^ mean > a-hove all, the demand to believe the carnation, doctrine of the Incarnation, which the understanding of man cannot fully grasp, but can recognize as worthy to have Christ's come from God. And by the practical demand I mean the morality. ( j eman( j fl^ we should endeavour to conform to a moral ideal not only higher in degree but in some respects different in kind from any that would naturally commend itself to men. Imaginary Let us imagine the result of these demands on the faith individual n an i n( ji v i(j ua i case< Suppose a man who is morally irreproachable, pure, "just, generous, and humane :" richly endowed with all the culture that England or Germany has to give : but without faith : utterly devoid of a child- like spirit, and, so far as he believes in anything, believing only in culture. Love of culture and desire of varied knowledge attract him to the New Testament, and there he reads of an ethical theory unlike his own : a theory according to which culture is no guarantee for wisdom, and faith is the best foundation for virtue. He reads that those who are poor in culture may be rich in faith, and that a childlike spirit is that which God will most will- ingly receive. He has only half-believed in a God ; he reads the demand for entire faith in Christ. His thoughts have been all of earth, though the best of earth : he learns as he reads to see all things in the light of Heaven. His morality has been but a refined, self-respecting, Goethean kind of selfishness, though capable of self-sacrifice to THE FUNCTION OF AUTHOEITY IN RELIGION. 179 the demands of duty, or, what to him means almost the same, the claims of self-respect : he learns to see that self- renunciation is better than even the least debasing selfish- ness, and that it is better to live in order to please God than even for self-approval. He has been a Stoic, and has endeavoured to despise his enemies too heartily for any harsher feeling : he learns from Christ that it is better to love them. On all points he recognizes the superiority of Christ's ideal, and endeavours to conform his life and his thoughts to it. This is not attained without .effort and conflict. As each question arises between his old moral and religious opinions and those which he is learning from Christ, the old at first resist the new, and the victory is gained not by anything of the nature of argument or logical proof, but by the attractive force of Christ's character. He is not always able to see the truth of Christ's moral doctrines at once ; but he is so impressed with the excellence of the character of Christ as to yield to His guidance in the faith that what is not clear now will be clear hereafter. Were Christ to teach any doc- trine or any precept contrary to intuitive and elementary morality, it would be His duty to reject it. But this is never the case : when Christ's moral ideal appears most opposed to his, he does not cease to feel it possible that it will ultimately prove to be in harmony with his deepest intuitions, though transcending them. He has been ac- customed to laugh at Tertullian's paradox, " Believe that thou mayest understand:" but he now finds in his own experience that it contains a truth, and that faith may grow into knowledge. Now this is what Christ means by Faith. Not inferring holiness from power, for Christ always speaks of holiness as capable of being proved only by itself : not believing on the demand of authority in anything unmeaning or unholy, for Christ always speaks of His own teaching as reasonable : but feeling, recognizing, and yielding to the moral and spiritual superiority of Christ. But I fear this is not what the majority of Christ's followers mean by faith. The current reply to all objec- N 2 180 THE FUNCTION OF AUTHORITY IN RELIGION, [CHAP. tions brought against the rationality or morality of any alleged doctrine of religion is that it must be true because it is asserted by adequate authority : whether that of Prevalent the Church or that of the Bible. Were it not for the theclaims i m Prt ance of the subject, such a reply as this would be of autho- almost a justification to objectors for going no further, and concluding that there is nothing to be said in defence of Christianity. And those who are inclined to use such a way of, as they may think, silencing objections, ought to be reminded that Christ and His Apostles did not so speak, but defended their doctrines as being reasonable and worthy to be believed on their merits : and further, that the tendency of such a reply is to cut up Faith by the roots : for the only possible root of faith in a revela- tion consists in our instinctive trust in the truthfulness of God : but if we are asked to believe anything from which our moral nature revolts, and we are assured that it is vouched for by God as true, it is answer enough to say that if God is not holy as we understand holiness, we cannot be sure that He is truthful as we understand truth. But we do believe that God is true as we understand truth, and we have the same right to believe that He is holy as we understand holiness. 1 NOTE. THE AUTHOEITT OF THE CHURCH. The THE authority of the Church is the authority of common of ^T^ consent - The weight which is reasonably due to such authority Church is is of course different according to the kind of case to which that of it is applied. In some cases it is perfectly conclusive. To consent, mention what is perhaps the strongest case that could be mentioned : the founders of the modern Church of Scotland 1 Page 138, et seq. xi. J THE FUNCTION OF AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. 181 maintained that the Presbyterian form of Church govern- ment was not only the best for Scotland at that time, which may have been true ; but that it had been established by the Instances Apostles and was obligatory on every Christian Church. Now, ^* m even if the case which they attempted to make out of the Apo- Church stolic writings had been a plausible one, it would still be alto- g vern - gether incredible that the entire Christian Church, governing itself as we know it did with very little centralization, had in the age following that of the Apostles unanimously gone wrong by establishing episcopacy in defiance of their traditions. The same principle is applicable to the doctrines of the the Sacra- Quakers about the Sacraments. It is primd facie impossible meuts ; that the entire Christian Church from the earliest ages, ortho- dox and heretical, Eastern and Western, Catholic and Protest- ant, should have agreed in misunderstanding Christ's language on that subject until the truth was rediscovered in the seven- teenth century by George Fox and Eobert Barclay. This principle is also to some extent applicable to that subject the union of the union of the Church with the State which merits and n State! occupies so much thought in our time. The common consent of all Christendom is in favour of such union. This is not conclusive as to the duty, or practicability, of maintaining it under the circumstances of the present. But it is conclusive against the doctrine that the union of the Church with the State is wrong in itself. Wherever a nation has become Christian, the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the State has never been a question, but has been always effected almost unconsciously, and as a matter of course ; and it is not credible that all Christian nations should have unanimously gone wrong on the same subject and in the same direction. 1 Like all other true principles, this of universal consent is Errors are often misapplied. But the commonest way in which it is often made misapplied consists in error as to the fact in believing that f ac t O f universal consent exists where it does not. Thus, it is con- general stantly asserted that before the Reformation the common consent of Christendom was all in favour of the Papal system : instances : yet such is not the fact ; the Eastern Churches, which have the claims always rejected that system, are the half of Christendom, and a j sm little historical knowledge is sufficient to show that they have deviated from the primitive forms much less than the Papal 1 This however is inapplicable to the late Established Church of Ireland, which was unlike anything else in the world. 182 THE FUNCTION OF AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. [OH. xi. and of Church has done. And the belief is very general among the Calvin- English-speaking nations, that Calvinism is orthodox Chris- lsm * tianity : that is to say the system which is sanctioned by the general consent of the Christian Church : yet this is an error as to fact, due to limited historical knowledge. Where ^ * s altogether a different question how far the authority of such universal or general consent is conclusive. On that class of sub- ?s U con flty J ects wn i n belong to history and politics rather than to philo- clusive. sophy and theology, like those instanced of the institution of the Sacraments, the constitution of the Church, and the union of the Church with the State, such authority is all but conclusive. But Where it it is otherwise with those properly theological questions which leaV tkms are assoc ^ ate( i w ^ tn philosophy rather than with history. The open to re- almost universal consent of the Church to the Mcene exposition considera- O f Christian theology has no doubt immense weight, but it cannot be held to foreclose the right of each succeeding gene- ration to reconsider the problems of theology for itself. This must be maintained in the interest not only of freedom but of faith ; for if we do not consider such problems for ourselves, but accept the Kicene Creed or any other old solution of the prob- lems without examination or inquiry, we shall lose the power of attaching any meaning to either the problems or the solutions. Every generation must interpret Divine truth for itself in its own language : if this is not attempted, religious thought will become stagnant and dead. And it is never to be regarded as impossible that the generation which makes this attempt may see some aspect of Divine truth more clearly than it has been seen by former generations. It is one purpose of the present work to show how we have in some respects a clearer understanding of God's moral government of the universe than any former genera- tion has enjoyed. The belief that such an advance in know- ledge may be and has been attained, has nothing in common with a contemptuous rejection of the results of the past. [ 183 ] CHAPTER XII. JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. IN the foregoing chapters it has been stated as axiomatic, that no revelation ought to be accepted as true and Divine unless it is accordant with the self-evident prin- ciples of morality and holiness, and naturally tends to promote morality and holiness in those who accept it. In other words, a religion ought not to be believed unless it is right both in its Morality and its Ethics. By the Morality of a religion I mean its ground in uncreated and unchangeable holiness. By its Ethics, I mean its tendencies as affecting the formation of character. The doctrine of Justification by Faith belongs to the ethics of the Christian religion. If Justification by Faith is to receive a definition con- Justifica- sistent with true principles of ethics ; if it is one of the j^Sh^ most profound of truths and not one of the most absurd defined. and pernicious of falsehoods : it must mean the renovation of man's character as the natural consequence of a true and purifying faith, and God's acceptance of him on that ground. The question was at one time keenly discussed, whether works or faith is the ground of justification. From our point of view the question presents no difficulty. That which is all-important in itself, and in God's sight, is not actions but character : actions, in themselves and in God's sight, are important only either as manifesting character- character, or as forming it. This will scarcely be denied : ^jj c . ot ! but if it is admitted, the question arises, what is there in anity ? 184 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. [CHAP. the doctrine of Justification by Faith that is in any way characteristic of Christianity ? Is it not a commonplace of ethical science ? Christ I reply, that in this, as in the rest of His system, Christ's made new originality consisted rather in the use He made of old applica- tions of truths than in the discovery of new ones. In Morality, ma y be true > tnou g n * tnink it; an exaggerated state- than dis- ment, that Christ discovered no new principles and uttered new ones. no new precepts ; l but He certainly invented a new type of moral excellence. In Ethics it is the same. Man- kind can never have been altogether ignorant of the im- portance of belief and the power of personal influence Original- in the formation of character: but Christ was the first ideaof he who founded a vast system of ethics on these truths. No reigning one before Him could have uttered those wonderful words, power of " Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, truth. an( j f or this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth." Love of truth was a virtue not unknown to the ancient world, but the idea of reign- ing in men's hearts by the power of truth was thought of The by none before Christ. The ethical systems of the ancient ancient world were all based on a totally distinct principle from systems this, namely that of habit and education. Habits are were based b es t formed by education, and the legislators and mo- and educa- ralists of the ancient world not only practical legis- enformf ^ ators ^ ke Moses, but speculative moralists like Plato by coercive aimed at controlling education and practically continuing it through life: and for this purpose they thought it a matter of course to use coercive power. The wisdom of the ancient world on this subject was summed up in the Justifica- Aristotelian theory of virtue as a habit of the soul formed works 7 ky doing virtuous actions. This was a theory of Justi- fication by Works. 2 It was perfectly true and right so far as it went. Virtue is formed by constantly doing virtuous actions and thinking virtuous thoughts. A habit of virtue 1 Christ said, Love your enemies. I do not believe that any one had previously got beyond not hating them. 2 This is not the sense in which St. James uses the term. See Note at end of chapter. XIL] JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 185 is ample security for virtue : a habit of virtue is virtue. But habit alone originates nothing. Habit means only the tendency of impressions and actions to perpetuate and repeat themselves : the law of habit is like the first law of motion, which accounts for the continuance of a motion once set going, but not for the motive power that sets it going. Every legislator, moralist, and educator must necessarily take the law of habit for granted : Christ Christ's did so without wasting any words on it. That which was ^* original in His system was the discovery of a new motive moral , , ,, .. TT . motive power in morals : and the motive power was His own p OW er : character. 1 Belief in the truths He taught and faith in and the motive Himself, constituted His plan for influencing mankind. power w These agencies, it is obvious, are of such a nature that they can act only through man's consciousness-: and their action is quite different from that method which parents practise and the legislators before Christ desired to practise, of using coercive power in order to ensure the formation of habits of right action from the earliest age, so that their formation may begin before the dawn of con- sciousness and be in a great degree independent of it. It is not that this method is wrong. In a perfect education this method of the unconscious formation of habits would come first, and would be afterwards, not indeed superseded, but supplemented, by the other method of the influence of character. According to St. Paul, the Divine plan of the education of mankind has included these two elements : first, Law with its coercive power; afterwards those agencies springing from the character of Christ which are variously termed Faith, Grace, and the Gospel. The Law of Moses, he says, was a schoolmaster to bring to Christ. But though these two distinct influences are both Divine, and both form necessary parts of the education of mankind, yet for the influence of character to act in its highest purity and perfection it appears to be necessary that the person whose character is to be an influence should not at the same time act by means of coercive power. Christ acted on this principle. He believed truly as I 1 On this subject, see " Ecce Homo." 186 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. [CHAP. This ex- think that He might have wielded coercive power : that use of all the armies of Heaven were at His command : but He owerb renounc ed sucn powers, lest they should interfere with the Him. purity, and consequently the thoroughness, of His work in men's souls. Hisantici- ^ ^ s wor th noticing that Christ hereby anticipated pation of the only great ethical discovery of modern times, namely ethical the duty of toleration and the unwisdom and sinfulness of discovery, persecution. So unprepared was mankind to learn this truth, not only in the time of Christ but for more than a thousand years after, that Bossuet, in the seventeenth century, was able to say with little if any exaggeration, that the duty of persecuting heretics had never been questioned by any except those who were heretics them- selves. It is obvious that the abandonment of coercive power by Christ was not only a characteristic but a fundamental The Temp- part of His plan. It appears probable that the occasion Christ f on wn i c h -^ e Decided to abandon it was that crisis in His life which His biographers call His temptation by Satan. They have narrated the temptation probably in almost the words in which Christ narrated it to them, but evidently without understanding what they heard. It must have been totally unintelligible to that age : but we, with our many generations of Christian culture, may perhaps dimly understand it. It may be, according to the ingenious conjecture of the author of "Ecce Homo," that Christ had not been pre- viously aware of His miraculous powers. This however is and must remain uncertain : but the fact is historical, that immediately after His public recognition as the Messiah by John the Baptist, He retired for many days into the desert and there passed through a mysterious mental Subject conflict. He certainly had no doubts about His being of His the Messiah, the Saviour : the conflict that arose in conflict. His mind was, as we may conjecture, about the way in which He would carry His mission into effect. His purpose was the salvation of mankind : the establishment of a reign of truth, justice, and mercy, throughout the XII.] JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 187 world : and the means to this end which He commanded were nothing less than Omnipotence. Before Him not at the end of a long series of labours, but within His immediate grasp rose a vision of universal monarchy : of such power as Cyrus, Alexander, or Csesar never dreamed of, to be gained without shedding a drop of blood, and employed in realizing the Prophets' and the Psalmist's de- scriptions of the happiness of mankind under the reign of the Messiah, when war should cease, and all rulers should be just. It does not appear that power for its own sake had any attraction for Christ ; but to His infinite love for mankind and His infinite capacity for sympathy with those who suffered sorrow and wrong, the thought of the use He could make of such power must have been all but irre- sistibly attractive. Moreover, it was a course that pre- sented no difficulties whatever. He could not doubt His own perfect fitness for the possession of such power : He could not doubt that His wisdom equalled His bene- volence. All opposition would have vanished away at the impulse first display of a power that could call down fire from heaven, or move mountains into the sea : and He would power have earned the enthusiastic applause of the mass of man- hash a" ' kind, Gentiles as well as Jews, at Eome as at Jerusalem, kingdom Why should He have hesitated one moment ? Why should in right- not infinite power be used for purposes worthy of infinite eousness - wisdom and Divine love ? The best man is he who is readiest to use what powers he has for the benefit of mankind. No barrier stood between Christ and the immediate ful- filment of the Psalmist's prophecy : " He shall judge the poor of the people ; He shall save Quotation the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the ^ * ] oppressor. He shall come down like rain upon the mown Psalm. grass : as showers that water the earth. In His days shall the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. He shall deliver the needy when he crieth: the poor also, and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. Hfe shall redeem their souls from deceit and 188 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. [CHAP. violence, and precious shall their blood be in His sight. His name shall endure for ever ; His name shall be con- tinued as long as the sun : and men shall be blessed in Him : all generations shall call Him blessed." We can understand the tears of disappointed patriotism which Christ shed over that Jerusalem which would not be saved : and those who have ever felt the burden and the shame of sins the guilt of which they did not share, may dimly imagine the nature, though not the intensity, of that agony in Gethsemane when Christ appears to have been almost crushed to death by the thought of the sins of mankind. But the intensity and the nature of His mental struggle in the desert are alike beyond our imagination. On the one side was set before Him the realization, with- out pain or effort, of the brightest visions of Prophet or Psalmist: on the other, the prospect of being misunder- stood by those whom He loved, and rejected by those whom He came to save : a martyr's death for Himself and destruction for Jerusalem : failures and persecutions for His Church, and the world for an indefinitely long time practically unconverted to Christianity. He hesitated long; He passed through a conflict in comparison with which that of Gethsemane perhaps was but slight. But He decided at last, and during His subse- quent career never swerved from His decision, that the desire to take the easier course was a temptation of the evil principle : that the purity and thoroughness of His work in men's souls would be marred if He were to rule by any other power than that of His character, or to be a king except by bearing witness to the truth : and that He would not endeavour to justify His people in any other way than by Faith. Two uses -A-t the close of the first chapter of this work, we have of know- seen that knowledge has two distinct functions in relation to guide to human life : the one, to provide us with practical rules action and O f ac ti n ; the other, to influence character. Mathematical to mould \ > ' character, and physical science are of endless utility in furnishing rules of action : metaphysical doctrine tjannot furnish xii.] JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 189 rules of action, but may be of great value in that which is infinitely more important, namely the formation of character. Now, with which of these two is religious knowledge to be associated ? Does it act for men's good by supplying them with practical rules ? or do its truths act in the direct formation of character in those minds which receive them ? This question is nearly the same as the question whether justification is to be the effect of works or of faith. Justification by works means the formation of virtuous and holy character by the observance of the practical rules of virtue and holiness, until such observance becomes a habit of the soul. If this is to be the method of justification, then the doctrines of religion are practical rules of action like those which we learn from science for the business of life, and their action on character is but indirect. Justifi- cation by faith, on the contrary, means the formation of virtuous and holy character as the direct effect of religious faith and knowledge on the mind : and if this is to be the Religious method, then the doctrines of religion are not mere prac- actHifthe tical rules, but have a higher kind of importance for man latter way. than any merely practical rules can have : in this respect resembling metaphysical truth rather than physical. If we are right that religious truth does not essentially Conse- consist in rules of conduct, but is meant to act directly on JjJJJfjJjj, the soul by its force as truth, it follows that in theology there theology is no foundation for the distinction between " speculative " tinctSii or absolute truth, and " regulative " or practical truth. 1 between Eeligious truth must be recognized as speculatively, that tfveand is to say absolutely, true, before it can have any regulative re g l ^ ative or practical power. If justification were by works : in Dean * other words, if God, acting through Christ, were to aim Hansel's at influencing the conduct first, and the character only through the conduct : the ground of any religious doctrine or precept in absolute truth would have only a speculative or scientific interest. But justification is by faith : that 1 The doctrine here combatted, that religious truth as made known to us in revelation is not speculatively but only regulatively true, is that of Dean Hansel's Bampton Lectures on the Limits of Religious Thought. 190 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. [CHAP. is to say, God seeks to mould human character according to His will, directly by the influence of religious truth upon it, not indirectly through the actions : and for this purpose it is necessary that the truths to be believed should be recognized as simply and absolutely true. If we simply, sincerely, and with all our hearts believe that God loves the just, the merciful, and the pure, and that He is angry with the wicked, such a belief can scarcely fail to influence the character. But if when we thus believe in God's love and His anger we believe in them only as " regulative " truths : that is to say if we only believe that it will fare with the good and the bad as if God's love and anger were realities, but that we know not and have not any need to know what that is in the Divine character which produces such effects : then such merely regulative belief can legitimately have none but merely regulative results : it may serve perfectly well to guide conduct, but it can have no direct effect in moulding cha- racter. Or, to mention a much stronger instance : we are told by that Apostle who appears to have caught the most of Christ's spirit, that God is love. This truth has no merely regulative force whatever : in other words, it has no right to influence conduct except by influencing character : the Apostle who wrote those words would have been the last to encourage weak or vicious acquiescence in evil, in the hope that God's love would make all right at last. It has on the contrary the right and the power to influence character more profoundly than any other truth that can be known to us. But if it is to influence character, it must be believed simply and absolutely : it can have no effect at all, "regulative " or any other, if it is believed to be true indeed, but only in some sense which cannot be made intelligible to us. It is im- It is further to be remarked that the doctrine of Justifica- toTct on tion by Faith, in the sense of renovation of character as the on-eiTion conse( l uence OI> belief, altogether excludes the possibility of without making trial of the truth of religion, or provisionally acting piecing on ifc as if it; were true - -Pascal, Butler, and a crowd of men it. inferior to them, have used the argument, not in favour of the xii.] JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 191 truth of Christianity but in favour of the wisdom of acting on the hypothesis of its truth, that it is the safe side to take, and would be so even if the truth of Christianity, so far from being all but demonstrated, were a mere possibility : because, if Christianity is true, the importance of the future life is infinite, while in any case the importance of the present life is but finite : and it is wise to take precau- tions, though it may be at great expense and sacrifice, against even a possibility of infinite loss. This would be good advice were it not that it is impossible to follow it. It would be possible if Christianity consisted in external actions, and if justification were by works. But justifica- tion is by faith, and Christianity primarily consists in a belief which is to mould the character. We can act pro- visionally : we can act on the supposition that a hypothesis is true while yet the probabilities in its favour are uncertain : but we cannot so believe. We may insure our houses against possible fires, but we cannot pray to a possible God. " He that cometh to God must believe that He is." The re- cognition of a possibility which it would be imprudent to leave out of account, has ethically nothing whatever in common with the faith which is to mould the character , and purify the heart. In this chapter and in the preceding ones it has been argued that faith is reasonable for such a nature as that of man. Some more remarks remain to be made on the subject. " We walk by faith, not by sight." Faith is opposed to Faith is sight, in other words to merely sensible knowledge, as the gSbTe t higher is opposed to the lower. But this is true of Faith percep- in no other sense than that in which it is true of Science, so ^' ai By science we understand many things which are appa- Science, rently contradicted by sight, such as, to mention the most obvious instance, the motion of the earth. Both Science and Faith are opposed to merely sensible perception, as transcending it : but as Science transcends sensible percep- tion, so Faith transcends Science. Faith is thus not out of harmony with our lower mental nature, but is a legitimate 192 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. [CHAP. Eesem- blance between man's scientific and his moral education. and harmonious development of it. The analogy and close connexion between Science and Faith has been treated of already 1 in speaking of human powers : in this chapter we are speaking of that Divine Government under which human powers are .to be matured ; and it is to be remarked here that the scientific education and the moral education which man receives under the circumstances of the world in which he lives run parallel to each other, and are both of such a nature as to test and exercise what at least nearly approaches to faith. In morals the way of duty is in general and in the long run the way of happiness, but it could not be travelled if we were constantly to pursue obvious visible happiness. In the same way, science con- fers power over nature, but the highest science would have been for ever unattained if men had been constantly aiming at obvious utilities : the first great step in the advance of science was taken by the ancient Greeks in founding the science of Mathematics, at a time when the future utility of mathematics could not possibly have been foreseen. 2 The Power that rules the world leads us through unknown paths, and does not permit us to see our way clearly until after it has been travelled. Our intellectual as well as our moral life is one of probation arid trial. NOTE. MEANING OP THE WORD JUSTIFICATION IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. Harmony BETWEEN the teaching of St. Paul and that of St. James on between the subject of Justification, there is no real difference. St. and St* P au l would have heartily agreed, not as a concession to an James. opponent but as expressing his own doctrine, that " as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead 1 See the chapters on the Bases of Knowledge and the Meaning of Faith (Chapters 5 and 6). 2 See "Habit and Intelligence," Chapter 44. XII.] JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 193 also ;" not meaning that faith is the body of which good works are Meaning the animating principle, for this would be almost an inversion of an . e x- of the true metaphor : but that a faith which is inactive and gt. James. does not manifest itself in works is like a body without any animating principle a lifeless carcase. There is however a verbal contradiction where St. Paul says Verbal that " a man is justified by faith without the works of the law : " *^ and St. James says that "by works a man is justified and not between by faith only." But the contradiction is verbal only, for the the two - term Justification is used by the two Apostles in slightly differ- Meaning ent senses. With St. Paul it means the process whereby a man ? e is made righteous who was not so before : with St. James it means tification the process whereby a man is proved and declared righteous who is J St - so already. In fewer words : with St. Paul to justlf}^ means to gt. James. make righteous : with St. James it means to prove righteous. The Summary doctrine of both may be condensed into the following statement : f the . , J . ,, /. / M 7 7 doctrine We are to be made righteous as the consequence of faith, and O f k th. proved righteous by the evidence of works. It may be however that the mention of the case of Abraham Possible by St. James is intended to express the truth that works not of*^^ 011 only prove righteousness but confirm and strengthen it. His meaning of words on the subject are (1 quote from the notes to Alford's Greek l " James - Testament) : " Thou seest that faith wrought with his works, and by works faith was made complete 1 ' (eVfXetw'O*?). The obvious meaning of this is that faith is strengthened and per- fected by the doing of righteous actions : there is no doubt that this is true, and the only reason, though a weighty one, against supposing it to be the intended meaning of the passage is that there is nothing in the context to suggest it. If such is the meaning of this oft-quoted passage of St. James, it is the same which is expressed with greater profundity and subtlety by St. Paul : "We glory in tribulations also ; knowing that tribu- lation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope : and hope maketh not ashamed ; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us." (Romans v. 3 5.) I need not spend any time in refuting the wretched fiction of The doc- an " imputed righteousness " by which God is by some supposed * rine ^ to account men as righteous who are not so. This is too irrational, righteoua and we may add too immoral, to be believed on any evidence n . ess i rra - whatever : and it is not the doctrine of the Xew Testament : on lona ' a 194 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. [CHAP. xn. contrary the contrary, the consistent teaching of the New Testament is Nevv Tes ^ at " wnatsoever a man soweta tne same sna ll ne reap," and that tament. "all men shall be judged according to their works." It is im- possible that a God of truth and holiness can account any one as righteous except by making him righteous. [ 195 ] CHAPTER XIII. THE PROOF OP DEITY FROM POWER. THE foregoing chapters have been chiefly occupied with considering the subject of man's capacities for religious knowledge. We have now to look beyond ourselves, and search for indications of Divine Cause, Order, and Purpose in the world around us : not forgetting however that we ourselves are part of that world in which we live. What strikes the understanding most in looking on the Apparent visible universe is its vast variety : the unlikeness to each JJ"^i. m other of the several things of which it is composed. And verse, the first result of scientific examination is to show that affirmed this diversity is not merely superficial ; that the diversity y st is not merely in the visible objects of nature, but in the agencies by which those objects are formed and acted on. Thus, chemical research, so far from diminishing, has greatly multiplied the number of known elementary sub- stances : and biological science has failed, and must ever fail, to explain the vital forces as resultants from the phy- sical and chemical ones. But the intellect cannot rest in this result as final. Instinct of There is a rational instinct which, wherever there is plurality or diversity, makes us believe that there must be unity behind it. The philosophies of pre-Socratic Pre- Greece were for the most part notably those of Thales and Heraclitus naive and almost childlike attempts, made sophy. in a half-poetic spirit, to seize on and express the unity of things by a single effort of the understanding and the o 2 196 THE PEOOF OF DEITY FROM POWER. [CHAP. imagination. They failed, but bequeathed to the world the impulse they gave to thought : and however much our Discovery methods may differ from theirs, yet their aim the dis- thVaimof coverv f unity behind the plurality and diversity of science, things, and of real order under their apparent disorder is and must ever be the chief aim of all science. The greatest achievements of science have been in these direc- tions : proving unity between what appeared diverse, as between terrestrial gravitation and celestial attraction, or between motion and heat : and reducing to order the apparent chaos of geological phenomena. But if it were possible to carry this process as far as we can conceive : if it were possible, as perhaps it may be hereafter, to reduce all the chemical elements to one : l and if it were possible, as it never will be, to explain life as a resultant from the physical and chemical properties of Physical matter : it would still be demonstrably impossible that ca-Q never an 7 mere ty physical science should ever penetrate to the penetrate unity which is behind all diversity. For that unity can- ultimate n t itself be merely physical: out of a merely physical unity. unity, diversity could never evolve itself. If, as I believe, the theory of evolution is true : that is to say, if it is true that whatever exists has been formed out of pre-existing materials by a natural process which tends to differentia- tion or the production of diversities : it still remains true that the first differentiation, or impulse to change, must have come from without, and not from the spontaneous Proof of action of matter on itself. It may be true, and I believe The nebu- ^ ^ s ^ me > ^ a ^ ^ e en ^i re universe of matter, in so far as its lar theory, phenomena are not due to the laws of life, has assumed its present form as the result of the condensation of a nebula. Countless differentiations have arisen during the condensa- tion : star differs from star, the planets differ from the sun and from each other, land differs from sea, climate differs from climate, and one rock-formation differs from another. The nebula, at the moment when its condensation com- menced, must have been almost infinitely less complex 1 Physical and chemical science, however, appear at present to bo opposed to any such expectation. See Note A at end of chapter. xiii.] THE PROOF OF DEITY FROM POWER. 197 than is now the universe which has been evolved out of it. But it cannot have been absolutely without differentia- tions : it cannot have been absolutely simple. It must have deviated either from the simplest form, namely the spherical, or from perfect uniformity of substance, or both : for had it been perfectly spherical in form and homo- geneous in substance and density, no rotation would ever have begun, 1 and the nebula would have condensed not into a multitude of stars and planets but into a single mass. Moreover, in any such nebula there is at least an original differentiation implied between the nebula itself and the vacant external space. Were all space filled with matter of whatever degree of density or rarity, all forces, gravitative or any other, with which the matter was en- dowed, would act in all directions alike, and would con- sequently produce no result. It is not needful to express Proof in this truth in the language of the nebular theory, which is theticaP " still perhaps in some degree hypothetical. It is true inde- language, pendently of any hypothesis, that no motion whatever can arise from the mutual action of the parts of an infinite mass of homogeneous matter : and that no rotatory motion, either of the whole or of any part, can arise from the mutual action of the parts of a finite mass of homogeneous matter if spherical in form. We thus see that the unity which we seek behind the diversities of the visible world cannot be physical, because out of merely physical unity the diversity of things could not have been evolved. There must have been a primary differentiation, not involved in the laws of matter as such. 1 "It follows from the law of the conservation of rotation, that if the nebula has no initial rotation, no mutual actions of its parts can cause the nebula, or the sum-total of the bodies formed out of it, to rotate. But the nebu- lous mass out of which the solar system has condensed was in all probability only an infinitesimally small part of the original nebula. The first con- densation of a nebulous mass produces not globular but very irregular forms : we see these in those parts of the original nebula that still remain as nebulse. The motions due to the mutual attractions of irregular forms will be very complex ; we may safely assert that most of them if not all will be partly rotatory, and the law of the conservation of rotation will be satisfied by the rotations in opposite directions compensating each other, so that their algebraic sum will be nothing." (Habit and In- telligence, vol. i. pp. 65, 66.) 198 THE PROOF OF DEITY FROM POWER. [CHAP. Simple naked materialistic atheism that is to say the system which would resolve all into the laws of mere matter is thus shown to be scientifically false : and this from data afforded by the sciences of matter alone, without referring to those of life and mind. The ultimate unity must be spiritual, in the sense at least of not being material. It will be perceived that the foregoing argument has been stated in a physical and almost mathematical form. It may however be more satisfactory to state what is fundamentally the same argument in a more metaphysical Proof in and more general form. " The laws of nature," to use general Mill's words, " cannot account for their own origin : " l form. and the laws of nature are many : they can never be accounted for as various results of a single law. It is not a possibility which human science can never hope to prove true : it is a demonstrable impossibility, that all the com- plex laws and varied phenomena of the world of matter, not to speak of the infinitely more varied and complex phenomena of life and mind, should be results of a single law. If this statement is contested as to purely material laws, though it cannot be reasonably contested even of them, it is at least incontestable as regards the relation between physical and mental laws. It cannot be main- tained with the slightest semblance of an approach to truth, that the law in virtue of which all matter gravitates, and the law in virtue of which nervous tissue alone of all matter feels and thinks, are cases of the same law. 2 The unity which we seek in the laws of nature is no merely physical law like gravitation : it is not in, but behind, the laws of nature. 1 Mill's review on Comte (Westminster Review ', April 1865). 2 There is a possible misconception which ought to be guarded against here. It may be said in reply to the alleged impossibility of reducing physical and mental facts under the same law, that science has shown heat, which is a sensation, to be identical with motion, which is a physical fact. The reply to this is that heat, in the sense in which it is identified with motion, is a purely physical function of matter, having among other properties the power of producing the sensation called heat. But the sensation of heat is no more identical with the molecular motion called heat, than the sensation of sweetness is identical with sugar. See pp. XIII.] THE PROOF OF DEITY FROM POWER. 199 The truth that wherever there is plurality or diversity The belief there must be unity hidden in or behind it, appears to be meS*" a truth of the reason, not a mere generalization from unit J is . experience. The belief in this truth no doubt receives confirmation from experience, but its strength and depth are much greater than experience can account for. There is not the unvarying experience in its favour which there is for the law of gravitation ; and yet no one who has attained to scientific intelligence can doubt that the law of gravitation may possibly be true for one part of the universe only, but that the law of unity behind diversity is true of all Being whatever. The same may be said of the axiom of Causation : Univer- that is to say the axiom that whatever has a beginning climtion has a cause, or, what is nearly identical with this, the axiom that wherever there is action there must be an agent. The identity of meaning between these two axioms will become more obvious when they are stated thus: Wherever there is action there is agency : wherever there is origin there is causation. The d priori nature of this truth and its independence of experience, has been argued in the beginning of the chapter on the Freedom of the Will. 1 The axiom of Causation stands in the closest connexion The axiom with the axiom of Unity. They are not identical in the tfoi^isT mere statement : but the intellectual instinct which seeks case of for unity wherever it sees diversity, is obviously identical Unity, with that which seeks for a cause wherever it sees an effect. The axiom of Causation, indeed, appears to be that case of the axiom of Unity which applies to successive events : in other words, the relation of Unity as between successive events is called Causation. 2 The axiom of Causation, no less than the general axiom The ulti- of Unity, leads directly and almost immediately to a ques- ^^ tion which cannot be answered from any data afforded by Hke the merely physical science. Physical science reveals causes, uStyf* transcends 1 Chapter 4. Nature. 2 This appears to be nearly identical with Sir William Hamilton's view. See Note B at end of chapter. 200 THE PliOOF OF DEITY FROM POWEE. [CHAP. but all the causes which it reveals are also effects : that is to say, it shows how one action is determined by another action which precedes it : but this latter has been deter- mined again by another preceding one : physical science cannot ascend to any absolutely originating cause : yet it proves that there must be such a cause ; for, as we have seen in a previous chapter, science makes it certain that the universe has had a beginning in time. 1 Thus, while the axiom of Unity proves that the universe has a principle of unity transcending physical law, the axiom of Causation proves that it has a Cause transcending physical? causation. These two These two conclusions are not identical, though in the statement they may appear so. The truth that the uni- are not iden- verse must have had a beginning in time is a truth of purely physical science, deduced from the laws of thermo- dynamics, and not known until the present age. The truth that there is a principle of unity behind all visible diversity and all natural law, on the contrary, is as much a metaphysical as a physical truth ; it is quite independent of any demonstration of physical science, arid would not have been disproved or shaken if the succession of causes and effects in the universe had been proved to be without sign of beginning or end. The ancient Stoics believed in an infinite chain of causes and effects, without beginning and without end : at the same time, they believed in an invisible Unity transcending all visible diversity ; and so far as it is possible for man to see, there is no inconsistency whatever between the two beliefs. 2 The argu- It is not meant that the argument from Causation de- Causation pends for its existence on the discovery as a truth of Tobable 78 Phy sica l science that the universe must have had a begin- and is now ning in time. The hypothesis that scientifi- cally cer- " Nature is but the name for an effect tain. Whose cause is God " was always a probable one : but it had, at least on its own ground, no scientific certainty until the discovery mentioned 1 See p. 49. See also the chapter in " Habit and Intelligence " on the motive powers of the Universe (Chapter 6). * On this subject see the poem on Eternity, p. 90. Xiil.] THE PKOOF OF DEITY FKOM POWER. 201 above had been made. The argument from the axiom of Unity, on the contrary, was always sound : it was always scientifically certain that the universe had a principle of unity transcending natural law : but it is only this recent discovery which has proved with the same degree of scientific certainty that the principle of unity is an abso- lutely originating Cause. Nor is it meant that the truths of Natural Theology have been now for the first time placed on a satisfactory foundation. They depend on several distinct but con- verging lines of proof : and the effect of the discovery just mentioned is only to strengthen one of these. But what is the nature of that universal and self-existent What is Principle of Unity which thus transcends all natural law ? O f t ^ e what is the nature of that universal originating Cause Absolute which is not itself an effect, thus transcending all physical causation ? If no more is to be said on the subject, we must conclude that this Principle, this Cause, is " unknown and unknowable ; " and if we call the unknown and un- knowable by the name of God, the use of that Name will not give us any more light, and the meaning of the words will be in no way altered. But more is to be said on the subject. At the close of It can be the chapter on the Metaphysical Interpretation of Nature, 1 of^nTy as we have seen that " the only form in which it is possible a Will for us to conceive of a truly originating and determining Stefli- force [or Cause] is that of a Will: and the only Will of &* f : . L J J and if m- which we are able to conceive is one which, like our own, telligent, is guided by Intelligence towards a Purpose." 2 " And if then holy< an Intelligent Will, then also a Holy Will : for, if we ascribe intelligence to a Self- existent Being at all, we can- not believe the Intelligence to be less than infinite : and infinite Intelligence, or in other words infinite Knowledge, must include perfect knowledge of good and evil, and therefore perfect Holiness." 3 Between this conception and that of an unknown and unknowable Principle of Unity, or First Cause, or Ground of Being, there is all the 1 Chapter 2. 2 Page 50. 3 Page 51. 202 THE PROOF OF DEITY FROM POWER. [CHAP. difference between moral Theism and unmoral Pantheism. Theism In the chapters on Faith I have spoken of the power theisniT w hi n tn ^ belief in a holy God may have, and ought to their have, in moulding the character. But the recognition of character, a mere First Cause, of which nothing is asserted except that it is self-existent and infinite, is very different from this. Such recognition does no doubt tend to produce that feeling of mystery and awe with which we approach the unknown and the infinite : and this feeling is an im- portant element in character : it is the source of our sense of the sublime, and of all the deepest feelings with which we look on the external world. But, in the peculiar and highest sense of the word, it has scarcely any moral signi- ficance : that is to say, it does not connect itself with the conscience. The belief in a God who is a Holy Will, on the contrary, not only excites all those feelings of awe, of mystery, and of sublimity which attach themselves to an Infinite First Cause ; but it also connects those feelings with the moral elements of our nature. In a word, Pantheism for so we may without injustice call the belief in an unknown first cause or ground of Being, of which nothing is asserted except that it transcends nature Pantheism Pantheism, I say, ministers only to the feeling of reve- reverence rence : but Theism, or the belief in a God of Will, Intel- only : ligence, and Holiness, ministers not only to the feeling of Theism reverence, but also directly to the moral nature. We have Sso^Q 618 seen that faith in a superior Being, and above all faith in the moral Q 0( j j s the most powerful means of moral growth : but an sense. L . unknown cause and ground ot Being, concerning which we do not know whether it has any moral nature or not, cannot be an object of that Faith which is able to mould the moral nature anew. Summary. Thus we see that the only conception which we are able to form of the Self-Existent Cause and Ground of all Being is that it is an Intelligent and Holy Will : and moreover that the belief in this is in the highest degree favourable to our moral nature. Theism As the words are here defined, Theism does not con- without tradict anything in Pantheism, but only adds to it. XIII.] THE PROOF OF DEITY FROM POWER. 203 They both agree that the cause and ground of all Being contra- is self-existent, transcending merely physical law, andp^^g! inscrutable as to its essence by any faculties of ours : ism< Pantheism says no more : but Theism goes on to main- tain that this Self-Existent Being acts by Will, and that this Will is guided by Intelligence and Holiness. It is to be here observed that Theism is not an alter- If the native or a rival to some other hypothesis : it is the only Theism ts possible answer, or attempt at an answer, to the questions n t ac- which we cannot but ask concerning the nature of the these* 1 ' Self-Existent. Either Theism is the answer to those ques- f tne w i n o to air > f the ear to sound, and of the eye to light ? These are mentioned only as con- spicuous instances of that wondrous system of adaptation of means to ends which runs through all organic nature : adaptation of all the parts of each organism to each other, and of the entire organism to the conditions of its life and to the medium in which it lives. Do not such adaptations as these prove a Divine Intelligence ? This was the strong point of Paley and his school. I regard The arg\i- the argument as still fundamentally sound, though it design is needs much modification in the statement since the es- tablishment of the theory of evolution : that is to say, modifica- the doctrine that all living forms have been derived, by suit the d escent with gradual modification, from one or a few evolution simple original germs. The soundness of the " argument from design " has pro- bably been obscured to the minds of at least the English- Xiv.] INTELLIGENCE AND DESIGN. speaking portion of mankind by the use of the misleading expression final cause in the sense of Creative Purpose. This expression is doubly inaccurate : creative purposes, as Inaccuracy manifested in organic adaptations, are not causes in the sense to which the word cause is now restricted, but belong to another class of relations, not setting aside the ordinary law of physical causation but working through it : and they are not final, for they are not ultimate ends but only ends which are also means. 1 As Kant has acutely remarked, in an organism all the parts are mutually means and ends : that is to say, all the parts minister each to all the rest. Thus, in the case of one of the higher animals, the organs of sense enable it to perceive its food and its enemies: the limbs, the jaws, and the muscular system enable it to secure its food and to avoid its enemies, and the brain guides the muscles in doing so : the digestive system enables its food to nourish it, the circulatory system distributes the nourishment through the entire body, and the nervous system enables every part of the organism to act in harmony with every other part. The entire organism ministers to the life of every organ, and every organ ministers to the life of the entire organism. But if we ask what absolute end is attained by this wondrous play of means and relative ends, physical science gives no answer. Purely physical science reveals in nature neither an absolute Cause nor an absolute Purpose. The question whether there are in nature any adap- Is there tations of means to purpose which cannot be ac- counted for as cases of ordinary physical causation, in adaptation n , . , . . beyond the present state oi biological science, 2 is identical the law of with the question whether Darwin's explanation of the causatlou ? origin of species is sufficient to account for the facts i See "Habit and Intelligence," Chapter 10, especially pp. 121, 122. The expression final cause is no doubt Aristotle's, but in the present state of science it would tend to accuracy to discontinue it, and use the word cause in the sense only of what is called by Aristotle efficient cause, and in modern language generally physical cause, or cause simply. Aristotle also speaks of formal and material causes, but these expressions totally dropped out of use. - Biology, the science of life, from jStVs, life* 214 THE PKOOF OF DEITY FROM [CHAP. of organization. " It would be impossible for any man of the slightest intelligence simply to deny the existence of the most wonderful special adaptations in the organic creation. But though not a plausible doctrine it is an arguable one, and has been argued with great know- ledge and great ability by Darwin in his Origin of Species and by Spencer in his Principles of Biology, that the laws of cause and effect are adequate to account for all these : that the adaptation of the eye to light, for instance, has been produced by the direct and indirect action of light on countless generations of This is living beings." 1 This question is one on which meta- foiMif 11011 ph. vs i cs can throw no light : it must be decided by the ductive logic of inductive science. It is however much too large a question to be considered here, even in the briefest Tin-pose summary of the arguments. I will only mention the evident ver y remarkable truth, that as we ascend from inorganic wlicre nature to organic, from vegetable life to animal, and from least so. the lower to the higher grades of animals, the relation of cause and effect becomes less traceable, while that of means and purpose becomes more so. Nowhere in the entire creation is purpose so evident as in the organs of special sense, the eye and the ear of the higher animals : and no- where is it so difficult (I would say utterly impossible) to assign any physical cause for the facts, as when we inquire by what agency those wonderful organs have been formed. This truth affords at least a presumption, though it is not by itself a proof, that the relation of means and purpose is not capable of being resolved into that of cause and effect. I have considered this entire question at length in my work on Habit and Intelligence, and have there stated reasons which appear to amount as nearly to demonstration as the subject admits of, that neither " natural selection " nor any other physical cause or com- bination of physical causes can account for the facts of organic adaptation; and that they must be due to a guiding Intelligence. 2 1 " Habit and Intelligence," vol. i. p. 120. 2 On this subject see also "The Genesis of Species," by St. George XIV.] INTELLIGENCE AND DESIGN. 215 1 But what is this guiding, organizing Intelligence ? Is it prgau- Divine? There are very serious difficulties in the way thinking that it is. In the second volume of Habit and is not Intelligence I have argued that the intelligence which ^ 1 e ' becomes conscious in the brain of man and the higher funda- animals is fundamentally identical with the unconscious identical intelligence which guides the formation of the organism. Wlth Instinct constitutes a link of transition between the two : and in- not such instinct as that of the dog or the elephant, j which does not appear to differ from man's reasoning power gence in any important particular : but such as the cell-building instinct of the bee, which cannot be attributed to knowledge of the geometry 'of the hexagon. " This view has the great advantage of including instinctive intelli- gence as a case of the same general principle with all other intelligence. It leaves instinct mysterious indeed, but not more mysterious than all life, and not anomalous, as it was under the old view : }>1 which, making the intelligence that organizes the body to be Divine, and the intelligence of the mind to be human and altogether distinct, left no room for the middle region of instinct : and hence the marvel- lous character with which instinct is generally invested. This view of the nature of the organizing intelligence will be new to most English readers, but I believe it is familiar among the Germans. The following remarks will serve to show that it is consistent with itself : "Energy, like matter, has been created. Energy (or force) is an effect of Divine power : but there is not a fresh exercise of Divine power whenever a stone falls or a fire burns. So with intelligence. All intelligence is a result of Divine wisdom, but there is not a fresh determination of Divine thought needed for every new adaptation in organic structure, or for every new thought in the brain of man." " The Creator has not separately organized every structure, but has endowed vitalized matter with [un- Mivart, a work published since ''Habit and Intelligence," and taking much the same view of this question. Mr. Mivart has the advantage, which I have not, of being a most accomplished practical naturalist. i "Habit and Intelligence," vol. ii. p. 6. Seethe whole of Chapter 27, from which the passage quoted above is taken. 216 THE PKOOF OF DEITY FROM [CHAP. conscious] intelligence, under the guidance of which' it organizes itself." 1 Reasons in Tne v ^ ew nere stated has " the advantage of removing favour of certain very serious difficulties connected with the Divine Purpose of Creation. I refer especially to the existence of such animals as parasitic worms, which are as well adapted as any others to their mode of life, but have probably no sensation and certainly no consciousness, and inflict pain, disease, and death on animals that possess both sensation and consciousness. On the theory of the independent creation of every separate species, these can only be regarded as instruments of torture devised by Creative Wisdom. But if we believe that they are descended from species which were not parasitic, and have become self- adapted to their new habitats, their existence ceases to be anything more than a particular case of the question why pain and disease are permitted at all. The same remark applies to what have been called unnatural, but \vould better be called immoral instincts : such as the working bees slaughtering the drones after they have fertilized the queen ; the female spider endeavouring to devour the male as soon as she is fertilized ; and the young cuckoo throwing the original tenants out of the nest to perish. It is surely easier to believe these instincts to be very peculiar and abnormal results of vital intelligence, than to believe each of them to be a special Providential endowment." 2 The ar- At the present stage of the inquiry, the so-called argu- from^De- inent from Design must change its name, and be called sign ought the argument from Intelligence. It has been admitted tobecalled ,, , . -. , , , . the argu- that physical science reveals no absolute purpose in crea- en * ,! Tom tion. But it does reveal the presence of Intelligence : gence. unconscious organizing intelligence, conscious mental in- telligence, and instinctive, or unconscious motor, intelli- gence intermediate between the two : and I believe it shows conclusively that intelligence, in all these its manifesta- tions, is an ultimate primary fact, not to be explained as a 1 "Habit and Intelligence," vol. ii. p. 8, * Ibid. pp. 6, 7. xiv.] INTELLIGENCE AND DESIGN. 217 resultant from any unintelligent forces. 1 The argument from Intelligence is simply this : As we reason from the Statement forces of the universe to a powerful Creator (this is no more than a statement in other words of the argument from Causation), so ive may reason from the intelligence manifested in the universe to an intelligent Creator. 2 In other words : As the finite forces of the universe, and the Suggestion causes which are effects of other causes, suggest an infinite absolute self-existent Cause : so the purposes in the organic crea- purpose in , . creation. tion which are only means to other purposes, suggest an absolute Divine Purpose. We may well believe that the Creative Intelligence which can give to living matter the power to organize itself, to develop instincts where they are needed, and finally to develop self-conscious thought in the brain of man, must be of an infinitely higher nature than the Creative Intel- ligence which was formerly supposed to have in six days constructed the universe and all the living beings con- tained in it, "as a man might construct a machine. 1 See "Habit and Intelligence." In the first volume the point is argued with respect to organizing intelligence as against Darwin and Spencer : in the second, it is argued with respect to mental intelligence as against those psychological writers, of whom Mill and Bain are the chief, who endeavour to reduce the thinking power to a mere resultant from the laws of the association of ideas. 2 It is sometimes said that the Hebrews had no metaphysical ideas, but this argument is used by the Psalmist. "He that planteth the ear, shall He not hear? He that formed the eye, shall He not see ? " (Psalm xciv. 9.) The purpose of the Psalmist however is not metaphysical but moral : it is to remind evil-doers that their doings are not hidden from God. [ 218 ] CHAPTER XY. THE PROOF OF DEITY FROM CONSCIENCE. the previous two chapters it has been argued that the power manifested in the universe tends to show the existence of a God of Power and Will : and that the intelligence manifested in organic adaptations and in the mind of man tends to show the existence of a God of The proofs Wisdom. It is remarkable that these two proofs are f/om co-extensive neither with infinity nor with" each other. Power and Divine Power is not shown, at least not to our under- telligence standings, in vacant space : it is shown only in actually are co- existing things, and these fill an almost infinitesimally small neither portion of the celestial spaces. And Divine Intelligence, or Wisdom, is shown with perfect clearness only in the organic with each or vital part of the creation, which bears to the entire quantity of matter a proportion perhaps even smaller than The that of matter to vacant space. It is nevertheless regarded Infiiiityis as ax i ma tic that if any Divine attribute is proved to an a priori exist at all, it is proved to be infinite. This is purely an d priori truth, and could not conceivably be made known by observation or proved by inductive reasoning. The forces of the universe show vast power in the Author of the universe, but they do not prove that Power to be infinite : the intelligence manifested in the phenomena of life and mind show vast intelligence in the Author of life, but they do not show that Intelligence to be infinite. Mere observation can only prove that the Power and the Intelligence so manifested are too vast to be measured by us : their absolute infinity is a deduction from the axiom CH. XV.] THE PROOF OF DEITY FROM CONSCIENCE. 219 that the Self-Existent can have no limits a truth which neither needs proof nor admits of it. We now go on to consider a third proof, or at least Proof of suggestion, of the Being and Nature of God, which is c^. from of more practical if not more theoretical value than all science, others, and yet is made known within a more limited sphere than either of those we have been considering. I mean the proof from Conscience. The proof from Power is made manifest wherever there is Being ; the proof from Intelligence, wherever there is either organic or mental life : but the proof from Conscience is manifested only in the mind and the life of Man. It is needless to repeat here the arguments of the chapter on the Meaning of the Moral Sense. 1 We need only remark that Conscience, or the Moral Sense, alone in the universe as known to us, " has an authority which does not consist in power." Conscience is identified with what is deepest in our nature, and yet it speaks to us with a voice which we recognize as not our own. What and whose voice is it ? If the forces of the world around us are inferred to be the manifestation of the Creator's Will, is not ' the inference equally sound that the voice of Conscience within us is the expression of the Creator's Authority? and that the terrors of conscience are a well-founded and reasonable fear, not of the natural consequences only of sin, but of a supernatural and Divine vengeance ? This argument cannot be put into a demonstrative form. It is not It will weigh with some minds and not with others. But st e r ^ye it is necessary fairly to state what may be urged against it. We have already seen that the Moral Sense, in enjoining the observance of the Moral Law, bears witness to the truth that Moral Law transcends all, even Divine, will. The Moral Sense testifies that it is not possible even Argument for God to repeal or reverse the moral law by mere tha^mora'l decree. 2 If then the authority of the moral law does la ^ is not not consist or originate in Will, why should we suppose fiTwil] 6 the voice of Conscience to be the voice of a Will or but tra ?" personal Authority ? Why should we suppose Con- 1 Chapter 3. 2 Pp. 138, 139. 220 THE PROOF OF DEITY FROM CONSCIENCE. [CHAP, science to be anything more than the voice of impersonal reason when it speaks on the subject of Duty ? I reply that the argument from Conscience, taken alone, is confessedly not a demonstration but only a sug- gestion. Such arguments can only be stated and left Reply, to enforce themselves. But there is this important and that con- obvious unlikeness between the impersonal reason which science x speaks declares logical, mathematical, and metaphysical truth, command an( ^ ^ e consc ience which enforces duty; namely, that conscience, unlike impersonal abstract reason, speaks with a command. Eeason speaks in the indicative mood, Con- science in the imperative : the intuitions of the Eeason do not come into consciousness as if made known by a voice, but rather as knowledge comes through the eye, and do not suggest Personality in their origin. A voice of com- mand, on the contrary, at least suggests Personality in its origin. 1 Moral But whatever this argument may be good for, it remains longs to equally true that moral law belongs to the spiritual uni- our nature verse, and has become identified with our mental nature because we are because we are part of the spiritual universe : just as spiritual* 16 s P ace anc ^ ^ me are ^ ac ^ s f the physical universe, and universe, are forms of our thought because we are part of the physical universe. 2 The extent to which the being of a God is proved or confirmed by the facts of the physical and moral universe is to form part of the subject of the following chapters. The argu- Whatever may be the logical value of the proof of a conscience ^od ^ rom conscience, it is certainly the proof which has most* 16 lm( * ^ 6 8 reatest en ect on mankind. " The heavens declare effect on the glory of God," but they declare it only to those who believe in God already. To the Israelite of old it appeared Israelite self-evidently and irresistibly true, that all force is the belief in expression of Self-existent Will : that Self-existent Will must be also infinite Intelligence, and that infinite Intel- ligence must be also perfect Holiness. To those who can so believe, everything echoes this truth, everything shines with God's glory : it streams most abundantly from the 1 See Note at end of chapter. 2 Tage 68. XV.] THE PROOF OF DEITY FROM CONSCIENCE. 221 heavens only because the heavens are far off and yet surround us ; it shines most brightly in the sun only because the sun is the brightest of all things. 1 But to us moderns these indications of Deity appear rather as suggestions of what may possibly prove true, than as self-proving truths. They are not sufficient by them- selves : the proof of God and of a spiritual world which is to satisfy us must consist in a number of different but converging lines of proof. It is probable, however, that the difference in this respect between the ancient Israelites and ourselves is more in expression than in thought. It is most probable that, to all men alike, the revelation whereby alone they have really come to know anything of God is not made in nature but in conscience; and that with the Israelite of old as with us, the Divine light which streamed on his soul from the heavens was really the reflected light of con- science, though he might mistake its origin. In this chapter and the two preceding ones, we have successively considered the three primary reasons which we have, independently of Eevelation, for believing in God : namely, the arguments from the power displayed in nature, from the intelligence manifested in nature and in the mind of man, and from conscience. (It is only in a 1 To our minds it is chiefly the starry heavens that are recalled by the familiar yet sublime saying that "the heavens declare the glory of God." But in the 19th Psalm the glory of God is associated chiefly with the sun. I subjoin the first six verses of the Psalm in Perowne's translation. " The heavens are telling the glory of God : And the work of His hands doth the firmament declare. Day unto day poureth forth speech, And night unto night revealeth knowledge. There is no speech and no words, Their voice is not heard : Through the whole earth hath their line gone forth, And their words unto the end of the world. For the sun hath He set a tabernacle in them : And He is like a bridegroom that goeth forth out of his chamber : Pie rejoiceth as a mighty man to run his course. From one end of the heaven is his going forth, And his circuit as far as the other ends thereof, Neither is there anything hid from his heat." 222 THE PROOF OF DEITY FEOM CONSCIENCE. technical sense that these can be called arguments. They are, properly, means whereby knowledge flows in on the mind.) It has appeared to many thinkers that the Being of God is a subject on which all argument, or presentation of The reasons, is superfluous : that the existence in man of a instinct* religious instinct, or instinct of worship, independent of all conscious reasoning, is proof enough, and the only satisfactory proof, of the existence of its Object. isanargu- I do not mean to question that the existence of the S^exist- re ^gi us instinct is itself a reason for believing in the ence of its existence of its Object. It would be contrary to all the analogies of creation if there were such a sense without an object : it would be like an eye in a world of darkness. But I cannot agree that this exhausts the subject. The mere existence of the religious instinct cannot supersede all other reasons for belief, unless it is shown to be a primary element of our nature, incapable of being resolved into any other : and this does not appear ta be the case. Unlike the moral sense, the religious sense appears not to be a faculty anticipating and transcending all reasons for belief, but only a capacity for being acted on by reasons almost unconsciously, and in a way of which it is unable to give an account even to itself. In this mode of action there is nothing exceptional : it is thus that for the most part we are impressed and influenced by human 9 character. 1 It is obvious that the existence of a capacity for being impressed by reasons in a peculiar manner can- not supersede the necessity of investigating the reasons- that so impress it. But further : if it were proved to be true that the religious but it can- sense > like the moral sense, is absolute, laying down its not super- dicta d priori and in anticipation of proof : it would still necessity be not the less necessary to inquire what facts and reasons ^ nere are * n * ne external universe corresponding with belief. this tendency of the mind : just as in morals it is true independently of any confirmatory proof that truthfulness 1 See the concluding paragraphs of the chapter on the Possibility of Faith (Chapter 7). xv.] THE PHOOF OF DEITY FROM CONSCIENCE. 22$ is a duty, but this does not make it the less desirable to be able to perceive that the constitution of society is necessarily such as to make truthfulness conduce to happiness. NOTE. THOMAS ERSKINE ON THE CONSCIENCE. THE following extracts are from *' The Spiritual Order and other Papers selected from the manuscripts of the late Thomas Erskine of Linlathen." Edinburgh, 1871. "When I attentively consider what is going on in my Revelation conscience, the chief thing forced on my notice is that I find in . con ' ,-,.,, ,, -r . science of myself face to face with a purpose not my own, for I am often Divine conscious of resisting it but which dominates me and makes purpose itself felt as ever present, as the very root and reason of my being." Page 47. "This consciousness of a purpose concerning me that I should and be a good man right, true, and unselfish is the first firm character, footing I have in the region of religious thought : for I cannot dissociate the idea of a purpose from that of a Purposer, and I cannot but identify this Purposer with the Author of my being and the Being of all beings ; and further, I cannot but regard His purpose towards me as the unmistakeable indication of His own character." Page 48. [ 224] CHAPTER XVI. - THE STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE. Analogy of yx the physical sciences, the logical order of procedure is of this first to study natural laws isolated, apart, and in th em- work to se lves : and afterwards their resultant effects in the world the pro- cedure of of things. 1 Such an order is pursued, or at least attempted, lce ' in this work. In the preceding three chapters we have considered the separate truths of the Divine Nature : the Divine Will, Wisdom, and Righteousness as made known respectively by Power, Intelligence, and Conscience ; and we have next to consider the manifestations of the Divine Character in the actual order of the universe. Thephysi- We speak of the physical and spiritual order as consti- one universe, in the same sense in which the laws order con- of inorganic matter and of life both belong to one natural stitute one i , universe, world. But before considering the manifestations of the Divine Character in the structure of the universe, we must inquire what that structure is. The The most important fact respecting the structure of the laws and un i verse * s that the simplest laws, properties, and forces properties are those which are the most widely and the most con- 6 stantly in action. Thus the properties of space and time general. are simpler than those of matter and force, and they are universal in extent ; whereas matter, so far from being universal in extent, occupies a comparatively very small proportion of space. And among the forces with which See "Habit arid Intelligence," vol. ii. pp. 209, 210. CHAP, xvi.] THE STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE. 225 matter is endowed, gravitation, which, is the simplest, is the only one which is always in action: the molecular and chemical forces, which are much more complex, act only under favourable conditions, but gravitation never ceases to act. Finally, life, which is the most complex of all modes of activity, is also the most special and the least generally manifested : that is to say, only a very small proportion of matter is endowed with life : and among living beings, mind, which depends on the most complex nervous organization, is manifested only in certain classes, and is developed in any high degree in Man alone. Life also is of later origin than matter, and mind than un- conscious life. It appears to be necessary to the harmonious activity of the forces of the universe, that the stars and planets should be separated by vast vacant spaces. It is equally neces- sary as a condition of life, that living beings should be surrounded by vast masses of unorganized mattter. And mind is the highest development of a vast complication of vital powers, the greater part of which never become con- scious, though in the closest organic connection with the conscious mind. 1 " Thus in both space and time the most complex pro- Conse- perties are the least widely distributed and the least quentiy constantly in action. Now, as the highest results are the products 8 results of the most complex properties and forces, it ^ s j he follows from the necessity of the case that the highest abundant, natural products are comparatively small in quantity : and this we have seen to be the fact : the highest pro- ducts come at the end of long ages of preparation, and are then less abundant than the lower products. Life is a late and comparatively scanty work of creation, and mind is a later and scantier product still." 2 " It is one of the many remarkable harmonies between This is the mind of man and the universe of which it is the recognized noblest product, that this distribution of the products of tyVIL nature, both in space and in time, is that which appears artistic 1 On this subject see the second volume of "Habit and Intelligence.'' 5 "Habit and Intelligence," vol. ii. p. 216. Q 226 THE STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE. [CHAP. beautiful to the artistic sense. We recognize it as a maxim in art that the highest beauty should be introduced in relatively small quantity : thus in architecture, which is perhaps the best instance, such parts as cornices and capitals, which are at once small and conspicuous, can scarcely be too richly ornamented : but the effect would be very bad if the ornament which suits a cornice were spread over a wall, or if that which suits a capital were continued down the shaft of the column. In all art what- ever the effect of an equal distribution of beauty over every part is not good. In all art whatever any part of a composition which rises above the general level of the whole in dignity or beauty will add dignity or beauty to the whole, provided that it is properly placed: while if any part sinks below the general level, it lowers the character of the whole. These principles are applicable alike to those arts which address themselves to the eye and those which address themselves to the ear. But in the latter that is to say, in poetry and music, in which the parts of a composition are not simultaneous but suc- cessive this further maxim is to be observed, that the highest beauty not only ought to be small in quantity, but ought to come last : and every previous part of the compo- sition ought to lead up to it. In thus arranging his work, the artist without knowing it follows the example of nature." l Series of To return from this digression : We thus see in nature ^nature a series of laws and properties, progressively increasing increasing in complexity, while at the same time they decrease in plexity as generality. The members of the series may be thus they de- ermme rated : crease in generality. 1. Space and Time. 2. Matter with its forces. The properties of matter are further distinguished as (a) Common to all matter and always in operation ; as gravitation and the general laws of force. (&) Special to particular kinds of matter ; as chemi- cal properties. 1 "Habit and Intelligence," vol. ii. p. 217. XVI.] THE STEUCTUEE OF THE UNIVEESE. 227 3. Life : which is further distinguished as (a) Organic or vegetative life. (&) Animal, nervous, or sentient life. (c) Mental or conscious life. 1 It is also to be observed, that as nature increases in Variety complexity from one member of the series to the next, it "Ceases * witn corn- also increases in variety. This is for the very simple plexity. reason, that complexity gives scope and occasion for variety. Thus, space and time are absolutely uniform, but matter is various in the chemical properties of its different kinds, and the variety of the forms of life is almost infinite : so that nature may be compared to a tree, " expanding from the whole into the parts," to use Schiller's expression, and constantly branching out into increasing complexity, mul- tiplicity, and variety. Variety, indeed, appears to be Variety sought in nature as an end, for its own sake. Vital develop- Jg^mr* ment, in ascending from one grade to another, ascends not pose in in one straight line but in diverging lines : so that the n ' highest forms of a comparatively low type in other words, the highest species of a comparatively low class may be more highly organized than the lower forms of a higher type: just as the highest twigs of a low branch may be higher than the lower twigs of a higher branch. Thus, animals are on the whole much more highly organized niustra- than vegetables, but animals have not been developed out *{. ns . of of vegetables: they have been both developed out of organic originally vitalized matter, which contained potentially the Jo n slfica ~ germs of both. This, it is true, is not proved, though everything tends to prove it. But, independently of any theory of evolution, it is certain that the lowest animals and the lowest vegetables do not greatly differ : and that the difference increases as we trace them higher in their respective scales. This is an instance of a law which is general throughout the organic world, that groups which are in any degree akin are united to each other rather by their lower than by their higher members. The true form 1 This idea of a series of sciences is taken from Comte's "Positive Philosophy." For the same series in a more detailed form see "Habit and Intelligence," vol. ii. p. 208. Q 2 228 THE STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE. [CHAP. of all organic classification is that of a tree, having many summits though of unequal height. Thus, in the animal kingdom the three highest classes, developed along three distinct lines of descent or rather ascent, are the Articulata, culminating in the winged insects ; the Mollusca, culmi- nating in the Cephalopods (cuttle-fish and nautilus); and the Vertebrata, culminating in Man. Among all these, Man is by far the highest species, and the Vertebrate is the highest type : yet, according to the great comparative physiologist Von Bar, 1 a bee, which is one of the highest of the Articulata, is more highly organized than a fish, which belongs to the lowest class of Vertebrates. Different In speaking of variety as an end in nature, we ought to excellence remar k that it appears to be in many cases, if not generally, are in impossible for different kinds of excellence to be produced degree in- together. Thus, a plant cannot attain at the same time to cpmpa- the greatest productiveness of both leaves and flowers. We have seen that there is in nature a scale, or series, of decreasing generality and increasing complexity and variety. We now go on to speak of a different set of rela- tions between the members of the series. Each Each member of the series is dependent on the one tn^series^ wn ^ cn S oes Before it (that is to say, on the one which is is de- simpler and more general than itself), but independent of orTthT ^at wn i cn comes after it. Mind is dependent on animal preceding or nervous life, without which it cannot exist: animal life depends on vegetative or nutritive life : and all life depends on matter. The chemical, electrical, and thermal properties of matter depend on the general laws of force, and could not be stated in language without implying those, laws: and the laws of force cannot be stated without implying those of space : thus, for instance, it would be impossible to state the law of the parallelogram, of forces unless the properties of the parallelogram were taken as known. Bat, as we have seen, this dependence is not reciprocal. Space and time may exist independently of matter and motion ; the 1 Quoted in Darwin's " Origin of Species," 4th edition, p. 404. XVL] THE STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE. 229 laws of force and the mechanical properties of matter do not imply chemical laws : matter may exist without life : vegetative life may exist without animal or sentient life, and sentient life may exist, and apparently does exist in entire classes of animals, without developing into con- sciousness or mind. From this point of view the series may be compared to a building of many stories, each dependent for support on that below it, and each independent of that above it. We have seen that the relation of dependence of one group of properties, or one function, on another, obtains both in inorganic matter and in life. But when we come to vital functions, we find a different though parallel rela- tion, unlike any in the inorganic world : that is to say, In the the subordination of one function to another ; the higher ^f^one function working through the lower, and the lower function wovTc *4 ministering to the higher. Thus the mind uses the through body as its instrument, or rather as its organ : the mind Bother. works through the animal system, or in other words through the nervous and muscular life. The animal life works through, and by means of, the nutritive life, which supplies it with the energy that is to be transformed in muscular, and doubtless also in nervous action : x and the nutritive system works through the chemical forces, not neutralizing them, not setting them aside or suspending their operation, but controlling them and causing them to produce results in assimilation, secretion, and other trans- formations of matter within the organism which they could not have effected without the dominating agency of life. 2 The physical and chemical forces are immensely more Illustra- powerful than the vital ones, though the vital forces are able to control and guide the chemical. This truth may its driver. be illustrated by the relation of the engine-driver to the, engine which he is able to guide, though the steam power of the engine is incomparably greater than the muscular power of the man. 1 See the chapter in "Habit and Intelligence" on the Dynamics of Life (Chapter 9). 2 On this entire subject, see "Habit and Intelligence," Chapter 13 (Organic Subordination) and Chapter 43 (the Classification of the Sciences). 230 THE STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE. [CHAP. Argument We may also remark by the way, that in the fact of ver y remar kable relation between functions the one a resultant working through the other being confined to life and physical never found in unorganized matter, there is an argument forces. against the probability of the properties and functions which matter. which constitute life being mere resultants from those of To sum up the results of the preceding paragraphs : Summary. There is in nature a gradation from that which is general, simple, and uniform, to that which is special, complex, and manifold. At the one end of the scale are Space and Time, which are universal, perfectly simple in their elemen- tary properties, and absolutely uniform. The gradation is through the various properties of Matter and Force : and at the opposite end is Life, the laws and phenomena of which are in the highest degree special, complex, and varied. Each member of the series is dependent on that which precedes it, but independent of that which follows it. Thus, Mind is dependent on unconscious Life, and cannot exist without it : Life is in the same sense dependent on Matter, and Matter on Space. But Space can exist without Matter, Matter without Life, and Life without Mind. Life subordinates the powers of inorganic matter to itself, and works through them. A similar relation exists between the different grades of life : the mind works through the animal or nervo-muscular life, and the animal life through the vegetative life. The highest products are those which depend on the most complex organization. The animal (or nervous and muscular) life is higher than the vegetative or nutritive life, and it depends on a higher organization than any which is found where there is no nervous life. The mental life is the highest of all, and it depends on the most com- plex nervous organization. The highest products are the rarest. Mind is less abundant than life, and life than matter. This order of things is recognized as right by the artistic sense. xvi.] THE STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE. 231 But the possibility of a disturbance of the order is Disturb- involved in this constitution of things. We have seen harmony, that the higher forces control the lower so as to work through them, and the lower ministers to the higher : life controls matter, and matter ministers to life : and yet the forces of matter are more powerful than those of life, and act more constantly and on a larger scale. This state of things is in but an unstable equilibrium, and is in fact often subverted. Life often loses its control over the chemical forces, and the result of this is disease and death. Not that death, as such, ought to be regarded as a violation of the harmony of things. Death is a necessary condition of life, and it is a morbid feeling, though one which has a deep root in our spiritual nature, which regards death as the consequence of sin. But disease is a violation of the harmony of things, and is not a necessary condition of life. Disease appears in many if not in all Disease cases to arise, if not to consist, in a revolt of the lower J^^ V( ^ t forces against the higher ones. Sometimes the chemical of the forces appear to revolt against and to overpower the vital f orces ones. Sometimes the lowest of the formative functions of a ai " st , the living organism, namely the formation of cells, over- powers the healthy growth and renewal of tissue, and finally destroys its structure : this is what takes place in such diseases as cancer ; and, according to a high authority, this is the nature of all acute inflammatory disease. 1 Some- times the higher forms of life are destroyed by lower forms which become parasitic upon them ; this occurs in ento- zootic disease ; and if the " germ theory of disease " is true, contagious diseases generally are the result of an agency of this kind. 2 1 Beale's editioii of "Todd and Bowman's Physiology," pt. i. p. 93, etseq. 2 ' ' There are numerous diseases of men and animals that are demonstrably the products of parasitic life, and such disease may take the most terrible epidemic forms, as is the case of the silkworms of France in our day. . . . But this is by no means all. Besides these universally admitted cases, there is the broa'd theory now broached and daily growing in strength and clearness daily, indeed, gaining more and more of assent from the most successful workers and profound thinkers of the medical profession itself the theory, namely, that contagious disease generally is of this parasitic character." (From a lecture by Dr. Tyndall at the Royal Insti- tution, 9 th June, 1871, as reported in Nature of 15th June.) 232 THE STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE. [CHAP. . A similar destruction of harmony occurs also between the different grades of vital function, and within the mind itself. Thus, in paralytic disease the mind loses, to a greater or less extent, the power of controlling the body: in insanity, the reason loses its power of control over the Moral lower mental functions. Moral evil, or sin, is a violation of harmony of the same kind : consisting primarily in the ascendancy of desires which ought to be subordinate, over conscience which ought to be supreme. Disease in Something like this occurs also in the organism of sodety human society. The purpose of society is to secure, so far as possible, the happiness and virtue of its members : merely physical prosperity and wealth are good only in so far as they are means to these ends. But there is a con- stant danger of mistaking the means for the ends : there is a constant danger of happiness and virtue being over- powered in the struggle for merely material wealth. This is true not of individuals only, but of entire societies : as the higher organic functions may be overpowered by the growth of mere cells, so the highest, that is to say the moral, life of a community may be overpowered by its lower, that is to say its industrial life. Thus, we have reason to fear that the recent vast increase of material wealth in the greater part of the civilized world has caused a decline of morality : and that the extension of manufac- turing industry is injuring society in a way for which no merely material prosperity can compensate, by destroying domestic life. But independently of such discords as disease, insanity, and sin, which arise within living beings, there are many cases in which the action of the inorganic world, instead Storms, of being ministerial to life, becomes destructive of it. I anl^earth mean in such agencies as storms, volcanic eruptions, and quakes. earthquakes. And, independently of actually destructive agencies like these, the inorganic forces minister to life much less perfectly than they might do, even under the Desert?, existing laws of nature. The earth's fair face is marred with burning deserts and frozen deserts : and these are no part of the necessary order of things : without imagining XVI.] THE STRUCTURE OE THE UNIVERSE. 233 one of nature's laws to be altered, it is easy to imagine sucli a distribution of land and sea that there should be neither burning deserts nor frozen deserts, that many climates should be improved without any being injured, and that the earth should be a habitation, and probably a far pleasanter habitation, for a much greater number of living beings than at present. 1 If we regard the universe as a work of art, it will be seen that the deserts which mar the surface of the earth are parts which in beauty sink below the general level, and consequently, as remarked above, lower the character of the entire work. 2 And their only effect on human life is to make it more difficult. Nature also ministers less effectually than it might do The to the sense of beauty in man. The highest beauty of the the world earth does not lie " around our paths," 3 but is to be sought js not so on the summits of mountains and in their far-off recesses, as to be where those who would enjoy it must climb for it. The benefit of this is obvious in relation to human character : possible if the highest beauty were " around our paths," we should S ^^ Q probably be unable to appreciate it. It is good for us that there should be, as there is in the country and as there might be in cities, a moderate degree of beauty around our daily paths ; and that there should be a higher degree to be enjoyed when we have been invigorated by climbing for it among mountains. But, though the actual distribu- tion of beauty over the earth is in this way suited to man's nature, it has no appearance of being distributed with any special design. It is found in the most wonderful abun- dance over great part of Western and Southern Europe, but in Eastern Europe there is very little of it. And what is perhaps the most magnificent scene in the world has been beheld by human eyes but once : namely, Mounts Erebus Mounts and Terror, in the Antarctic Continent: two mountains ai [d Terror. rising out of a blue ocean to a height equal to that of Etna above the Mediterranean or Mont Blanc above the 1 See Note A at end of chapter. 2 See page 226. 3 " There's beauty all around our paths, if but our watchful eyes Can trace it 'mid familiar things, and through their lowly guise." Mas. HEMAKS. 234 THE STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE. [CHAP. Life is adapted to the inorganic world rather than the converse. The changes of the inorganic world dis- regard life. The pre- paration for life in matter consists in general laws, not in special facts. Total effect of physical Valley of Chamouni, clothed with snow from base to summit except where black volcanic rocks break through. 1 This is but a simple case of the general relation. Life and mind are adapted to the inorganic world rather than the inorganic world to life and mind. It seems and this in my opinion is not metaphorically but literally true 2 that the laws and properties of inorganic matter and its forces have been first laid down, and that life and mind have adapted themselves to these. The adaptation is not always, perhaps never, absolutely perfect. The vegetable and animal species which inhabit a country in a state of nature are not always those which are best suited to its soil and climate. This truth, which is perhaps contrary to the general belief, is proved by the fact that in some cases the native inhabitants of a country have been to a great extent superseded by species introduced by man. 3 This is a truth of the same kind as what has been stated already, that the actual distribution of land and sea is not such as to produce the climates which would be the most favour- able to life. Though the laws and properties of matter constitute a preparation for life, yet the revolutions of the world of inorganic matter go on with total disregard of the life which the earth sustains on its surface : storms, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions are sufficient instances of this. In a word, the adaptation of the inorganic world to life is not special but only general. Life is prepared for by the properties of light and heat, and of the chemical elements which are built up into organic com- pounds : but not by their distribution in the universe as to time and pJace. Life is ministered to by air, water, and earth : but to the upheavals and subsidences of the land, and to the currents of the atmosphere and the waters, it is totally indifferent whether their effect is favourable or destructive. Geological and climatic change on the whole, however, promote that progress from lower to higher 1 See Ross's Antarctic Voyage. 2 See "Habit and Intelligence" on this class of subjects. 3 This process is now going on in New Zealand. See Darwin's " Origin of Species," 4th edition, pp. 242, 405. XVI.] THE STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE. 235 orders of life which is shown by the geological history of change in the world i 1 not because each change is separately favour- P[^J otins able, for it is as likely to be the reverse : but because progress, change promotes variation, and variation is the necessary condition of natural selection. 2 A somewhat similar relation to this exists between what Analogy- may be called, by an expression which is scarcely meta- theVoiiti- phorical, the organic and the inorganic forces in human cal world, society. There are organic, organizing laws in society. We speak without a metaphor of the social organism. The family is held together by organic laws. By organic laws the family grows into a tribe, and the tribe into a nation : and tribes and nations are enabled to assimilate foreign elements of population to themselves. By organic laws also wealth increases, and knowledge increases and diffuses itself: and, finally, by organic laws nations grow in freedom and in the power of self-government. But there are other forces in human society which cannot be identified with laws, because they appear to be altogether lawless and inorganic, especially those which come forth in wars. Such forces have often shown themselves in their immediate operation to be purely disorganizing and destructive, and have been to the life of nations what storms and earthquakes are to animal and vegetable life : and no theory of Providential optimism, endeavouring to prove that every separate historical event is specially so ordered as to produce the greatest possible good, will stand before the slightest comparison with the actual facts of history. Political revolutions do however on the whole tend to promote human progress, though in a very differ- ent way from that of special Providential adaptations : for Natural change of circumstances stimulates inventiveness and promotes change of character : and thus new types of character arise, the best of which are in the long run perpetuated by a process of natural selection, and become dominant : 3 while the destruction of old culture, and the 1 See Note B at end of chapter. 2 See " Habit and Intelligence," especially Chapters 16 and 24. 3 See the chapter in "Habit and Intelligence" on Natural Selection in History (Chapter 41). 236 THE STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE. [CHAP. ruin, it may be, of old types of character, give the new ones room to spread. Want of It is also to be observed that the harmony between the between 7 various functions of man's mental nature is far from mental perfect. I do not now speak of anything arising out of faculties. egg O f man ' s nature, or anything analogous to disease. In the animal or vegetable organism every organ and every function is in general almost perfectly adapted to all the rest ; when it is not so, we call the deviation a monstrosity. This is probably due to the fact that varia- tion is for the most part a slow process, and injurious variations are kept down by the operation of natural selection. But this is not true of the mental functions : for their variations are so great and so rapid that natural selection is unable to hold them in any effectual control. In this there is nothing to be regretted : on the contrary, were it not for the unusual variability and plasticity of his mental powers, man would be still a beast, or at most a savage. But from this variability it comes, that those powers which need each other's assistance are often not developed in any high degree together. How often are we compelled to remark that uncommon abilities are useless for want of common sense, and inventive powers useless for want of industry to work out the details on which success in invention depends ! ""What hand and brain went ever paired ? ..... . "What heart alike conceived and dared ? " l To sum up what has been said concerning the failures of harmony and the destructive agencies in creation : Summary. The inorganic world has not been adapted to life : life has been adapted and is always adapting itself to the inorganic world ; but the adaptation is perhaps never quite perfect. The adaptation of living beings to the inorganic world is not special but general. That is to say, the properties of living beings are adapted to those of matter, heat, and 1 Browning's "The Last Ride Together." XVL] HIE STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE. 237 light, but not to the actual arrangements of things not, for instance, to the climates which are the result of the distribution of land and sea. These actual climates con- sequently are not the most favourable to life which are possible under the existing laws of nature : and the living population of any region is not necessarily that which is the best adapted to its climate and soil. Storms, earth- quakes, volcanic eruptions, and the revolutions of the geological world go on without any regard to the life which they may destroy. Nevertheless the total effect of this class of agencies is to further organic progress by pro- moting variation and natural selection among variations. The same principles apply to human history. Wars and revolutionary changes which at first sight appear to be purely destructive, may ultimately promote progress by giving occasion for the origin of new types of character and culture, and making room for them to develop and spread. The vital forces control the inorganic ones and work through them : and the mind controls the bodily life and works through it. But this subordination of the lower to the higher is liable to be overthrown : and the result of this is disease. The same is true of the social organism : the industrial functions of society, which ought to be subordinate, may so overpower its moral life as to pro- duce a diseased state. Two observations remain to be made, both of them in the highest degree significant, yet pointing in opposite directions and apparently almost contradictiing each other. One of these is, that the greatest richness of beauty The appears to be lavished on the minutest things. This is a f^ es * consequence of the fact that the highest laws are the most lavished special in their operation, and are manifested on the smallest smallest scale. Many of the greater works of nature things, appear almost chaotic : there is no order or regularity in the magnificent confusion of volcanic eruptions or of iceberg-drifts : but there is regularity and a high degree of beauty in the hexagonal crystals of snow, in the structures 238 THE STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE. [CHAP- . of the seed-vessel of a moss, and in the sculpture of a microscopic shell. Thus the Diatomacese, a group of lowly microscopic organisms of vegetable nature, " have shells of pure silex, and these, each after its own kind, are all covered with the most elaborate ornament, striated, or fluted, or punctured, or dotted, in patterns which are mere patterns, but patterns of perfect and sometimes of most complex beauty. In the same drop of moisture there may be some dozen or twenty forms, each with its own distinc- tive pattern." 1 But of all forces, those which are the highest and which act on the most limited scale are the forces that become conscious in mind : and mind is highly developed in man alone. All nature leads up to Man : Man stands at its summit. Yet, though the highest, Man is the most imperfect being in the universe : the one who falls the farthest short of his ideal perfection. We see a higher kind of perfection in flowers and in insects than in any of nature's mightier works : and we might not unreasonably have expected to find higher perfection still in the mind Imper- of man. But so far is this from being the case, that Man n f man ' s spiritual nature has till now appeared to the most thoughtful men to be a ruin. The universe as known to us may thus be compared to some vast temple, of magnificent design and rich ornament, but partly unfinished and partly defaced : and with the central shrine the most imperfect of all, though showing traces of a design which would have been the noblest in the whole structure if it had been rightly executed. There is nothing new in this view of the universe : on the con- trary, the idea that the universe is a ruin has weighed on the thoughts of mankind for thousands of years, expressing Legend of itself in that legend of the Fall which men have felt to be ' so profoundly appropriate that they have mistaken it for historical truth : though it would really not lighten but deepen the moral perplexity of the subject, if it were true that the world had been created perfect and reduced to the state of a ruin a few days after. But those who 1 "The Reign of Law," by the Duke of Argyll, p. 199. xvi.] THE STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE. 239 understand and accept the doctrine of Evolution, know that what has been mistaken for evidence of ruin is really only imperfection. TOJVBRSITT NOTE A. THE EFFECT OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF LAND AND SEA ON CLIMATE. THE climate of any place is the resultant effect of a great com- plexity of causes, and is affected in several different ways by the distribution of land and water. Climate is injuriously affected by whatever produces an ac- Effect of cumulation of masses of ice, especially when these float down as g S ^ icebergs into lower latitudes and cool the air. Icebergs appear climate, never to originate in the freezing of the sea, but to be always formed in contact with land. The icebergs of the Greenland seas are broken-off fragments of glaciers which descend from the land into the sea : the floating ice of the seas north of Russia appears to come from the mouths of the Siberian rivers. The climate of some regions of the earth would be much im- Possible proved if Greenland and all other lands that give origin to J^Tof ~ glacier-icebergs were to sink beneath the sea, and if the forms climate by of the Asiatic and North American continents were so changed changes in that no large rivers should flow into the Polar Ocean. The effect regions : of these changes would be that there would be scarcely any floating ice anywhere : the region about the mouth of the St. Lawrence would be immensely improved in climate ; the climate of Iceland would be almost temperate : the ocean would probably be navigable to the poles, and the fisheries there would be accessible. At the other extreme of climate, the improvement would be by sub- great if all burning deserts were to sink down and be replaced o^urniiU by seas. Instead of the parching winds of the desert, moisture- deserts : bearing and refreshing sea-breezes would then be borne to the neighbouring lands. It is true that the submergence of the African desert would injure, by cooling, the climate of Europe, but this might be counteracted by supposing all Europe moved some degrees to the southward. Eoom would be left for this in consequence of the African desert being replaced by a sea, which would be an extension of the Mediterranean. 240 THE STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE. [CHAP. by change The rigour of the climate of Northern Asia would be greatly petition of m itig ate d, without probably any other climate being injured, if the Asiatic the entire Asiatic continent were moved some degrees south- continent. wards< Room for It may also be remarked, that in the vast regions now new conti- occupied by the Pacific Ocean there is room for entire conti- the Pacific nen ts to arise, and to be clothed with herbage and trees and Ocean. inhabited by animals and by men. The pur- No one who has studied physical geography and climate as creation is a sc ^ ence w ^ see anything strange in this note. But to those not the who cling to the idea that everything' in nature is perfect oThmn 1131 an( * ^ es not a< ^ m ^ ^ improvement, I repeat, what has been comfort, sufficiently implied in the preceding chapter, that my purpose is not to find fault with the arrangements of the universe, but to show that the purpose of those arrangements, whatever it may be, is something else than the greatest possible amount of comfort to man. NOTE B. ORGANIC PROGRESS IN GEOLOGICAL HISTORY. Organic GEOLOGISTS and naturalists appear to be now tolerably well agreed P enfral S ^ ^ at g e lgi ca l history shows organic progress on the whole : though not that is to say, that higher and higher forms have been constantly universal, appearing. Organic progress is however not a universal law, but only a general one, and may possibly be subject to real exceptions. But there are apparent exceptions which are not Instances, real. Thus the two orders of Eeptiles which may probably be regarded as the highest namely, the Pterodactyles and the Dinosaurians have ceased to exist. This at first sight seems like retrogression, but it really belongs to progress, because these two orders have been superseded by more highly, organized types adapted to their respective modes of life : Pterodactyles by Birds and Dinosaurians by Mammals. The Enaliosaurians or marine Eeptiles have also perished, giving place to the Cetaceans or marine Mammals : and, what is as remarkable an instance of organic progress as any, the Brachio- pods, a class of bivalve shell-fish, have been in a great degree superseded by the Lamellibranchiates, a class also of bivalves and adapted to similar conditions of life, but very different in struc- xvi.] THE STRUCTUKE OF THE UNIVEKSE. 241 ture. 1 There are probably instances of real retrogression, but certainly they are not comparable for magnitude and importance to the instances of progress mentioned above. It may be worth while to mention that in none of these cases These are is the group which has succeeded to another descended from n t cases that to which it has succeeded. Lamellibranchiates cannot be descent descended from Brachiopods, nor Birds from Pterodactyles, nor of one Cetaceans from Enaliosaurians. The origin of the class of Mammals is an obscure question, as no known group, either living or fossil, appears to be intermediate between Mammals and any other class. The Ornithorhynchus certainly has affinities with Birds, and the Armadillo probably with Reptiles : but it appears impossible that anything nearly resembling either of those two forms can have been the origin of the entire class of Mammalia. The Dinosaurians do not appear to have any special affinities with them. The affinities of the Dinosaurians, strangely enough, seem to be rather with Birds. 2 1 Perhaps, however, this can scarcely be yet regarded as proved. See the discussion of Mr. Lobley's paper on British fossil Lamellibranchiata in the Proceedings of the Geological Society, 24th May, 1871. 2 " There can be no doubt that the hind quarters of the Dinosauria wonderfully approached those of Birds in their general structure, and therefore that these extinct reptiles were more closely allied to Birds than any which now live." (Huxley, Proceedings of the Royal Institution, 7th Feb. 1868 ; and quoted in his paper on "Dinosauria and Birds" in the Proceedings of the Geological Society, 10th Nov. 1869. See the whole of the latter paper ; also one on the " Classification of Dinosauria," by the same author, in the Proceedings of the same Society, 24th Nov. 1869. ) [ 242 ] CHAPTEK XVII. THE DIVINE PURPOSE OF CREATION. THE question whether any Divine purpose is discoverable in creation is one which cannot be answered d priori. The only possible way of proving that it can be discovered, is to discover it. There is, however, an d priori objection to the probability of our discovering any such purpose, Objection, which it is worth while to answer. I mean the objection are too 6 ^ a ^ ^hi s eai> th is so small a part of the universe, and its insignifi- inhabitants so insignificant, that we cannot believe either ciTit to nf 1 the special that the earth is an object of special care on the part of ^e Creator, or that its inhabitants can attain to any Creator's knowledge of His plans and purposes. So long as it was believed that the earth on which we live was the actual geometrical centre of the universe, and that the sun, the moon, and the stars existed for no purpose except to give it light, there was no difficulty to the imagination in believing that the human inhabitants of the earth were the chief purpose of creation and the chief objects of the Creator's care. 1 But now we know our earth to be only 1 We can scarcely think that the persecutors of Galileo were alarmed at the merely verbal contradiction of his astronomical doctrines to the saying of the Psalmist, that God has "laid the foundation of the earth that it should not be removed for ever." The question of the motion of the earth was most probably only ^he immediate issue on which much wider and more important questions depended. The questions really at issue were whether the old theological notions of the universe, which were supposed to be deduced from Scripture, were true ; whether the earth, where God had been made manifest in the flesh, was the actual geometrical centre of the universe : and whether there was a definite place above the visible heavens where God might be supposed to have His dwelling. CHAP, xvii.] THE DIVINE PURPOSE OF CREATION. 243 one among an unknown number of worlds, and analogy makes it probable that many of these are peopled by sentient and intelligent beings like ourselves : and can we any longer believe, as our unscientific forefathers believed, that we, the inhabitants of a single planet, are cared for by the Creator as children by their father ? This objection is one which addresses the sensuous This imagination only : the reason is totally unaffected by it. h e imagi- The vastness of the universe and the multitude of worlds nation, confound and oppress the imagination, arid may so dazzle the reason as to prevent it from seeing the true bearing of the facts. But the undazzled reason is able to see that *' Nought is great and nought is small To the soul that maketh all." l The feeling that what is small is insignificant, naturally Reply : belongs to finite beings like us whose powers of perception ^J^" depend on the magnitude of the objects : but to Him who not insig- is infinite the great and the small are alike, and it is JJJ 6 ^* as easy to guide the evolution of a thousand millions of Infinite worlds as of one. This reply is sufficient, but there is another, which The tele- addresses itself to the imagination as well as to the reason, and thus meets the objection on its own ground. The scope, objection which has been raised by the telescope is answered by the microscope. 2 While the telescope has exalted our conceptions of the vastness of the universe and the greatness of the Creator's power, the microscope has in the same degree exalted our conceptions of the minute perfection of the universe and the thoroughness of the Creator's care. As we have seen in the preceding chapter, it is on the minutest things the greatest beauty is often lavished. This is perhaps no reason for expecting that man is to be a special object of the Creator's care, but it is a conclusive reply to any argument founded on man's insignificance against such an expectation. 1 " There is no great and no small To the soul that maketh all. " EMEHSON. 2 See Chalmers's Astronomical Discourses, where this idea is wrought out. R 2 244 THE DIVINE PURPOSE OF CREATION. [CHAP. When a Divine purpose in nature is spoken of, it appears to be usually taken for granted that this purpose must be something beyond visible nature, in the sense in which a mechanical or engineering construction is not its own Hypothe- purpose, but has a purpose beyond itself. This, however, the^ur- is n0 ^ self-evident. It is at least conceivable that the pose of universe has not been made like a work of mechanical is rather art, for the sake of some end to be attained, but like a 0? a work work ^ ^ ne ar ^ ^ or *k e sa ^- e ^ ^ s own interest and of art than beauty : and such a view is supported by what we have caTwork. ~ seen i n * ne preceding chapter, that variety appears to be Objection an en( ^ m organic nature. This hypothesis, however, does to this. no t on the whole appear to be consistent with the facts. Were it true that the universe is a work of Divine art, framed, like works of human art, not for any purpose beyond itself but solely for its own sake, we surely should not find the strange and perplexing fact that Man, who is the highest work of creation, to which all nature leads up, is also the most imperfect being in the universe. There may It is not at all improbable that there may be many Creative distinct purposes in creation : and if this is the case, some purposes, of these may probably be discoverable by us and others not so. From what has been said in the foregoing para- graph, it appears most probable that the purposes which Those dis- we are able to discern with most clearness will be special by V us a pJo- ends like tllose of a work of mechanical art. If this is bably have so, we can scarcely doubt that they have relation to the relation to , . , , . , P ,, sentient sentient and conscious beings whereof the universe is the beings. habitation. When we see all lower grades of being ministering to animal life, the idea is suggested that the ultimate purpose Sugges- of creation is the happiness of sentient beings. But this luT inm * s contra dicted ty facts : by the facts of disease, and still is the pur- more by those of the moral and social life of man. In con- proved by sequence of the vast development of conscious mind in man, facts. he incomparably excels all other animals in his capacity for happiness : and, for the same reason, in his capacity for pain. If then happiness is the chief purpose of creation, XVIL] THE DIVINE PUKPOSE OP CREATION. 245 man's happiness ought to be equal to his capacity for happiness : or if not quite equal, the actual happiness enjoyed ought to fall short of the capacity for it only enough to serve as a stimulus to exertion and growth : and to fluctuate only enough to make happiness felt by contrast. It needs not much eloquence to tell how far this is from the reality. I fully believe that the sum total of happiness among mankind exceeds that of misery ; but the mere fact that this should ever have been regarded as doubtful is proof enough that if happiness is the purpose of creation, creation is a failure. In reasoning from the facts of creation to the purposes Pain tends manifested therein, we ought not to forget that all disease extinction, and pain tend to destroy life, and thus to cut-off their own source, like a fire burning itself out. Against this however The capa- must be set the equally unquestionable truth, that the physical capacity for physical pain is very much greater than that P ain ex - for physical enjoyment. (The physiological ground of this for physi- fact is that moderate stimulation of the nerves of sensation cal ^Jl* ment. is pleasurable, and extreme stimulation painful. It follows Physio- from this, that painful stimulation is capable of being ground of carried much farther than pleasurable stimulation.) But tni s fact., the capacity for mental pleasure and that for mental pain appear to be about equal. Happiness, however, is not the only nor the highest con- ceivable purpose of creation. We have seen in a former chapter 1 that the voice of mankind recognizes moral goodness the doing of right actions and the formation of noble character as an absolute purpose, worthy to be sought for its own sake, and so much higher than any other that all others ought to be postponed and sacrificed to it. It is therefore conceivable that the chief purpose Suggestion of creation is not happiness, but virtue : the truth of this uJj^Jl 6 hypothesis, as of the former one, must be tested by its purpose agreement with fact : but at first sight the facts appear to contradict it. Man is the only animal that admits of any 1 The chapter on the Meaning of the Moral Sense (Chapter 3). 246 THE DIVINE PURPOSE OF CREATION. [CHAP. Objection high moral development : and so far is man's moral nature from 18 from being what it would be if such a hypothesis were man's obviously true, that to many profound observers and 3SS< thinkers man has appeared to be under the dominion, not of a wise and holy Creator, but of a power of evil Nevertheless this view of the defeat and failure of any moral purpose in the universe may prove to be superficial and misleading. If the purpose of creation is to produce the highest possible average of human virtue, then creation The pur- is a failure. But if it is not to produce the highest possible notTthe average of virtue, but to make possible the production of most virtue of the highest type, then the purpose of creation has but the been attained. The highest conceivable type of character highest ]^ as once been realized in Christ : and it has been aspired virtue. after with varying success, and attained in various degrees, by an unknown number of His followers. It does not disprove the argument that none except Christ has been Partial perfect. If we admit that the purpose of creation is not ment of a the highest average of virtue but the highest possibilities there will be no farther difficulty in admitting is worthier that the partial attainment of a very high type of excel- ^ ence ^ s a worthier purpose than the perfect attainment of ment of a a lower type, not only for the man who aims at it but type, for the God who has endowed him with moral power and intelligence for so doing : that a very imperfect though true Christian is a higher product of creation and a nobler work of God than the most nearly perfect character ever produced by classical heathendom. To state this truth more concisely : the purpose of creation, in so far as it is discoverable by us, is not so much the highest attainment, as attainment in the highest class. This will scarcely be disputed. It is a commonplace of ethics, that what en- nobles man is not so much the attainment of excellence as the struggle to attain it. -^ mnst ke Emitted that the truth of these conclusions tions are is by no means self-evident. They are, however, to be with the justified by their consistency with what we know of the timi tf U ~ cons titution of the universe. We have seen in the preced- thiugs, ing chapter that the highest, and what we naturally and XVII.] THE DIVINE PURPOSE OF CKEATION. 247 necessarily call the most valuable, products of creation, are the least in quantity : life is less abundant than matter, sentient life is less abundant than merely vegetative life ; conscious life, or mind, is yet more limited; and moral life, so far as we know, is developed in Man alone. 1 These facts suggest that in the Creator's view a little of a higher kind of product is of more value than very much of a lower kind : thus, one being which enjoys sentient happiness is worth more than a world of unconscious matter : one being whose happiness has a moral basis is worth more than a world of mere animals : one man who is capable of self- denying virtue is of more value than a world of merely innocent beings like good children: one man who is capable of self-devoting virtue is worth more than a world of men whose virtue does not go beyond mere self-denial : and one man who has attained to a high degree of the kind of virtue taught by Christ is of more value than a whole world peopled by men who had attained to an equally high degree of the virtues cultivated by the highest of the heathen nations. There is nothing improbable in this hypothesis : and it and inter- is so consistent with the facts of the universe, that if it f a r c e t s O f were required in order to make the facts intelligible, and tn . atcon - ... !, stitution. to frame a consistent theory of creative purpose, there would be no extravagance in assuming it to be absolutely and universally true. But we do not need to assume so much. " Look up thro' night : the world is wide." It may be that among the many planets in the universe, There may some support on their surfaces the greatest possible amount of merely sentient or animal happiness : others, the greatest moral possible amount of that happiness which has a moral basis : and others, the greatest possible amount of self-denying different virtue. Others again may have their moral administration so framed as to afford the highest possibilities for self- 1 I say developed in Man alone, though its germ, which consists in e maternal and social instincts, is general among the more intelligent the animals. 248 THE DIVINE PURPOSE OF CREATION. [CHAP. devoting virtue of the heathen kind : and it may be that in not one of "Yonder hundred million spheres " have such possibilities of development in the highest moral type been opened to its inhabitants as those which are opened to us by the revelation of Christ. It is not asserted that these are facts : they are offered only as conjectures : but the possibility that they may be true lightens the moral perplexities of our world. 1 The conclusion that the purpose of creation is the pro- duction of virtue of the highest type, must be in some Variety is degree qualified. We have seen in the foregoing chapter, a ^ r i " n that in the organic world variety appears to be an end in the moral itself, and that all kinds of excellence cannot be combined organic in one - -^ ne same appears to be true in the moral world, world. There are many admirable types of human character which, under the limitations of our nature, are apparently incapable of being realized in the same individual To mention one of the most elementary instances, the types of excellence in man and in woman are different, and cannot be realized together. And the Divine government of the world has provided for the production of different types of excellence in human character at different his- torical periods. The highest character that could be formed before the revelation of immortality was different from the highest that has been formed since : it did not differ merely as a less perfect specimen differs from a more perfect one it was of a different type : a lower one no doubt, but capable of a perfection of its own, distinct from the perfec- tion of the higher type, and not included in it. This may be the reason of what has often appeared per- plexing, namely why the revelation of immortality was delayed so long. And this principle may perhaps account for much which is otherwise unintelligible in the Provi- dential government of the world. Summary. We thus conclude that the purpose of creation, so far as it is discoverable by man, is not uniform excellence nor the 1 See page 10. THE DIVINE PURPOSE OF CREATION. 249 highest possible average of excellence, but the production of the highest and most varied types of excellence. I believe it can be shown that this truth affords a key whereby to interpret, not indeed minutely but in a broad and general way, the Divine purposes in both the natural and the spiritual world. It is, as we have seen already, sufficiently obvious that the greatest possible amount of mere happiness is not the purpose of creation. But it is a more plausible hypothesis Suggestion that its purpose is to give the greatest possible reward to * ^oseof virtue : and this may at first sight appear a sufficient creation is solution of the problem, at least if we leave out of account those deeper moral perplexities which arise from human reward to sinful ness. Nature is so constituted as to give an ample reward to man,'s industry, patience, and skill : and no one who believes in a Divine purpose at all can doubt that this result is designed. Further, men not only sow and reap for themselves, but they can and do improve the inheritance of those who are to come after them : and it is obviously part of the Divine plan to give occasion not only for the industry which works for itself, but also for that less selfish and nobler industry which works for posterity. But this is not a full account of the matter. The ten- contra- dency of industry and perseverance to earn a reward is only Jh^fact^ a general tendency which is liable to be defeated in par- that the ticular cases : the reward of industry is often destroyed by often lost, unavoidable misfortune. Further : though the tendency of ^ d . i8 l * n ' . * fairly dis- such virtues as these is to earn a reward, it can scarcely be tributed. maintained even as an approximate truth that the highest degree of them earns the greatest reward. I do not now speak of the unselfish virtues : if they obtain no reward, they have sought for none: I speak of those virtues whereof the natural and legitimate reward is comfort, com- petence, and wealth : and of these it cannot be maintained that the reward varies in any sort of proportion to the virtue. What is called mere chance that is to say, ex- traneous circumstances impossible to foresee goes for very much in the distribution of such rewards. 250 THE DIVINE PURPOSE OF CREATION. [CHAP. These fail- But these failures of justice in nature are the necessary justice are con dition of the production of another and a higher kind necessary of virtue. A state of things in which the class of virtues ductim?/ that we may call industrial was always certain of its a higher reward, would no doubt be a good school of industry and virtue. perseverance, but it would have no tendency to produce the far higher virtues of resignation to misfortune and faith in justice to be revealed. In this last remark the subject of a future life is anticipated. We return to the merely physical constitution of nature. So far, we see that the discords of nature, which mar happiness, nevertheless minister to the development of Sometimes virtue. But this is not always true : at least, we cannot does^ot always see its truth. If nature is to serve man at all, minister either by ministering to his happiness or his virtue, it at all. must in the first place repay his industry and supply his wants. But nature does not do this everywhere. Un- inhabitable deserts minister to man's life in no sense whatever : and concerning them we can arrive only at the very vague and somewhat unsatisfactory conclusion, that it is right for the habitation of morally imperfect beings to be itself imperfect. All this however is a very incomplete answer to the question, why pain and ruin are permitted at all in a universe which is of Divine creation and under Divine Pain and government. It is simply and absurdly contrary to fact * ca -^ these "misunderstood harmonies." It would be under- equally true, and would indeed be only stating the self- harmonies. contradiction without disguise, to call pain misunderstood pleasure. It is true indeed, as we have seen in the fore- going chapter, that destructive agencies minister on the whole to progress in the worlds both of organic life and of human society. But though the difficulty is lightened by this consideration, it is only diminished in magnitude : it is left as totally unsolved as before. The question remains, why an all-powerful and all-wise Creator has not attained the same results exclusively by the action of that orderly principle of organic evolution which, as we have reason to believe, is actually at work in the world of life XVII.] THE DIVINE PURPOSE OF CREATION. 251 and mind, 1 without needing that process of " natural selec- Appear- tion among spontaneous variations " by which organic needless " progress is no doubt attained, but only by the destruction waste and of the weakest. Might not this enormous waste have sr been avoided ? And might not human progress have been attained without the frightful suffering produced by human strife ? This is only a statement in modern language of a par- Question ticular case of the old question why evil is permitted to exist in a Divine universe. The question can never be completely solved, but neither is it altogether insoluble. Moral questions are not capable of the same kind of determinate solution as mathematical ones, and moral per- plexities admit of degrees of light and darkness. As regards man, the question admits of at least a partial Answer, answer. Suffering and sin are permitted because there are virtues which could not be developed in their absence. This which answer is no doubt old and commonplace, but if there is a moral government of the world at all, it is true. It would veloped be impossible in the sense of involving a contradiction, and would consequently be impossible to Omnipotence, that the virtue which endures suffering and conquers sin should be produced in a sinless world. We do not assert that these remarks exhaust the sub- ject. It remains unexplained why animals and very young children, which have no moral nature that can be developed or strengthened by the conflict with suffering, should nevertheless be exposed to suffering : and the fact of what is called original sin that is to say, sinful ten- Original dencies in human nature manifesting themselves before voluntary the will has attained to any true freedom is perhaps S uilt - equally unaccountable and certainly far more deeply per- plexing. But the greatest of all evils is guilt, or voluntary sin: 2 yet this is at the same time the most explicable: for it would be an impossibility of the nature of a contradiction, that there should be room for the production of the kind of virtue which consists in the self-determination of a free will towards righteousness and holiness, without the possibility 1 See " Habit and Intelligence." 2 See page 85, et seq. 252 THE DIVINE PURPOSE OF CREATION. [CHAP. The high- of sin and guilt. Thus the highest degree of evil is the of ev T \s l eas fc inexplicable : and when we see this to be the case, the least the effect on our minds ought to be almost the same as if cable! l ' the entire mystery were solved. We now go on to consider in fuller detail the subject of man's life regarded as a school of the highest virtue. Injustice We must remark at the outset, that there is an injustice of the t00t at tiie verv root ^ tne socia l relation. This will appear a social rela- startling expression, but it ought not to be thought more so than the generally admitted truth that there is sinfulness at the root of human nature. The injustice consists in this, that the innocent suffer for the sins of the guilty. This is no merely accidental result : it is part of the plan. Every human being is no doubt primarily entrusted with his own welfare : the justice of this is obvious : indeed, it is the very definition of justice. But each is also, to a very large extent, entrusted with the welfare of others-: and it is a consequence of this that one may suffer for the sins of another. We cannot imagine this consequence to be avoided while the conditions of the case remain what they are, without implying a contradiction in terms. But this injustice is permitted in order to the attainment of a higher kind of righteousness : it is only in a world of mutually de- pendent beings that the social virtues can exist. There may be creatures which are entrusted each with its own welfare alone, and which nevertheless attain to a degree of virtue and holiness inconceivable by us : but it must be virtue and holiness of a kind unlike ours : for nearly all human virtue arises, directly or indirectly, out of the social relation, and could not without a contradiction be ima- gined to exist independently thereof. We have remarked that virtue is often frustrated of its reward. It could not be otherwise in a world of sinful beings who are in a great degree dependent on each other for welfare and happiness : for the virtue of one may Tendency be defeated of its purpose by the sin of another. The to uiti- tendency of virtue however is on the whole to triumph : mate i u other words, there is in the actual order of things a XVIL] THE DIVINE PURPOSE OF CREATION. 253 tendency for justice to be done, which, though often success, if^ defeated, is sufficiently evident to warrant us in believing time is that its triumph would be perfect if time enough were allowed, allowed for its principles to work themselves out to their legitimate results. 1 This condition of sufficient time, how- ever, is not afforded in our mortal life : nor would it be possible for us, under any imaginable conditions, to calcu- late how much time would be required for the purpose. Consequently ethical laws that is to say, the laws govern- Ethical ing the consequences of action, especially in the formation ^ s s ^ e of character are laws of tendency only : unlike moral laws, tendency or laws of duty, which are absolute. Thus, the tendency n 3 ' of falsehood is injurious to happiness : but it is never possible to tell how much injury any particular falsehood will do : though, when stated as a law of tendency, this law is as certain as gravitation. 2 The Divine purpose in Purpose of leaving this law only a law of tendency, however, will at 1S> the present stage of the argument appear obvious. Were the world so constituted that every action produced to the doer its legitimate result whether of reward or of punish- ment immediately, there would be no room whatever for virtue. Were the result absolutely certain, and certain to be attained in a calculable and moderately short time, such as a lifetime, the world would be much more favourable than it is to the development of ordinary, prudential, self- denying virtue, but it would give little or no room for the far higher virtues of heroism and self-devotion. We have traced the discords of the universe first in the natural world and afterwards in the world of human society: and it now remains to show the operation of the same principle in the soul of man. Duty, as we have seen, is absolute : the moral law Conflict of demands obedience. But before we can obey a command, duties> we must know what it is : and sometimes two duties are, or appear to be, in conflict. How are we to decide which of the two is to yield to the other ? 1 See the chapter in Butler's Analogy on the Moral Government of God, where this idea is most ably wrought out. 2 See "Habit and Intelligence," vol. ii. p. 229, for some remarks con- necting this subject with the laws of life. 254 THE DIVINE PURPOSE OF CREATION. [CHAP. There is not always any criterion whereby to decide. This truth is probably connected with the truth that ethical laws are laws of tendency only, and cannot be verified in individual cases : and as infinite time would allow ethical laws to work out their results in every case, so infinite wisdom would no doubt be able, to discover a resultant Often no between conflicting duties. It is however true for us, is possible, that when duties come into collision there is often no resultant discoverable by such faculties as ours : neither Casuistry, is cancelled, and yet only one can be obeyed. The possi- bility of always discovering such a resultant is the funda- mental false postulate of casuistry. Thus, was Falkland right in siding with the king, or Hampden in siding with Historical the Parliament ? Was Johnston right in fighting for the instances. Union, or Lee in fighting for his State? No answer is possible, except that all were right if they acted according to the best light they had. It is this collision of duties, or rather of moral claims, which constitutes the tragic as distinguished from the merely painful element in human life. It is probable, however, that the deepest tragedies are Applica- never witnessed and never written. The principles which sarne f the are applicable to conduct are equally applicable to belief, principle If to suppose a case the like of which is constantly occur- ring around us two men, both of them totally without critical power, are taught a religious system which contains the truths of God and immortality, of certain judgment and possible forgiveness, of Christ as the Saviour: but together with these contains also such contradictions as that the Epistles of St. Paul are authoritative, and that the command to observe the Sabbath is still binding: that those who are to become fit for the Kingdom of Heaven must become like little children, and that the human nature with which every child is born into the world deserves God's wrath and damnation: that God is just, and that He can take the sufferings of the innocent as an expiation for the sins of the guilty: that sympathy with all mankind is a Christian virtue, and that the only hope taught by Chris- tianity consists in separating our eternal destiny from XYTL] THE DIVINE PURPOSE OF CREATION. 255 that of the mass of mankind: that deep, even painful, compassion for suffering and sin are part of the Christian character, and that Christianity forbids a hope or a wish for the deliverance of those whom God's unexplained de- cree has sentenced to incurable sin and unending misery : that every good gift is Divine, and that good works which do not arise from conscious faith in Christ are of the nature of sin : that Christ's yoke is easy and His burthen light, and that part of it consists in being required to believe that for the greater part of mankind it would have been better not to be created : that hope is a Christian grace, and that Christianity requires us to regard the lot of our human brothers with despair : that God is love, and that He has based the universe on a torture-chamber. Both are ignorant how to separate the wheat from the chaff in such a system, and are practically compelled to believe either all or none. One of the two cannot, or dares not, live without an object of conscious faith : he accepts the entire system, and endeavours, perhaps with success, to shut his eyes to its contradictions. The other cannot and dares not palter with conscience by endeavour- ing to believe contradictions, even in order to attain to faith in God: and he remains without any faith except that righteousness is equally righteous and sin is equally sinful whether we are mortal or immortal, and that if there is a moral government of the world at all it will prove to be a righteous one. Which of these two is in the right ? Ab- solutely, neither : for it is not well to believe contradictions, and it is not well to be without conscious faith in God. But, relatively speaking, both are right if they have de- cided each in the best way that he knew how to decide. I will, however, state my own belief, that, provided always he does not make want of faith a pretext or an occasion of sin, the man is most worthy of eternal life who refuses, even from the highest motives, to palter with truth by endeavouring to believe contradictions. It is difficult if not impossible to explain how such moral trials as these are to serve the ends of virtue and holiness. Virtue is no doubt easier, and the average of virtue will be higher, 256 THE DIVINE PURPOSE OF CREATION. [CHAP. Peculiar where the path of duty is manifest. But all who really virtue f believe in virtue will probably agree in believing, though arise out actual proof may be unattainable, that the trials which conflict of arise out of the conflict of opposing claims of duty may duties. j-jg J^Q occasion of the development of other and in some respects higher kinds of virtue than any which can be produced where no such conflict can arise. To sum up the most important results of the present chapter : Summary. If the purpose of creation is either the greatest possible amount of happiness or the highest possible average of virtue, creation is a failure. But the fact that the highest products of creation are always the least abundant, unor- ganized matter being more abundant than life, vegetative life more abundant than animal, and merely animal life more abundant than mind, suggests that the purpose of creation is not the greatest quantity but the highest kind of excellence : so that one being of a high type of excellence is more valuable in the Divine sight than an indefinite number of a lower type. An inferior degree of attainment in a high type appears also to be more valuable than a higher degree of attainment in a lower type. These are the purposes of creation, and have been attained. The facts of the organic world appear to show that variety is sought in creation for its own sake. The same is true of the moral world, which is so ordered as to give occasion for the production not only of the highest virtue but of virtue of varied types. The attainment of all kinds of excellence in the same being at once appears to be in the nature of things impossible. Suffering, injustice, moral perplexity, and sin are per- mitted for the purpose of developing the virtue which resists and overcomes them. Injustice is rendered possible by the fact that our happiness is to a great extent placed in each other's power : but this is permitted in order to give occasion for the virtue of unselfishness. Virtue is often disappointed of its just reward, but this is permitted in order to give occasion to the virtues of patience, resig- XVii.] THE DIVINE PURPOSE OF CUFATIOX. 257 nation, and self-devotion. The path of duty is often uncertain, and though this is unfavourable to the produc- tion of a high average of virtue, it tends to produce special and high kinds of virtue. In the truths here stated we have a reply to all argu- Reply to inents against the Divine origin of Christianity from its aShSt nt apparent failure to influence mankind. The assertion Christian that Christianity has not kept its original promise, is simply contrary to fact : Christ did not promise to His disciples that they should conquer the world: on the contrary, He warned them that the entire history of the Church until His coming again should be a course of trial : and that because iniquity should abound (meaning apparently within the Church itself), the love of many should wax cold. 1 Christianity has no doubt raised the moral principles acted on by civilized mankind: but though this is an encouragement to us, it is not the primary purpose of Christianity, and ought not to be put forward as the chief ground of our faith. These truths are not merely speculative : they are of Practical the highest practical importance : and there never was a "nc^of" time when it was more needful to bear them in mind than the sub- iiow. In the present state of the moral and political Jec ' world, the most thoughtful men are the oftenest temptecl to conclude that the doctrine of Justification by Faith--* that is to say the entire ethical system whereof Christ is the founder 2 is disproved by facts, because in general those who believe are nothing the better, and those who disbelieve are nothing the worse. Unless we are to be morally thoughtless, it is impossible for us to be unmoved by such suggestions. But they are meant for our trial, and, as such, they are part of that order of things which is designed to make possible the production of high and varied types of virtue. With whatever force they may tend to discourage our aspirations after virtue, the reply to such objections is logically complete : for the sound- ness or goodness of an ethical system must be tested by m * Matt. xxiv. 12, > Chapter 12. 258 THE DIVINE PURPOSE OF CREATION. [CHAP. mentally verified, tested by its natural and legitimate tendency rather than by its tenden- visible results : if its general tendency is obviously to results. promote virtue and holiness, and if notwithstanding it appears in practice not to promote them, the influence ought to be not that ethical theory is untrustworthy, but that there must be some cause at work which interferes with the legitimate tendencies of the system. How I do not deny that the experimental verification of et ^fl es ethical principles is both possible and important: it are to be is both possible and important to perceive the nature an d tne worth of ethical principles, not only in their abstract form, but in their actual operation in moulding character. But if the connexion between the belief and the character which it helps to mould is to be in any degree instructive, it must be understood and perceived, not merely inferred from the kind of facts which statistics may prove. The knowledge, by actual acquaintance, of a single character which Christianity has made pure and unselfish, not only has but ought to have more influence in making us recognize and understand the effect of Christianity in promoting purity and unselfishness, than any possible amount of merely historical and statistical information about the social morality and the charitable institutions which have been developed in a Christian atmosphere; even supposing such facts, especially with respect to purity, to be more satisfactory than they are. Of the effect of the knowledge of character in moulding character, I have spoken at greater length in the chapter on Justification by Faith. Historical evidence on such subjects is however not to be despised, though it can never be of first-rate importance. Summary. In a word, the sufficient reply to all intellectual diffi- culties and all moral perplexities arising from the apparent failure of Christianity to attain its purpose, is that nature declares the purpose of creation not to be high average excellence but the attainment of the highest excellence by a few : and that Christ confirms this. Many, He says, are called, but few chosen. But it may be said that this reply, while answering one XVII.] THE DIVINE PURPOSE OF CREATION. 259 objection, raises another which is fatal. If we believe Objection^ this, how is the highest virtue to be possible? If the doctrine only final reward for which the highest virtue can hope is liere stated to consist in separating its lot from that of the human selfish- race and attaining to an exclusive salvation, will not the ness * natural and legitimate tendency of such a belief be to make unselfish virtue impossible ? I reply, that it would be so if the doctrine here stated Reply, as to Creative Purpose were the entire truth. But it is n(> t the* not so. The attainment of excellence by a few, though entire it is the Creator's primary purpose, is not His only nor salvation His ultimate purpose. According to Christ and His Apostles, though few are saved at first, salvation will ultimately be general. Christ, by being lifted up on the cross, will draw all men to Him : l and all enemies shall be abolished. 2 We shall have to say more on this subject in the chapter on Nature and Grace. This is also the Objection reply to an objection to Christianity which is, I think, felt ^ni^that" more widely than expressed : namely, that any moral it does not agency, especially if it has the vast pretensions of Chris- n tianity, ought to attempt to benefit not a few but all : and consequently ought to act not as Christianity seeks to do, on the individual, but on the masses of mankind. The reply to this is that Christianity does promise the ultimate Reply, salvation of all : it no doubt begins by acting on the * hat individual, but by so doing it takes the best way to benefit the mass the masses in the long run. The fuU proof of this is $$&. reserved for the time when salvation, which under the vidual. present dispensation is only individual, has become uni- versal : but historical and ethical science confirm the truth of the principle that if men are to be made better and happier they must be acted on through their beliefs : and this action must begin, not with the mass but with the individual : if the mass is to be benefited at all, it must be by benefiting individuals first. The objectors of whom I have now spoken probably deny Christianity as an authoritative system of truth. But the same reply is to be made to others who would 1 Jolmxii. 32. 3 1 Cor. xv. 2426. s 2 260 TME DIVINE PURPOSE OF CREATION. [CHAP. Tendency be the last to deny its authority in words. Among the Christian- teachers of religion and the administrators of ecclesi- ity into a as tical systems there is a constant and not an ignoble system of _ 11111 ordi- temptation to lower, I do not say the moral standard, out ordeT to" 1 the intellectual character of Christianity. Christianity benefit the teaches men to come to God as children in a spirit of freedom, and its tendency is to educate them into fitness for such freedom : but its ministers too often dread freedom for the people, and for the liberty wherewith Christ has made them free endeavour to substitute a new yoke of ordinances. Their hope is by thus lowering the character of Christianity to make it more widely effective. Thus, in one Church they enforce the confessional, and in others asceticism and the observance of the Sabbath. It is an utter misconception to think that all ecclesiastical corruptions are due to the desire of the clergy for power. A very great part of them are due to the honest and not unfounded belief that the people over whom they have to rule are unfit for freedom and responsibility : and they have been seconded by the people themselves, who often prefer bondage : for unfortunately the natural belief that men will of themselves prefer freedom to bondage and knowledge to ignorance is by no means universally true. The answer to those who thus attempt to lower Chris- tianity is the same as the answer to those mentioned above who would set it aside. Christ's plan is in the first place to confer spiritual benefit on individuals, and only through them to benefit the mass : and those who in Christ's name set aside His plan in favour of one of their own will certainly prove to be in the wrong. This is not matter of faith only, but in a great degree also of obser- vation : for historical evidence shows that such attempts, however well meant they may be, tend to lower the moral standard of Christianity as well as its intellectual character. Objection The same principle affords the reply to another kind of andT^phi- objection to Christianity which appears to be widely felt, losophy, The Jews of the Apostolic age sought a sign, and the Greeks philosophy. There is a disposition now to reject both, and to think that religion ought to address the moral xvii.] THE DIVINE PURPOSE OF CREATION. 261 and spiritual sense alone. With regard to signs, I have stated, my reasons for thinking that a religion ought to have miraculous proofs. 1 But as regards the philosophy of Christianity, that is to say its transcendental doctrines, it may possibly be true, though it is by no means certain, that a religion addressing itself to the moral nature only, and not at all, or as little as possible, to the- intellect, would be more widely and immediately beneficial than such a religion as Christianity, which makes vast demands on theoretical faith as well as on practical obedience. But It is right. if the purpose of Christianity is, in the first instance, not g io ^ ie the most virtue but the highest virtue, it is obviously should right that it should address itself to the whole of man's man ds on nature, intellectual as well as moral : and above all to that highest reason wherein moral and intellectual percep- obedience. tions coincide. 1 See the chapter on the Proof of a Revelation (Chapter 10)^ [262] CHAPTEE XVIII. ORIGINAL SIN. TN strictness of logical arrangement, the present chapter ought to be a note to the preceding one: but the great importance of the subject induces me to make it a distinct chapter. Original ^e nave defined Original Sin as " sinful tendencies in siu defined, human nature manifesting themselves before the will has attained to any true freedom/' 1 Two errors: There are two errors on this subject which must be mentioned. that ori- One of these consists in regarding the recognition of fsTtheo 01> igi na l s i n as a theological dogma. It is not a revealed logical doctrine but an observed fact : a fact of all hitman expe- ogma, rience, and witnessed to as strongly by classical as by Biblical writers, as strongly by heathens and atheists as by Christians. It is no doubt true that religious men dwell more than others on the fact of man's sinfulness, but this is because they alone are able to see its im- portance. Sin appears in darker and therefore in truer colours in proportion as our conception of holiness becomes brighter. A man's religion may make an infinite difference in his way of feeling towards sin ; but if he recognizes the facts of experience without endeavouring to explain them away, it can make no differ- ence in his recognition of the fact of human sinfulness. The Biblical writers do not dogmatize about it, but take it as an indisputable fact : a fact which it would be as 1 Page 251. CHAP, xviii.] ORIGINAL SIN. 263 irrational and as unmeaning to call in question as the facts of disease and death. This would probably be generally understood, were it not for the narrative of the Fall, which is obviously an allegorical legend, having been mistaken for history and erected into a dogma. It is often implied that those who deny the historical character of the narrative in the Book of Genesis of the introduction of sin into the world thereby deny the fact of original sin, but this is the same kind of misconception as if it were to be thought that those who deny the scientific character of the account of the Creation in the same book thereby deny the existence of the visible universe. The other error consists in confounding weakness, un- and that worthiness, and insufficiency, with sinfulness. We know e that " we are unable of ourselves to do any good thing." God be- We are forcibly reminded of this whenever we become thesinful conscious of sin, but this inability is not itself any proof liature - of the sinfulness of our nature, because we share it with all created beings, and even with Christ. 1 He, though He claimed to be co-eternal with the Father, yet declared that of His own self He could do nothing. We have seen that the purpose of God in permitting the existence of sin is to make provision for the development of that virtue which contends against it. At the same How far time we have admitted that this, though an adequate jjjjj^y 1 explanation of the fact of sin arising out of the self-deter- of the sub- minations of a free will, does not fully account for the soluble. manifestation of sinful tendencies before the will has attained to freedom. But though the only possible explanation is thus inadequate, we cannot doubt that it indicates the direction in which the solution of the diffi- culty would be found if our knowledge and our powers were greater, and in which we shall find it when we have- attained to know even as we are known. This, so far as I am able to see, is all that can be said on the theological side of the subject. 1 "We are dependent creatures, not self-existent or self-sufficing : but there is nothing degrading in this dependence, for we share it with the Eternal Son." (From "The Spiritual Order and other Papers," by the late Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, p. ^33.) 264 ORIGINAL SIN. [CHAP. I speak of The object of the present chapter, however, is to ^vehoJo 6 * a PP roacn tne subject on the psychological side, and to gically. show, as a matter of phenomenal fact, the way in which the sinful nature of man is developed. Sin begins The first manifestations of the sinful nature come with with self- ^ dawn of self-consciousness, and appear to depend conscious- ness, thereon. Self-consciousness is not a mere synonym ot Self-con- consciousness. The first or primary consciousness is con- defined. 6SS sciousness of sensation : self-consciousness is secondary, and may be defined as consciousness of consciousness. Thought is generally though not always conscious, 1 but it is not necessarily self-conscious : thought becomes self-con- scious when it becomes its own object, that is to say when we think about thinking. Pleasure and pain are not neces- sarily self-conscious, though they tend to become so : nor is there necessarily any self-consciousness in the desire of immediately attainable pleasure, or the dread of immedi- ately threatening pain : (feelings which the higher animals appear to have in equal intensity with ourselves :) but all brooding over recollected or anticipated pleasure or pain is self-conscious. Self-consciousness appears to have the closest connexion with that power of directing thought at will, whereon depends the power of forming abstractions and of abstract reasoning ; and these latter are the distinctive characteristics of man r s intellect as compared with that of the animals. 2 But while self-consciousness and the power of directing thought at will are on the one side the source of all high intellectual and moral developments, they give on the other side entrance to all error and sin. The fundamental law whereon the development of original Self-con- sin depends, is this : that any function is liable to be deranges* 8 ^ n so/nie Degree deranged ly the direction thereto of self- even the consciousness, so as to make it an object of thought. This functions: ^ aw nas its r00 ^ m the organic life, farther down than the first development of a moral nature ; thus, the act of breathing is disturbed and becomes irregular if we think about it: and I believe it is an admitted fact that the 1 Concerning unconscious thought, see " Habit and Intelligence," vol. ii. r- 27. 2 Same, p. 164. XVIII.] ORIGINAL SIX. 265 bodily health is injured by making it the object of constant much thought. And if this is true of the bodily functions, it is much more so of the mental ones, which are more suscep- tible of modification as the result of circumstances, and more liable to spontaneous variations, than the bodily functions : and for those reasons more liable to morbid perversions. The quadrumana (apes and monkeys), which of all ani- mals approach the nearest to Man in their bodily struc- ture, are according to Darwin those which most nearly resemble him in their mental character also : 1 and the well-known mischievousness of monkeys, so like that of Mental self-willed children, appears to be a dawning of the same sinful nature which is more fully developed in mankind. It is often said that in nature all is beautiful, but in the actions and works of man all is perverse : but this is greatly exaggerated. There are moral anomalies even in the animal world : I do not now speak of monkeys, which pro- bably have a dawning self-consciousness, but of insects, which show no signs thereof : 2 and though there is much deliberate perverseness in human actions, yet it cannot be true that all human works are perverse, unless it is true that all works of inventive (as distinguished from imi- tative) art are ugly : and no one will seriously maintain this. The difference between the works of nature and those of man in this respect is one of degree : but it is, notwithstanding, enormous. It is not true, as was formerly believed, that the contrast is between Divine and human works. The intelligence which becomes conscious in the brain of the higher animals and conscious of itself in the brain of man, is the same with that which guides the formation of the vegetable and animal organisms, and acts in the wonderful instincts of insects. 3 Intelligence is an Contrast attribute of all life. The contrast between the works of JjJjJ^ nature and those of man, is that between intelligence scions in acting unconsciously and consciously : unconsciously in nature, consciously in the mind. In organic and instinc- an . d tive life, intelligence acts unconsciously, and for the most oon - scious m- in Man. 1 See Darwin on the Origin of Man. 2 Page 216. 3 Page 215. 260 ORIGINAL SIX. [CHAP. part harmoniously and rightly: in mental life self-con- sciousness has been awakened, and the first effect of this is to set intelligence wrong, causing it to produce ugliness in art, systematic error in science, perversity in conduct, and sin in morals. Contrast The contrast will become most clearly visible by com- P arm g the forms of the organic creation with those of the beauty and human arts whereof the object is beauty. 1 As a rule, ai u t ma though not without exceptions, everything in the organic world is beautiful : and there are structures whereof the purpose appears to be beauty, just as in the decorative arts of man : I mean such structures as the tail-feathers of the peacock, the crests of many kinds of humming-birds, and the extraordinary developments of ornamental feathers in the various birds of Paradise. The purpose of these has been attained : they are beautiful. How different is human art ! Men spontaneously admire beauty : a delicate discrimina- tion of its refinements is perhaps always the result either of culture or of some peculiarly happy organization : but in a child before the dawn of self-consciousness the sense of beauty is healthy in so far as it exists at all. But art cannot arise in this absence of self-consciousness : before there can be art, the attention must be voluntarily and consciously directed to beauty as an object of thought: and the sense of beauty, thus becoming an object of self- consciousness, is at least in danger of being perverted. I do not now speak of the hideous idols which are still worshipped : these are perhaps in all cases symbolic, and though they are even a stronger instance of the sinfulness of man's nature than purely artistic monstrosities, they are Savage not quite so direct a proof. I speak of such customs as SesTn' 81 " ^ na ^ ^ tattooing, which according to some travellers is ornament, really ornamental on the back and round the waist, but must be hideous on the face : and the still more unac- 1 If any one says that there is no -standard of beauty ; that the facts men- tioned here prove that there is none : and that beauty and ugliness are only names for what we like and dislike : I reply that, independently of any other arguments, the unquestionable fact that there is a science of musical harmony affords a presumption almost amounting to certainty that there must be equally assured principles of the harmonies of form and colour. VIII.] ORIGINAL SIN. 267 countable perversity among some savages, of flattening the heads of their children by bandages. It is not always easy to ascertain how far unnatural practices of this class are due to a perverted sense of beauty, and how far merely to morbid instincts. Mr. Wallace, the eminent naturalist who has explored the Malay Archipelago, remarks that the prac- tice of shaving some part of either the head or the -face is so general among mankind that it must be due to an in- stinct : if so, the instinct must be a morbid one : and there Morbid is perhaps some reason for thinking that the practice of ln compressing the waist, which is so common among Euro- pean women and not unknown among European men, is not altogether due to a perverted sense of beauty and re- finement, but becomes an easily acquired morbid instinct. There are other perversities of practice which cannot be Other per- due to perversions of the sense of beauty : among which practice. may be mentioned the custom, which I believe is, or was, widely spread among barbarous races, of cutting the flesh so as to make the blood flow, in real or pretended paroxysms of joy or sorrow. l Kindred with these are practices of mutilation ; the best known of which, though by no means the only one, is the painful and revolting rite of circumcision. 2 Many savage perversities of practice may no doubt be explained as results of intellectual error. We shall have to speak of this subject further on. But this is certainly not true of all. It would appear indeed as if those practices which are most irrational and unnatural are the sign and expression of a lawless revolt against nature of that power in man which afterwards attains to true freedom and self-government 3 Thought is a function which is eminently liable to Derange- be deranged by making it the subject of self-conscious- JJ^J^J ness. This may be instanced in its simplest form by the by self- well-known fact that by letting the mind dwell for some time on the most familiar word, it will come to seem strange and unmeaning. Eeasoiiing is generally sound so long as it is unaccompanied with self-consciousness. It is 1 See 1 Kings xviii. 28. 2 See Note A at end of chapter. 3 See Note B at end of chapter. 268 ORIGINAL SIN. [CHAP. thus that animals think. Thought in that unconscious and spontaneous state is able ta reach, but a little way, but so far as it goes it is mostly right and true. It must attain to self-consciousness before it can attain to any high development : but the first results of self-conscious thought consist in its following logic at the expense of reason and truth, and in being enslaved by language, which ought to have been its servant. It is by reason of the disturbing effect of self-con- sciousness on thought that men often find it easier to believe truly and to act rightly than to state accurately the reasons for their belief and their actions. Every one has heard of the advice of the lawyer to his friend who had to act as a judge without knowing anything of law. "Decide according to your common sense, and you will be right : but give no reasons, or you will be wrong." It is no doubt necessary that the grounds of belief should be analysed : but it is not necessary that every man should do this for himself. In other words, logic and philosophy must be studied, but it is not needful that they should be studied by all. And if young men are taught that they have no right to believe or to do anything which they cannot justify in words, the effect will be to make them not truthful and accurate thinkers, but plausible talkers. But the most remarkable errors of self-conscious thought belong to a more primitive mental state than ours, and are to be found in those early systems of thought where Mytho- religion and philosophy are not yet separated. All mytho- lo v belongs to this class of error. Mythology, says Max Miiller, is a disease of language : that is to say, it is pro- duced by the power of language on the mind in causing it to mistake words for things and metaphors for facts. To mention a single instance : what a world of miscon- ception has been caused by the notion that chance, which is really nothing more than a name for the impossibility of certainty, must, because it has a name, have actual exist- Instance : ence and be an agent: and, with the Romans, even a Deity I of diancc! (Fortuna.) 1 But, as Mr. Tylor has remarked in his work 1 This instance is mentioned by Archbishop Whately : 1 think not by MtUkr. xvin.] ORIGINAL SIN. 269 on Primitive Culture, mythology in this sense of the wor-d is probably, a secondary formation : that which is Animismr most probably the first stratum of superstition consists of what he calls Animism, or the theory which ascribes life and soul to all things. 1 This idea is worked out by Primitive savages into a complete philosophy of the universe, in a {gwHa y way which is perfectly logical, that is to say consistent but irra- with itself : but utterly irrational, that is to say inconsistent with the truth of things. In the instincts of animals there is no conscious reasoning, but they are perfectly rational, that is to say adapted to the nature of the world around : it is the introduction of consciousness into reasoning which is the source of error among men. One of the most curious instances of this clinging to logic in defiance of reason is the very general practice of supplying the dead with food and other articles for their use in the spirit- world. This is consistent and logical : the spirits of the dead are supposed to use the spirits or ghosts of the food, clothing, and weapons left in their graves : for the Animistic faith, or philosophy, of primitive man recognizes a spirit in everything, animate and inanimate alike. But the strangest, and to our ideas the most unintelligible, instances of the irrational logic of primitive thought pro- bably belong rather to custom and law than to religion or philosophy. One of these is stated in Note C at the end of this chapter. But the most direct effect of self-consciousness in pro- Effect of ducing sinful tendencies is probably when it is directed to sciousne'ss the appetites. When the pleasures of eating and drink- on the ing become the subjects of self-consciousness, so as to be ai>pet thought of when they are not present, the effect is a temp- tation to excess. The love of stimulants appears to be in some way connected with this, though I do not mean that their use is sinful when in moderation. It is remarkable and perhaps significant that the quadrumana, which are 1 This doctrine is what Comte calls Fetichism a very inappropriate name. Animism is a much better word. Comte's theory that this was the earliest religious or philosophical doctrine among men is amply confirmed by Mr. Tyler's researches. 270 ORIGINAL SIN. [CHAP. the animals most nearly resembling Man, are also the only animals which easily acquire a liking for tobacco and alcoholic drinks. 1 The direction of self- consciousness to the relation be- tween the sexes is however the strongest instance of all. On the one side, it gives origin to that love which, when pure, is the source of half the happiness of life and of more than half its charm : on the other, to all impurity. The alle- It is this which has impressed the minds of the authors in'tlTof of tlm t P rofoun ^ m yth f tne Fall of Man which is pre- the Fall, served in the Book of Genesis. That myth is an allegory of the entrance of the sinful nature into the human world through the awakening of self- consciousness, and its first consequences in the destruction of childlike innocence and the arising of bodily shame. But this was not a fall from a higher state, unless it is to be called a fall for the child to grow into the man. The awakening of self-consciousness was not a fall from a higher state, but an advance towards it. If the narrative of the Fall has any historical basis, it indi- cates that crisis in the history of Man when he attained to sufficient self-consciousness to become conscious of sin and Its pos- to transmit traditional history to posterity. If this is so, torica^ 18 ^ s significance is historical as well as allegorical, and it is meaning, with profound truth that it has been placed at the begin- ning of the most venerable of all histories. But this is only a speculation, and not improbably a baseless one. The allegorical meaning, on the contrary, is obvious and lies on the surface. Nor can it be true that God commanded man not to eat the fruit of knowledge : man's mind is made for know- ledge, and God never created faculties which He did not mean to be used. Nor was it thus that Man became subject to death : on the contrary, he was mortal from the first : death is a universal and necessary condition of life. The myth of the Fall further asserts that sin is not an indigenous product of this world of ours, but has come to it from without. This can neither be proved nor dis- proved : but if it were proved to be true, the moral per- i See Darwin on tlif Origin of Man. XVTII.] ORIGINAL SIN. 271 plexities connected with the subject would be in no degree lightened, and the question why evil is permitted to exist in a Divine universe would be no nearer solution : just as Sir William Thomson's conjecture that the first vitalized germ may have been brought to our planet by a meteoric stone would not, even if it were proved, bring us one step nearer to an explanation of the origin of life. The Hebrew account of the introduction of sin into The per- the world appears also to imply the doctrine, which is so Qf"^ ty prominent in the later Scriptures, of the personality of the Tempter is Tempter. This also can neither be proved nor disproved, of C proof or but it appears to be a totally unnecessary hypothesis. I disproof. do not mean to deny that we have to contend against the world, the flesh, and the Devil : on the contrary, the last The Devil of these three names has a.profounder signification if we principle 6 thereby understand an impersonal principle of evil than if of purely . n ., . , , T* 4.1 r\ *i spiritual we take it to mean a personal tempter. If the Devil is a e vii, as person, then the world and the flesh are his instruments of ^H 11 "^ temptation, and he uses, or at least may be believed to from the use, no other. But as I understand the words, the flesh means the tendency to prefer the lower part of our own nature to the higher : the world means the tendency to set our affections on visible and temporary things in prefer- ence to invisible and eternal : and the Devil means the tendency to those sins which have their source and seat in the inmost soul. Hence the meaning of the proverbial expression that " pride is the sin of devils." Christ resisted and overcame all these forms of tempta- Christ tion. His temptation of the flesh was the natural desire to make an unworthy use of His miraculous powers by tliree - turning stones into bread in order to satisfy His hunger : for it would be a mistake to think that every tempta- tion of the flesh must be a temptation to an act which is in itself sinful. His temptation of the world was that which is recorded by His biographers as a temptation to receive as His own all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, on condition of paying homage to Satan : which was probably an impulse to use His miracu- lous power in order to carry out His plans for the good of 272 OEIGINAL SIN. [CHAP. mankind by force. 1 His temptation of the Devil, in the sense in which the Devil is distinguished from the world and the flesh, was probably that which is described as an impulse to throw Himself down from a "pinnacle in the expectation of being borne up in safety by angels. This appears to have been a desire for some tangible miracle, not for the purpose of display, (there is no suggestion of this,) but in order to confirm to His own soul the truth that He was the Son of God and the Saviour of the world: a desire to walk by sight rather than by faith. So perfect was His victory over all these various forms of temptation that the struggle was forgotten. He after- wards said to His disciples, " Ye are they who have been with me in my temptations : " forgetting at the moment that He had faced and overcome the chief of them alone. NOTE A. THE MUTILATIONS OP SAVAGES. Mutila- MUTILATIONS, according to Mr. Tylor, are in some cases prac- tions are tised with the idea of making a sacrifice of the part cut off : sacrifices, but he does not maintain that this is true of all. He says of one case, among the Mandan Indians of North America : Instance " In the Mandan ceremonies of initiation into manhood, when ^ e y u th a * l as t hung senseless, and, as they called it, lifeless, by the cords made fast to splints through his flesh, he was let down, and coming to himself crawled on hands and feet round the medicine-lodge to where an old Indian sat with a hatchet in his hand and an old buffalo-skull before him : then the youth, holding up the little finger of his left hand to the Great Spirit, offered it as a sacrifice, and it was chopped off, and sometimes the forefinger afterwards, upon the skull." Primitive Culture, vol. ii. p. 363. After mentioning other customs of similar significance in various parts of the world, Mr. Tylor says : This ex- " These various rites of finger-cutting, hair-cutting, and blood-letting, have required mention from the special point of 1 Pnge 186, et *rq. ORIGINAL SIN. 273 view of their connexion with sacrifice. They belong to an appear extensive series of practices, due to various and often obscure ^i all. motives, which come under the general heading of ceremonial mutilations." Primitive Culture, vol. ii. p. 365. I quote some more facts of the same class from Sir John Lubbock : "Some of the African tribes chip their teeth in various manners, each community having a fashion of its own. The Nyambanas, a division of the Kaffirs, are characterized by a row of artificial pimples or warts, about the size of a pea, and ex- tending from the upper part of the forehead to the tip of the nose. Of these they are proud. Some of the Buchapins, who have distinguished themselves in battle, are allowed the privilege of marking their thigh with a long scar, which is rendered indelible and of a bluish colour by means of wood ashes rubbed into the fresh wound. In Australia, Captain King saw a native orna- mented with horizontal scars which extended across the upper part of the chest. They were at least an inch in diameter and protruded half an inch from the body. In some parts of Australia, and in Tasmania, all the men have a tooth knocked out in a very clumsy and painful manner. *'#.,*-.**,..# The native women in New South Wales used to tie a string tightly round the little finger, and wear it until the finger rotted off." Prehistoric Times, pp. 485, 486. Some of these practices are evidently due to a misdirected love of ornament, but it is difficult to see that the two mutila- tions last mentioned can be due either to that cause or to any notion of sacrifice. NOTE B. THE " SPECTATOR " ON SAVAGE CUSTOMS. THE following extracts are from the review of Sir John Lub- bock's " Prehistoric Times " in the Spectator of 4th December, 1869. I omit a good deal for the sake of condensation, but quote the reviewer's words without alteration. " The point which strikes us as most remarkable in the new and The capri- extended matter on the customs of modern savages, is the accu- of^va^e mulated evidence Sir John Lubbock has brought to bear on the customs. T 274 ORIGINAL SIN. [CHAP. apparent arbitrariness and caprice in the morals and customs of savage tribes. It would seem as if we beheld in the moral restrictions laid down by these different tribes, a number of purely accidental variations entirely without any rational or natural root, nay, in some cases almost the opposite of natural : arbitrary social or moral experiments tried as it were in the dark, and yet often commanding all the authority of what we Instances, regard as morality. Thus among the Fijians brothers and sisters, first cousins, fathers and sons-in-law, mothers and daughters-in- law, are severally forbidden to speak to each other or to eat from the same dish. The Society Islanders think it a shame to eat together. They go off to eat_, each in solitude, and say they do this because it is right. " Among a tribe in Eastern Africa the bitterest insult is to charge anyone with cutting his upper teeth first. Tattooing. " Add to this curious list of what we may call superfluous Distortion, thwartings of nature, that it is all but universal among savages tion. to have extremely painful processes performed by way of either tattooing the skin, or distorting the natural shape of some parts or features, or clipping off the little finger, or knocking out a couple of teeth, and we have a truly remarkable pile of evidence to prove the unnatural caprices of savage manners and morals. These, " That kind of phenomenon, and still more the propitiation of ]* e } n %. arbitrary and capricious unseen powers, is at once strictly speak- caniiot ho i j! g human, and yet disadvantageous to the physical well-being accounted o f the creatures who exhibit it. Surely we see here something Darwinian which is outside the scope and capacity of the Darwinian theory theory. altogether ; something which betokens the germs of a spiritual nature persisting in blind attempts to impose on itself an arbi- trary law, in spite of the fact that it is not in any sense con- ducive to the physical prosperity of the being in question to do so. The more strictly unnatural, the less in harmony with true nature, these strange superstitions and customs of savages are, the more remarkable they are as indications of some con- fused but positive element in man that will assert itself, even though it be to his physical loss that it does so. Sir John Ideas of a Lubbock narrates a curious criticism of a Kandyan on the habits oi^mar 1 f ^ ne Veddahs in keeping true to one wife till death. That, riage. said the Kandyan, was a brutal kind of practice, exactly like the practice of the monkeys. Here is a case then where the higher modern civilization has recurred to nature the nature even of the higher brutes and turned against the customary xvni.] ORIGINAL SIN. 275 caprice of savage man, 1 and so recurred because it is in the highest sense to the true advantage of man. How then are we to explain the intermediate stage of savage arbitrariness and caprice 1 Certainly not at least as an improvement on the brute. We suspect that the Darwinian theory is pushed too hard when it is used to explain even the intellectual advance "of man beyond the brutes. But even if it succeeds there, it will Savage not apply at all to the first rude development of a sense of law ca l )r i c i us - and of liberty, and of the wild beliefs and social customs which pears to thence result. Here we certainly seem to have elementary snow t ^ ie faculties groping for the light, and injuring our physical being mov incrs very seriously in these elementary conditions, though destined to of a serve it very greatly in the end." NOTE C. CUSTOM OP THE " COUVADE." I MENTION that extraordinary custom called the Couvade, not that I think it has any special connexion with original sin, but as the best instance that I can find of the tendency which is peculiar to man, and characteristic chiefly of savage and bar- barous man, to be consistent and logical at the expense of reason. The following account of it is from the Introduction to Sir John Lubbock's " Origin of Civilization : " "Another curious custom is that known in Beam [in the Descrip- South of France] under the name of La Couvade. Probably every Englishman who had not studied other races would assume as a matter of course that on the birth of a child the mother would be put to bed and nursed. But this is not the case. In many races the father and not the mother is doctored when a baby is born. Yet though this custom seems so ludicrous to us, it is very widely distributed " " In Guiana," Mr. Brett observes, 2 " . . . on the birth of a child, the ancient Indian etiquette requires the father to take to 1 The reviewer appears to be here under a mistake as to a fact. The Veddahs are savages : the Kandyans, according to the usual criteria, are comparatively civilized. (Both inhabit Ceylon.) This however docs not affect his argument, which turns on the fact that the highest civilization has returned to monogamy. 2 Brett's " Indian Tribes of Guiana," p. 355. T 2 276 ORIGINAL SIN. [CHAP. Belief whereon Probable his hammock, where he remains some days as if he were sick, and receives the congratulations and condolence of his friends. An instance of this custom came under my own observation : where the man, in robust health and excellent condition, with- out a single bodily ailment, was lying in his hammock in the most provoking manner, and carefully and respectfully attended to by the women, while the mother of the new-born infant was cooking, none apparently regarding her." Sir John Lubbock goes on to mention his opinion that the ground of this custom is the belief, which he states on the grounded, authority of Lafitau l to be that of the Caribs and Abipons, that the child would be injured if the father were to do any hard work, or were not properly cared for. But what can be the origin of this idea, so contrary not only to actual fact, but to all the appearances of the case 1 An explanation of this has been offered by Sir - John Lubbock himself in another place if I remember aright which appears to be th^ true one. Among the most primitive races, before marriage became an institution, kindred was recognized through the mother only : a child was kindred to its mother and its mother's relatives, but not to its father or its father's relatives. There are many relics of this state of things among barbarous nations, in which it is not uncommon for succession to property and to family names to be in the female line only. The intro- duction of marriage gave the father rights over his children, and led to the introduction of kindred and succession through the male line only : a state of things which we find in the early Roman law. Thus the father took what had been the mother's place in the family : the feeling arose that the child was more nearly related to the father than the mother, and thence the inference that for the child's sake it was more needful at its birth to take care of the father than of the mother. " How completely the idea of relationship through the father, of Orestes, when once recognized, might replace that through the mother, we may see in the very curious trial of Orestes. Agamemnon, having been murdered by his wife Clytemnestra, was avenged by their son Orestes, who killed his mother for the murder of his father. For this act he was prosecuted before the tribunal of the Gods by the Erinnyes, whose function it was to punish those who shed the blood of relatives. In his defence, Orestes asks them why they did not punish Clytemnestra for the murder of Agamemnon : and when they reply that marriage does not 1 " Mcetirs des Sauvagos Amerioains," vol. i. p. 259. The trial ORIGINAL SIN. constitute blood relationship ' She was not the kindred of the man whom she slew ' he pleads that by the same rule they cannot touch him, because a man is a relation to his father, but not to his mother. This view, which appears to us so un- natural, was supported by Apollo and Minerva, and, being adopted by the majority of the Gods, led to the acquittal of Orestes." (Sm JOHN LUBBOCK'S Origin of Civilization, p. 112. [ 2-78 ] CHAPTEE XIX. NATURE AND THE RELIGIOUS SENSE. The truth TTTE^have seen in the preceding two chapters, that highest 6 though nature abounds in suggestions of a Divine products Creator and Euler of the universe, yet when we seek for are the confirmation of these suggestions we are met by the facts abundant ^at ^ highest and most precious products of nature are and the ' the latest to be produced and the least abundant : that the forces lowest forces are the most constantly and the most widely liable to acting the forces of matter more so than those of life, be ira- peded by and the forces of unconscious life more so than those of the lower, m i n( j . an( j that the lower forces often impede the action of the higher ones, producing disease. Universal and commonplace as are these truths, they do not appear to be by any means instinctively recognized. When their recognition is forced on the mind, it affects different orders of mind differently. as re- The man of science knows that it is his duty to fhe de s cien- endeavour to " see things as they are," and he at once tific mind, makes these truths part of his system : and if the discovery that the laws of force, which are the lowest and least organic of all laws, are those which act on the widest scale, controlling and in a sense including all others if this discovery ever brings to his lips an exclamation of disappointment, " Is this all ? Beyond this is there nothing ? " the answer soon comes, " Yes, this is all : beyond this is nothing; but within this is everything: the laws of the celestial motions, of sound, light, heat, electricity, and magnetism, and in a sense even those of CH. xix.J NATURE AND THE HELIGIOUS SENSE. 279 chemical and vital action, are all induced within the laws of force." We work inwards from the circumference, not outwards from the centre : the widest knowledge is the first to be obtained. Thus, in the exploration of the earth, science early reached the exterior limit of the subject, when the earth was measured and circumnavigated ; but this only traced the outline to be filled up by the survey of every coast, river, and mountain in the world : and this, if it were complete, would be in its turn only an outline to be filled up by geological exploration. As in a picture, completion does not consist in covering a larger surface, but in filling in with more detail. The artist has in his youth dreamed of art and poetry by the as a power in the world : and it is a bitter disappoint- jS rnent when he finds that the most beautiful things in the milld world are not the strongest, but rather the reverse. But it is his nature to adapt himself to the world around him ; the fact that the highest excellence is least in quantity commends itself to his artistic sense ; and he soon learns to work with no more thought of moving the world than the heath or the harebell has of moving the rock on which it grows : thinking it enough if he can adorn the world. But the religious man makes the same discovery with and i.y the different feelings. He instinctively feels that the higher forces ought to control the lower, and yet he finds that they do not. He has dreamed in his youth of a philo- sophy wherein, as in the scheme of the scholastic phi- losophers, theology should be the dominant science, and the knowledge of the universe should be based on the knowledge of God. But this dream is dispelled, and he awakens to find that, instead of theology, the dominant sciences are mathematics and dynamics, that is to say the sciences of magnitude and of force : he finds that the universe is dominated by those lower forces, especially gravitation, which act according to mathematical laws, and which show in their operation no clear proof of a guiding Intelligence. He sees the whole universe full of the sublimity of vastness and of power, the splendour of light, the magnificence of colour, and the beauty that arises from 280 NATURE AND THE BELIGIOUS SENSE. [CHAP. the realization of mathematical law in actual form : but in the vaster phenomena of nature he sees no unmistakeable trace of intelligent purpose. The vastness of creation and the unintelligent might of its inorganic forces weighs on his mind \ but he finds " The counter-charm of space and hollow sky" x in those works of nature where power is scarcely displayed at all though beauty is lavished : in the crystals of snow, in flowers and winged insects and other living things : and above all in the mind of man : which contains a principle transcending all merely vital principles, as they transcend all merely physical forces : namely, the moral sense, or conscience. Here, alone in the universe, does he find " an authority the essence of which does not consist in power," and a law which is not the less a law though it may be habitually disobeyed. This is the highest principle in the universe ; it ought to rule to be absolutely dominant in its own human world : yet it does not so rule. The moral nature of man, like his bodily nature, becomes diseased : as the chemical forces and the lower vital ones revolt against the higher vital forces and produce disease, so the lower mental forces the selfish and animal desires revolt against the conscience and produce sin. The religious instinct feels that this ought not so to be : that the lower vital forces ought to be under the con- trol of the higher : especially and above all, that the entire nature of man ought to be under the control of conscience. And, finding in nature no hope of deliverance from sin, it looks for deliverance to that God of Power, Wisdom, and Holiness whom it believes to be the Author and the Law- giver of Nature. Origin of Eeligion has been defined as "morality tinged with gious 61 emotion." 2 This definition is inadequate, but it truly sense, indicates how religion has its origin. So long as morality is merely recognized as having a right to be obeyed, as it was by the Stoics, it may never give rise to any truly religious feeling. But when the contrast between the 1 Tennyson's "Maud." a Matthew Arnold. x,x.] NATURE AND THE RELIGIOUS SENSE. 281. obedience to which conscience has a right, and the dis- in a cry for deliver- obedience with which it is treated in fact, becomes so a nce from painful that a cry it may be of despair or it may be sm - of hope goes up to Heaven in appeal against the sin and for help, there is the germ of religious feeling: but it is not yet religion, for desire is not attainment. " Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteous- ness," said Christ, " for they shall be filled : " but hunger and thirst are not their own satisfaction. To say that morality is religion, or that it can be a substitute for religion, is to offer hunger and thirst as an answer to the cry for meat and drink. NIVERSITY [ 282 ] CHAPTER XX. IMMORTALITY. Origin of T]I7^ nave seen that * ne religious sense is in its origin a the reli- YV longing for deliverance. We can scarcely say that illOllS ^CHSf* in a long- it is at first a hungering and. thirsting after righteousness, defiver- Tlie Psalmist no doubt exclaims, " My soul thirsteth for ance. God, for the living God : " but he oftener expresses a feel- ing which was probably much earlier developed in the soul of man, of desire for a deliverer from the wrongs and oppressions of the w y orld. A Deliverer was sought first in the strife with external enemies, and not till afterwards in the strife with those enemies which make the soul their battle-ground. There is little doubt that this is the true account of the origin of the religious sense as developed in the history of mankind : but it is not the only possible way in which it might have been developed, and it is pro- bable that in individual cases it may be developed inde- pendently of the sense of conflict. A man " hungers and thirsts after righteousness," aspiring towards holiness and perfection in his life and in his heart : and, feeling that he can by himself attain to it very imperfectly if at all, he raises his voice in a cry for help. Will the Thus man learns to aspire after justice without and ancebein righteousness within: after justice between man and this life or m an and righteousness in the individual soul : and the another? *."* ^ j/i e 1 A - very act 01 aspiring the very strength 01 the aspiration suggests that it may and shall have a perfect fulfilment and satisfaction. But where ? Can it be in this life ? CHAP, xx.] IMMORTALITY. 283 The course of this world is not such as to give any hope of a reign of perfect justice : the character of man, with all its vast possibilities of good, does not give any hope of such purity and perfection as will alone satisfy its aspi- rations. Can there "be another life where all shall be fulfilled? It may be true that the belief in a life after death has a Possible much humbler origin than this, and had at first no ethical tSfbeli significance whatever. It may be true that the suggestions in m P , -,., , . . -n T T ,-, . tality in of immortality were not originally made by the conscience mere but borrowed by the conscience from the imagination : that they came from the strange phenomena of dreams, in tion. which the mind seems to leave the body and to assume an independent existence. 1 But if it is true that the thought If so, it of immortality was not originally suggested by the moral sense, it is still one of the most obvious of historical facts its signifi- that the moral sense has fastened on that thought and the moral given it significance : and that many of the most thought- seuso< ful men, who reject and despise all superstitions about dreams and ghosts, do nevertheless cherish the belief in immortality as that which alone answers the aspiration after justice and holiness. There is perhaps nothing wonderful in the fact that savages, who are so ready to believe in the objective reality of whatever is suggested to their imagination or their fears, should believe in ghosts and in a spirit-world. But the fact that the belief in a Wonder- spirit-world and in immortality exists in full force, ^hT f though not universally, among civilized and scientifically belief. taught men, is wonderful, seeing that this belief is op- posed to all the obvious analogies of nature, and is con- fessedly without evidence of any ordinary kind. Were it nothing more, this would be at least a very noteworthy psychological fact. Let us however seek for reasons in its favour. The vast importance of the subject, the way in which the belief has entwined itself with the moral sense, and the ethical grounds on which it is avowedly held, entitle it at 1 Sec Mr. Tylor's work on " Primitive Culture " for this subject. 284 IMMORTALITY. [CHAP. least to a respectful consideration : the obvious analogies which are opposed to it may be fallacious, and there may be evidence in its favour of an unusual kind. Three There are in physical science three principles of logical relation Of re ^ a ^ on which run through it like guiding threads. These in phy- are the relation of cause and effect : the relation of resem- science : klance and difference : and the relation of means and pur- Cause, pose. For brevity let us call these Cause, Resemblance, blance, and Purpose. 1 We go on to try what reasons are to be Purpose. f oun( j under each of these three heads for believing in immortality. Let us consider first the subject of Cause. Causation All the most obvious arguments from physical causation are opposed to any belief in immortality. It is true that physical science shows not only matter but force (or, more accurately, energy 2 ) to be indestructible : and it has been argued that the same must be true of the spiritual nature of man. This analogy, however, is altogether erroneous. Energy cannot be destroyed, but any form of energy may be transformed into any other form : heat into electricity, for instance, or electricity into heat : and we have every reason to believe that the energy whereby living beings carry on the vital processes in which their life consists in a word, vital energy is a form of energy like heat and gives no electricity, and capable of transformation into them. Life tMnSTtkat * s obviously n t immortal, for things which had been living life cease to live : the matter of which their visible substance was made mingles with the dust or with the air, and the energy by which it was animated assumes some other form, probably that of heat. 3 Matter and energy are no doubt indestructible, but their combinations are transient, whether or mind is in a cloud, in a wave, or in a living organism. What is immoi>talt ' true of unconscious life is equally true of mind: mind is but conscious life, and modern physiology and psychology 1 "Habit and Intelligence," vol. i. p. 115. 3 See Note to Introduction. 3 See the chapter in " Habit and Intelligence " on tlie Dynamic* of Life (Chapter 9). XX.] IMMORTALITY. 235 have shown that mental no less than bodily action depends on the nerves. But there is a reason in favour of immortality yielded by the law of causation, which, if it is not conclusive as argument, has at least great force as suggestion. However we explain the moral sense, it is beyond doubt The moral one of the most remarkable characteristics of man. In the chapter on the Meaning of the Moral Sense, 1 we have seen sively uti- what appear to be conclusive reasons for believing that it has not an exclusively utilitarian significance, and conse- quently cannot have an exclusively utilitarian origin : in other words, that it does not approve and disapprove with exclusive reference to the tendencies of actions or classes of actions to affect happiness beneficially or inju- riously, and consequently cannot have been originally pro- duced, though it may have been indefinitely strengthened, by the habitual experience of such tendencies. We have also seen that the faith which we so confidently feel in the righteousness of the supernatural government of the universe, if any such government exists at all, is a faith transcending experience and independent of evidence, and pointing to a source higher than anything in the world of matter and life. What then is the origin of the moral What is sense, with this wonderful power of developing into a faith l ! which presses forward to eternal things ? The answer to this question is that the properties, whether bodily or mental, of every living being, have relation to the order of tilings in the midst of which it has been developed. Thus, space and time are forms of our thought because we are developed in the midst of a universe which exists under the conditions of space and time : they are facts of the mind because they first were facts of nature. This is true, whether our knowledge of space and time is a mere result of experience or a result of intelligence transcending and anticipating experience though deriving confirmation from it. So, moral law Tt is from belongs to the spiritual universe, and has become identified spiritual 1 Chapter 3. 286 IMMORTALITY. [CHAP. universe with OUT mental being because we are a pnrt of the spiri- we are ^ ua ^ universe. It must be admitted that the parallelism part. is far from complete. We can in some degree trace the process whereby we learn the properties of time and space. We perceive time by becoming conscious of the succession of events : we perceive space by moving about in it, and by becoming aware of the simultaneous existence of sepa- rated objects : but there is no similar way in which the realities of the spiritual universe can become objects of perception. In our moral and spiritual life "we walk by faith, not by sight." But must it ever be so? The physical world the universe of matter, existing under the laws of space and time is known to us. Mathematical and physical laws work themselves out to their results in Prolm- the universe of matter : and are moral laws not to have a moral that un i verse in which to work out their results? or are they laws, like laws of obligation and nothing more, with no reward for maticai, tne ^ r observance, no punishment for their violation, and no have a means of making themselves ultimately and universally wherein to recognized and obeyed ? It is not maintained that the themselves ar ument * s ^ anv degree conclusive, but it has great out. force as a suggestion. It may be thus stated : We have one set of powers which find their use and their justifi- cation in the world that exists in space and time: and another namely the moral nature which does indeed find its employment in the world that we live in, but does not find its perfect justification in any world yet known to us : and the inference is that such a world must exist, and may possibly be revealed to us. The antecedent probability of its being revealed is to be considered when we come to the sub- ject of Purpose as a thread of relation in the universe. It is obvious that if there is to be such a revelation of a spiritual world, in which moral law shall justify itself as completely as mathematical law justifies itself in the world of matter existing in space, such revelation must contain a revela- tion of a future life, and only in that life can be completed. Eesem- The next thread of relation which we have to consider bianco. j s t ] iat O f Resemblance : and we now go on to inquire XX.] IMMORTALITY. 287 what analogies of immortality are to be found in the facts Natural of the natural world. The most obvious of these are the germination of the seed, which Saint Paul, in what is tality. probably the most eloquent passage in all literature, has compared to the Eesurrection : and the escape of the Insect butterfly from its chrysalis-skin, with other and higher S^J-JJ *" powers than what it possessed when a larva, which has often been compared to the " putting on of immor- tality " by the soul after death. These two analogies are almost the same, being both taken from the fact's of vital development. The analogy of the wingless larva changing We may into a winged insect tends to make it, not perhaps more ( credible but certainly more imaginable, that we are larvae: that as some insects never acquire wings but remain all their lives without any metamorphosis, while others acquire wings at their last metamorphosis, 1 so no animal acquires an immortal nature except man alone. It is an obvious objection to this, that the analogy, if it has any relevancy at all, tells not for but against immor- tality : for a Resurrection is nothing if it is not the entrance to immortal life : and the plant which develops out of the seed, and the butterfly into which the larva is transformed, are neither of them immortal ; on the contrary, the plant gives birth to new seeds, the winged insect gives birth to new larvae, and both die. This is true, and it deprives the analogy of any value as evidence. But the analogy is The theory notwithstanding a much better and closer one than those tioiTmakes were aware of who first saw it. They no doubt believed, the as the greater part of mankind still believe, that the pro- better 7 cess of birth, reproduction, and death, goes on in an un- than ifc v -i -i u . . formerly ending circle : but we have seen convincing reasons for appeared, believing that it is not so : that there is organic evolution and progress, so that every living being does not always produce seed or young after its kind, but all forms of life have ultimately sprang from simple germs, and winged orders of insects are descended from wingless ones. 1 All winged insects acquire their wings by metamorphosis, though some undergo more metamorphosis than others : no insect leaves the egg with wings. 288 IMMORTALITY. [CHAP. I do not attach much importance to these analogies : nevertheless I think it worth while to state them at length; partly because they have greatly influenced the imagination of men, and partly because it is not impos- sible that a future generation may attach more importance to them than we are inclined to do. What is The question may be asked, what we suppose to be the i}ie . f nature and the properties of immortal life. " How are the nature 01 immortal dead raised up, and with what body do they come?" I will not follow St. Paul in calling this question a foolish We do not one, but his reply to it is sufficient. We cannot tell what because it its nature is, because it is altogether outside our present is beyond experience; but that is no reason for thinking its exist- pcrience. ence impossible, for we have no reason to think that our experience is any measure of the Creator's resources. Space and time give no suggestion of the properties of matter and force ; the universal properties of matter, such as inertia and gravitation, give no suggestion of mag- netism or any other polar force : the polar forces give no suggestion of life, and vegetative life gives no suggestion It may of consciousness. So it may be when immortal life is he nature* attained : a new state of being may be attained, of which which we our present experience contains no suggestion, yet differing only as life from that nature which we know and whereof we are a from p ar f on } v as one m-ade of being in that nature differs matter. J from another : and as matter and force are a preparation tor organic life, so may organic and mental life be a prepara- tion for spiritual and immortal life : and the whole world of matter and life may be a preparation for the order of things in which immortal life is to be revealed. We do not suppose immortal life to be developed out of the present life by any natural agency. It must be a new creation a new result of the same Power that created the world of matter. This appears to be true of merely physical life : the question is no doubt a controverted one, but the most probable opinion appears to be that life is not a resultant from any physical and chemical forces, but had its origin in the direct action of Creative Power. But whether this is true of physical life or not, it is xx.] IMMORTALITY. 289 certainly true of immortal life. Those who believe in Connexion immortal life at all, instinctively recognize this truth. eiM e in _ Mankind habitually unite the conception of immortality immor- with that of a personal God : immortality is generally doubted and denied by Pantheists, that is to say by those who believe in no God beyond the universe of matter and mind : and it is generally believed in by Theists, that is to say by those who believe in a Divine Will and Wisdom existing before and independently of all their manifestations in creation. This is profoundly consistent. In one sense no doubt a future life must be conceived of as a continuation of the present : but it can be originated only by Creative Power, and only a God of Will can create. The third thread of relation which we have to consider Purpose, is that of Purpose. From this point of view the analogies are much closer and more satisfactory than from that of Eesemblance. In the chapter on the Divine Purpose of Creation, 1 we have seen that if the purpose of creation is discoverable by us at all, the only possible solution of the problem is tliis : that human virtue has for its own sake an abso- lute value in the Divine sight : and that in the adminis- tration of this planet at least, the chief Divine purpose is to render possible the production, in however small a quantity, of the highest virtue. But to this view it is an obvious objection, and, though Objection not conclusive, a formidable objection, that the purpose j^f^ 116 has not been attained : that the highest virtue attained not suffi- by man is too imperfect to be a conceivable purpose for attained, creation. "A life, Quotation "With large results so little rife, from Though bearable, seems hardly worth Matthew] This pomp of worlds, this pain of birth. " Arnold's "Resigna- tion. " Christ alone was perfect : but He came into the world 1 Chapter 17. U 290 IMMORTALITY. [CHAP. " not to be ministered unto but to minister:" and can we believe that the purpose of His life has been attained by the very imperfect virtue and holiness which the best of His followers have learned from Him? We have no doubt seen that imperfect attainment of a high type of excel- lence appears to have a greater value in the Creator's sight Proba- than perfect attainment of a lower type. But this is no tSe^n^** ar o umen * against the expectation of a future, immortal will be life : on the contrary, it rather strengthens it. If God has attained placed before us the highest possible type of character in a future as an ideal, and enabled us to aspire after it and to attain it in a very imperfect degree, and if He is pleased with the result, is it not reasonable to hope that He will con- tinue and complete the work ? Aspiration Such thoughts as these, drawn from the sense of in- mortality. completeness in human character and destiny, are the most practically influential, and also in my opinion the strongest, of all arguments in favour cf immortality. We are sinful, and yet we aspire after holiness. We have capacities for happiness which are seldom filled. We see that the world is full of injustice, and yet we have in- stinctive faith that there must be justice with God. The very fact that men and not the weakest men but the strongest and best are capable of aspiring with confident faith to a future life where all wrong shall be redressed and all sin healed, and where they who hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled, appears to be a pledge that such aspiration shall be satisfied. Poetical ' ' For surely there is hope to find quotation. Wherever there is power to seek : And we could never think or speak Of light, had we from birth been blind. Man, like the brutes, yields up his breath : Yet not like them : they never think, While pausing on destruction's brink, Of life unquenchable by death. Must he but share the reptile's grave Who gazed on beauty with delight, Who longed for knowledge, fought for right, And died his fatherland to save ? " xx.] IMMORTALITY. 291 It appears impossible that God should have created man with an instinct which is destined never to be satisfied. In the we rid of life, every function is adapted to the order of thirgs around : and can the moral and spiritual nature of man be alone an exception ? One of the facts which has probably the most influence Suggesti in exciting the hope of a future life is that of premature death. Death is not in itself an evil : it is part of the premature death order of nature :. but premature death is an evil, like disease. It is remarkable that all those whom Christ and Christ's His Apostles are recorded to have raised from the dead raising the appear not to have been past the prime of life. 1 If death dead. always came as the result of slow decay, there would be much less than there actually is to suggest a future life. The present life would appear complete without it. Perhaps among " Yonder hundred million spheres " there may be worlds where disease and premature death are unknown, and decay is watched and death is awaited with no feeling much sadder than that with which we regard the reddening and the fall of leaves in autumn. But whatever may be the serene happiness of life in such Argument a world, it must contain far fewer suggestions than ours taiit^from of a future life. Premature death, the ending of a life in the in- the midst of its work, or before its work is well begun, ness^of t^e suggests the hope that the broken thread will vet be taken P re s en t order of up, and the work resumed. This may be worth little as things. argument, but it is immensely valuable as suggestion. The confident aspiration after completion and perfec- tion has never been so forcibly expressed as in the following remarkable passage by St. Paul : 1 Only five such instances are recorded, besides the resurrection of Christ Himself. Jairus's daughter was a child of twelve. The son of the widow of Nam is described as a young man. Of the age of Lazarus we have no definite mention, but he appears to have been an unmarried man, living with his sisters, and there is nothing to make us think that he was advanced in life : it is moreover a plausible conjecture that the reason his resurrection is not mentioned in the first three Gospels is that he was still living when they were written and circulated, and it is not likely this was for many years after the ascension of Christ. Eutychus is mentioned as a young man. And Dorcas was at least not too old for a life of active usefuln^fs. u 2 292 IMMORTALITY. [CHAP. St. Paul " The patient expectation of the creation waits for the on b * 1 "J revelation of the sons of God. For the creation was made subject to vanity, (not willingly but on account of Him who subjected it) in hope, because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans together and travails together up to this time. But not only the creation but even ourselves, possessing the first-fruit of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, awaiting the fulness of our adoption, the redemption of our body. For in hope were we saved." 1 I subjoin an explanatory paraphrase of this passage by Dr. Vaughan : 2 Dr. Vang- "The whole creation, even in its irrational, if not paraphrase inanimate, portion, gives signs as of expectation, of of St. Paul, longing, of a sense of want and imperfection, to be satisfied only in those ' times of refreshing ' 3 which shall accompany the public recognition of the true sons of God. The whole earth in its present state : the world of nature, so full of imperfection, suffering, and decay, and yet under the government of a perfect God : seems to indicate not the need only but the certainty of a future c restitution of all things ' 4 when, above all else, the veil which at present hides the true character and destiny of God's servants shall be removed ('the revelation of the sons of God') aud He will own and bless them as His." In this passage, together with the hope for the comple- tion of the present most imperfect state of things, St. Paul perhaps alludes to the Hebrew idea of a Fall of Man from The im- a state of original perfection, involving all nature in the of rfature^s ruin - We can no longer believe this : we have learned proof not to believe that the evidences of imperfection around us but of in- and within us are proofs not of ruin but of incompleteness, complete- j> u t none the less does the belief in a Fall testify to the ness. 1 Epistle to the Romans, chapter viii. 19 24. The translation is taken from the notes to Alford's Greek Testament, and is much more accurate than that in the Authorized Version. 2 From the notes to his Greek edition of the Epistle to the Romans. 3 Acts iii. 19. 4 .Acts iii. 21. xx.] IMMORTALITY. 293 strength of the aspiration after renewal. It is a hope of the future, mistaken for a reminiscence of the past : a light of dawn, mistaken for a light of sunset. The ground for expecting an ultimate renewal and completion of all things, however, is rather strengthened than weakened when we have awakened out of the dream of a fall from an original state of perfection. But if nature appears to point to Quotation " One far-off Divine event, from " In To which the whole creation moves," Memo- riam." it is also true that, as St. Paul teaches in this passage, "the world of nature, so full of imperfection, suffering, and decay/' appears to be labouring to that event with patient endurance and expectation. The idea that happi- ness is the dominant expression of nature is perhaps natural to those who see nothing of nature except in a summer's holiday, but not to those who are equally familiar with its autumnal and wintry aspects. " That general life which does not cease, Quotation "Whose secret is not joy but peace : from That life whose dumb wish is not missed Matthew If birth proceeds, if things subsist : Arnold's The life of plants, and stones, and rain : '. Ke f/g na - * * * * * tion. * the mute turf we tread, The solemn hills around us spread, The stream that falls incessantly, The strange-scrawled rocks, the lonely sky, If I might lend their life a voice, Seem to bear rather than rejoice." And the same effect, not of exultation but rather of weariness, is produced on the mind by the thought of the routine of nature : the succession of the seasons and of birth and death. " One generation passeth away and Quotation another generation cometh : but the earth abideth for ever, The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about into the north : it whirleth about continually, and the wind re turneth again according to its circuits. All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not 294 IMMORTALITY. [CHAP. full : unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. All things are full of labour : man cannot utter it : the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing." l So said the author of Ec- clesiastes : he was a Sadducee, and did not go beyond the conclusion that " all is vanity." But St. Paul, while recognizing the fact that creation has been made subject to "vanity," that is to say to a routine of apparently purposeless labour and change, does not end here, but appears to make this very fact a reason for expecting a deliverance. It is not true however, at least it is not the whole truth, that all things are condemned to a constant round of unprogressive and purposeless labour. There is evolution : there is progress. The original nebula has condensed into suns and planets, and the originally vitalized germs have developed into all the wondrous organisms of vegetables, of animals, and of Man. But it is not the less true that " all is vanity " if there is nothing higher than merely physical nature. The old notion that nature moves in an endless routine without sign of a beginning or of an end, is now known to be untrue. The physical universe must have had a beginning : whether it will have an end we do not know, but we know that the laws of nature forbid the present order of things to last for an indefinitely long time : either the heat of the sun and the stars will be exhausted, and all nature will end in cold, darkness, and death ; or fresh supplies of heat will be produced without end by the collision of stars and planets in an infinite universe. We cannot know which of these two alterna- tives is true, for we cannot know all the data for solving the question : especially, we cannot know whether the universe is truly infinite or not : but one of the two must be true, unless the laws of nature are to be changed by Creative Power. In neither case will the present order of things be permanent : for if the sun's heat is to be re- newed at all, it can be renewed only by such a catastrophe as will overturn the equilibrium of the solar system, and 1 Ecclesiastics, chapter i. 4 8. xx.] IMMORTALITY. 295 in all probability destroy life on tlie earth. 1 Tims, whether On any the course of nature is to end in universal death, or to go phy^i on through endless change without any necessary tendency theory the ., , .. . , . , . .,, universe to the production ot anything higher, in either case irom appears to a merely physical point of view it remains true that " all ^ ?*****& is vanity." Notwithstanding, nature contains suggestions of some- Sugges- thing higher and more satisfying than this. The patient labour of nature is so far in vain that it produces no per- better. manent, no everlasting results : for life ends in death, species perish as well as individuals, and, as we have seen, even worlds are mortal : but nature is constantly labouring to ascend, and frequently though not permanently succeed- ing. It is very remarkable how this truth is recognized in the unconscious metaphorical language of mankind. Higher appears to be a synonymous expression for more in all lan- excellent, in the languages at least of all men who have RXJ? 1 made enough of intellectual and spiritual progress to con- means nect the thought of Deity with that of Heaven : and this shows the universal feeling that excellence must be striven for, and that progress is labour. At the same time, the unsatisfied longing and the unsuccessful toil of nature suggest the hope of an ultimate, infinite satisfaction : while the relation of the world of life to that of matter dimly suggests the form in which this satisfaction may be attained. For as matter is a preparation for life, and yet As matter life is not a mere resultant from the properties of matter but appears to be a new creation : so the whole universe of * r lif e> so , , . P , , P all nature matter and life as known to us, may be a preparation for may be that immortal, eternal life which is to be revealed. f?J eterna l life. We thus conclude, that the purpose of creation, so far as Sumina we can discover it, is to make possible to man the highest moral and spiritual development : but that the attainment of this is only begun in the present life, and needs another life for its completion. There is an objection to this view, which is to be con- sidered in the following chapter. 1 For the reasoning on which these conclusions are based, see the chapter in "Habit and Intelligence" on the Motive Powers of the Universe (Chapter 6). [ 296 ] A : CHAPTEE XXI. STOICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. T the present stage of the argument we assume it as a fundamental axiom that virtue and holiness have an absolute value, independently of their tendency to produce happiness. It is also taken as proved that, at least in so far as it affects us, the purpose of creation is to make the highest virtue and holiness possible to man. We also assume, what will be denied by none, that the tendency of virtue is to promote the happiness both of the virtuous person and of those who come within the circle of his influence. Stoical The objection to the doctrine of immortality which we t?immor- h ave now to consider may be called the Stoical objection, tality, It may be thus stated : " Immortality offers a reward to reward virtue : now the highest virtue is disinterested, seeking no lowers the rewar d, an d the offer of a reward tends to mar the purity character of virtue, of virtue." This argument is not to be despised or set aside summarily : on the contrary, it contains an important truth. thisTis^ There is a virtue which works for reward reward in the true. sense of wages : the wages, of course, consisting in happi- ness. Such virtue is real so far as it goes : there is real virtue in the prudence which foregoes present temporary enjoyment for the sake of more lasting future happiness. But such virtue as this cannot be of the highest kind : the highest virtue is that which does right because it is right. Consequently, if we are to aim at an ethical system which is to produce the highest possible kind of virtue, we must CHAP. XXI.] STOICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 297 not base virtue on the hope of happiness. And I admit that a doctrine of immortality which should be merely co- extensive and identical with the doctrine of "future re- wards and punishments," though it would no doubt tend to improve the average of morality among those believing it, would not tend, and might even be unfavourable, to that higher morality which demands no -reward. Such a doc- trine would consequently be condemned by the principle which we have seen to be the key to the purposes of the universe in so far as they are decipherable : namely that the Divine purpose is not the greatest quantity but the highest degree of excellence. But the doctrine of immortality is not identical with Reply : any mere doctrine of reward in the sense of wages. The highest virtue does not work for wages, but it does work for reward : for the reward which consists in the approval of a good conscience, if for no other. And it has been remarked in a former chapter, that the approval of God, made known in the moment of death, would be reward enough for a life of self-sacrifice. 1 Such rewards as these supply motives which increase the force of virtue without in any degree diminishing its purity. The ethical law whereon this distinction depends may be thus stated : the pb- The character of virtue is lowered ly aiming at any reward not true which is accidentally or arbitrarily attached to it, "but not by aiming at a reivard which flows from it naturally and th necessarily. The blessedness which consists in a good con- science and in the approval of God and of those men of virtue. whose approval is best worth having, is not an arbitrary but a necessary reward. We recognize the same distinc- Tlle same , . is true of tion also in a lower region. Thus, human love gams in human intensity without losing in purity or elevation, and without love> contracting any taint of selfishness, by the thought of the happiness which is to be the result of union with the person loved : but if the reward sought consisted not in union with its object but in wealth or any other collateral benefit, love would no longer be love. So with virtue. Tf it is practised only because a reward has been assigned 1 Page 61. 298 STOICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. [CHAP. Virtue stimulus 6 of hope, Stoicism without It had an to it by the decree of the Providential government of the universe, I do not say that virtue is no longer virtue, but it is virtue of the lowest or merely prudential kind. The only high virtue, as well as the only real love, is that which is capable of disinterestedness : the only high virtue is that which is grounded in the recognition of virtue as right and desirable for its own sake, and which would be practised even if were certain to receive no reward. If we do not thus recognize the desirableness of virtue for its own sake, we do not know what virtue means. But when we know this, we have next to learn that the universe is so constituted, not by any arbitrary decree but by the necessary law of its being, that virtue tends to earn a re- ward. Were it not so, virtue would be in danger of dying ^ despair j f r numan nature is so constituted as to need the stimulus of hope. I do not, however, deny the possibility of virtue exist- i n o without any such stimulus. An elaborate and not unsuccessful attempt was once made to cultivate virtue in a climate whence hope was almost excluded : in an age when faith was dead, patriotism scarcely possible, and science not yet born. The result was Stoicism. It was a tme anc ^ distinct form of virtue, inferior no doubt to the Christian, but not included therein: and as such, if the conclusions of the preceding chapter are true, it had an independent value in the Creator's sight. But we, knowing that the tendency of virtue is to earn a reward, are able to look forward to a future life where the hindrances shall be removed which in this life prevent the full operation of those ethical laws that tend to give its reward to virtue. This hope gives the needed stimulus, without lowering the character of virtue by any selfish taint. It would so lower it if the reward were to be mere wages, connected with virtue only as money is connected with a labourer's service to his employer : but virtue is to be its own reward : which it cannot always be in this life, else this life would not be the place of trial that it is. It is however a very inadequate statement of the truth to say that virtue will be its own reward. The reward xxi.J STOICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 299 * will consist not only in that internal peace and happiness Nature of which virtue brings, but also in the approval of God and ^ward 1 - 16 of all good men : and moreover in seeing the wrongs and not only oppressions of the earth righted, in seeing justice and p^oTai of mercy triumph, in seeing the mourners comforted, in learn- conscience ing to understand the enigmas of Divine Providence and seeing the the perplexities of human character, 1 and finally in seeing and sharing the final victory and consummation when all enemies shall le abolished? I do not speak of the delight of continuing our earthly studies and resuming interrupted friendships, because I wish to speak of nothing that can be thought merely fanciful. But the highest reward of all an <* in will be the gradual though perhaps rapid growth in virtue knowing and knowledge, until we attain to see God face to face, and God< to know Him as well as He knows us. 3 I do not say that such a degree of attainment as this is necessarily implied in the doctrine of immortality, but Saint Paul hoped for it, and it cannot be beyond the power of God to grant. It is no adequate statement to say that such hopes as these do not diminish the purity of virtue : they indefinitely increase its purity by increasing its elevation. This doctrine is that which is taught by Christ. In Christ's the passage with which the compiler of the First Gospel *^his 8 has commenced his record of Christ's teaching, 4 we are subject, told what kinds of character deserve to be emphatically called blessed, and what are the rewards that they earn. They are blessed who cultivate a self-forgetting temper, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. They are blessed who mourn for their own sins and those of mankind, for " Hier wartcn schrecken auf den Bosen, Und Freuden auf den Redlichen. Des Herzens Kriimmen werdest du entblosen, Der vorsicht Bathsel werdest du mir lOsen, Und Recanting halten mit dem Leidenden. Hier offne sich die Heimath dem Verbannten, Hier endige des Dulders Dornenbahn." SCHILLER'S Resignation. 2 St. Paul, 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter xv. 24 26. 3 Same, chapter xiii. 12. 4 There can be no reasonable doubt that the compiler of the first Gospel understood Christ's teaching and has represented it truly. But his arrangement of the discourses appears to be rather artistic than historical. 300 STOICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. [CHAP. they shall be comforted by knowing that their own sins and those of mankind are forgiven, healed, and abolished. They are blessed who are gentle and forgiving, for they shall inherit the earth ; not by dominating over it, which they do not wish for, but by seeing it accept their prin- ciples. They are blessed who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. They are blessed who are merciful, for they shall obtain mercy : and mercy for such beings as we are must primarily consist in the forgiveness and the healing of sin. 1 They are blessed who are pure in heart, for they shall acquire the power of seeing God. They are blessed who are peacemakers, for they are the true children of God, and shall be recognized as such. They are blessed who endure persecution for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Now the various rewards promised in this wonderful passage are not arbitrarily assigned to the characters which earn them, but naturally arise out of the characters. This is too obvious to need comment, except in the commencing and the concluding clauses, where the Kingdom of Heaven is promised as a reward. This expression does not explain itself, and it might mean only the right to sit on thrones, to command armies, and to raise and spend taxes. But if we read those two clauses in a way which is consistent at once with the rest of the passage and with the use of Citizen- the expression Kingdom, of Heaven in the rest of His dis- sh.ip inth 6 courses, we shall find that with Christ those who are said to Kingdom of Heaven, enter and to possess the kingdom of heaven a,re those who, when a kingdom of truth, purity, and justice is revealed and becomes dominant, will not feel in it as strangers or as vanquished enemies but as citizens. Those whose hearts and lives are right in the sight of God are by that fact already citizens of His kingdom, and Christ gives to those who accept Him the blessedness of knowing that they are 1 I may be here charged with self-contradiction in saying in one place that salvation is universal, and in another that mercy is a privilege. I do believe in the universality of salvation, but not so as to place all on an equality. I shall have to speak of this subject in a future chapter. xxi.] STOICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 301 so. Christ always speaks of the kingdom of heaven as already in the world, dependent on a future revelation for its full development and completion no doubt, but not for its existence. If there is a God, all beings who have intelligence that can recognize Him are His children, and those who do His will are so in an especial sense. This, according to Christ, is sufficient proof of immortality, for " God is not the God of the dead but of the living : " 1 but the Patriarchs and the early Israelites knew that God existed and was their Father, long before they had any conscious belief in immortality. This brings us to another question, akin to the former Is loyalty one. We have been considering whether virtue is the sona i God better for being nourished by hope. We have next to ask J * than to an the kindred question whether loyalty to a personal God of imper- righteousness is better and nobler than loyalty to a mere sonal law ? impersonal law of righteousness. This, like the former, is an ethical question : that is to say, it is to be decided by an appeal to the facts of human nature and human life. In our time, belief in a personal God is almost always accompanied by a belief in a personal immortality : but it Faith of was not always so : in ancient Israel a personal God was j^f 1 known long before immortality was revealed. The Stoical loyalty to an impersonal law of righteousness without hope of eternal reward had probably its highest expression in the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus : the Israelite loyalty to a personal God of righteousness with- out hope of eternal reward, had its highest expression in the Ninetieth Psalm, which is traditionally and perhaps truly ascribed to Moses : and how far superior is the contrasted Israelite to the Stoic ! The Israelite never separated in stoicism. thought a righteous Law from a righteous Will : he could not conceive them apart: but he recognized with his whole heart that most fundamental and vital of all truths, that righteousness is such by reason of its own nature and not by reason of any mere decree, even though a Divine decree : while the faith that a holy Will coincided with the righteous Law deepened his reverence for both. But if 1 Matthew xxii. 32. 302 STOICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. [CHAP, xxi. Degenera- the faith that Gods will is righteous degenerates into the faith in 6 mere belief that righteousness is what God wills: in other righteous words, if men cease, as they sometimes have ceased, to recognize in righteousness anything more than God's arbitrary decree: such a belief is morally inferior to Stoicism ; and it will not be strange if God in His Pro- vidence withdraws the knowledge of His Name and His Power from such a people, and leaves them without a religion to find a basis for morality where they can. To sum up the results now arrived at : Summary. Virtue of any high kind must be capable of doing right without hope of reward. The thought of reward lowers virtue if the reward is attached to virtue by accident or by mere decree; but virtue is exalted and purified by the hope of rewards arising out of its own nature. Eighteousness must be recognized as such independently of any mere decree, even a Divine decree. But loyalty to a Law of righteousness is strengthened, exalted, and purified, when it is no longer loyalty to a mere impersonal Law, but to a righteous Will whereof the Law is the expression. The same We have spoken till now only of reward : but the are^true 68 same ^ s conversely true of punishment. Sin must be of punish- recognized as hateful not on account of its consequences reward. 8 but for its own sake : but it is also true that the tendency of sin is to produce misery, not by reason of any arbitrary decree but by "necessary law : and it will certainly be more likely to produce a hatred of sin if we believe that it will continue to bear its bitter fruit for an unknown time, per- haps for ever, than if we look forward at the end of this short life to an eternal sleep, where the wise man shall be as the fool, and the wicked as the just. [ 303 ] CHAPTEE XXII. NATUKE AND GRACE. rjlHE subject of the present chapter is resumed from the -I- end of that on the Divine Purpose of Creation. 1 It is necessary to begin by a fuller statement of part of the argument of that chapter. I have first however to remark that our belief respecting Belief God's purpose in creating us must influence, and ought to ^flu*^ influence, the formation of our characters. If then it were character. proved that the natural and legitimate effect of any doctrine if the on the formation of character must be injurious, the right 1 ^^ m j te inference would be that such a doctrine cannot be true. If belief is the legitimate effect of the discovery and the belief of truth i^cTnnot' were really injurious to the moral nature, it is difficult to be true, see how we could avoid the atheistic conclusion that the universe is without any Divine government at all. We have seen in the chapter referred to, that the Divine High ex- Purpose of Creation, as far as it is indicated in the ways of i s el t he Ce nature, is not to produce uniform excellence or the highest purpose of possible average of excellence, but to make possible the ye t it is' production of excellence of the highest type. And we rare - know as a matter of fact, that any high degree of excel- lence is comparatively rare. If this is true and discoverable, it must be part of the Divine purpose that we should discover it and believe it. But will not the tendency of our knowing this purpose be- to frustrate it ? To beings like us, whose virtue has its Objection to this, root and germ in the social relations, will it not be a dis- that it 1 Chapter 17. 304 NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. tends to couragement and a weight dragging us back in our strife promote towards virtue and holiness, if we are taught by the indica- selnshness. , tions written in nature by the God of nature that we strive on our own behalf alone; that the greater part of our fellow- men are not to share the reward after which we aspire, and that we must separate our hopes from theirs? It is no reply to say that the highest virtue is unselfish, and con- sists in the endeavour to share our happiness and our hopes with others. This is true, and it is this which L 0ve constitutes the difficulty. We have seen that human needs the virtue needs the stimulus of hope : 1 and hope is needed of hope not only for ourselves but for others: unselfish loving ob'ects "virtue is scarcely possible without hope for the objects of its love. If then the only doctrine to be believed concern- ing the Divine purpose in creation is that general excellence is not aimed at but only a high degree of excellence to be attained by a few, it appears impossible to avoid the infer- ence that the knowledge of this purpose will tend to frustrate it by engendering an unsympathising and selfish spirit. The ahove- But this doctrine, though true, is not the entire truth. doctrine ^ * S ^ rue * n ^ e P resen ^ ^ Q > ^ut ^ w ^ n0 ^ ^ e ^ rue * n ^ ne is true in immortal life to be revealed. It is true of this world in of nature, which we live, where God, though present, is concealed as hut not in w jth a cloud of thick darkness : but it will not be true of grace. that world where God will be all in all. It is true in that administration of justice which alone is revealed in the world of nature and natural law: it is not true in that administration of mercy which is revealed in the grace of God, wherein there will be not only justice for all but also There will mercy for all : first universal justice and afterwards uni- for ail^ versa l mercy. So that those who stedfastly and patiently aim at virtue shall not only attain it, with the blessedness that belongs to it, for themselves : but, if they know the entire truth, they shall be encouraged by the knowledge that they do not gain a selfish victory to be enjoyed alone : but that at the consummation of "That one far-off Divine event To which the whole creation moves " 1 Page_298. xxil.j NATURE AND GRACE. 305 all enemies shall be abolished, and the victory shall be shared with our whole race. Thus the order of things which is revealed to us in nature and in grace is in all respects adapted to make possible the production of virtue of the highest type. We This have seen that the constitution of the world of nature, under which, there is a tendency for virtue to gain its not onl y reward but the tendency is not certain to work out its an a self- result in any calculable time, gives room for the develop- devotion, ment of heroism and self-devotion. But these do not con- hope and stitute the whole of the highest virtue. The highest virtue love * not only dares all things and endures all things, but hopes all things and loves all men. And in order to make such hope and such love possible, that dispensation of grace is revealed wherein we are assured that they shall not be disappointed: that after justice has triumphed in the defeat and punishment of sin, grace will triumph in its destruction, We now go on to consider the character of Grace and its relation to Nature : or, what is practically synonymous with this, the character of Mercy and its relation to Justice. We have seen in a former chapter 1 that justice has a Justice is natural tendency to execute itself : and that consequently, if there is a future life so as to give indefinite time, we beings cannot doubt that there will be a constantly increasing m ^^ approximation to a perfect administration of justice, giving nature to each as he deserves. This does not imply any need for Divine intervention : it is the result of a purely natural and self-executing process, such as a Pantheist might believe in. We may thus say, not as a definition of the word but as an assertion of fact, that justice is natural law among beings which have a moral nature. The punishment of sin, under any possible system of natural self-executing law, is both inevitable and right. All are agreed on this, that punishment is the natural and just result of sin : but men are by no means agreed as to the further question, what is the natural and just result 1 Page 253. X 306 NATURE AND GRACE. [OHAP. Error of of punishment. It is one of the commonest of all errors, that kmg anc ^ though altogether inconsistent with the teaching of punish- Christ and His Apostles, has deeply affected the Chris- tianity of Christendom, to think that sin and punishment are to be set one against the other, so that the punishment may be a compensation, or expiation, or atonement, for the Misleading sin. This is an utter misconception. Morally, it involves analogy. a totally inadequate conception of the evil of sin. Intel- lectually, it is based on misleading analogies from the world of nature and ordinary life. By doing an injury to a fellow-man we become bound if possible to make satisfaction: by committing sin we become liable to punishment. Satisfaction cancels the injury : (I speak of course of cases where satisfaction is possible in the etymo- logical sense of sufficient amends :) and will not punishment in the same way make satisfaction for sin ? Thus men reason, as if our actions were something apart from our- selves : not understanding that the evil and the punishment of sin consist in their effect on the nature of the sinner. Sin is a part of the nature of the sinner so long as it is not repented of, and it is to the sinful nature that punishment attaches. By injuring a fellow-man, though it may be by mere inadvertence, we become liable to the consequences : by committing sin we become liable to the consequences also. The consequences which are liable to be enforced against the wrong-doer, regarding the wrong merely as injury, consist in being required to make amends : the consequences which, possibly in this life and certainly in the life to come, will enforce themselves against the sinner, consist in punishment. But the resemblance between the Punish- two cases goes no further than this. The violation of order noTheaT 8 wn i n consists in doing an injury is healed by reparation ; sin, but the violation of order which consists in sin is not healed by punishment. The true analogy to that liability to punishment which is the consequence of sin, is the liability to pain which is as pain the consequence of disease. The pain does not heal the heal n0t disease, nor can the punishment heal the sin. Pain is the disease. consequence of a diseased state of the body, and punish- XXH.] NATURE AND GRACE. 307 ment is the consequence of that diseased state of the spiritual nature which is produced by sin and which con- sists in sinfulness. The effect can be removed only by removing the cause. If the bodily disease is removed, the bodily pain ceases: if the spiritual disease of sin is removed, the spiritual punishment ceases : and until then, nothing can have any tendency to make it cease. Duration of punishment has nothing to do with the matter. There is The dura- no force in the objection that a finite sin cannot be justly p^nish- punished through infinite time. The magnitude of the ment is punishment is no doubt proportioned to the magnitude of * the sin. But the magnitude of a sin is distinct from its- duration. If the sinful nature has continued to engender and to bear its punishment for a thousand years, it does not thereby become the less justly and necessarily liable to continuing punishment so long as it remains unchanged. This is not because every sin is infinite ; that is a doctrine for fanatics: but because, though we can scarcely avoid speaking and thinking of periods of duration in connexion with this subject, yet the relation between sin and punish- ment is in no sense a function of time: and because punishment, regarded merely as pain, has no tendency to heal or to expiate sin. What sin needs is to be healed : if this is attained, no Expiation expiation is needed : if this is not attained, no expiation |?. s ^ e is possible. This is the teaching of Christ. It is useless healed, to quote isolated passages on such a subject : the teaching of the New Testament is so wrapped up in parable and Th metaphor that its mere words are often misleading. But Testament j i this fact is significant if not conclusive, that the Greek that sal va- words ft> and (KOTrjpia mean to heal and healing as well tion is as to save and salvation, and are translated in both ways in the English Bible. * In Christ's view, salvation from the power of sin is not the deliverance from an enemy without, but the healing of a disease within. The healing of sin is called repentance. To repent of The heal- sin is to be healed of the sinful nature. Let not this be ^ f* re . misunderstood : the consequences of sinful acts may long pentanee. 1 Soe Note A at end of chapter. X 2 308 NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. Perma- outlast repentance, and it is not certain that they will be the conL alt g etner obliterated in any state of being whatever. quences Every action probably has its effect on the habitual ten- sm ' dencies of the agent: and when sinful tendencies have become in any degree habitual, the habitual tendency is not at once destroyed by repentance, but may continue throughout life as a cause of weakness, loss, and pain : and it is not certain that it will be otherwise while eternity lasts. " What a man soweth, that must he also reap : " in other words, retribution is inevitable. This is only justice. It is the fundamental law of the moral world, and holds therein a place analogous to that of the laws of motion in Kestora- the world of matter. But if justice requires that he who re!entance sows s * n mus ^ rea P punishment, it equally requires that is ensured he who sows repentance shall reap restoration : and there e ' is no self-contradiction in saying that the same man may We may be reaping both at the same time. This is not a mere fruits of inference as to what may be hereafter : it is a fact of both sin experience in the present life. A man may feel bitter pcntance regret for past sin, and yet rejoice that he has turned away at the f rom it And, to return to the analogy of health and disease, same time. a man may have permanently weakened his constitution by excess, and yet. by abandoning the habit of excess before it is altogether too late, may save his life and become able to use and in some degree to enjoy it. Even so, justice does not ensure that the injury which sin has done to the sinner shall be altogether annulled on repentance : but it does ensure that he who repents shall be permitted to begin a career of restoration : and though while eternity lasts we may be the poorer in spiritual riches and the lower in the scale of being for every sinful act we have ever committed, yet justice ensures that a repented sin shall in no case be an open fountain of evil but only a healed though scarred wound : not a ruinous loss, but only such a loss as the loser may write off and yet remain solvent. And in that state wherein " all enemies shall be destroyed," it will continue, if at all, not as positive pain, disease, or sin, but only as negative loss, or diminution of power and happiness. So far as we are able to see, how- XXII.] NATUKE AND GRACE. 309 ever, every action having any moral character will leave its trace on the nature and the destiny of the doer while he .continues to exist: bad actions and good, sin and of "sin. repentance alike: all combining to produce a resultant effect wherein the separate effect of none is cancelled. It is well to repent, but it would have been better not to sin. I do not however insist on the perpetual continuance of the consequences of sin as if I thought it as well established a truth as the certainty of restoration on repentance. It may however be true, as has been said by that sincere Possible follower of Christ Martin Luther, that there are cases e ffeeS7)s Qeos. Titus i. 2. 2 Page 139, 3 Page 180, et acq. 310 NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. in contending against it. Virtue is possible only where there is temptation to sin. But it does not follow that virtue will be advanced, either in the present state, of being or in any other, by yielding to the temptation : on the contrary, virtue consists in resisting it. Sins of Further : if our spiritual advancement may in an indirect must be 11 Banner be furthered even by our sins, this can be true purely evil only of sins of weakness or of impulse, not of sins of conse- calculation. If a man were to commit sin on a calculation quencos. that ft would ultimately benefit his spiritual nature, we may be certain that it would be defeated and disappointed by the natural operation of justice. Moreover, though sin may possibly, though by no means certainly, have an indi- rectly beneficial effect, I cannot but think that every sin we have ever committed will have a directly injurious effect while our existence lasts. Summary. What has now been said may thus be briefly summed up : Granting the reality of a future life, we cannot doubt that the operation of those natural laws which tend to do justice even in this life will produce, if not perfect justice, at least an ever-increasing approximation to it. Justice requires that sin shall be followed by punishment, and repentance by restoration*: these two consequences do not necessarily exclude each other, but may combine to produce a resultant effect. Punishment as such, however, punish- lias no power to expiate sin : but if sin is repented of, it ment de- ^ s thereby healed, and no expiation is needed. 1 stroy sin by destroy- But though the expiation of sin is impossible, may not SnneA punishment get rid of sin by destroying the sin and the sinner together? This hypothesis is consistent with all the analogies of that world of nature in which we live. Sin is a disease, and punishment is pain : and the tendency of both disease and pain is to destroy life. Moreover, all the extremest punishments inflicted by natural justice are destructive. " Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth Tne . death." The simplest and most impressive instance of analogy of nature this is the almost universal practice of mankind in in- 1 See Note B at end of chapter. NATURE AND GRACE. 311 flicting death as the punishment of the worst crimes : for, is in favour as Butler has truly remarked, the order of political society, ^ e ^ ls wherein crime is punished, is part of the order of nature. 1 The analogy of nature is altogether opposed to the doc- and op- trine of endless existence in suffering : on the contrary, 2^ it supports the belief that the ultimate effect of sin which suffering ; is not repented and healed will be to destroy the existence of the sinner. It is however uncertain how far such analogies are to be trusted. Butler's work on the " Analogy of Religion to the Constitution of Nature," derives all its argumentative value and convincing force from the fact that the analogies, on which it lays so great and so just a stress, between the Divine administration of justice, to- wards which we see an approximation in the present world, and the more perfect administration of Divine justice in a future life whereof religion has to speak, are not mere analogies which might conceivably prove to be in applicable, but resemblances which those who believe in a God at all must expect to hold between all parts of the Divine administration, in virtue of that truth which is the fundamental axiom of all faith, namely that if there is any Divine Government whatever it is consistent and right. 2 But as the laws of geometry must be the same in every world situated in space, while there may be worlds beyond our stellar system and invisible by our most powerful telescopes, where the laws of chemistry and even of gravitation may be different from those known to us : so the moral bases of the Divine Government must be the same in any future life as in the present, while yet the biological, mental, and social laws through which the moral government of this world is administered may be altogether changed. I do not say that there will be such a change : I only say we cannot assert that there will not be ; and that consequently no analogy derived from the present world and applied to that which is to come can be conclusive, unless it has a basis in the unchangeable 1 " Civil government being natural, the punishments of it are so too : and some of these punishments are capital : as the elfects of a dissolute course of pleasure are often mortal." BUTLER'S Analogy, Bishop Fitzgerald's edition, p. 49. 3 Page 66. 312 NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. but it is principles of morality. Otherwise it only affords a pre- worthy" sumption of uncertain value. For this reason the truth, because it -unquestionable as it is, that in the present world punish- properly ment tends to the destruction of the sinner's existence, moral affords no certain ground from which to reason con- cerning the world to come ; for it is only a physical truth, made known by experience like those of chemistry : while the truth that sin tends to be followed by punishment is a moral truth, and, like the truths of geometry, must be true everywhere. The reality of a future life is a question of fact : but if it is real, we see, at the point to which the argument has now reached, a certainty of the punishment of sin, without any certainty of its extinction. But we now come to the question : Although it is true that punishment, regarded merely as pain, has no tendency to expiate sin, yet may it not have a necessary tendency, by its action on the Does not character, to produce repentance ? We can often discern nient^end suc ^ a tendency in this life : and if it is discernible in this to produce life at all, will it not become a universal law in the next, ance*? " where indefinite time will be given for laws to work out their results ? even as the tendency of justice to triumph is in this life only a tendency which is often defeated, and yet we cannot doubt that it will be the universal law of the future life. This question as to the effect of punishment in pro- ducing repentance is not to be answered by any a priori reasoning. It is to be decided by an appeal to the facts of human nature. Now it is not only true but familiar, that repentance is far more likely to be effected when a man has to endure disappointment and sorrow, than when he is permitted to go on in a career of sin unchecked. This can- But this is very far from proving that punishment has asserted an ^ necessar y tendency to produce repentance : and there generally, are so many men whom sorrow only hardens and embitters that it is impossible to assert the existence of any such Possible _ _ _ difficulty tendency even as a general law. Further, it may be that of repent- j n a f u ^ ure lif e the effect, not so much of punishment as of 8/11 C 6 111 Si future life, the removal of all uncertainty as to the nature and con- xxii.] NATURE AND CIRAC'K. 313 sequences of actions, may "be to produce a fixity of character which will almost infinitely increase the difficulty of re- pentance. This cannot be proved or put into logical form : but it has perhaps been one of the principal reasons why Connexion many of the noblest minds of Christendom have acquiesced w ith the in the horrible and debasing belief in an endless existence l)elie / J . everlasting in torment. Moreover, Christ and His Apostles, who as I torment. believe had access to sources of knowledge concerning the spiritual world which are not open to us, though teaching the doctrine of a final general restoration, have said nothing which implies that punishment and suffering have of themselves any necessary tendency to produce repentance and restoration. God might no doubt have given such a nature to man that punishment would have been certain always to pro- duce repentance at last. Had this been the case, there would have been no need for a dispensation of grace as distinguished from the dispensation of nature and justice. Justice, as we have seen, is natural law among moral natures, and consequently the dispensation of nature, under which we live in common with the whole creation, contains a dispensation of justice. If the punishment of The dis- sin, which is part of this dispensation, were sufficient of of itself to effect repentance and restoration, this would make distinct , . . . from that the dispensation of justice at the same time a dispensation of nature of grace : no other would be needed, for the only purposes and law * of grace are to destroy sin and to produce holiness. But the facts are not so : the dispensation of justice is not also one of grace, though grace is capable of being, and has been, engrafted on it. We are in some degree able to understand the Divine purpose in so ordering the laws of human nature that justice is not alone sufficient to ensure repentance with its results of grace, mercy, and restoration. We cannot doubt, unless we deny any Divine purpose whatever, that sin has been permitted in order that righteousness may be perfected and manifested in conquering the sin : and if this is so, it will appear con- Purpose sistent with the rest of the Divine Government as known ot tllis - to us, that it should be possible to gain the victory over 314 NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. sin only by those means whereby righteousness is mani- fested in its most perfect form : namely by the Incarnation and Atonement of Christ. It appears to many that restoration is sufficiently easy if it is a necessary consequence of repentance. It is true, as we have seen, that restoration is always certain on repentance : and it appears to many that a dispensation of grace is thus sufficiently provided for, and that nothing more is needed. Others draw an opposite conclusion from the same premises, thinking that it would be dangerous laxity to offer restoration on condition of repentance alone, and that Divine justice must demand something more in The diffi- the way of expiation. Both are wrong : and the error not how f both consists in not considering how immensely difficult repentance true repentance is, consisting as it does in the commence- efficacious, ment of a renewal of the entire moral nature. The difficulty iTis^tTbe * s n0 ^ ^ know now repentance is to be efficacious, for possible, there was never any reasonable doubt of its efficacy : re- storation on repentance is a matter of course under any just government: the difficulty is to know how it is to be possible. Under a system of mere self-executing moral law there is no certainty of repentance being possible. But though it is true that we live under such a system, it is not the We live in whole truth. To quote an expression from Dr. Macleod of Go^u" Campbell's work on the Atonement, we live not only well as under a reign of Law but in the Kingdom of God. In reign of speaking of the reign of Law without reference to the Lawgiver, and of the Divine Government without refer- ence to the Governor, I have spoken as a Pantheist : that is to say one who recognizes an order of nature, moral as well as physical, without a personal God : and this I can do without representing anything falsely, because Pantheism is not a whole falsehood, but a half-truth. But let God be recognized in His personality as the Creator and Lawgiver of all things, and we shall at once see hope of a dispensa- tion of grace. If there is a God, we live in a Kingdom of God : that is to say He governs the universe which He has made, and the laws in virtue whereof there is an ever- increasing approximation to the rendering of perfect justice XXII.] NATURE AND GRACE. 315 to all are the expression of His righteous will : and though His righteous laws may be separated in thought from His righteous will and holy character, yet they are never so separated in fact. It may appear on a cursory view of the question that the distinction is not a practical one : that when the righteousness of the laws under which we are to live for ever is assured, it is of no importance that we should believe them to be the expression of a righteous Will. But this would be a wrong conclusion. The dif- To im- ference is infinite. To a system of mere law, even though f^ius perfectly righteous law, it is a matter of indifference indifferent whether those who live under it are righteous or not. The its sub- punishment of disobedience is certain, and the law ig righteous : equally fulfilled whether by obedience or by the punish- ment of disobedience. An impersonal system can ensure punishment to all who sin and restoration to all who repent ; but a mere system, however righteous, cannot form a wish or a desire for righteousness. But from an not so to impersonal righteous system let us appeal to a personal God> God of righteousness, and we shall see this to be totally changed. A righteous person must desire to meet with righteousness in others. He will no doubt desire that sin should be punished, but he must desire rather that it should be healed. This is true of all righteous beings, and is true of each in proportion as he is righteous. But it is true of God in a higher degree than of any other : not only because His righteousness is perfect, but because He is the Creator, and as such has an interest in His creatures. If we believe that God is good, we must believe that Pie desires to find, or to produce, goodness in all beings which have, or are capable of acquiring, a moral nature : if we believe that God is our Creator, We must God must believe that He has created us for righteousness, not for d . es e righteous- Sin: for happiness, not for suffering. We believe this not ness in Hi^ only because we believe in His mercy, but because we creatm ' es - believe in His justice. It would be not only unmerciful Mercy but unjust to create beings with a capacity for righteous- c^ator is ness and happiness, and then to place them in circum- ? ne with stances where no fate is possible to them but one of sin JU& and misery. Justice and mercy, indeed, are here one. 316 NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. Meaning of the name of Father as applied to God. The pur- pose of grace is to lead to re- pentance. Punish- ment is easier to believe in than for- giveness. Anger and forgive - ness be- long to personal beings only. Forgive- ness is God is our Father. Though He is so by the fact of creation, yet the name Father means more than Creator. He is the Creator of all that exists, but the Father of those beings only who have the capacity of developing a moral nature, and consequently of knowing Him. He is our Father, not only as having created us, but as caring for us, and desiring to be known to us. 1 Thus the Kingdom of God is necessarily a dispensation of grace. The pur- pose of Divine grace is not to make sin less deadly, or to separate punishment from sin, for this is impossible : nor to ensure that restoration will certainly follow on repentance, for this is a matter of course, even under a dispensation of mere law : but to lead men to repent of their sins, and to acquire such a character as will make them worthy and loyal citizens of the Kingdom of God. 2 We thus see that for justice to be done, nothing more is necessary than to leave the course of things to itself : but grace needs a Divine intervention. Hence it is that when a man has attained to an adequate sense of sin, punish- ment appears to him a matter of course, like the result of a natural law : the demand on his faith is to believe in forgiveness. The framers of our creeds have placed in them the words " I believe in the forgiveness of sins " : it was taken for granted that none who believed in a future life could doubt the punishment of sins, but to believe in their forgiveness was regarded as needing some effort of faith. The difficulty of believing that forgiveness is possible, is obviously a result of the consciousness of the immense difficulty of repentance : a difficulty which Christ came into the world solely to overcome. Further: an impersonal system, though it may ensure restoration on repentance, cannot be angry, and cannot forgive. Anger and forgiveness belong to personal Beings only. A just Being will always forgive on repentance. Forgiveness is the withdrawal of anger, and it would be unjust to be any longer angry with a sinner who has re- pented. Forgiveness, when it comes at all, is absolute and perfect. But forgiveness does not imply perfect restora- 1 See Note B at end of chapter. Ibid. xii.] NATURE AND GRACE. 317 tion. Kestoration, unlike forgiveness, is a progressive absolute : process, and may perhaps never be perfect. In other [g St ^ t] words, it is not certain that he who commits a sin and gressive. afterwards repents of it, will ever, in any state of being, be as rich in spiritual blessings as if he had not committed it at all. Forgiveness is the first step to restoration ; but it Forgive- is more than merely this : it has a value and a blessing of its own. Had the prodigal in Christ's parable fallen dead pendent of fatigue and hunger at the moment when his father first q U ences." embraced him, although his restoration to his place in his The pro- father's house would not have been begun, yet he would tli s al son - have died with the blessing of his father's forgiveness. And on the other side, though the distinction between holiness and sin is not constituted by any will, even that of God, and though the punishment of sin may be effected by self-executing impersonal law without any Divine interposition being needed, yet the sense of the Divine God's anger will in itself, and independently of any of its conse- Sep'en- quences, be no doubt the severest part of the punishment dentiy of of sin, in that world where all self-deception will be at an quences, end, and " from him that hath not shall be taken awav Wl11 be tlie " severest even that which he thinketh that he hath." 1 But, though part of the the severest part of the punishment of sin, this is the only j^ " f part of which we can say with perfect confidence that it sin. , , But it will will be absolutely and at once removed on repentance, be re- And when we are assured of God's forgiveness, the remain- moved on ing natural consequences of sin, though I cannot think anee, and they will ever be otherwise than injurious, will appear ^^(fen- endurable : especially as forgiveness is the entrance to durable. ever progressive restoration and advancement. We have seen that justice, or righteousness, is natural righteous- law among beings who have a moral nature : and in the ^^ n(T same way, grace is righteousness in beings who have free free per- personality. That is to say, among beings who have a 1 Luke vii. 18, marginal reading. The saying that "from him who hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath " occurs in other parts of Christ's discourses, and was probably a proverb of the time : the above-quoted variation on it, "even that which he seemeth to have " or "thinketh that he hath," is evidently meant to show the true spiritual force of the saying. 318 NATURE AND GKACE. [CHAP. by the sinner. moral nature, impersonal natural law will of itself do justice or work righteousness ; but this will not necessarily go beyond the rendering to every man according to his work : if the work has been evil, righteousness will Righteous be fulfilled in his punishment. But when free personal desire 8 not beings are righteous, their righteousness will not be satis- only the fied with the mere defeat and punishment of sin: they men but mu st desire its destruction. The eye of righteousness is the de- offended not only by sin being unchecked and triumphant, tiouofsin: but by its existence. And of all ways by which sin may ^"possible conceivably be destroyed, that which a righteous Being will most desire is by the repentance of the sinner. I do not say, for I do not believe, that the restoration of the sinner through repentance is the only purpose at which righteous- ness ought to aim. It is well in itself, and is to be desired independently of consequences, that sin should be punished. It is well in itself, and is to be desired independently of consequences, that sin should be destroyed, by the destruc- tion of the sinner's existence if necessary. But it is better and more to be desired that sin should be destroyed by the repentance and conversion of the sinner. The punishment of sin is justice : its destruction is grace. Any Being who is righteous must be also gracious, or merciful, because righteousness is not only angry with sin but hates it, and desires its destruction. Hatred goes farther than anger : anger desires to punish, but hatred desires to destroy. 1 A perfectly righteous Being must be merciful, because ^ e mus ^ desire that all other beings were righteous, and to attain this is the highest mercy. And conversely, a perfectly merciful Being must be righteous, because that which mercy, or grace, desires is the highest welfare of all, and this can be attained only through righteousness. The truth that justice and mercy are from the same root j n the Divine nature, appears to be obscured in modern Christendom, where mercy is too often thought of as opposed to justice, and needing some artificial reconcilia- tion with it. But it was understood in Israel of old. " To 1 This distinction, I believe, is made by Aristotle. Justice other, and are from the NATURE AND GRACE. 319 Thee, Lord, belongeth mercy, for Thou renderest to every man according to his work," 1 said the Psalmist: that is to say, "Because justice is Thine, therefore is mercy Thine also." The truth is not that mercy and grace may possibly be harmonized with righteousness, but that in virtue of uncreated law grace springs out of righteousness. Even Analogy so, we have often found in the history of science that what fr ? m science. were supposed to be distinct and unconnected laws are really results of the same principle. Thus, the laws of heat have been shown to be results of the laws of motion. Grace is a higher principle than justice, even as free Grace is righteous personality, wherein, as we have seen, grace has ni s lier the ground of its being, is higher than impersonal righteous justice, but law. But here, as in the world of nature, the lower law will ^^e make itself obeyed first. Thus, life is higher than matter, obeyed but the forces of matter the thermal, chemical, and other inorganic forces control the vital ones. 2 The laws of Analocry mere matter make themselves obeyed at all events, and of the those of life are able to make themselves obeyed only on inorganic condition of the laws of matter being first satisfied. Thus, forces - if the inorganic conditions under which a living being, whether animal or vegetable, is endeavouring to exist, are unfavourable: if for instance there is too much or too little heat or moisture : the inorganic laws and forces will be obeyed, and if the living being which has the conditions of its existence in them cannot accommodate itself to them it must perish. So in the spiritual world. Justice, which is the lower principle, must and will be satisfied at all events : grace, which is the higher, can be enforced only on condition of justice being first satisfied. And further : Grace as the vital forces work through the inorganic ones, so grace works , . . through works only through justice : it cannot set justice aside, justice. Forgiveness of an unrepented sin would be as contrary to mercy as to justice. Grace, or mercy, desires the welfare of its objects : and we have every reason to believe that until repentance is attained, this is better promoted by punishing than by forgiving. 1 Psalm Ixii. 12. 2 See the chapter in "Habit and Intelligence " on Organic Subordina- tion (Chapter 13). 320 NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. Grace is Grace is a higher development of justice or righteous- devSoT ness - -^ wou ld no doubt be absurd to speak of develop- ment of ment in the Divine Mind, though we have a right to India's assert that even from the Divine point of view it is a been more excellent thing to destroy sin by healing it than latex. merely to punish it. But in the mind of man it is a historical fact that the sense of grace has been a later development than that of justice : and this is in accord- ance with the natural law that the highest developments are the latest. It was a constant perplexity to the Israelite of old that the workers of iniquity should be triumphant : this complaint is repeated in a hundred forms in the Psalms Perplexi- of David and Asaph : but he was reassured by being Israelite* 6 taught to believe that it was only for a time. " The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning." : This satis- fied his sense of right : the further question why iniquity should exist at all, even though defeated and punished, did and of the not occur to him as a perplexity. With the modern Christian 1 ian ' it is far otherwise : the doctrine of his creed is familiar and fundamental, that justice will be done in a future life, so that the triumph of iniquity shall come to an end and shall be followed by retribution. This belief, to which Judaism attained slowly and with difficulty, is the starting-point of Christianity. But to the state of spiritual advancement to which the Christian has now attained, he longs not only for justice but for grace : not only for the defeat of sin but for its destruction : his perplexity is that iniquity The should exist. And in this case the answer is the same as answer to O f <,]_ . ft j s permitted but for a time. " All enemies shall that is be abolished : and the last that shall be abolished is toother death " (that is to say, the collective consequences of sin :) justice or " that God may be all in all." 2 It is evident that God biiTfo^a could not be all in all if sin and suffering were to con- time, tinue to exist. But it is not certain that the destruction of sin will in In some cases, sin all cases be brought about by repentance and healing, destroyed Christ, who understands the subject as we do not, has only by spoken of a sin which " hath never forgiveness, neither in 1 Psalm xlix. 14. 2 1 Cor. xv. 24, 28. xii.] NATURE AND GRACE. this world nor in the next." 1 God is just, and we may be the ex- certain that if there is any sin which He cannot forgive, Qf 1 ^ 11 t can only be because the sin so passes into the character sinner, that the sinner cannot repent. The sin which Christ so The sin denounced was that which He called the sin against the t g e jj : Holy Spirit : it consisted not in mere careless rejection of s P irit His claims, but in the fixed hostility to truth and good- ness which gave symbolic expression to itself in saying that He was in league with the powers of evil. But the sin which thus cannot be destroyed by healing may be destroyed by destroying the existence of the sinner. This solution of the difficulty is advanced only as an inference : and in such matters no inference, however obvious or however close to the data, ought to be accepted as equally certain with the primary truths either of conscience or of revelation. But it is an inference which appears to meet all the difficulties of the case, and to be free from objections. Natural conscience contradicts the notion that any can be left in endless misery, which would be the necessary consequence of endless existence in unforgiven sin. Christ tells us that there are sins which are incapable of being abolished by God's forgiveness : and St. Paul, speaking with Christ's authority, says that all enemies (whereof sin is the chief) shall be abolished, that God may be all in all : these two statements may be reconciled by supposing that the sin will be abolished by the extinction of the sinner, and so far as I see they can be reconciled in no other way. There is no physical or metaphysical difficulty in the way of believing this : He who has created may annihilate : nor need we suppose a special interposition for the purpose : all may be done in the course of natural law. This is also thoroughly consistent with our highest instinctive feelings of justice and mercy. We approve of the punishment of iniquity, and we rejoice in its defeat : we think the infliction of any degree of suffering lawful which is needed in order to its defeat and overthrow : and it may be that far greater suffering will be needed when 1 Matt. xii. 32. Y 322 NATUKE AND GRACE. [CHAP. We ap- prove of punish- ment only so far as necessary for the defeat or cure of Similar feeling as to rewards. these are delayed until the future life, than when they are effected in this. But once they are effected, our conscience does not approve the infliction of further pain merely for the sake of punishment : and if further punishment is needed as a remedial process, though we can approve it we should think it inhuman to rejoice at it. In other words, we rejoice at punishment or at least we approve our own feelings in rejoicing at it only in so far as it is visibly the legitimate result of the sin, and consists in its defeat. Thus, to mention an historical instance : we can rejoice at the fate of the first of the Bonapartes, ending his life as a prisoner on an extinct volcano in the midst of the ocean, with the vulture of his own disappointed am- bition to tear his heart : and it would be foolish senti- mentality to waste any compassion on the sorrows of his captivity: but on the contrary it would be inhuman cruelty to exult over the cancer which destroyed his life. The same is true conversely, as applied to rewards. A reward which arises naturally out of virtue is far more satisfying to the moral sense than one which comes accidentally or is arbitrarily given. Thus, a good man will desire the natural reward of kindness, which is love and gratitude, when he would reject the offer of a reward in money with scorn. In the administration of human justice we act on the principle just stated, namely that punishment ought to go so far as is needful for the utter defeat of sin, but no farther. Thus, when we think it right to inflict the punishment of death, which is the nearest approach to the extinction of being, and the most appropriate symbol thereof, that man can inflict, we should condemn any pro- posal to aggravate by torture the horror of such a death : and the conduct of those mediaeval executioners who kept the flesh of their victims bathed in oil in order to preserve its sensitiveness to pain while burning under the fire, appears to us neither human nor Divine but fiendish. We ought not to attribute to our heavenly Father principles of action of which we should be ashamed in ourselves. We are His children, and He intends that we should understand and -. XX IT.] XATUKE AND GRA< K. approve the principles of His government. We may con- fidently trust He will do what the principles of grace, which are those of righteousness, demand : namely that where sin is curable He will heal it, and where it is incurable He will destroy the sin and the sinner together. We know however that even in this life repentance is The de- al ways difficult and painful: and there are many ofjj^fg Christ's sayings which seem to indicate that it will be the future much more so in a future life: that a period of anguish a painful beyond what is the lot of man in the present life awaits P 1 an( l can on ty work through it : and the laws of the lower principle will be satisfied first. In both cases, also, the higher principle is a new creation, and not a mere result of the laws of the lower one. Life is not a result of the laws of matter, but a new creation : and though grace springs from the same root in the Divine Mind as justice, yet the dispensation of grace is a result not of those laws ee Note B next pap. XXii.j X ATI- UK AND GRACK. 327 which make the order of nature a dispensation of justice, but of the immediate action of the gracious Will and creative Power of God. We shall have to consider the laws of the dispensation Being a of grace in a future chapter. I will only remark here that in consequence of the supernatural character of grace, being a new creative act and not a result of the laws of nature ; on iy by it follows that it can be made known to us only by means revelation, of a special communication from God, that is to say by revelation. NOTE A. THE LANGUAGE SPOKEN BY CHRIST. IT may be said that Christ spoke Hebrew, so that we have in Reason the Greek of the Evangelists only a translation, and possibly an . r t ^ ' inadequate translation, of His words. I do not agree with this : Christ I agree with those who believe that Christ habitually spoke U8t ^ y Greek. The occurrence of occasional Hebrew words in the Greek, recorded sayings of Christ can scarcely be accounted for except by supposing that among the Jews of Palestine Hebrew was pre- served as a sacred language and used on solemn occasions perhaps in the synagogues while Greek was the language of common life. This may be illustrated by the fact that Hebrew expressions "Abba" and u Maran-atha" occur in Saint Paul's Greek epistles. It is also obvious from Acts xxii. 2, that the Jews at Jerusalem expected Saint Paul to address them in Greek, and would have undei stood him in that language, though they were agreeably surprised to hear him speak in Hebrew. NOTE B. THOMAS ERSK1NE ON GRACE AND JUSTICE. THE following extracts are from "The Spiritual Order and other Papers selected from the Manuscripts of the late Thomas Erskine of Linlathen." 328 NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. In God mercy and justice are one. Punish- ment con- sistent with for- giveness. God's righteous- ness as a Father. Punish- ment no cure for sin. The pur- pose of grace. The pur- pose of punish- ment. " In God mercy and justice are one and the same thing. His justice never demands punishment for its own sake, and can be satisfied with nothing but righteousness : and His mercy seeks the highest good of man, which certainly is righteousness, and will therefore use any means, however painful, to produce it in him." Page 72. " Forgiveness in its deepest sense does not mean deliverance from a penalty or the reversal of a sentence ; it means the con- tinuance of a fatherly purpose of final good, even through the in- fliction of the penalty and the execution of the sentence." Page 140. [The italics are Erskine's.] This definition of forgiveness is different from mine, which is the withdraival of anger : l but the difference, I am certain, is verbal only. " Christianity reveals God as a Father whose purpose is to train His children into a participation of the spirit and character of His Son. The justification therefore or vindication of His dealing towards us is not in the assurance that the claims of justice have been satisfied before He shows mercy, but in the discovery of this gracious purpose in those dealings, and in their fitness to accomplish it : just as the righteousness of an earthly father consists in his purpose to make his children righteous, and cannot be conceived of as separate from it, and the indica- tion of his righteousness is the discovery of this purpose in all his conduct towards them." Page 151. "No suffering of a penalty due to sin either by ourselves or by another in our place can put sin away, for sin is a spiritual thing and can only be put away by a return to righteousness." Page 153. " The object of grace is not to change the nature of sin, or of its service, or of its wages, but to induce you to choose another master. The evil of sin does not consist in its producing misery or death, but in its essential contradiction to tightness." Page 190. " A righteousness which does not seek to make others righ- teous is not really righteousness. If we saw a father punishing his child, and when we asked him what effect he expected to produce, he were to answer, ' I don't think of that, I only think of what he has deserved/ should we not at once say that he was neither a loving father nor a righteous man ? So long as I believe that God's condemnation of sin is not connected with this purpose, and that He punishes me merely because I deserve 1 Page 316. XXIL] NATURE AND GEACE. it, it is impossible to trust Him : but when I understand that His condemnation contains within it an unchangeable purpose to draw me out of my sin, I can accept His condemnation and bless Him for it. It seems to me that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is just the full and living manifestation of this purpose, that it means this or nothing." Page 242. " The sentence of sorrow and death is not to be set aside, but Punish- passed through ; and the foregone sins, though pretermitted and revers ibi e . passed over, that is, not regarded by God as reasons for aban- doning His purpose of training us in righteousness, must yet receive their penalty." Page 252. [The italics are Erskine's.] I do not know any writings whatever that represent the Erskine's principles of grace, wbich are those of the New Testament, so ments> clearly as Thomas Erskine's. [ 330 ] CHAPTER XXIII. LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL HELTGION. THE full-length title of Butler's great work is "The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature." The expression "con- stitution and course " is somewhat pleonastic : there is nothing in the idea which the single word " constitution " does not express. But the meaning of the expressions " natural " and " revealed " as applied to religion is worthy of a careful examination. Meaning It appears to have been Butler's opinion, in common with of natural ^] ie ma jority of his contemporaries who believed in religion at all, that, up to a certain point, man is able to discover the truths of religion that is to say the nature of God and the moral government of the world by means of his un- assisted faculties, in the same way that he can discover the truths of science : but that beyond that point any further knowledge must be communicated, if at all, by revelation. Religion up to that point was called natural : and natural religion was held to include not only the belief in a Divine Creator and Ruler, but in a future life wherein perfect justice is to be administered. Its doc- The existence of God being taken as unquestionably trines are true, the first part of the Analogy is employed in showing with the the consistency of the visible facts of the world of human world f the ^ e w ^ ^ ie cn ^ e ^ doctrine which Natural Religion has to establish, namely that the Creator of the world is also its Moral Governor : and that we live under a moral adminis- tration in this life, or, to use Butler's strange but impressive .-IF. xxni.] LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL RELIGION. - 331 phrase, that we are in a state of religion: and that whatever in this administration is unintelligible or imperfect will have all its deficiencies supplied in the life to come. Or, in fewer words, that the analogies of the present life are in favour of the belief in a perfect administration of justice and a righteous retribution in a future life. This conclusion has been stated at greater length, though without any attempt to reproduce the details of Butler's arguments, in the chapters of this work on the Divine Purpose of Creation and on Immortality. 1 His argument is quite satisfactory on its own postulates. If there is a God, and if man is immortal, the conclusion stated above is so probable that even without direct evidence it ought to be accepted by reasonable men as certainly true. The existence of God is assumed by Butler without attempt at proof. Though the Analogy is constructive in its form, it is controversial in its purpose, which is to Purpose give proofs of the moral government of God to those who ^ deny or doubt His moral government while acknowledging His existence and creative power. The immortality of man, on the contrary, is not assumed : the work opens with an attempt to show arguments in its favour from the analogy of nature. But unfortunately these arguments the argu- ments, that is to say, for the natural immortality of the soul are utterly worthless. It has been admitted in the chapter on Immortality in the present work, and on grounds of mere controversial prudence, even indepen- dently of our supreme loyalty to truth, the admission ought to be made frankly, that the analogies of mere nature are opposed to the doctrine of immortality. 2 " From earth we come, to earth return : Whatever has been born must die." If we of this generation are to believe in a future life, we must agree, not with the metaphysical and quasi-scientific arguments of philosophers who maintain the natural im- mortality of the soul, but with the faith of the writers of the New Testament, who taught that God will raise the 1 Chapters 17 and 20. 2 Page 284. 332 LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL RELIGION. [CHAT. Immor- tality can be certain only by revelation. Value of the Analogy. All reli- gion is revealed. The true distinction is Legal and Evan- gelical. Defini- tions. dead : and it is difficult to see how this can be made cer- tain except by evidence derived from revelation. The phi- losophical system of natural religion therefore breaks down at the foundation. Do I then conclude that the first part of the Analogy is worthless ? By no means. It does not establish, indepen- dently of revelation, a system of natural religion, with its cardinal doctrine of the rendering of justice to all in a future life : but it does prove that the analogies of nature are in favour of any revelation which contains that doctrine. Almost all facts, as distinguished from d priori truths, are believed not on demonstrative but on cumulative evidence : the question of a future state of retribution is one of fact, and Butler has established that argument in its favour which consists in its harmony with the facts of the present life. Natural religion, as we have seen, in Butler's system in- cludes the doctrines of immortality and retribution : re- vealed religion is a name for the more distinctive doctrines of Christianity. If what has been said is true, this distinc- tion is invalid ; as Coleridge somewhere says, " the expres- sion revealed religion is a pleonasm : there is no religion except that which is revealed." But the error which Butler has committed in making it goes no farther than the title-page. The true distinction is not that of natural and revealed but that of legal and evangelical : legal religion being the right name for that which Butler calls natural, and evangelical for that which he calls revealed. The dis- tinction between legal and evangelical religion has been sufficiently indicated in the preceding chapter : legal reli- gion being the position wherein we stand in virtue of God's justice, and evangelical religion that whereinto we are brought by His grace. In the preceding chapter we have seen that justice is natural law among beings having a moral nature. 1 In this sense, the religion of mere justice is natural religion : but this was not the meaning of natural religion with Butler and his contemporaries: what they understood by that Page 305. xxni.] LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 333 expression was so much of religion as man can learn with- out revelation. The designation of Butler's scheme of religious philosophy ought then to be the analogy of religion, legal and evan- gelical, to the constitution of nature. But does this give altogether a true meaning ? Does this double analogy really exist ? If justice is natural law among beings having a Legal reli- moral nature, there is the closest analogy between the con- J^Jogir stitution of nature and merely legal religion : legal religion with is only the extension of natural justice into a future life. I have endeavoured to state this view fully in the preceding chapter. But is the same true of evangelical religion ? Have Evangeli- the doctrines of divine grace any similar support in the ana- ?Jjj," logics of nature ? I trow not. Nature at least anticipates contrasted and foreshadows the revelation of divine justice, but it has nature. no revelation of mercy. The contrast which the constitu- tion of nature presents to divine grace or evangelical religion is as strong as the analogy which it presents to divine justice or legal religion. " We trust that Goil is love indeed, And love Creation's final law, Though Nature, red in tooth and claw, "With ravin, shrieks against our creed." J On this subject Butler has gone wrong at starting. He Butler's quotes Origen to the effect that " he who believes the Scrip- ture to have proceeded from Him who is the Author of revelation nature, may well expect to find the same sort of difficulties reproduce in it as are found in the constitution of nature ;" and I fear the diffi- that by the present generation this shallow and false saying na ture. is frequently supposed to contain the whole of Butler's philosophy. We must examine its claim to our assent. We who believe the world of nature to be the work of a righteous and holy God find notwithstanding that it is full of perplexities and anomalies. We trust in God not because of these difficulties but notwithstanding them, and 1 " Who trusted God was love indeed, And love Creation's final law, Though Nature, red in tootli and claw, With ravin, shriek'd against his creed." TENNYSON'S In Mcmoriam. 334 LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL RELIGION. [CHAP. we seek a revelation of God's purpose which shall clear them up : and the deeper is this instinctive faith, the stronger will he our hope of such a revelation. On this subject see almost every page of the Book of Psalms, which Luther called a miniature Bible. It is better understood in that morning twilight of religious knowledge than in the full and sometimes dazzling light of the New Testament. What sort of a reply is it to this longing of instinctive faith, to say that revelation (for " the Scriptures " is here a mere synonym for revelation) does not clear up the difficulties of nature but reproduces them ? As we have seen, 1 the perplexity of the Israelite of old was that God should permit iniquity to prosper. God did not reply by justifying Himself : in the Book of Job He expressly refused to do so : 2 the reply which He gave, and which satisfied His faithful ser- vants in that age, was that it should not be so always. But what sort of a reply would it have been to tell them that revelation does not clear up the difficulties of nature but reproduces them, and it shall be so always ? Their faith was never mocked with such a reply : but now that the moral perplexity of the world has changed its form, and the question is no longer why God should permit sin to prosper, but why He should permit it to exist, we are met with this reply : we are told that revelation does not clear up the difficulties of nature but reproduces them, and it shall be so always. One case however is not altogether parallel to that of the Israelite. Before immortality was made fully known, a revelation from heaven declaring that the injustice of the world should never be set right would no doubt have destroyed hope, but it would otherwise have left things as it found them. But it is not so with us who believe in immortality. A declaration that sin shall never cease to exist does not leave the perplexity of the existence of sin untouched; on the contrary, it aggravates it infinitely. I 1 Page 320. 2 I do not enter on the question of the inspiration of the Scriptures. None who believe in God can doubt that they are given by Him for our instruction, and that whatever light was formerly shed on the life of the Israelite, or is shed on our life now, by such books as Job and the Psalms, is light from God. XXIII.] LE(!AL AND EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 33-J use the word infinitely in its proper mathematical sense : whatever perplexity is due to the existence of sin in finite time is multiplied to infinity if it is" to exist for ever. When we are told as we are told that the continuance of sin, and therefore of misery, for ever, is only a reproduc- tion of the moral perplexities of nature, our reply is : It is a reproduction of the same perplexity, but magnified to infinity : and this, w r hen we hoped that it would be cleared away as the perplexity of the Israelite has been ! The difficulty, we are told, is not that evil should exist Dean for ever, but that it should exist at all: or, in other J^^ 1 words, When God tolerates the existence of iniquity now, same argu- why should He not tolerate it for ever ? With this argument m such writers as Dean Mansel think to silence those who hope that Christ will ultimately not only subdue but destroy all enemies. 1 But if they perceived its logical consequences they might well fear to use it. They are not atheists, and they do not mean to be sceptics, but this is the stock argument of the sceptic and the atheist, which has been reproduced in every possible conscious and unconscious form ever since the light of God first shone in a darkness which refused to understand it. Its true character will be shown by changing a single word. When God tolerates the triumph of iniquity now, why should He not tolerate it for Unbelief ever ? We are told by the Psalmist that there were men in am o n g tlle * ancient his time who so reasoned ; but they had not the perverse Israelites, acuteness of our modern logicians who use what is essen- tially the same argument, and fancy that it is on the side of God and of righteousness. They said, God doth not regard it : or, more simply and consistently, Tliere is no God. More consistently, I say : for atheism is the legiti- mate result of all systems which deny that God will both defeat sin and destroy it : whether they are avowedly im- pious, like the unbelief of evil-doers in ancient Israel, or ostensibly pious, seeking to build a structure of religious orthodoxy on a foundation of moral scepticism, like the The argu- theory of Dean Mansel. 2 If such systems are sound, and if 1 See Note C to Chapter 8. See also Note at end of present chapter. 2 See Note at end of chapter. 336 LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL RELIGION. [CHAP. against God's temporary toleration of the existence of evil, whether justice 6 as triumphant in this world or defeated and suffering in the against world to come, is any pledge that he will continue to tolerate Divinf 1 mercy. it for ever, then the instinctive hope of the noblest among mankind, which appears so impressively in the Psalms and in the prophetical writings, for a salvation to be re- vealed by the righteous God, gives no ground for believing that such hopes have any foundation : for if the hope which we cherish for the destruction of evil is illusory, why should the hope of Psalmist and Prophet for its defeat prove to be better founded ? Summary. j n a word : If the instinctive hope of universal divine mercy is unfounded, the instinctive hope of universal divine justice rests on no better foundation. In what It may be said that this is a mere argument-urn ad liomi- sense this nem% This is perfectly true. It is a mere argumentum argumen- ad hominem, addressed to all those who sympathise fominem with tlie faith f the Psalmist in a divine justice to be revealed : a faith which may be called in- stinctive, because it is not founded on the revelation but anticipates it. Argument But there is an argument in favour of believing in the univer universality of divine mercy which is in no sense a mere ar- sality of gumentum ad hominem. We are so constituted that we are from m- a ^^ e to think of suffering or of any other evil as endurable m- stinctive if we know that it is but temporary, but not if it is to be feeling. everlasting. Whatever is the metaphysical value of the argument that what God tolerates now He may tolerate for ever, it is thus contradicted, or rather rejected, by the moral instincts of man : and our moral instincts must cor- respond, however distantly, with some reality in the moral order of the universe. To deny that there is any such correspondence would be to say of God, that He is found capable of creating organs of sight in a world of darkness : and of us, that faith is impossible, because we have no power to distinguish righteousness that we might believe in it. The dogma of everlasting misery in other words, of sin which is never to be either healed by the sinner's repent- xxiii.] LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 337 ance or destroyed by bis extinction is a contradiction of mercy : but it is not altogether a contradiction of justice : for, as we bave seen in the preceding chapter, though incon- sistent with the character of a just and righteous God, it would be at least a possible result of a perfectly just sys- tem of impersonal self-executing law. But justice as well as mercy is contradicted by other applications of the theory that revelation may be expected not to clear up but only to reproduce the perplexities of the world of nature. Thus The it is said that the doctrine of original sin, misinterpreted rSinal as a dogma of hereditary guilt, is consistent with the visible sin fact that sinful tendencies in character, like all other ten- election, dencies, often become hereditary : and that the dogma of what is called the " election of grace," l in the sense of mere arbitrariness in the bestowal of spiritual favours by God, is consistent with the visible fact of the unequal distribution of temporal blessings. We may grant the premises, which are too obvious to be denied, without accepting the con- clusion. It is no doubt part of the order of nature that children suffer for the sins of their parents, and that blessings are very unequally distributed. But it is not legitimate to reason from such instances as these to the world tran- scending nature whereof revelation speaks. That revela- tion is a revelation of grace. These moral anomalies of nature, on the contrary, so far from belonging to the world of grace or containing any anticipation thereof, do not even approach to justice. Like all evil, they are permitted for a time in order to give occasion for the development of virtue which would otherwise be undeveloped for want of exercise ; but they belong neither to that Divine system of justice towards which nature makes only an approximation, nor to that Divine system of grace which transcends nature altogether, but to that unmoral system of nature which joins with man in groaning for deliverance. 2 These remarks are emphatically applicable to that oft- quoted passage where Butler compares the waste of souls 1 This expression is Saint Paul's. Romans xi. 5. 2 Page 292. 338 LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL RELIGION. [CHAP. Butler's in the spiritual world to the waste of seeds in the world of parison of nature. 1 The waste of seeds in the world of nature is not the waste now so unaccountable a part of the divine method as it to that of appeared to be in Butler's time : for it has been shown by seeds. Darwin in his Origin of Species that the production of a much greater number of germs than can possibly be matured is a necessary condition of organic progress by means of "natural selection among spontaneous varia- tions." 2 And we have seen that similar agencies are at work in human society, and promote historical progress. 3 But these are not analogies which we ought to expect to see Reply : followed out in the spiritual world. They belong not to of se'edf 6 tne kingdom of the personal God, which is a kingdom of belongs to grace, but to the reign of merely natural law. That natural unmoral . . T- nature, system whereof the waste of seeds is a part, is, as Darwin has shown, a system of competition wherein progress is secured by the strong surviving and the weak perishing. But though competition is good in its place, and is, within limits, good in human society, it is primarily an unmoral agency : not contrary to morality, but belonging to a region below it. The unconscious struggle for existence wherein ichthyosauri have been superseded' by whales and pterodactyles by birds, 4 is neither moral nor im- moral but unmoral. In human history, however, strife and competition become a moral agency, by reason of the tendency of such moral qualities as fidelity and self-devo- and the tion to ensure victory to their possessors. But the highest do not and cannot enter into competition: in moral competition each individual, tribe, or nation strives for areopposed itself, but the highest virtues are unselfish and self-sacrific- to it. i n g : an( j competition is no longer a moral agency but on the contrary destructive of morality when it is introduced 1 " Analogy," page 105 (Bishop Fitzgerald's edition). 8 The reasoning on which this conclusion depends is stated at length in "Habit and Intelligence." I have shown in that work that I am very far from thinking Darwin's theory a complete account of the origin of species and of organic progress, but it is impossible to doubt that the cause mentioned in the text is an actually operative one. 3 Page 235. 4 See Note B to Chapter 16. xxi ii. J LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL RELIGION. into a higher and more sacred region than that which pro- perly belongs to it. Family life, which is the nearest Family approach to the kingdom of God which the world of nature llfe ' contains, so far from being based on competition would be destroyed by it : and the more highly man's moral nature is developed, the less exclusively does human society recog- nize as its law the Darwinian principle of the right of the strongest to prevail, and the more does it recognize the rights of the weak. In other words ; in the moral progress of man that principle of action under which nature destroys the superfluous seeds, is gradually and partially rejected in favour of the right of all who are born, to live and to enjoy life so far as their powers will permit. The Darwinian principle of competition, if it were applied to what is properly the domain of morality, would condemn to de- struction the infirm, the maimed, the blind, the dumb, the mentally weak, and all who are unable to hold their ground in the battle of life. The highest human morality on the contrary protects them and endeavours to secure what enjoyment of life is possible to them : and the successful Christian attempts which scientific philanthropy has made to alle- viate the afflictions of their lot rank among the most admirable of human achievements. And every recognition of the duty of society to save the destitute from perishing is a declaration of the insufficiency for the guidance of human society of that principle of mere competition which, unchecked, would permit the destitute to perish. If it is urged that these principles of action belong spe- cially to Christian philanthropy, and are thus chiefly due riot to any spontaneous development of human morality but to an impulse from without : I reply that I am in- clined to agree with this, and it strengthens iny argument : for we may reason with more confidence from the divinely human morality of Christ than from the highest merely human morality to the moral principles of the spiritual world. It remains true however that family life, which, equally with Christian philanthropy, rejects and supersedes competition, is purely natural. So far from being the result of any special and direct revelation of God's purpose, it has z 2 340 LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL KELIOION. [CHAP. its beginning in the animal world, and is thus older than the origin of the spiritual nature in man. Now, if we adopt Butler's view (as it will be seen that I do) in regarding the moral order of human society as part of the same system of nature to which matter and life The belong : it will be seen that the principle in virtue whereof principle 111 so man y seeds are consigned to destruction in apparent in nature waste, or the Darwinian principle as we may now call it, moral". though it belongs to the order of nature, has in its begin- ning no trace of any moral character: and though it ultimately becomes an agency of moral progress, yet it is only capable of becoming an agency of justice : not of mercy or grace, unless we call it mercy to end the exist- ence of the weak and the diseased : and it is set aside by the highest human morality, especially by that which we have learned from Christ. From this it will be evident that the analogy of nature, when rightly understood, does not support but opposes the belief that the Author of nature, who is also the God of mercy, will deal with beings who are sentient, and have at least a capacity for The morality, as He deals with seeds : for we may reasonably analogy expect the analogies of the spiritual world not to be with spiritual those principles which have their origin in the unmoral ^ e ^ministration of the world of nature, and are the moral rejected by nature's highest morality: but with those which belong to that part thereof which alone is essen- tne tially moral, namely the life of the family : the relation of part of parent and child, and that of brother and brother. The nature. principle of competition, and the Darwinian law of pro- gress by the destruction of the weak, belong on the con- trary to that order of nature which, though it is not evil, yet seems to aspire and to groan after something better than itself. Legal and In conclusion it is to be observed that though legal and gelical evangelical religion that is to say, our relation to Divine religion justice and to Divine mercy may be separated in thought, separated, they cannot be separated in fact : for neither can have its ;xm.] LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 341 perfect action without the other, and they both have their root in the nature of God. NOTE. HANSEL ON THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL. THE following is extracted from Dean Hansel's Bampton Lec- tures on the Limits of Religious Thought, page 222, " It is urged that evil cannot for ever be triumphant against Extract God. As if the whole mystery of iniquity were contained in ?i om . i. the words for ever ! The real riddle of existence the problem Bampton which confounds all philosophy, aye and all religion too, so far Lectures. as religion is a thing of man's reason, is the fact that evil exists at all : not that it exists for a longer or shorter duration. Is not God infinitely wise and powerful and holy now ? and does not sin exist along with that infinite holiness and wisdom and power 1 Is God to become more holy, more powerful, more wise hereafter : and must evil be annihilated to make room for His perfections to expand? Does the infinity of His eternal nature ebb and flow with every increase or diminution in the sum of human guilt and misery? Against this immovable barrier of the existence of evil, the waves of philosophy have dashed themselves unceasingly since the birthday of human thought, without displacing the minutest fragment of the stub- born rock, without softening one feature of its dark and rugged surface." Only a few lines further on, however, Mansel denies that His incon- evil is a mystery in any other sense than all existence, whether sistency. created or uncreated, is a mystery. (See Note C to Chapter 8.) If this is true, the highest religious philosophy coincides with fetish -worship and polytheism, which expect evil as easily as good, sinfulness as easily as holiness, from the objects of their worship. The feeling that evil is not only a mystery but an anomaly, 1 is however too deeply implanted in us by centuries of Christian culture to be conjured away by any philosophy, however ingenious. Compare the following passage, quoted with approval by 1 For the distinction between mystery and anomaly see pp. 140, 143. 342 LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL RELIGION. [CH. xxm. Miiller on the same subject. Moral position of his theory. Legitimate result of Mansel's doctrine. Mansel, Butler, Pascal, and the Casuists. Mansel from Miiller. 1 " Es scheint nach der Bemerkung von der wir eben ausgingen undenkbar, dass die Weltentwickelung mit eineni unaufgelosten Zwiespalt abschliesse, dass der Gegen- satz gegen den gottlichen Willen in dem Willen irgend eines Geschopfes sich behaupte. Diesen Knoten lost indessen zu- nachst schon ein fichtiger Begriff der Strafe. Der Gegensatz gegen den gottlichen Willen behauptet sich eben nicht, sondern 1st ein schlechterdings iiberwundener, wenn der ganze Zustand der Wesen, in denen er ist, Strafzustand ist, so dass das Ge- bundene Bose dem reinen Einklang der zum gottlichen Reiche verklarten Welt durchaus nicht mehr zu storen verrnag." The " right conception of punishment " here stated amounts to this : " The mystery of evil is solved. It is not to exist for ever : for sin will be punished, and sin when punished is evil no longer." This theory is not mere nonsense, and it is per- fectly intelligible : but it goes back from the moral position of the Christian who desires the extinction of sin, to that of the Israelite who was satisfied with its defeat and punishment. This however is not all : for, by dogmatically denying the ex- tinction of sin and punishment, it assumes a repulsive and anti-Christian character, unlike anything in the Psalms, where punishment in a future state is not thought of. Were I convinced of Mansel's doctrine that the only discover- able truth concerning evil is that it will last for ever, the neces- sary inference for me would be pure moral atheism : that is to say, the conclusion that righteousness is not a fundamental law of the universe at all. Mansel, so far as I am aware, is the first writer who has sys- tematized the tendency to lay a foundation of pure scepticism for a superstructure of orthodoxy : but there is too much of it in Butler, and in a profounder thinker than Butler, namely Pascal : though Victor Cousin, in his celebrated essay on the Scepticism of Pascal, has greatly exaggerated this. Mansel is avowedly Butler's disciple. Had Butler read Pascal's Thoughts ? and did Pascal unconsciously acquire the habit of assuming sceptical premisses for orthodox conclusions from the casuistical writers whom, in his Letters, he refuted by exposing ? Notes to Mansel's Bampton Lectures, p. 409. [ 343 ] CHAPTER XXIV. THE RELATION OF HISTORY TO RELIGION. WE have now done with the scientific bases of faith. But before we go on to the superstructure, which is the Faith itself, that is to say to Religion as made known by Revelation, the question occurs : After all that has been said of the relation of Religion to Science, what is to be said of its relation to History ? It may be said in reply, that Science is a mere syno- nym for Knowledge, and that consequently it includes History. If this is only a verbal definition, there is nothing to be said against it, except that it is always best, for the sake of accuracy, to keep the meanings of words distinct. But if it is meant that all knowledge, historical knowledge included, is capable of being brought under scientific formulae, then I altogether disagree with this. Common History is sense and usage are right in opposing history and literature to science. The essential matter in science is for know- ledge to be reasoned and forrnulised, and a fact that will not fit into any formula stands over till the right formula is found. But in history and literature the essential matter is the display of human character : and this fascinates us most, and gives the highest instruction, when it defies all formulae most completely. It is true that such a thing is possible as a science of history : but it can never be any- thing more than a science of general tendencies : and between understanding these and really knowing history, f 244 THE RELATION OF HISTORY [CHAP. Religion must be in closer con- nexion with his- tory than with science. A revela- tion ad- dressed to the affec- tions must be histori- cal. there is the same difference that there is between under- standing psychology as a science and understanding- human nature. 1 Science and History are thus the two great divisions of human knowledge : though, like the various branches of science, they have manifold connexions with each other. 2 We cannot doubt that all things in creation, notwith- standing the diversities of their laws, form one connected system : and if so, Religion, or the revealed knowledge of God, must be in connexion with both Science and History, which are the chief divisions of the natural knowledge which we acquire for ourselves. But of the two, Religion will probably be found in closer connexion with History than with Science : for Eeligion addresses itself to the capacity for faith, and History addresses itself to that power of understanding human character by sympathy and insight, in a way transcending logic and incapable of being reduced to formulae, which, as we have seen, is a rudimentary form of faith. 3 Further: if a system of religion is to be revealed: in other words, if it is God's purpose to give us more definite knowledge of Himself and His ways than is given by nature and by conscience, and thereby to act on our minds for our spiritual improvement : it appears probable that the Divine system for so acting on mankind will be shown in operation in actual instances at definite times arid places in history. It cannot be otherwise if religion is to act on us through our sympathies : the indefinite revelation of God in nature addresses the intellect, and the indefinite revelation of God in conscience addresses the moral sense: but if God is to be revealed in any more definite and personal manner, so as to address the affections, this, so far as we can judge, can only be done in the same way that the affections are addressed by human beings : that is to say, God will address our affections by letting His 1 " Habit and Intelligence," vol. ii. p. 218. 3 On the connexions between Science and History, see the Introduction to " Habit and Intelligence." 3 See the chapter on the Meaning of Faith (Chapter 6). xxiv.] TO RELIGION. 345 Character be seen in action : and action belongs to History. For anything that we can knaw d priori, however, it is uncertain whether God's revelation of Himself will be of this kind, or will consist only in a communication of knowledge. But the analogies of nature are in favour of our expecting a revelation which shall be not only addressed to the understanding in the communication of knowledge, but addressed also to the sympathies and affec- tions by the manifestation of character in action. I do not mean that the analogies of nature directly suggest this : but we have seen, in speaking of the Structure of the Universe and the Divine Purpose of Creation, 1 that all nature, including the world of human life, suggests that the Creator's purpose is the production of the highest kind of excellence : and it is obvious that a revelation which addresses the affections as well as the understanding must be more favourable to the production of the highest excel- lence than one which addresses the understanding alone. But even if the revelation is to consist of nothing more than a communication of knowledge over and above that which has been communicated in nature and in con- science, we cannot see any way in which such knowledge can be given except at definite times and places, and con- sequently in History. The manner in which this has been expressed is perhaps These new, but the ideas are old. I do not know whether any J cleas a book has been published with the title of " The Historical Bases of Faith," but such a title would suggest no ideas which are not familiar. We thus conclude that a revelation from God is likely Summary. to be not isolated from all other knowledge, but entwined with History as well as capable of being logically based on Science. vSeo Chapters 16 and 17. [ 346 ] CHAPTER XXV. RECAPITULATION OF THE FOREGOING CHAPTERS. Nature suggests, without proving, God and immorta- lity. I am op- posed to Deism and mystical Transcen- dentalism as well as to mate- rialistic positivism. The alleged op- position between "DEFORE we speak of the distinctive doctrines of the *-* Christian Faith as made known in Revelation, it will be well to recapitulate the suggestions and foreshadowings thereof which we have found in Nature : omitting however all that is not of first-rate importance, and all that consists of replies to difficulties and objections. It is the purpose of the present work to show that although no system of merely natural religion is possible : that is to say, although God and Immortality, with the doctrines of Divine Justice and Divine Grace, cannot be certainly known from nature : yet they are so strongly suggested in nature as to give great a priori probability to the claims of a revelation which speaks as with the authority of God in order to make them known. I am consequently opposed not only to the Materialism, or Positivism as it is now called, which, from finding that God is not made known by the ordinary methods of either demonstrative or inductive science, concludes that not even His existence can be made known at all : but also to the Deism which regards the indefinite revelation of God in the universe as sufficient, and admits no more definite revelation of Him in history : and to the Mysti- cism, or Transcendentalism as it is now called, which regards the indefinite revelation of God in man's con- science and spiritual nature as sufficient, and admits no more definite revelation of Him in history. The alleged opposition between Theology and Science which is so often assumed as if it were axiomatic, really rests on a form of petitio principii resembling that which CH. XXV.] RECAPITULATION OF FOREGOING CHAPTERS. 347 Bentham called a " question-begging appellative." " Not Theology theological but scientific ; " "not scientific but theological." gci ence j s It is thus taken for granted that a scientific conception a petitw cannot be theological, and that a theological conception cannot be scientific. If this is true it ought to be proved : it cannot be axiomatic. It would be as reasonable to assume that science and history are altogether distinct and have no points of contact. History can never be merely a branch of science, yet its points of contact with science are constantly multiplying : so, as I maintain, theology is much more than a mere branch of science, yet it has many points of contact with science, and is capable, up to a certain point, of being treated scientifically. The answer to this will probably be, that the truth in such matters is to be known not by reasoning but by trial : and that all experience shows that science and history have much light to throw on each other ; while the same experience shows that the data of science are not to be sought in theology. I reply that this is true : the data of science are not to be sought in theology. But may not the conclusions of See Intro- Science point to theology ? It is the purpose of the present ductwn ' work to show that they do. We have had first to decide what, and how much, we mean by Science. Is all possible knowledge of general See Chap- truths included in Inductive, or what is now called Positive, ier L Science ? We have answered this question in the negative. We have seen that metaphysical science is as legitimate and Science as true as inductive science, though it deals with a different chidrJTme- set of problems. They both alike regard the entire world of taphysics being, mental as well as physical, but from opposite points fodueth* of view : Inductive Science begins from data of Observation, science - and Metaphysical Science from data of Consciousness : in other words, the data of Inductive Science are external to the conscious mind, and those of Metaphysics are internal to it. The problems of Inductive Science regard the laws of matter and mind : the problems of Metaphysics regard their underlying reality. That science which is to be a 348 KECAPITULATION OF [CHAP. basis for faith must include Inductive and Metaphysical science alike : that is to say, all science which has exist- ing things for its object, though not the abstract sciences of Mathematics and formal Logic : for these latter, to our present capacities for knowledge, do not appear to have any bearing on theology. We have subsequently considered man's powers of know- ing and of believing, that is to say his capacity for Know- ledge and for Faith : and we have found that Inductive and Metaphysical Science have alike their origin from the earliest Origin of dawn of conscious thought : Inductive Science begins and mete- wnen we discover the existence of an external world, and physical Metaphysics when we become conscious of personal iden- tity continuing through time and change. We have found also that Faith, as well as Science, has its origin from the and of earliest dawn of thought, and before the awakening of self-consciousness : Science begins with the instinctive See Chap- belief in the uniformity of the order of nature, and the discovery of such commonplace truths as that stones are heavy and fire hot : and Faith begins with the instinctive trust of children in their parents. Their re- We have seen moreover that the practical importance of functions Inductive Science is chiefly in guiding action, while the importance of Metaphysical Science is chiefly in forming character. The latter is still more eminently true of Faith, especially in its highest development, that is to say of religious faith. To speak in the language of the so-called Positive Philosophy, the function of the latest developed that of in- of the three possible systems of philosophy, namely Posi- I e ; Q tive or Inductive Science, is to make known the laws of oClcllCU IS to make the universe wherein we live, and to guide action ; while lows of the tne function of the two older systems, namely the Meta- universe : physical and the Theological, which were cast aside as metaphy- worthless by the systematizes of the so-called Positive o^faSfis Philosophy because they throw no light on the laws of to mould the visible universe, is the yet more important one of t?Chap- moulding character, ter 1. The possibility, and the value, of inductive science is questioned by none : but many follow Comte in rejecting _ THE FOREGOING CHAPTERS. 349 metaphysics. Now, what is meant by rejecting meta- physics ? If it means that the questions of metaphysics cannot be solved, or that they are not worth trying to solve, this is intelligible, though I do not agree with it. But if it is said that they are not real questions, capable at least of being stated for solution, this is not so much untrue as unmeaning. The questions of the underlying The ques- reality of the universe of matter : the ground of our per- ^^ h f _ sonal identity through time and change : the meaning sics are of the law of causation : the freedom of man's will : the ^1 c ^ p ^ ground of our sense of the unalterably binding nature of Me of solu - moral law: these, which are the principal questions of not! metaphysics, are questions which cannot but be asked, and, if they are to be solved at all, must be solved from other data than those of inductive science. It cannot be a matter of indifference to the formation of our characters how these questions are answered. We have next inquired separately into the most important of these questions, namely the metaphysical interpretation of nature, the ground of the moral sense, and the freedom of the will. In answer to the first of these, we have found that there is no ground for believing Matter and Mind or Spirit to differ in their essence : and that while Inductive Spiritual Science, reasoning from data of Observation, reveals a world "^ r e e of matter whereof mind is one of the functions, Meta- universe, physics, reasoning from data of Consciousness, reveals ^^^ hap ' world of spirit whereof matter is one of the functions : so that we recognize the deepest realities of the universe as not material but spiritual. In reply to the question as to the ground of the moral sense, we have seen that moral law Ground of is not the result of any mere calculation of consequences, the m ? ral but is a system of truth co-eternal with the Uncreated uncreated Source of the universe. And in reply to the question ^eChap- as to the freedom of man's will, we have seen that Con- ter 3. science appears to affirm, while neither Inductive nor Metaphysical science denies, that our actions and our Freedom of characters are not the mere result of circumstance, and the Wiu - ... .. See Chap- that we have, though within very narrow limits, true moral tcr 4. J freedom and power of self -determination. 350 RECAPITULATION OF [CHAP. The logical possibility and the psychological ground of faith have next been considered. Science inductive See Chap- science at least consists of verified knowledge. Faith, on the contrary I here speak of fully developed or religious faith transcends the possibility of verification. It may therefore seem that faith is by its own confession un- Eeason- reasonable. But in reply to this we have seen that all faith 1688 f knowledge concerning that which has existence in other words, all knowledge except that of abstract logic and See Chap- mathematics ultimately rests on postulates which can- not be verified, and which are reasonably accepted as true without verification. These are the axioms of the general trustworthiness of memory, and the probability that the course of nature has been, is, and will be uniform : or in other words that experience is true, and that it is appli- cable. These postulates cannot be proved : for were any one to assert that all to which memory bears witness is a dream, and that it is an even probability whether the course of nature shall be totally changed to-morrow, he could not be proved to be wrong. In the ethical sense however that is to say as affecting the formation of character there is no difference between such instinctive belief as this and the belief which is founded on proof. Its ethical The peculiar ethical value of faith begins when we trust, with perfect confidence though without any possi- bility of our confidence being at present experimentally verified, in another, whether human or Divine or " human and Divine," * whom nevertheless we feel to be too high above ourselves thoroughly to understand. Such faith cannot be reduced to formulae or justified by logic, but it is able to justify itself: and such faith is the highest and most powerful of all agencies for moulding the character. See Chap- The reasonableness of the doctrine of Justification by Faith, and its suitableness to a religion which aims at moulding human character anew, is thus shown, not by reasoning but by an appeal to facts. 1 " Thou seemest human and Divine, The highest, holiest Manhood Thou." TENNYSON'S In Memoriam. THE FOREGOING CHAPTERS. not account for themselves. Behind visible nature there there must must be an invisible ground of Being. Moreover, nature be ^n in- is manifold : its laws are many, and cannot be reduced to ground of one all-comprehending law : yet reason affirms that where be j n g a l there is diversity there must be a principle of unity of unity : behind it. The ultimate Self-Existent Unity whence the (See Chap- manifoldness of nature is derived, is consequently not in te nature but behind arid above it. We are also certain that the invisible, ultimate ground and this of Being must be infinite : in other words, that the Self- Existent must be without limit. This is purely a truth of ( See P a 9* the reason, which is not and cannot be confirmed by obser- vation : for no observation possible to us could ascertain whether even the visible universe lias limits : much less could observation obtain knowledge of that which tran- scends the region of sense and is known by reason alone. As yet we have asserted nothing concerning the Ground of Being and Principle of Unity, except the attributes of Self-Existence and Infinity. Our investigation next goes on to consider its nature. While Inductive Science, reasoning from data found by observation, reveals a world of matter, whereof mind is one of the functions: Metaphysics, reasoning from data found in consciousness, reveals a spiritual world, whereof matter is one of the functions. Matter, whether from a metaphysical or from an inductive point of view, is known only as a function of force, and can be described only in terms of force. In other words, the universe is nothing but a manifestation of force. Force is known to us by immediate consciousness as a function of our own mind and will : that is to say, the mind, acting in will, is con- scious of itself as a force : and we are able to conceive Suggestion of force in no other way : the only conception of force fo^J; 1 ^ which we are able to frame is that of voluntary force, or the uni- 352 RECAPITULATION OF [CHAP. verse may the exertion of will. Either the force manifested in the pressfon*" universe is the force of a Creative Will, or we are able to of will, form no conception of it whatever. It is not asserted ters 1 and that the existence of a Creative Will is proved by this argument : it is only made conceivably capable of proof. This is But what greatly strengthens the presumption in favour of ened^Iy 1 " ^ e f rces f * ne universe being not the forces of mere the disco- dead mechanism but the result and expression of a Living the^um- Will, is the truth now made known by inductive science, verse had that the universe must have had a beginning in time. ning. There must therefore have been an origin of the order of Seep. 49. na ^ urej outside of the existing laws of nature: and the only way in which we can conceive that origin, is that it is due to the determination of a Will, guided, as our own will is, by Intelligence towards a purpose. But though we can conceive of no other answer to the question of the origin of the Universe, this answer is not thereby conclusively proved to be true. We must seek for other suggestions. Moral law If Creative Power is Intelligent Will, such Intelligence the Divine mils ^ ^e infinite : and infinite Intelligence, or in other nature. words infinite knowledge, must include perfect knowledge of good and evil. And if the Self-Existent Being is an Infinite Intelligence in other words, if there is a Divine Con- Mind all necessary truth, including the laws of Holiness notnature or Mo ra li.ty> must form part of the constitution of that is the chief Mind. It is now generally recognized by all who believe, the know- under whatever modification, in any Divine light for man, ledge of that t] ie c l eares t streams of that light flow not through visible nature but through conscience. It is not too much The only to say that, excepting those axioms of logic and meta- physics which cannot be denied without self-contradiction, certainty the only absolutely unquestionable and unalterable ground is in the , . . . . , , . , moral io r certainty is in the conscience or moral sense. All else sense. ^ or mav j^ su bject to change. The laws of nature had a beginning and may have an end. Time and space may be only forms of our own thought, though I do not myself agree with this opinion. But holiness cannot change its nature. Moral truth is true, and moral law is binding, for xxv.] THE FOREGOING CHAPTERS. 353 all beings in the universe who have intelligence enough to See Chap. understand it : and though there is much in the facts of the moral world which, taken alone, tends to oppose the belief in any Divine administration of justice, yet we are in- stinctively certain that if there is any moral order of the universe at all it will prove to be a righteous one. These truths are incapable of proof, but they need no proof : they shine by their own light. It is these truths only that make it possible for us to have any intelligent belief in a future life : for in the future life all must be so unlike our experience of the present, that we cannot be certain of any laws holding true there which we have found to be true here, except only those of morality. And it is these truths only that make it possible for us to receive a reve- lation as coming from God : for the fundamental postulate of any possible revelation is that God is true : this cannot be proved by revelation but is implied in it, and is known by us as an axiom of the moral sense. It has been already implied, but it ought to be expressly stated, that I attach no value to that argument for the Being of God which consists in the assumption that Moral Law implies a Moral Lawgiver. My argument is inconsistent with this : for I regard moral law as uncreated, and having Moral law its foundations deeper than any determination of Divine ^ted Will, though not deeper than the Divine Will in the sense in which this is identical with the Divine Nature. If moral law depended, like the law of gravitation, on a mere determi- 'nation of Divine Will, it would be possible for God to make good and evil change their natures by a mere decree : and no one really believes this : for, though some Calvinists may think it pious to maintain this in words, yet they would deny, as earnestly and as sincerely as those who maintain a sounder theory, the possibility of God ceasing to be true. But though the existence of moral law and its unalter- ableness do not directly and of themselves prove the Being of God, yet they make it capable of being proved by other means. Conscience " has an authority which does not con- See Chap- sist in power." It speaks with a command : and if the ter l5 ' forces of external nature are the expression of Divine Will, A A 354 RECAPITULATION OF [CHAP. The force ofthear- from con- the mind it ia ad- dressed, Faith in man ; which is good for the moral nature false Ot be is not the voice of conscience the expression of Divine Authority? Conscience is reason applied to moral subjects. But is it not more than this ? Were it no more, it could speak in the indicative mood only : but it does speak in the imperative. Were it to address us with a mere statement of law, it would tell nothing of God. But it does address us as the expression of a Will which commands and constrains. For the appreciation of such an argument as this, "there is no common measure" for all minds i 1 its force will depend on the mind to which it is addressed. To ^ nose whose conception of moral law, or duty, is identi- eal with that of self-respect, it will appear worthless : and ^ will appear in the same light to those who think of moral goodness as only a peculiar and higher kind of beauty. But those who have attained to Kant's conception of moral law as a command which gives no account of itself, are not far from recognizing it as the voice of God. And it is fully so recognized by another class of minds : I mean those who know, whether by experience or by spiritual instinct, that faith is the best foundation for virtue : that the highest and holiest character is that which listens to the voice of conscience as to the expression of the Divine Will, and regards that Will as the Will at once of a Sovereign who has a right to be loyally obeyed, and of a Father who gives the power to obey. The kind of excellence which belongs to this character is what is called in the language of Christianity the righteousness which is ~by faith. It is that whereof Christ set the example : though He, being alone among men sinless, might have chosen to be self-sufficing, if such a position were suitable to any except the only ^derived Being. To say that this kind of excellence is the highest type of human character, is only to say that the Christian character is higher than the Stoical, and humility better than pride. 2 Now, faith is impossible without an object : impossible, that is to say, in the sense of involving a contradiction. " He that cometh to God must believe that He is." 3 If 1 See page 115. gee Note A at end of chapter. Epistle to the Hebrews, xi. G. xxv.] THE FOREGOING CHAPTERS. 355 then faith in God is the best foundation for virtue, such faith must be either true or false. If it is true, then there is a God whose character consists in holiness, and who is the source of both our physical and our spiritual life. But if it is not true, then we must accept the conclusion that an untrue hypothesis is more favourable to our moral nature than a true one : or, what is nearly the same, that it is good for us to hold with a steadfast and yet passionate " emotion of conviction " to a belief, of the truth of which we have no valid assurance : to deceive ourselves by treating an unsupported hypothesis as an established truth. Such a conclusion is refuted by the mere statement. To believe that falsehood can be better for us than truth, or self-deception than the sincerity of the inmost soul, is almost if not quite as contrary to reason as it would be to believe that the foundations of the universe were laid in moral wrong. Though this argument may be clearly stated but seldom, it has probably more real practical force in producing faith than all others put together. The argument of the foregoing paragraph comes with Special peculiar force as an argumentum ad hominem to those who thi^argu- share the scientific spirit that desires to attain truth for ment for ... , . -, . , . , , the scien- its own sake without regard to consequences, which is the tific spirit, peculiar moral excellence of the present age. To them we say : Your faith in truth, your hope for it, your love for it, are virtues which justify themselves. But if we assert that they are virtues, we thereby assert that virtue is pos- sible : and it would be a fantastic paradox to maintain that they are the only virtues. Now, though the love of truth needs no argument to justify it, does not the recognition of it as a virtue imply that the attainment of the highest truth cannot be unfavourable, and will most probably be favourable, to the highest virtue ? Moreover, whatever you believe or disbelieve, you at least believe in a cosmos, or reign of law. Is it credible that there should be no moral cosmos ? Yet the moral world would be no cosmos but a chaos if it were true or possible that faith is the best foun- dation for virtue, and yet is based on what may possibly prove to be a falsehood. A A 2 356 RECAPITULATION OF [CHAP. This proof is scientific in form. Its rele- vancy can be denied only by denying the exist- ence of a moral The direct proof of Deity from conscience, namely the recognition of the voice of conscience as the voice of One who is our Creator and Lord, is a proof only to some minds. It is thus not demonstrative, and it cannot be called scientific. To some it has no force : to others notably to Erskine of Linlathen, whose words on the subject have been already quoted 1 it is proof enough to build a faith on which shall dominate the entire life. But the indirect proof, namely the truth that the virtue which is based on faith in God is the highest virtue, is capable of being understood by any man who has attained to moral intelligence at all, and is thus scientific in form, whether or not it is demonstrative in degree. This argument may be opposed by denying the relevancy of any argument at all on the subject. I do not see how- ever how its possible relevancy can be denied except by those who deny the existence of any moral cosmos what- ever, and who see no impossibility in the foundations of the universe being laid in wrong. If anyone really thinks so, it is as useless to reason with him as with one who should deny the fundamental axioms of logic or mathe- matics. But the reply to the argument now stated will more probably be that faith, though good in its place, is only fit to be the support of an immature virtue : and that a higher morality than the Christian will probably be evolved when man's moral nature has attained to matu- rity, and after the belief in God and immortality has died out. A future age will probably regard as the strangest of all the dreams of our own this fantastic paradox, which asserts that it is best for man's nature to look up into " space and hollow sky," and recognize no holier Being in the universe than himself: that it is better for us to recognize neither Divine Justice nor Divine Grace : neither a Heavenly Judge who threatens us when we do wrong, nor a Heavenly Father who desires to lead and guide us aright. This remark, however, is scarcely just to what may be called the ethical school of religious unbelief. That 1 Page 223. XXV.] THE FOREGOING CHAPTERS. 357 school is a reaction of the Stoical feeling that virtne is lowered by seeking a reward, against the religious sys- tem which sets forth the hope of reward and the fear of punishment as the ground of virtue. Were this really the The stoicsii question as between Christianity and Stoicism were it argul true that while Stoicism teaches us to follow virtue because it is right, Christianity bases moral obligation on selfish hope and fear I should have no hesitation in concluding that the Stoical ideal of virtue is higher than the Christian, and in consequently preferring Stoicism to Christianity. But this is not a true statement of the question. Chris- tianity does teach us to seek a reward, but not a selfish reward: it teaches us to seek that reward which con- Reply to it. sists in knowing that our sins are forgiven and feeling f,^ iap " that they are healed : in knowing that God accepts our services ; in the approval of our own conscience, and the approval of God. The hope of such rewards as these not only strengthens virtue, but increases its purity by increasing its elevation. We have now considered the proofs, or at least sugges- tions, of Deity drawn respectively from Power and from Conscience : that is to say, the probability that the physical universe has been created and is impelled by a Living Will, and that the moral universe is governed by a Holy Will. The former of these two has been advanced as, when stand- jog alone, only a probable conjecture : the proof of the latter appears to be almost conclusive. Whatever may be the strength of either or of both, however, they give strength to each other. It is a well-known principle of reasoning, Cumula- applicable alike in science and in the ordinary business of ^ f ve nat f ure life, that probabilities which may separately be very slight gather strength by accumulating, until a sufficient number of them becomes as good as demonstration. It is to be observed also, that assent to each of these separate argu- ments does not constitute a new demand on our faith : on the contrary, if we think it probable that the Origin of all things is a Living Will, it will also appear probable that this Will is intelligent : and as infinite Intelligence must 358 RECAPITULATION OF [CHAP, include perfect moral knowledge, it will appear a necessary consequence that the Intelligent Creative Will is also a Holy Will. The separate and subsequent arguments from Conscience and from Intelligence only confirm this anticipation without demanding any new postulates. We now go on to the argument from Intelligence and Design. Proof of We find intelligence in the mind of man. We also find Eitem ft0m Design i n organic adaptations, such as, to mention the gence. strongest instances, the adaptation of the ear to sound and ter 14/**" f the eye to light. Adaptation, or design, is a proof of purpose, and a purpose can be formed only by an Intelli- gence. It appears most probable that the intelligence which organizes the body is not directly and immediately Divine, any more than the intelligence of man's mind. Seepage But, as all the intelligence known to us, both mental intelligence and organizing intelligence, must have had an origin, and therefore a cause: and as the effect cannot transcend the cause, we infer that Intelligence must be an Seepage attribute of the Creator. In a word: as we reason from the forces of the universe to a powerful Creator, so we may reason from the intelligence manifested in organization and in mind to an intelligent Creator. Problem If the Creator is intelligent, creation must have a pur- pose of PUr " P ose : an d we nave nex ^ to inquire what that purpose is. creation. If however we fail in the attempt to discover any definite purpose in creation, this does not prove that no such purpose exists : it may prove only the limitation of our powers. The organic creation, as we have seen, is full of adapta- tions of means to purposes : but none of these appear to See Chap- be ultimate, absolute purposes. The eye is adapted to light and the ear to sound, and so on throughout organic nature: but all the ends thus attained are themselves means to other ends. As Kant has remarked, in organi- zation all the parts are mutually means and ends. Merely physical science gives no answer to the question, what is the absolute end or purpose of creation : for the suggestion that it is the greatest possible happiness of sentient beings, though obvious and superficially plausible, is completely :v.] THE FOREGOING CHAPTERS. 359 fated by a slight examination of the facts of nature, and still more of those of human life. The questions of Cause and Purpose as regards creation Science are exactly parallel to each other. Physical science has much to tell of causes, but they are causes which are also which are effects : and of purposes, but they are purposes which are &n & p U J? s also means to other purposes. The nature of the absolute, P 8 . ea originating Cause, and of the absolute, ultimate Purpose of means to creation, are questions which science asks without being other l iur- poses. able to answer. But, though utterly unable to solve the question of Creative purpose, science may give valuable hints towards its solution. It ought to be observed that we regard evil in the uni- it is the verse as an anomaly, solely because we instinctively seek [ for a Divine Purpose in the universe. If absolute atheism which re- were the true creed and if the universe were purposeless, ^ there would be no reason for expecting good rather than anomaly. evil : and it is very remarkable how modern writers (Herbert Spencer for instance) who in words deny the possibility of our discovering the purpose of the universe, or whether it has any purpose at all, nevertheless use the old language which regards evil as an anomaly. Such lan- guage testifies to the depth of the religious instinct which regards the universe as the creation of a Father who may be reasonably expected to give good gifts to His children. It is not asserted that the anomaly of evil in a Divinely The ano- created universe is capable of being altogether solved. \\ s Moral perplexities admit of degrees of light and darkness, partial and it ought to be enough for faith, besides being a gain so to science, if we are put on what is evidently the right track for solution. Moreover, the highest form of evil is The great- the most explicable. The greatest of all evils is guilt, or ^ e e m ' 1 1 s { s voluntary sin : but it would be an impossibility of the explicable. nature of a contradiction, that there should be room for the See page production of that highest kind of virtue which consists in 25L the self-determination of a free will towards holiness, without the possibility of sin and guilt. In examining the facts of the universe with the view See Chap- ter 16. 360 RECAPITULATION OF [CHAP. of finding suggestions of a Divine Purpose, we find that The lower the lower functions of nature minister to the higher: minister to matter to life, and merely organic life to mind. We find the higher. ^at variety appears to be aimed at for its own sake, as an absolute purpose : and this appears to be true in Variety is the moral world as well as in that of nature. We also lute end. nnc l what is far more important, that the highest per- fection is comparatively rare, and is manifested on a small High per- scale. Thus, the greatest wealth of beauty is lavished on is C rare ^ e smallest things. Life, which is a higher product of and the creative power than mere matter, is much less abundant : an( ^ there is a degree of perfection manifested in snow- the most crystals, in the structures of microscopic plants, and in the fimshed. sculpture of microscopic shells, which we do not find in nature's mightier works. It is recognized as right by the artistic sense, that the lower functions should thus minister to the higher, and that the highest perfection should be least in quantity : and were everything in nature consis- tent with these principles, probably no perplexity would ever have been felt on the subject of Creative Purpose. Imperfec- But this is far from being the case. The lower functions natural minister very imperfectly to the higher ones : matter does world. minister to life, but the great extent of the earth's surface which is occupied by burning and by frozen deserts, shows that matter ministers to life much less perfectly than it might do under the existing laws of nature : and sometimes, as in storms and volcanic eruptions, the forces of matter, instead of being ministerial to life, become destructive : and life itself is capable of becoming diseased. Moreover, from the fact which is so conspicuous in the organic world, that the minutest care and the completest^msA (in the artistic sense) are in general bestowed not on the vastest but on the highest works of nature, we might expect the mental and moral nature of man. which is the highest of nature's products, to be also that wherein the highest Imperfec- perfection should be manifested. But so far is this from man being the case, that man's spiritual nature is extensively diseased, and has till now appeared to the most thoughtful men to be a ruin. ., THE FOREGOING CHAPTERS. 361 " The universe as known to us may thus be compared Page 238. to some vast temple, of magnificent design and rich orna- ment, but partly unfinished and partly defaced ; and with the central shrine the most imperfect of all, though show- ing traces of design which would have been the noblest in the whole structure if it had been rightly executed." Consequently the purpose of creation can be neither the The pur- greatest possible quantity of happiness nor the highest Creation possible average of virtue. But if the purpose of creation cannot be is to produce not the highest average of virtue but virtue es t 6 average of the highest and most varied types : and, especially, not J* Jjjjj the most perfect attainment so much as attainment in the be virtue highest class ; then this purpose has been attained. The J^est belief that such actually is the purpose of creation is con- type, sistent with the fact that the highest and most valuable i e e e r 17 /^~ products of nature are least in quantity : life being less abundant than matter, and mind less abundant than life : and this conclusion gives us the means whereby we may at least approach to the solution of the most im- portant of the perplexing problems belonging to the Divine purposes in creation. There are two objections to this view. In the first place, it is difficult to believe that the very imperfect virtue which has been attained by even the best men can be of sufficient value in the Creator's sight to be the ulti- mate purpose of creation. It is however a possible reply to this, that the earth is only one of an unknown number of planets, and that there may be more perfect attainment of excellence in others than in this. If variety in the types The Crea- of excellence is part of the creative purpose, it is not JJJffiJ'J, necessary to prove that the moral administration of this the moral planet is that which produces, or is intended to produce, ami our' the highest possible excellence ; it will be enough if we can moral perceive that the sinfulness of human nature and the moral O niy one trials of human life are the conditions, and perhaps the ne- amon s cessary conditions, of the development of a kind of virtue which could be developed only in such a world as ours. The other objection to the view here stated is that it is self-refuting and suicidal. How can it be favourable to 362 RECAPITULATION OF [CHAP. The belief the highest virtue how can it favour any but a selfish celfence " ^P e of virtue to believe that the entire moral adminis- which is tration of the universe, or at least of this planet, exists iec f r the purpose of enabling a few to attain to a degree of shared virtue which the majority of their fellow-men are not to with man- i i -, n , , -,*i ,*> kind must share? Such a belief may be consistent with the most selfishness exa ^ e ^ virtue of the heroic type, but it must tend to See Chap- engender an unsympathizing and selfish spirit, and must SS^ therefore be hostile to that highest of all kinds of excel- lence which has been invented by Christ. We have seen reason to believe that the purpose of creation is to make the highest virtue possible : yet we now see that our under- standing the purpose tends to defeat the purpose. We cannot, on any hypothesis, rest in this as our final conclusion. If there is a moral cosmos, it is as unbe- lievable as if it contained a contradiction : if there is no moral cosmos, all such inquiries are futile because Escape the postulate of them all is untrue. Nevertheless the rj ?h <1 reasonm g which has brought us to this apparent dead- trine of a lock is sound; and the way out of the dead- lock is by station 6 " the doctrines of Immortality and of a final general restora- tion : the doctrine of a future life where not only justice but grace shall be fulfilled. It is not to be denied that the obvious analogies of nature are opposed to the belief in immortality. But this is only saying in other words that immortality is altogether outside of our present experience : and there is no reason in this for thinking it impossible, because it would be absurd to believe that our experience is any measure of the Creator's Nature resources. Space and time give no suggestion of matter : maypre- i ner tj a an (j gravitation give no suggestion of the forces which produce crystallization : crystallization gives no sug- gestion of life, and vegetative life gives no suggestion of does for consciousness. Even so, immortal life may differ from that Seepage nature which is known to us, only as one grade in that nature differs from another : and as matter and force pre- pare for life and mind, and lead up to them, so the whole world of matter and life may be a preparation for the spiritual world wherein immortal life is to dwell. xxv.] THE FOREGOING CHAPTERS. 3G3 The really strong argument for immortality, however, is Argument the sense of an uncompleted purpose in nature and in human life. The formation of noble human character is the the sense highest purpose of which it is possible for us to know any- pi thing : and when this has been striven for in the present life See Chap- with real though very imperfect success, is it not reasonable to believe that God will resume and carry forward the work in a future life ? We have seen that the tendency of such a faith as this is to benefit the moral nature : both for the general reason that virtue needs the stimulus of hope, and for the special reason that only thus can those who aspire after virtue believe that the mass of their fellow-men are destined to be sharers in their attainment. Moreover, we feel that moral laws are as real as mathe- matical ones. Space and time have become forms of our thought because we belong to a physical universe which exists under their conditions : 1 and morality has become a law of our thought because we belong to a spiritual universe whereof it is the law. Mathematical laws work out their Argument results in the physical universe : and are not moral laws [^inTsT 1 to have a universe wherein to work out their results ? have a This is only a statement in modern language of the old wherein to argument for immortality from the instinctive hope of the work out ultimate manifestation of Eternal Justice and, I will add, of Eternal Mercy. The moral world is so constituted that justice has a natural Justice in tendency to execute itself: and consequently if there is a future life so as to give indefinite time, we cannot doubt that there will be a constantly increasing approximation gee page to a perfect administration of justice, so as to give to each 305 ' as he deserves. This may be the result of a purely natural and self-executing process without any special Divine inter- vention. We may thus say, not as a definition of the word but as a statement of fact, that justice is natural law among beings which have a moral nature. It is also true, and in the same sense, that grace is justice, Justice or righteousness, among beings who have free personality. Justice may be the attribute of a system, but Grace can 317. 1 See "Habit and Intelligence," especially Chapter 37. 364 RECAPITULATION OF [CHAP. only belong to a Person. A just system is satisfied with rewarding and punishing, but a righteous Person must desire that others were righteous : to desire this is to desire their highest welfare, and this is consequently the definition of Grace. Justice aims at punishing sin, but Grace aims at destroying it ; and if there is a righteous and therefore gracious God, we cannot reason- ably doubt that He will ultimately destroy all sin ; by healing it through repentance where this is possible, and by extinguishing the sinner's existence where the sin has become too closely identified with his nature to admit Universal of repentance. Thus there will first be universal justice and universal 101 a f terwar( ^ s universal mercy. And as punishment has no mercy. necessary tendency to produce repentance, the dispensa- ter22. aP ~ ^ on f mer cy> or grace, will not be a mere result of the dispensation of justice, but must, so far as it is possible for us to judge from the data before us, be due to a dis- Hope of a tinct agency, which we cannot discover for ourselves on ' though it may possibly be made known to us by revelation. See page We might no doubt have been endowed by our Creator with such a nature that punishment should have been suf- ficient to heal sin by ensuring repentance. Had it been so, the dispensation of justice, which belongs to nature, would have been also a dispensation of grace, and no distinct dispensation of grace would have been needed : but this, so far as we can see, would have afforded no occasion for the manifestation of that highest righteousness which has been manifested in Christ. We have seen that if there is to be a Divine revelation to man at all, there is an d priori probability of its being The reve- made through history. It appears inconceivable that a de- probably nn ite revelation, as distinguished from the indefinite reve- be made^ lation of God in nature arid in conscience, can be made in history/ any other way, at least if it is to address not only the in- See Chap- tellect by the communication of knowledge, but the affec- tions by letting the Divine character be seen in action : and it appears d priori probable that religion will be more closely connected with history than with science, because religion addresses itself to the capacity for faith, and history, xxv.] THE FOREGOING CHAPTERS. 365 in so far as it is distinct from science and incapable of being brought under its formulse, addresses itself to the power of understanding human character by sympathy and insight, in a way transcending logic and akin to faith. The Divine administration of justice is called Legal Eeli- Legal and gion : that of grace is called Evangelical Eeligion. Legal c J^ ff. l ~ Religion is the extension into a future state of that justice gi n : which, as we have seen, has a natural tendency to execute itself in the present world of human life. Nature under- their standing nature in Butler's sense, as including the world of human life has analogies with religion chiefly on the ture. legal side : nature has a revelation of justice, but none of mercy. That is to say, there are very strong indications in nature of the probability of justice being hereafter dominant, but none of mercy being so. Nature does how- ever contain one immensely important foreshadowing of Divine grace : that is to say in domestic life : in the rela- tion of parent and child, of brother and brother, and of husband and wife : relations which are not based on justice but on love. We have seen also that miracles, or supernatural signs, Proof of appear to be an indispensable condition, not indeed of a revelation being made but of its being proved. If the Originating Cause of the universe is a living Will, and See Gha P- we have seen this to be a probable hypothesis altogether independently of revelation, there is no impossibility in this Will, on particular occasions, setting aside the laws which it has itself appointed for the guidance of the uni- verse. Of course it is not credible that this should be done without an adequate purpose : but we may well believe that the revelation of God to the only being in this world who is capable of attaining to moral life, is an adequate purpose for working a miracle. Miracles however do not prove holiness : holiness must be its own proof : it cannot be proved by anything but itself. What miracles prove is supernatural power. A revelation accompanied and attested by miracles must be 366 RECAPITULATION OF [CHAP. of supernatural origin : its moral character alone can decide whether it is Divine. Moral truth, like mathematical truth, is seen to be such by its own light. A law of either mathematics or morals, when -its truth is seen, is seen to be true with a clearness and certainty to which nothing can be added. 1 But mathe- matics alone can give no information beyond itself : it can give no information about real existence. So with moral science : it cannot tell whether, in any other worlds than our own, there are beings with moral intelligence ; it cannot tell, in the absence of evidence, whether there is any moral government of the universe : but it does assert that moral law is binding on every Being in the entire universe who has intelligence enough to understand it : and it does assert that if there is any moral government of the universe at all, that government must be righteous. Relation of The relation between the truths of mathematical and tSa to*~ physical science is parallel to the relation between mo- expevi- rality and the truths of the spiritual world made known science, by revelation. In physical science experimental facts are Parallel to interpreted and made intelligible by their agreement with morals to mathematical theory : in theology, a revelation is made theology, (.pg^^g an( j significant by its agreement with moral theory. But in physical science, facts are not proved to be facts by their accordance with theory : they must be ascertained by observation and experiment. So, in theology it does not suffice for proof that a religion is so accordant with the highest morality that it is worthy to have come from God : it must also have experimental proof : and this can only consist in miracle of some kind : either in that dis- play of superhuman power which is usually called miracle, or in that display of supernatural knowledge which is called prophecy. Where the But the parallelism, like most analogies, is true only up t a certain point ; beyond it there is a contrast instead of a resemblance. In physical science the ultimate appeal is to observed fact; if theory is contradicted by fact, the 1 See Note B at the end of this chapter. :xv. THE FOREGOING CHAPTERS. theory must be wrong. But in theology the opposite is in physics true : the ultimate appeal is to moral principles : and if a ^ 1 revelation were to be attested by unquestionable miracles, appeal is and yet to contain doctrines opposed to morality, or doc- theology, 111 trines whereof the legitimate influence in the formation of Jt is to character must be injurious, the right inference would be principles^ that the miracles and the doctrines alike were not from God, but from an evil though supernatural power. Eevelation by means of miracle is a condescension to the All veri- weakness of man's faculties for knowledge. We can ima- ficatl n 1S a conde- gine beings who should be able to perceive all spiritual scension to truth by direct perception. But we are so constituted that G we need to learn by indirect ways, and to have the results of theory verified by experiment. This however is not a special characteristic of our knowledge of spiritual things ; it also belongs to our knowledge of natural things, for which experimental verification is as needful as theoretical reasoning. It is not however doing full justice to the Christian The theory of miracles to call them mere experimental proofs. The miracles of Christ, being mostly works of mercy and are not having all of them a moral character, are not only proofs "/ pr but illustrations, and as it were specimens, of that King- i|l us tra- dom of Heaven, or dispensation of justice and mercy, which He came to make known. To conclude : A religious philosophy can scarcely lay too much emphasis on the truth, that the highest know- ledge is not the result of experience but of intuition. It is The high- by intuition, or rational instinct, that we know such truths i e s 1 the Gospel of St. John must account also for the origin of stand with the Epistles which bear the same name, and are written u in the same very peculiar style. The difficulty is not quite the same, but it is equally The theory great as regards the Gospel, though not as regards the ^ lat t j ie Epistles, if we suppose, with Eenan, that the Fourth st. John Gospel is really the work of the Beloved Disciple, and gj 6 ^ 06 yet does not contain a trustworthy account of Christ's trust- teaching : for if this were true, there would be no way ^ ^ of accounting for the fact that two men so utterly unlike account as John and Paul in character, education, and in literary Paul's style, have taught precisely the same doctrine in totally w ^^ e " t iellt different words. The same argument is valid against the theory that the nor will theological system taught by Paul and John is less original ^ t * Jwory than is generally believed, consisting of a set of ideas Christi- which were floating in the Jewish mind at that period, ^spoiiT' 18 and were elaborated and systematized by the Apostles in taneous connexion with the Person of Christ. This theory is con- ofthe C tradicted by the most conclusive historical evidence. 1 Je . w |f h But, leaving all external evidence aside, it is inconsistent with the evidence contained in the writings of the Apostles themselves. For when two men in the same age, and belonging to the same school of thought, write fully and systematically for the purpose of teaching the same doc- trine, they will be certain, however unlike their styles may be, to use very many of the same expressions : not by reason of borrowing from each other, but because men write in the language which is spoken by the men around them. It is scarcely possible to conceive of a case where this is not so, except when a new terminology has been purposely introduced, either from the love of novelty or from the love of system : but none of the Apostles were the men to do this. But all becomes intelligible and consistent if we believe 1 See "The Jesus of the Evangelists " by the Rev. C. A. Row, referred to in the note at the foot of page 375. 396 PAUL AND JOHN [CHAP. The the account of the origin of their doctrines which Paul P s and John themselves have given us. They say that they account learned Christian doctrine independently of each other, source of hut from the same Divine source : John from God in trines d C " Christ ' and Paul from ^ od tlie Ho] y Spirit. This explains the facts presented by their writings : and no other theory explains them. Summary. If we had not the writings of Paul, it might be main- tained with some appearance of plausibility that those of John contained only the writer's own fancies. If we had not the writings of John, the same might with as much plausibility be maintained regarding those of Paul. If Paul and John had taught the same doctrine in the same language, we might think that they had learned it, either the one from the other, or both from their con- temporaries. But when we find that they both teach the same system of doctrine in totally different language, the only inference is, as already stated, that they were both Divinely taught. It is necessary to prove the assertion that Paul and John teach the same doctrine though in different language. This shall be done by placing parallel passages from the writings of the two Apostles in parallel columns. A mere selection from the evidence is however all that can be given in this way : and though I shall endeavour to select the strongest points of the evidence, yet these cannot show its full strength, because no selection can give the force which is derived from the fact that all the evidence is on the same side, and that on what are properly theological subjects Paul and John are each throughout consistent not only with himself but with the other. I must however first give a summary of the theolo- gical doctrine of Paul and John, in more detail than the statement of the distinctive doctrines of Christianity in the foregoing chapter, and also keeping nearer to the language of the Apostles. Their doctrine is briefly as follows : Jesus Christ, the historical Founder of Christianity, is Divine. The name of God is applied to Him. He existed ON THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 397 before all creation, and was the agent of creation. In His Summary relation to God the Father, He is sometimes called the J^^g Son, sometimes the Word, and sometimes the Image of Paul (GIKMV or likeness *) of God. He is, and has been from as to t } 16 the beginning, the object of His Father's love. ^rson of The Son took our human nature upon Himself in the person of Jesus Christ, and submitted to death. His humiliation, first in His incarnation and afterwards in His death, was not only apparent but real. It was His own voluntary act, though done in obedience to the will of His Father. But even in His state of voluntary humi- liation, He never ceased to be equal to the Father in dignity of nature : He claimed the rank of Deity, and was associated with the Father on terms of equality: and at His resurrection and ascension He became not only in right but in fact supreme over the whole creation. Jesus Christ is the only mediator between God and man. Through Him alone we have access to the Father, and through Him alone does the grace of God descend to us. He is sometimes mentioned as the medium through whom the Father's grace comes to man, sometimes as Himself the source of grace. He is the source of spiritual life to man. He is the object of our faith, and those who believe and trust in Him are justified before God : so that justification follows not on any works that a man does or can do, but on his faith in Christ. Christ by His death made a propitiatory sacrifice or atonement for the sins of mankind. His death was thus necessary to our spiritual and eternal life. But in another sense His life is the source of ours : that is to say, the life which began at His birth, revived at His resurrection, and is continued eternally in heaven. Those who believe in Him become children of God, in a higher sense than that of children by creation. They become united with Christ in a sense which can be made intelligible only by such illustrations as the union of a vine-branch with the vine, or putting on Christ as a garment. In being united with Christ they become united with God and sharers in 1 2 Corinthians iv. 4, and Colossians i. 15. 398 PAUL AND JOHN [CHAP. the privileges of Christ : while they become at the same time spiritually united with each other in Christ. Christ is the Giver of the Holy Spirit, which is also called the Spirit of Christ : and Christ's actions are identified with those of the Holy Spirit. Those who are Christ's shall, at His coming in glory, be visibly transformed into His likeness as He now is in heaven. The Apo- In speaking of the death of Christ as a propitiatory trine* erf*" saci> ifi ce > I simply quote the words of the Apostles : atone- i\acrfj,6<; l and l\a(TTr)piov 2 can have no other meaning : and the words of John the Baptist which John the Evan- gelist has adopted, " Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world ! " beyond doubt refer to the paschal lamb. It is needless, and perhaps impos- sible, for us to ascertain how much of the heathen and Jewish notion of atonement in the sense of expiation lin- gered in the minds of the Apostles. Their language, in so far as it is coloured by that notion, is impossible for us to adopt with perfect sincerity. It is however very vague, and I am convinced that its meaning comes much nearer to the doctrine of atonement in the sense of reconcilia- tion which I have endeavoured to state in the preceding chapter, than to the theory of Christ expiating our sins by suffering the punishment due to them. Moreover it is profoundly true, independently of any heathen or Jewish notion about expiatory sacrifice, that without sludding of Hood is no remission of sin: in other words, that even to the Sinless One it was impossible to heal our sins and reconcile us with God, without Himself, in the strife against sin, suffering even unto death. But it may be said that the presence of any element whatever in their religious system which is not derived from the Spirit of God is enough to vitiate the Divine authority of the whole. I utterly reject such an inference. We know nothing of revelation and inspiration d priori : all that we know of them is known inductively, that is to 1 First Epistle of Jolm, ii. 2 and iv. 10. 2 Romans iii. 25. XXVII.] ON THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 399 say by the examination of facts : and such examination shows that the Divine light is never quite uncoloured by the human medium through which it reaches us. There is however no d priori improbability in this : it is alto- gether consistent with the Divine way of making the revelation through history. In the following statement of parallel passages, the quo- Detailed tations from the Gospel and the First Epistle of John are indicated by the words " Gospel " and " Epistle." Words and sentences quoted differently from the Authorized Version are marked [thus]. The references to Alford are to his notes on the Greek Testament. I do not quote from the anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews, because I am cpnvinced that, though of the Apostolic age and rightly placed in the Canon of Scrip- ture, it is not the work of St. Paul. ment of a] ST. JOHN. The word was God. (Gos- pel i. 1.) No man hath ascended up into heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man who is in heaven. (Gospel iii. 13.) Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. (Gospel xx. 28, 29.) ST. PAUL. Of whom as concerning Deity of the flesh Christ came, who christ ' is over all, God blessed for ever. (Romans ix. 5.) To know the love of Christ which passe th know- ledge, that ye might be filled [even to] all the ful- ness of God. (Ephesians iii. 19. Alford.) [Christ Jesus, who, sub- sisting in the form of God, deemed not His equality with God a matter for grasping.] (Philippians ii. 5. Alford.) 400 PAUL AND JOHN [CHAP. ST. JOHN. Pre-exist- In the beginning was the Christ! Word - (Gospel il.) What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before ? (Gospel vi. 62.) Before Abraham [was born] I am. (Gospel viii. 58.) (This passage is greatly weakened in the Authorized ST. PAUL. Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Eomans x. 13.) (Paul here quotes from Joel ii. 32.) But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who is made unto us wisdom, and right- eousness, and sanctification, and redemption : that, ac- cording as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. (1 Corinthians i. 30, 31.) (Paul here quotes from Jeremiah ix. 24. In both of these quotations he ap- plies to Christ expressions which in the places from which they are quoted apply to Jehovah. See Liddon's Bampton Lectures, 2nd edition, p. 328.) He is before (trpo) all things. (Colossians i. 17.) (With Paul Trpo always means before in time.) XXVII.] ON THE PERSON OF CHKIST. 401 ST. JOHN. Version by translating eye- veTo was instead of was lorn.) Now, Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. (Gospel xvii. 5.) All things were made [through] him, and with- out him was not anything made that was made. (Gospel i. 3.) ST. PAUL. The Father loveth the Son. (Gospel iii. 35.) Thou loved st me before the foundation of the world. (Gospel xvii. 24.) To us there is but one Christ the God, the Father, of whom Creator ' are all things, and we [unto] him : and one Lord Jesus Christ, [through] whom are all things, and we [through] him. (1 Corinthians viii. 6.) [In] him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers : all things were created [through] him, and for him ; and he is before all things, and [inj him all things consist. (Colossians i. 16, 17.) He hath made us ac- The love cepted in the Beloved. (Ephesians i. 6.) Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, I) D to the Son. 402 PAUL AND JOHN [CHAP. T. JOHN. incarna- The word [became] (eye- the";! *ro) flesh. (Gospel i. 14.) existent That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life. (Epistle i. 1.) Every spirit that con- .fesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God : and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God. (Epistle iv. 2, 3.) Christ He said also that God his Father ' makin S on terms himself equal with God. That all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father. (Gospel v. 23.) This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God ST. PAUL. and hath translated us into the kingdom of [the Son of His love]. (Colossians i. 13.) In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. (Colossians ii. 9.) [Confessedly great is the mystery of piety : who was manifested in the flesh, was justified in the spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the na- tions, was believed on in the world, was received up into glory.] (1 Timothy iii. 16. Alford.) Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans i. 7.) (This formula, with very little variation, is repeated at the beginning of every one of St. Paul's epistles, not counting that to the Hebrews as his.) The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of XXVII.] ON THE PERSON OF CHRIST. ST. JOHN. may be glorified thereby. (Gospel xi. 4) Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glori- fied in him. (Gospel xiii. 31.) [Believe in God and also believe in me.] (Gospel xiv. 1. A If or d.) I am in the Father and the Father in me. (Gospel xiv. 10.) If a man love me, he will keep my words : and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him. (Gospel xiv. 23.) Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee. (Gospel xvii. 1.) This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. (Gospel xvii. 3.) All mine are thine, and thine are mine. (Gospel xvii. 10.) (These pronouns are neu- ters : the meaning conse- ST. PAUL. God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. (2 Corinthians xiii. 14.) Being not without law to God but under the law to Christ. (1 Corinthians ix. 21.) Casting down imagina- tions and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. (2 Corinthians x. 5.) Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father. (Galatians i. 1.) The kingdom of Christ and of God. (Ephesians v. 5.) After that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but ac- cording to his own mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost which he has shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour. (Titus iii. 4, 6.) (Note the parallelism of DD 2 404 PAUL AND JOHN [CHAP. ST. JOHN. quently is, "All my pos- sessions are thine, and all thy possessions are mine.") ST. PAUL. the expressions " God our Saviour " and " Christ our Saviour." Alford.) Christ Ye also shall continue in the Son and in the Father. (Epistle ii. 24.) They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my Father's hand. My Father, who gave them me, is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one. (Gospel x. 28-30.) He that seeth me seeth him that sent me. (Gospel xii. 45.) If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also : and from henceforth ye know him and have seen him. (Gos- pel xiv. 7.) Christ's I l a y down my life voluntary j ma y take it again. humilia- ? tion.j man taketn it trom me, but I lay it down of my- self. This commandment No me, Now [may our God and Father himself] and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way unto you. (1 Thes- salonians iii. 11.) Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God even our Father, which hath loved us and hath given us [eternal] con- solation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and stablish you in every good word and work. (2 Thessalonians ii. 16, 17.) (In this and in the pre- ceding quotation, " God our Father " and " the Lord Jesus Christ " are so united together as to be followed by a singular verb: as if we were to say in English, " God and Christ directs : " " God and Christ comforts. " Alford.) Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his ON THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 405 ST. JOHN. ST. PAUL. have I received of my poverty might be rich. Father. (Gospel x. 17, 18.) (2 " Corinthians viii. 9.) Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, [subsisting in the form of God, deemed not his equality with God a matter for grasping : but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men : and when he was found in habit as a man he humbled himself, becom- ing obedient to death, and that the death of the cross.] (Philippians ii. 5-8. Alford.) He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth : he that cometh from heaven is above all. (Gospel iii. 31.) The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand. (Gospel iii. 35.) If ye ask anything in my name, I will do it. (Gospel xiv. 14) To this end Christ both Christ's died and rose and revived, power 1 and that he might be the Lord S loi T- both of the dead and of the living. (Eomans xiv. 9.) He must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. (1 Corinthians xv. 25.) That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and 406 PAUL AND JOHN [CHAP. ST. JOHN. All things that the Father hath are mine. (Gospel xvi. 15.) ST. PAUL. which are on earth, sians i. 10.) (Ephe- And set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all princi- pality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world but also in that which is to come : and hath put all things under his feet. (Ephesians i. 21, 22.) He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all heavens, that he might fill all things. (Ephe- sians iv. 10.) That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth : and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians ii. 10, 11.) Christ the way of access to the Father. No man cometh unto the Father but [through] me. (Gospel xiv. 6.) The love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (.Romans viii. 39.) Verily, verily, T say unto Through him we both ON THE PERSON OF CHRIST. F THR ST. JOHN. you, What soever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. (Gospel xvi. 23.) Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father. (Epistle ii. 23.) ST. PAUL. have access by one Spirit unto the Father. (Ephe- sians ii. 18.) There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. (1 Timothy ii. 5.) God, who hath saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began : but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and hath brought life and im- mortality to light through the Gospel. (2 Timothy i. 8-10.) The law was given by The grace of our Lord Christ tL Moses, but grace and truth Jesus Christ be with you of U grace. came [through] Jesus Christ, all. (Eomans xvi. 24.) (Gospel i. 17.) Many believed on his name. (Gospel ii. 23.) (Compare the use of the expression "the name of God " in the Old Testament.) Christ is the end of the Christ the law for righteousness to JHG?* ot laitn. every one that believeth. (Eomans x. 4.) I determined not to know 408 PAUL AND JOHN CHAP. ST. JOHN. Justifica- tion by i'tiith in Christ. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up : that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Tor God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten So n, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have [eternal] life. (Gospel iii. 14-16.) Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath [eternal] life. (Gospel vi. 47.) He that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. (Gospel xi. 25.) ST. PAUL. anything among you save Jesus Christ and him cru- cified. (1 Corinthians ii. 2.) Other foundation can no man lay than that [which] is laid, which is Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians iii. 11.) Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake. (Philip- pians i. 29.) But now the righteousness of God without [the help of] the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets : even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe. (Eomans iii. 21,22. Alford.) That he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. (Kornans iii. 26.) To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for right- eousness. (Eomans iv. 5.) :xvn.j ON THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 409 ST. JOHN. These are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God : and that believing ye might have life through his name. (Gospel xx. 31.) ST. PAUL. Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ ; [through] whom also we have access into this grace wherein we stand. (Eomans v. 1, 2.) The word of faith which we preach, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. (Eomans x. 8, 9.) Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but [through] the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law : for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. (Gala- tians ii. 16.) By grace are ye saved through faith : and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God : not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians ii. 8, 9.) Not having mine own 410 PAUL AND JOHN [CHAP. ST. JOHN. ST. PAUL. righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. (Philippians iii. 9.) Atonement made by Christ. Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. (Gospel i. 29.) The bread which T will Herein is the righteous- ness of God revealed from faith to faith : as it is written, The just shall live by faith. (Romans i. 17.) A man is justified by faith without the [works] of the law. (Romans iii. 28.) Do we then make void the law through faith ? God forbid : [on the con- trary,] we establish the law. (Romans iii. 31.) We are saved by hope. (Romans viii. 24.) By faith ye stand. (2 Corinthians i. 24.) We walk by faith, not by sight. (2 Corinthians v. 7.) Justified freely by his grace, through the redemp- tion that is in Jesus Christ, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, through ON THE PEKSON OF CHU1WT. 411 ST. JOHN. give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. (Gospel vi. 51.) The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. (Epistle i. 7.) He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. (Epistle ii. 2.) i " He was manifested [that e might] take away our s. (Epistle iii. 5. Alford.) This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ : not by water only, but by water and blood. (Epistle v. 6.) ST. PAUL. faith, in his blood. (Romans iii. 24, 25.) (The last words of this passage mean, " through faith, and in his blood." The expression, " faith in his blood," is altogether in- accurate. See Alford's note on this passage.) Being justified [in] his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. (Romans v. 9.) Christ our passover is sacrificed for us. (1 Corin- thians v. 7.) Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. (Galatians iii. 13.) We have redemption through his blood, the for- giveness of sins. (Ephesians i. 7.) It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell: and, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to recon- cile all things unto himself : by him, I say, whether 412 PAUL AND JOHN [CHAP. ST. JOHN. Christ's death necessary for our life. Verily, verily, I say unto i, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone ; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. (Gospel xii. 24.) Christ s Verily, verily, I say unto human life , ' - , the source you, Except ye eat the flesh of spiritual O f t ] ie S on O f M an and lite to us. drink his blood ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and driuketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live [through] the Father: ST. PAUL. they be things on earth or things in heaven. And you that were alienated in your minds by wicked works, yet now hath he recon- ciled in the body of his flesh through death. (Colossians i. 19, 20.) The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ [died with- out cause]. (Galatians ii. 20, 21. Alford.) If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God [through] the death of his Son : much more, being re- conciled, we shall be saved [in] his life. (Eomans v. 1 0.) XXVII.] ON THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 413 ST. JOHN. so he that eateth me, even he shall live [through] me. This is the bread which came down from heaven : not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead : he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. (Gospel vi. 53-58.) ST. PAUL. As many as received him, to them gave he power to become [children] of God, even to them that believe on his Name : which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (Gospel i. 12, 13.) Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. (Epistle v. 1.) I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. (Gospel xv. 5.) Whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of Ye have received the Adoption spirit of adoption [as sons], g ^ 1 jg ls a t g 8 whereby we cry Abba, [that children of is to say] Father. The Spirit God> itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are chil- dren of God. (Romans viii. 15,160 Whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren. (Romans viii. 29.) If we have been planted Union of together in the likeness of cl [ fe* his death, we shall be also with Him. in the likeness of his resur- rection : knowing this also, that our old man is crucified with him. (Romans vi. 5, 6.) In that he died, he died unto sin once [for all] : but 414 PAUL AND JOHN [CHAP. ST. JOHN. God perfected : hereby know we that we are in him. (Epistle ii. 5.) Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not. (Epistle iii. 6.) ST. PAUL. in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God [in] Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans vi. 10, 11.) If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also [give life to] your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. (Eomans viii. 11.) Heirs of God and joint- heirs with Christ: if so be that we suffer with him, that we may also be glori- fied together. (Romans viii. 17.) Know ye not that your bodies are members of Christ ? (1 Corinthians vi. 15.) Know ye not of your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be repro- bates ? (2 Corinthians xiii. 5.) I am crucified with Christ : [but it is no longer I that live, but Christ that] liveth in me. (Galatians ii. 20. Alford.) ON THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 415 ST. JOHN, Ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in me and I in you. (Gospel xiv. 20.) As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you : continue ye in my love. If ye keep my command- ments ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept the Father's command- ments and abide in his love. (Gospel xv. 9, 10.) I will pray the Father and he shall send you another Comforter, that he may abide with yoii for ever : even the Spirit of truth. (Gospel xiv. 16, 17.) The Comforter, the Holy [Spirit], whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things. (Gospel xiv. 26.) ST. PAUL. As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. (Gala- tians iii. 27.) Buried with him in bap- tism, wherein also ye are risen with him. (Colossians ii. 12.) All [things] are yours, and Our rela- ye are Christ's, and Christ's Christ* like is God's. (1 Corinthians iii. His to the 22, 23.) Father - Because ye are sons, God Christ the hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts. s P irit - (Galatians iv. 6.) 416 PAUL AND JOHN [CHAP. ST. JOHN. " When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father. (Gospel xv. 26.) If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you : but if I depart I will send him unto you. (Gospel xvi. 7.) Christ I will not leave you with the [orphans] : I will come unto Ho] y you. (Gospel xiv. 18. Al~ Spirit. J _. v ford.) If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. (Epistle ii. 1.) (The word Tra/ja/tX^ro? here applied to the Son and translated Advocate, is the same which in the Gospel of John is applied to the Holy Spirit and translated Com- forter.) ST. PAUL. Ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you, [But] if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in yon, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. (Eomans viii. 9, 10.) (" Observe here that the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, and Christ, are all used of the Holy Spirit in- dwelling in the Christian. " Alford.) The first man Adam was made a living soul : the last Adam was made a [life- giving] Spirit. (1 Corin- thians xv. 45.) That Christ may dwell in XVI I.] ON THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 417 ST. JOHN. ST. PAUL. your hearts by faith. (Ephe- sians iii. 17.; We being many are one The union body in Christ. (Romans p e0 pi e m xii. 5.) with each other in Him. Ye are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians iii. 28.) That they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us : that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou [hast given] me I have given them : that they may be one, even as we are one : I in them and thou in me, that they may be made perfect [into] one. (Gospel xvii. 2123.) It doth not yet appear The Lord Jesus Christ Trans - what we shall be : but we who shall [transform the know that when he shall body of our humiliation so people appear we shall be like as to be conformed to the him: for we shall see him body of his glory]. (Philip- at as he is. (Epistle iii. 2.) pians iii. 21. Alford.) aain! 8 [Ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with him be manifested in glory.] (Colossians iii. 3, 4 Al- ford.) In conclusion, I shall quote passages from the first three Agree Gospels which, not by implication but expressly, 1 assert 1 On the implied agreement between the first three Gospels and that of St. John, see Canon Liddon's Bampton Lectures on our Lord's Divinity. E E 418 PAUL AND JOHN ON THE PERSON OF CHRIST, [en. XXVIL Evangel, doctrines respecting the Person of Christ identical with St. John, those of John and Paul. Christ as- " All things are delivered unto me of my Father, and no with God [ ne ] knoweth the Son but the Father : neither knoweth on terms any [one] the Father [but] the Son, and he to whomsoever 'the Son will reveal him." (Matthew xi. 27, and Luke x. 22.) Christ's "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go power and J e therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them [into] glory. the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy [Spirit] : teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you ; and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." (Matthew xxviii. 18 20.) Christ " 1 will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your with^thf ac l versarie s shall not be able to gainsay nor resist." (Luke Holy XXL 15.) Spirit. The perfect identity of doctrine between the Apostles Paul and John is in some degree obscured by the very cir- cumstance namely, their total difference in expression which, as I have endeavoured to show, gives to that identity of doctrine its importance as proof of the trust- worthiness of both. Although these reasonings are critical, they do not need any erudition in order to appreciate them. No evidence has been used in this chapter except that which is contained within the bocks of the New Testament. [ 419 ] TT7 CHAPTER XXVIII. THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE. E have seen in the preceding chapters that the in- The in- stinctive moral and spiritual sense of man hopes and jjg f longs for a revelation of Divine justice and mercy, and can I 3 be satisfied with nothing short of their perfect fulfilment : mercy the perfect fulfilment of justice in the defeat of sin, and of mercy in its destruction, involving also the extinction of all suffering, " and all that is at war with bliss." But how can justice and mercy be fulfilled together? how can God be just, and yet at the same time justify a sinner ? The clearer is our sense of holiness, the more deeply is this perplexity felt : and by the highest moral intelligence it is recognized as the only possible answer, that the sinner must by repentance cease to be a sinner. On repentance he is certain to be forgiven and justified, can be ful- But the more clearly this is seen, the more clearly is it 5 lle ^ olll y J ^ . by the ex- also understood that such repentance as can alone satisfy tinction Divine Justice and Divine Mercy is impossible to man : sm that such repentance implies being lorn anew, and that Only this is possible only on condition of being born from above. 1 Pjjjjjf^n But because this is impossible to man, God has provided effect this. a supernatural means whereby it may be effected, namely through the Incarnation and Atonement of Christ : a it is done means whereof the operation is no doubt altogether inex- Si- 11 * 11 plicable and mysterious, but not more mysterious, though a higher mystery, than the facts of life, and the develop- 1 The word avia9cv has these two meanings. See the Gospel of St. John ii. 3 and 31. EE 2 420 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE [CHAP. meiit of consciousness, reason, and morality. In other words, the spiritual life which comes from above through Christ is not more inexplicable than the natural life which comes through physical channels : the truth that we shall bear the image of the Heavenly, the Lord from heaven, is not more mysterious than the truth that we actually bear the image of our earthly ancestors. 1 All is mysterious alike: the difference is only between the familiar and the unfamiliar ; between the earthly fact which is a matter of common experience, and the heavenly truth which is to be fully verified only in the future life. Connexion It may be said that I have here confounded together Ke^nera- * wo things which have only a metaphorical analogy : the tion and spiritual life communicated to us by Christ in this present rectSm state of existence, and the immortal life to be given to us denied by at the Resurrection. I reply that on the postulates of theology 11 Unitarian theology and Pelagian ethics these are quite and Pela- distinct, but the Christianity of the New Testament iden- ethics. tines them as two aspects of the same truth. It is with perfect consistency that the theology of Unitarianism, which denies the Eternal* Son of God and His Incarnation, has been constantly associated with the ethics of Pelagianism, which teaches that man is self-sufficing, and is, or may become, a child of God in the highest sense without the mediation of the Eternal Son become incarnate. But the theology and the ethics of the New Testament and of the Church teach that the Eternal Son has taken on Himself our nature and shared our lot : that through His human life alone can we now begin to be partakers of the Divine or spiritual life : and that the work which is thus begun in the secrecy of the individual soul, out of sight and almost out of consciousness, will in the future life be visibly completed by the formation of such an organiza- tion as will be needed for the purified and regenerated spirit. In other words, the imparting of that spiritual life whereby we are to become partakers of the Divine Nature, 2 1 See the First Epistle to the Corinthians xv. 49. 2 Second Epistle of Peter i. 4. I am of course aware that' the au then- LXVIII.] OF A FUTURE LIFE. 421 is spoken of in the New Testament as the beginning of the process whereby, after the end of the present life, eternal life is to be conferred : which process has already produced the visible first-fruit of its results in the resurrection of Christ. It is of course impossible to bring scientific proof of such a doctrine as this, except in so far as the resurrection and ascension of Christ, regarded as well-attested historical facts, are of the nature of experimental proof. But Christian doctrine, though on its theological side it does not come into direct contact with science, has on its ethical side far Harmony more agreement with the most recent results of physiology t and psychology than with the metaphysical theories of the with eighteenth century. The older theories taught that the mind, or spirit, is isolated in the midst of a universe of s ical P s y- matter ; and that consciousness is co-extensive with mind : but we have learned to understand that the mind is a part and a product of the world of matter, force, and life which surrounds it; 1 and that, so far from consciousness being co-extensive with mind, there are conscious and uncon- scious mental actions, insensibly graduating into each other : so that only part, and perhaps a comparatively small part, of the whole of the mental actions becomes conscious. 2 The older theories formed a philosophical groundwork for Pelagian ethics, and consequently, perhaps we may add without injustice, for that Unitarian theology which naturally unites with those ethics. When the soul was believed to be isolated, it was a natural inference that it might be, and ought to be, self-sufficing : and when con- sciousness was believed to be co-extensive with the soul, it was a natural inference that no spiritual influence could reach it except through the avenues of consciousness, in the way of instruction and example, But now, when we have learned that the soul is not isolated but is only a ticity of this epistle is very doubtful, but the expression quoted in the text is not much stronger than the habitual language of St. Paul. It is more- over a plausible conjecture that the first fourteen verses of this epistle are the genuine work of the Apostle, while the rest is spurious. 1 Page 103. 2 See the second volume of " Habit and Intelligence." 422 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE [CHAP. particular set of the functions of the bodily life : and that influences inherited from our remotest ancestors meet in us, so that we think not only with our individual mind, but with that of the race : l it no longer appears contrary to the analogies of the universe as known to us that we should be born anew by the implanting of a nature not derived from any earthly ancestor, but from Christ. And now that we find consciousness not to be co-extensive with the soul, it no longer appears anomalous that such a nature should be implanted and nourished by a process which transcends any immediate consciousness ; which is known only by its effects, and will be made fully known only in the future life. Consis- Further : the expectation that this new nature will be theism- ^ u ^ developed in the future life is in harmony with what rection we have learned of the laws of vital development. St. laws of* P au l' s illustration of the resurrection from the germination vital deve- of the seed, which has so vividly affected the imagination of men, is more appropriate than he was aware of. Orga- nization is not the cause but the effect of life. Life, in producing organization, works from within outwards, and from the invisible to the visible. The vital germ is not a miniature of the mature organism, but only a minute unorganized mass, having however a power, which no physics or chemistry can ever explain, of organizing itself and thus developing into the mature organism. So it will be in the future life, if the Church is right in believing that St. Paul spoke as the Spirit of God gave him know- ledge. As the germ of the mortal life, which we inherit from the earthly ancestors whose image we bear, has developed into our present bodily organism, so shall the germ of life spiritual, eternal, and Divine which Christ implants here in those who do not reject His grace, be developed, under the kindlier influences of the future state, into the perfect " spiritual body" (to use a most inadequate expression where human language has no adequate one) which is to be created in the image of the Heavenly. 1 Page 101. XXVIIL] OF A FUTUKE LIFE. 423 I do not feel able to form any opinion as to the value of this analogy. But it certainly is not misleading. If it has any real value, future generations will recognize it : if not, it will simply go for nothing. It is necessary to justify by quotations the assertion made above, that the writers of the New Testament identify the spiritual life which Christ communicates to us here with the fully developed eternal life which He attained at His resurrection, and which we hope to attain. This conception is so alien from our customary habits of thought, that perhaps many who believe, on the authority of Christ and His Apostles, in the doctrines both of Eegeneration and Eesurrection, may not have perceived their connexion, or rather their identity. St. Paul says : " Ourselves also, who have received the Spirit for the Epist'e first fruits [of our inheritance], even we ourselves are Romans groaning inwardly, longing for the adoption which shall viii. 23. ransom our body from its bondage." 1 In this passage "the first fruit of the Spirit is the in- dwelling and influences of the Holy Spirit here, as an earnest of the full harvest of His complete possession of us, spirit and flesh and soul, hereafter. That this is the meaning seems evident from the analogy of St. Paul's imagery respecting the Holy Spirit." 2 St. Paul says again : " That you may know .... how surpassing is the Epistle io power which He has shown toward us who believe : [for *]^ P 11 " He hath dealt with us] in the strength of that might ii. 6. wherewith He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavens And you likewise He raised from death to life when you. were dead in transgressions and sins, .... and were by nature the children of wrath, no less than others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead 1 This quotation is from Conybeare's translation. (Conybeare and Howson's Life and Epistles of St. Paul. ) ' 2 From Alford's note on the passage. 424 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE [CHAP. in sin called us to share the life of Christ (by grace you are saved) and in Christ Jesus He raised us up with Him from the dead, and seated us with Him in the heavens." 1 The following, though from a different Epistle, contains the same idea, and indeed seems like a continuation of the same passage : Epistle to " If then ye were raised up together with Christ [at sians'iii' 8 " y ur baptism], seek the things above where Christ dwells, 14. seated on the right hand of God. Care for the things above, not the things on the earth. For ye died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ shall be manifested, who is our life, then shall ye also with Him be manifested in glory." 2 Christ, as reported by St. John, identifies in the same way the spiritual life which He gives now with the life which is to be eternal in the resurrection. The following are His words : Gospel of " Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word St '24^29 an( ^ believethon Him that sent Me, hath eternal life, and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour conieth, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son also to have life in Himself: and hath given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man. Marvel not at this ; for the hour cometh in which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice and shall come forth: they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of judgment." 3 When Christ, in this remarkable passage, says that the hour not only cometh soon but is come already when the -dead shall hear His voice and shall live, this can only 1 The quotation is made from Conybeare's translation. 2 The quotation is made from the Notes to Alford's Greek Testament. I have substituted the word dwells for is : a change which is supported by Alford's note, though he does not suggest the word. 3 The quotation is from the Authorized Version, with a few verbal changes which do not alter the sense. XXVIII. OF A FUTURE LIFE. 425 refer to the resurrection from a death of sin : for the general resurrection of the dead, though it is coming, is not yet come. But in the next clause He speaks of the general resurrection of the dead as a fact of the same kind with the resurrection of the soul from a death of sin, and effected by the same agency, namely the voice of tie Son of God. In this passage, however, mention is made of a resurrec- Is the re- tion which is not unto life but unto judgment or con- $o con- demnation. Is this reconcilable with the doctrine, which damnation nevertheless appears to be clearly taught in this passage as cilabie \vell as in those quoted from St. Paul, that the present resurrection from sin to holiness and the future resurrec- here inani- tion to a future life, are changes of the same kind and due ta to the same agency ? I think it is so reconcilable. Per- The diffi- haps indeed the difficulty is altogether clue to that narrow ^^ from and false notion which regards justice and mercy as the false opposed, and will be removed when we perfectly attain to the wider and truer view wherefrom they are seen to tice aild be fundamentally one, having their root in a Divine opposed. Righteousness which is capable of being satisfied only by producing righteousness in the creature. Christ, because He is the Son of Man as well as the Son of God, has been made the Minister both of justice and of mercy or grace : in other words, He is at once Judge and Saviour. Christ He could not be the Saviour were He not also the Judge : h u t i ie not that is to say, He could not heal sin unless He had power Saviour to condemn it. God, sending His Son in the likeness our sinful flesh, has in the flesh condemned sin to de- struction i 1 and its destruction is at once perfect justice and perfect mercy. The Incarnation and Atonement of Christ, or in other words His human life, is the. means whereby, through a process altogether mysterious to us, man has not 1 " For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God [has done : that is to say,] sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, [He has] condemned [and sentenced to death] sin in the flesh." (Epistle to the Romans viii. 3. ) I quote the Authorized Version, hut insert the words marked [thus]. See Vaughan's note on the passage, and also Alford's. It is obvious that to condemn must in this passage mean more than merely to find guilty, for this latter is precisely what the law can do. 426 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE. [CH. xxviu. only been placed in a new relation to God, but has received a new nature and new possibilities of development. By this means he has become immortal : but this is an immortality of true life only for those who have become worthy of the grace of Christ by accepting it. whether consciously or unconsciously, 1 and by acting accordingly : to the rest the future life is a resurrection of judgment or condemnation. There is, or ought to be, no difficulty in understanding how the Saviour can condemn : the diffi- culty is to believe that His condemnation should not be sufficient ultimately to destroy and extinguish all sin, and with sin all suffering. We have however seen reason, not only from conscience and moral instinct but from the revelation of Christ as recorded in the New Testament, to believe in the ultimate universality of salvation: to believe that the sinner shall be ultimately saved through the condemnation of the sin. 2 "We shall consider the testimony of the New Testament on this subject more closely in the following chapter. 1 Page 385. 2 The chapters on Nature and Grace and on Legal and Evangelical Religion (Chapters 22 and 23). [ 427] CHAPTER XXIX. THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF A FINAL GENERAL RESTORATION. 'E have spoken in previous chapters 1 of the necessity of believing in the ultimate universal triumph of Divine Mercy as well as of Divine Justice : and this on the two distinct grounds, that it is demanded by our belief in the perfection of the Divine Character, and is needed in order to produce the highest degree of holiness in us. The purpose of the present chapter is to show that such is the doctrine of the New Testament. It is remarkable that the blessedness promised in the future state is not generally spoken of as happiness, but as life. Happiness, considered alone, is nothing more than sustained enjoyment : and this is too low a conception to be identified with the blessedness which God has promised to those who love Him. That blessedness, though it includes happiness, does not consist in happiness, but in life : and the life is declared to be eternal. Now the opposite of life is death, and we might con- sequently expect to find the opposite of eternal life called eternal death : but this is not the case : on the contrary, the expression eternal death does not once occur in the New Testament. 2 This omission will appear significant 1 Chapters 22 (Nature and Grace) and 23 (Legal and Evangelical Religion). 2 This has been strangely overlooked by Mnurice in the admirable chapter on Eternal Life and Eternal Death, with which his volume of Theological Essays concludes. The bless- edness promised in the New Tes- tament is not happi- ness but life, which is eternal, Death on the con- trary is not called eternal. 428 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF [CHAP. Epistle to the Romans vi. 21-23. Epistle to the Romans v. 21. Epistle to tlie Romans ii. 5-10. when we consider that there are several passages where it seems to be demanded for the symmetry of the sentence, and would certainly increase its impressiveness. I quote what is perhaps the chief instance of this : " What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed ? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end-eternal life. For the ivages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord." 1 A threefold contrast is here indicated : wages and gift, sin and God, death not necessarily eternal and eternal life. It seems impossible to understand why St. Paul should have avoided the use of so appropriate, so impressive, and so self-suggesting an expression as eternal death would have been in such a place as this, had he believed the meaning it conveyed to be true. No doubt a single negative instance is seldom con- clusive : and for that reason I go on to quote others. In the next quotation, as in the former, death is mentioned, but not eternal death. " That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." But though the death spoken of in these two passages is not eternal, it certainly is more than the mere death of the body : it is the result and punishment of sin in the future state. The saying that the wages of sin is death means very much more than if the Apostle had merely said, what is however true, that the tendency of sin is to shorten our allotted threescore and ten years. St. Paul says again : " But after thy hardness and impenitent heart thou treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds : to them who 1 Our translators in this passage, as in the much worse case of Matthew xxv. 46, have translated al&vtos by everlasting in one place and by eternal in the other. A FINAL GENERAL RESTORATION. 429 by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life : but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil : but glory, honour, and peace to every man that worketh good." " He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap Epistle corruption ; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the (> a i a tians Spirit reap eternal life." vi. 8. Eut though the New Testament never speaks of eternal death, it does contain what have at first sight the appearance of equivalent expressions. St. Paul speaks of eternal destruction, 1 and Christ of eternal punishment. 2 These expressions occur each of them once, and only once : and though they must be allowed their legitimate meaning, and, I fully believe, represent realities, yet they cannot neutralize the significance of the constant and marked omission of any mention of eternal death. It may be urged however that eternal punishment is a stronger and more terrible denunciation than eternal death : for the most obvious meaning of eternal death, or eternal destruction, is the final extinction of being, but the most obvious meaning of eternal punishment is never-ending conscious existence in torment. But before we conclude that this doctrine is really part of Christ's teaching, we ought carefully to examine the meaning of Christ's account of the future judgment, and the light thrown on it by the rest of His discourses. In the " Parable of Judgment," as the passage under dis- Christ's cussion has been well called, there is no special emphasis J^d^mentf on the word eternal. Those who heard it were already (Matthew familiar with the idea of future judgment ; the purpose of Christ was to state on what principles the judgment is to eternal life for the merciful, 1 "OA.e0pos aldvLos (2 Thessalonians i. 9). 2 K.6haffis aiwisios (Matthew xxv. 46). Etymologieally, K6\acris means correction or chastisement : but it appears to have lost this meaning in the Greek of the New Testament. The word occurs only twice in the New Testament: Matthew xxv, 46,. where it is translated punishment, and the First Epistle of John iv. IS, where it is translated torment. 430 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF [CHAP. and be. The merciful shall be rewarded not only with mercy pimish- kiit with eternal life, and the unmerciful punished in eternal ment for fire r and those who have been merciful or unmerciful merciful without a thought of Christ, perhaps without having heard whether jji s name, shall be rewarded or punished as if .they had they know . Christ or done such deeds to Christ. not. Now, if this final and absolute separation between the This se a 00 ^ an ^ ^ ne ^ a( ^> wno are nere identified with the merciful ration can- and the unmerciful, were to be understood literally, it literally would be necessary to maintain that every man is either true, be- altogether good or altogether bad. But this is notoriously cause none ,?,'-.", . . , are all not the fact : human character is mixed : none are alto- alTbad 1 ' g e t ner good, and perhaps none are altogether bad. It is therefore impossible that the " Parable of Judgment" can be intended as the description of an event. Like the rest of that series of parables at the end of which it has been placed by the compiler of the first Gospel, 1 it re- presents not any actual event, but principles of the Reward Divine administration : and it is meant to teach that punish- every man shall be an inheritor of life for ever in so ment will far as he has done good and shown mercy, and an tionaTto 1 inheritor of wrath for ever in so far as he has been deeds. wicked and unmerciful. If this is called an attempt to explain away the obvious sense of the passage, I reply that the obvious, or rather the superficial, sense cannot be the true one, because it would imply what is not the fact, namely that men are either altogether good or altogether bad. It may be said in reply to this, that though all human character is mixed, yet forgiveness is certain on repent- ance : that the blessed, who inherit eternal life, are those who have attained to forgiveness, and the cursed, who inherit eternal fire, are those who have died with their sins unforgiven. Christ I have stated already 2 that I believe in the certainty of notni'n' 75 fc> r gi ven ess on repentance : but this, though it is true and of forgive- is taught by Christ, is not the doctrine of the passage ness. 1 See ISote i on page 29&. ' * See Chapter 22 (1ST attire and Grace). XXIX.] A FINAL GENERAL RESTORATION. 431 under discussion. If Christ had meant the forgiven and the unforgiven, there is no reason why He should have, in- stead, spoken of the merciful and the unmerciful. Through- out the New Testament wherever men are described as Judgment brought up in the future life before the Judge for eternal }*$* judgment, we are always told that the judgment shall be doctrine of , . p ., the New according to their works : there is no suggestion ot its Testa- being according to their repentance or their faith, or of any raent - distinction between the forgiven and the unforgiven. Its constant language is that tluy ivho have done good shall Gospel of arise to the resurrection of life, and they who have done evil v> ' 2 g to the resurrection of judgment. Eepentance and faith, and the forgiveness which is certain to follow on these, are constantly insisted on, but never in immediate connexion with eternal judgment. If we were to take the " Parable of Judgment" as containing all that is to be taught on the subject, we should have to believe that human character is either unmixed good or unmixed evil, which is contrary to fact : and that there is no forgiveness, which is contrary to Christ's most characteristic teaching. The doctrine of the "Parable of Judgment" is that retribution is inevitable: it makes no mention of the possibility of repentance and forgiveness. Yet the doctrine of forgiveness is as true as the doctrine of retribution : and if the " Parable of Judg- ment" does not contradict the possibility of repentance and forgiveness in this present life, why should it be under- stood to deny their possibility in the life to come ? This is the question at issue. The answer will be, that the use of the word eternal as Eternal applied to future life and future punishment declares the future state to be fixed and unchangeable. I reply, that the future state is no doubt unchangeable in the same j aw O f e sense that the present state is so. Every action passes into r ? tribu - character ; the consequences of actions can never be evaded never to or cancelled : and the doctrine of eternal punishment means ^ r ^" d that this law is never to be abolished. But we find that But in the in the present life the certainty of retribution is Consistent a^in the*' with the possibility of forgiveness : and there is no reason present, for thinking that it will be otherwise in t'he future life. In 432 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF [CHAP. patible with for- giveness. Future punish- ment is spoken of as fire. Fire is primarily destruc- tive. Matthew iii. 10-12. Fire as a symbol of purifica- tion. a previous chapter 1 I have spoken at greater length on the possible co-existence of retribution and forgiveness. We have next to observe the imagery used in the New Testament when speaking of future punishment. When imagery is used at all, it is almost always taken from fire. Now the primary property of fire, and that which the men- tion of fire suggests, is to destroy : its property of causing intense pain is but secondary. Were pain the essential matter, there is no reason why fire should be the only image used : 2 the scourge and the cross were more familiar to the inhabitants of the Eoman Empire in the time of Christ. In the following passage the idea of pain, or torment, does not occur: the idea is partly that of destruction, partly that of cleansing. The words are ascribed to John the Baptist, but we are safe in attributing to them equal authority with those of Christ. " Now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees : therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance, but He that cometh after me is mightier than I : .... He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and iri fire: whose winnowing- fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly cleanse His threshing-floor, and gather His wheat into the garner : but will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire" In this passage fire is mentioned three times : the first and the third time as an agent of destruction, and the second time as an agent of purification; for purification is what baptism symbolizes. These two symbolical meanings of fire are obviously closely connected : indeed they merge into one in that saying of the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, that God is a consuming fire? All the 1 Page 308. 2 Unless " outer darkness " can be called an image. There is, however, one passage where Christ speaks of future punishment under the image of scourging. But in this there is nothing to suggest that the punishment 'is to be endless ; on the contrary, the mention of many and few stripes suggests. the contrary.. See Luke xii.^47, 48, ' a Hebre.ws xii. 29. See page 323, note. XXIX.] A FINAL GENERAL RESTORATION. 433 symbolical meanings of fire in the New Testament stand indeed in close connexion with each other. Torment does not appear to be the exclusive idea anywhere, except perhaps in the so-called Kevelation of St. John, which Eevelation certainly cannot be rated as of equal authority with the*!'. 11 ' Gospels and Epistles : but it does enter into the "Parable 10 - of Judgment : " and Christ expressly associates it with the idea of destruction in the parable of the tares. " As Matthew therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so 42"' shall it be at the conclusion of this age. The Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend and them who do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire : there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." In another remarkable passage, fire is associated with the idea, not of pain, but of disgrace. " Where their worm Mark ix. dieth not, and the fire is not quenched," . What is here sug- 44> 48 ' gested is not death by fire, but the ignominious exposure and destruction of bodies after death. These expressions come very near to a suggestion of eternal death : but, as has been remarked in a previous chapter, 1 it is a perfectly legitimate and indeed the most natural interpretation, that the worm will never die until it has devoured all that there is for it to devour, and the fire will never go out until it has consumed all that there is for it to consume. If so, the teaching of this passage is the same as that of another saying of Christ " Thou shalt by no means come Matthew out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing," v - 26> We therefore conclude that as no one is either altogether Summai y. good or altogether bad, there is no such thing to be looked for as either absolute acquittal or absolute condemnation in the future judgment : and that the doctrine of eternal judgment means the continuance and the confirmation in eternity of the law which we know to be in force now, that the effects of actions cannot be evaded: but that every one must reap what he has sown, both in kind and in quantity. " He that soweth to his flesh shall of the Gaiatians 1 Page 324. F F 434 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF [CHAP. Corin- thians ix.( Mark iii. 29. Matthew xii. 32. The sin against the Holy Spirit. flesh reap corruption, but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap eternal life." "He that soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly, and he that soweth bounti- fully shall reap bountifully." And we further conclude that the fire which symbolizes the Divine anger against sin is in the first place and before all else destructive ; and that punishment, considered as pain, is only a secondary though a real effect. If then the effect of God's anger is destruc- tive of sin, it affords a ground not of despair but of hope. All this appears certain, and is indeed the only tenable interpretation of Christ's language on the subject. But what is it that we are to hope for ? Is it for the destruction of sin, so that the sinner may be capable of repentance, forgiveness, and restoration ? or can we hope only for the destruction of the sin and the sinner together ? Is it true, as Christendom so generally believes, that Christ has expressly excluded the possibility of restoration in a future life ? The law of retribution is at the foundation of the moral cosmos, and Christ's "Parable of Judgment" asserts that it will not be reversed but confirmed in the future life. But this law does not exclude repentance and restoration in the present life, and, in the " Parable of Judgment" taken alone, there is nothing that declares them impossible in the future life. There is however another saying of Christ which appears to assert that eternal judgment excludes the possibility of future forgive- ness. "He that shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath not forgiveness for ever, but is guilty of an eternal sin :" l or, as His words are reported by another Evangelist, " shall not be forgiven, neither in this age nor in that which is to come." Few questions have been more debated than the meaning of the sin against the Holy Spirit. In my opinion it is simply sin against light : not indifference but hostility to light : and the reason why it cannot be (sin), not Kpicrews (judgment), is regarded by Alford as the true reading. It is a strange expression, "but I agree with Alford (the remark is not in the note on this passage) that a strange expression is less likely to have been substituted by the copyist for a common one than the converse, and is therefore more likely to be genuine. This, I believe, is the general opinion of the best commentators. A FINAL GENERAL RESTORATION. 435 forgiven is that it enters too deeply into character to be repented. But whatever may be thought of these explanations, the saying of Christ now quoted does not appear to throw any light on the eternal punishment denounced in the "Parable of Judgment" against the unmerciful ; for the sin against the Holy Spirit, whatever it may be, is certainly not identical with unmerciful ness. It may no doubt be said that all sins are unpardonable in the future life, and that the peculiarity of the sin against the Holy Spirit consists only in being unpardonable now. But this is quite different from what is taught by Christ : for, by speaking of a sin which cannot be forgiven in the age to come, He clearly implies that there are sins which can be forgiven in the age to come. I do not deny the dif- ficulty perhaps we may say the impossibility of piecing together a perfectly consistent theory of future life and Christ' future judgment out of Christ's scattered sayings. Christ's sayings< way of teaching is to insist strongly on one truth at a time, and to leave the reconciliation of apparently con- flicting truths to take care of itself : and if we follow His teaching in the spirit wherein He means it to be followed, we shall no doubt endeavour to reconcile what appears conflicting : but if we fail in doing so to the satisfaction of our own intellects, we shall accept the failure as a " trial of our faith," and cling to each separate truth ; especially to the two great truths that God's justice is certain and that His mercy is infinite. It may perhaps be said that Reason- in thus resignedly accepting apparent inconsistencies, I accepting am applying different principles to the interpretation of Apparent the words of Christ from those which I would apply to tencies. those of any other, and thereby surrender those rational principles which ostensibly lie at the base of the present work. I reply that I do not thus give up the use of my understanding when the most important sayings ever uttered are to be understood : I apply, though in a higher degree, to the words of Christ the same principles which I should apply to the words of -any man whom I perceived to have spiritual truth to communicate. To mention the names of those writers outside of the Holy FF 2 436 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF [CHAP. Scriptures from whom I have learned the most : were I to find in the writings of Pascal, or of Coleridge, or of Maurice, or of Thomas Erskine, statements of doctrine each of which separately appeared to express some one aspect of truth, and which I was yet unable to harmonize into logical consistency : my inference would not be that my teacher is inconsistent with himself and therefore either partly or altogether wrong : it would be that the principles which I do not know how to harmonize are nevertheless most probably profoundly consistent with each other, and that as I grow in understanding and insight, either in this life or in another, I may hope to see their harmony. And this, which I should think probably true of such men as those I have named, I think certainly true of Christ. It is no para- dox but a sober truth, that those who have the widest and deepest insight are those who oftenest express what appear self-contradictions to men of narrower and shallower under- standings, who are unable to perceive their real harmony. For an instance of this, we need not go beyond the subject of the present chapter. Men have perplexed themselves for ages to reconcile God's justice with His mercy : and now a clearer insight is beginning to teach us that they need no reconciliation, because in God they are one. 1 To return from this digression: On the whole, the most consistent account of Christ's doctrine appears to be General this: that retribution is certain^ universal, and eternal, ^Christ's ^ u ^ no * so as * exc l u de the possibility of repentance and teaching forgiveness > except in the case of those who have corn- subject, mitted the unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit : that for those who have not thus sinned unto death, restoration will be attainable in the future life : and that for those who do not finally attain to forgiveness and eternal life, the end will be the total destruction and extinction of their being. It appears, however, to be everywhere im- plied that all who pass out of this life without attaining to forgiveness, whether their ultimate destiny is to be restoration or extinction, must pass through a period of deeper suffering than falls to man's lot in this life. 1 Page 315. :xi.J A FINAL GENERAL RESTORATION. 437 There are two other passages in the discourses of Christ which appear to support the opinion that repentance and restoration are possible in the future life. One of these is that already referred to, where He says, " Thou shalt by Matthew no means come out [of prison] till them hast paid the v ' uttermost farthing." This at least suggests salvation in a future state. It is no doubt a possible view that this idea Suggestion- is suggested only in order to be contradicted : that the Deliverance intended meaning is that the imprisonment must be per- from petual because the debt can never be paid. This interpre- tation does no violence to either sense or grammar, but it is utterly unlike the style of Christ : it makes the saying in question to be one of cruel sneering irony, almost as unlike to Christ's most passionate denunciations as to His tenderest mercy. Its obvious and I believe its real mean- ing is that salvation will be possible in the future life, but on harder terms than in the present. The other passage is the parable, or rather apologue, of the Luke xvi. rich man and Lazarus. It is impossible to believe that the 19> conversation across the gulf between the rich man and Abraham can be intended as a representation of any unseen reality : were this credible in itself, it would still be incredible that Christ would have made such a revelation in a speech addressed not to His disciples, but to the Pharisees. But what is significant is that the rich man, though suffering the eternal punishment due to those who have seen their fellow-men sick, hungry, and naked, and refused to minister to their wants, yet so far retains that natural affection out of which all the sympathetic virtues are developed, that he wishes to save his five brothers from sharing in his punishment : and conscience refuses to believe that moral restoration can be hopeless while this is left. I do not say that Christ has in these words made anything that can be called a revelation, but these, like all His sayings, are suggestive to those who can understand them. It ought also to be mentioned that the Authorized Version is altogether inaccurate in representing Christ as asserting that the mass of mankind are not to be finally saved. 438 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF [CHAP. Matthew Correctly translated, He declares that " wide is the gate vn. 13, 14. an( j faQQjfr i s the way that leadeth to destruction, and many Christ there be who are going in thereat : because strait is the makes no ^ Q an( j narrow j s the way that leadeth unto life, and few assertion J as to the there be who are finding it." This has nothing to do with destiny men ' s fi na l doom, or their state through the " ages of ages," of the but it tells what the state of the men of Israel in the first cen {. urv a pp earec [ to Him who knew what was in man. I fear it is true still, even in those nations which enjoy the most Christian culture : but if it has in any degree ceased to be true, Christ's words are not thereby discredited. It is a further fact which modifies all the foregoing con- Indefinite- siderations, that the word eternal is of indefinite meaning. n ^ ss of , Ato>j/to9, eternal, is derived from alar, an age. Aiwv means eternal. a long period, but not necessarily of endless length : on the contrary, it is in many places with perfect accuracy trans- lated world. " The harvest is the end of the world." l And though the expression el? TOV al&va means " for an indefinite time," and is usually translated " for ever," yet it does not imply absolutely endless time. St. Paul says that, rather than cause a brother to offend, he would abstain from eating flesh for ever (efc TOV al&va). z This cannot mean in a future life, and our translators have with perfect accuracy rendered it while the world standeth. Similarly air ai&vos is correctly translated not " from all eternity," but " since the world began." 3 When absolutely endless time appears to be meant, the words used are for ever and ever 6/9 TOU? ai&va? TWV alcovcav, literally for the ages of ages: an expression which may be paraphrased " for periods which are to ages as ages are to years." This expression however is applied to future punishment in no part of the New Testament except the so-called Eevelation of St. John, though it is applied in the Epistles to the Divine power and glory. The indefiniteness of meaning that belongs to alwv, an age, belongs in exactly the same way to its derivative aid>vio$, eternal. Twice in the New Testament eternal 1 Matthew xiii. 39. 2 1 Corinthians viii. 13. 5 Luke i. 70 and Acts iii. 21. XXIX.] A FINAL GENEKAL RESTORATION. 439 times are mentioned with the meaning not of time without beginning or end, but of the ages in which the created universe has its existence. 1 If it be not too late in the history of our language to coin such a word, the most appropriate translation of alwvios is agelong. Eternal is in the manner of its use an analogous word Analogy in TT, 7 , . . the use of to Heaven. Eternal, in its primary meaning, is not equrva- the word lent to everlasting, but only to agelong ; but without losing Heaven. this, it has acquired a secondary and more exalted meaning in which it is applied to the Godhead. Heaven, in like manner, originally means the visible vault of the sky where the birds fly about. Thus Christ speaks of the birds of heaven. 2 But, without losing this, it has acquired the secondary and more exalted meaning of the spiritual and unseen world as opposed to the visible world. 3 It may however be urged against the possibility of Eternal the word eternal, as applied to punishment, being under- stood in any other sense than never- ending, that Christ applied to punish- asserts punishment to be eternal in the same sense in ment as which He asserts life to be eternal. This is true : to llfe< words have no meaning if this can be explained away. But it is an admissible hypothesis that neither eternal Possibility punishment nor eternal life is absolutely endless : that p^^ 11 each is a process, punishment being a process of destruc- ment and tion, and life of creation or evolution; and that both to^nTiu are to end and be merged in some higher and as yet f?me unimaginable glory at "the times of the restitution of glory. all things," 4 when "all enemies shall be abolished." 5 All the sayings of Christ yet quoted are from the The Synoptic Gospels, and it is not denied that those Gospels Gospels contain no promise of a final general restoration : all we contain no can say is that they do not contradict it. But the fourth of final 6 1 KoTtt aTroKa\v^iv juwrrjpiou -)(p6vots aiaviois cf^ffiyri^vov, literally accord- ing to the revelation of the mystery kept secret from eternal times: Epistle to the Romans xvi. 25. Upb \p6vwv alcavluv, literally before eternal times : Second Epistle to Timothy i. ft This latter is exactly equivalent to the expression of a modern English poet, ' ' before the beginning of years. " 2 Matthew vi. 26, and several pther places. The Authorized Version translates this expression, with perfect accuracy, by the birds of the air. 3 See Note at end of chapter. 4 Acts iii. 21. 5 First Epistle to the Corinthians xv. 24, 26. 440 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF [CHAP. Gospel and the Epistles are very different, and we now go on to quote their testimony on the subject. In the fourth Gospel there are none of the threatenings of future eternal punishment which are so remarkable in the others. This however -has not only the inconclusive- ness which generally belongs to negative evidence; it may be accounted for by the obvious fact that St. John has omitted those parts of Christ's life and teaching which had been previously treated of sufficiently by the other Evangelists. But it contains one remarkable assertion of Gospel of universal salvation. " I, if I be lifted up from the earth " xii i? 1 [ n ^ e cross l sa id Christ, " will draw all men unto my- self." This is as clear a statement of the universality of salvation as any in the other Gospels of the eternity of punishment. It is however to be admitted that, as there is no special emphasis on the word eternal in the " Parable of Judgment," so there is no special emphasis on the word all in the passage now under consideration. St. Paul It is in the Epistles of St. Paul that we find the universal strongest and clearest assertions of the ultimate univer- salvation sality of salvation. But before proving this assertion by the most & , clearly. quoting passages, we must consider what may at first sight appear a serious difficulty, though not a conclusive objection. If the ultimate annihilation of evil, involving a final restoration and universal salvation, is a doctrine of Why has Christianity, it must be a fundamental doctrine : and why Sated it * therefore nas ^ no ^ been stated with more prominence by with more Christ, instead of leaving the unambiguous and emphatic nen 1 ? declaration of it to St. Paul ? I reply that if, as I have endeavoured to show, 1 universal justice and universal rnercy are both of them equally characteristic of the Divine government, it is equally true that mercy must come after justice, and must be based on justice and be Reply, developed out of it. We therefore cannot think it strange tice must ^ the eternal justice of God should have been earlier be revealed revealed than His eternal mercy : or, in other words, that "before mercy. the unchangeableness and universality of the law of retribution should have been made known first, and after- 1 See Chapter 22 (Nature and Grace). IX.] A FINAL GENEKAL KESTORAT10N. 441 wards the unchangeableness and universality of the law of mercy. The law of justice was revealed in all its terrors by Christ : the law of mercy, involving a final restoration, was, so far as we know, first revealed in all its clearness and fulness after Christ's ascension through St. Paul. Moreover, besides the general principle that the revela- tion of justice ought to come first, there is another special reason why the revelation of universal mercy was delayed. Christ's teaching was nearly all spoken before His death, Besides, and the thought of His death appears to have been gj^dow habitually present with Him. The shadow of the Cross is of the discernible over nearly all His life and teaching. But this, wm ^ ov r though characteristic of Christ's teaching as a fact of history, Christ's is not characteristic of Christianity as a system of doctrine/ The Cross has been endured and overcome, the stone has but it is been rolled back, Christ has gone up where He was before and is seated at the right hand of God, and the Church lives not in the shadow of death but in the light of the Kesur- rection. Eevelation itself has caught the tinge of this new gladness, and in the utterances of St. Paul it glows as it never did before with far-reaching and unquenchable hope. But Christ, I may be reminded, was more than man : and could His life be more darkened by the shadow of the Cross than was St. Paul's by what he described as a daily martyr- dom ? l I reply that it was because Christ was more than Why man because of His superhuman power of sympathy that the shadow of the Cross was so dark. The " sorrow even unto death " at Gethsemane was not an isolated incident in His life : it was the fulness of that grief which He had felt before when He wept over the city which would not be saved, and which haunted Him throughout His whole career when He was compelled to marvel at men's want of faith and hardness of heart. Had it been only for Himself that He feared the suffering and the shame of the Cross, He could have borne it as many of His own martyrs have since done. But the sorrow which crushed Him down was not for Him- self. He was the Son of Man and the Judge of Man who had 1 See his First Epistle to the Corinthians xv. 31, and many other passages. 442 THE CHEISTIA.N DOCTKINB OF [CHAP. St. Peter on a final restora- tion. Acts iii. 20, 21. St. Paul on the same sub- ject. First Epistle to the Corin- thians xv. 20-28. <3ome in the flesh in order to condemn to death the sin of mankind and to destroy it : and before He could do this it was needful that He who alone was sinless should, in some mysterious way, feel and bear the weight of sin as no other has borne it, at least on this side of the grave. We find that no sooner had the Apostles begun to declare the Gospel of Christ after His resurrection and ascension, than the doctrine of a final restoration became prominent in their teaching. St. Peter spoke of " Jesus Christ, whom the heavens must receive until the times of restoration of all things, whereof God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began." But it is St. Paul who speaks with most clearness on the subject ; and we now go on to quote his words. The first passage in chronological order, and perhaps the most striking of all, is in that wonderful prophecy which has become associated with all our thoughts of the Kesurrection. " Christ is risen from the dead, the first-fruits of all who sleep. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection from the dead. For as in Adam all men die, so in Christ shall all be raised to life. But each in his own order ; Christ the first-fruits : afterwards they who are Christ's at His appearing : finally the end shall come when He shall have given up the kingdom to God His Father, having destroyed all other dominion, authority, and power. For He must reign ' till He hath put all enemies under his feet.' 'And last of His enemies, death also shall be destroyed.' For 'He hath put all things under His feet.' But in that saying ' all things are put under Him,' it is manifest that God is excepted, who put all things under Him. And when all things are made subject to Him, then shall the Son also subject Himself to Him who made them subject, that God may be all in all." 2 1 Page 425. 2 The translation is Conybeare's. This passage is greatly injured in the Authorized Version by translating Karapye^ in one place by put down and in another place by destroy. Abolish would perhaps be better than either. Dean Stanley, in his edition of the Epistles to the Corinthians, translates it by make to vanish away. xxix.] A FINAL GENERAL RESTORATION. 443 It would be difficult for language to assert more clearly the universality of salvation. " As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be raised to life." " God shall be all in all." It must be remembered that in the language of the New Testament the future state of punishment is never called life : it is called condemnation, or punishment, or death, and is always opposed to life. " They who have Gospel of done good shall arise to the resurrection of life, and they v ' 29 who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment " [or condemnation]. The unmerciful "shall go into eternal Matthew punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." " The xxv ' ' wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life." But how is universal salvation to be reconciled with the justice of God, which must condemn the unrighteous ? This is answered in the next clause of St. Paul's account of the Resurrection. Christianity does not annul law but on the contrary establishes it : l moral distinctions are not to be abolished, and each shall remain in his own order : as those who have sowed the most shall reap the most, so those who have sowed first shall reap first. Christ has already risen, the first-fruits of the Resurrection, " the first- Colossians born from the dead, that in all things he might have the lt 18 ' pre-eminence." Those who in the present life through faith in Christ have become His, shall attain to the resur- rection to life at His promised appearing. Afterwards it may be long ages after the end shall be, when all the enemies of Christ shall be destroyed : chief among them sin, and last of them the results of sin, which are collec- tively called death; and then, death being abolished, those who up to that time have been held in the bondage of cor- ruption and in the prison of death shall also share in the resurrection to eternal life. The eternal, or age-long, punishment of the wicked which Christ has denounced, will continue, or at least may possibly continue, until the final abolition of death. More than this is not implied in the words of Christ : the word which we translate eternal does not mean more than this. 1 Epistle to the Romans iii. 31. 444 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF [CHAP. Dean Stanley remarks on the passage from St. Paul now under discussion : Quotation " The especial object of introducing in this place the Stanley D destruction of power and authority is for the sake of showing that Death, the king of the human race, will be destroyed in their destruction. The general notion is, that when all the sins and evils, for the restraint and punish- ment of which power and authority exist, shall have been pulled down, then all power and authority, even that of Christ Himself, shall end, and fear of "the Lord" shall be swallowed up in love of "the Father." * Epistle to the Romans v. 12-21. The next passage to be quoted from St. Paul is from the Epistle to the Eomans. I divide it into five short paragraphs, whereof each one contains a separate assertion of the universality of salvation. " This therefore is like the case when through one man [Adam] sin entered into the world, and by sin death : and so death spread to all mankind, because all committed sin. For before the Law was given [by Moses] there was sin in the world : but sin is not reckoned against the sinner when there is no law [forbidding it:] nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sin [not being the breach of law] did not resemble the sin of Adam. Now Adam is an image of Him that was to come. But far greater is the gift than was the transgression : for if, by the sin of the one man, [Adam,] death came upon the many, much more in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, has the freeness of God's bounty overflowed into the many. " Moreover the boon [of God] exceeds the fruit of Adam's sin : for the doom came, not of one offence, a sentence of condemnation : but the gift comes, out of many offences, a sentence of acquittal. " For if the reign of death was established by the one man, [Adam,] through the sin of him alone : far more shall the reign of life be established in those who receive 1 From the Notes to Dean Stanley's edition of the Epistles to the Corinthians. XXIX.] A FINAL GENERAL RESTORATION. 445 the overflowing fulness of the free gift of righteousness, by the one man, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as the fruit of one offence reached to all men, and brought upon them con- demnation, [the sentence of death :] so likewise the fruit of one acquittal shall reach to all, and shall bring justifi- cation, the source of life, " For as, by the disobedience of the one, the many were made sinners : so by the obedience of the one, the many shall be made righteous. 1 " And the law was added that sin might abound : but where sin abounded, the gift of grace has abounded beyond [the outbreak of sin :] that as sin has reigned in death, so grace might reign through righteousness unto life eternal, by the work of Jesus Christ our Lord." 2 It would be difficult to assert in clearer language or with more emphatic reiteration that God's grace is coextensive with man's need, and more abundant than man's sin. The next passage to be quoted is from the same Epistle, but 011 a different subject : namely the future of that 1 The note on this Verse, by which Alford endeavours to escape the nference of the universality of salvation, deserves to be quoted. " In order to make the comparison more strict, the all who have been made sinners are weakened to the indefinite the many, the many who be made righteous are enlarged to the indefinite the many. Thus shall a common term of quantity is found for both; the one extending to its largest numerical interpretation, the other restricted to its smallest." That is to say, the same expression "the many" (oiiroXXoi), when repeated in a short antithetical sentence, is to be understood in two different senses. If such a principle of interpretation were to be attempted in the construc- tion of a binding agreement, it would give rise to a perfectly jtist charge of dishonesty. I have no doubt that Alford would have treated with the contempt it deserves, the notion that when Christ speaks of the eternal life of the merciful and the eternal punishment of the unmerciful, the word eternal can have two different meanings. 2 The translation is Conybeare's. The only peculiarity which appears to call for remark is the translation in the 18th verse of titKaiu/j.a by acquittal. On this the translator has the following note : "We take Smuiu^a here in the same sense as in verse 16, because, first it is difficult to suppose the same word used in the very same passage in two such different meanings as rccte factum and decretum absolutoritun, which "VVahl and most of the commentators suppose it to be ; and, secondly, because otherwise it is necessary to take tvus differently in the two parallel phrases Si' ei/is 8inaia>fji.a.Tos and 8t' ev&s irapairrutpaTos (masculine in the one and neuter in the other), which is unnatural." 446 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF [CHAP. Israelite nation which St. Paul, like his Lord Jesus Christ, never ceased to love with the love of a patriot. St. Paul " I would not have you ignorant, brethren, of this future 6 of m y ster y> l est y u snou ld be wise in your own conceits, that Israel. blindness is fallen upon a part of Israel, until the full body tothe 6 ^ tlie Gentiles sn all have come in. And so all Israel shall Komans be saved, as it is written, ' Out of Zion shall come the Deliverer, and He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them,' ' when I shall take away their sins.' In respect of the glad tidings, [that it might be borne to the Gentiles,] they are God's enemies for your sakes : but in respect of God's choice, they are beloved for their fathers' sakes : for no change of purpose can annul God's gifts and call. And as in times past you were yourselves disobedient to God, but have now received mercy upon their disobedience : so in this present time they have been disobedient, that upon your obtaining mercy they likewise might obtain mercy. For God has shut up all together under disobedience, that He might have mercy upon all. depth of the bounty, and the wisdom, and the knowledge of God : how unfathomable are His judgments, and how unsearchable his paths ! yea, ' Who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His counsellor?' or 'Who hath first given unto God, that he should receive a recompense ? ' for from Him is the beginning, and by Him the life, and in Him the end, of all things. Unto Him be glory for ever. Amen." 1 It is true that the Apostle is not here speaking of indi- viduals but of the race. But he speaks of the destiny of the race in a way which would have been impossible if he had not believed that the salvation of the race would involve the salvation of the individuals composing it. If this is not so : if the passage quoted is only a prediction of the happiness of a future generation of Israelites, without reference to the present generation : the sayings " God has shut up all together under disobedience, that He might have mercy upon all," "and so all Israel shall be saved," become unmeaning; or if they have any meaning it is 1 The translation is Convlieare's. XXIX.] A FINAL GENERAL RESTORATION. 447 only this very forced and unnatural one, that God has shut up together under disobedience the whole of this generation of Israelites, that He might have mercy upon the whole of some future generation, whereof all shall be saved. It will scarcely be urged as an objection to this view, that the passage under consideration speaks of Israel only, and not of the Gentiles. Whatever may still be the fancies of some of the Rabbinical Jews, no one who calls himself a Christian believes that Israel has any eternal blessings which are not equally shared with Gentiles. The next passage we have to quote is from the Epistle to the Colossians. " In [Christ] God was pleased that the whole fulness [of Epistle God] should dwell, and by Him to reconcile again all ^oi^sian things to Him, having made peace by means of the blood of i. 19, 20. His cross, through Him, whether the things on the earth or the things in the heavens." l It will be said here that the Apostle, while predicting the ultimate perfect reconciliation to God of all His crea- tures in heaven and in earth, makes no mention of those in hell. But this objection arises from a way of using the words which is different from that of the New Testament. The modern division of the universe into heaven, earth, and hell, is not to be found in the New Testament, nor is hell opposed to heaven as it has come to be in modern language. Heaven and earth, in the sense of things spiritual and things visible, is the expression generally used for the entire uni- verse. 2 If we adhere to the usage of the words which has become customary, and understand " heaven and earth" to mean heaven and earth but not hell, we shall get no meaning whatever out of the passage : for if heaven means a world of sinless purity, what need has it of reconciliation ? On this subject Alford quotes the sayings that " the heavens are not clean in God's sight," and " His angels He charged with folly :" 3 statements which have no authority except 1 The translation is from Alford's notes. 2 See not? at end of chapter. 8 Jol> xv. 15 and iv. IS. 448 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF [CHAP. The theo- that of Job's friend and " comforter" Eliphaz the Temanite, EUphaz w k was ultimately proved so totally in the wrong about earthly and human things, that his testimony respecting heavenly and angelic things is worth no more than that of any other Arab. The only possible meaning of the passage under con- sideration is therefore that Christ, when He destroys all enemies, will reconcile to God all the dwellers in both the visible and the spiritual worlds : not only sinful men but rebellious angels, if such beings really exist. The same doctrine is taught in the following words from another of St. Paul's epistles ; - Epistle "That in the dispensation of the fulness of times He to the might gather together in one all things in Christ, both Ephesians * ' , , i. 10. which are in heaven and which are on earth. The word here translated " to gather together in one " (avaKe$a\a.L [Christ] also Himself likewise took part of the ii. 14, 15. same, that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." This is exactly the same that St. Paul teaches in the account of the Resurrection in the First Epistle to the Corinthians. To say that Christ will destroy him who has the power of death, namely the devil, is equivalent to saying that Christ will destroy all enemies, and death among them. It is worthy of remark that the word trans- lated destroy is the same in both passages, namely /caTapyeiV) which does not mean to ruin, but to abolish, annul, or deprive of power. Finally, we have to quote those two remarkable ex- pressions of St. Peter's, which, though we cannot infer from them what was the Apostle's belief respecting the future destiny of mankind, prove at least that he did not believe in the impossibility of Divine mercy reaching man in a future life : i Peter " Christ also suffered for sins once, a just person on in. is, 20. Behalf of unjust persons, that He might bring us near to God: put to death indeed in the flesh but made alive again in the spirit : in which he also went and preached to the spirits in prison, which were once disobedient, when the long-suffering of God was waiting in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared." xix.] A FINAL GENERAL RESTORATION. 4;")] - who shall render account to Him who is ready 1 Pet^r to judge living and dead. For to this end to dead men 1V also was the Gospel preached, that they might indeed be judged according to men as regards the flesh, but might live on according to God as regards the spirit." 1 We thus see that the revelation made to us by Christ and His Apostles agrees with the instinctive hopes of the enlightened reason and conscience in affirming that God will yet extinguish all sin and suffering. But if this Why has appears to be revealed in the New Testament, the question Doctrine of naturally arises why the Christian Church, Eastern and annal , Western, Eomanist and Eeformed, has so generally be- been lieved the contrary, namely that there is a future state of PV- ei a1 /^ suffering which is absolutely hopeless -.suffering which neither destroys nor is destroyed, which is to end neither by the healing of the disease nor by the extinc- tion of the sufferer's existence ? Is not the mere fact that so fearful a belief has held its ground, not only among the ignorant but among students of the Holy Scriptures, sufficient proof that it must be the doctrine of the Holy Scriptures ? To many this will appear conclusive, yet it is no proof, Tradition only a presumption which has no weight whatever against jj n r a s real proof on the other side. I do not disregard the authority of the Church, which is the authority of Christian tradition. 2 But there are some things which no weight of authority could conceivably prove, and among others it could not conceivably prove that words do not mean what according to the laws of logic and language they must mean. It is not so much insufficient as irrelevant to quote authority in order to prove that when St. Paul declares that all enemies shall be abolished and God shall be all in all, he means that sin and suffering shall be perpetuated, and the enemy of God shall have never- ending dominion over the greater part, or any part, of the human race. 1 The translations are from Alford's notes. 2 See "Preface, and also Note to Chapter 11. GG 2 452 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF [CHAP. The question however is worth asking, why the doctrine of St. Paul on this subject has till now remained literally unseen by the vast majority of those who have read his works with reverential attention : and if the answer is unsatisfactory, this is not because it is insufficient or doubtful, but because it appears superficial and common- Men do place. The men who have formed and guided religious not see opinion have been unwilling to see the meaning of St. Paul's do 1 not iey words, because they have feared to relax the efficacy of law wish to ky teaching or sanctioning any doctrine which appears to -mitigate the terrors of the judgment to come : and men are in general certain not to see what they do not wish or expect to see. We know the bitter and true epigram on the Bible " This is the book where each his doctrine seeks ; And this the book where each his doctrine finds." But why have the mass of men, as distinguished from the leaders of ecclesiastical opinion, not seen the fact for themselves so soon as they have got the New Testament Men's de- into their hands ? The reply to this is that the vast ma- oTtheir 6 J or ^' v f m n ^ though, perfectly well able to learn from the teachers, living teacher, are utterly unable to learn from books. The book is nothing but an instrument in the teacher's hands, and says whatever he pleases to make it say. Were any proof of this needed, it would be afforded by Sabba- Scotch Sabbatarianism. We have in that case seen an sm ' entire nation taught to read, and taught to make a merit of being familiar with the words of Holy Scripture : and we have seen them believe the assertion of their teachers that the Mosaic distinction of days is retained under Chris- tianity, notwithstanding that the New Testament declares it to be abolished in language whereof nothing could add to the distinctness. 1 It is not that their teachers are i Se3 especially the following passages : Galatians iv. 10, 11 : Romans xiv. 5, 6 : Colossians ii. 16, 17. And, what is as much to the purpose as any direct assertion, the New Testament contains no command to observe the Sabbath, and no denunciation of the imaginary sin of " Sabbath- breaking." In such a case, negative evidence is equivalent to positive evidence. xxix.] A FINAL GENERAL RESTORATION. 453 insincere. They honestly believe that a Pharisaic Sabbath is morally and spiritually beneficial. In this case, as in the case of St. Paul's teaching of a final restoration, they fear to see the real meaning of the New Testament, and consequently do not see it. The fact, however, is significant, that though the doc- The doc- trine of a final restoration has from the time of the Apos- tles till now been maintained by few except isolated in g tor- thinkers like Origen, or Erigena, or Jeremy Taylor, who not par t moreover have generally been suspected of heresy, yet the f ^ ie opposite doctrine of everlasting torment has not become faith. an article of Catholic faith. It is no doubt a dogma of the Calvinistic churches, but the notion that Calvinism is Christian orthodoxy is almost as far from historical truth as the notion that the Pope's infallibility is a doctrine of the Primitive Church. If we can anywhere in history Divine discern that men have been restrained and guided by a^ow^in higher wisdom than their own, it is in the Primitive this. Church being prevented from making the dogma of ever- lasting torment an article of faith. But to return to the question why men have believed such a doctrine. The resemblance between the belief in the permanent obligation of the Sabbath and the belief in never-ending sin and suffering fails in this most material point, that respecting the former there is neither logical nor moral difficulty : the only objection to it is that, as a matter of fact, the New Testament declares the Sabbath to be abolished : had the same authority declared the Sab- bath to be retained, there would have been neither logical nor moral difficulty about it, and it would have been our duty to obey. But respecting the doctrine of never-ending torment it is far otherwise. Eeason and conscience alike Difficulty revolt against it : and to a future age it will be one of g^^h*" the most inexplicable enigmas of history, that men why this under such a burthen could ever be unfeignedly thankful n Q t le de _ oes and serenely happy, and speak without conscious hypo- crisy of the blessing of life and the goodness of God, and not rather think in their secret hearts that God was an ha PI> ille ss. enemy and life a curse. THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF [CHAP. Yet, however perplexing it may be to explain, the fact is unquestionable that men have retained and do retain a spirit of serene, thankful, and happy trust in God under This is this burthen. The obvious explanation of the fact is that du^to ^ * s ^ ue P ar ^7 to stupidity and partly to selfishness : stupidity stupidity in not realizing in the imagination what has fishiiess, been assented to by the understanding : and selfishness in not caring for a doom from which each individual hopes to escape. This explanation is no doubt true in a great degree, but it is not the entire truth ; it does not state all the causes of the fact. The causes already mentioned are discreditable to human nature, but there is another which is honourable at once to human nature and to Christianity. but partly Christianity is eminently the religion of purity : purity t(> urit e that * s as cnarac t' er istic of Christianity as mercy : and the Chris- tendency of purity is to produce serenity and happiness. teaches. ^ n ^ s ^ s a ^ ac ^ ^ experience, having its ground not in logic but in physiology. The horror Moreover, the imagination is protected against this doctrine doctrine by its very horribleness. The thought of pain protects of endless duration and unimaginable intensity so baffles *ination * ne inmgin a tion that it fails to make the impression on against it. the mind which is legitimately due to it : and thus it is capable of being assented to by the understanding as an article of belief, while it does not influence the imagina- tion, and consequently does not injure the soul : as drops of water glide silently off iron at a white heat, which at a dull red heat would hiss and splutter. Both the imagination and the conscience of the present generation are however excited on the subject in a greater degree than ever has been before : and they can no more be charmed back into their old quiescence than the man can become a child. When we not only see but feel what it means to assert that for every soul who is born into the world there is a possibility of never-ending torment, we perceive that if this is Christian it is the charac- teristic doctrine of Christianity, and if this is true it is the fundamental fact of life. When this is not only assented to by the understanding but realized in imagination, XXIX.] A FINAL GENEEAL RESTORATION. 455 serenity, happiness, and thankfulness become impossible : it appears better that we had not been born, and that the world had not been created. The reply to this will probably be, that though the inference may be logically irresistible yet in fact no one draws it. If this were true, it would only prove men's weakness of imagination. But it is not true : I speak of what I know. This however is a subject whereon evidence We cannot is scarcely attainable : for those whose imaginations are poisoned and whose lives are blighted by their belief in its actual this doctrine are the least likely to make their thoughts e known. We shall never know how many have suffered life-long unhappiness from this doctrine, and how many it has repelled from God, until the day when the sea of oblivion gives up the dead memories that are in it. It is moreover impossible that any one who has the No one spirit of Christ can really acquiesce contentedly in such a ^spirit doctrine, however he may endeavour to do so. This may f Christ be shown by a test which may almost be called experi- mental. If the Christian who has the most confident hope c o" te . nt : edly m it. of everlasting blessedness were to receive permission by renouncing his blessedness to save a fellow being from everlasting misery, and let both be annihilated together, would he accept the offer? If he would not, we may safely conclude that he has not the spirit of Christ. Besides, paradoxical as it may seem, there appears to be reason for believing that the doctrine in question has lowered men's sense of the hatefulness of sin. Their attention has been so fixed on the danger of sin that they have lost sight of its disgracefulness. This is the tendency of the most prominent religious teaching among us, and though I have no special knowledge of the subject, I have little doubt that the wisest ministers of religion will confirm from their own experience the statement that an adequate sense of the disgracefulness of sin is scarcely to be found. But to my mind a yet more conclusive proof that the Its legiti- doctrine in question cannot be of God, is that its legitimate ^ e ' effect is to strengthen the worst tendencies of human strengthen 456 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTKINE OF [CHAP. what is nature, the tendencies to selfishness and cruelty. The worst in } 10 p e O f a salvation wherefrom the mass of their fellow- human nature. men are to be excluded must tend to make men selfish, and the thought of everlasting torment inflicted by the God in whose Name all holiness is gathered up must tend to make them cruel. It will be said that facts contradict this, and that as a matter of fact the belief in everlasting torment does co-exist with unselfishness and mercy. No doubt : but it will not be maintained that the unselfishness and the mercy have been produced by that belief : on the contrary, if they belong to the righteousness which is by faith they have been produced by those parts of the Christian faith whereto the doctrine we are now discussing is most alien : by the belief in the mercy of God and the self-sacrificing, reconciling love of Christ. Merely historical or statistical evidence on ethical ques- tions can never be of first-rate importance. 1 Nevertheless history may be reasonably expected to show a connexion between men's theory and their practice, and in this par- ticular case the connexion can be shown with tolerable distinctness, Christianity is eminently the religion of mercy : and in one respect this has been most clearly shown in Christian history. Mercy, in the sense of kind- ness to the poor and the helpless, is characteristic not only of the theory of Christianity but of the habitual practice of Christian society: this has been so con- spicuously true ever since Christianity became a force in the world, as to constitute one of the most remarkable contrasts between heathen antiquity and Christendom: and there is not the smallest doubt that this co-existence of Christian practice with Christian profession is a case not of mere coincidence but of causation. But Christen- dom has for the most part attached far too exclusive an importance to this one manifestation of the virtue of mercy, as is unconsciously shown by the curious way in which the meaning of the word charity, which properly means the highest and purest love, has in the habitual language of Christian nations become contracted to the 1 See page 258. .] A FINAL GENERAL RESTORATION. 457 sense of mere almsgiving. 1 But while Christendom from the first thus cultivated the virtue of almsgiving and liberality, another equally important manifestation of the Christian grace of mercy was neglected for more than fifteen hundred years. Mercy as opposed to cruelty was not, as a matter of historical fact, at all distinctive of Christian nations until after the commencement of those philosophical and political movements of modern times which have been generally anathematized by those who profess to speak in the name of Christian churches. The atrocious cruelty of The in- the punishments which were inflicted by law and sanc- tioned by opinion in the Eoman Empire was a disgrace which to mankind : the introduction of Christianity made no dom in^" substantial change, 2 nor did the Eeformation : and on herited the Continent of Europe at least (for it was otherwise in heathen- England) the abolition of torture in the administration lsm y P 7 . , p ,. ... p cured by of justice, and ol aggravated cruelty in the infliction of unbeliev- death, was not the work of those who professed to act in the name of Christ, but belonged to that intellectual movement whereof Voltaire was a prophet and Eousseau an apostle. Now, what is the reason of this strange and sad anomaly ? Why has Christianity in so important a case as this shown itself false to its own principles ? Why has Christianity left to an unbelieving philosophy the glory of applying Christian principles in action, and of effecting changes in opinion and law which constitute, perhaps the greatest, and certainly the most incontestable, moral advance which the nations of the European Continent have made since the close of the Eeformation? If it is said that this change is due to the indirect, unavowed, and unconscious influence of Christianity, I reply that this may be true I believe 1 On the other hand, its use in the sense of mere toleration is quite as great a perversion from its true meaning. The almsgiving which is regarded as having some virtue apart from any motive in love, and the toleration which is based not on love but on indifference, are equally remote from the charity of Christ. 2 It is true that Constantino forbade the punishment of the cross, but this was rather from a religious feeling than from humanity. 458 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTKIXE OF [CHAP. it is true but it is irrelevant : it does not answer the question why those who professed to act in the name of Christ permitted this glory, which ought to have "been theirs, to be appropriated by an unbelieving philosophy ? Connexion It is an obvious answer, and I believe the true answer, form'witli ^ ^ s question, that the moral change whereof we are disbelief speaking stands in the closest connexion with the growing lasting'" disbelief in the doctrine of everlasting torment, to which torment, the Churches adhered while it was rejected or ignored by philosophy. It is difficult to understand how any one who really believes in that doctrine can abhor the sin of cruelty as it deserves to be abhorred. There is profound consistency in the form in which it is said the victims of the Inquisition were sentenced to death: "that through temporal fire they may pass into eternal fire." Practical I am convinced that this, more than any other, is the aucTof'the question, of life or death for Christianity. New dogmas question are no t now to be thought of outside the Church of Eome, punish- and the ultimate extinction of sin and suffering will meiit. certainly not be made a dogma. But if this belief is not to be tolerated if the Christianity of the Eeformed Churches is to be tied down to the Calvinistic dogmas that all enemies are not to be destroyed, and that Christ has no message to proclaim to the spirits in prison then Christianity has no future before it. It has borne the load of these doctrines till now, though suffering griev- ously from the strain : but it can bear them no longer. If this question is not at least left open by the Eeformed Churches, a revolt against Christianity will come not from what is worst but from what is best in human nature, and it will be rejected by the moral sense of mankind. With the Christianity of the New Testament all belief in a personal God and in immortality will disappear : and men will be left to find or make the best basis for moral life that they can, in Pantheistic philosophy and in either Stoical or Utilitarian ethics. It is strangely inconsistent for any one who calls him- self a disciple of Christ to object to the doctrine of a final xxix.] A FINAL GENEKAL KESTOKATIOX. 459 restoration as being " latitudinarian," or as implying a Absurdity low conception of sin and holiness. The Pharisees of old ^ J^t " seem to have altogether disbelieved in the possibility of the doc- repentance and forgiveness : and when Christ offered f or- giveness and called men to repentance, they consistently Restoration regarded Him as a subverter of moral distinctions. But to a high their position was practically tenable only by men had a low conception of holiness : when men's conception of holiness is raised so as to convict them all as sinners, they instinctively seek forgiveness : and Christ shows the Divineness of His character and of His system most of all in this, that they combine the deepest abhorrence of sin with the deepest pity for the sinner. But if we believe in the forgiveness of sins at all, how is it more " latitu- dinarian," or how does it show a lower sense of sin and holiness, to believe in it as the universal law of God's moral government, than merely to recognize it as a partial fact of this present life ? [Further : all who believe in Christ's Atonement are agreed that it shows, in their strongest colours, at once the beauty of holiness and the hatefulness of sin: and are these less clearly shown if the Atonement is to be uni- versal in its effects than if it is only partial ? Does holi- ness appear less lovely if its triumph is to be perfect ? and does sin appear less hateful if God will not tolerate its existence for ever ? As stated before, the chief reason that men who believe Fear that in Christ reject the doctrine of a general restoration is the *" ds to fear that any relaxation of the terrors of the law would be the a relaxation of moral sanctions : and it has been said by a i aw . writer whose great knowledge of men ought to have made such a remark impossible from him, that the growing revolt against the dogma of everlasting torment proceeds Injustice from men who are personally conscious of wickedness and ^J]"^ " do not wish to believe in its consequences. It is needless the revolt to dwell on the absurdity of supposing that such feelings tSe"iogma are necessarily selfish that no one can fear torment except of e y er - for himself. The writer I speak of has, I am certain, far torment is too much of the spirit of Christ for this one hasty contro- Selfi8h - 460 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF [CHAP. The de- versial saying to be a fair specimen of his mind. But it poww*of * s equally absurd to speak as if a punishment must be punish- infinite if it is to be dreaded. No truth in political ethics depends ^ s better established than this, that the deterrent effect of punishment scarcely depends at all on its severity, but but cer- almost exclusively on its certainty. Whether the purpose tamty. o jp a re iigi on j s to deter as efficiently as possible from sinful actions, or to make the highest holiness attainable, the doctrine whereby the end in view can best be attained is not that which is taught by Calvinism, of an infi- nite punishment which may be easily escaped : but the doctrine of St. Paul, that we shall be rewarded and punished according to, and in proportion to, the good and Galatians evil that we have done. "He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, and he that soweth to 2 Corin- the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap eternal life." " He that fc*^* soweth sparingly shall also reap sparingly, and he that soweth bountifully shall also reap bountifully." And if men are to be deterred from sinful actions, they ought especially to be taught what nature teaches and the words of revelation now quoted confirm, that although repentance cancels sin and ensures reconciliation with God, yet it does not obliterate the injury which the sin has done to the sinner's own nature. This will last for an indefinite time, and perhaps for ever. In other words, nothing can prevent retribution from being universal and eternal : and though repentance obtains forgiveness for the sin, it does not earn back the reward which has been forfeited. If any man's work does not stand the test of that fire whereby Christ will burn up the chaff, though he may himself be saved through the flames yet he shall suffer eternal loss. 1 Testimony This is perhaps contrary to the general belief of at least science. Protestant Christendom, but, what is of far more import- ance, it is confirmed by the conscience of man. No man who really repents of a sin can at the same time really believe that his repentance makes the sin as though it had not been. So to believe would be self-contradiction : 1 Seethe First Epistle to the Corinthians iii. 1215. xxix.] A FINAL GENERAL RESTORATION. 461 for he who repents feels sorrow for the sin (though this is not a complete definition of repentance :) but if he believed that the sin was undone and made as though it had not been, there would be no room in his mind for sorrow. But how is retribution compatible with forgiveness and restoration ? how is justice compatible with mercy? I reply, that the enlightened reason and conscience affirm both. They affirm that if there is a moral and spiritual cosmos, its law must be retribution : if there is a Justice personal God, they affirm that He must be ready to % forgive and to be reconciled on repentance, and must affirmed desire to draw men to Himself that . they may repent and s Ji en ce, be reconciled. Viewed separately, each of these truths appears self-evidently certain : and it is worth observing true, that whatever discordance and contradiction may appear to be between them is in no way similar to the discordance between the results of sight and of faith, because these two truths are both witnessed to by the same spiritual faculty, the moral reason. We ought to believe both : and if we whether do not know how to harmonize them, we ought not to deny harmonize or explain away one in order to make room for the other, them or but to trust that they do not really contradict each other, and that in a future life, if not in this, we may hope to see and comprehend their perfect consistency. This ought to be no insurmountable trial of faith. It is surely easier to believe this, than to believe that God is love and yet pre- pares everlasting torment for His creatures. I maintain however that we may see it now. The two Attempt truths of justice or retribution on the one hand, and mercy, ^oifae forgiveness, and restoration on the other, are united in them. the truth which Christ has taught so impressively in We shall the parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard, 1 that JLJJd not He to whom all judgment is committed will accept us according neither according to the works we have done nor ac- cording to the creed we have believed, but according to done or what we are. In this truth is gathered up all that is true but ac- ' in the doctrines both of Justification by Works and Justifi- J what \ve cation by Faith : for both our actions and our belief help are. 1 Matthew xx. 1. 462 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF [CHAP. From this follow re- tribution and for- giveness. Atone- ment. Quotation from Erskine. to make us what we are : and good works which neither proceed from a right character nor tend to form it, are, in Apostolic language, as emphatically dead as a true faith which does not influence the life. 1 From the truth that our Judge will accept us according to what we are, or in other words from the law of Divine justice, follow the two connected principles of retribution and forgiveness : for to accept a sinner according to what he is means to punish, and to accept a repentant sinner according to what he is means to forgive. But further: because God is not only just as the administrator of a just law, but is also a righteous Person, He desires to make His creatures righteous, and has therefore provided in Christ an Atone- ment, or means of reconciliation, whereby we may acquire a nature that will enable us to come to Him. On this subject we need not repeat what has been said in the Chapter on the Distinctive Doctrines of Christianity. 2 We thus see that justice and mercy, punishment and forgiveness, Law and Gospel, have their root and ground together alike in the Eighteousness of God : and if this is true there ought to be no difficulty in believing that they are perfectly compatible and consistent with each other, and may co-operate to one common purpose, namely to the destruction of all enemies, whereof sin is the chief, that G-od may be all in all. 3 Anger need not destroy love, and mercy may demand punishment. " Forgiveness in its deepest sense does not mean deliverance from a penalty or the reversal of a sentence : it means the continuance of a fatherly purpose of final good, even through the infliction of the penalty and the execution of the sentence."* I do not mean that every one who has ever sinned will be in a 1 For the expression dead works, see the Epistle to the Hebrews ix. 14. For dead faith, see the Epistle of James ii. 17, 20, with the remarks on it in the Note to Chapter 12. 2 Chapter 26. 3 First Epistle to the Corinthians xv. 2428. 4 Thomas Erskine, quoted on page 328. It is to be observed that Erskine's sense of the Word forgiveness is somewhat different from mine. With him it is the fatherly purpose of final good. With me it is the with- drawal of anger, which (speaking under the forms of time, which are the condition of our thoughts though not of God's) takes place on repentance, when the attainment of that fatherly purpose is begun. xxix.] A FINAL GENERAL RESTORATION. 463 state of suffering until the final consummation of all things. Christ promises an immediate entrance into bliss to those who depart from this life in a state of recon- ciliation with God. But there are degrees in blessedness, and the promises and threatenings of Christ and His Apostles agree with nature and conscience in affirming that during the ages, perhaps immeasurably long, which are to elapse before the consummation of all things and the destruction of all enemies, those who are as yet un- p erma . forgiven and unreconciled will be lower in their misery, nence of and those who are forgiven and reconciled will be lower in qU ences Se ~ their happiness, for every sinful deed that either has ever of sin - committed : so that the law of retribution will not cease to be in force, even for those who are reconciled. And here we may remark that hope and fear are words without meaning if such a doctrine of future punishment as this is not enough to deter from sin. It is needless to form any conclusion on the question Further whether this will be continued, not indeed positively as minds. There never was an age when the external life which we live in the world was so interesting, and so able to absorb all the thoughts of the mind and all the energies of the soul, leaving no place and no feeling of need for thoughts of the unseen. There never was a time when physical science filled men's minds and moulded their thoughts as it is doing now : and though it is, as I have maintained throughout this work, utterly irrational to deny or ignore faith in the name of science, yet it is possible, and it appears to be true, that many minds are so occupied with science and its methods that faith and its claims cannot make themselves listened to: the marvellous i Page 49. 472 CONCLUSION. success of the methods of inductive science within its own proper domain has led naturally, though unreasonably, to the conclusion that those methods are applicable to all subjects whatever, and that there is no room left for faith. At no previous historical period, at least since the age of Grecian independence and glory, has the temptation been so strong for the mind of man to seek all the springs of its life in itself and in the world around, and to deny or ignore any possible knowledge of a God who has created all things, who has revealed Him- self, who sympathises with His creatures and hears their prayers. The world which is around us and whereof we form a part is alive with change and progress, not of science only, but of the arts, and of political and social life : the very air feels electric with intellectual power : and the effect of all this on many of the more superficial minds appears to be unfavourable to that sense of dependence which, if it is not the germ of faith, is the soil wherein faith grows. Revival of It is remarkable that the ethics of Stoicism should be re- ethics 1 vived in the present age, under circumstances the very op- posite of those wherein the classical Stoicism had its origin. Stoicism is essentially an attempt to nourish moral life on nothing but the moral instincts, without a utilitarian basis, and without assistance from faith. This was attempted in the darkness of classical heathenism, at a time when hope had almost faded out of the minds of men, and nothing was left to fall back on but the simple moral instincts : and it is revived now, in the light of Christianity and in an age which beyond almost all previous ages abounds in hopefulness, apparently because men fancy that they have outgrown the need of faith, and have learned to stand alone. 1 We must wish all success to men who endeavour to culti- vate holiness in whatever soil : but it is my belief that the i Comte and the Positivists are essentially Stoics. Mill is a Stoic in spirit, though he endeavours to work out a utilitarian theory of morals. But the most remarkable words wherewith I am acquainted which derive their inspiration from the new Stoicism are Matthew Arnold's, especially his "St. Paul and Protestantism," wherein he speaks with admirable elo- quence and evident sincerity of the death to sin and the resurrection to righteousness, while utterly ignoring immortality, and acknowledging no CONCLUSION. 473 morality of this new Stoicism, which, in some cases appears so lovely, is really the result of that Christianity of the Church which Stoicism ignores : and if it has not perished as flowers perish when separated from their root, it is only because it has not yet had time to wither. Every age has its own blessings and its own trials, and the tendency to ignore the supernatural is one of the moral trials of this age. But the causes of this tendency will not continue : they will wear themselves -out. The feeling that The pre- scientific methods have a right to cover the entire field of thought and to exclude faith, is due to the comparative wil1 . , . , , T -, f cont novelty of inductive science as a power in the world of intellect, and will disappear when scientific methods become perfectly familiar, and when there has been time for the relations of science to faith to be thoroughly thought out. And it appears impossible that the present marvellously rapid rate of progress in either science or politics can be maintained for an indefinite time. That ennui of a sta- tionary civilization, which is expressed with such mournful force in the Book of Ecclesiastes, will again settle down on the noblest minds. It will then be felt as it is not felt now, that the only cure for this is to set the affections on things above, not on things on the earth. Christ appears to teach that the last trial which is to assail His Church will be the tendency to fall asleep from the absence of any peculiar trial, or of any visible or tangible enemy to con- tend with : and in that .age it will be more evident than it is in this, that the most blessed, if not the only blessed, are those who keep their lamps burning with faith in Christ and hope of immortality. I wish here to make some remarks on those questions My din' of theology whereon I have expressed opinions different from those generally received among us. Concerning the doctrines. God except "the stream of tendency whereby all things strive to ful the law of their being." See also his lines in " Obermann once more :" " Alone, self-poised, henceforward man Must labour ; must resign II is all too human creeds, and scan Simply the way Divine." I 1 474 CONCLUSION. final extinction of sin and suffering, I have no doubt what- ever as to either the truth of the doctrine or its infinite importance. But concerning the continued injurious effect of sin in the future life even after forgiveness, though I believe in this I do not insist on it as being equally established with the doctrine of forgiveness and restoration. And, similarly, though I think it absolutely certain that Christ lived and died and rose again in order to bring us to God as reconciled children ; and though I cannot, believe that any expiation for sin is either possible or necessary, except what is implied in forgiveness, repentance, and healing; yet I do not deny that those passages of the Holy Scriptures which speak of expiatory sacrifice may perhaps contain a meaning which I have failed to grasp. Conclu- I have now concluded a work which is the result of many years of thought. I have no doubt of the general truth of its conclusions, though there are probably errors in detail, and my estimates of the mutual bearing and the relative importance of the several truths will no doubt be found to need correction. I now offer it to the world in full confidence of the substantial truth of what Lord Bacon said long ago, that though a little philosophy (or 'rather a superficial and one-sided philosophy) may lead a man to atheism, yet a deeper and wider knowledge will bring him back to faith in God. UNIVERSITY LONDON: n. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS. i) % same gUtbor, HABIT AND INTELLIGENCE, IN CONNEXION WITH THE LAWS OF MATTER AND FORCE. A SERIES OF SCIENTIFIC ESSAYS. 2 vols. 8vo. 165. The author's chief purpose in this work has been to state and to discuss what he regards as the special and characteristic principles of life. The most important part of the work treats of those vital principles which belong to the inner domain of life itself, as distinguished from the principles which belong to the border-land where life comes into contact with inorganic matter and force. In the inner domain of life we find two principles, which are, the author believes, co-extensive with life and peculiar to it : these are Habit and Intelligence. He has made as full a statement as possible of the laws under which habits form, disappear, alter under altered circumstances, and vaiy spontaneously. He discusses that most important of all questions, whether intelligence is an ultimate fact, incapable of being resolved in any other, or only a resultant from the laws of habit. The latter part of the first volume is occupied with the discussion of the question of the Origin of Species. The first part of the second volume is occupied with an inquiry into the process of mental growth and development, and the nature of mental intelligence. In the chapter that follows, the author discusses the science of history, and the three concluding chapters contain some ideas on the classification, the history, and the logic, of the sciences. The author's aim has been to make the subjects treated of intelligible to any ordinary intel- ligent man. "We are pleased to listen," says the Saturday Review^ "to a writer who has so firm a foothold upon the ground within the scope of his immediate survey, and who can enunciate with so much clearness and force propositions which come within his grasp." MACMILLAN & CO., LONDON. MACMILLAN & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. -New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [Nearly ready. OLD-FASHIONED ETHICS AND COMMON-SENSE METAPHYSICS : with some of their Applications. By W. T. THORNTON, Author of a Treatise "On Labour,' &c. 8vo. 10s. <>