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 STUDIES IN 
 PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE. 

 
 STUDIES 
 
 IN 
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE 
 
 RY 
 
 WILLIAM KNIGHT, LL.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOI^IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS. 
 
 LONDON : 
 C. KEGAN PAUL & CO., i PATERNOSTER SQUARE. 
 
 1879.
 
 TO 
 
 ALEXANDER CAMPBELL FRASER, LL.I)., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 IN THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, 
 
 TO WHOM 
 
 I OWE MY INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY ; 
 
 AND WHOSE LECTURES, 
 
 IN THE NEW COLLEGE OF EDINBURGH, 
 
 FIRST AWOKE THE SPECULATIVE LIFE 
 
 IN MANY MINDS, 
 
 I DEDICATE THESE FRAGMENTS. 
 
 W. K. 
 
 United College, 
 
 St Andrews, 
 
 May, L879.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 I HAVE been asked to collect these Essays, written at 
 intervals during the last ten years. 
 
 From the circumstances of their origin they are 
 fragmentary in form, and necessarily somewhat mis- 
 cellaneous. One or two thoughts, however, may be 
 found running through them, which impart a measure 
 of unity to the series. The essay on ' Eclecticism ' 
 explains both a doctrine and a tendency which per- 
 vade the volume ; and may give at least a partial 
 coherence to the whole. 
 
 Appearing at first in the pages of contemporary 
 Reviews, and suggested by the controversies of the day, 
 they make no pretence to learning. It always enhances 
 the value of a speculative discussion, if it is supplemented 
 or underpropped by scholarship : but numerous footnotes, 
 and references to authors are out of place in the columns 
 of a Quarterly Review, or a Monthly Magazine. And 
 as the present volume is not a treatise, but a collection 
 of Essays, I make no attempt to supply its deficiencies 
 by additional notes. Only one or two of the peren- 
 nial problems — those questions of the ages, which 
 reappear in all the literature of Philosophy, — are dis- 
 cussed ; and they are dealt with, less in relation to 
 the tendencies of the time, than in their permanent 
 aspects.
 
 VlU . PREFACE. 
 
 In revising them, I have recast each article less or 
 more. Many paragraphs have been omitted ; others 
 rewritten ; and allusions to matters of trivial interest 
 erased. As I have said in the tenth essay, ' Our 
 provincial controversies pass and are forgotten. Happily 
 the features which disfigure them are soon buried in 
 oblivion. But the eternal problems remain, and 
 must confront our children's children.' 
 
 The first Essay in the series, — which was an in- 
 augural address, delivered to the students of Moral 
 Philosophy in St. Andrews,- — and part of the third 
 essay contain a discussion of the theory of Evolution. 
 As this is the most definite philosophical idea under- 
 lying the methods and processes of Science, and as its 
 advocates claim for it the merit, not only of accounting 
 for the modifications of organic structure, but also of 
 explaining the origin of our intellectual and moral 
 nature — and, I may add, as opposition to its efficacy 
 in the latter sphere is so much misunderstood — one or 
 two additional paragraphs on the subject may be 
 inserted, in this brief prefatory note. 
 
 I do not deny the evolution of intellectual and 
 moral ideas. I only deny that their evolution can ex- 
 plain their origin. Every valid theory of derivation 
 must start with the assumption of a derivative Source, 
 or it performs the feat of educing something out of 
 nothing, nay, of developing everything out of non- 
 entity. It may surely rank as an axiom that whatever 
 is subsequently evolved, must have been originally 
 involved. 
 
 Our intellectual and moral nature bears the most 
 evident traces of evolution. Within the historic 
 period, the progress of humanity in knowledge and
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 feeling has been much more rapid and apparent, than 
 any advance it has made in the type of its physical 
 organisation. If we compare the records of civil- 
 ization in ancient Egypt and Assyria with that of 
 England in the nineteenth century, the mind and 
 character of the race seem to have undergone a 
 relatively greater development than its physique. It 
 is quite true that this may be only apparent Possibly 
 the alteration may have been equally great in both : 
 it has certainly been equally real ; although, between 
 the faces carved on the stones and gems of the nine- 
 teenth century B.C. and those we see in the nineteenth 
 century A.D., there is less apparent difference than 
 exists between the science, the art, the religion, and 
 the morals of the respective periods. 
 
 Be this as it may, however, the history of humanity 
 is the story of an ever-evolving, ever-developing process. 
 No one can rationally deny this. Scarcely anyone 
 ventures to question it. No organism is unaffected by 
 the onward wave of progressive development. No indi- 
 vidual can escape the modifying force of hereditary in- 
 fluences, and if these produce change in one department 
 of our nature, they necessarily affect the whole of 
 it. It is therefore certain that our present intel- 
 lectual and moral ideas are the result of ages 
 of gradual growth, of refinement, and self-rectifi- 
 cation. Nor can it be doubted, I think, that the 
 process has been a development from within, modified 
 by influences from without ; that forces ah extra have 
 co-operated with powers and tendencies ab intra, in 
 producing the result. 
 
 It may be confidently affirmed that each man is 
 what he now is, not only in virtue of what every
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 other man has been before him, in the direct line of 
 ancestry, but also in virtue of what everything else 
 now is, and of what everything else has been ; while 
 it is also as confidently affirmed that he is what he is, 
 in virtue of what he has made himself, both as a 
 rational being and a moral agent. Such is the 
 solidarity of the race, and such the organic unity of 
 things, that the present is the outcome as well as the 
 sequel of the past, and that all the ' characteristics of 
 the present age ' are due to an evolving agency, latent 
 within the universe ab initio. If this be so, the 
 moral ideas which now sway the race, are a heritage 
 which have come down to it from the dawn of history, 
 nay, from the very beginnings of existence. They 
 reach it with the sanctions of an immeasurable past 
 superadded to the necessities of the present ; and the 
 binding force of ethical maxims is not weakened, 
 either by the fact that they are slow interior growths, 
 or because their present form is due to the myriad 
 modifications of external circumstance. In either 
 case, and on both grounds, they have the prestige of 
 the remotest antiquity ; and even if their sole raison 
 d' etre were the authority of custom, that authority 
 would be real, because based upon the everlasting 
 order of the universe. So much must be frankly 
 admitted ; but the whole pith of the controversy lies 
 behind this admission. 
 
 I have pointed out in the essay referred to that if 
 the intellectual and moral nature of man is entirely 
 due to the influence of antecedents, if the past alone, 
 and by itself, can explain the present — while altera- 
 tion is still going on, and change is incessant — no 
 product is ever reached. We have only an 
 
 Eternal process moving on,
 
 PREFACE. XI 
 
 vavru pit ovSsv (j,mi. There is no ' standard ' of the 
 true, or the beautiful, or the good ; no ' principles' 
 of knowledge ; no 'canons' of taste ; no 'laws' of 
 morality. The principles of knowledge are empyrical 
 judgments, and nothing more ; the canons of taste 
 are subjective ' likings,' and nothing more ; the laws 
 of morality are dictates of expediency, and nothing 
 more. As the fully developed doctrine of evolution 
 abolishes ' species ' altogether, and reduces each to a 
 passing state of the organism, which is undergoing a 
 modification that never ceases ; so the notion of a 
 ' standard ' of the true, or of the right, vanishes, of 
 necessity, in a process of perpetual becoming. They 
 are always about to be ; they never really are. The 
 ' species ' and the ' standard ' may still, for convenience 
 sake, receive a name, but it is the name of a transient 
 phase of being, of a wave in the sea of appearance ; 
 ■vox, et 'preterea nihil. The nominal alone survives ; 
 the real and the ideal have together vanished. 
 
 As this conclusion has been questioned, and as it 
 seems to me of far greater moment than is usually 
 allowed, I may venture to unfold it a little farther. 
 
 First, it is to be conceded as inevitable that all 
 our ethical rules must undergo future modification 
 and change. That they must go on developing, as 
 they have developed, is not only absolutely certain, it 
 is an omen of hope for humanity ; one of the brightest 
 prospects on the horizon of its future. It is not 
 difficult to discover much in the present opinion and 
 practice of the world — in which convention so often 
 takes the place of nature — to make us thankful that 
 we have the prospect of future change. Evolution
 
 Xll PREFACE. 
 
 has assuredly much to do in bringing out the un- 
 developed good, and in eradicating the blots which 
 now disfigure both the belief and the actions of man- 
 kind. Moreover, were the moral law to operate, 
 through all time, with invariable fixity, like the law 
 of gravitation, it would be reduced to the inferior 
 rank of mechanical necessity, and the moral agent 
 would sink to the position of an automaton. As to 
 this, however, there is no controversy. If no one 
 doubts the past development, no one denies the future 
 evolution. The question is not whether the adult 
 moral judgments and sentiments of the race have 
 been preceded by rudimentary ones, and will yet 
 ripen into maturer and mellower ones ; as the bird 
 has come out of the egg, and the oak from the acorn. 
 The real question at issue — which no amount of 
 brilliant discussion on side-issues should for a moment 
 obscure — is as to the nature of the Source or Fountain, 
 not as to the character or the course of the stream. 
 It is as to the kind of Root out of which the tree of 
 our knowledge has grown, and as to the substance of 
 the Rock out of which our moral ideal has been hewn. 
 Now, I maintain that evolution, pure and simple, is 
 'process pure and simple, with no product; with nothing 
 definite emerging, and with nothing real or essential 
 underneath. It is simply the Heraclitic flux of pheno- 
 mena. But this takes for granted a phenomenal 
 theory of the universe. If noumena exist, if there 
 be a substantial world within the ego — or within the 
 cosmos beyond the ego — a doctrine of phenomenal 
 evolution is neither the first nor the last word of 
 Philosophy, but only a secondary and intermediate 
 one. The enquiry which traces the process of develop-
 
 PREFACE. XI 11 
 
 ment is carried on in a region entirely outside of the 
 philosophical problem, which would emerge in full 
 force, after every link of the chain of evolution had 
 been traced ; and the complete enumeration of details, 
 as to the process or story of development, would 
 carry us very little farther than the commonplace 
 conclusion that we, and all things else, have grown. 
 
 It will be found that however far the historical en- 
 quiry, into the prior phases of human consciousness, may 
 be carried, it leads back to the metaphysical problem 
 of the relation of appearances to essences, the pheno- 
 menal to the substantial. It is only the phenomenal 
 that can be evolved ; noumena are evolving powers 
 or essences, themselves unevoived. If, therefore, our 
 personality contains ought within it that is noumenal, 
 it contains something that has not been evolved. If 
 freewill is not wholly phenomenal — though it may- 
 have phenomenal aspects — the will has not been 
 developed out of desire, as desire may have been 
 educed from sensation. It is no solution of the 
 difficulty, it is a mere cutting of the knot, to say that 
 will is a phase of desire, or the progeny of desire. Of 
 course, if there be no such thing as freewill, if necessi- 
 tarianism be true, it is the easiest thing in the world 
 to explain its evolution ; as easy as to explain how 
 the flower issues from the seed, i.e., it requires no 
 explanation at all. If the rise of self-assertion is the 
 rise of will, if to find a centre in one's self, and to 
 resist aggression or encroachment on one's rights is 
 to find the root of volition, the knot is cut ; but the 
 problem is not solved. The whole difficulty is ex- 
 plained away ; but it reappears again, with undimin- 
 ished force, after the explanation is given. Everything,
 
 XIV PREFACE. 
 
 in fact, in this controversy, turns on the determination 
 of the nature of personality, and its root, freewill. 
 And the whole discussion converges to a narrow issue. 
 Unless an act be due to the personality of an agent, 
 i.e., to his antecedents, he is not only not responsible 
 for it, it is not truly his ; but similarly, and simul- 
 taneously, unless it be due to his will, as a productive 
 cause, it is not his, it is the universe's ; it is the act 
 of the antecedent generations, and not his own act. 
 Unless it be the outcome of his moral freedom, he is 
 an automaton, and the act is in no sense his own. 
 
 Strong objection has been taken to the statement, 
 in the Essay in The Nineteenth Century, that if 
 Evolution cannot account for the origin of the moral 
 faculty in the lifetime of the individual, the expe- 
 rience of the race at large is incompetent to explain 
 it ; because the latter is merely an extension of the 
 same principle and the same process. It seems to me, 
 however, to be self-evident that if an explanation 
 fails in relevancy, within a limited area of phenomena, 
 its application to a larger area filled with the same 
 kind of phenomena will not redeem its character, and 
 give it success. If individual experience cannot ex- 
 plain the origin of our moral ideas, collective expe- 
 rience cannot come to the rescue ; because by a mere 
 enlargement of the space which the principle tra- 
 verses, you gain no fresh light as to its nature, or its 
 relevancy. It is said that the acts of all our ancestors 
 have transmitted a habit to posterity, and that while 
 the iron hand of the past is holding us, we imagine — 
 by the trick which custom plays unconsciously upon 
 us — that things are innate which have been really 
 acquired for us by the usage of our ancestors. This,
 
 PREFACE. XV 
 
 however, is only possible on the pre-supposition 
 that the course of development is both rigidly necessi- 
 tarian, and purely phenomenal. If, however, the rise 
 of the higher out of the lower cannot be explained 
 by the mere pre-existence of the lower in our indi- 
 vidual life and experience, what possible right can we 
 have to affirm that a simple extension of the process 
 of evolution indefinitely far back, will bring us within 
 sight of the solution ? We must have definite and 
 verifiable evidence of the power of evolution to explain 
 the whole processes of change within the plane of ex- 
 perience, before we are entitled to extend it as the 
 sole principle, explanatory of the changes that occur 
 beyond the range of that experience. Unless evolu- 
 tion can explain itself, we must get behind or within 
 the evolving chain, to the source of the evolution. 
 Unless change can explain change, we must get beyond 
 what occurs to the cause of its occurrence ; and we 
 cannot validly take a ' leap in the dark,' if we have 
 no previous experience of walking, that way, in the 
 light. In fact, this whole discussion leads back by no 
 intricate pathway to the metaphysical problem of 
 causation. Is causation simply occurrence ? Is it 
 merely phenomenal sequence, as Hume and the Comtists 
 teach ? — then, evolution is the process by which all 
 things have come to be what they are ; and the laws 
 of evolution are the laws of phenomenal occurrence, 
 which illustrate the processes of happening. But is 
 that an unsatisfactory theory of Causality ? Is causa- 
 tion something more than sequence ? Then the fact 
 of evolution is not the sole principle explanatory of 
 existence ; because it leaves out of account the major 
 truth or principle of causation itself.
 
 XVI PREFACE. 
 
 I maintain, therefore, that the simple observation 
 (for surely it is no discovery) that a higher consequent 
 follows in the wake of a lower antecedent, will not 
 explain how the rise has been accomplished. No 
 extension of the time, no widening of the area, will 
 help to explain it ; because such extension and widen- 
 ing are simply the addition of a number of similar links 
 to those which already constitute the chain of derivation. 
 It introduces no principle explanatory of the whole, 
 unless it tells us how the first link of the chain was 
 forged, and what it hangs on ; or, if there be no first 
 link, and therefore no connection with a Source, unless 
 it tells us what is the inner vinculum between all the 
 separate links, distinct from their mere succession in 
 time. 
 
 Thus, to take two concrete illustrations, if a thing 
 is not true in itself intrinsically, the consenting belief 
 of a thousand minds won't make it true, although it 
 will turn it into an opinion — let us say a venerable 
 opinion, — widely held, perhaps even obstinately clung 
 to. Similarly, if a thing is not right in itself in- 
 trinsically, the experience of a million generations, 
 with the tradition of pre-historic ages — most venerable 
 tradition, — won't make it right, although they may 
 turn it into an act of the greatest expediency. 
 
 Further, I contend that, assuming the correctness 
 of the theory of development, to make the opinion 
 valid, or the custom expedient, this going back 
 on their rudiments, with those large drafts on space 
 and time, is not requisite ; because the opinion might 
 be quite sound, and the act might be thoroughly 
 useful, with no precedent to back them up. They 
 might be very good and very useful, just as they arose,
 
 PREFACE. XVII 
 
 and simply because they arose. As all principles are, on 
 the same theory, in incessant change, and each stage 
 of the process is equally valuable, equally venerable, 
 equally respectable, they can all dispense with the 
 authority of precedents. Precedent itself, in short, 
 breaks down on the theory of evolution. What is the 
 use of an appeal to precedent, in the case of anything 
 whose existence is necessitated, is itself different from 
 all its predecessors and from all its successors ; but 
 which, apart from precedent and example, has as good 
 a right to exist as any of them ; and in addition to its 
 being necessitated, is itself ephemeral ? 
 
 I cannot, however, enter any further on this con- 
 troversy, without exceeding the limits of a preface, 
 and writing another essay. 
 
 The three semi-theological papers which occur 
 towards the end of the volume, discuss problems on 
 the border-land between Philosophy and Religion, and 
 belong in a sense to both. The origin of the essay 
 on Prayer was an attempt to vindicate its reasonable- 
 ness against the plea of the agnostic ; and to show 
 that, while there is a sphere to which it is inappli- 
 cable — because no rational or devout man expects to 
 divert the course of natural law by his petitions, and 
 to interfere with the pre-established harmonies of the 
 world — Science could never be really hostile to devotion, 
 nor could the latter be contraband to philosophy. 
 
 The discussion on Creed-Subscription was intended 
 to explain and to vindicate the historical method of 
 regarding all the ' forms ' in which the human in- 
 tellect arranges and systematises the materials of its 
 belief. 
 
 One essay deals with the philosophy of ^Esthetics,
 
 XV111 PREFACE. 
 
 and in it I have ventured to offer a contribution 
 towards a theory of Poetry. Other two treat of 
 Wordsworth, as a philosophical Poet, a Moralist, and 
 an interpreter of Nature. Since the latest of them 
 was written, and while these sheets are passing 
 through the press, I have read Mr Leslie Stephen's 
 most admirable essay on Wordsworth's Ethics, in the 
 third series of his ' Hours in a Library.' That essay 
 is one of the best yet written on Wordsworth, and 
 renders a great deal that is said by me, in both 
 papers, superfluous ; while it suggests much more that 
 I have not had the wisdom to say. 
 
 W. K.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Ethical Philosophy and Evolution, . . 1 
 
 (An Inaugural Lecture, delivered at the Opening of 
 the Moral Philosophy Class in the University of St 
 Andrews, November 1876: and published in The Nine- 
 teenth Century, September 1878.) 
 
 II. Eclecticism, ..... 44 
 
 (An Introductory Lecture, Moral Philosophy Class, St 
 Andrews, November 1878 : The Theological Review, 
 January 1879.) 
 
 III. Personality and the Infinite, . . . 70 
 
 (Read to the ' New Speculative Society,' Scotland, 
 March 1875 : The Contemporary Revieic, October 1S76.) 
 
 IV. The Doctrine of Metempsychosis, . . 119 
 
 (Read to the ' New Speculative Society,' Scotland, 
 November 1877: The Fortnightly Review, September 
 1878.) 
 
 V. Desiderata in the Theistic Argument, . 155 
 
 (The British Quarterly Review, July 1871.) 
 
 VI. The Summum Bonum ; a Discussion on Culture, 225 
 (The North British Review, March 1869.) 
 
 VI T. A Contribution towards a Theory of Poetry, 264 
 
 (Tin Jirifi.il, (juartu-ly /'i-cien; January 1S73.)
 
 XX CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 VIII. Wordsworth, ..... 283 
 
 (A Lecture, delivered at Cockermouth and at Cork, 
 April 1878 : and published in the Transactions of the 
 'Cumberland Association for the Advancement of Lite- 
 rature and Science.') 
 
 IX. The Ethics of Creed Subscription, . . 318 
 
 (Read to the Angus Theological Club, December 1871 : 
 The Contemporary Review, August 1872.) 
 
 X. The Function of Prayer in the Economy of 
 
 the Universe, ..... 340 
 
 (A Lecture delivered at South Shields, December 
 1872 : The Contemporary Review, January 1873.) 
 
 XL Prayer : The Two Spheres, . . . 368 
 
 (The Contemporary Review, December 1873.) 
 
 XII. Nature as Interpreted by Wordsworth, . 405 
 
 (A Lecture delivered to the Halifax Literary and 
 Philosophical Society, and to the Birmingham and Mid- 
 land Institute, March 1S79.)
 
 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 AN INAUGURAL ADDRESS TO THE MORAL PHILOSOPHY CLASS, IN THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS, NOVEMBER 1876. 
 
 (The Nineteenth Century, September 1878/ 
 
 Discipline in philosophy is at once a great inheritance 
 of academic life in Scotland, and a permanent necessity 
 of the human intellect. We are here to pursue research 
 within a province which has drawn towards it, with a 
 singular magnetic spell, the devotion of successive 
 generations. To solve the problems of philosophy, or 
 to discover the limit of all possible solutions, has been 
 the ambition of the Scottish student from mediaeval 
 times. It has been said that in the North we all 
 inherit the speculative craving, and that metaphysics 
 are indigenous to our soil. This is but a slight exag- 
 geration of the fact that philosophy has for centuries 
 formed the centre of our academic discipline, and that 
 we have clothed the venerable word with a meaning 
 which gives it indisputable pre-eminence in the curri- 
 culum of liberal education. 
 
 It is a prevalent fashion, however, to describe the 
 present age as predominantly scientific, to affirm that 
 the intellectual interest of the hour has drifted away 
 from speculation, and that the surmises of philosophy 
 have been abandoned for the more sober teachings of 
 experience. In this opinion I am unable to concur. 
 Were it correct, I would characterise it rather as a
 
 2 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 temporary aberration of the human intellect, deserting 
 the ' philosophia perennis ' in behalf of an empiricism, 
 which, in the sphere of half-truths, is as easily demon- 
 strable, as it is commonplace and crude. But such an 
 interpretation of the spirit of our age is altogether 
 superficial. Far and wide throughout the republic of 
 letters, in Britain, on the Continent, and in America, 
 there are authentic signs of a general renaissance of 
 philosophy. Within the present generation, and 
 especially during the last ten years, those speculative 
 problems, which form the themes of perennial debate 
 in the metaphysical schools, have awakened an interest, 
 prophetic of a new future for philosophy. There has 
 been a remarkable quickening of the spirit of inquiry 
 into all radical questions, and a far clearer understand- 
 ing of their issues ; while the general mind may be 
 said to be face to face with problems which in the last 
 generation were confined to a few scholars, or recluse 
 speculative men. 
 
 I do not attempt to trace the causes, European or 
 insular, which have led to this result. It is enough to 
 note it as one of the characteristics of our a°:e. In- 
 stead of philosophy being superseded, or submerged in 
 science, there are indications of a notable reaction in 
 its favour, and of its vigorous pursuit in unexpected 
 quarters. The splendour and rapid inarch of the 
 physical sciences, which threatened for a time to eclipse, 
 if not to extinguish interest in the older problems 
 which lie behind them, has merely opened up fresh 
 pathways converging as before on philosophy as the 
 scientia scientiarum ; and in the chief tendencies at 
 work, at the great educational centres of the three 
 kingdoms, every one may see the reawakening of specu-
 
 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 3 
 
 lative thought. The whole literary atmosphere is 
 charged with philosophy. The leaders of physical 
 research are dealing with metaphysical questions. The 
 topics with which modern science is most engrossed are 
 speculative ones. In the doctrines of evolution and 
 transformation of energy we not only find the revival 
 of old metaphysical theories under a new scientific 
 dress ; but, apart from philosophy, these questions are 
 still, as formerly, incapable of solution. The recent 
 literature of philosophy is also rich in treatises which 
 are greatly in advance of the contributions of the 
 previous age. Without naming any particular work 
 or writer, I may further refer to such phenomena as 
 these : The encounters between the most accomplished 
 physicists and metaphysicians on ground common to 
 both (the same problem being approached by the one 
 from beneath, and by the other from above) ; the 
 interest awakened in the problems of sociology ; the 
 light which has been cast by philosophic criticism on 
 much that was deemed inexplicable in the records of 
 the past ; the remarkable development of the historical 
 and comparative methods of research, as well as of 
 those purely critical and analytic ; the attention given 
 to the great masters of ancient wisdom, especially to 
 the leaders of the Greek schools ; the opening up of 
 fresh sources of information as to Indian and Oriental 
 thought; the establishment of new journals and societies 
 especially devoted to psychological, metaphysical, and 
 ethical study ; these are only a few of the signs of the 
 working of the philosophic spirit, and the revival of 
 speculation in our time. I may add that our higher 
 poetry and religious literature are saturated with 
 philosophy as perhaps at no previous period in our
 
 4 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 national history. Everywhere inquiry converges on 
 first principles. Even those who abjure metaphysic, 
 unconsciously philosophise in their rejection of it ; 
 while the subdivision of intellectual labour — due to the 
 growing complexity of culture, and the increasing num- 
 ber of those who devote their lives to research — has 
 widened the area, as well as deepened the lines of 
 investigation. 
 
 One result of this diffusion of interest in the ques- 
 tions of philosophy, and the popularisation of its 
 problems, is a better understanding, up to a certain 
 point, of the great rival systems. There is more 
 eclecticism in the intellectual air. It is beginning to 
 be recognised that opinions, which when fully developed 
 come into sharp collision with each other, may spring 
 from a common root of truth, and, in their origin, be 
 no more than a way of throwing emphasis on this or 
 that side of a fact, equally admitted by the advocates 
 of opposing schools. It is being seen that, no system 
 of philosophy which has lived, and won the assent of 
 intellectual men, is entirely false ; and that no system 
 which has passed away is absolutely true. The most 
 perfect is doomed to extinction, as certainly as the 
 least perfect. From none can erroneous elements be 
 entirely eliminated; and the longevity of each is mainly 
 due to the preponderance within it of elements that 
 are perennial, over those that are accidental and casual. 
 In the most erroneous, there is some truth and excel- 
 lence concealed ; while, in the most true, error, parti- 
 ality, and bias invariably lie hid. In the recognition 
 of this fact is contaiued the principle of catholicity in 
 thought, and of toleration in practice. The old maxim, 
 ' Every error is a truth abused,' remains the basis of a
 
 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 5 
 
 wise and sober eclecticism. It is also true that the 
 causes which have hitherto led to differences of philo- 
 sophical opinion are permanent ones, working in the 
 blood and brain of the race ; and some recent discus- 
 sions in philosophy have shown the inveteracy Avith 
 which the disciples of particular schools continue to 
 interpret facts in their own way, and the strength of 
 the constitutional bias which incapacitates certain minds 
 from seeing both sides of a question. This has been 
 significantly illustrated, in the department which more 
 immediately concerns us, in those posthumous Frag- 
 ments on ethical subjects, by Mr Grote,the accomplished 
 historian of Greece, and the one-sided interpreter of 
 Plato. 
 
 The causes which determine difference in the schools 
 of philosophy arise at once from the individuality of 
 the system-builders, and the thousand influences by 
 which each is either consciously or unconsciously 
 affected. The former of these is due to remote ancestral 
 tendencies, descending in the line of hereditary succes- 
 sion from no one knows how distant a fountain-head, 
 as well as to the creative power of the individual, 
 working in the present hour. The latter may be traced 
 in all the education he has undergone, and in the 
 examples that have surrounded him from his infancy. 
 Native idiosyncrasy, temperamental bias, and the force 
 of surroundings determine the character of the opinions 
 that are formed, and the type of the system that results. 
 Thus the rigorous logician, in his dislike of what is 
 vague or paradoxical, will of necessity be unjust to the 
 mystic intuitionalist ; while the latter may fail to 
 appreciate the prosaic love of fact, the demand for 
 verification of belief, for an intellectual firmament clear 
 of mist, and that dislike of all nebulous and impalpable
 
 6 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 theories, invariably shown by the disciples of experi- 
 ence. These things must survive in the future, and 
 determine the alternate victory of opposing schools of 
 philosophical thought. It is in this as in the sphere 
 of politics. It is as irrational to suppose that one 
 particular school (intuitional or experiential, a priori 
 or a "posteriori) will dominate in the future, as it is to 
 suppose that the supremacy of the Conservative 
 Government will be perpetual ; or that, if turned out 
 of office, it will not come back, in due time, with a 
 majority. No political party can remain permanently 
 in power. The same causes that lead to its elevation, 
 tend to its depression, and to the future enthronement 
 of its rival. Similarly, the great pendulum of human 
 thought continues — and must continue — to oscillate 
 throughout the ages ; and the historical succession of 
 opposite schools is inevitable. If the dominant philo- 
 sophy in England to-day is the experientialism of Locke, 
 it is certain to be succeeded by a new school of a priori 
 ontologists. For as with empires and dynasties, so 
 with systems of opinion, the moment of the greatest 
 triumph is also the moment of the first decline and fall.* 
 It is probable, however, that as our historical know- 
 ledge becomes more thorough, and we are better 
 acquainted with the philosophies of the past, — especially 
 with the causes that have led to the rise of the great 
 systems, — there will be a more general and adequate 
 appreciation of each ; and that a wise and sober eclec- 
 ticism, shunning ' the falsehood of extremes,' will result. 
 It seems to me that the next great school of British 
 
 * It is to be noted that the historical succession is equally kept 
 up by the rise of opposite or reactionary theories, as it is by the 
 development of existing opinion. Intellectual progress is frequently 
 due to antagonistic reaction, and the reappearance of discarded 
 theories.
 
 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. i 
 
 thought will be eclectic, in tone and character, if not in 
 name.* 
 
 It is usual, at the opening of every course of academic 
 instruction, to indicate the nature and to define the 
 limits of that particular province within which future 
 inquiry is to be conducted. This I shall endeavour 
 to do, though only in the most cursory manner. 
 
 It will be necessary to explain the function of 
 Philosophy in general, as distinguished from ordinary 
 knowledge ; and this will best be approached through 
 a series of distinctions which lead up to the main 
 characteristic difference. We shall see, in the light 
 of these distinctions, that it is the aim of philosophy 
 to escape from the illusions of inherited or acquired 
 belief, that it may reach the ultimate ground of 
 human knowledge ; and this may be further described 
 as either an ascent above, or a descent beneath our 
 secondary opinions to the region of first principles. 
 Further, that its aim is to reach the permanent and 
 abiding, as contrasted with the incessantly changing 
 aspects of phenomenal existence ; that its function is 
 also to get behind all the metaphoric modes of thought 
 or pictured representations of reality, to the reality 
 itself which pictures and symbols represent. The 
 common consciousness of mankind is in bondage to 
 the concrete and the pictorial. It sees essence only 
 
 * It may be more profoundly eclectic in spirit, if it is not so 
 ostensibly and in name. It is, however, a cpiestion of considerable 
 speculative interest, why eclectic schools are usually feeble in 
 character, and barren in result, and why they so often collapse 
 before the renewed vigour of some sectarian movement. It cannot 
 be denied that there has been a want of inner coherency in many of 
 them ; and if they are the offspring of compromise, or consist in a 
 mere miscellaneous piecing together of the details of opposite 
 systems, so that the result is an artificial patchwork, or at best an 
 intellectual mosaic, no other result than sterility is possible.
 
 8 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 in the light of symbol, and confuses the two together. 
 Philosophy distinguishes them, and conducts from the 
 symbol to the thing symbolised ; while it seeks the 
 central or common ground of all detached and frag- 
 mentary knowledge. It is the quest for unity, that 
 supreme unity, in which all the separateness and de- 
 tail of miscellaneous knowledge is lost to view. Thus 
 philosophy teaches that beyond the customary and 
 traditional, behind the pictorial and concrete, within the 
 changing, and beneath the miscellaneous, lies the sphere 
 of the true, the real, the sempiternal, and the one. 
 
 Having ascertained what it is we are to study, with 
 its uses, and its place in the curriculum of a liberal 
 education, we must further ascertain the method to 
 be pursued in our inquiries. These questions, how- 
 ever, are to us merely preliminary, leading up to the 
 specific problems of ethical philosophy, the particular 
 sphere and province of which may be defined in either 
 of two ways. 
 
 In the first place, we may consider it in its relation 
 to, and in its distinction from, the other branches 
 which grow out of the common root of human know- 
 ledge, such as science, theology, politics, and esthetics. 
 Its sphere and its boundaries cannot be accurately 
 known, till they are known in the light of those rela- 
 tions, which connect it inseparably with the provinces 
 which border it, on the right hand and on the left. 
 For example, it is organically related to psychology. 
 It is vitally connected with theology. It is indis- 
 solubly allied to sociology. It has a close relation to 
 physiology. And yet, on the other hand, ethics has 
 repeatedly suffered from undue encroachment by each 
 of these correlated departments of knowledge. Now, 
 it has been regarded as an appendix or subsection of
 
 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 9 
 
 psychology ; again, it has been sunk in metaphysics, 
 the distinction between the psychology and the meta- 
 physic of ethic being ignored. Again, it has been re- 
 garded as a simple corollary to our knowledge of the 
 phenomena of organisation : that is to say, it has been 
 sunk in physiology. It has also been described as a 
 province once independent, but now conquered and 
 annexed by the Christian religion. These are illegiti- 
 mate curtailments or suppressions. And the penalty 
 of trespass, by any recognised body of knowledge upon 
 the domain of another, is always a weakening of the 
 enlarged province, which is made too wide by its 
 attempted annexation of another. As, in the political 
 history of a people, the conquest of alien states and 
 the annexation of distant territory are the invariable 
 prelude to national disaster, and the breaking up of 
 the kingdom that has overgrown, or of the common- 
 wealth that has become too vast ; so, in the realm of 
 knowledge, a ' lengthening of cords ' is not usually 
 accompanied by a corresponding ' strengthening of 
 stakes.' The chief encroachment at present comes 
 from the side of physical science, or physiology. In 
 the last generation it frequently came from the side of 
 religion : that is to say, many English writers sup- 
 posed that the function of what they called ' natural 
 ethics,' as distinguished from ' revealed morality,' was 
 gone. To the question, whether the rules of conduct, 
 discoverable by reason and intuition, or gathered by 
 experience, were valid guides to action, it was replied 
 that they were not ; because Christianity had taken 
 the place of natural morality, and superseded it. This 
 distinction, however, is invalid. What is ' natural ' 
 cannot be superseded, cannot even be placed in a 
 category opposite to what is 'revealed.' The real
 
 10 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 distinction a.nd contrast is between what is natural, 
 and what is conventional or artificial. The fact that 
 anything has been ' revealed ' merely implies that it 
 was previously unknown, or lay in shadow. The dis- 
 closure of every truth, however it may happen to have 
 come to light, is, strictly speaking, a revelation ; and 
 its simple occurrence has all the force of a revelation, 
 whether it belongs to the sphere of morals or religion. 
 We shall see, in the future, how the one province is 
 indebted to the other ; and how, by the spirituality of 
 its ideal, Christianity has given the human race a 
 moral leverage in the pursuit of virtue unknown to 
 the ancient schools. But it is equally necessary to 
 vindicate the integrity and independence of ethics, as 
 it is to point out how far, and in what direction, it is 
 beholden to religion. 
 
 The second method by which the sphere of ethics 
 may be defined is by a condensed summary of its 
 chief problems, which may be presented in the form 
 of answers to the following questions : — (1.) What 
 are the facts of the moral nature ? how are we con- 
 stituted, and endowed, as moral agents ? (2.) How 
 has that nature come to be what it is ? out of what 
 prior conditions or elements has it emerged ? What 
 are the causes or forces, individual and social, tem- 
 peramental and racial, that have determined the moral 
 development of humanity, and in unison have fashioned 
 the destiny of each separate agent ? The ' natural 
 history ' of morals will be treated under this head, the 
 growth of ethical ideas out of their dim rudimentary 
 types, and the many curious phases that have charac- 
 terised the gradual evolution of the moral conscious- 
 ness. (3.) The third problem is that of duty. What 
 ought we morally to be ? The contrast between the
 
 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 1 1 
 
 actual and the ideal, between human aspiration and 
 attainment, the authority of conscience, and the nature 
 of free will, fall to be considered under this head. 
 (4.) As a natural, but sometimes forgotten corollary, 
 a fourth problem arises : How can human nature 
 attain to its ideal, and be brought into practical 
 accordance with law and order ? By what power or 
 process can moral harmony be reached, the discord of 
 the powers be abolished, and the ethical ideal be made 
 real, in experience ? In other words, how can man 
 reach his destiny ? Under this fourth head of inquiry 
 the relation between ethics and religion comes again 
 to be considered. 
 
 Having answered these four questions in detail, the 
 great systems of moral philosophy, ancient and modern, 
 must be historically and critically discussed, and the 
 stream of ethical opinion traced from the Greek schools 
 downwards, with the view more especially of exhibit- 
 ing the genealogy of doctrine, and the ' increasing 
 purpose ' of the various systems. At the close of this 
 investigation we shall return to the phenomena of the 
 moral consciousness, and ask, what are the inferences 
 deducible from it, or its implicates, as to the. Divine 
 nature, and the destiny of the human soul 1 Thus, 
 our ethical inquiries naturally lead up to theology and 
 religion. 
 
 From this brief preliminary outline, you will see 
 that it is the phenomena of human character which, 
 in the first instance, supply the ethical student with 
 his field of observation. The area of that field is a 
 wide one. It includes all the desires, emotions, and 
 affections, the will and the conscience, with the prac- 
 tical activities or habits, which are the outcome of 
 character. It embraces all that exists and is evolved
 
 1 2 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 within the plastic region of human conduct, which is 
 so various and manifold, at times heterogeneous and 
 occult. We begin with an investigation of the facts 
 of consciousness. We proceed thence to an historical 
 inquiry as to the process of development by which 
 these facts have come to be what they now are. This 
 leads to the further question of the meaning of duty 
 (a speculative problem), and to the conduct of life (a 
 practical discipline). In its most comprehensive aspect, 
 Moral Philosophy has two sides. From its connection 
 with human knowledge, and from the necessity of our 
 having an intellectual root or ground of action, it is a 
 speculative study. From its connection with human 
 action, and the necessity of our realising in life and 
 conduct the principles of which it seeks the explana- 
 tion, it is a practical discipline. As a body of know- 
 ledge it stretches between theory and practice, and is 
 the arch which spans the chasm connecting specula- 
 tion and action. On one side, it is the theory of our 
 practice ; on the other, it is the practice of the theory 
 we adopt. Speculatively considered, it is a systema- 
 tised body of knowledge dealing with human character 
 and conduct. Its aim is to explain the nature and to 
 determine the rationale of duty. It considers man, 
 however, not merely as a knower and contemplator, 
 but also as an actor ; as a pi'actical being whose con- 
 duct is susceptible of direct regulation and indirect 
 control. Ascertaining the laws which govern charac- 
 ter, it essays an explanation of habit. Endeavouring to 
 unfold the relation between conduct and welfare, it 
 distinguishes while it connects duty and happiness. 
 So far as it confines itself within the region of facts, it 
 is simply a branch of psychology. It is ethical psycho- 
 logy, or the psychology of the ethical, as distinguished
 
 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 13 
 
 from the intellectual or cognitive consciousness. When, 
 however, we ask the meaning of duty, or seek the 
 rationale of conduct, we transcend the phenomenal 
 sphere. Our inquiry becomes a speculative one. It 
 rises into the metaphysic of ethics, it concerns the 
 ontology of duty. 
 
 To put it otherwise, we stand in certain definite 
 relations to our fellow-men, as members of the same 
 social organism, and definite duties follow or flow 
 from these relations. So long as we investigate these, 
 dealing with them merely as existing facts, to discover 
 if possible the laws which underlie the phenomena 
 (facts of which the phenomena are the expression, and 
 the laws the explanation), wc are simply studying 
 what happens, and the manner of its happening. But 
 the moment we raise the further question of the 
 meaning of duty, and — perceiving that there is a 
 frequent contrariety between what we are and what 
 we ought to be — ask why we ought to be other than 
 we are or have been, then we have left the region of 
 moral psychology and entered that of the metaphysic 
 of ethic. We experience a strife between desire and 
 duty, between appetite and reason ; and, in asking its 
 explanation, the philosophy of morals emerges. In 
 our early years of objectivity and unreflectiveness no 
 such inquiry is ever raised by us ; nor is it then 
 needed. What is, what happens, the actual and the 
 existing, satisfies us ; or, if it does not, we seek satis- 
 faction simply by a change of our circumstances and 
 surroundings. But, gradually, there comes to all of 
 us a sense of imperfection and inadequacy. We are 
 haunted by a feeling of the unattained, while we have 
 occasional glimpses of an ideal above us, yet within 
 our reach. When this arises, it acts like a whetstone
 
 J 4 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 to our inquiries into the meaning or rationale of duty. 
 The mere register of moral phenomena no longer 
 satisfies us. The record of particular subjective states, 
 simple or complex, of desires as phenomenal causes, or 
 emotions as phenomenal effects, cannot satisfy the 
 speculative craving that has been awakened. Detail 
 of that kind is now regarded merely as a collection of 
 preliminary data which may serve as the raw material 
 for a philosophy of morals. 
 
 I thus distinguish between ethical science and 
 ethical philosophy. Philosophy is not a department 
 of science, nor is science a branch of philosophy. 
 Their provinces are distinct, though closely related at 
 their frontier margins. Ethical science deals with the 
 phenomena of our moral nature in all their length 
 and breadth ; ethical philosophy deals with the inner 
 essence of these facts, both in its height and in its 
 depth, as well as with the link which connects them 
 indissolubly together. Science treats of the co- 
 existences and succession of phenomena, and of the 
 laws which may be generalised from them. It does 
 not attempt to reach the substrate underlying the 
 phenomena, or the nexus by which they are united. 
 Philosophy pursues both the substrate and the nexus. 
 In so doing, it seeks the ultimate meaning of the 
 whole, as a unity ; and it will not relinquish its 
 search, though science may affirm that its quest is as 
 vain as the pursuit of the sangreal. Starting from 
 the facts of experience, it seeks a theory of these 
 facts ; and it deduces inferences which the phenomena 
 do not yield by way of generalisation, but by way of 
 necessary implication, as causes requisite to account 
 for effects otherwise unexplainable. 
 
 Thus, to sum up, we may distinguish between the
 
 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 15 
 
 science of morals and the philosophy of duty, as we 
 distinguish the psychology of cognition from the philo- 
 sophy of knowledge, or the science of taste from the 
 philosophy of the beautiful. In each case, psychology 
 precedes, and metaphysic succeeds. The usual dis- 
 tinction between metaphysic and ethic is the source 
 of an illusion. If there is a 'metaphysic of ethic/ 
 the two spheres are not independent of each other, 
 but the one is the root of the other ; that is to say, 
 the metaphysical inquiry is an inquiry into the root 
 or ground of the ethical phenomena ; just as, in 
 another province, the metaphysical inquiry concerns 
 the root of intellectual phenomena, and as in a third 
 region it deals with the ground of all esthetic pheno- 
 mena. They are related as the porch or vestibule is 
 related to the shrine. I would thus classify, as three 
 separate provinces, the Science of knowledge, of duty, 
 and of taste ; setting over against these respectively 
 the three kindred, and co-related though independent, 
 departments of the Philosophy of knowledge, of duty, 
 and of taste. This is, however, to anticipate what it 
 will be the aim of subsequent discussion to make 
 apparent. 
 
 It may be rash to express an opinion as to the 
 precise point which ethical philosophy has reached in 
 the ever-advancing stream of British speculation, or in 
 the wider field of European thought. This, with a 
 statement of desiderata, or problems that await solu- 
 tion, may fittingly be postponed ; and I may more 
 profitably occupy the remainder of this hour, with a 
 few remarks on the bearing of the doctrine of Evolu- 
 tion on the origin of the moral faculty — a question of 
 frequent debate in the ethical schools, one not un- 
 known to antiquity, nor unsuccessfully handled before
 
 10 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 the rise of modern scientific method, but which has 
 come more prominently to the front in recent 
 literature. 
 
 Before, however, we can estimate the bearing of 
 the doctrine of evolution on ethics, we must have a 
 precise idea of the doctrine itself. It has been 
 alleged that if the general principle of development is 
 established, its application to the sphere of morality is 
 only a matter of detail, and the derivation of all that 
 now constitutes the moral life and consciousness of the 
 race, out of elements originally non-moral, is no longer 
 an hypothesis, but a fact scientifically known. In 
 order to estimate the value of this assertion, we must 
 first see to what the doctrine amounts, and what is 
 the evidence in its favour. 
 
 Experience, individual and collective, shows that 
 every organism and every character alters by minute 
 and imperceptible changes, that each is incessantly 
 varying, that its very life is a series of changes ; 
 further, that a living organism, if it gives rise to 
 others, transmits an alteration of structure, and origi- 
 nates a change of type. So much is within the easily 
 verifiable range of experience, and even of common- 
 place observation. The theory of development further 
 suggests that we may account for all the differences 
 which now exist in the scale of Nature, for all the 
 varieties of organic phenomena, by a slow succession 
 of similar changes, indefinitely prolonged, in varying 
 circumstances, each one imperceptibly minute. Thus 
 the doctrine fully carried out abolishes the distinction 
 between genera and species, as well as between species 
 and individuals, all of these being only conventional 
 distinctions. They are names which conveniently
 
 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 17 
 
 mark off organisms one from another when the pro- 
 cess of evolution has gone so far, and been in operation 
 so long, that the vast and divergent scale requires to 
 be signalised in detail, and described at various points. 
 But the whole having been rigidly developed, and 
 continuing still to develope, the notion of independent 
 types disappears. All is process ; the products are 
 simply processes prolonged. And what is reached is 
 essentially and necessarily evanescent. Nothing can 
 exist for all time. Each thing only exists for its own 
 time, and perishes to make way for its perishable 
 successor. 
 
 Now, if we cannot suppose that any organisms 
 spring up de novo, without natural ancestry, or that 
 any arrive on our earth as foreigners from another 
 planet, whence can they severally spring ? If we 
 exclude spontaneous generation and foreign arrival, 
 we have but two possible theories : either all have 
 existed in some form or other always, and are only 
 undergoing a series of transformations in time, or each 
 has been developed out of a different and lower stage 
 in the incessant competition and struggle for existence. 
 The present indefinite complexity of organic forms may 
 be explained either by the eternal existence of an 
 indefinite number of fixed ideal types, which are reveal- 
 ing themselves in all the varieties of concrete existence, 
 or by the incessant evolution of one Protean principle, 
 which assumes endlessly varied phenomenal forms. 
 
 We may safely assume that the physical miracle of 
 the creation of new types, whether in the form of the 
 spontaneous generation of minute organisms, or the 
 sudden appearance of creatures more highly organised, 
 is not now taking place, spasmodically. If we had 
 
 B
 
 18 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 reason to believe that this had ever happened, we 
 should have equal reason to conclude that it was per- 
 petually proceeding, that the miracle never ceased ; 
 which would, in turn, abolish its miraculous or excep- 
 tional character. If, however, it is rash to affirm that 
 nothing originates, or can originate, — in the form of 
 organised material structure — per saltum, it is not 
 rash, but only the dictate of a cautious philosophy, to 
 affirm that, as we have no experience of origination 
 per saltum, we are not at liberty to assume that it 
 has ever taken place ; unless we discover phenomena 
 that can be explained in no other way, phenomena 
 which remain irreducible and inexplicable as the 
 result of the slow modification of ages. So far, then, 
 the antecedent presumption, grounded on human ex- 
 perience, is in favour of some kind of evolution. 
 Evolution is the rule within human experience. Ori- 
 gination per saltum is not even an exception to the 
 rule : it is a hypothesis called in to explain the absence 
 of connecting links between the species that exist, the 
 differentiation of organic types, and the remoteness 
 from one another of the individuals which illustrate 
 these types. 
 
 Our choice, therefore, does not lie between a doctrine 
 of continuous evolution from a common fountain-head, 
 and a doctrine of successive originations, at intervals 
 of creative activity, repeated throughout the ages in 
 linear series, — the protoj)lastic power starting into 
 action after a long period of slumber, and again retir- 
 ing to rest. The latter notion must be laid aside, as 
 inconsistent with any elevated, not to say reverential, 
 idea of the creative power that works in nature. Our 
 choice really lies between a doctrine of continuous
 
 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 19 
 
 activity and unceasing development (all things eman- 
 ating from a single Source, and being the outcome of 
 a solitary principle, which endlessly manifests itself in 
 an indefinite variety of forms) ; and a doctrine of fixed 
 types, or eternal essences like the ' archetypal ideas ' 
 of Plato, which have always existed, and are indestruc- 
 tible, which emerge and re-emerge, are born, die, and 
 reappear, in the incessant change and palingenesia of 
 the universe. 
 
 I do not think that the theory of evolution in or- 
 ganic nature has been proved ; but it has been ren- 
 dered the almost inevitable conclusion of the scientific 
 intellect, dealing inductively with the facts of biology 
 (especially of embryology) and palseontology. I do 
 not speak of any particular theory of ' natural selection' 
 or ' heredity,' but of the general doctrine of evolution 
 as opposed to cataclysmic bursts of energy. The pro- 
 toplasm of the nettle, of the mollusc, of the lizard, and 
 of man is chemically the same. The rise in complex- 
 ity of structure, from the lowest organisms to man, is 
 not greater or more striking than the series of changes 
 through which each individual normally passes, from 
 the embryonic to the adult stage. In addition, the 
 intermediate stages between the lowest form of vitality 
 and the highest are successively reached by all the 
 maturer organisms, so that we may see the ascending 
 scale of animated nature mirrored and summarised in 
 the evolution of every embryo. Further, the marvel 
 to human intelligence, in the development of a feathered 
 fowl out of the albumen of an egg, is not intrinsically 
 greater than the evolution of all the flora and fauna of 
 the universe would be, supposing it to proceed from a 
 common protoplasmic germ. We know that the one
 
 20 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 takes place incessantly ; and its mystery is forgotten, in 
 its constancy and commonness. The other is unknown 
 to experience ; but there is no obstacle to it, in the 
 nature of things. It contains no greater mystery than 
 the former, and its future demonstration would not 
 excite surprise. Even within the range of experience 
 we may witness development in progress. Alike in 
 the animal and vegetable kingdoms, amongst the fora- 
 minifera and the diatoms, change and transformation, 
 ivithin a limited field, may be observed. The 
 development of higher organisms is only an inductive 
 inference, drawn by analogy, from the phenomena that 
 fall under our observation, and can be experimentally 
 investigated. Even the line between the animal and 
 the vegetable cannot now be drawn with the rigor by 
 which the naturalists of the last generation used to 
 separate the kingdoms of nature ; and there is reason 
 to believe that the investigations of modern biology 
 will result in a more emphatic demonstration of the 
 actual emergence of fresh types of organisation out of 
 rudimentary ones. 
 
 It is to be noted, however, that the discovery of a 
 palfeontological form intermediate between man and 
 the ape would not settle the question that man was 
 physically the descendant of such an intermediate ; nor 
 would it greatly aid the controversy, except as afford- 
 ing a new link in the chain of organised existence. 
 Demonstration of the theory will not be accomplished 
 even by a discovery of all the missing links, but by a 
 scientific use of the links which we possess, and by 
 warrantable inferences from them. 
 
 But does the vital ever proceed from the non- 
 vital ? Is the boundary between the animate and the
 
 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 21 
 
 inanimate, as precarious as that which has separated 
 the animal from the vegetable ? This ulterior ques- 
 tion, of graver import, would arise, when the derivation 
 of all the varieties of vital existence from one another 
 was a demonstrated conclusion of science. The evo- 
 lution of nature may be a fact — a daily and hourly 
 apocalypse. But we have no evidence of the non- vital 
 passing into the vital. Spontaneous generation is, as 
 yet, an imaginative guess, unverified by scientific tests. 
 And matter is not itself alive. Vitality, whether seen 
 in a single cell of protoplasm or in the human brain, 
 is a thing sui generis, distinct from matter, and in- 
 capable of being generated out of matter. 
 
 The theory, however, that all the higher organised life 
 of the universe has arisen by evolution out of lower forms 
 — although the material never gives rise to the mental, 
 or the non-vital to the vital — seems much more ten- 
 able than the counter theory to which I have referred, 
 viz., that there is within the universe a fixed but inde- 
 finitely vast number of distinct types, corresponding to 
 the eternal ideas of Plato, each of which is imprisoned 
 within its own domain, and is kept up by inheritance 
 and succession only within its limited area. 
 
 It must be observed that those who explain the 
 rise of every new organised product by evolving law, 
 demand for the accomplishment of the process a length 
 of time almost inconceivably vast. It is contended 
 by their opponents, that the present universe carries 
 within it the signs of a comparatively recent origin ; 
 and that it is travelling at no distant date (though it 
 may be measured by millions of years) to extinction ; 
 so that its beginning and its end are alike evidenced 
 by, and involved in, its present state. This conten-
 
 22 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 tion may be supported by evidence inaccessible to 
 one who is not a specialist in physical science. Cer- 
 tainly, if the ordinary mind and the speculative 
 inquirer are to receive it, it must be received on 
 trust. No generally appreciable evidence has been 
 advanced to prove such a limited duration to the 
 existing matter of the universe, or of the globe we 
 inhabit, as to render the evolution of all its organised 
 products impossible within the period. 
 
 Let us suppose, however, that the fact of evolution 
 has been proved, and that every missing link in the 
 chain of derivation is supplied, the question would 
 remain, from what is the whole series evolved ? If 
 the higher is evolved from the lower, as a fowl is 
 from the egg, and the man from the child, from what 
 is the lower derived ? What started the whole pro- 
 cess of derivation ? If no hiatus is permissible 
 between any link in the chain of organisation, whence 
 did the first in the series proceed ? Suppose that, 
 in our regress towards the beginnings of life, we have 
 reached the lowermost step of the descending scale, 
 are we at liberty to suppose a hiatus in the orderly 
 development, millions of ages ago, when the first 
 germs of vitality started into being ? Did the vital 
 proceed by a still remoter development from the 
 non-vital ? or, was it created by a fiat of volition 1 
 or, has it always existed in some form or other as 
 an eternal constituent of the universe ? I do not 
 see how we can escape the last alternative. The 
 first is the evolution theory in its completest form, 
 which assigns a material origin to all spiritual pheno- 
 mena. The second is equally arbitrary if thrust into 
 the series of evolving phenomena far back in the
 
 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 23 
 
 process, at an imaginary creative epoch in the morning 
 of time, as it is when capriciously introduced between 
 the links of the causal nexus now. The supposition that 
 it is more likely to have taken place in a distant age 
 than at present, is like relegating the age of miracle 
 to an imaginary mythic time, when earth was 
 nearer heaven than now, and so degrading the idea. 
 We are victims of metaphoric illusion in supposing 
 instantaneous creation to be one whit easier ' in the 
 bednnins: ' than now. If time has had no ' morn- 
 ing ' and will have no ' evening,' creation is as real at 
 the present moment as ever it was. The notion that 
 theism is inconsistent with a belief in the eternity of 
 matter, has proceeded from the fear that, with matter 
 eternally provided, Deity would have less to do ; or 
 that, the instantaneous summoning of the raw material 
 of the universe, out of nonexistence, was necessary to 
 prove his omnipotence. But with eternal matter and 
 eternal life, the superintendence of the universe, and 
 the building up of the organised forms which have 
 successively appeared, would require the pervading 
 presence and superintendence of an Opifcx mundi, 
 no less than if the matter itself had been created by 
 him. If matter is not eternal, its first emergence 
 into being is a miracle beside which all others 
 dwindle into absolute insignificance. But, as has often 
 been pointed out, the process is unthinkable ; the 
 sudden apocalypse of a material world out of 
 blank nonentity cannot be imagined ; its emergence 
 into order out of chaos when ' without form, and 
 void ' of life, is merely a poetic rendering of the 
 doctrine of its slow evolution. 
 
 Theism has nothing to fear, but much to gain,
 
 24 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 from a scientific doctrine of evolution. Behind the 
 proof of the gradual development of life lies the ques- 
 tion of its origin and its Evolver ; and so long as 
 evolution cannot give a material answer to the ques- 
 tion, ivhence came the force that gave to matter its 
 first impulse towards the development of organic life, 
 it is powerless to suggest, far less to establish, any 
 atheistic doctrine. On the other hand, the evolution 
 of organic life is the grandest conceivable illustration 
 of the working of divine agency not detached from, 
 but inseparably upbound with, the life of the 
 universe. Those who explain the present cosmical 
 order, and all the varieties of existing organisation by 
 development, virtually see in it the disclosure or 
 ' revelation ' of several divine attributes, while they 
 
 affirm that their 
 
 faith is large in Time 
 And that which shapes it to a perfect end. 
 
 Thus, the truth of the principle of evolution — not as 
 explanatory of the origin, but of the procession and 
 development of material forms — may be conceded, 
 without peril to any verifiable truth of theology. 
 
 But is it equally relevant as an explanation of 
 the phenomena of human character, and the mysteries 
 of our moral being ? Can we account for all the 
 ethical doctrine and practice of the race, as the 
 progressive development of tendencies originally 
 very different, but which have undergone similar 
 modification and change during thousands of genera- 
 tions, and millions upon millions of experiments ? 
 or do we meet with any phenomena within the 
 moral sphere, which are inexplicable by such an 
 extension of the theory — phenomena which are better
 
 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 25 
 
 explained by a different hypothesis, and which are 
 irreducible under the all-embracing unity of the 
 former ? This is now our inquiry. 
 
 In the first place, the fact that the intellectual and 
 moral consciousness of the race has grown or been 
 developed from lower and even dissimilar states 
 must be as frankly conceded, as the rise and develop- 
 ment of material organisation is conceded. The facts 
 which prove and illustrate this process of growth form 
 a most interesting chapter in the history of human 
 civilisation. They are indeed a summary of the 
 story of civilisation itself. But our inquiry lies 
 behind such an induction of instances, however com- 
 plete and satisfactory it might be made. 
 
 The question remains, in the second place, what is 
 the nature of this iirocess of gradual evolution ? 
 Suppose that the present verdicts of the moral con- 
 sciousness have been evolved out of lower elements, 
 may not the process be more accurately described as 
 one of emergence than of creation by development ? 
 May not the ' increasing purpose ' of human history 
 be an increasingly accurate interpretation or reading 
 of the reality of tilings ? In a process of simple 
 evolution all the stages are of equal value and signi- 
 ficance. The very terms ' high' and ' low,' ' ad- 
 vanced ' and ' immature,' have no significance except 
 one that is relative to the insight of the individual who 
 uses them. A standard of intrinsic worth there is none. 
 Hence it is that an experiential theory of the origin of 
 knowledge and of morals fits into a doctrine of evolution ; 
 and conversely, the psychological facts that suggest a 
 non-experiential theory of knowledge and morality 
 are amongst the most formidable difficulties in the
 
 26 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 way of the doctrine of evolution. It is true that a 
 perception of the a priori or non- experiential origin 
 of the mathematical laws, dawning gradually on the 
 mind of the child, arises out of a lower state of con- 
 fused subjective groping. But the lower state does 
 not generate the higher. With the unconscious 
 awakening' of intelligence there is a more accurate 
 interpretation of the facts of existence, and a pro- 
 gressive approach is made to a knowledge of the 
 essence and reality of things. But it is altogether 
 unwarrantable to infer that if we go back to the 
 beginning, we may assume that all which now is 
 human lay potentially, if not in embryo, within the 
 primitive ascidian, that there was a time when intelli- 
 gence and morality were not, that these are even 
 ' things of yesterday ' within the slow evolving 
 universe. That the lower contained the higher 
 within it is a gratuitous assumption. It would be 
 more consistent to say that the higher did not exist 
 at all, until it came upon the stage of being (which 
 would, however, involve the assumption of an incess- 
 antly fresh creation — the very assumption from which 
 evolution seeks to free us) ; but it is surely much 
 more philosophical to suppose that when a new 
 organism appears, its differentia is not due to any- 
 thing that was latent within its progenitor, but to a 
 fresh development of the prolific life of the universe, 
 issuing orderly and incessantly from the fountain- 
 head of existence, and taking shape moment by 
 moment in fresh forms of organisation. 
 
 But there is a further obstacle in the way of our 
 admitting the unrestricted sway of evolution within 
 the sphere of intellectual life and moral agency. Not
 
 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 27 
 
 only is it difficult to see how the knowledge of a priori 
 truths can be educed out of mere sensation ; it is 
 more difficult to see how moral freedom can be thus 
 developed. I do not now enter on the great controversy 
 as to the nature of free-will. Such a question of the 
 ages is not to be dismissed in a paragraph. But, it 
 we have evidence to warrant a belief in moral autonomy, 
 in such a freedom as constitutes the individual a 
 morally creative cause — while the causal nexus is 
 maintained in its integrity, — it is clear that this 
 freedom cannot be itself 'the creature of circumstances.' 
 Evolution and necessitarianism go hand in hand. 
 They are different ways of expressing the same thing. 
 If man is wholly evolved, he is at best a cunningly 
 devised machine, an automaton. He is what he is, 
 exclusively because of what other things have been, 
 and because of what they have made him to be. I do 
 not attempt to indicate the nature of the evidence we 
 have for a transcendental freedom. But it is clear that 
 if evolution contains the whole truth on this subject, if 
 there is no complementary or balancing truth on the 
 other side, moral freedom must be renounced. On the 
 other hand, if moral freedom be a fact, it is a singularly 
 stubborn one, which will neither bend nor fit into a 
 sectarian theory of evolution. 
 
 If necessity and automatism are true, if the evolving 
 stream of tendency is competent of itself to perform 
 the feat of educing all the moral life of the universe 
 out of elements originally non-moral, the evidence 
 should be easily accessible to the unbiassed student of 
 the problem. Why should we distrust our moral 
 intuitions, and accept the materialist solution of our 
 genealogy, unless the evidence be clear, cogent, and
 
 2S ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 rigidly exhaustive ? There is surely an a priori pre- 
 sumption against the latter doctrine, in the explicit 
 testimony of consciousness to the power of moral 
 origination. Why am I to believe that a material 
 condition of the molecules of the brain is the cause of 
 a state of consciousness, and not to believe that a 
 state of consciousness is ever an originating cause of 
 change in the molecules of the brain? There is action 
 and reaction between the material and the mental. 
 But it is not an equally necessitated action and 
 reaction. It is not reciprocal, in the sense that both 
 are solely determined by their antecedents. The 
 speciality of the action of the human will and con- 
 sciousness lies in its spontaneity, its freedom. 
 
 At the risk of a slight recapitulation, I may again 
 remark that the growth of ethical sentiment and 
 dogma out of prehistoric elements, during the innumer- 
 able eras of past existence, must be conceded to be as 
 unquestionable as is the progress of each individual 
 from the blank consciousness of childhood to the adult 
 state. And the authority of the developed product is 
 not invalidated by its history being traced, and the 
 entire series of the steps of its development disclosed. 
 That character should grow, as well as the physical 
 organism to which it is related, is merely a corollary of 
 its existence. That it should come to be what it is by 
 a process of development, is not only no disparagement 
 to it, but is absolutely essential to its existing at all : 
 because nothing can possibly remain for a single 
 instant without alteration : rruvra pe7", ovd'-:v [asvu. 
 
 For the same reason it is self-evident that if what 
 is now adult in the race was once rudimentary the 
 language of its maturity must be totally unlike the
 
 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 29 
 
 lispings of its infancy. But the discovery of the 
 fact of growth, and even of the precise law or process 
 of development, does not explain the progress, because 
 it casts no light on the nature of the Cause that has 
 determined the advance, or the propelling force that 
 has regulated the evolution. The question remains, 
 whence, or out of what prior elements, have the moral 
 faculty and the moral feelings been developed ? Some 
 of those who find in development an adequate explana- 
 tion of the problems of philosophy seem to imagine 
 that by simply affirming the growth of ethical senti- 
 ment and idea, they have solved the puzzle of their 
 origin. But let the fact of development be granted, 
 not as an argumentative concession, but as an elemen- 
 tary and almost self-evident postulate, the question 
 still remains, did the immature give rise to the more 
 mature, or merely go before it ? Did the inferior 
 originate the superior, or simply precede it in time ? 
 That the higher succeeded the lower is evident; but it 
 does not follow that it sprang from it, so that all the 
 actual and potential elements of its life may be said to 
 have been latent or contained within the lower. The 
 phenomena of simple succession do not explain a single 
 occurrence in nature ; and the fact that in these pheno- 
 mena we discover a progress from inferior forms to 
 superior types does not explain the cause of the rise, or 
 assign a reason for the advance. That the cause is 
 contained within the phenomena themselves, and is 
 not due to an interior force, distinct from the pheno- 
 mena though inseparable from them, and pervading the 
 entire series, is a dogmatic appendix which the experi- 
 ence-philosophy superadds to the facts which it experi- 
 entially investigates.
 
 SO ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Merely to affirm that the moral faculty has grown 
 unconsciously in the race, as it grows in the conscious 
 experience of each man, is not to make a great dis- 
 covery in morals, but to state a commonplace which 
 every ethical school admits ; although the intuitional 
 moralists may not have always perceived its extent so 
 clearly, or admitted its significance so fully, as their 
 rivals have done. But to affirm that, because it is de- 
 veloped, it is also derived from the elements that foster 
 that development, is the illicit inference which the 
 derivative moralists either add to, or confound with, 
 the admitted fact. Because the consciousness of the 
 child is a seeming blank, his mind — to use the old 
 illustration — like a sheet of white paper on which im- 
 pressions are gradually imprinted from without, was 
 the ground on which the experiential philosophers of 
 the past denied that there were any latent elements 
 within it or behind, which experience did not create, 
 but only evolved or brought to light. Within the 
 present generation the controversy has merely widened 
 out from the individual to the race. The genesis of 
 all the human faculties is now sought through a wider 
 investigation of prehistoric conditions, and the sub- 
 sequent struggle and progress of the race. But it is 
 only the area from which the inference is deduced 
 that has widened or been changed ; the process 
 of deduction remains essentially the same. If there 
 was anything to warrant the old contention that 
 what is at length developed in the individual is 
 not the simple product of experience — the mind of the 
 infant being liker a palimpsest than an unwritten 
 parchment — precisely the same contention is valid 
 now in reference to the larger and slower evolution of the
 
 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 31 
 
 historical consciousness of the race. The controversy 
 of to-day is really the old controversy between Socrates 
 and Protagoras, between the Aristotelian and the 
 Platonist, between Locke and Leibnitz, between Hume 
 and Kant, ' writ larger,' through the amazing develop- 
 ment of physical science, biological research, and the 
 pre-historic archaeology of the present day. That the 
 ingenious speculations of the teachers of evolution 
 have filled up for us the possible outlines of a most 
 interesting chapter in pre-historic archaeology is un- 
 doubted. The psychological facts which Mr Darwin 
 and others have signalised are important factors in the 
 ethical development of the race : but they have not 
 solved the ethical problem, and no amount of success- 
 ful labour, along the lines in which they are working, 
 will solve it. 
 
 I admit that were it proved that the moral faculty 
 was derived as well as developed, its present decisions 
 would not necessarily be invalidated. The child of 
 experience has a father whose teachings are grave, 
 peremptory, and august ; and an earth-born rule may 
 be as stringent as any derived from a celestial source. 
 It does not even follow that a belief in the material 
 origin of spiritual existence, accompanied by a corre- 
 sponding decay of belief in immortality, must neces- 
 sarily lead to a relaxation of the moral fibre of the 
 race. It is certain that it has often done so. But it 
 is equally certain that there have been individuals, 
 and great historical communities, in which the absence 
 of the latter belief has neither weakened moral 
 earnestness, nor prevented devotional fervour. It is 
 clear, therefore, that we should no more discredit 
 what has come to be what it is, by a process of
 
 32 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 development, than we should distrust the present 
 verdicts of the moral faculty, because future experi- 
 ence may on many points enlarge or widen them. It 
 may even be said that the derivation of a faculty out 
 of elements originally unlike itself, bringing with it 
 the authority of accumulated experience, indicates the 
 working of a great cosmic law which gathers force from 
 the width of the area it sweeps, and the time it has taken 
 to evolve its products ; that it comes to us now with the 
 prestige of a remote antiquity ; that it can appeal to 
 the precedent of a million generations, and since it 
 has alone survived in the struggle for existence, it is 
 fortified in its appeal by the failure of every rival that 
 has for a time competed with it, but been gradually 
 thrust aside. 
 
 This, however, being conceded, it is necessary to 
 observe with accuracy what we reach by such a process. 
 We can record progress, observing a continued advance 
 in the ethical conceptions of the race ; but we can 
 discover no fixed standard of action, no immutable 
 canon, and hence no absolute criterion of morality, 
 because the race is still changing and developing. 
 The alterations produced by the ' increasing purpose ' 
 of time, in the conceptions and feelings of the race, 
 are as certain and inevitable as the changes on the 
 earth's surface produced by physical agents. If we 
 have no principle other than evolution to guide us, 
 nothing underneath the linear series of changes which 
 we call development, and giving to these their charac- 
 ter and explanation, we are able to call one thing 
 ' good,' and another ' evil,' only because the forces that 
 sway society have happened to develope in one direc- 
 tion, and not in another. I do not say that they
 
 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 33 
 
 might have as easily tended in a direction different 
 from the one they have taken. The fact that only 
 one has been taken, after the myriad struggles of the 
 race, may be held as proof that, to a humanity such 
 as ours, one only was possible. But, on the theory 
 of evolution, the goal is not yet reached. There not 
 only may, but there must, be endless future develop- 
 ment and change. We have not attained to anything 
 higher than a conventional rule of expedient action. 
 An absolute standard or fixed criterion of action is 
 impossible. Since our humanity itself is in a perpe- 
 tual process of ' becoming,' its rule of action always 
 about to be, never absolutely is. It is essentially 
 relative, necessarily contingent, incessantly changing. 
 What is valid for the human race to-day may cease 
 to be valid to-morrow, and must cease to be valid 
 in the long run. It must become obsolete through 
 the slow procession of the ages, and the stealthily 
 superannuating hand of time. A rule which thus 
 disintegrates and dies away is not one which can 
 command the reverential suffrage of the race, even 
 while it lasts. Its permanence in any one form being 
 momentary, its deepest characteristic being its inces- 
 sant change, humanity can never really know what 
 that is, it is asked to reverence. 
 
 All ' becoming ' tends to ' being ' as its end, or it is 
 itself meaningless ; and we can only explain ' becom- 
 ing' by presupposing ' being.' If therefore that which 
 we have to explain, always about to be, never actually 
 is, if it is all process and no product, or if the product 
 is simply process prolonged for ever, there is no 
 intelligible meaning in the process itself ; its very 
 rationality disappears. In other words, some know- 
 
 c
 
 34 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 ledge of the end is necessary to give meaning to the 
 means. It is the goal that makes the race intelligible, 
 the port that explains the voyage. In any case, you 
 must have a starting point and an ending place ; two 
 termini to bound the course and differentiate it, else 
 the intermediate stages are really unintelligible. But 
 while you cannot get within sight of these termini by 
 the inductions of experience — whether by an attempted 
 regress to the fountain-head of history, or an imagin- 
 ary surmise of its destination — you find them revealed 
 and explained at eveiy stage of the intermediate 
 journey, in the consciousness of an absolute rule, 
 autocratic, universal, and ideal. I do not mean to say 
 that we can retrospectively discern the actual begin- 
 nings or first dawn of morality, or that we can pro- 
 spectively anticipate the future stages of development 
 to which it may attain. Even were such surmises or 
 forecasts possible, they would be of no use as data 
 towards the solution of the problem, inasmuch as they 
 would be either gathered historically from the field of 
 experience, or inductively inferred by the aid of ana- 
 logy. What we reach, however, transcends experi- 
 ence, without being independent of it ; nay, by the 
 very help and teaching of experience, it outsoars it. 
 
 The chief point to be noted in connection with a 
 derivative theory of morals is the helpless position in 
 which it all leaves us, in the exercise of moral appro- 
 bation and disapprobation. On the principle of evo- 
 lution, all the phases through which the ethical 
 sentiment has passed were of equal validity for the 
 particular stage which human nature had reached, in 
 its upward career ; and, though we may contrast, we 
 may not judge them by our standards or canons of
 
 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 35 
 
 to-day. The fierce passionate struggles of the infantile 
 stage, instead of being condemned, are to be reverenced, 
 as the necessary steps of an ' eternal process moving 
 on ' by which the adult sentiment has been reached ; 
 just as the unlimited strife amongst the lower organ- 
 isms in nature has resulted in an elevation of the 
 type, and the survival of the finest and fittest to live. 
 If, however, we are to possess any canon of morality, 
 any rule by which we may test the intrinsic worth of 
 actions, we must find it in the attestations of a prin- 
 ciple which, though evolved by experience, is not its 
 child. And so, the advocates of empiricism and evolu- 
 tion, Avho have recently entered the lists as champions 
 of their own position against the intuitional moralists, 
 consistently affirm that there is no absolute standard of 
 right and wrong : that the verdict of society, based on 
 the unconscious perceptions of utility transmitted 
 through a thousand generations, makes a thing either 
 right or wrong. Things are not to be done by us, 
 because they are intrinsically right ; they are right, 
 because we do them ; that is to say, because the race 
 (not the individual, who may be capricious) has 
 agreed, through the consenting experience of centuries, 
 to do them. Intuitional moralists, on the contrary, 
 maintain that certain things are to be done, and 
 others to be abstained from, in virtue of an intrinsic 
 rightness or wrongness attaching to the acts them- 
 selves ; and that the assent of the race to a common 
 rule (with manifold and inevitable exceptions, which 
 both prove and illustrate it) is due to its progressive 
 discernment of that intrinsic rightncss, or to the un- 
 conscious sway of the principle of right reason which 
 governs, while it ' worketh out of view.'
 
 36 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Intuitional moralists affirm that the authority of the 
 moral consciousness is weakened and degraded on every 
 theory of evolution, which is also a theory of deriva- 
 tion. If the progressive experience of the race, refined, 
 disciplined, and consolidated through many genera- 
 tions, has given rise to the moral faculty, the authority 
 of that which has been thus derived is essentially 
 affected by the disclosure of its genealogy. It is idle 
 to allege that the discovery of its origin in mere sen- 
 sation is not (as has been said) ' to degrade the pro- 
 geny, but to ennoble the ancestry ;' for if the honour 
 of having produced a thing so totally unlike itself is 
 conceded to sensation, the suspicion of so unethical an 
 origin will lessen the sanctity, while it suggests the 
 commonplaceness of virtue. It Avill also reduce and 
 chill the ardour with which virtue is pursued. It is 
 true that we may reverence that which we suppose to 
 have sprung from the dust of the ground, as much as 
 that which we imagine to have descended from the 
 skies ; but, dispensing with both these metaphoric 
 modes of thought, we cannot reverence anything so 
 devoid of interior character and coherence as a mere 
 process of becoming, or stream of tendency, an endless 
 genealogy without an original, a series of phenomena of 
 which the only certain thing is that A is the antece- 
 dent of B, B of C, and so on ad infinitum. More- 
 over, in tracing the origin of the moral faculty by the 
 single light of evolution we may not rest at mere sen- 
 sation ; we must go much farther back, and can pause 
 consistently nowhere ; just as, in our anticipations of 
 change in the future, we cannot rest at any conceivable 
 goal, but must believe that modifications of the pre- 
 sent moral consensus of humanity will go on, till a
 
 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 37 
 
 product totally unlike it is reached. Both in our re- 
 gress and in our progress, phenomena will be found 
 which bear no resemblance to the present, but which 
 nevertheless are, on the one hand, the elements out of 
 which the present has come, and on the other the pro- 
 duct in which the present must merge and disappear. 
 We must in consistency go as far back and as far for- 
 ward as we can, in this dissection and analysis of the 
 moral sense ; but when the torch of history fails us, 
 and the paler light of archaeology fades in the dimness 
 of prehistoric surmise, the experience-philosophy com- 
 pels us to step backwards into the darkness as trust- 
 fully as when we began our explanation of the facts of 
 consciousness by its aid. We cannot therefore stop at 
 primitive man or the primitive animal ; we must reach 
 the primitive protoplasm. The origin of the moral 
 faculty must be sought far beyond the dim twilight of 
 the nations, beyond the dimmer twilight of animal 
 sensations, in the blank midnight of the non-vital and 
 purely physical forces. And, conversely, we must sup- 
 pose it not only possible, but certain and necessary, 
 that in the long millenniums of the future, a product 
 totally different from the present moral sense will be 
 evolved out of it. We cannot draw a line and say 
 ' Lo ! here, the moral faculty is formed, is mature ; 
 whereas, there, across the line, it was unformed and 
 immature.' It is always forming, always maturing, 
 incessantly changing ; and it must yet undergo trans- 
 formations into products as unlike the present as these 
 are unlike the contractile sensations of the ascidians 
 in the primeval seas. All things, according to the 
 theory, are in perpetual motion ; and the toXs/xoj ndnp 
 -uvruv of Heraclitus is as fully applicable to the pater-
 
 38 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 nity of the moral faculty, as it is to the origin of the 
 physical cosmos. In short, the universe tells us of the 
 ' ebb and flow,' but not of the 
 
 ever-during power 
 And central peace, subsisting at the heart 
 Of endless agitation. 
 
 "&" 
 
 In opposition to this derivative theory of morals, our 
 appeal is still, as it used to be in olden controversy, to 
 the facts of consciousness, to the absolute revealed in 
 and disclosed to consciousness. It is well known that 
 different investigators of the same problem, all appeal- 
 ing to consciousness, announce as the result of that 
 appeal a different and sometimes a totally opposite 
 verdict, and thus reach conclusions diametrically op- 
 posed. Like the rival sects, with the same authorita- 
 tive standard, 
 
 This is the book where each his dogma seeks, 
 And this the book where each his dogma finds. 
 
 Nevertheless, we cannot dispense with the appeal ; for 
 consciousness is, and always must be, our final resort 
 in every controversy. As we have no infallible arbiter 
 — and if we had one, his decisions would require the 
 interpretation of our consciousness — all debate must 
 end in, and all inquiry ultimately repose upon, the 
 testimony of the disciplined reason, and enlightened 
 human consciousness. This — an interior light, direct- 
 ing without dictating — and not the inductions of sense- 
 perception derived from objective phenomena, is our 
 only valid guide, and the final arbiter of disputed 
 problems. 
 
 We perceive 
 Within ourselves a measure and a rule,
 
 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 39 
 
 Which to the sun of truth we can apply, 
 That shines for us, and shines for all mankind. 
 
 In the light of this appeal, our contention is, that if 
 we have evidence sufficient to warrant the conclusion 
 that the phenomena of the moral consciousness are not 
 explicable by evolution in the lifetime of the indi- 
 vidual, evolution is incompetent to explain them, sup- 
 pose you extend it to a million generations. If we 
 cannot explain the origin of moral judgment in any 
 single life by the principle of association alone, how 
 should association be competent to explain its genesis 
 for the race at large ? If duty does not arise out of 
 utility by the ascending steps of fine gradation in a 
 lifetime, why should a mere lengthening of the period 
 enable it to do so ? In the very limited field open to 
 experimental research, we have no instance of the one 
 passing into the other, or giving rise to the other: and 
 we cannot concede that mere length of time will make 
 amends for what the threescore years and ten of indi- 
 vidual life, and the few thousands of verifiable history 
 have failed to start. If, within the range of human 
 experience, we saw the process beginning, if we could 
 trace any rudimentary signs of such a process at work 
 as the transformation of a sensation into a moral per- 
 ception, or a discernment of utility into a conviction 
 of dut} r , we could by analogy suppose the process in- 
 definitely extended, its area enlarged, and its signifi- 
 cance enhanced. But the experimental fact, which 
 should be the fulcrum of the argument, is awantinff. 
 It is alleged that we have frequent instances of the love 
 and pursuit of virtue as a means to happiness passing 
 into a love and pursuit of it as an end, and for its own 
 sake. But in none of the examples cited can we be
 
 40 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 sure that the love and pursuit belonged to these two 
 separate categories in the respective stages : that there 
 was not a love and pursuit of it for its own sake, 
 though more dimly, at the first, and more explicitly 
 and pronouncedly afterwards ; while considerations of 
 utility may have been conjoined with this in both 
 stages, at one time prominently and again more 
 faintly. 
 
 Many efforts have been made to trace the parent- 
 age of conscience in elements unlike itself. Mr Mauds- 
 ley tries to find its root in the most animal of all our 
 instincts. More recently it has been said that the 
 conviction of an inherent right to live is the germ out 
 of which it has been evolved ; a conviction which takes 
 articulate shape in the proposition, ' No one has a right 
 to kill me,' but which existed, in a rudimentary form, 
 long before it expressed itself thus deflnitel}' - . Leaving 
 Mr Maudsley's paradox unexamined, I may devote a 
 concluding sentence to the other alleged root of the 
 moral faculty. 
 
 If the conviction ' I have a right to live, no one has 
 a right to kill me,' be the germ out of which con- 
 science has grown, we have first to account for the rise 
 of that conviction itself, out of a state in which it was 
 the normal law of the universe for the stronger to kill, 
 and for the weaker to be killed. The whole difficulty 
 is slurred over, if our explanation starts with a fully 
 formed sense of personality, and a developed feeling of 
 an inherent right to live. The problem to be solved 
 is the reversal of the primitive law of universal war, of 
 indiscriminate competition and carnage, when the only 
 right was that of the strongest, and when no individual 
 could have any right to live, because his strength was
 
 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 41 
 
 simply relative to the number and the vigour of his 
 competitors ; and, however strong he was, he might at 
 any moment be supplanted by a stronger. The state 
 supposed to be evolved out of this, is a state in which, 
 not only the stronger members of the race, but even 
 the weakest individuals, come to feel that they have 
 an inherent right to live. This, it seems to me, evolu- 
 tion — which is a mere process of becoming — cannot 
 solve. Is it that, when the stronger have become 
 proficient in the art of pushing weaker comrades aside, 
 when they have vanquished opposition and had a sur- 
 feit of slaughter, their sense of prowess gives rise to the 
 new feeling that they have done well ? Is it that, in 
 virtue of their success in killing, they win for them- 
 selves a right to survive ? Is it that, because of the 
 number of their victims, they purchase immunity from 
 destruction ? If so — and I do not see how otherwise 
 it could be a case of evolution, pure and simple — this 
 is an instance of a principle evolved out of its own 
 opposite ! The hiatus between the stage in which it 
 was natural that one animal should kill, and that 
 others should be killed, and the stage in which this 
 became unnatural — and the conviction sprang up that 
 each had a right to live and to continue in life — is 
 one that cannot be bridged over by any conceivable 
 process of evolution, unless it be evolution by antagon- 
 ism. The one was a state in which our animal ances- 
 tors were wholly destitute of a sense of right, and 
 could have no notion of a claim to exist. 
 
 For why 1 because the good old rule 
 
 Sufhceth them — the simple plan, 
 That they should take who have the power, 
 
 And they should keep who can.
 
 42 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 The other is a state, not different from this in degree, 
 but diametrically opposite in kind — a state in which 
 each individual discerns the worth of his own person- 
 ality, and his inherent right to exist. 
 
 And if the chasm between these two stages is wide, 
 and unbridged by evolution, does it fare any better 
 with the next step in the process of development ? 
 Suppose that the persuasion, ' I have a right to live,' 
 has been gradually manufactured out of its own oppo- 
 site, how does the former give rise to the conviction 
 that another individual, like me, has an equal right 
 to live, and to live well ? The continued existence of 
 one was at first secured only by the constant death of 
 competitors, in the struggle for existence ; how does 
 this give place to the conviction that the others — who 
 might very possibly wish to kill the successful and 
 surviving individual — have an equal right to live ? 
 No theory of evolution, no process of development 
 can by itself answer this question, or solve the problem 
 of the genealogy of moral ideas. 
 
 Further, we have experimental proof, within the 
 limits of our conscious life, that the Authority to 
 which we bow down is not derived from anything 
 lower than itself. It carries the sign of its own ab- 
 soluteness and non-contingency with it, in the imperial 
 and autocratic manner in which it deals with any slight 
 to its demands. 
 
 It will be my aim, in subsequent lectures, to illus- 
 trate the working of this in detail ; to show how, in 
 the phenomena of conscience, we find the traces of a 
 principle, 
 
 Deep seated in our mystic frame, 
 not evolved out of the lower elements of appetency
 
 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EVOLUTION. 4 
 
 .1 
 
 and desire, but cod trolling these, as an alter ego, ' in 
 us, yet not of us.' Appearing at first simply as one 
 amongst the other phenomena of consciousness, it mys- 
 teriously overshadows them ; and suggests in the occa- 
 sional flashes of light sent across the darker back- 
 ground of moral experience, the working of a person- 
 ality behind our own. As the seed quickens in the 
 furrow, when the surrounding elements co-operate to 
 elicit its energy, so with this latent faculty. Awaken- 
 ing from its slumber during the process of moral edu- 
 cation, it is not the simple product of that process ; 
 but the stimulus it receives merely liberates an im- 
 prisoned power. Thus liberated, it discerns its own 
 original, not by retrospective glances along the narrow 
 lines of individual or cosmological development, but 
 by a direct intuition of the reason : and it gaius 
 
 Fresh power to commune with the invisible world, 
 And hear the mighty stream of tendency 
 Uttering, for elevation of our thought, 
 A clear sonorous voice, inaudible 
 To the vast multitude.
 
 ON ECLECTICISM. 
 
 A Lecture, delivered at the Opening of the Moral Philosophy 
 Class, in the University of St. Andrews, Nov. 1878. 
 
 ( The Theological Review, January 1879. ) 
 
 I propose to discuss some of the features of Eclec- 
 ticism, a system of philosophy which has received but 
 scant justice from its critical successors. 
 
 It is both a system, and a tendency ; a formal philo- 
 sophical doctrine, and a spirit of philosophizing. For 
 my present purpose, it is not necessary to consider it 
 historically, either in its strength or weakness, as it 
 appeared in the third century at Alexandria and Rome, 
 at Athens in the fourth and fifth, or at Paris in the 
 nineteenth ; nor to deal with its secondary develop- 
 ments in social organizations, artistic schools, or reli- 
 gious systems. What I wish to put before you is its 
 general speculative drift, its leading features, and per- 
 manent tendency. These may be seen, not only from 
 the phases it has assumed as a coherently developed 
 doctrine, but even more characteristically from its un- 
 conscious presence, within the lines and under the 
 limits of the systems, which have ignored it. Wher- 
 ever the effort to reconcile the claims of rival doctrines 
 has taken the place of a one-sided advocacy of special 
 views, the result, to the extent of the reconciliation, 
 has been eclectic. 
 
 The term, however, is unfortunately misleading, as
 
 ON ECLECTICISM. 45 
 
 it seems to indicate the really elementary process of 
 gathering together bits of systems, and arranging 
 them, in what must be at the best an artificial patch- 
 work. No wonder that the result of a mere collection 
 of memorabilia, however carefully made, should be a 
 product without unity, coherence or vitality. A system 
 that resolved itself into a ' golden treasury' of elegant 
 extracts would deserve the neglect of all competent 
 logicians, and of every serious thinker.* And this is 
 the ungenerous and inaccurate charge to which Eclec- 
 ticism — the system suffering from its defective title — 
 is sometimes exposed. It is difficult, however, to find 
 a better word to describe it than this confessedly in- 
 accurate and misleading one. The name of no system 
 of philosophy is altogether adequate. The words 
 • Experientialist ' and ' Ontologist,' however convenient 
 as indicating a certain philosophical tendency, are both 
 inappropriate in some of their applications, and can- 
 not be used with absolute rigour. The terms ' Intui- 
 tionalism ' and ' Utilitarianism ' are each misleading. 
 The inadequacy of the word used to describe it is thus 
 a misfortune which Eclecticism shares in common with 
 every other system of opinion. 
 
 Keeping in view, therefore, what has already been 
 said, viz., that its essential features exist in many 
 systems which disown it, we shall find that the proposi- 
 tions which lie at the basis of Eclecticism are so self- 
 
 * On the same day on which this lecture was delivered, Dr. Mar- 
 tineau, in a profound and noble utterance from the Principal's 
 Chair in Manchester New College, spoke of "an eclectic common- 
 place-book of favourite beliefs" as " the last resort of superannuated 
 philosophy." This remark will be appreciated perhaps most of all 
 by those who most carefully distinguish between "the common- 
 place book " and the system and spirit of Eclecticism.
 
 40 ON ECLECTICISM. 
 
 evident, that in enunciating them we may seem to be 
 stating a series of truisms. Out of their simplicity, 
 however, profoundly important issues arise. 
 
 Eclecticism originates in the elementary but con- 
 stantly forgotten fact, that there is always truth on both 
 sides of every great controversy that has divided the 
 thoughts and feelings of mankind ; that error has its 
 origin, usually, if not always, in the abuse of truth, in 
 the exaggeration or travesty of fact ; that no intellectual 
 doctrine is absolutely and entirely false, or, root and 
 branch, a delusion ; that extravagance in opinion usually 
 proceeds from the eagerness of devotees who carry true 
 principles to false conclusions, and, in their enthusiasm 
 for a particular doctrine, forget its obverse. It is not 
 that they are wrong in the emphasis they throw on any 
 special truth or group of truths, but only in ignoring 
 the fact that each has a context dissimilar to itself, 
 though complementary and equally valid ; and especially 
 in forgetting that all major truths are arranged in pairs, 
 and may be placed in the scales over against others of 
 equal weight and value ; so that corresponding to 
 every important doctrine there is one equally great, 
 which balances it, on the opposite side. When it is 
 said of rival systems that they are each ' resistless in 
 assault, but impotent in defence ' — although I would 
 prefer to say, resistless in defence while impotent in 
 assault — what is meant is, that there is a citadel of 
 strength (because a residuum of truth) at the heart of 
 the most erroneous and extravagant, and that there is 
 an element of weakness (because a tendency to bias or 
 excess) associated with the truest that a progressive 
 civilization has evolved. Thus the principle of Eclec- 
 ticism contains a very obvious theory of the nature of
 
 ON ECLECTICISM. 4/ 
 
 truth and of error, and it offers an explanation of their 
 origin respectively. 
 
 Let us suppose two minds of different type or 
 idiosyncracy dealing with the same problem, — be it the 
 origin of knowledge, or the conditions of responsibility, 
 a doctrine of the beautiful, or a theory of life, — their 
 hereditary intellectual tendencies vary, their tempera- 
 ments are not the same, and their education has been 
 different. They therefore approach the problem from 
 opposite sides. Necessarily, they survey it in a diffe- 
 rent manner; and their interpretation, however accurate, 
 must be dissimilar. One will throw the stress on the 
 subjective side of human knowledge, the other on the 
 objective. The former, starting from the Ego, is 
 idealistic throughout; the latter, beginning with Nature, 
 is materialistic to the close. Or the one looks at man 
 as a determined element in the material cosmos, and 
 his ethical system is necessitarian ; the other regards 
 him as a free autonomous personality, and his system 
 is libertarian. These different interpretations of the 
 same problem, both true at the root, generate con- 
 troversy. The differences increase ; and schools of 
 opinion arise, in which the opposite conclusions of the 
 masters are intensified by their less original pupils. 
 The chasm between them gradually widens, and as the 
 conflict grows, the parti zans of each system retire to its 
 strongholds, till the truth which each most loudly 
 asserts is denied by its antagonist. The doctrines 
 which were at the first mutually accepted (on the one 
 side as major, and on the other as minor) become party 
 badges, and on both sides there is a fierce and sectarian 
 denial of the opposing system. In intellectual and 
 speculative theory, it is as in matters personal, social
 
 48 ON ECLECTICISM. 
 
 and national, — a minute divergence between two per- 
 sons who are perhaps both in the right, widens into a 
 gigantic misunderstanding, or a slight diplomatic diffe- 
 rence ripens into an international quarrel. And if, in 
 most national quarrels, both nations are to blame, and 
 in the majority of political party- contests neither side 
 has a monopoly of justice, it is precisely so in the strife 
 of the philosophical sects, in the controversies between 
 artistic schools, and the warfare of religious parties. 
 
 Now suppose that the controversy between two 
 philosophical sects has been protracted and keen. As 
 with every other form of strife, the antagonism at length 
 dies away, and, in the calmer and juster mood which 
 succeeds, a desire springs up to reconcile, if possible, 
 the opposite claims. A retrospective study of the con- 
 troversy shews that the whole truth lay with neither 
 party, that each had something real to defend, some- 
 thing worth defending, and that the strife between them 
 was philosophically illegitimate ; although, had there 
 been no collision, the characteristic merits of each would 
 not have been so prominently signalised. In the case 
 of diametrically opposite theories, which negative each 
 other, the excess of both is neutralised ; and while each 
 may establish the truth of its own affirmation, its 
 negative or aggressive tendency is held in check by the 
 mere presence of its opposite. Thus the antagonism 
 of the schools preserves the philosophical world from 
 the intolerant usurpation of any one, and brings out 
 the special excellences of each. 
 
 A state of perpetual controversy amongst the sects, 
 however, would do no particular good, if it did not lead 
 to a better appreciation of their respective merits; and 
 we find that an eclectic or reconciling movement gene-
 
 ON ECLECTICISM. 49 
 
 rally follows, and is produced by, the controversies of 
 the schools. It is gradually seen that each, if ' right 
 in what it affirmed,' was ' wrong in what it denied,' 
 right in so far as it was positive, and wrong only in 
 its negation of the locus standi or jus vivendi of the 
 systems it sought to annihilate.'" 
 
 The human mind cannot find rejDose either in the 
 onesidedness of a partisan system, or in the absolute 
 repression of partisanship, and the substitution for it 
 of such a kind of eclecticism as shrinks from the ex- 
 pression of difference. The eclecticism I am expound- 
 ing is assuredly not one which would adjust differ- 
 
 * It is to Leibnitz that we owe the phrases I have quoted in the 
 text, and there is perhaps no name in the roll of modern philosophy 
 whose appreciation of the spirit and aim of Eclecticism was more 
 thorough than his. 'I have tried,' he says, 'to disinter, and to 
 reunite the truth, buried and dissipated under the opinions of the sects 
 of the philosophers. ' ( Trots lettres a M. Reniond de Montmort, Opera, 
 ed. Erdmann, p. 701). 'I have found that most of the sects are 
 right in a large part of what they affirm, but not in what they deny. 
 ... I natter myself that I have penetrated to the harmony of the 
 several realms of philosophy,' (he is speaking of the materialists and 
 the idealists), ' and have seen that both parties are in the right, if only 
 they icouhd not exclude each other,' p. 702. Again (letter iii., p. 704), 
 ' Truth is often wider spread than one thinks ; but it is very often 
 overlaid, and very often covered up ; and weakened, mutilated, and 
 corrupted by additions which spoil it, or render it less useful. In 
 getting hold of the traces of Truth amongst the Ancients, or, to 
 speak more generally, our predecessors, one must draw gold out of 
 mud, the diamond from the mine, and light from darkness. Thus 
 would we reach the philosophia perennis.' So too Cousin, ' There is 
 no absolutely false system, but many incomplete ones, systems true 
 in themselves, but erroneous in their pretence each to com- 
 prehend within itself that absolute truth which is only to be found 
 in them all. The incomplete, and therefore the exclusive, that is the 
 one radical vice of Philosophy, or rather of the philosophers, because 
 philosophy is in all the systems. Each system is a reflection of reality, 
 but unfortunately it reflects it only under a single angle.' Fragmens 
 Philosophises, I. p. 242 (Du Fait de Conscience). 
 
 D
 
 50 ON ECLECTICISM. 
 
 ences, and end controversy, by the adoption of mild 
 and hazy commonplaces, which no sect or school could 
 possibly deny. It conserves every intellectual differ- 
 ence that is the outcome of distinctive thought, and 
 of a true interpretation of the universe ; only, it makes 
 room, alongside of each interpretation, for others that 
 have usually been held to be inconsistent and incom- 
 patible with it. 
 
 As it is, however, in the union of one or two histori- 
 cal facts with sundry psychological phenomena that 
 Eclecticism may be said to find its stronghold, I pass 
 to the consideration of these. 
 
 In the first place, there is the historical fact of the 
 incessant rise of new S3 ? stems, their inevitable decay, 
 and their perpetual reappearance. Why do systems 
 of opinion pass away from the thought and the alle- 
 giance of mankind, but from the radical imperfection 
 which necessarily characterises them ; from their ade- 
 quacy for a time, their inadequacy for all time ? Why 
 do they re-appear again, but from the root of truth 
 which they contain ? The mere fact of the resurrec- 
 tion of old and apparently exploded doctrines, is a 
 historic proof of their superiority to the assault that 
 seemed to lay them low. It shows that the conflict 
 of opinion — however interesting as mental gladiator- 
 ship, and however valuable as a means of developing 
 knowledge, and sifting truth from error — is, after all, 
 a conflict which leaves no one absolute master of the 
 field. If the controversy is renewed, if the strife 
 begins agaiu, it is because the forces on neither side 
 were silenced, and because each can return to the 
 combat with unexhausted courage and fresh resource. 
 
 The next fact is, the impossibility (judging by
 
 OX ECLECTICISM. 51 
 
 analogy) of uniformity of belief, and therefore of the 
 cessation of controversy, ever occurring in the history 
 of the world — a consummation which is probably no 
 more possible, and no more desirable, than the cessa- 
 tion of physical storms, and the substitution of per- 
 petual calm and sunshine. This — the necessity of 
 fresh controversy — though generally recognised as a 
 feature in the progress of civilisation, has perhaps 
 never been adequately appraised, and its corollaries 
 have certainly not been always seen. It involves the 
 certainty of the rise of new types of philosophical 
 thought and belief, while the human race continues 
 to advance. With every new cycle will come a new 
 phase of insight, and a new attitude of feeling towards 
 the universe. Does any one, except the merest tyro 
 in historical knowledge, or the most youthful cham- 
 pion of debate, expect the advent of a time when 
 speculative controversy will cease, and the opposition 
 of the schools disappear. Such a result would imply 
 either a radical alteration in the structure of human 
 nature, or the extinction of belief in an ideal, and the 
 collapse of effort to reach it. It would be the very 
 dullest and dreariest world in which every man agreed 
 with every other man upon every conceivable topic. 
 It would imply the decadence of the intellect, the 
 withering of the imagination, and the stoppage of the 
 pulse of the human heart. It would amount, in short, 
 to an arrest laid on the mainsprings of civilisation. 
 And where are we to draw the line between an a^ree- 
 ment on every possible problem and a general con- 
 currence in the greater problems, as finally solved for 
 the human race ? Is not the distinction only one of 
 degree ? If absolute uniformity of opinion is impos- 
 sible, is general concurrence less Utopian ?
 
 52 ON ECLECTICISM. 
 
 But why must systems of opinion run through their 
 cycles, and re-appear ? Why are the intellectual dif- 
 ferences, which culminate in opposing doctrines, des- 
 tined to remain as permanent and indelihle tendencies 
 of human nature ? Are there any psychological facts 
 which explain how they have hitherto existed, and 
 justify the inference that they will continue to charac- 
 terise the future evolution of humanity. 
 
 One explanation is, that every developed opinion, 
 no matter how contorted and extravagant it may be, 
 has sprung from some real root in the soil of human 
 nature. It has been evolved ; and if evolved,, its 
 formative principle cannot have been mere vagary, 
 hap-hazard, or blind caprice. Grant that it was often 
 a crude guess, a surmise, a thought casually thrown 
 out at an object, that gave rise to primitive belief. 
 These guesses were the offspring of previous intelli- 
 gence, and the precursors of genuine knowledge. The 
 surmises, which grew out of vague unillumined gropings, 
 were disciplined by degrees into real insight, definite 
 and verifiable. But, of necessity, each separate sur- 
 mise, directed towards a particular aspect of Nature 
 or of Life, was different from the rest ; and the result 
 of the difference is seen in the various ' doctrines of 
 knowledge,' and ' systems of the universe,' or ' theories 
 of existence,' which now divide or distract the world. 
 The source of the difference is chiefly within the indi- 
 vidual theorist. It is due to temperament, and heredi- 
 tary intellectual tendency, although also, in a minor 
 degree, to the education and surroundings of the 
 system-builder. 
 
 Given a certain temperament and ancestral ten- 
 dency, a certain education and surrounding influences,
 
 ON ECLECTICISM. 53 
 
 it is quite possible to predict the system that will 
 naturally emerge ; to say whether it will be intui- 
 tional or experiential, idealist or realist, a priori or 
 a 'posteriori. Up to one-half of the result, it is alto- 
 gether beyond the individual's control, and is as rigidly 
 determined for him as is the colour of his hair, or the 
 height of his stature, his nationality, or his mode of 
 speech. Diversity will therefore necessarily charac- 
 terise the future systems of human opinion and belief. 
 It is due to the immense variety and latent force of 
 human nature, which is a fact of equal magnitude and 
 significance with its underlying unity — a variety which 
 is not only not opposed to the unity, but which illus- 
 trates it, and goes on developing alongside of it. On 
 the one hand, the unity of human nature, and on the 
 other its variety, constitute the root or ground of 
 eclecticism. If the race is one in organic structure, 
 in mental endowment, in moral tendency, in imagina- 
 tive capacity, and in spiritual possibility — despite the 
 thousand varieties which proclaim our separateness and 
 individuality — the outcome of this unity, in the end- 
 less systems we construct for the explanation of the 
 abiding mystery of the universe, must in every instance 
 possess a greater or a less degree of truth. On the 
 other hand, the variety which marks us off from one 
 another, the individual differences which separate us 
 — despite our organic unity and the solidarity of the 
 race — must of necessity give rise to fresh forms of 
 dogma and belief; our doctrines being sifted and 
 refined by controversy, and our frames of theory corre- 
 sponding more and more adequately to the truth of 
 things, while they differ from the older ones which 
 they supersede We may thus expect a simultaneous
 
 54 ON ECLECTICISM. 
 
 development and deepening both of the unity and the 
 variety of human nature, its diversity in opinion, feel- 
 ing and practice, its unity in aspiration and aim. 
 
 Here I may put a question, which, however simple, 
 deserves consideration. What is the meaning of the 
 belief that two antagonist systems can be recon- 
 ciled, and of the attempts made to effect the recon- 
 ciliation ? — for example, that the philosophy of 
 experience can be reconciled with that of intuition, or 
 even that the claims of Religion and Science can be 
 adjusted ? that there is no necessary collision in the 
 nature of things between the two, but only between 
 sundry mistaken versions or interpretations of each ? 
 If the experiential and the a priori systems of know- 
 ledge can be harmonized, if the intuitional and the 
 derivative theories of morals can be reconciled, it is 
 because every system of the iiniverse that has been 
 evolved from the brain of man, past, present and to 
 come, must arise from some germ of reality, and its 
 error and extravagance are simply distortions of the 
 truth. Add to this, that a published system of 
 opinions, or that part of it which can be epitomized 
 and exhibited in a reasoned treatise, is only a small 
 portion of it. A large context is never exhibited to 
 view ; and just as a man may be intellectually refuted 
 without being convinced, bocause what has been refuted 
 is only that portion of his opinions, which was revealed 
 and expressed in words — the context lying within 
 his mind undivulged being also untouched by argu- 
 ment — so the vital part of every dogma may be a 
 subterranean element, a root unconscious to the in- 
 dividual, and never exposed to view. If its upper 
 growth is cut down, like those perennial plants of
 
 ON ECLECTICISM. 
 
 which while the stem decays the root survives, it will 
 send forth flowers next season freshly as before. 
 
 We may thus see how action and reaction is an 
 inevitable and abiding feature in all human opinion 
 and belief ; how the truth and the error of ' systems ' 
 is a question of degree ; how their vitality is due to 
 the truth they contain, and their longevity to the 
 amount of that truth ; how immortality, in the sense 
 of abiding continuity, is the prerogative of none ; but 
 resurrection and rehabilitation may be the destiny of 
 each. It is impossible for an individual or a generation, 
 to have an equally clear grasp, and an equally firm 
 hold of the opposite and balancing sides of any truth; 
 and the prominence which the individual or the age 
 may give to any special view, always leads by reaction 
 to a corresponding predominance, in the next age, of 
 some other view. So soon as any truth is generally 
 recognized, and its novelty has passed away, it falls by 
 a natural process into the background of the human 
 consciousness. Another truth, which could not get full 
 justice during the ascendancy of the former, is brought 
 to light, is disinterred if not discovered ; and its 
 advocacy has the charm of novelty for a time, till it 
 too shares the fate of its predecessor, and sinks into 
 the shade, to make room for its perishable successor. 
 But this is not the mere rise and fall of systems, and 
 their re -appearance, precisely as they lived before. 
 Nothing ever wholly dies ; but nothing returns to 
 visible life exactly as it was before. It is changed, 
 both by its previous existence in the field of the 
 human consciousness, and by its temporary absence 
 from it, by its departure and its return. 
 
 Besides, as every dominant doctrine tends at once and
 
 5G ON ECLECTICISM. 
 
 insensibly to become sectarian, the best antidote to the 
 evil of onesided ness is usually a counter movement to- 
 wards the other side, even although it be a movement in 
 excess across the dividing line. Thus the error of ideal- 
 ism is met by materialistic reaction, and vice versa. The 
 evils of extreme necessitarianism are counteracted by 
 an extreme doctrine of liberty. The enthusiastic 
 advocacy of a truth, long disesteemed, is not only sure 
 to provoke hostility, but its excess is most easily 
 counterworked from a position on the other side of 
 the golden mean. Enthusiasm for a particular truth 
 is always beautiful, and always useful ; but, as its ad- 
 vocate often becomes its idolater, the bias of his 
 enthusiasm is best restrained by a counter enthusiasm 
 for some other truth. Its exaggeration is inevitable, 
 and excellent while it lasts ; it becomes pernicious 
 only if it lasts too long. 
 
 The student of the history of Philosophy may at first 
 be perplexed by the number of opposing systems, and 
 the curious hostilities of the system-builders. But so 
 soon as he turns from the field of history to investigate 
 the human consciousness, and discovers the number of 
 conflicting elements and tendencies that are there, he 
 ceases to wonder at the diversities of the schools. The 
 latter are but a sign of the fertility, the resource, and the 
 wealth of human nature. The disparagement of the 
 labours of predecessors, however, — which is a failing of 
 many philosophers — will surprise and disappoint the 
 student of their works ; more especially if he observes 
 how much they have been indebted to their predecessors, 
 if not for the hints which they have expanded, at 
 least for the direction which their labours have taken. 
 The explanation, however, is easy. The ability to do
 
 ON ECLECTICISM. 57 
 
 justice to past systems of opinion is a rare intellectual 
 quality, especially if it be combined with original genius 
 and actual discovery. The ambition of founding or 
 completing a system disinclines the mind to admit the 
 humbling fact, that very much of what seems original 
 has been already said, in another form, and that, there 
 is exceedingly little that is new under the sun. Never- 
 theless, the illusion of originality has its uses. The 
 original mind is spurred to research by the prospect 
 of discovery. Were the re-appearance of an old 
 system in a new dress or dialect to be surmised be- 
 forehand, one stimulus to continued speculative labour 
 would be removed. In other words, the illusion of 
 originality is a spur to philosophical activity. 
 
 The misrepresentation of former systems, however, 
 to which I have alluded, itself explains the rise of new 
 ones. Misconception of the nature or tendency of any 
 doctrine usually provokes a reaction in its favour, and 
 originates a desire to do it justice ; and so the old 
 opinion returns in a new form. It is true of systems 
 as of individuals ; they must be misconstrued, before 
 they can develope their finest characteristics. They 
 take deeper root, in the storm of adverse criticism. 
 If all men spoke well of a speculative doctrine, it 
 would be as injurious to its development, as universal 
 praise would be hurtful to the character of its founder. 
 
 It is to be farther noted, that many philosophical 
 systems differ in appearance, more than in reality. 
 Their antagonism is on the surface ; deeper down they 
 unite. The difference may, as I have remarked, be 
 simply one of emphasis, at the particular point 
 where the stress of the system is laid. And this fact 
 seems to me so important that I return to it. Two
 
 58 ON ECLECTICISM. 
 
 systems, let us say, start from the same first principle. 
 There they are at one. But the agreement is hidden, 
 is subterranean. They proceed to develop what they 
 hold in common ; and what seems major to one, is 
 minor to another, and vice versa. This sense of 
 difference, intensified by every fresh glance towards 
 the first principle, by slow degrees widens the breach. 
 The emphasis repeated — like the slow modifications 
 of organic structure, of which science has told us so 
 much, and by which it has explained so much — 
 results in the formation of a new opinion. If any one 
 wishes to realize the latter process, let him study the 
 law of natural selection and the survival of the fittest, 
 in physical nature. If he wants to find that law con- 
 firmed, let him watch, by the light of history, the 
 evolution of human opinion. Only let the stress con- 
 tinue to be laid on one side of a truth, which has 
 two sides, both equally important ; what is thus 
 emphasized will beget a new type of opinion, which may 
 grow into a product so unlike that from which it 
 sprung, that the parentage and the derivation are 
 scarcely recognisable. But the result will have been 
 wholly due to a gradual increase of emphasis, thrown 
 entirely on one side. And so, you will find that the 
 most distinctive feature in each of the philosophical 
 schools is admitted — in some form or other — by all 
 the rest ; only it is subordinated to other features 
 which have the front place of honour.'"" For example, 
 Socrates and the Sophists held much in common, and 
 
 * You may have to search for it in what I may call the crypts, or 
 underground recesses of the system ; but, if you do so, you will find — 
 it may be concealed, or it may be almost obliterated — the very truth 
 which forms the centre-point of the rival philosophical school.
 
 ON ECLECTICISM. 59 
 
 their original conflict was due to the importance which 
 the former attached to truths which the latter only 
 subordinated. This is seen still more significantly in 
 the conflict between the Stoics and the Epicureans, 
 and pre-eminently in the great ethical controversy 
 of the ages as to Freedom and Necessity. 
 
 Thus, when you criticise a particular system, and say, 
 ' What So-and-so holds in A — referring to one part of his 
 doctrine — cannot be reconciled with what he holds in 
 B — referring to another part of it — his system is in- 
 consistent,' what does the criticism mean but that he 
 has taken more facts into account, than his system can 
 rationally explain, or than he can make coherent ? In 
 other words, the man is larger than his system, his hu- 
 manity is wider than his interpretation of human nature. 
 
 It may, and has been said, however, that whenever 
 Eclecticism ceases to be a mere spirit of philosophizing, 
 and becomes a system of philosophy, it is false to its 
 own principle. In the very act of laying the founda- 
 tions of a school, the eclectic becomes a sectarian, and 
 thus commits an act of intellectual suicide. It is 
 affirmed that Eclecticism should be a regulative prin- 
 ciple in all systems, and the outcome of all, without 
 being the distinctive badge of any one ; that it should 
 be a tendency rather than a school, a way of looking 
 at systems of opinion that is sympathetic, fair-minded, 
 and friendly, rather than antagonistic and critical. 
 We must consider this objection. 
 
 That it should be a prevailing spirit in all philo- 
 sophy, and that Eclecticism cannot crystallize into a 
 dogma without belying its own principles, is un- 
 doubted. And farther, if it exists as a tendency or 
 attitude, although ignored as a system, it is practically
 
 GO ON ECLECTICISM. 
 
 of the greatest value. Hence its immense importance 
 to the student of history. It supplies him with a 
 double key, explanatory at once of the philosophy of 
 Histor}', and the history of Philosophy. But if, while 
 the spirit of eclecticism guides the constructive labour 
 of the system-builder, he still keeps to the groove of 
 his system, and declines to assume the role of the 
 eclectic, he remains sectarian. Either one of two 
 things must result ; he must keep to his system as a 
 distinctive party badge, and disown what he will 
 doubtless consider the vague position of the eclectic ; 
 or, his eclecticism must conquer his system. The 
 intellectual quality of fair-mindedness has a front 
 place in the hierarchy of the virtues ; but it may 
 exist as a tendency, without penetrating to the very 
 core of the constructive reason, and moulding the 
 system that results. The highest merit of eclecticism 
 is its doing full justice to the systems that partially 
 understand, yet formally repudiate it. As it is the 
 supreme triumph of charity to include the uncharitable 
 within the area it traverses, to see something good 
 even in the intolerance that is persecuting, and that 
 would if possible extinguish what it cannot compre- 
 hend : so, it is the crowning excellence of Eclecticism 
 that it sees some latent good in the most outre and 
 distorted system, that has ever disfigured the annals of 
 civilization. But in its effort to do justice to every 
 other doctrine, it has not always been just to itself. 
 It has sometimes become a martyr to its own 
 generosity. Hence it has been stigmatized as mild 
 and diffusive, as the glorification of a weak live-and- 
 let-live system. Many of those who esteem its ten- 
 dency, despise it as a formulated theory ; and while
 
 OX ECLECTICISM. 61 
 
 the world refuses permanently to adopt any sectarian 
 theory of knowledge or of life, it has never cordially 
 welcomed the eclectics. It has shown a greater 
 repugnance to acquiesce in this doctrine as the last 
 word of Philosophy, than to adopt the sectarian 
 extremes which Eclecticism tries to unite and recon- 
 cile. How is this ? Can it be explained ? Yes ; 
 the eclectic can explain it. 
 
 There can be no doubt that in proportion to the 
 width and elasticity of a system is its want of fitness 
 as a working theory of human knowledge and life, as 
 a doctrine than can be applied to human affairs. So 
 true is the maxim of Goethe, ' Thought widens, but 
 lames : action narrows, but animates.' This is owing 
 to the fact that all human action is, and must be, 
 carried on in grooves. If we are to work in a world of 
 limitations, we must submit to our limits, and not 
 chafe under them. We may sit apart, 
 
 Holding no form of creed, 
 But contemplating all ; 
 
 but when we do so, we retire from our place and our 
 duties, in a world of imperfect action, and of neces- 
 sarily incomplete fulfilment. 
 
 Now, constituted as we are, it is impossible for our 
 intellectual vision, however wide the horizon it may 
 sweep, to take in more than a very few and limited 
 group of objects at the same time. Observe what 
 results from this. It is the temporary prominence of 
 one truth or fact or law, or of one group of truths 
 facts and laws, which strike the eye of the beholder, 
 arrest his attention, and rouse him to action. If he 
 saw the other and bordering truths which balance the 
 ones he sees, mitigating their force and regulating
 
 62 ON ECLECTICISM. 
 
 their sway, — truths which other eyes are seeing while 
 he does not, — he could scarcely be roused to the 
 defence or upholding of the former ones. His enthu- 
 siasm would certainly cool, and his energy might 
 collapse. Does any one imagine that if the child had 
 in his childhood a presage of the wisdom of the man, 
 he would shew any ardour in the pursuit of those 
 'childish things' which age sees to be illusory ? So 
 if the experientialist, the utilitarian, the ontologist, 
 the idealist, were more eclectic than they usually are, 
 if they saw the full merit of the systems they 
 oppose, — while their denunciations would be less loud, 
 and their antagonism less pronounced, — inaction, and 
 perhaps indifference, might take the place of their 
 former energy. It is not difficult to see why catho- 
 licity often leads to inaction ; why toleration and 
 supineness go hand in hand; and why, with the nar- 
 rower vision of the sectarian thinker, is usually associ- 
 ated the propagandist ardour of the partizan. 
 
 From this we may deduce a corollary. In criticis- 
 ing extremes of opinion, which in their ultra forms are 
 to be condemned, the main point is to recognise the 
 mean, and intellectually to return to it, for the preser- 
 vation of intellectual harmony ; but to understand 
 departure from it, not merely for the sake of action, 
 but for the comprehension of the mean itself. Every 
 time we act we depart from the mean, for the mean 
 state is one of torpor and repose ; but as in this world 
 we must act in one way or another, we must vibrate 
 from the equilibrium, crossing the line between ex- 
 tremes, while we never lose sight of this line, never 
 permit the intellectual eye to be closed upon it. If, 
 as I have already remarked, monotony would charac-
 
 ON ECLECTICISM. G3 
 
 terize the beliefs of mankind were all the members of 
 the human race to see eye to eye, the dreariest and 
 most appalling results would follow if all men equally 
 shunned the ' falsehood of extremes ;' because it is the 
 extremes that make the mean intelligible. Thus, the 
 seemingly illogical position is reached, there is an 
 advantage to the human race in its partial glimpses of 
 truth, in its temporary, if it be not a stationary, one- 
 sidedness in thought and action. 
 
 Here I must allude to a doctrine of Jouffroy, the 
 distinguished follower of Cousin in the French eclectic 
 school. He says that as truth and error are mixed in 
 every system, if truth be one and error various, the 
 variety of the systems is clue to their departures from 
 truth ; and he even affirms that the succession of the 
 schools is owing to the error they contain, each being a 
 fugitive mirror of an out-reaching and over-reaching real- 
 ity. I do not think that systems of opinion differ only in 
 the erroneous elements they include. I would rather say 
 that the distinctive badge of each is the particular 
 truth, which it is its merit to have signalized, and 
 made emphatic. The wise man searches for truth 
 everywhere, and finds its fragments everywhere, but 
 its entire presence nowhere. In every system he sees 
 partial truth, dismembered, isolated ; hence he is both 
 a believer in evolution, and necessarily a student of 
 history. Eclecticism and evolution go hand in hand. 
 No consistent evolutionist can be other than eclectic. 
 All systems having been evolved out of antecedent 
 ones, and it being his function to trace the lineage and 
 genealogy of each, they have an equal claim to be 
 regarded with honour. Every link in the chain of 
 derivation, being a necessary sequence, is worthy of
 
 G4 ON ECLECTICISM. 
 
 respect — a respect quite inconsistent with the railing 
 of some evolutionists against certain intellectual pro- 
 ducts that have been evolved. According to their 
 theory, as the glacier shapes the valley and the sea its 
 beach, ancestral tendencies and uncontrollable contem- 
 porary forces shape the beliefs of the untoward genera- 
 tion that refuses to accept their doctrines. And why 
 should they be more irritated at the philosophy or 
 religion that surrounds them, than at the denudation 
 of the valley, or the raising of the sea-beach ? 
 
 I must, however, rebut the charge that Eclecticism 
 and Scepticism go hand in hand ; and this will lead 
 both to a vindication of the claims of Philosophy, and 
 to a further explanation of the rise and fall of 'systems' 
 of opinion. The two admissions, that no system is 
 final, and that none is exhaustive, carry with them the 
 fundamental postulate of eclecticism ; but this does 
 not give to every system an equal rank, because an 
 equal hold upon reality, or an equivalent value as a 
 theoretical embodiment of the truth of things. It is 
 true that if I call no philosopher ' master,' it is because 
 all are masters within their respective spheres ; and 
 because other masters will yet arise to teach the 
 generations of the future ; while the sphere of truth 
 itself outreaches every possible chart, which any of 
 them may construct. One system or chart of the 
 universe, however, is truer than another, not in pro- 
 portion to the number of the elements in embraces, but 
 in proportion to the accuracy with which it expresses 
 and interprets the realities of the universe. 
 
 One advantage of a wise and sympathetic study of 
 the history of opinion is, that it enables us to dispose 
 satisfactorily of a charge which is often ignorantly
 
 ON ECLECTICISM. 65 
 
 brought against the claims of philosophy. The 
 popular charge is that it is a barren study, yielding 
 no results that are demonstrably certain, and that can 
 be taken for granted in the investigations of the 
 future. The march of the physical sciences is pointed 
 to, as one of consecutive conquest and progressive 
 discovery, with no circular movements, or serpentine 
 windings, or dubious returnings on former tracks. 
 Even brilliant 'histories of philosophy' have been 
 written with the aim of proving that Philosophy is an 
 illusion. Its course is represented as a series of 
 voyages by bold adventurers, on the illimitable waters, 
 without ever touching or even seeing the ' happy isles,' 
 and with many experiences of shipwreck and disaster 
 
 In support of this, we are pointed to the rise and 
 fall of the systems of philosophy ; and we are asked 
 either to select one system out of the conflicting 
 multitude, and prove it to be orthodox, or to abandon 
 the study as resultless. 
 
 The best, and the only satisfactory way of deal- 
 ing with this objection is to apprehend the cause 
 of the rise and fall of all the systems of the Universe, 
 that have ever existed in the schools, or in the world 
 outside the schools. If we clearly apprehend not only 
 the reason why this or that opinion has happened 
 to prevail at a particular time, but the source or 
 origin of all systems, actual or possible, the reason- 
 ableness and the value of philosophical study will be 
 self-evident. It will be seen to be, on the one hand, 
 the study of the natural history of the human mind ; 
 and, on the other, the study of that problem, with 
 which the human faculties have been incessantly occu- 
 pied. Every system of Philosophy is a memorial of 
 
 E
 
 GC) ON ECLECTICISM. 
 
 the effort made by man to interpret that mysterious 
 Text which the universe presents to his faculties for 
 interpretation. It is an attempt to explain the 
 fundamental or ultimate meaning of the things that 
 environ us in the world without, and occur in the 
 world within. It is thus a theory of the meaning of 
 Existence; and every system that has appeared is a 
 partial unfolding of the onward thought of humanity, 
 directed to this problem — thought which is an 
 organic and living whole, in constant motion and per- 
 petual progress. We may safely hazard the assertion 
 that there must be truth in all of these systems, if 
 there is truth in any one. However defective it may 
 be, each is a landmark, or index of progress. It has 
 not only contributed to the development of the world's 
 thought ; it has been a necessary part of it. 
 
 And, for the same reason, it becomes superannuated, 
 and passes away. No system can expand beyond a 
 certain limit ; but, while it ceases to flourish — and 
 seems to pass away — what really happens is this. 
 The development of human intellect and insight, 
 which has been going on for a time in one direction, 
 pauses in that direction, and begins to unfold itself 
 along another line. It progresses by alternate ebb 
 and flow, or by alternate beats of action and reaction. 
 No ' system ' — philosophical, religious, artistic, or 
 social — can, in the nature of things, go on expand- 
 ing for ever ; any more than a tree, or a flower, can 
 expand for ever. But the human mind continues to 
 expand, the organic thought of the world continues to 
 expand, the flowering of the general consciousness 
 goes on ; and all the systems, which record and 
 register these, are merely historical memorials, by
 
 ON ECLECTICISM. 67 
 
 which the rise of human intellect and feeling, in 
 certain directions, and to a particular height, is 
 marked. And so, the hope of attaining a finally 
 perfect, or absolutely orthodox philosoph}^, a ' system ' 
 that shall compose the controversies of the ages, and 
 end the strife of rival schools, is Utopian. It is the 
 fond illusion of speculative youth, which passes away 
 in the more sober judgments of experience, especially 
 if these judgments are formed under the light of 
 history. And it passes away, not because truth is 
 despaired of, because so little of it can be known ; but 
 because so much of it is seen, scattered everywhere in 
 fragments. 
 
 If, therefore, the history of Philosophy shows the 
 incessant swing of the pendulum of thought between 
 opposite poles of opinion, if destructive systems are 
 followed by constructive ones, if the sceptic again 
 succeeds the dogmatist, if an idealistic reaction follows 
 in the wake of every materialistic movement, the 
 explanation is easy. It is not only that one extreme 
 invariably gives rise to its opposite, and that the two 
 always act and react upon each other ; it is also that 
 both are always present, within humanity itself. It 
 is constantly forgotten that our ' systems of opinion ' 
 are only an illustration of certain permanent features 
 or tendencies of human nature. They exhibit the 
 upper or surface sign of an underworking current, 
 which is ceaselessly moving on, often quite unknown 
 to the system-makers — like those vast tidal waves, of 
 the rise and fall of which the voyager on the Atlantic 
 is wholly unconscious. The reason why one and 
 another ' system ' is dominant, and the reason why 
 they all reappear (after falling for a time into the
 
 68 ON ECLECTICISM. 
 
 shade), is that they represent ineradicable phases of 
 human thought, and are, therefore, uneliminable 
 factors or elements in human civilisation. It is thus 
 that the doctrines of the world's youth reappear in its 
 age, that the systems of ancient India are seen in 
 modern Germany, and that the thought of the old 
 Greek sages has a resurrection in Oxford and Berlin. 
 If any symbol is permissible in Philosophy it is that 
 of the phoenix. 
 
 Perhaps the most signal service which Eclecticism 
 has rendered to the cause of human progress is the 
 new way of looking at history, and the historical schools, 
 which it has introduced. A wide knowledge of the 
 history of opinion has often given rise to a doctrine 
 of catholic comprehension, rather than of sectarian 
 exclusion, in philosophical theory ; and although all 
 historians may have their bias, no study is more help- 
 ful to width of mental view, or is more emphatically 
 the parent of fair-mindedness. But the benefit is 
 reciprocal. If historical study promotes Eclecticism, 
 by shewing that its basis is broadly laid in the region 
 of fact and event, the eclectic spirit is one of the best 
 safeguards to the historian. It preserves him from 
 the taint of partizanship. It animates the study of 
 the driest details with living interest, by connecting 
 them with their causes and their issues. It has done 
 immense service to human progress by showing that 
 the true function of the historical critic is not so much 
 to expose illusions, as to ascertain their origin ; to 
 rise above, by getting behind them ; and to discover the 
 living root whence error has sprung, and of which it 
 is the distortion. It is thus opposed to every form 
 of iconoclasm. In so far as our liberal teachers and
 
 ON ECLECTICISM. 69 
 
 thinkers are iconoclasts, in so far as they are irre- 
 verent towards the past or towards the present, they 
 are non-eclectic, sectarian, revolutionary ; and the 
 practical merit of the system I have been expounding 
 — a merit probably greater than the most perfect 
 theoretical consistency would be — is its large tolerance, 
 its spirit of conciliation, rather than of compromise, 
 and its detection of truth underneath all the exaggera- 
 tion, distortion, and caricature of the systems that 
 have emerged.
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 Read to the New Speculative Society, Scotland, March 1875. 
 (The Contemporary Review, October 1876.) 
 
 It is one of the most noticeable facts in the history of 
 opinion that speculative doctrines, which become 
 sharply antagonistic when carried to their legitimate 
 results, are found to harmonize at the root from 
 which they spring. There, they may even touch 
 each other ; and, in their origin, be no more than 
 a way of throwing emphasis on this or that phase of 
 a mutually accepted fact ; while their developed con- 
 clusions may be as wide as the poles asunder. It has 
 been said that opposite errors have usually a common 
 ■zpuTov ^iZhog. It is perhaps truer to affirm that all 
 antagonistic theories take their rise from an underly- 
 ing root of truth. The history of philosophy, which 
 exhibits the ceaseless swing of the pendulum of 
 thought toward opposite sides, — a movement which 
 we have no reason to wish should ever end, for its 
 cessation would imply the paralysis of the human 
 mind, — shows how easily differences, which are trivial 
 at their first appearance, develop into distinctive 
 schools of opinion, and how rapidly they are con- 
 firmed by the reaction and antagonism of rival 
 systems. 
 
 The question, whether the Supreme Being, or ulti-
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. i i 
 
 mate Existence within the universe, is in any sense 
 personal — whether it can be legitimately spoken of, 
 and interpreted by us, in the terms in which we 
 speak of, and interpret our own personality, is as old 
 as the discussions of the Eleatics in Greece ; and from 
 Parmenides to Hegel it has been solved in one way, 
 while from the Jewish monotheists, through the 
 entire course of Christian theology, it has been 
 answered in another.* If the most recent discussions 
 of the subject in contemporary literature contribute 
 little to the solution of this controversy of the ages, 
 they have the merit of presenting the perennial pro- 
 blem in a singularly clear light ; and they prove how 
 the most abstruse questions of human knowledge con- 
 tinue to fascinate the heart, and to tax the intellect of 
 man, while they directly affect his practical life. 
 
 The late David Frederick Strauss, and our most 
 brilliant literary critic — Mr Matthew Arnold — have 
 each written strongly against the notion of personality 
 in God ; the former, consistently developing the 
 Hegelian doctrine, which he has applied to the pro- 
 blems of religious history ; the latter, endeavouring 
 to lay the basis of a new reverence for the Bible, 
 through a phenomenal psychology and doctrine of 
 ignorance, in those delightful, though confessedly 
 unsystematic, papers, contributed to this Review, full 
 of delicate and happy criticism, though dashed too 
 much with 'persiflage, and scarcely grave enough when 
 the radical importance of the question is considered, in 
 
 * National temperament and racial tendency have had their influ- 
 ence in determining the character of these answers. The instinct of 
 the Semitic races has tended in one direction ; that of the Aryan, or 
 Indo-European, in another.
 
 I — 
 
 2 PERSONALITY A.ND THE INFINITE. 
 
 connection with the literature of solemn speculation on 
 the subject. 
 
 Mr Arnold has been telling us that we must give 
 up and renounce for ever the delusion that God is ' a 
 person who thinks and loves.' We are to recognise 
 instead ' a stream of tendency, by which all things 
 fulfil the law of their being ;' a ' power that lives 
 and breathes and feels,' but not ' a person who thinks 
 and loves.' We are directed, as all the world knows, 
 to ' the eternal not-ourselves that makes for righteous- 
 ness.' But does this curious entity, this ' eternal not- 
 ourselves,' present a more adequate notion to the 
 intellect than that which it is meant to displace ? Is 
 it less ambiguous, or less hypothetical ? We are asked 
 to substitute for the exploded notion of a personal 
 God a negative entity, of which all that can with cer- 
 tainty be affirmed is that it is ' not we ourselves,' that 
 it is beyond us and eternal. All else is to be set 
 aside as personification and poetry, or ' extra-belief.' 
 But would not an ' eternal-in-ourselves ' making for 
 righteousness be a more intelligible, an equally rele- 
 vant, and equally verifiable notion ? And how do we 
 know it to be ' eternal,' but by an a priori process, 
 which the new philosophy would disown ? We are 
 supposed to be conducted, by the help of this defini- 
 tion, out of the dim regions of theological haze, to the 
 terra jirma of verifiable knowledge. Is it then, less 
 intricate and confusing than the old historic concep- 
 tion, which it is intended to supplant ? No one, it is 
 said, ' has discovered the nature of God to be personal, 
 or is entitled to assert that God has conscious intelli- 
 gence.' But we are told to look to ' the constitution 
 and history of things,' where we find an ' eternal ten-
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 73 
 
 dency ' at work ' outside of us, prevailing whether we 
 will or no, whether we are here or not ;' and that, if 
 we look we shall find, that this eternal non-ego 
 * makes for righteousness.' 
 
 The special merit which the new definition claims 
 for itself is that it is a luminous one, and that it is 
 within the range of experience, where it can be tested 
 and verified. Now, in this demand for verification, 
 Mr Arnold either wishes our religious philosophy to 
 be recast in terms of the exact sciences, and nothing' 
 accepted in the sphere of psychology and metaphysic, 
 which cannot be reached as we reach conclusions in 
 mathematics ; or he is stating a philosophical com- 
 monplace, viz., that moral truth is not susceptible of 
 demonstrative evidence. Are not the terms he makes 
 use of, however, both loose and deceptive ? This 
 ' making for righteousness ' is meant to describe the 
 action of a vast impersonal tendency, everywhere 
 operative towards that end. But surely all our expe- 
 rience of ' tendency ' in the direction of righteousness 
 is personal. Observation of the results of human 
 action, of the consequences of wrong-doing and of 
 righteous conduct respectively, shows that certain 
 causes, set in motion by ourselves or by others, 
 issue in certain subjective effects. If we confine our- 
 selves to the sphere of experience, we not only get no 
 further than the observation of phenomena, but all 
 the succession we observe is personal ; because it is 
 the field of human conduct alone that is before us. 
 Further, in thus limiting ourselves, another fact 
 arrests our notice. If there be a stream of tendency, 
 not ourselves, that makes for righteousness, there is 
 also a stream of tendency, not ourselves, that makes
 
 74 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 for wickedness. There are two streams of tendency- 
 flowing through the universe, into one or other of 
 which all the lesser rills of moral influence flow. We 
 can trace their fluctuating course, from the earliest 
 ages to the present time ; but what the better are 
 we of either, as a solution of the ultimate problem of 
 the universe ? If we confine ourselves to the limited 
 area open to inductive inference, and the verifications 
 of experience, we cannot reach the conclusion that 
 there is a single stream of tendency, not ourselves and 
 beneficent, which makes for righteousness alone. If 
 certain phenomena seem to warrant this inference, 
 counter-appearances suggest, with equal force, the 
 operation of a malignant power, making persist- 
 ently for evil ; and with two antagonist forces in 
 perpetual collision, the Manichean doctrine is 
 reached, and the conditions of ditheism are surely 
 complete. 
 
 Returning to the formula against which Mr Arnold 
 has directed so many acute shafts of criticism, viz., 
 that God is ' a person who thinks and loves,' I have 
 no hesitation in accepting it as a substantially accurate 
 definition of what is held by the majority of theists ; 
 although, perhaps few would state it in these terms, 
 and it is liable to misconception, chiefly through the 
 use of the indefinite article ! If Mr Arnold were 
 merely cautioning us against identifying our notion of 
 what constitutes personality in God, with our concept 
 of personality in man — if his teaching on this point 
 were but a warning against the popular tendency to 
 assume, either that human nature was an adequate 
 measure of the Divine, or that it afforded our only 
 light as to the characteristics of the Divine — it would be
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 7o 
 
 most salutary ; although it would be merely a continua- 
 tion of the familiar message of the seers of Israel, 
 a modern echo of the prophetic voices of the Hebrew- 
 Church, when they affirmed that He is ' not altogether 
 such an one as ourselves.' It amounts, however, to 
 much more than this. It is an echo of the dogma, 
 which lies at the heart of every monistic system of 
 speculation ; viz., that there is a radical inconsistency, 
 or contradiction, between the notions of the Personal 
 and the Infinite, so that we cannot combine both, in a 
 concept which conserves the characteristics of each ; 
 but must, in logical consistency, surrender the one, or 
 the other ; that, in short, if God be a person, He can- 
 not be infinite ; and if infinite, He must be impersonal. 
 Personality is regarded as, in all cases, essentially 
 limited, and necessarily bounded. In the human race, 
 the personality of each man is supjjosed to consist in 
 the isolation from his fellows ; and it is inferred that 
 all personality consists in a gathering together of self, 
 at a centre or focus of individuality; that it is realizable 
 and real, only in its separation from, and exclusion of, 
 other things ; while it is affirmed that the Absolute 
 and Infinite are all-embracing, and all-surrounding, 
 excluding nothing, but enfolding within themselves the 
 totality of existence. Therefore, it is said, if there be 
 an infinite and absolute Being in the universe, nothing- 
 else can exist beside Him. He will take up and in- 
 clude within himself, all existence whatsoever ; but, in 
 so doing, he cannot be personal ; for the personal is 
 always the bounded, the fenced, the separate, the en- 
 closed. 
 
 To put the difficulty, which the theistic solution 
 presents, in its strongest light, I restate the problem
 
 76 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 thus. Endeavouring to realize the infinite, whether in 
 space or in time, we may begin by imagining circles 
 beyond circles, systems vaster and still vaster, lines of 
 continuous succession unbroken by any point or 
 interval. We rise on the wings of imagination, and 
 pursue the journey till our thought sinks paralyzed. 
 But in so doing, we have never really got one step 
 beyond the finite. By such imaginative flights along 
 the lines of sequence, or over areas of space, we never 
 approach one whit nearer to the Infinite ; because the 
 vastest conceivable aggregate of finites is not really 
 liker it, than is the unit from which we start, in the 
 process of multiplication. The one is but the other 
 ' writ large.' Therefore, we may not only reach the 
 notion as well, before the journey of finite thought 
 commences ; but if we reach it at all, it must be by 
 a process wholly different from an expansion of the 
 finite, and by the exercise of another faculty than 
 imagination. We may do so, however, in a moment, 
 not by a multiplication of the finite, but by its elimina- 
 tion ; not by enlarging the notion, but by abolishing 
 it. All conceivable finites being before the mind, as an 
 indefinite quantity, we may say with Herder, ' These I 
 remove, and thou — the Infinite — liest all before me.' 
 Thus our thought of the Infinite is not a pictorial or 
 concrete realization of it as a mental image, built up 
 out of elements furnished by sense-experience, or 
 imaginatively bodied forth on the inner horizon of the 
 mind. We do not reach it by a synthetic process, 
 piecing together a multitude of finite things, sweeping 
 round them, and imagining them in their totality. 
 But, we at once and directly think away all limitation, 
 and abolish the finite, by excluding individual deter-
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. / 7 
 
 minate things, from a field pre- occupied by thought. 
 Now, with this idea of the Infinite — as the negation 
 of the finite— it seems difficult to conjoin the notion of 
 anything whatever that is personal ; for personality 
 manifests itself to us familiarly, under the restrictions 
 of finite form ; and as the one notion becomes clear, 
 the other usually grows dim. It is difficult to conjoin 
 the notion of personality even with that of the inde- 
 finitely vast. As you approach the latter, the former 
 seems to recede. Is there an intellectual stereoscope, 
 through which the two notions may be seen, blent in 
 the unity of a single conception? The defined idea of 
 personality, and the shadowy notion of the infinite, 
 may be bracketed together under a common term, 
 which expresses them both ; can they be also thought 
 in conjunction ? and have we any warrant for the in- 
 ference that they do actually coalesce in the supreme 
 existence, which we call God ? 
 
 All that we seem warranted in affirming is that per- 
 sonality is one of the characteristics, under which the 
 Supreme Being manifests himself ; not that it is 
 exhaustive of the phases of manifestation, that are 
 either possible, or actual. If we say that it is the highest 
 aspect known to us, we speak in a figure, and pro- 
 claim the poverty of our insight. For, to the Infinite, 
 there is nothing either high or low. These are ratios 
 of comparison by which the finite calculates. We give 
 to the notion of personality an eminence and value 
 that are unique, because, amongst the phenomena of 
 the universe, it seems to us the noblest and the most 
 commanding. But it is not, of necessity, the exclusive 
 idea attachable to the Divine Nature. That, within 
 the fulness of its infinitude, there should be aspects,
 
 78 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 phases, features, characteristics, which are totally unlike 
 and utterly transcending the personality of which we 
 are conscious, is a simple deduction from that infini- 
 tude. 
 
 With entire consistency, therefore, we may affirm 
 at once the personality, and the transcendency of God; 
 that is to say, Ave may affirm that He is a person, as 
 we understand the term, and that He is more than a 
 person, as Ave understand it. We cannot limit the 
 aspects, Avhich his Being may assume, to the phases 
 which our oavii natures present, any more than we may 
 narroAV the limits of his efficiency within the boundaries 
 of our OAvn. If Ave believe that everything, distinctive 
 of human personality, exists in God, in more exalted 
 phases ; Ave are also forced to believe that infinitely 
 more, that is different from it, co-exists within that 
 nature. In other Avords, though we recognise certain 
 features Avithin the Divine infinitude, analogous to the 
 personality of Avhich Ave are conscious, it does not 
 folloAv that we may identify the tAvo, and take the 
 human as an absolute measure of the Divine. It is 
 true Ave may err by taking a poor and circumscribed 
 notion, gathered from the Avorkings of our own facul- 
 ties, and substituting it for the glory that is imper- 
 sonal, and the order that is eternal ; but that danger 
 is not so great, as is the counter-risk of losing the 
 personal altogether, in the nebulous haze of the infinite. 
 The divine Absoluteness is lost to vieAv, if Ave think 
 merely of an infinite human being ; and God is as 
 truly discerned in the life, the movements, and the 
 glory of the universe, which Ave cannot call human — 
 in the absolute Order, the eternal Beauty, the im- 
 personal Sublimity, and the indefinite Splendour which
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 79 
 
 we can describe by no human attribute or tendency — 
 as He is revealed in the wisdom, the tenderness, the 
 grace, and the affection that are properly our own. 
 
 Further, were we warranted in taking human 
 nature as the sole interpreter of the Divine, we might 
 regard it also as its criterion and test ; carrying up its 
 mingled moral phenomena, and finding their archetypes 
 in celestial tendencies to evil as well as to good. 
 It is the notion, that the sphere of finite existence 
 supplies an area for inductive inference as to the pro- 
 cedure of the Absolute, that has given rise to so many 
 of the distortions of popular theology. 
 
 What then is our warrant for assuming an analogy, 
 which does not amount to an identity, and in thus 
 affirming the existence of a Personality at once real 
 and transcendent, or — if we may venture on the dis- 
 tinction — human, yet not anthropomorphic ? 
 
 The radical feature of personality, as known to us — 
 whether apprehended by self-consciousness, or recog- 
 nized in others — is the survival of a permanent self 
 under all the fleeting or deciduous phases of experience ; 
 in other words the personal identity, which is involved 
 in the assertion, " I am." While my thoughts, feel- 
 ings, and acts, pass away and perish, I continue to 
 exist, to live, and to grow in the fulness of experience. 
 Beneath the shows of things, the everlasting flux and 
 reflux of phenomenal change, a substance or interior 
 essence survives. Now, limitation is not a necessary 
 adjunct of that notion. There may not only be an 
 everlasting succession of thoughts, emotions, and voli- 
 tions — acts of consciousness in perpetual series, — while 
 the substantial and permanent self remains, underneath 
 the evanescent phenomena ; but the thought, feeling,
 
 80 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 &c., may have an infinite range, and be all-pervasive 
 and interpenetrating at every spot within the universe. 
 Limitation does not directly enter into the notion of 
 personality. The action of a personal being is limited 
 by the material on which he works, by his surround- 
 ings and circumstances ; and our personalities are 
 limited by other things, because they surround us ; 
 but if we surrounded them, and pervaded all finite 
 things by omnipresent energy, the limitation would be 
 simply a mode of action, and a condition of activity. 
 It does not therefore follow, from our experience of 
 limitation, that in being conscious, the conscious nature 
 must be invariably limited by the presence and en- 
 vironment of others. It may be unlimited in act, un- 
 shackled by conditions, spontaneous in all it does, 
 although it acts through the instrumentality and 
 agency of others. 
 
 To state the question otherwise ; Is separateness 
 from other existences equivalent to finitude ? Does 
 the one notion carry the other with it, or within it ? 
 All finite existences are separate, one from another ; 
 but it does not follow that all existence, that is sepa- 
 rate from others, must be finite. The infinite exist- 
 ence, which we conceive as the simple negation of the 
 finite, may nevertheless pervade it, in an unlimited 
 manner ; and the idea of a fence or boundary is not 
 involved in the notion of Personality in the abstract, 
 although it is involved in the notion of finite person- 
 ality. It does not therefore follow that, if a being is 
 personal, it must on that account, be simply one out 
 of many — differentiated from others, by reason of its 
 personality. Its personality is not the cause of its 
 separateness and differentiation. It cannot exist out
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 81 
 
 of all relation to other beings ; for all existence (or the 
 emergence of being in definite forms and relations) 
 implies separateness from others. But though par- 
 ticular existence is what it is, in virtue of other exist- 
 ences determining and conditioning it — and we, in our 
 limitation, cannot be conscious of our own personality, 
 except under the condition of a non-ego beyond us — it 
 is quite an illegitimate inference from this to affirm 
 that personality cannot exist at all, or be consciously 
 realized at all, except under the condition of a limiting 
 non-ego. It is conceivable that the non-ego would 
 vanish, in the case of a being that was transcendent 
 and a life that was all-pervasive. That the dualism, 
 involved in all finite consciousness, should cease in the 
 case of the Infinite, may be difficult to realise ; but to 
 affirm that, in all cases, self-consciousness implies a 
 centre, or focus, at which the scattered rays of indi- 
 viduality are gathered up, is assuredly to transgress, by 
 the unwarranted use of a physical analogy. 
 
 I quote from Strauss, who always states his case with 
 force and clearness : — 
 
 "The modern monotheistic conception of God has two sides, 
 that of the Absolute and that of the Personal, which, although 
 united in Him, are so in the same manner as that in which two 
 qualities are sometimes found in one person, one of which can be 
 traced to the father's side, the other to the mother's. The one 
 element is the Hebrew Christian, the other the Greco-philosophical 
 contribution to our conception of God. We may say that we 
 inherit from the Old Testament the 'Lord-God,' from the New 
 the ' God-Father,' but from the Greek philosophy the ' Godhead,' 
 or the 'Absolute.'"* 
 
 So far well, and excellently put. But if it be so, if 
 these notions — seemingly incompatible — are united in 
 
 * Old and New Faith, p. 121. 
 F
 
 82 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 our modern monotheism ' in the same manner as two 
 qualities are sometimes found in one person,' does not 
 that mitigate the difficulty of realising both as com- 
 bined in one transcendent Personality ? As two 
 streams of hereditary influence unite to form one river 
 of personality in a single individual, and as two great 
 conceptions of God have survived in the world, and 
 alternately come to the front in the mind of the race 
 (call them, for distinction's sake, the Hebraic and the 
 Hellenic), cannot these be supposed to unite in one vast 
 stream of Transcendent Being ? And are not the two 
 conceptions merely different ways of interpreting that 
 supreme Existence, which both equally recognize ? 
 But, if we inherit these notions from the sources which 
 Strauss so happily indicates., why proceed to disown 
 one half of the inheritance, and cast out the Jewish as 
 airy and unverifiable, while the Greek is retained as 
 the real and the scientific ? If we are indebted to both, 
 why refuse one half of the legacy ? or construe it as the 
 ghostly shadow, and the other as the enduring sub- 
 stance ? Was not the monotheism of the Jew at least 
 a historical discipline to the human consciousness, in 
 the interpretation of a real side of the mystery, which, 
 in its fulness, eluded him, as much as it baffled the 
 Greek ontologists ? Was it not at least as luminous 
 and satisfying a translation of that mysterious text, 
 which the ever-changeful universe presented to both ? 
 Grant that the Jewish notion of personality degenerated 
 at times into an anthropomorphism that was crude, 
 and scarcely more elevated than the polytheism it 
 supplanted. Nevertheless, the emphasis which it laid 
 on the distinction and separateness of God from the 
 world was part of the historic education of the race ;
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 83 
 
 just as the emphasis which the Greek mind laid on the 
 unity, which underlies all separateness, was another 
 part of that many-sided education. 
 
 But the supposition that ' personality implies a 
 limit ' is largely due to the physical or semi-physical 
 notions, that have gathered round the idea of a throne, 
 on which a monarch is seated. If we give up this 
 notion of a throne, a ' court,' and ' a retinue of angels,' 
 and even renounce that of a local heaven as an ' optical 
 illusion,' we shall not thus ' lose every attribute of per- 
 sonal existence and action,' as Strauss tells us we must. 
 Every rational theist, nay every thoughtful man, 
 understands that these ideas are the mere symbolical 
 drapery, which has been wrapped around the spiritual 
 notion by the realistic imagination of the Jews. The 
 whole of the sensuous imagery under which the Divine 
 Nature is portrayed, as well as the material figures 
 which are inlaid in every sentence in which we speak 
 of the spiritual, are mere aids to the imaginative faculty. 
 They are the steps of a ladder, on which we rise in 
 order that we may transcend the symbols — just as we 
 find that a realization of indefinite areas of space, or 
 intervals of time, helps us in the transcendent act by 
 which we think away the finite, and reach the infinite. 
 But that God is, to quote the ancient formula, ' All in 
 the whole and all in every part ' (as the soul is in the 
 body), not localised at any centre — this is one of the 
 commonplaces of theology. The notion of the Oriental 
 mind, which has coloured much of our Western theology, 
 that such symbols as those associated with royalty must 
 be taken literally, and not as the ' figures of the true,' 
 is expressly rejected in some of the definitions of the 
 Church itself. And further, there is scarcely an idea
 
 84 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 connected with the monotheism of the Jews, such as 
 king, judge, lawgiver, father, in reference to which 
 there are not express statements within the sacred 
 books of the nation, cautioning it against a literal 
 application of these terms to the Infinite. The prophets 
 saw their inadequacy, and felt their poverty, while they 
 used them. Yet they could not avoid using them. 
 They could not speak to the mass of the nation in other 
 than symbolic language, any more than the leaders of 
 the Greek schools could have dispensed with their 
 esoteric, and made the crowds in the agora under- 
 stand speculation on pure being. If we are to speak 
 of God at all in human words, we must employ the 
 inadequate medium of metaphoric speech ; and 'jealousy 
 to resist metaphor' does not, as Francis Newman says, 
 ' testify to depth of insight.'* In their horror of 
 anthropomorphism, ontologists have rarefied their 
 notion of the ultimate principle of existence into a mere 
 abstraction, a blank formless essence, a mere vacuum. 
 But, in making free use of anthropomorphic language, 
 we are aware that it is necessarily partial, and wholly 
 inadequate : and we exclude from our notion of per- 
 sonality, which it thus imperfectly describes, every 
 anthropomorphic feature that savours of limitation ; 
 while we retain the notion of a Being, who is personal 
 and yet infinite. 
 
 That personality cannot co-exist with infinity is a 
 groundless assumption, without speculative warrant or 
 experiential proof. Let us see. It is essential to all 
 
 * ' To refuse to speak of God as loving and planning, as grieving 
 and sympathizing, without the protest of a quasi, will not tend, ' he 
 adds, ' to clearer intellectual views (for what can be darker ?) but 
 will muddy the springs of affection.' — The Soul, p. 29.
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 85 
 
 personality that the person " thinks and loves/' as Mr 
 Arnold puts it. But are thought and emotion only 
 susceptible of finite action, and adequate to effect finite 
 ends ? Or, if the stream to which they give rise is 
 limited, may not the fountain whence they flow be in- 
 finite ? Can we not realize the existence of a Supreme 
 Personality, within which the whole universe lives, 
 moves, and has its being, and which has that universe 
 as an area, in which to manifest its thought, feeling, 
 and purpose? May not that intelligence, traces of 
 which we see everywhere in the physical order — that 
 purpose, in the manifestation of which there is no gap 
 or chasm anywhere — be the varying index of an omni- 
 present Personality ? Into thought and emotion them- 
 selves the idea of restriction does not enter ; although, 
 whenever they appear in special acts or concrete in- 
 stances, they assume a finite form. They are then 
 limited by each other, and by their opposites, as well 
 as by every specific existence in which they respec- 
 tively appear. But to themselves in the abstract the 
 idea of limitation no more appertains, than it is neces- 
 sarily bound up with the notion of power or energy. 
 This, however, is to anticipate. 
 
 We are deceived when we carry into the realm of 
 Nature and the Infinite, the analogy of a material centre 
 and a physical circumference, by which our own person- 
 ality is ' cabined and confined.' To the infinite, there 
 can be neither centre nor circumference ; or we may 
 say that the centre is everywhere, and the circumfer- 
 ence nowhere. But if the attributes of mind or in- 
 telligence are revealed throughout the whole extent of 
 the universe open to our inspection, is it impossible to 
 conjoin with the notion of their infinite range, the
 
 86 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 idea of a Person to whom they belong, in whom they 
 inhere, and of whose essence they are the many-sided 
 manifestation ? Is there any greater difficulty in 
 supposing their conjunction over the whole universe, 
 than in realizing their coincidence at any one spot 
 within it ? It is assuredly not the mere extent of the 
 area that constitutes the difficulty of their conjunc- 
 tion. 
 
 We thus come back to what has, in some form or 
 another, lain at the root of every theistic argument. 
 Is the universe in any sense intelligible ? Can it be 
 read, understood, and interpreted by us at all ? or 
 does it present an ' untranslatable text,' which we in 
 vain attempt to decipher ? When we say that phe- 
 nomena are organized — what do we mean by the 
 statement ? When we speak of them as correlated, 
 reciprocal, ordered, the parts of a whole — what do we 
 mean by these terms ? We are not projecting our 
 own thoughts outwards, on the face of external nature : 
 we are engaged in deciphering an inscription that is 
 written there. We are interpreting an objective 
 reality. Even in the simplest act of perception, dis- 
 tinguishing one phenomenon from another, we virtually 
 assume the presence of mind within the universe; and 
 in our knowledge of an external world, we have an 
 experience suggesting the theistic inference. 
 
 One solution of the problem of theism may thus 
 be found in the answer which we give to the question, 
 Are we warranted in interpreting the universe in terms 
 of intelligence ? We are accustomed to think, both 
 popularly and scientifically, that we know something 
 of Nature ; and we co-ordinate our knowledge in the 
 several sciences. But they all start from the pre-
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 87 
 
 supposition, that we do not project our own thought 
 into Nature, but that natural phenomena are them- 
 selves intelligible to us. And all the departmental 
 groups of knowledge take for granted a general doc- 
 trine of the knowable. We speak as aimlessly in our 
 most exact and scientific language as if we talked at 
 random, if we do not find thought and reason, within 
 all natural phenomena, as their substrate, their essence, 
 or their presupposition. Even if we profess to be 
 agnostics, and take refuge in a confession of ignorance, 
 under the seeming modesty which disclaims insight, 
 there lurks a latent doctrine of knowledge. If we 
 hold that all knowledge reaches us through the senses, 
 that we possess nothing higher than ' transformed 
 sensations,' behind this theory of the origin of our 
 ideas in experience there still lies the uneliminable 
 element which transcends it, and which is uncon- 
 sciously taken for granted in every theoretical explana- 
 tion of things as they are. If therefore mind be 
 legible in nature, and we cannot construe a single 
 phenomenon or group of phenomena otherwise than in 
 terms of intelligence, our interpretation is not the 
 result of unconscious idealization. It is the discern- 
 ment of objective reality, the recognition of the eternal 
 mind, in the everlasting processes of manifestation. 
 
 Finding everywhere the signs of mind, in the cor- 
 relations and successions of phenomena, we interpret 
 the whole series, as the manifestation of a personal 
 essence underlying it; for of mind that is impersonal 
 we cannot form a notion. Do not all the forms of 
 finite being, the specializations of existence, and the 
 successions of phenomena, lead to the conclusion that 
 there is a Supreme Essence in which every specializa-
 
 88 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 tion is lost, a whole in which all succession is merged ? 
 Does not every series or succession of parts lead the 
 mind directly to a ' unity, where no division is V Is 
 it not the case that we cannot rest in the particular 
 and the fragmentary, because these are evanescent ? 
 But if we interpret the individual and the fragmentary 
 in terms of intelligence, surely we cannot dispense with 
 it when we rise to that supreme Unity, in which variety 
 ceases, and multiplicity is lost. 
 
 It is true that we do not know what constitutes the 
 inmost essence of personality, under all the shifting 
 phases of experience ; and, on that account, there is 
 an element of vagueness attaching to the idea. But 
 we are aware that our own identity or self-hood sur- 
 vives, while the successive waves of experience rise 
 and fall : and, that the Eternal Essence or everlasting 
 Substance of the universe should be supremely con- 
 scious of self, through the ceaseless change and turmoil 
 of creation, is conceivable enough. It may be that 
 infinitude alone supplies the condition for a perfect 
 consciousness of personality ; and that our finiteness, 
 as Lotze teaches, is ' not a productive condition of 
 personality, but rather a hindering barrier to its per- 
 fect development.' 4 If there is a difficulty in thus 
 conceiving of a personality which can dispense with 
 a non-ego, as the condition of its activity — which does 
 not necessarily involve the distinction between self and 
 not-self — and if, in consequence, we are unable to 
 compress our belief in the Divine Personality within 
 the mould of a logical formula, ' let it ' (as Mr Greg 
 says of the belief in immortality), ' let it rest in the 
 vague, if you would have it rest unshaken ; ' 'it is 
 * Microcosmus, iii. p. 575.
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 89 
 
 maintainable so long as it is suffered to remain nebu- 
 lous and unoutlined.' The very grandeur of the term 
 ' God ' consists in the fact that it includes, not less 
 but so much more, than any specific description could 
 embrace within it. The reality transcends every 
 definition of it ; and our various theoretical explana- 
 tions of the fact — which appeals to our consciousness 
 unceasingly, and in forms so manifold — are just so 
 many ways by which we successively register our own 
 insight. We put into intelligible shape a conviction, 
 which, the moment we define it, is felt to transcend 
 our definitions immeasurably. 
 
 But are our definitions ever correct ? Are they 
 accurate so far as they go, while admittedly incom- 
 plete ? They may be so, without claiming to be either 
 final, or exhaustive of that which they endeavour to 
 define. They are the result of the efforts of the 
 reason to formulate, or reduce to intellectual shape, a 
 conviction which has several distinct roots, but which 
 is not invariable, or steadily luminous, or always irre- 
 sistible. From the very nature of the case, the Divine 
 Personality must be suggested, rather than evidenced 
 with indubitable force. If we can, by reason, scatter 
 the a priori difficulties which seem to gather round 
 the notion itself, it may be left to the workings of 
 intuition to reveal the positive fact, a posteriori, in 
 the flash of occasional inspiration. If the Divine Pre- 
 sence were obtruded upon the inward eye, as material 
 objects appeal to the sense of sight, the faculties which 
 recognise it would be dazzled, and unable to note or 
 register anything besides. Our recognition of God 
 must therefore be casual, fugitive, occasional, to leave 
 room for our knowledge of, and relation to, other exist-
 
 90 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 ences. Were it continuous and uniform, it would de- 
 generate to the common level of our consciousness of 
 finite things and material existence. In its fugitive- 
 ness and its transiency lies one feature of its divine- 
 ness. And therefore, that there should be endless 
 discussion, and the perpetual shock of controversy in 
 reference to it, is only to be expected. If the aspects 
 under which God is revealed vary perpetually, if He 
 at once surrounds and pervades us, yet withdraws from 
 our gaze, the everlasting controversy of the ages, and 
 the rise and fall of systems which now assert and now 
 dispense with his presence, are most easily explained ; 
 and the perpetual resuscitation of debate (after solu- 
 tions have been advanced by the score) is proof of the 
 working of an instinct which rises higher than these 
 proofs themselves. They are, all of them — ontologi- 
 cal, cosmological, teleological, and the rest) merely 
 historical memorials of the efforts of the human mind 
 to vindicate to itself the existence of a Reality, of 
 which it is conscious, but which it cannot "perfectly 
 define. In their completest forms, they are simply 
 the result of the activity of the reason and the con- 
 science combined, to account for that Reality, and to 
 define it to others. 
 
 Thus, that our consciousness of the Divine Person- 
 ality is often dormant, says nothing against its reality 
 or trustworthiness, when it is stirred to life. It rather 
 tells the other way. What is ceaselessly obtruded on 
 our notice is not more true, by reason of its obvious- 
 ness, than what is flashed upon it in moments of 
 transient ecstasy or insight. We are not always on 
 the mountain-tops. We cannot breathe the ethereal 
 air for ever, or live in the white light of a never-
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 91 
 
 ceasing apocalypse. But these are surely the supreme 
 moments of discernment. No one can rationally affirm 
 that the duller flats of mental life — in which our 
 powers are arrested and distracted by a multiplicity 
 of objects surrounding them, our thoughts embarrassed 
 by contingency and change — are more significant of 
 the truth of things, than those in which our faculties 
 are kindled into life, by the sense of a Reality appeal- 
 ing to them, and yet concealing itself from their 
 scrutiny. Nor will the general consciousness of the 
 race admit that these are times of mere idealistic 
 trance, and poetic illusion. Rather are they times of 
 inspiration, in which we see beyond appearances, and 
 beneath all semblance, into the inner life of things. 
 
 The question has so many sides that, at the risk of 
 some repetition, it may be restated thus. It is said 
 that a definite limitation is involved in all activity, 
 and that, if there be an infinite Personality, it is 
 doomed to everlasting repose, without act or sign of 
 energy ; for to act is to be limited by the conditions 
 of activity. It is said that every specific mode of 
 energy, which takes shape in a determinate form is, 
 i'pso facto, limited ; that Power emerging from its 
 latent state, and shotving itself in the theatre of finite 
 existence, limits itself, by its very relation to the things 
 on which it operates ; and that therefore it is only the 
 indeterminate that is strictly the unlimited and infinite. 
 But, in the first place, is not power in its latent state 
 — i.e. unmanifested, unspecialized in a concrete form — 
 more limited in its retirement, and hampered by its 
 seclusion, than it would be in its energy and activity ? 
 Character is not limited by the special acts in which 
 it is revealed. On the contrary, the more varied its
 
 92 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 features, the greater and fuller is the character. It 
 is not the absence of definite characteristics that 
 proves one nature to be richer than another, but their 
 number, their intensity, their manifoldness, and their 
 range. In the second place, a limit may be self-im- 
 posed ; and if so, it is simply one of the conditions 
 under which alone power can manifest itself. Resist- 
 ance reveals power, by giving an opportunity for 
 energy to overcome the barrier. Power unresisted is 
 power unmanifested, and may be conceived of as latent 
 heat ; but it is the presence of some obstacle to be 
 overcome which shows the power of that which subdues 
 it, in the very act of yielding and being overthrown. 
 It may be conceded that whenever power is put in 
 exercise, and issues in a definite act, it is limited 
 by its relation to other acts ; inasmuch as it immedi- 
 ately becomes one of the million links, in the chain of 
 finite things. But the fountain-head of energy, whence 
 the act has come forth to play its part in the theatre 
 of existence, is unaffected by that limitation. In 
 short, the act may be limited, while the Agent is not. 
 In the third place, the actual conditions under which 
 we live, and under which our personality works, prove 
 that the existence of a barrier in some directions 
 enlarges, deepens, and widens our personality in 
 others ; for example, the limitation or restriction in- 
 volved in all duty. And this is not due merely to 
 the law of compensation, and to the fact that what 
 is lost on one side is gained on another ; but it is 
 because, without the limit, or the constraint, the highest 
 form of activity could not possibly exist. 
 
 Perhaps the chief difficulty is experienced, however, 
 not when we attempt to construe to our minds the
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 93 
 
 existence of the Divine Personality alone, but when 
 we try to conceive it in its relation to humanity ; 
 when we endeavour in fact to realize the co-existence 
 of the Infinite with the finite. So long as we think 
 only of the Infinite, there is no logical puzzle, and the 
 intellectually consistent scheme of pantheism emerges; 
 so long again as we think only of the finite, there is 
 no dilemma, though we seem locked in the embrace 
 of an atheistic system. But try to combine the infinite 
 with the finite — the former being not the mere expansion 
 of the latter, but its direct negation — and, in the 
 dualism, which their union forces upon us, a grave 
 difficulty seems to lurk. What is the relation, which 
 the innumerable creatures that exist, bear to the all- 
 surrounding Essence ? It cannot be similar to that 
 which the planets bear to the sun, round which they 
 revolve ; for the sun is only a vaster finite, like its 
 satellites : and God + the universe is not a sum of 
 being, equivalent to that of the sun + the planetary 
 bodies. How then can there be two substances, a 
 finite and an infinite ? Does not the latter necessarily 
 quench the former by its very presence ? As a child 
 of four years once put it, " If God be everywhere, how 
 could there be any room for us ? " 
 
 We must admit that if God be " the sum of all 
 reality " (as the Eleatics, the later Platonists, Erigena, 
 Spinoza, and Hegel have maintained), then, since we 
 are a part of that sum, we are necessarily included 
 within the Divine essence. Further, if there be but 
 one substance in the universe, and all the phenomena 
 of the human consciousness, together with those of the 
 external world, are but the varying phases which that 
 single reality assumes ; then, it matters not what we
 
 94 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 call it — a force, a cause, a person, a substance, a life, 
 God — all that is, is of it. This is the pantheistic 
 solution of the problem, which has fascinated so many 
 of the subtlest minds. It has, of course, been met by 
 the doctrine of creation in time, or the origination of 
 finite existence at a particular instant by the fiat of 
 a Creator. Many believe this to be essential to 
 theism, and are afraid that if we allow a perpetual 
 cosmos, we must dispense with an eternal God, except 
 as an opifex mundi ; that if we do not affirm the 
 origin of the universe ex nihilo, we are unable to 
 maintain the separateness of God from it, and his 
 transcendency. I see no warrant for this. To affirm 
 that without an absolute start of existence, out of blank 
 nonentity into manifested being, we have no evidence 
 of God at all, or only the signs of an eternally 
 hampered Deity — a mere supplement to the sum of 
 existence — is altogether illegitimate. For the evid- 
 ence of Divine action would then be dependent on the 
 signs of past effort, or the occurrence of a stupendous 
 stroke, crisis, or start of energy. Why may not the 
 story of the universe be rather interpreted as the 
 everlasting effect of an eternal Cause ? Do we need 
 an origin in time, if we have a perpetual genesis, or 
 a ceaseless becoming co-eval with the everlasting 
 cause ? Which is the grander, which the more 
 realizable notion, to suppose Nature at one moment 
 non-existent, and the next ' flashed into material 
 reality at the fiat of Diety,' or to suppose it eternally 
 plastic under the power of an Artificer, who is per- 
 petually fashioning it, through all the cycles of pro- 
 gressive change ? It is not the actual entrance or the 
 possible exit of existence that we have to explain, but
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 95 
 
 its manipulations, the rise of organizations and their 
 decay, the evolution and succession of varied types of 
 life ; and it is precisely these which attest the pres- 
 ence of an indwelling and immediately acting God. 
 
 Dualism, therefore, finds its speculative warrant, 
 not in any assumed act of creation, but in the eternal 
 necessities of the case, in the double element involved 
 in all knowledge, and such experiential facts as those 
 of sense-perception and intuition generally. 
 
 To get rid of the dualism of monotheistic theory, 
 which seemed to him to limit the Infinite, Spinoza 
 adopted the old monistic position ; holding God and 
 nature to be but the eternal cause and the everlast- 
 ing effect, natura naturans and natura naturata. 
 This theory, however, affords no explanation of how 
 the mind of man blossoms into a consciousness of the 
 Infinite, of how the finite knower reaches his con- 
 ception of the Infinite ; because, according to the 
 theory, all that is reached by the mind of the knower 
 is itself a development of the infinite. The psycho- 
 logical act of recognition is itself only a wave on the 
 sea of existence. Dualism explains the apprehension 
 of the one by the other, in its affirmation that all our 
 knowledge is obtained under the conditions of con- 
 trast and difference, and thus reaches us in pairs of 
 opposites. It does not affirm that, in order to the 
 consciousness of personality in the Infinite, there must 
 of necessity be a recognition of self and not-self, of 
 self and the universe ; but it affirms that to the finite 
 knower it must be so ; that to him subject implies 
 object, and the ego the non-ego ; that the two are 
 given together, and are realizable only in union. Ou 
 every monistic theory of the universe, however, the
 
 9G PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 question ' Where is God to be found ?' is meaning- 
 less ; the ' search for God ' is a contradiction in terms ; 
 because the seeker and the search, the quest and the 
 qucesitor and the qucesitum, are all manifestations of 
 one and the same substance. Dualism is involved in 
 the very notion of a search. 
 
 Further, to take for granted that the Infinite is that 
 which quenches the finite, which abolishes and absorbs 
 it, is to beg the whole question in debate. This super- 
 session of the finite by the Infinite is speculatively as 
 illegitimate as is the acosmism of Spinoza. It is true 
 that we reach the idea of the infinite by removing 
 the finite out of the way. But then the act of ex- 
 clusion or absorption, being an act of thought, con- 
 stitutes one term of a relation. If we can think of 
 the infinite at all, we have a mental concept which 
 stands contrasted with that of the finite, and thus 
 again dualism emerges. Although our conception of 
 the infinite is reached by the abolition of .the finite, 
 it does not follow that if an Infinite Being exists, no 
 finite can co-exist with it. For the latter is not only 
 given as the prior fact of consciousness, but when we 
 proceed to eliminate it, the act of thinking it away, 
 being finite, supplies us with the uneliminable element 
 of dualistic relation and difference. Further, if it be 
 true that to predicate anything whatever of the infinite 
 is to assign a limit to it, if the maxim omnis deter- 
 minatio est negatio be sound, then the infinite has to 
 the human mind no definite existence whatsoever. 
 It is not distinguishable from the non-existent ; and 
 the conclusion, ' being = nothing,' is reached. Hegel 
 himself admits that ' abstract supersensible essence, 
 void of all difference and all specific character,
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 97 
 
 is a mere caput niortuwm of the abstract under- 
 standing.'"' But on what principle are we debarred 
 from claiming for the Infinite Essence, simply because 
 of its infinity, all possible, all conceivable predicates, 
 and therefore the power of revealing itself to the 
 finite knower. To affirm the opposite is not to limit 
 us alone, but to limit it, by denying its power of self- 
 manifestation. 
 
 In all thought and consciousness dualism emerges, 
 because there is invariably a subject and an object, 
 a knower and a thing known. But do these limit 
 each other ? How so ? We always know in part ; 
 but the object we discern may be recognized by us 
 as infinite, in the very act of knowing it in part. 
 We may be aware that the thing we apprehend in its 
 inmost nature transcends our apprehension of it ; 
 while the latter fact does not abolish the former, or 
 reduce our supposed knowledge to ignorance. While, 
 therefore, all our knowledge enters the mind under 
 dualistic conditions, this psychological fact does not 
 relegate every object known by us to the category of 
 the finite, or prevent the direct knowledge of God in 
 his infinity and transcendency. Nor does it follow 
 that, with a double element in all cognition, the one 
 is positive and the other negative, as some of the 
 advocates of nescience contend. They are both equally 
 positive and equally negative, since each is antithetic 
 of the other, and, nevertheless, its supporting back- 
 ground in the field of consciousness. One of the two 
 may be prominent and proximate at a particular 
 moment, but the other is invariably present behind 
 it, giving it form and character. The relativity of 
 
 * 'Logic,' § 112. 
 
 G
 
 98 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 human apprehension does not cut us off from a direct 
 and positive knowledge of the Infinite. As admirably 
 expressed by Dr Martineau, ' we admit the relative 
 character of human thought as a psychological fact : 
 we deny it as an ontological disqualification.'* 
 
 The most direct suggestions of Personality in alli- 
 ance with infinity reach us, however, through the 
 channel of the moral faculty. They are disclosed in 
 the phenomena of conscience, and also of affection. 
 
 Before indicating how these suggestions arise, I 
 return to the teaching of Mr Arnold on the subject. 
 He has made us all so much his debtors by the light 
 he has cast on sundry historical problems, and his 
 rare literary skill in handling these, that any critic of 
 his work, who differs from him on so radical a point 
 as the nature of God, finds the task neither easy nor 
 congenial. In addition to the obscurity which the 
 subject itself presents, there is a special difficulty in 
 adequately estimating a writer, whose criticism is on 
 most points so true, so subtle, and profound. 
 
 Admiration, however, is one thing, assent is another. 
 Mr Arnold wishes us all to use the Bible fruitfully, 
 and his contributions to its fruitful use have been 
 neither few nor slight. Nevertheless, in his attack 
 on what he terms the 'God of metaphysics,' his elaborate 
 critical assault — lacking neither in ' vigour nor in 
 rigour' — on the notion of Personality in God, he 
 removes, as it seems to me, the very basis of theo- 
 logy ; and the whole superstructure of the science 
 becomes fantastic and unreal. He is sanguine of 
 laying the basis of a ' religion more serious, potent, 
 awe-inspiring, and profound than any which the world 
 * Essays, Philosophical and Theological, p. 234.
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 99 
 
 has yet seen' (p. 109""), but he builds it on the ruins 
 of the theistic philosophies of the past. The latter 
 must in the first instance be levelled with the ground, 
 and the debris removed. We are to find 'the elements 
 of a religion — new, indeed, but in the highest degree 
 hopeful, solemn, and profound' (p. 109) — only when 
 we renounce the delusion that ' God is a person who 
 thinks and loves,' regarding it as a ' fairy tale,' as 
 ' figure and personification/ and of the same scientific 
 value as the personification of the sun or the wind. 
 
 Religion, however, being the expression of depend- 
 ence, involves and carries in its heart the recognition 
 of an Object on whom the worshipper depends ; and, 
 as he is personal, and his personality is most distinctly 
 evinced in his religion, the Object on whom he de- 
 pends, and whom he recognises, must be personal also. 
 Without personality — or its archetype and analogue — 
 in God, religion is reduced to a poetic thrill or 
 glow of emotion. From it, recognition is absent. It 
 is both blind and dumb, inarticulate and vague. But, 
 as was happily said of the system of Comte, ' the wine 
 of the real presence beiug poured out,' we are asked 
 'to adore the empty cup.' 
 
 The readers of this Review do not need to be told 
 that theoretical science or Speculative Philosophy — in 
 the grand historic use and wont of the term — is to Mi- 
 Arnold a barren region, void of human interest ; and 
 that intellectual travel over it is pronounced by him to 
 be resultless. His dismissal of the metaphysical argu- 
 ments for Divine personality ' with sheer satisfaction ' 
 
 r This article was written in 1874, when Mr Arnold's Essays 
 appeared in The Contemporary Review. I quote from them as now 
 collected in the volume entitled 'God and the Bible.'
 
 100 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 ' because they have convinced no one, have given rest 
 to no one, have given joy to no one, nay, no one has 
 even really understood them' (pp. 104-5), is curious 
 as coming from so distinguished an advocate of rich 
 and many-sided culture. Curious, — when one remem- 
 bers that, from the schools of Speculative Philosophy, 
 all the great movements of opinion in other depart- 
 ments have originally sprung, and that every question 
 raised in these departments must ultimately run up 
 into the region of metaphysic. On a first perusal of 
 these delightful papers, one feels that he is being led 
 by the most charming of guides into the regions of 
 light and of certitude. By-and-by he finds that his 
 guide is an army leader, who intends ' boldly to carry 
 the war into the enemy's country, and see how many 
 strong fortresses of the metaphysicians he can enter 
 and rifle' (p. 96). He becomes the leader of a new 
 crusade against our English notions about God, our 
 crass metaphysics, and our unverifiable theology, and 
 would prepare the way for a ' religion more serious, 
 potent, awe-ins piring, and profound than any which 
 the world has yet seen ' by first cleverly chaffing the 
 old philosophy out of the way. 
 
 But this disparagement of the whole region of me- 
 taphysic, because it deals with the questions of ' being' 
 and ' essence,' is not so surprising as is Mr Arnold's 
 attempt to find, in the simple etymology of words, a 
 clue to the mysteries which baffle the ontologist. 
 In this investigation, interesting as it is, he has started 
 on a journey, which ends in a cut de sac. To discover 
 the origin of the terms Being, Essence, Substance, by 
 getting hold of the primitive Aryan root whence the 
 Greek, Latin, French, or English words have been de-
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 101 
 
 rived, will not help us in the inquiry which concerns 
 the origin of the ideas expressed by these terms. 
 Abstracta ex concretis may be the law of linguistic 
 derivation ; and, by etymological study, we mo,y learn 
 how the human race has come to make use of certain 
 terms, and to attach particular meanings to them. In 
 following the course of that curious river of linguistic 
 affinity, we may trace the process by which the notions 
 of movement, growth, and permanence have (possibly) 
 grown out of the ' breathe,' ' grow,' and ' stand ' of the 
 old Aryan root. But the most exact knowledge of the 
 subtlest windings of this river will not solve, will not 
 even give us the materials for solving, the ulterior 
 question, whether the human mind has imaginatively 
 transformed the concrete into the abstract, or has been 
 all the while interpreting to itself an objective reality. 
 ' By a simple figure,' says Mr Arnold, ' these terms 
 declare a perceived energy and operation, nothing more. 
 Of a subject, that performs this operation, they tell us 
 nothing' (p. 82). These 'primitives' have been 
 ' falsely supposed to bring us news about the primal 
 nature of things, to declare a subject in which inhered 
 the energy and operation we had noticed, to indicate 
 a fontal category, or supreme constitutive condition, 
 into which the nature of all things whatsoever might 
 be finally run up ' (p. 82). No one, so far as I am 
 aware, maintains this, as Mr Arnold puts it. Let it 
 be conceded that our abstract terms arose out of con- 
 cretes ; that, as acts of perception must have preceded 
 the processes of generalisation in the race, (as they 
 precede them in the experience of each individual), the 
 words employed to express abstract ideas were first 
 used to describe individual or concrete things ; and
 
 102 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 that, the etymological research, which unravels for us 
 the intricate processes of growth, adaptation and change 
 in the usus loquendi of terms, is one of the most fruit- 
 ful branches of inquiry. But, supposing the entire 
 course of linguistic development traced for us by an 
 unerring hand, and in precise scientific detail, the 
 whole question re-emerges subsequent to such research, 
 and confronts us as before — viz. this, what has the 
 human mind really done in making use of these con- 
 crete terms to express its abstract notions ? To express 
 them at all, it must use some word ; and that it selects 
 one, which originally described an individual or con- 
 crete thing, tells nothing against the fact that it is 
 now able to abstract from these particulars — to gene- 
 ralise and fitly to record its generalisation — or to 
 describe, by means of the adopted term, ideas which 
 have not entered the mind by the gateway of the 
 senses. 
 
 Mr Arnold speaks of the words ' is ' and ' be ' as 
 ' mysterious petrifications which remain in language as 
 if they were autochthons there, as if no one could go 
 beyond them or behind them. Without father, with- 
 out mother, without descent, as it seemed, they yet 
 are omnipresent in our speech, and indispensable ' (p. 
 83); whereas he has shown that the terms really arose 
 out of our sense-experience of concrete things. Let us 
 suppose that he is correct in his account of the process 
 by which the product has been reached. He merely 
 exhibits to us a genealogical chart, or tree of derivation. 
 A out of B, B out of C, C out of X. But the real 
 question lies behind the genealogy. We may imagine 
 our Aryan forefathers, in their infantine gaze over the 
 ever-changing world of phenomena, describing what
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 103 
 
 met the eye and ear and senses generally, by certain 
 words, mostly imitative of the sounds of nature. Then, 
 as their intelligence grew, with the repetition of the 
 old and the occurrence of new experience, if they wished 
 to express the notion of a thing existing, they made use 
 of a term which they had previously used to describe 
 its operation, viz., ' breathing.' Were this statement 
 of the origin and pre-historic usage of abstract terms 
 found correct — a point which must be determined by 
 specialists in the domain of archaic etymology — the 
 investigation would not have really guided us one step 
 towards the solution of the graver problem, the origin 
 of the ideas with which the terms deal. We would 
 have been merely moving on the surface-plane of pheno- 
 menal succession, of historic sequence and development ; 
 and the most accurate account of that process would no 
 more explain the source of the ideas to which the mind 
 has affixed the old terms, than the discovery of all the 
 links of a chain would explain its origin or method of 
 construction. 
 
 Mr Arnold would persuade us that, because the 
 terms which now describe our abstract categories were 
 originally used to describe objects known by sense- 
 perception, the ideas came in also by that outward 
 gateway. Is it not a better explanation of these 
 ( mysterious petrifactions,' is and be, that the notions 
 which they represent, the categories which they de- 
 scribe, are themselves autochthons in the human mind; 
 and that they spring up out of the soil of the con- 
 sciousness, whenever that soil is made ready for their 
 growth, by the scantiest intellectual husbandry ? In- 
 digenous to the spirit of man — though latent in its 
 inmost substance till evolved by the struggle of mind 
 
 o
 
 104 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 with its environment — it is not surprising that in 
 afterwards naming them, the simple words, once used 
 to describe the operations of nature, or of man, should 
 be invested with new meanings ; or that in the course 
 of ages they should have broadened out into general 
 and abstract terms. 
 
 But if neither the etymology of particular words, 
 nor a study of the origin and growth of language, 
 affords us any help in determining the origin of our 
 ideas, it is equally certain that no knowledge of ' pre- 
 historic man ' can aid us in solving that ulterior 
 question. Suppose it proved that man has arisen, in 
 the long struggle for existence, out of elements inferior 
 to himself, and that his present beliefs have been 
 evolved out of lower phases of thought and feeling, 
 this proof will not determine — it will not even touch 
 — the problem of the reality of that existence, to 
 which the present beliefs of the race bear witness. 
 The question of chief interest is not the genealogical 
 one, of how we have come to be endowed with these 
 beliefs, but the metaphysical one of their jDresent 
 validity, to the individual and to the species. Are 
 they, as they now exist, competent witnesses to an 
 outstanding fact and an abiding reality ? It matters 
 little how a belief has been reached, if its final verdict 
 be true ; and the method of its development casts no 
 light on the intrinsic character, or the trustworthiness 
 of its final attestation. The evolution of organic 
 existence out of the inorganic, and of the rational out 
 of the organic — supposing it scientifically demon- 
 strated, and every missing link in the chain of deriva- 
 tion supplied — would only tell us of a law, or method, 
 or process of becoming. It would give us no informa-
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 105 
 
 tion as to the character of the Fountain-head, out of 
 which the stream of development has flowed, and is 
 flowing now. What has been evolved, in the slow 
 uprise and growth of innumerable ages, is the outcome 
 and manifestation of an 
 
 eternal process moving on 
 
 in lines of continuous succession — an ever-advancing 
 stream of physical, intellectual, and moral tendency. 
 But the question remains, is this onward movement a 
 real advance ? Is it progressive, as well as successive ? 
 Are the later conceptions of the universe — which have 
 been evolved out of the guesses of primeval men — 
 really ' higher,' because more accurate, interpretations 
 of the reality of things ? Or, is the whole series of 
 notions from first to last an illusory process of idealiza- 
 tion and personification, and therefore mere conjecture 
 or guess-work ? Grant that out of nature-worship all 
 our theology has grown ; has the growth been a pro- 
 gressive, and progressively accurate, interpretation of 
 what is ? If, out of the animal sensations of our 
 childhood, the conception of a spiritual Presence has 
 emerged, and out of the fantastic notions of primitive 
 religion the subtlest analyses of our Western theology 
 have sprung, the question of absorbing interest lies 
 behind this concession, and is altogether unaffected by 
 it. That question is, are our present adult notions 
 like a mirage in the desert, like 
 
 the clouds that gather round the setting sun, 
 
 half the glory of which lies in the changefulness of 
 their form and hue ? or has the race had an intuition 
 of reality — varying in accuracy, yet valid and
 
 10G PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 authentic — at each stage of its progress ? If the 
 latter alternative be rejected, wherein does the ad- 
 vance consist ? Surely there is no intelligible advance 
 at all ? And the guesses of the child, at the foot of the 
 ladder of inquiry, have an equal scientific value with 
 the surmises of the most educated at the top, that is 
 to say, neither have any scientific value at all. 
 
 If there be any meaning in a rudimentary stage of 
 human history, when the notions formed of the uni- 
 verse were chaotic and outlined or distorted, and if 
 this gave place by gradual steps to a time when ' the 
 ideas of conduct or moral order and right had 
 gathered strength enough to establish and declare 
 themselves' (p. 135), what meaning are we to attach 
 to the progress, unless in the latter period there was 
 a more accurate reading of the objective reality of 
 things ? The ' native, continuous, and increasing 
 pressure upon Israel's spirit of the ideas of conduct, 
 and its sanctions ' Mr Arnold calls ' his intuition of 
 the eternal that makes for righteousness.' But 
 whence came this pressure, this appeal from without, 
 this solicitation and revelation ? All that we are told 
 is that ' Israel had an intuitive faculty, a natural 
 bent for these ideas ' (p. 139). But the scientific 
 investigator of the laws of historic continuity at once 
 raises the farther question of whence ? and how ? 
 whence came they ? and how did they originate ? If 
 these things pressed upon the national mind or con- 
 sciousness of Israel, it must either have been from 
 behind — i.e., from tradition, the unconscious heritage 
 of past experience working in the blood of the people 
 — or, from an eternally present Power, disclosing 
 itself to that particular race in a progressive series of
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 1 07 
 
 manifestations. But does the inferior state ever 
 create the superior ? It necessarily precedes it in 
 time. But is the lower directly causal of the higher ? 
 We are told that the ' usage of the minority gradually 
 became the usage of the majority' (p. 147). So 
 far, we are simply recording facts which have 
 occurred. We are dealing with history, with the 
 successions of phenomena ; but we are explaining 
 nothing. Now, Philosophy essays an explanation of 
 history. It is not satisfied with statistics. If we ask 
 how the selfish and wholly animal tendencies of 
 primitive society gradually gave place to others, that 
 were generous or elevated, and if we are merely 
 directed to habit, custom, or usage, it is evident that 
 our director is simply veiling our ignorance from us, 
 by a repetition of the question we proposed. It is 
 an explanation of the usage, not a restatement of it, 
 that we desire. Habit merely tells us that a thing 
 done once was repeated, and will be clone again. 
 What we want to know is, how it came to be re- 
 peated ? ivhy it was done again ? why it was don.Qj.tt 
 all ? How the bent of the race was determined 
 this way rather than that — in favour of righteous- 
 ness rather than its opposite — is therefore altogether 
 unexplained by custom and association. It is the 
 custom, association and usage, that call for explana- 
 tion. But the progressive recognition of an eternally 
 righteous Source or moral Centre of the universe may 
 explain it ; the discernment by the spirit of man of 
 a supreme ethical principle, arising out of his relation 
 to a transcendent moral Personality. On any other 
 theory, the uprise from rudimentary perceptions to 
 the state which we now agree to call the ' moral
 
 108 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 order ' — with the sanctions of society superadded to 
 the customs of our ancestors — is unaccountable. 
 
 In other words, we cannot validly affirm that the 
 process of historic evolution has, after long conflict 
 and struggle, brought to the front principles of con- 
 duct and action, which can be called the real 
 elements of moral order, or of the constitution of 
 society, if these have not proceeded from, and are the 
 gradually clearer manifestations of, an eternal moral 
 Nature. If they are the product of a blind strife 
 amongst rival competing tendencies, at what point do 
 they become a rule for posterity ? At what stage of 
 evolution are we warranted in saying that ' the per- 
 ception, and the rule founded on it, have become a 
 conquest for ever, placing human nature on a higher 
 stage ; so that, however much the perception and the 
 rule may have been dubious and unfounded once, 
 they must be taken to be certain and formed now V 
 (p. 153). At no stage could this be affirmed, because 
 what has been formed by strife must alter with the 
 continued action of the forces that have made it what 
 it is. The child of contingency remains contingent, 
 and may itself become the parent of endless future 
 change. Unless, therefore, the law of evolution 
 ceases to operate, and the process of development 
 abruptly closes, the possible alteration of the canons 
 of morality, after the conquest has been made, is not 
 only as conceivable as it was before the struggle 
 commenced, but as certain. Farther, the possible 
 reversal of these canons — their possible disappearance 
 before some future conqueror — is involved in their 
 very origin, if that origin be merely the ' survival of 
 the fittest ' in the long struggle for existence.
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 109 
 
 To put it otherwise, and in detail : suppose that 
 the family bond arose out of the selfish struggles of 
 primitive man, that reverence for parents and' love 
 for children have been slowly evolved out of tendencies 
 that were originally self-regarding, why should we call 
 the later stage a more perfect one, for the race at 
 large ? It may be more perfect, for those who have 
 attained to it ; but it would have been out of place, 
 if earlier in the field. Is it not an essential part of 
 the process of development that every successive stage 
 is equally necessary and equally perfect with all its 
 antecedent and all its subsequent stages ? Unless a 
 point is reached when conduct becomes intrinsically 
 excellent — excellent in virtue of its conformity to a 
 rule which is not the product of evolution, and which 
 cannot be superseded by anything to be evolved 
 millenniums hence — how can we speak of monogamy 
 and self-restraint as ' the true law of our being ' in 
 contrast with the earlier promiscuousness which it 
 succeeded 1 Evolution, in short, tells us nothing of a 
 moral goal, because it gives us no information of a 
 moral Source. It supplies us with no standard, 
 because it points to no Centre ; and it brings with it 
 no ethical sanction higher than custom, at any stage. 
 It has come about is all that it tells us of any 
 phenomenon. 
 
 Now, not to speak of the fluctuating moral verdicts 
 of the world, and the obstinate reversions from later 
 to earlier standards — that which has stood at the 
 front and dominated for a while, falling again to the 
 rear and being disregarded — how can we speak of one 
 stage of human progress as dim and rudimentary, and 
 of another as disciplined and mature, if there be no
 
 1 ] PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 absolute standard or moral goal towards which the 
 efforts of the race are tending, and should tend ? It 
 is not merely that the ethical habit of to-day may not 
 be a ' conquest for ever,' but only a chance victory in 
 the skirmish of circumstance, which the next great 
 conflict may reverse. It is much more than this. If 
 the later state be the creation of the former, and 
 evolved out of it — all the stages being of equal moral 
 value as cause and consequence — the very notion 
 of an ethical struggle disappears. The successive 
 moments of moral experience are reduced to the 
 category of states, merely prior and posterior, in the 
 stream of development. And conscious effort to reach 
 a higher standard, or to realise a nobler life, becomes 
 unnatural discontent. It might even be construed as 
 rebellion against the leadings of instinct ; the actual 
 legitimately crushing out the ideal. And with the 
 stimulus of aspiration gone, and the sense of control 
 removed, the drift of the average man and of the race 
 would be towards the easiest pleasures, and the satis- 
 factions of the savage state. 
 
 The emergence of the conscience is one thing, its 
 creation is another. Its rise out of lower elements, 
 its consequent flexibility, and its possible transforma- 
 tion in the course of ages into a much more delicate 
 instrument — sensitive to all passing lights and shades 
 and fine issues of conduct — is perfectly consistent with 
 its being a competent witness to a Keality, which it 
 has gradually succeeded in apprehending, and which it 
 has not merely idealized out of its own subjective pro- 
 cesses. If the sentiment of duty arose slowly out of 
 an experience at first as entirely devoid of it as that 
 of the
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. Ill 
 
 Baby new to earth and sky, 
 who 
 
 Never thinks that this is I, 
 
 the obscure genesis of the convictions which finally 
 assume shapes so transcendent could not invalidate or 
 even affect their trustworthiness. In short, the story 
 of the race is but the story of the individual writ 
 large. When the moral sense first awakens in a 
 child, under the tutelage of its parents or seniors, the 
 influences to which it is subjected do not create its 
 conscience : they merely evoke it. The child simply 
 opens his eyes and sees ; although the process of 
 learning to see accurately may be a much longer one, 
 in moral than in visual perception. If it is so with 
 the child, why may it not be so similarly with the 
 race ? Why not necessarily ? Let the processes of 
 o-rowth, therefore, be what they may, the source of 
 the moral faculty lies hid beyond the lines of historical 
 investigation, and the authority of the developed pro- 
 duct is not invalidated by the discovery of its lineage. 
 What evidence, then, have we that in the pheno- 
 mena of conscience we come upon the traces of a 
 principle 
 
 Deep-seated in our mystic frame 
 
 which is not evolved out of the lower elements of 
 appetency and desire ? Do these phenomena disclose 
 results, which are most easily explained by the presence 
 of an alter ego, ' in us, yet not of us V Can we trace 
 it working within us, yet mysteriously overshadowing 
 us, and suggesting — in the occasional flashes of light 
 sent across the darker background of experience — the 
 action of another Personality, behind our own ?
 
 ] 1 2 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 Our account of the phenomena of conscience is not 
 exhausted when we affirm that certain moral causes, 
 set in operation by ourselves or others, must issue in 
 certain subjective effects upon the character. To say 
 that definite consequences result from specific acts is 
 only to state one half of the case, and that the least 
 important half. How are our actions invested with 
 the character of blameworthiness, or the reverse ? 
 Moral worth and moral baseness are not only two 
 points or stages, in the upward or downward stream of 
 human tendency. The merit and the demerit are 
 respectively due to the character of the stream, as 
 determined at the moment, by the act and choice of 
 the individual. 
 
 It would be out of place at this point to raise the 
 large question of the freedom of the will, its moral 
 autonomy. Let it suffice to affirm that the theoretical 
 denial of freedom will always be met by a counter 
 affirmation, springing from a region unaffected by in- 
 ductive evidence. It will also be always met by the 
 recoil of the feelings of mankind from the doctrine of 
 non-responsibility for action, the logical outcome of 
 that denial. It may be safely affirmed that, allowing 
 for hereditary tendency, and the influence of constrain- 
 ing circumstances, the race will continue to apportion 
 its praise and its blame to individuals, on the ground 
 that human action might take shape in either of two 
 contrary directions, according to the choice and deter- 
 mination of the will. No action ever arises absolutely 
 de novo, unaffected by antecedent causes, both active 
 and latent ; neither is any action absolutely deter- 
 mined from without, or from behind. In each act of 
 choice, the causal nexus remains unsevered ; while the
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 1 1 3 
 
 act itself is ethically free, and undetermined. In other 
 words, affirming the moral autonomy of the will, we 
 deny the liberty of libertarian indifference ; and 
 affirming the integrity of the causal nexus, we reject 
 the despotism of necessitarian fate : and we maintain 
 that, in so doing, we are not affirming and denying 
 the same thing at the same time ; but that we are true 
 to the facts of consciousness, and preserve a moral 
 eclecticism, which shuns the falsehood of extremes, and 
 has its evidence in the personality of the agent. The 
 two rival schemes of Liberty and Necessity, both 
 ' resistless in assault, but impotent in defence/ are 
 practically overthrown, by the ease with which each 
 annihilates the other. To exhibit the rationale of 
 this would require a long chapter. 
 
 Leaving it, therefore — and assuming the freedom 
 we make no attempt to demonstrate — the specialty of 
 the Power which legislates over the region of mixed 
 motive and variable choice, is at once its absoluteness 
 and its independence of the individual. It announces 
 itself, in Kantian phrase, as the 'categorical impera- 
 tive.' It is ours, not as an emotion or passion is ours. 
 We speak in a figure of the voice of the conscience ; 
 implying, in our popular use of the term, its indepen- 
 dence of us. It is not our own voice ; or, if the voice 
 of the higher self, in contrast with the lower, which it 
 controls, it is an inspiration in us, the whispered sug- 
 gestion of a monitor " throned within our other 
 powers." If it were merely the remonstrance of one 
 part of our nature against the workings of another 
 part, we might question its right to do more than 
 claim to be an equal inmate of the house. In any 
 case disregard of it would amount to nothing more
 
 114 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 serious than a loss of harmony, a false note marring 
 the music of human action, or a flaw in argument that 
 disarranged the sequence of thought. In the moral 
 imperative, however, which commands us categorically, 
 and acts without our order, and cannot be silenced by 
 us, which is in us yet not of us, we find the hints of 
 a Personality that is girding and enfolding ours. As 
 admirably expressed by Professor Newman — 
 
 ' This energy of life within is ours, yet it is not we. 
 It is in us, it belongs to us, yet we cannot control it. 
 It acts without our bidding, and when we do not think of it. 
 Nor will it cease its acting at our command, or otherwise 
 
 obey us. 
 But while it recalls from evil, and reproaches us for evil, 
 And is not silenced by our effort, surely it is not we; 
 Yet it pervades mankind, as one life pervades the trees.'* 
 
 It is not that we are conscious of the restraints of law, 
 of a fence or boundary laid down by statute. But, in 
 the most delicate suggestions and surmises of this 
 monitor, we are aware of a Presence 'besetting us' — 
 as the Hebrews put it — 'before and behind,' pene- 
 trating the soul, pressing its appeals upon us, yet 
 withdrawing itself the moment it has uttered its voice, 
 and leaving us to the exercise of our own freedom. 
 The most significant fact, if not the most noticeable, 
 in the relation of the conscience to the will, is its 
 quick suggestion of what ought to be done, and the 
 entire absence of subsequent compulsion in the doing 
 of it. When the force of the moral imperative is felt 
 most absolutely, the hand of external necessity is with- 
 
 * Theism, p. 13. Cf. F^nelon, De l'Existence de Dieu, Part I. c. 
 1, § 29. See also Cardinal Newman, Grammar of Assent, Part I. c. 
 5, §1.
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 115 
 
 drawn, that we may act freely. Consciously hemmed 
 in and weighed down by physical forces, which we are 
 powerless to resist, the pressure of this girding neces- 
 sity is relaxed, within the moral sphere; and we are 
 free to go to the right hand or the left, when duty 
 appeals to us on the one side, and desire on the other. 
 This has been so excellently put by Mr Richard 
 Hutton, in his essay on ' The Atheistic Explanation of 
 Religion/ that I may quote a sentence, which sums 
 up the ethical argument for the Divine Personality, 
 better than any other that I am aware of: — 
 
 ' Accustomed as man is to feel his personal feebleness, his 
 entire subordination to the physical forces of the universe, . . . 
 in the case of moral duty he finds this almost constant pressure 
 remarkably withdrawn at the very crisis in which the import of 
 his actions is brought home to him with the most vivid convic- 
 tion. Of what nature can a power be that moves us hither and 
 thither through the ordinary course of our lives, but withdraws 
 its hands at those critical points where we have the clearest sense 
 of authority, in order to let us act for ourselves ? The absolute 
 control that sways so much of our life is waived just where we 
 are impressed with the most profound conviction that there is 
 but one path in which we can move with a free heart. If so, 
 are we not then surely watched? Is it not clear that the Power 
 which has therein ceased to move us has retired only to observe ? 
 . . . The mind is pursued into its freest movements by this belief, 
 that the Power within could only voluntarily have receded from 
 its task of moulding us, in order to keep watch over us, as we 
 mould ourselves.' * 
 
 Thus the distinction or dualism, which is involved 
 in all our knowledge, comes out into sharpest promin- 
 ence in its moral section. We rise at once, above the 
 uniformity of mere phenomenalism, and out of the 
 
 1 Essays, Theological and Literary, vol. i., pp. 41, 42.
 
 116 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 thraldom of necessity, by our recognition of a trans- 
 cendent element latent in the conscience. We escape 
 from the circle of self altogether, in the ' otherness ' of 
 moral law. 
 
 It is in the ethical field that we meet with the most 
 significant facts, which prevent us from gliding, through 
 a seductive love of unity, into a solution of the problem 
 of existence that is pantheistic or unitarian. The 
 fascination of the pursuit of unity, through all the 
 diversities of finite existence, has given rise to many 
 philosophical systems that have twisted the facts of 
 consciousness to one side. But unity, by itself, is as 
 unintelligible, as diversity, minus unity, is unthinkable. 
 If there were but one self-existing Substance, of which 
 all individual and particular forms of being were mere 
 tributary rills, the relation of any single rill to its 
 source, and to the whole, would be merely that of 
 derivation. Moral ties would thus be lost, in a union 
 that was purely physical. On this theory, the universe 
 would be one, only because there was nothing in it to 
 unite; whereas all moral unity implies diversity, and 
 is based upon it. There must be a difference in the 
 things which are connected by an underlying and 
 under-working affinity. And we find this difference 
 most apparent in the phenomena of the moral con- 
 sciousness. While therefore the moral law legislates, 
 and desire opposes, in the struggle that ensues between 
 inclination and duty, we trace the working of a prin- 
 ciple, which has not grown out of our desires and their 
 gratification. We discover that we are not, like the 
 links in the chain of physical nature, passive instru- 
 ments for the development of the increasing purpose 
 of things; but that we exist for the unfolding, disci-
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 117 
 
 plining, and completing of a life of self-control, and 
 the inward mastery of impulse, through which, at the 
 crises of decision, a new world of experience is 
 entered. 
 
 We cannot tell when this began. Its origin is lost 
 in the golden haze, that is wrapped around our infancy, 
 when moral life is not consciously distinguishable from 
 automatic action. But, as the scope of our faculties 
 enlarges, a point is reached when the individual per- 
 ceives the significance of freedom, the meaning of the 
 august rules of righteousness, and the grave issues of 
 voluntary choice. It is then that conscience, 
 
 Gives out at times 
 
 A little flash, a mystic hint 
 
 of a Personality distinct from ours, yet kindred to it, 
 in the unity of which it lives and has its being. 
 Whence come those suggestions of the Infinite, that 
 flit athwart the stage of consciousness, in all our struggle 
 and aspiration after the ideal — if not from a Personal 
 Source kindred to themselves ? We do not create our 
 own longings in this direction. On the contrary, as 
 we advance from infancy to maturity, we awaken, by 
 progressive steps, to the knowledge of a vast over- 
 shadowing Personality, unseen and supersensible, 
 recognized at intervals then lost to view — known 
 and unknown — surrounding, enfolding, inspiring, and 
 appealing to us, in the suggestions of the moral 
 faculty ? In addition, our sense of the boundlessness 
 of duty brings with it a suggestion of the infinity of 
 its Source. We know it to be beyond ourselves, and 
 higher than we, extra-human, even extra-mundane ; 
 while, on other grounds, we know it to be also intra-
 
 118 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 human and intra-mundane. We find no difficulty in 
 realizing that the Personality, revealed to us in con- 
 science, may have infinite relations and affinities ; 
 because, in no district of the universe, can we conceive 
 the verdict of the moral law reversed. Nowhere would 
 it be right not ' to do justly, and to love mercy,' although 
 the practical rules and minor canons of morality may, 
 like all ceremonial codes, change with the place in 
 which they originate, and the circumstances which 
 give rise to them. If, therefore, the suffrage of the 
 race has not created this inward monitor, and if its 
 sway is coextensive with the sphere of moral agency, 
 if its range is as vast as its authority is absolute, in 
 these facts we have corroborative evidence of the union 
 of the Personal with the Infinite.
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 READ TO 'THE NEW SPECULATIVE SOCIETY,' SCOTLAND, NOVEMBER 1877. 
 
 (TJte Fortnujlitbj Review, September 1S7S). 
 
 It seems surprising that in the discussions of contem- 
 porary philosophy on the origin and destiny of the soul, 
 there has been no explicit revival of the doctrines of 
 Pre-existence and Metempsychosis. Whatever may 
 be their intrinsic worth, or evidential value, their title 
 to rank on the roll of philosophical hypotheses is un- 
 doubted. They offer quite as remarkable a solution of 
 the mystery which all admit as the rival theories of 
 Creation, Traduction, and Extinction. 
 
 What I propose in this paper is not to defend the 
 doctrines, but to restate them ; to distinguish between 
 their several forms ; to indicate the speculative grounds 
 on which the most plausible of them may be maintained ; 
 to show how it fits as well into a theistic as into a 
 pantheistic theory of the universe ; and to point out 
 the difficulties in the ethical problem which it lightens 
 if it does not remove. 
 
 I may best approach the question by a statement of 
 the chief difficulty which seems to block the way of a 
 belief in Immortality, arising out of the almost universal 
 acceptance of the doctrine of Evolution as explanatory 
 of physical existence, and one of the considerations by 
 which it has been met. This will lead, by natural 
 sequence, to the theories in question.
 
 120 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 The difficulty is this. Admitting the development 
 of man out of prior conditions, and retaining a belief in 
 his immortality, a point must have been reached when 
 a mortal predecessor gave rise to an immortal successor. 
 If all that now is has issued inexorably out of what 
 once was, and the human race been gradually evolved 
 out of a prior type, we have but three alternatives to 
 choose from : either first, the whole series is mortal ; 
 or second, the whole is immortal ; or third, a long series 
 of mortal ancestors gave place, at a leap and a bound, 
 to an immortal descendant, the father of a race of 
 immortals. There is no other possible alternative, if 
 we admit a process of development. The first of the 
 three may be set aside meanwhile, since it is the 
 doctrine of the natural mortality or extinction of the 
 individual. The second presents the insuperable diffi- 
 culty of the continued existence in a separate form of 
 all the living creatures that have ever appeared on the 
 stage of being ; because it is impossible to draw a line 
 anywhere amongst them, and say that the dog is 
 immortal but the reptile is not ; or that the reptile is, 
 while the bee and the ant are not ; or that they are, 
 while the myriad tribes of the protozoa are not. We 
 are, therefore, limited to the third hypothesis, viz., that 
 a point was reached when immortality was evolved ; 
 that is to say, that the power of surviving the shock of 
 dissolution was non-existent for ages, but that it became 
 real in a moment of time, when the mortal creature 
 that preceded man gave birth to one who was an ' heir 
 of immortality.' In stating the problem thus, I merely 
 indicate the logical result of admitting the principle of 
 Evolution as explanatory of physical existence, and 
 conjoining with it the doctrine of Immortality. The
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 121 
 
 derivation of the human body from a lower type is quite 
 consistent with the latter doctrine, because the body is 
 not immortal. It is, besides, a much worthier notion, 
 and more in keeping with analogy, to suppose that the 
 body was formed by natural process out of a previous 
 animal organization, than to imagine it to have been 
 instantaneously created out of the inorganic dust of the 
 world. But was the human soul similarly evolved out 
 of the vital principle of the previous races ? Was the 
 fyn of the animal the parent of the *\>vyj}, or msvfia, in 
 man ? This is the development theory in its completed 
 form. If it be demonstrable, it is certain that man 
 cannot be immortal. His race may be permanent 
 (although, by the hypothesis, it is perpetually altering), 
 but the individuals composing it cannot live for ever. 
 It is impossible, in short, that Immortality can be a 
 prerogative evolved out of mortality, because the one 
 is separated from the other, to use an expressive phrase 
 of N orris's, ' by the whole diameter of being.' This is 
 the difficulty in question. 
 
 It has been met, or attempted to be met, by the 
 following consideration. It is alleged that the case was 
 precisely the same in reference to the first immortal 
 evolved out of a mortal ancestor, as it is in reference to 
 any of his descendants ; because, in both cases, the 
 beginnings of life are similar. These may be physio- 
 logically traced ; and a point is always reached when a 
 possible mortality is averted. The ' first beginnings of 
 individual life,' says Mr Picton, ' do not involve immor- 
 tality : and when such an incipient merely germinant 
 life deceases, it perishes utterly.' There must be a 
 period readied, therefore, at which immortality begins. 
 • If an individual died one moment before a certain
 
 122 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 time he would be annihilated : whereas, if he survives 
 a moment longer, he will live for ever ' (New Theories 
 and the Old Faith, p. 199). And so it is thought that 
 a time comes when the personality of the individual 
 matures, when ' his isolation grows defined,' and he is 
 thenceforward able to ' survive the shock of death ;' 
 whereas, had his bodily organization perished one 
 moment earlier, his destiny would have been simply to 
 remerge in the general whole. Thus, the immaterial 
 principle which in a thousand cases dies, and passes 
 into some other form of immaterial energy, survives in 
 the case of others, and wans permanence for itself by 
 successfully resisting the first perils of independent life. 
 Such is the rejoinder. 
 
 I cannot think this way of escaping the difficulty 
 a satisfactory one, unless the principle which survives 
 is believed to have existed previously in some other 
 form. The difference between immortality and mor- 
 tality is not one of degree. It is literally infinite, 
 and the one can never give rise to the other. The 
 immortal cannot, in the nature of things, be developed 
 out of the mortal. A creature endowed with feeble 
 powers of life may originate another endowed with 
 stronger powers, which will therefore live longer, and 
 be able to survive the storms which have shipwrecked 
 its feebler ancestors ; but this is a totally different 
 thing from the evolution of an immortal progeny out 
 of a series of mortal predecessors. Let us suppose, 
 however, that the immortal has descended, that it has 
 'lapsed from higher place,' or that it has ascended, 
 risen from some lower sphere, immortality may then 
 belong to its very essence. It may, in its inmost 
 nature, be incapable of death, its destiny being a
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 123 
 
 perpetual transmigration, or renewal of existence. 
 The distinction between a theory of evolution (which 
 admits immortality) and that of transmigration is 
 immense. According to the former, man at a definite 
 moment of time emerged out of the animal, and the 
 power of surviving the shock of death was conferred 
 upon him, or won by him, in the struggle for existence. 
 According to the latter, man was always immortal ; 
 before he entered the present life he existed in another 
 state, and he will survive the destruction of his present 
 body simply because his soul, which is intrinsically 
 deathless, passes into a new body, or remains tem- 
 porarily unembodied. The difference is immense. 
 On the other hand, the distinction between the 
 theory of transmigration and that of absorption is 
 equally great. According to the one, the soul retains 
 its individuality and preserves its identity through all 
 the changes it undergoes ; according to the other, its 
 individuality is lost though its vital force survives, as 
 an ineradicable constituent of the universe. 
 
 The doctrine of Metempsychosis is theoretically 
 extremely simple. Its root is the indestructibility 
 of the vital principle. Let a belief in pre-existence 
 be joined to that of posthumous existence, and the 
 dogma is complete. It is thus at one and the same 
 time a theory of the soul's origin, and of its destina- 
 tion ; and its unparalleled hold upon the human race 
 may be explained in part by the fact of its combining 
 both in a single doctrine. It appears as one of the 
 very earliest beliefs of the human mind in tribes not 
 emerged from barbarism. It remains the creed of 
 millions at this day. It is probably the most widely- 
 spread and permanently influential of all speculative 
 theories as to the origin and destiny of the soul.
 
 124 THE DOCTRTNE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 In a single paragraph I may sketch its history, 
 though in the most condensed and cursory manner. 
 It has lain at the heart of all Indian speculation on 
 the subject, time out of mind. It is one of the 
 cardinal doctrines of the Vedas, one of the roots of 
 Buddhist belief. The ancient Egyptians held it. It 
 is prominent in their great classic, the ' Book of the 
 Dead.' In Persia, it coloured the whole stream of 
 Zoroastrian thought. The Magi taught it. The 
 Jews brought it with them from the captivity in 
 Babylon. Many of the Essenes and Pharisees held 
 it. Though foreign to the genius both of Judaism 
 and Christianity, it has had its advocates (as Delitzsch 
 puts it) 'as well in the synagogue as in the church.' 
 The Cabbala teaches it emphatically. The Apocrypha 
 sanctions it, and it is to be found scattered throughout 
 the Talmud. In Greece, Pythagoras proclaimed it, 
 receiving the hint probably both from Egypt and the 
 East ; Empedocles taught it ; Plato worked it elabo- 
 rately out, not as mythical doctrine embodying a 
 moral truth, but as a philosophical theory or con- 
 viction. It passed over into the Neo-Platonic School 
 at Alexandria. Philo held it. Plotinus and Porphyry 
 in the third century, Jamblicus in the fourth, Hierocles 
 and Proclus in the fifth all advocated it in various 
 ways ; and an important modification of the Platonic 
 doctrine took place amongst the Alexandrians, when 
 Porphyry limited the range of the metempsychosis, 
 denying that the souls of men ever passed downwards 
 to a lower than the human state. Many of the fathers 
 of the Christian Church espoused it ; notably Origen. 
 It was one of the Gnostic doctrines. The Manichseans 
 received it, with much else, from their Zoroastrian
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 125 
 
 predecessors. It was held by Nemesius, who emphati- 
 cally declares that all the Greeks who believed in 
 immortality believed also in metempsychosis. There 
 are hints of it in Boethius. Though condemned, in 
 its Origenistic form, by the Council of Constantinople 
 in 551, it passed along the stream of Christian 
 theology, and reappeared amongst the Scholastics in 
 Erigena and Bonaventura. It was defended with 
 much learning and acuteness by several of the Cam- 
 bridge Platonists, especially by Henry More. Glanvill 
 devotes a curious treatise to it, the Lux orientalis. 
 English clergy and Irish bishops were found ready to 
 espouse it. Poets, from Henry Vaughan to Words- 
 worth, praise it. It won the passing suffrage of Hume 
 as more rational than the rival theories of Creation 
 and Traduction. It has points of contact with the 
 anthropology of Kant and Schelling. It found an 
 earnest advocate in Lessing. Herder also maintained 
 it, while it fascinated the minds of Fourier and 
 Lerroux. Soame Jenyns, the Chevalier Ramsay, and 
 Mr Edward Cox have written in its defence. If we 
 may broadly classify philosophical systems as a priori 
 or a posteriori, intuitional or experiential, Platonist 
 or Aristotelian, this doctrine will be found to ally 
 itself both speculatively and historically with the 
 former school of thought. Passing from the schools, 
 to the instinctive ideas of primitive men, or the con- 
 ceptions now entertained by races that are half-civilised 
 or wholly barbarous, a belief in transmigration will be 
 found to be almost universal. It is inwoven with 
 nearly all the mythology of the world. It appears in 
 Mexico and in Tibet, amongst the Negroes and the 
 Sandwich Islanders. It comes down from the Druids
 
 126 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 of ancient Gaul to the Tasmanians of to-day. The 
 stream of opinion — whether instinctive, mystic, or 
 rational is continuous and broad ; and if we could 
 legitimately determine any question of belief by the 
 number of its adherents, the quod semper, quod ubique, 
 quod ab omnibus, would apply to this more fitly than 
 to any other. Mr Tylor speaks of it (Primitive 
 Culture, ch. xii.) as now ' arrested and unprogressive,' 
 or lingering only as ' an intellectual crotchet.' It 
 may be so : but I think it quite as likely to be 
 revived, and to come to the front again, as any rival 
 theory on the subject, when the decay that is the 
 fate of every system of opinion overtakes those that 
 are in the place of honour and recognition now. 
 Each philosophical doctrine, being in the nature of 
 things only a partial interpretation of the universe, 
 or an approximate solution of the mystery of existence, 
 is in its turn set aside as inadequate ; while all the 
 greater ones invariably reappear under altered forms. 
 The resuscitation of discarded theories is as inevitable 
 as the modifications which they undergo in the process 
 of revival. Metempsychosis is true of all theories, 
 whether it applies to souls or not. 
 
 There are three possible forms of the doctrine. 
 Logically four may be held, but only three are philoso- 
 phically tenable. Either, first, it may be maintained 
 that the metempsychosis is universal, extending to all 
 finite forms of life, so that the highest may change 
 place with the lowest, and vice versa. The life that 
 was in man may degenerate, or pass downwards into 
 the animal ; or the life that was in the animal may 
 rise, and pass upwards into man ; the winding stream 
 of development flowing either way, and the particular
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 127 
 
 direction which the current takes being determined by 
 the internal state of the individual. There may be 
 thus, on the one hand, degradation and descent ; on 
 the other, elevation and ascent, through a perpetual 
 cycle of successive births and deaths. Or, second, the 
 transmigration may be limited to the animal world, and 
 denied to the human. It is a conceivable and may 
 seem a plausible hypothesis, to those who shrink from 
 extending the transmigration to man, that it applies 
 solely to the lower orders of existence, that the life of 
 an animal is lost or ' blown-out,' but that on the de- 
 struction of its organisation, the vital force remerges, 
 and is continued in some other form. (The supposition 
 which is logically distinct from this, but which is not 
 philosophically tenable, is the contrary one, that the 
 transmigration holds good of man only, and does 
 not extend to the animal world.) The third form of 
 the theory is that the transmigration may apply both 
 to the human and to the animal world ; but that 
 in each case it is strictly limited to one sphere, 
 that is to say, that the souls of men animate succes- 
 sive bodies, but that they never descend to a lower 
 level, while the vital spirit of the animal never ascends 
 into the human form. This was practically the 
 development which the Pythagorean and Platonic 
 doctrine took under Porphyry and others in the 
 Alexandrian school. Thus, metempsychosis may be 
 either, first, a law or process regulating the universal 
 development of life on our planet, or, second, a cyclical 
 movement along one line, and confined to one group of 
 existences; or, third, it may be a movement along two 
 definite lines, but strictly limited to these lines. 
 
 I may now state some of the obvious facts which
 
 128 THE DOCTHINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 gave rise to the belief among primitive races, and the 
 less prominent ones of a higher order which suggested 
 it to the more meditative spirits of antiquity. The 
 inferences may have been illogically drawn ; but the 
 natural history of a doctrine is one thing, its philoso- 
 phical validity is another ; and the historical develop- 
 ment of a belief does not always or usually follow the 
 lines of scientific evidence. The student of the history 
 of civilisation is familiar with this fact, that reasonings 
 which are philosophically worthless have frequently led 
 to conclusions which are at least highly probable; just 
 as beliefs which are demonstratively true have often 
 been sustained by arguments radically unsound. 
 
 The superficial resemblances between the lower 
 animals and men in feature, disposition, and character, 
 in voice and mien, would suggest to the primitive races 
 the probability that the bodies of animals were in- 
 habited by human souls, and those of men by animal 
 natures. The intelligence and feeling of the brutes, 
 their half-human character, and the brutality of some 
 men, seemed an evidence that their respective souls or 
 vital principles had exchanged places. They saw the 
 cunning of the fox, the fierceness of the tiger, in their 
 comrades ; they also learned the fidelity of a friend from 
 the rare attachment and . devotion of their dogs. As 
 they were in the habit of describing the qualities of 
 men by these surface resemblances, as leonine, currish, 
 vulpine, etc., and vice versa, of describing the characteris- 
 tics of animals by terms originally applied to their own 
 race, it was a natural, though not a logical inference 
 that their respective vital principles were interchange- 
 able. In short the rare humanity of some animals 
 and the notorious animality of some men suggested to
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 129 
 
 the primitive races, not the common origin of both, but 
 the arbitrary passage of one into the other. 
 
 • In addition, family likenesses being transmitted, 
 and reappearing after an interval of generations, would 
 suggest the return of the spirits of the dead within a 
 new physical organisation. Mere facial resemblances 
 led the common mind to believe in the re-embodiment 
 of souls. Still more significantly the appearance of 
 mental features resembling those of any noted person 
 in the past, suggested the actual return of the departed. 
 If one resembled his ancestors somewhat closely 
 in intellect, or valour, or temperament and style of 
 action, it was supposed that the ancestor had again put 
 on the vesture of the flesh, and 'revisited the glimpses 
 of the moon.' The spirit of the master being seen in 
 the pupil seemed a hint of the same thing : and the 
 notion that one of the dead had returned to reanimate 
 a body may very naturally have grown out of these 
 obvious concrete facts. I need scarcely add that the 
 deduction is wholly unwarrantable, and the argument 
 illusory. An illogical inference founded on some 
 surface analogy has frequently given rise to a belief 
 which has grown strong in the total absence of valid 
 evidence in its favour. In this case, for example, the 
 spirit of the master appears in the pupil most con- 
 spicuously when both are living, or shortly after the 
 death of the master, when his soul cannot have entered 
 his pupil, unless he became the recipient of two souls. 
 Further, there is no reason to believe that if metem- 
 psychosis took place, the new manifestations of mind 
 and character would be similar to the old ones. They 
 would much more likely be Avidely different. It would 
 give us a poor notion of any spirit that reappeared 
 
 i
 
 1 30 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 within the old limits, if it merely reproduced its past 
 actions. Such a procedure would be as disappointing 
 as those inane utterances of the dead with which 
 modern Spiritualism pretends to be familiar. If the 
 spirits of the departed make any progress in know- 
 ledge and experience, we would expect to find some- 
 thing very different from a repetition of their former 
 mode of activity. The argument is quite illusory. 
 
 I pass therefore to a third, and a much higher con- 
 sideration. It arises out of certain psychological facts 
 which have seemed to warrant the inference of the 
 soul's pre-existence. Quite suddenly a thought is 
 darted into the mind, which cannot be traced back to 
 any source in past experience; or we hear a sound, 
 see an object, experience sensations, which seem to 
 take us wholly out of the circle of sense-perception 
 that has been possible to us in the present life. This 
 is one of the arguments of the Phsedo : and it is the 
 central thought of Wordsworth's magnificent ' Ode on 
 the intimations of Immortality from recollections of 
 childhood.' The 'splendour in the grass,' and 'glory 
 in the flower,' which Wordsworth saw and felt in child- 
 hood, he explains by their being the dim memory of a 
 brighter experience that was passed ; a recovered frag- 
 ment of ante- natal life — 
 
 ' Not in entire forgetfulness, 
 And not in utter nakedness, 
 But trailing clouds of glory do we come,' &c. 
 
 On the one hand, the halo with which memory sur- 
 rounds our childhood, and on the other, the melancholy 
 awakened by a sense of its being irrecoverably gone, 
 have suggested the idea that we look back through
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 131 
 
 the golden gateway of childhood to the glory of a 
 dawn preceding it. 
 
 * The soul that rises with us, our life's star 
 Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
 And cometh from afar.' 
 
 This is also one of the arguments adduced by Gautama, 
 the reputed founder of the Nyaya system of Indian 
 Philosophy. I quote from the aphorisms of the Nyaya, 
 published for the Benares College, at Allahabad. 
 ' Joy, fear, and grief,' he says, ' arise to him that is 
 born, through relation to his memory of things pre- 
 viously experienced.' And this aphorism is thus 
 commented upon by one of Gautama's pupils, Vis- 
 wanatha, ' If joy arises before the causes of joy are 
 experienced, the child must have existed in a previous 
 life.' And so, the subtle Indian metaphysic said, ' If 
 in one life, then in a series, and an illimitable series ; 
 and there being no beginning, it is indestructible, and 
 can have no end. The same thing Gautama endea- 
 voured to prove from the psychological phenomena of 
 desire. ' We see nothing born void of desire.' Since 
 every creature experiences desires which seek satisfac- 
 tion before there is any experience of what can satisfy 
 them, Gautama and his commentator trace this back 
 to knowledge acquired in a previous life. Both argu^ 
 ments are inconclusive. The first set of phenomena 
 referred to by Plato, and the Platonic poets so often, 
 can be explained otherwise than by the hypothesis of 
 pre-existence. In dreams, notions seemingly the most 
 discordant unite, aud our whole consciousness some- 
 times passes into a chaotic or amorphous state. As 
 to the second set of phenomena appealed to b} r 
 Gautama, if instinctive desire demands a previous life
 
 132 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 to explain it, the same instinct in that life requires 
 one still prior, and so on ad infinitum. And the 
 action of instinctive desire can be easily explained as 
 the growth of experience, or the result of a series of 
 tentative efforts which seek, and continue to seek 
 satisfaction, till they find it. On the other hand, 
 while these suggestions of instinct and of reminiscence 
 seem invalid as arguments in favour of pre-existence, 
 the absence of memory of any actions done in a pre- 
 vious state cannot be a conclusive argument against 
 our having lived through it. Forgetfulness of the 
 past may be one of the conditions of entrance upon 
 a new stage of existence. The body, which is the 
 organ of sense perception, may be quite as much a 
 hindrance as a help to reminiscence. As Plotinus 
 said, ' matter is the true river of Lethe : immersed in 
 it, the soul forgets everything.' In that case casual 
 gleams of memory, giving us sudden, abrupt, and 
 momentary revelations of the past, are precisely the 
 phenomena we would expect to meet with. If the 
 soul has pre-existed, what we would a priori antici- 
 pate are only some faint traces of recollection, sur- 
 viving in the crypts of memory. 
 
 One of the main objections brought against the 
 doctrine of pre-existence — an objection which seems 
 insuperable to the popular mind — is the total absence 
 of any authentic or verifiable memory of the past. It 
 is supposed that if we cannot remember a past life, it 
 is all the same as if it never was ours ; for the thread 
 of identity must be a conscious one. This, however, 
 is just what its advocates deny. They appeal to the 
 latent elements which underlie our present conscious- 
 ness, out of which the clearest knowledge arises ; and
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 133 
 
 they maintain that there is a hidden world of the un- 
 conscious in which the subterranean river of personality 
 flows. 
 
 But the deeper and more philosophical grounds on 
 which the doctrine of the pre-existence of the soul has 
 been and may be maintained are threefold. I would 
 characterise them respectively as the speculative, the 
 ethical, and the physical justifications of the dogma. 
 If they explain its prevalence, and account for its 
 vitality, they do so, by giving a show of reason for the 
 theory, by exhibiting its intellectual raison d'etre. 
 
 The first is a purely ontological consideration, the 
 relevancy of which will be denied by the disciples of 
 experience, but which seems, to say the least, to be 
 more valid than their denial. No one has stated it 
 with more force or persuasiveness than Plato. The 
 great idealist of antiquity found an evidence of pre- 
 existence in our present knowledge of a priori notions, 
 or ideas which are not the product of experience, such 
 as mathematical axioms and all metaphysical first 
 principles. If they are latent in the soul at birth, 
 their origin must be sought in a previous state of 
 existence. We could not now transcend sense, and 
 reach general notions of any kind, unless these notions 
 had belonged to us in a previous state. But it is 
 evident that if their origin in this life demands for its 
 explanation the pre-supposition of a prior life, their 
 existence in that state would involve the postulate of 
 one still previous, and so on ad infinitum : that is to 
 say, it would demand the eternal existence of the soul 
 itself. And it is thus that we reach the fully deve- 
 loped form of this ontological argument. If life or 
 existence belongs to the soul intrinsically, it must
 
 134- THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 have always existed. As in the Nyaya system, the 
 soul is held to be eternal, because, if not eternal, it 
 would be mortal. ' Whatever has had a beginning 
 will have an end,' was a fundamental position of 
 Gautama and his school : and this notion is so fixed 
 in the Brahminical mind, that every religion which 
 denies it, or fails to recognise it, is looked upon as 
 ipso facto a false religion. The Brahminical mind is 
 opposed to Christianity, because it conceives that 
 Christianity is opposed to pre-existence. So the 
 Bhagavad Gita says of the soul, ' You cannot say of it, 
 it hath been, or is about to be, or is to be hereafter. 
 It is a thing without birth.' 
 
 The whole argument of the Phtedo revolves around 
 the same centre, that the soul is naturally and intrin- 
 sically deathless, that it has in it a principle of life, 
 with which you cannot associate, and of which you 
 cannot predicate mortality. If so, its pre-existence is 
 quite as certain as its posthumous existence." This is 
 the dominant thought of all that Plato teaches on the 
 subject of immortality, alike in the Phsedo, the 
 Phsedrus, and the Republic. It is a purely ontological 
 consideration. All the detailed argumentation in the 
 Phsedo for example, whether it involves ethical or 
 dialectical elements, — the proof from the everlasting 
 cycle of existence and origination out of opposites, the 
 argument from reminiscence, the proof from the sim- 
 plicity and consequent indissolubility of the soul, the 
 refutation of the objections of Simmias and Cebes, the 
 psychological plea founded on the native prerogatives 
 and capacities of the soul — all either presuppose or 
 are merely different ways of stating and illustrating the 
 cardinal position that indestructible life belongs to the
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 135 
 
 soul's essence. To Plato, the ideal theory is primary, 
 the immortality of the soul secondary ; but the one 
 involves the other. If the mind of man is competent 
 to grasp eternal ideas, it must be itself eternal. If the 
 ideas which it apprehends are eternal, it must partici- 
 pate in their eternity ; and this imperishableness is in 
 its very essence. In the Phcedrus the argument is 
 advanced that the soul is u-pyji xitfaiui. It is the 
 source of motion ; but having the cause of motion 
 within itself, out of this aurox/mjtf/s comes its immor- 
 tality. In the tenth book of the Republic the ques- 
 tion is raised, what can possibly destroy the soul ? 
 Evil attacks and corrupts it. It injures its character 
 without wasting its substance : and if this, which most 
 of all might be supposed capable of destroying it, can- 
 not, then nothing else can assail it. What is compo- 
 site may be decomposed ; but the soul, though it has 
 many faculties, is not composite. It is one, and can- 
 not be decomposed, and must therefore live for ever. 
 But, if so, it has lived always. It is without begin- 
 ning — ail h (Rep. X. 609 — 611) : as in the Phsedo 
 it is described as uidiov h (106 D.). The number of 
 souls in the universe does not increase. An addition 
 to the number of immortals would be a contradiction 
 in terms, inasmuch as what begins to be must die, and 
 what does not die in time was never born in time. If, 
 therefore, we cannot attach the idea of dissolution or 
 non-existence to the soul, it must have had an eternal 
 past : no temporal origin can be assigned to it. Its 
 pre-existence and its posthumous existence are co- 
 relative ideas in Platonic thought. If it has also had 
 a historical origin in time (which it has), it will have 
 it over and over again : experiencing many births and
 
 136 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 many deaths. It is born when it dies, and dies when 
 it is born. In short, the terms ' birth ' and ' death ' 
 denote merely relative conceptions, which disguise our 
 ignorance as much as they disclose our knowledge. 
 We only see the phenomenal appearances of birth and 
 death, of origination and decease ; but the amount of 
 vital force or of spiritual existence as a fixed and con- 
 stant quantity. 
 
 The second ground on which the theory of pre- 
 existence finds a philosophical justification is an ethical 
 one. It offers an explanation of the moral anomalies 
 of the world, the unequal adjustments of character and 
 situation, with the heterogeneousness and apparent 
 favouritism of Providence. To many minds this has 
 seemed the most plausible aspect under which me- 
 tempsychosis may be regarded: and if it unravels the 
 ethical puzzle of suffering associated with virtue, and 
 happiness allied with evil, it may have great moral 
 value, even while its scientific basis remains unproved. 
 Hierocles said, ' Without the doctrine of metem- 
 psychosis, it is not possible to justify the ways of Pro- 
 vidence.' Let us see. It is offered to us not as an 
 explanation of the origin of evil in the abstract, but as 
 a key to the unequal adjustment of happiness and 
 misery in the present life, or the way in which they are 
 respectively distributed. It is an oft-told tale in all 
 the literature of the world, and a perplexing fact in 
 every life, this union of virtue with sorrow or even with 
 misery (which is the secret of all tragedy), and the 
 opposite and equally incongruous union of happiness 
 and vice. If these phenomena of the moral world, 
 taken by themselves, are to yield us a theory of the 
 universe, it can scarcely be a monotheistic one. It
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 137 
 
 must be dualistic or Manichean. They seem to indi- 
 cate either the conspicuous partiality and favouritism 
 of Heaven, or a successful assault on the government 
 of a righteous Being by a formidable rival power, if 
 not an equal potentate. At this point, the theories of 
 pre-existence and metempsychosis offer to lighten the 
 burden of the difficulty. They affirm, to quote the 
 words of Jouffroy, — used by him in another connec- 
 tion, — that human life is ' a drama whose prologue and 
 catastrophe are both alike wanting.' In a previous 
 state, the same laws existed which govern our present 
 life ; and as the two states are connected by moral 
 ties, we now gather the fruit of what we formerly sowed. 
 It is not more true that in age we reap the fruit of the 
 seed we sow in youth, than that we gather in this life 
 the harvest of an innumerable series of past lives. The 
 disasters which overtake the good are not the penalty 
 for present action ; they are punishment for the errors 
 and faults of a bygone life. The sufferers are not 
 expiating their forefathers' crimes, but their own for- 
 merly committed. Felicity associated with moral 
 degradation has the same relation to a past state of 
 existence. The reward is given for former actions that 
 were worthy of recompense ; the external circumstances 
 of each life having a moral relation to the internal 
 state of the soul in its previous existence. 
 
 The theory arises out of a demand for equity in the 
 adjustment of the external and the internal conditions 
 of existence. On no moral theory can the present un- 
 equal adjustment be considered both equitable and 
 final. If it is final — i.e. if there is no future rectifica- 
 tion — it is not equitable. If it is not final, but Only 
 a temporary arrangement for the purposes of moral
 
 138 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 discipline and education, it may be the most equitable 
 of all possible arrangements. The moral root of the 
 theory is thus the sense of justice, and the conviction 
 not only that justice will be done, but that it is now 
 being done. On the theory of a coming rectification, 
 which connects the present with the future, and not 
 with a past life, the idea is that justice is not now 
 done ; but that the assize and the sentence will put 
 all to rights. The theory of metempsychosis, connect- 
 ing the present with the past as well as with the future, 
 affirms that there is no region of space, or moment of 
 time, in which it is not done. It is scarcely to be 
 wondered at that Henry More, the Cambridge Plato- 
 nist, calls this doctrine ' the golden key' to Providence ; 
 or that he enlarges in its praise, in that remarkable 
 dream in his Divine Dialogues, in which he describes 
 his vision of the key. ' Let us but assume,' he says, 
 ' the pre-existence of souls, and all those difficulties 
 which overcloud the understanding will vanish.' He 
 supposes that human souls were created ' in infinite 
 myriads,' ' in the morning of the world.' ' All intel- 
 lectual spirits that ever were, are, or shall be, sprang 
 up with the light and rejoiced together before God, in 
 the morning of the creation.' I make this quotation 
 from More — whose Dialogues on the subject are much 
 more interesting than his laboured treatise on ' the 
 immortality of the soul' — because, as he combined the 
 doctrine of the creation of souls with their pre- 
 existence, he represents one branch of the theory ; the 
 other branch being that represented by Gautama, 
 Plato, and the neo-Platonists, who maintain the soul's 
 eternity. Metempsychosis fits equally well into both 
 theories. As a speculative doctrine, it is equally con-
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 1 39 
 
 sistent with a belief in instantaneous creation, and with 
 a theory of emanation. 
 
 The ethical leverage of the doctrine is immense. 
 Its motive power, as compared with the notion of 
 posthumous influence after the individual has perished 
 — the substitute for immortality offered by La Mettrie 
 and his colleagues, and by all the positivists — is great. 
 It reveals as magnificent a background to the present 
 life, with its contradictions and disasters, as the pros- 
 pect of immortality opens up an illimitable foreground, 
 lengthening on the horizon of hope. It binds 
 together the past, the present, and the future in one 
 ethical series of causes and effects, the inner thread of 
 which is both personal to the individual and imper- 
 sonal, connecting him with two eternities, the one 
 behind and the other before. With peculiar em- 
 phasis it proclaims the survival of moral individuality 
 and personal identity, along with the final adjustment 
 of external conditions to the internal state of the agent. 
 
 Several objections to the doctrine, however, from 
 an ethical point of view, must be candidly weighed. 
 To believe in a past state of existence, of which we 
 have no present remembrance, will appear to some 
 minds to weaken the sense of responsibility. It may 
 be doubted whether we can have any moral relation 
 to a past life of which we remember nothing, or to a 
 future life in which the memory of the present will 
 similarly vanish. To this it might be replied that 
 the moral links which connect the successive moments 
 of our present experience are often unconscious ones, and 
 their validity as links does not depend on their being 
 luminous ever afterwards. The supposed recency of our 
 origin is not the ground of our responsibility, and we
 
 140 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 are accountable for a thousand things we have for- 
 gotten. 
 
 For is not our first year forgot ? 
 
 The haunts of memory echo not 
 
 even as to terrestrial life. To other minds and tem- 
 peraments, the notion of a vast ancestry, of an illimit- 
 able genealogy, will rather deepen the sense of re- 
 sponsibility than weaken it. As the inheritance of 
 an illustrious name and pedigree quickens the sense 
 of duty in every noble nature, a belief in pre-exist- 
 ence may enhance the glory of the present life and 
 intensify the reverence with which the deathless 
 principle is regarded. The want of any definite 
 remembrance of past states of consciousness can be no 
 barrier to a belief in our having experienced them ; 
 and a very slight reflection will show that if we have 
 pre-existed this life, memory of the details of the past 
 is absolutely impossible. The power of the conserva- 
 tive faculty though relatively great, is extremely limited. 
 We forget the larger portion of experience soon after 
 we have passed through it ; and we should be able to 
 recall the particulars of our past years, filling up all 
 the missing links of consciousness since we entered on the 
 present life, before we were in a position to remember 
 our ante-natal experience. Birth into the world may be 
 necessarily preceded by the crossing of the river of 
 Lethe. The result would be the obliteration of 
 knowledge acquired during a previous state ; while 
 the capacity for fresh acquisition survived, and the 
 garnered wealth of old experience would determine 
 the amount and the character of the new. So long, 
 therefore, as it is impossible to retain the memory of 
 all past experiences, so long as fragments survive
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 1 4 1 
 
 which suggest pre-existence, so long as the river of our 
 present consciousness flows in many subterranean places, 
 so long as the connection of soul and body induces 
 forgetfulness as much as it quickens remembrance, 
 this difficulty may not be an insuperable barrier in the 
 way of the theory of metempsychosis. 
 
 Another difficulty, however, remains. It may be 
 said that pre-existence fails to explain the moral 
 inequality which now exists, because, if we assume a 
 previous life to account for the maladjustment of this, 
 a prior pre-existence must explain the anomalies of 
 that, and so on ad infinitum. Even if the moral 
 disorder is temporary, its future elimination will not 
 explain why it once existed under a perfect system of 
 moral government. The theory of its previous exist- 
 ence only carries the difficulty one stage nearer to its 
 source, but it does not remove it, or lighten its pres- 
 sure in the region to which it is driven back. Besides, 
 if the ultimate prospect is such a re-arrangement of 
 destiny, by an adjustment of the external state to the 
 internal condition, that no inequality remains, why is 
 this not effected now ? Why is the marriage of 
 virtue and felicity (the internal and the external) so 
 long postponed ? To this it may be replied, that it 
 is no part of the theory of metempsychosis to explain 
 the origin of evil. It is only the moral inequality 
 arising from the way in which happiness and misery 
 are distributed in this life — often in inverse ratio to 
 virtue and vice — that it seeks to explain. To throw 
 any speculative or moral difficulty into the background 
 and prevent its forward pressure, is to accomplish 
 something, although the puzzle still remains ; and to 
 throw it back a little way is perhaps all that we can
 
 142 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 do, unless we can eliminate it, which assuredly we 
 cannot do. The demand to carry it still farther back, 
 so as to explain the previous inequality, is really to 
 raise the question why it is there at all. And to this 
 there is probably no answer, except that which the 
 existence of free will supplies. With free will per- 
 manently existing, there is a permanent possibility of 
 departure from the moral centre, and a swerving 
 towards the circumference. Hence the necessity for a 
 readjustment of the internal and external conditions 
 will begin afresh. Others may object that their sense 
 of justice is not satisfied by our suffering in the pre- 
 sent life for the errors of one that is past. But is 
 there justice in our suffering in manhood for the faults 
 of our youth ? in our receiving anything to-day for 
 the acts of yesterday ? or in children suffering at all 
 for the deeds of their parents ? In the two former 
 cases, it is merely a question of a certain time elaps- 
 ing between the act and its consequence. The third 
 is the case of one individual suffering for the errors of 
 another, to whom he stands organically and otherwise 
 related. But if each of us may suffer from his own past 
 actions, and one may suffer through another's deeds, the 
 law will continue to operate, although the deed may 
 belong to one stage of being and the penalty to another, 
 although the cause and its consequence be separated 
 by the widest possible interval. 
 
 There is a third objection which must not be over- 
 looked. An everlasting cycle of lives might become 
 wearisome, and induce a longing for repose, un- 
 broken by any new birth in time. The perpetual 
 descent and ascent, with repetitions of experience only
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 1-to 
 
 slightly varied, might lead to the wish of the lotus- 
 eaters — 
 
 While all things else have rest from weariness, 
 All things have rest, why should we toil alone ] 
 
 • • ■ • * 
 
 Nor ever fold our wings, 
 
 And cease our wanderings ; 
 
 Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things? 
 
 This is virtually the longing for nirvana. And the 
 relation of the doctrine of metempsychosis to that of 
 nirvana is curious and interesting. Metempsychosis 
 is part of the Buddhist belief, and yet nirvana, the 
 goal of Buddhist longing, is the cessation of metempsy- 
 chosis ; the soul attaining rest by ceasing to exist, or 
 being "blown out." Into all the forms of Buddhist 
 opinion transmigration enters ; but " soul wandering " 
 is a calamity, an evil inseparable from existence. 
 Nirvana is a deliverance from metempsychosis. After 
 undergoing the needful purification of many births 
 and deaths, the soul attains the condition requisite 
 for the perfect felicity of annihilation. In other 
 words, it is the discipline of metempsychosis that 
 gradually induces a feeling of detachment from 
 sensible things. A repetition of experience is no 
 longer necessary, and the soul is at length fitted and 
 entitled to escape from the turmoil of existence, with 
 its endless " vanity and vexation of spirit," into the 
 perfect rest of non-existence. Such is nirvana. It 
 is worthy of note, however, that amongst the Cingalese 
 Buddhists, the transmigration ending in nirvana, or 
 the peace of nonentity, passed into a doctrine of 
 extinction plus transmission. The departing soul, 
 ready to be " blown out," lit the lamp of existence
 
 144 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 in another spirit before its own annihilation was con- 
 summated. Its last point of contact with existence, 
 its expiring effort, was a creative one. It kept up 
 the succession of creatures destined to undergo the 
 same process of metempsychosis, by a final act of 
 ixpddana, or attachment to existence ; after which, it 
 entered itself into the supreme bliss of nirvana. 
 
 This desire for rest in the extinction of all desire, so 
 congenial to the oriental mind, presents no attraction 
 to the hardier races of the west and north. It may 
 be, in fact, a temperamental feature, determined by 
 subtle climatic conditions, and racial peculiarities; 
 but it offers no allurement to natures that have 
 learned to measure the fulness of the charm of 
 existence, by the amount of energy evoked and 
 sustained ; or have seen that " pleasure is but the 
 reflex of unimpeded energy." Rest is only valued 
 by us as the condition of a fresh departure and of 
 renewed activity. Tarrying for a time in any harbour 
 of existence, the inevitable longing arises for another 
 sight of the great Ocean and a new voyage. 
 
 The last ground on which metempsychosis may be 
 advocated, belongs to the metaphysic of physics. As 
 an argument it has often been implied, when it has 
 not been expressly affirmed. Even the imaginative 
 guesses and surmisings of the primitive tribes may 
 have grown unconsciously out of a speculative root, 
 which their authors were incompetent to grasp. That 
 philosophical root is the uniformity in the amount of 
 spiritual existence : the conviction that, since the 
 quantity of matter is neither increased or diminished, ' 
 it is the same with the quantity of spirit ; that it is 
 neither added to, nor taken from, at any moment of
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 145 
 
 time. It is a doctrine of modern science that there 
 is a uniform stock of energy within the universe which 
 neither increases nor decreases, but which incessantly 
 changes its form and manifestations ; dissolving, 
 retiring, re-emerging ; appearing, disappearing, and 
 returning, — the proteus of the physical world. Is 
 there a phoenix in the spiritual realm, corresponding 
 to this proteus in the material sphere ? It is affirmed 
 that while the amount of material existence remains 
 stationery, if the quantity of spiritual existence was 
 swiftly to increase at one end, with no corresponding 
 diminution at the other, i.e. if the birth of the spirits 
 of the human race was a new creation — multitudes 
 every instant of time darting out of nonentity into 
 manifested being — and if their death was a simple 
 transference to some new abode, this incessant and 
 rapid increase would overstock the universe. 
 
 Now, since no physical power is ever lost, all force 
 being simply transformed, if the doctrine of the 
 conservation of energy be applied to the sphere of 
 moral and spiritual life, two alternative theories alone 
 are possible : either pre-existence and immortality 
 combined, or emanation and absorption. Whether 
 the latter is materialistic or pantheistic matters not, 
 except for the name we choose to adopt ; the essence 
 of the doctrine is the same. It is self-evident that if 
 the amount of spiritual existence is not increased 
 every moment, the pre-existence of all souls that are 
 born, before their incarnation in the flesh, is as 
 certain as their immortality. The one carries the 
 other with it, or is carried by it ; they are, indeed, 
 not two doctrines but two sides of the same doctrine. 
 Thus the number of souls in the universe will be a 
 
 K
 
 14G THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 fixed and constant quantity. If the conservation of 
 energy be true of spiritual existence, and the soul is 
 to survive the death of the body, then it lived before 
 the bodv was vitalized. If it is never to be ex- 
 tiuguished, it never was produced. It was probably 
 the force of this consideration that led the acute mind 
 of David Hume to affirm that " metempsychosis is the 
 only system of this kind (i.e. of immortality) that 
 Philosophy can hearken to " (Phil. Works, iv. p. 
 404). He " says what is incorruptible must also be in- 
 generable." "The soul, if immortal, existed before our 
 birth" (p. 400). In the same connection he acutely 
 suggests " how to dispose of the infinite number of 
 posthumous existences ought to embarrass the religious 
 theory " (p. 404). With this we may associate a 
 remark of Shelley : " If there are no reasons to sup- 
 pose that we have existed before that period at which 
 our existence apparently commences, then there are 
 no grounds for supposing that we shall continue to 
 exist after our existence has apparently ceased." 
 (Essays, p. 58). The "continual influx of beings," 
 without a corresponding egress, is a difficulty which 
 will seem insuperable to many minds. There is a 
 growing consensus of opinion amongst spiritualists 
 and materialists alike, that the quantity both of 
 matter and of force within the universe suffers no 
 diminution and no enlargement : loss in one direction 
 being invariably and necessarily balanced by gain in 
 another, and all the phenomenal changes in nature 
 being simply a matter of exchange — a transposition 
 of elements, the sum of which is constant. If this 
 be so, it has an important bearing both on the sur- 
 vival of the soul after death, and on its pre- ex-
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 147 
 
 istence ; the two doctrines standing arid falling to- 
 gether. 
 
 As to the permanence of the materials which com- 
 pose the body, when the organization is broken up 
 and disintegrated, there is no debate. The survival, 
 in some form or other, of what we call the mind, soul, 
 or conscious ego, and what a materialist psychology 
 terms vital force, is also conceded. Neither is annihi- 
 lated ; they are only transmuted or transformed. But 
 the controversy remains after this concession, and under- 
 lies it. The alterations which the body undergoes can 
 be traced, because it continues visible after death. Its 
 changes can be experimentally investigated, because 
 its transformations are slowly effected. But the trans- 
 formations and changes of the soul, or vital principle, 
 cannot be traced. The question, however, which re- 
 mains to be disposed of, on grounds of probability, is 
 not whether it does or does not survive. Its survival 
 is conceded, and maintained as axiomatic. The only- 
 controversy is, in what form does it survive ? Is it 
 refunded to the universe, as material substance is re- 
 stored, to be worked up into new forms, by the proto- 
 plastic force that originally made it what it was ? or, 
 does it survive, with its individuality and identity 
 unbroken ? That is the controversy, between the 
 materialist and the spiritualist. May not the latter 
 be abandoning one half of his territory, or at least 
 surrendering one of his positions, and thus weakening 
 his ultimate defence, if he throws away the doctrine 
 of pre-existence ? It seems difficult to maintain, on 
 rational grounds, that the sum of finite existence is 
 being perpetually filled up before, with no correspond- 
 ing diminution behind ; a distinctly quantitative in-
 
 148 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 crease in front, with no decrease to balance it in the 
 rear. Over-population in the mother country has 
 necessitated emigration to the colonies. But on the 
 theory of incessant miraculous increase, there is no 
 conceivable colonv in the universe that would not be 
 already over-stocked, and where the arrival of any 
 emigrants from the parent country would not be 
 unwelcome. 
 
 In this connection, it is worthy of note how vaguely 
 and capriciously the immortality of the brute creation 
 is spoken of in comparison with the immortality of 
 man. By many, who are confident of their own sur- 
 vival, the immortality of animals is considered a curious 
 and possibly an interesting question, but speculatively 
 unimportant and theoretically indeterminable. How 
 much depends on the solution of the problem of the 
 destination of life is not perceived. For example, we 
 hear it often said, there can be no objection to the 
 immortality of the higher animals. But- scientific 
 rigour will not permit a line of demarcation to be 
 drawn between the animal races. They all shade into 
 one another. Are we then prepared to admit the 
 immortality of every creature in which there is the 
 faintest adumbration of intelligence ? and if so, of 
 every one in which is ' the breath of life.' If we do 
 admit this, then the intelligence which we find in the 
 dog, the beaver, the bee, and the ant, which does not 
 ' perish everlastingly,' is conserved somewhere, after 
 the dissolution of the bodies of these animals. But 
 how vast the Hades, stocked with the spiritual part of 
 ever} 7, creature that has ever lived and died upon our 
 planet from primeval time ! When the prolific in- 
 crease of the tribes of animated nature is realised, and
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 149 
 
 the enormous cycles of time during which the succes- 
 sion has been kept up, imagination sinks paralysed 
 before the conception of any shadowy storehouse, in 
 which these creatures continue to live, far less to 
 flourish. The supposition is felo-de-se. But if we 
 abandon the immortality of all, can we retain the 
 immortality of any? Is not transmigration, in this 
 case, the most probable hypothesis ? Is not the notion 
 of a uniform stock of vital energy, which passes and 
 repasses endlessly throughout the organized tribes of 
 nature, the most consistent theory we can frame? No 
 one need hesitate to apply the doctrine of metempsy- 
 chosis to the animal world, although he may doubt its 
 applicability to the human race : while, if we reject it 
 in the lower sphere, and, in consequence, hold that 
 the intelligence and devotion of the dog perish, it may 
 be hard to maintain that the reason and affection of 
 man survive. 
 
 A special difficulty, however, arises at this point. 
 It is, perhaps, the chief objection to the doctrine of 
 metempsychosis. How does ' the life ' that survives 
 unextinguished pass from one organized form to 
 another ? We can trace its signs or manifestations 
 till they cease at death. So far all is clear. But 
 what becomes of it on the dissolution of the body ? 
 
 Animula, vagula, blandula, 
 Hospes comesque corporis, 
 (Juce nunc abibis in loca? 
 
 If not extinguished, it merely retreats and reappears. 
 But how does it connect itself with the new organiza- 
 tion, into which it subsequently enters, as an animating 
 and vitalising principle ? This is a difficulty not only
 
 150 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 iii the way of transmigration, but of survival in any 
 form. The present connection between soul and body 
 is known so far: and, in the absence of experience of 
 separation, we have some psychological facts which 
 suggest that the union is not inseparable, that the 
 soul is not a function of the body, but that in each 
 individual we have two principles, if not two substances, 
 temporarily united. When they are separated, how- 
 ever, as they are at death, how does the spiritual part 
 continue to live disembodied ? and how does it unite 
 itself, or how is it united with a new corporeal form \ 
 Does it ally itself with its new organization, in some 
 cases, by a voluntary act ? in others, by a passive and 
 involuntary process ? If the latter, there must be 
 some law by which the change is effected, some 
 method of development determining the movement in 
 a cycle. If the act is voluntary, we have a fresh 
 difficulty to face, viz., that the spiritual principle must 
 be able to select its new abode. It must, therefore, 
 either choose one out of many, or it must enter iuto 
 the only one that is fitted for its reception. It must 
 be either wholly active, or wholly passive, or partly 
 active and partly passive. We can state the alterna- 
 tives, but how to choose amongst them, how to select 
 any one of them is a difficulty that remains. The 
 spirit shrinks from a ghostly or disembodied state as 
 its perpetual destiny nearly as much as it recoils from 
 the sleep of nirvana: but how to find a body, how to 
 incarnate itself, or even to conceive the process by 
 which it could, by any foreign agency, be robed 
 anew, remains a puzzle ; even while, as Henry 
 Vaughan expresses it,
 
 THE DOCTRINE OE METEMPSYCHOSIS. 1 5 1 
 
 It feels through all this fleshly dresse 
 Bright shootes of everlastiugiiesse. 
 
 These are difficulties which attend every attempt to 
 form definite conceptions as to the details of this 
 question. Mr Greg is wise when he says of the belief 
 in immortality, ' Let it rest in the vague, if you would 
 have it rest unshaken.' 
 
 A farther point, however, is to be noted. Although 
 we may validly object to have the roots of our convic- 
 tions exhibited to view, as we decline to expose the 
 rootlets of a plant to 'the nipping and the eager air' 
 of winter, it is a signal gain to integrity of belief that 
 the scientific spirit of our age demands the removal of 
 all presuppositions which cannot be verified, and insists 
 that those which remain shall be luminous from root 
 to branch. It does this with even more force and 
 rigor, than Descartes employed, in his new method of 
 research. So much intellectual mist has been allowed 
 to gather and settle over this question of the soul's 
 destiny, that when a breath of the east wind raises it, 
 and shows how little is known or can be intelligently 
 surmised, many desire that the obscuring curtain 
 should speedily fall again. But in discussing the ques- 
 tion of immortality it is above all things necessary that 
 we keep modestly within the lines of veritable evi- 
 dence ; that we lean on no broken (if possible on no 
 breakable) reed ; and that, distinguishing between 
 what we know and what we may only hope for, we 
 mark the alternatives of the controversy, and the con- 
 sequences that follow our premises, alike of affir- 
 mation and denial. If we reject the doctrine of pre- 
 existence, for example, we must either believe in non- 
 existence, or fall back on one or other of the two
 
 1 5 2 THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 opposing theories of creation and traduction : and, as 
 we reject extinction, we may find that pre-existence 
 has fewer difficulties to face than the rival hypotheses. 
 Creation — or creationism, as it has sometimes been 
 named — is the theory that every moment of time 
 multitudes of new souls are simultaneously born, not 
 sent down from a celestial source, but freshly made out 
 of nothing, and placed in bodies prepared for them by 
 a process of natural generation. It is curious to ob- 
 serve how vehemently the Cambridge Platonists re- 
 coiled from the notion of a pure spirit fresh from the 
 hand of Deity being placed by him ' in such a body 
 as would presently defile his image.' The idea of the 
 Creator being compelled to add a spirit to the body, 
 however and whenever a body might arise, accordiug 
 to natural law and process, seemed to them a monstrous 
 infraction of Divine liberty. The theory of traduction 
 seemed to them even worse, as it implied the deriva- 
 tion of the soul from at least two sources — from both 
 parents ; and a substance thus derived was apparently 
 composite and quasi -material. 
 
 It is easy to criticise the doctrine of Pre-existence, 
 as held in the Pythagorean brotherhood, and taught 
 by the mystic sage of Agrigentum, or even by Plato. 
 The fantastic folly of the Brahminical teaching (as in 
 the twelfth book of the laws of Manu) and the absur- 
 dity of Buddha's transmigrations are apparent. But it 
 is easier to follow Lucretius in his satire of it, than to 
 appreciate the difficulty which gave it birth. As re- 
 produced by Virgil and by Cicero, the genius of the 
 Greek poets and philosophers lost the charm of its 
 original setting : and I question if the surmises of 
 Plato were fully appraised, till the Phsedo itself experi-
 
 THE DOCTRIXE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 153 
 
 enced metempsychosis in Wordsworth's ' Ode.' But 
 stripped of all extravagance, and expressed in the 
 modest terms of probability, the theory has immense 
 speculative interest, and great ethical value. It is 
 much to have the puzzle of the origin of evil thrown 
 back for an indefinite number of cycles of lives, to 
 have a workable explanation of nemesis, and of what 
 we are accustomed to call the moral tragedies, and the 
 untoward birth of a multitude of men and women. It 
 is much, also, to have the doctrine of immortality 
 lightened of its difficulties ; to have our immediate out- 
 look relieved, by the doctrine that, in the soul's eternity, 
 its pre-existence and its future existence are one. The 
 retrospect may assuredly help the prospect. And if 
 1 this grey dogma, fairly clear of doubt,' as Glanvill 
 describes it, seems strange in the absence of all re- 
 membered traces of past existence, it is worth consider- 
 ing that in a future state a point will be reached when 
 pre-existence will be true. If we are to be immortal, 
 immediately after death metempsychosis will have 
 become a realised experience ; and our present lives 
 will stand in the same relation to the future, on which 
 we shall then have entered, as that in which the past 
 now stands to our present life. 
 
 Henry More said that he produced his golden key 
 of pre-existence ' only at a dead lift, when no other 
 method would satisfy him, touching the ways of God, 
 that by this hypothesis he might keep his heart from 
 sinking.' Whether we make use of it or not, we ought 
 to realise its alternatives. They are these. Either all 
 life is extinguished and resolved, through an absorp- 
 tion and reassimilation of the vital principle every- 
 where : or a perpetual miracle goes on, in the incessant
 
 154) THE DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 and rapid increase in the amount of spiritual existence 
 within the universe ; and, while human life survives, 
 the intelligence and the affection of the lower animals 
 perish everlastingly. 
 
 Man's life is like a Sparrow, mighty King ! 
 That — while at banquet with your Chiefs you sit 
 Housed near a blazing fire — is seen to flit 
 Safe from the wintry tempest. Fluttering, 
 Here did it enter ; there, on hasty wing, 
 Flies out, and passes on from cold to cold ; 
 But whence it came we know not, nor behold 
 Whither it goes. Even such, that transient Thing, 
 The human Soul ; not utterly unknown 
 While in the Body lodged, her warm abode ; 
 But from what world She came, what woe or weal 
 On her departure waits, no tongue hath shown ; 
 This mystery if the Stranger can reveal, 
 His be a welcome cordially bestowed. 
 
 Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Sonnets, Part i., § 15.
 
 
 THEISM— DESIDERATA IN THE THEISTIC 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 (The British Quarterly Review, July 1871. ) 
 
 It is a philosophical commonplace that all human 
 questioning leads us back to certain ultimate truths or 
 facts which cannot be further analysed, and of which 
 no other explanation can be given than that they are, 
 or that they exist. Every explanation of the Universe 
 rests and must rest on the inexplicable. The borders 
 of the known are fringed with mystery, the limits of 
 the knowable are bounded by it, and all the data of 
 our knowledge recede into it, by longer or shorter 
 pathways. Thus, while it is the very mystery of the 
 universe that has given rise to human knowledge, by 
 quickening the curiosity of man, the same mystery 
 prescribes a limit to his insight, continues to over- 
 shadow him in his researches, and to girdle him, in 
 his latest discoveries, with its veil. In wonder all 
 Philosophy is born ; in wonder it always ends ; and, 
 to adopt a well-known illustration, our knowledge is 
 a stream, of which the source is hid, and the destination 
 unknown, although we may surmise regarding both. 
 
 But the mystery, which thus envelopes the origin 
 and the destination of the Universe, is not absolutely 
 overpowering ; nor does it lay an arrest on the human 
 faculties in their efforts to understand the universe 
 as a Avhole. Man has always striven to penetrate 
 farther and farther into the shrine of nature, and to
 
 156 THEISM. 
 
 record in the several sciences the stages of his progress. 
 These sciences are of necessity inter-related, and mutu- 
 ally dependent. Each section of knowledge has a 
 doorway leading into others on either side of it, and 
 one which opens behind into the region of first prin- 
 ciples. It is not, however, necessary that the specialist 
 in one department should know much of other fields of 
 research. Separate inquirers may content themselves 
 with their special region of phenomena and its laws, 
 which they seek to understand more perfectly, and to 
 interpret more clearly, without going beyond their own 
 domain. It is by such division of labour, and con- 
 centration of aim, that the achievements of modern 
 science have been won. These achievements have 
 been singularly great and fruitful ; widening our know- 
 ledge of phenomena, and annexing province after pro- 
 vince to the territory of science. Such conquests, 
 however, do not add much to our knowledge of Nature 
 as a whole. They tell us nothing of its essence, or first 
 principle, or ultimate cause. It is only by withdrawing 
 from the sphere in which one has been labouring as a 
 specialist, and, without entering the borderland of any 
 new science, receding behind them all, and contem- 
 plating the entire group from a distance, that their 
 value as a contribution to our knowledge of the uni- 
 verse can be discerned. Each of the sciences has its 
 ideal, but the goal of universal science is the discovery 
 of one ultimate principle, which will be explanatory of 
 all observed phenomena. 
 
 And the speculative thinker has a similar aim. The 
 perennial question of philosophy is the discovery of the 
 central principle of Existence, its haunting problem 
 is the ultimate explanation of the universe of being.
 
 THEISM. 157 
 
 The universe, what is it ? Whence is it ? Whither 
 is it tending ? Can we know anything beyond the 
 fleeting phenomena of its ever unfolding life, and ever 
 varying history ? Is its source, and therefore its cen- 
 tral principle, accessible to our faculties of knowledge ? 
 
 This too is the distinctive problem of rational Theo- 
 logy. Philosophy and science both lead up to philo- 
 sophical theology as to the apex of human knowledge. 
 The latter may be fitly called the scientia scientiarwm. 
 Questions as to the nature and origin of Life upon our 
 planet, the nature of Force or Energy, the problems of 
 Substance and of Cause, the questions of the Absolute 
 and Infinite, all centre in this, ' What is the Ultimate 
 Principle of the Universe, the apyjh of all Existence ? ' 
 They are each and all different ways of raising the 
 same question, and expressing it, from the point of view 
 which the questioner occupies. Speculative philo- 
 sophy and science deal proximately, it is true, with 
 the problems of finite existence, existence as presented 
 to us in the surrounding universe, and the laws which 
 regulate it ; but they covertly imply and remotely lead 
 up to the question we have stated. They are the seve- 
 ral approaches to that science which sits enthroned 
 on the very summit of human knowledge. 
 
 Nevertheless, the science of speculative theology is 
 as yet lamentably incomplete. We have scores of 
 treatises devoted to the subject, and numerous pro- 
 fessed solutions of the problem. But we have not, in 
 the English language, a single treatise which even 
 contemplates a philosophical arrangement and classi- 
 fication of the various theories, actual and possible, 
 upon the subject. It is otherwise with the great ques- 
 tions of intellectual and ethical philosophy. There
 
 158 THEISM. 
 
 are elaborate and almost exhaustive schemes of theories 
 on the nature of perception, or our knowledge of the 
 external world, the laws of association, the problem of 
 causality, and the nature of conscience. But we look 
 in vain for any similar attempt to classify the several 
 lines of argument, or possible modes of theistic proof, 
 so as to present a tabular view of the various doctrines 
 on this subject. We are limited to the well-known 
 but precarious scheme of proofs a priori and a poste- 
 riori* and to the more accurate classification of Kant, 
 the ontological, the cosmological, and the physico- 
 theological proofs, with his own argument from the 
 moral faculty or practical reason. In addition, we 
 are not aware of any English treatise specially devoted 
 to the history of this branch of philosophical literature, 
 with the exception of a brief essay by Dr Waterland, 
 in which he traverses a small section of the whole 
 area ; and that not as the historian of philosophical 
 opinion, but in the interest of a special theory."!" 
 
 The present condition of ' natural theology ' in 
 England is scarcely creditable to the critical insight 
 of the British mind. There has been little earnest 
 
 * The terms a priori and a posteriori are misleading. Arguments 
 called a priori are usually mixed, and involve elements strictly 
 a posteriori : experiential facts are inlaid within them. And the 
 proof a posteriori ascends (if it ascends high enough) by the aid of 
 a priori principles. In its rise to the supersensible, it makes use of 
 the noetic principle of the reason. 
 
 t For other contributions we are indebted to the historians of 
 philosophy (see especially Hitter, Buhle, Zeller, and Ueberweg) and 
 of Christian doctrine, such as Neander and Hagenbach, and to one 
 of the cleverest of French thinkers, R^musat, who, in his ' Philo- 
 sophic Eeligieuse,' has acutely criticised some of the developments 
 of opinion since the rise of modern philosophy, and more especially 
 some of the latest phenomena of British and Continental thought.
 
 THEISM. 1 o 9 
 
 grappling with the problem, in the light of the past 
 history of opinion ; and traditionary stock-proofs have 
 been relied upon with a perilous complacency. The 
 majority of theologians trust to a futile and treacherous 
 argument, from what has long been termed ' final 
 causes ; ' and, when beaten from that field, at once by 
 the rigour of speculative thought and the march of the 
 inductive sciences, the refuge that is found in the 
 region of our moral nature is scarcely less secure, while 
 the character of the theistic argument from conscience 
 is suffered to remain in the obscurity which still 
 shrouds it. 
 
 In the following pages we propose to show the ulti- 
 mate invalidity of several popular modes of proof, and 
 to suggest a few desiderata in the future working out 
 of the problem. 
 
 It may be useful to preface our criticism by a 
 classification of theistic theories. This, however, is 
 offered rather as a provisional chart of opinion, than 
 as an exhaustive summary of all the arguments which 
 have been advanced, or of all possible varieties in the 
 mode of proof. Many thinkers, perhaps the majority, 
 and notably the mediaeval schoolmen, have combined 
 several distinct lines of evidence ; and have occa- 
 sional^ borrowed from a doctrine which they ex- 
 plicitly reject some of the very elements of their own 
 argument. They have often forsaken their theory at 
 a crisis, and not observed their departure from the 
 data on which they profess exclusive^ to build. 
 
 The first class of theories are strictly ontological or 
 onto-theological. They attempt to prove the objective 
 existence of Deity from the subjective notion of neces- 
 sary existence in the human mind ; or from the
 
 1 GO THEISM. 
 
 assumed objectivity of space and time, which they 
 interpret as the attributes of a necessary Substance. 
 
 The second are the cosmological or cosmo-theolo- 
 gical proofs. They essay to prove the existence of a 
 supreme self-existent Cause from the mere fact of the 
 existence of the world, by the application of the prin- 
 ciple of causality. Starting with the postulate of any 
 single existence whatsoever — the world or anything 
 in the world — and proceeding to argue backwards or 
 upwards, the existence of one supreme Cause is held 
 to be 'a regressive inference ' from the existence of 
 these effects. As there cannot, it is alleged, be an 
 infinite series of derived or dependent effects, we at 
 length reach the infinite or uncaused Cause. This 
 has been termed the proof from contingency, as it 
 rises from the contingent to the necessary, from the 
 relative to the absolute. But the cosmological proof 
 may have a threefold character, according as it is 
 argued : 1. That the necessary is the antithesis of the 
 contingent : or, 2. That because some being now 
 exists, some being must have always existed ; or, 
 5. That because we now exist, and have not caused 
 ourselves, some cause adequate to produce us must 
 also now exist. 
 
 A third class of proofs are somewhat inaccurately 
 termed physico-theologwal, a phrase equally descrip- 
 tive of them and of those last mentioned. They are 
 rather ideological or teleo-theological. The former 
 proof started from any finite existence. It did not 
 scrutinise its character, but rose from it to an absolute 
 cause, by a direct mental leap or inference. This 
 scrutinises the effect, and finds traces of intelligence 
 within it. It detects the presence or the vestiges of
 
 
 THEISM. 1 6 1 
 
 mind in the particular effect it examines, viz., the 
 phenomena of the world, and from these it infers the 
 existence of Deity. One branch of it is the popular 
 argument from design, or adaptation in nature, the 
 fitness of means to ends implying, it is said, an Archi- 
 tect or designer. It may be called techno-theology ; 
 and is variously treated, according as the technologist 
 (a) starts from human contrivance and reasons to 
 nature ; or, (/?) begins with nature's products, and reasons 
 toward man. Another branch is the argument from 
 the order of the universe, from the types or laws of 
 nature, indicating, it is said, an Orderer or law-giver, 
 whose intelligence we thus discern. It is not, in this 
 case, that the adjustment of means to ends proves the 
 presence of a mind that has adjusted them. But the 
 law itself, in its regularity and continuity, implies a 
 mind behind it, an intelligence animating the other- 
 wise soulless universe. It might be termed nomo- 
 theology or typo-theology. Under the same general 
 category may be placed the argument from animal in- 
 stinct, which is distinct at once from the evidence of 
 design, and that of law or typical order. To take one 
 instance : The bee forms its cells, following uncon- 
 sciously, and by what we term ' instinct,' the most 
 intricate mathematical laws. There is mind, there 
 is thought in the process ; but whose mind, whose 
 thought ? Not the animal's, because it is not guided 
 by experience. It works automatically, unconscious 
 of the end it is accomplishing. Nevertheless, the 
 result arrived at is one which could be reached by 
 man only through the exercise of reason of the very 
 highest order. And the question arises, Arc we not 
 warranted in supposing that a hidden pilot guides the
 
 1G2 THEISM. 
 
 bee, concealed behind what we call its instinct ? We 
 do not, meanwhile, discuss the merit of this argu- 
 ment ; but merely indicate the difference between it 
 and the argument from design, and that from law and 
 order. It is not a question of the adjustment of 
 phenomena. It is the demand of the intellect for a 
 cause adequate to account for a unique phenomenon. 
 It approaches the cosmo-theological argument as closely 
 as it approaches the techno-theological one ; and yet 
 it is different from both. The cosmo-theological en- 
 deavours to rise from any particular effect to its cause, 
 and by a backward mental bound to reach an infinite 
 source. The techno-theological attempts to rise from 
 the adjustment of means to ends, to an adjuster or 
 contriver. This simply asks, Whence comes the mind 
 that is here in operation, perceived by its effects ? Is 
 not mind present within the observed phenomena ? 
 
 The next class of arguments are based upon the 
 moral nature of man. They may be termed in general 
 ethico-theologiccd ; and there are, at least, two main 
 branches of this line of proof. The former is the 
 argument from conscience, as a moral law, pointing to 
 Another within it, or above it ; the law that is ' in us, 
 yet not of us ' — not the ' autonomy ' of Kant, but a 
 theonomy — bearing witness to a legislator above. 
 Conscience is interpreted as the moral echo within us of 
 a Voice louder and vaster without. And, as evidence, 
 it is direct and intuitive, not inferential. The latter 
 is the argument of Kant (in which he was anticipated 
 by several, notably by Raimund of Sabunde). It is 
 indirect and inferential, based upon the present pheno- 
 mena of our moral nature. The moral law declares 
 that evil is punishable and to be punished, that virtue
 
 THEISM. 1G3 
 
 is rewardable and to be rewarded ; but in this life they 
 are not so : therefore, said Kant, there must be a 
 futurity in which the rectification will take place, and 
 a moral Arbiter by whom it will be effected. 
 
 Finally, there is the argument, which, when philo- 
 sophically unfolded, is the only unassailable stronghold 
 of theism, its one impregnable fortress, that of intui- 
 tion. It is simply the utterance of the human soul, 
 in the presence of an Object which it does not so much 
 discover by searching, as apprehend in the act of 
 revealing itself; and it may be called — keeping to the 
 analogy of our former terms — eso-theological or 
 esoterico-theological. It is not an argument, an infer- 
 ence, a conclusion. It is an attestation, the vision of 
 a Reality which is apprehended by the instinct of the 
 worshipper, and the inspiration of the poet, as much 
 as by the gaze of the speculative reason. It is not the 
 verdict of one part of human nature, of reason, or the 
 conscience, the feelings, or the affections ; but of the 
 whole being, when thrown into the poise or attitude of 
 recognition, before the presence of the self-revealing 
 Object. 
 
 There are several phases of this, which we term the 
 eso-theological proof. We see its most rudimentary 
 traces in the polytheism of the savage mind, and its 
 unconscious personification of nature's forces. When 
 this crude conception of diverse powers in partial 
 antagonism gives place to the notion of one central 
 Power, the instinct asserts itself in the verdict of the 
 common mind as to One who is above, yet kindred to 
 it. It is attested by the feeling of dependence, and 
 by the instinct of worship, which bears witness to an 
 outward object corresponding to the inward impulse,
 
 164 THEISM. 
 
 in analogy with all the other instincts of our nature. 
 It is farther attested by the poet's interpretation of 
 nature, the verdict of the great seers, that the universe 
 is pervaded by a supreme Spirit, ' haunted for ever by 
 the eternal mind.' We find its highest attestation in 
 that consciousness of the Infinite itself, which is man's 
 highest prerogative as a rational creature. 
 
 We have thus the following chart of theistic theories. 
 
 I. Onto-theological — 
 
 1. From necessary notion to reality. 
 
 a Anselm's proof. 
 
 /3 Descartes' first argument. 
 
 2. From space and time, as attributes to their substance. 
 II. Cosmo-theological — 
 
 1. Antithetic. 
 
 2. Causal. 
 
 3. ' Sufficient reason.' (Leibnitz. ) 
 III. Teleo-theological— 
 
 1. Techno-theology. 
 
 2. Typo -theology. 
 
 3. (Animal instinct). 
 IV. Ethico-theological — 
 
 1. Deonto-theological. (direct.) 
 
 2. Indirect and inferential. (Kant.) 
 V. Eso-theological — 
 
 1. The infinite. (Fenelon. Cousin.) 
 
 2. The world-soul. 
 
 3. The instinct of worship. 
 
 In addition, we might mention several subsidiary or 
 sporadic proofs which have no philosophical relevancy, 
 but have some theological suggestiveness, viz., 1. The 
 historical consensus. 2. The felicity of the theist. 3. 
 The testimony of revelation. 
 
 It is unnecessary to discuss all these alleged proofs 
 at length ; but the powerlessness of the most of them
 
 THEISM. 165 
 
 to establish the transcendent fact they profess to reach, 
 demands more serious thought than it has received. 
 
 The ontological proof has always possessed a singular 
 fascination to the speculative mind. It promises so 
 much, and would accomplish so much, if only it 
 were valid ! It would be so powerful, were it only 
 conclusive ! But had demonstration been possible, the 
 theistic argument, like the proofs of mathematics, would 
 have carried conviction not only to the majority of 
 thinkers, but also to the universal mind, long ago. 
 The historical failure is signal. Whether in the form 
 in which it was originally cast by Augustine, Anselm, 
 and Aquinas, or in the more elaborate theory of 
 Descartes, or as presented in the ponderous English 
 treatises of Cudworth, Henry More, and Dr Samuel 
 Clarke, it is altogether a petitio principii. Under 
 every modification, it reasons from the necessary notion 
 of God, to his necessary existence ; or from the neces- 
 sary existence of space and time, which are assumed to 
 be the properties or attributes of a substance, to the 
 necessary existence of that substance. A purely sub- 
 jective necessity of the reason is carried from within 
 outwards, and is held to be conclusive in the realm of 
 objective reality. But the very essence of the problem 
 is the discovery of an intellectual path by which one 
 may pass from the notions of the intellect to the realities 
 of the universe beyond it. We may not, therefore, 
 summarily identify the two, and, at the very outset, 
 take the existence of the one as demonstrative of the 
 other. In every affirmation of real existence, we pass 
 from a notion which has entered the mind — or is innate 
 — to the realm of objective being, which exists inde- 
 pendently of us, who affirm it ; and how to pass
 
 166 THEISM. 
 
 warrantably from the ideal world within, to the real 
 world without, is the very problem to be solved. To 
 be valid at its starting-point, the ontological argument 
 ought to prove that the notion of God is so fixed in the 
 very root of our intellectual nature that it cannot be 
 dislodged from the mind ; and this some thinkers, such 
 as Clarke, have had the hardihood to affirm. To be 
 valid as it proceeds, it ought to prove that the notion, 
 thus necessary in thought, has a real counterpart in the 
 realm of things ; in order that it may vindicate the 
 step, it so quietly takes, from the ideal notion to the 
 world of real existence. It passes from thought to 
 things, just as we pass from logical premiss to conclu- 
 sion. But, to be consistent, its advocates must rest 
 contented with an ideal conclusion, deduced from the 
 ideal premiss. And thus, the only valid issue of the 
 ontological argument is a system of absolute idealism, 
 of which the strict theological corollary is pantheism. 
 But as this is not the Deity the argument essays to 
 reach, it must be pronounced illogical throughout. 
 
 Thus the ontological argument identifies the logical 
 and the real. The illicit procedure in which it 
 indulges would be more apparent than it is to a priori 
 theorists, if the object they imagine they have reached 
 were visible in nature, and apprehensible by the 
 senses. To pass from the ideal to the real sphere by 
 a transcendental act of thought is seen at once to be 
 unwarrantable in the case of sense-perception. In 
 this case, it is the presence of the object that alone 
 warrants the transition, else we should have as much 
 right to believe in the real existence of the hippogriff 
 as in the reality of the horse. But when the object 
 is invisible, and is at the same time supreme or ulti-
 
 THEISM. 167 
 
 mate Being, the speculative thinker is more easily 
 deceived. We must, therefore, in every instance ask 
 him, where is the bridge from the notion to the 
 reality ? What is the nature of the plank thrown 
 across the chasm which separates these two regions (to 
 use an old philosophical phrase), ' by the whole 
 diameter of being ? ' We can never, by any vault of 
 logic, pass from the one to the other. We are im- 
 prisoned within the region of mere subjectivity in all 
 a priori demonstration, and how to escape from it, is 
 (as we said before) the very problem to be solved. 
 
 Anselm, who was the first to formulate the onto- 
 logical proof, argued that our idea of God is the idea 
 of a being than whom we can conceive nothing- 
 greater. But, inasmuch as real existence is greater 
 than mere thought, the existence of God is guaranteed 
 in the very idea of the most perfect being ; other- 
 wise, the contradiction of the existence of one still 
 more perfect would emerge. The error of Anselm 
 was the error of his age, the main blot in the whole 
 mediaeval philosophy. It first seemed to him that 
 reason and instinctive faith were separated by a wide 
 interval, if not by an impossible chasm. He then 
 wished to have a reason for his faith, cast in the form 
 of a syllogism. And he failed to see, or adequately 
 to understand, that all demonstrative reasoning hangs 
 upon axiomatic truths which cannot be demonstrated, 
 not because they are inferior to reason, but because 
 they are superior to reasoning, because they are the 
 pillars upon which all ratiocination rests. This was 
 his first mistake. Dissatisfied with the data upon 
 which all reasoning hangs, he preferred the stream to 
 the fountain-head ; while he virtually thought, that by
 
 168 THEISM. 
 
 going down the stream, he could reach the fountain ! 
 But his second mistake was the greater of the two. 
 He confounded the necessities of thought with the 
 necessities of the universe. He passed, without a 
 warrant, from his own subjective notion, to the 
 region of objective reality. And it has been the 
 same with all, who have since followed him, in this 
 ambitious path. After witnessing the elaborate intel- 
 lectual feats which the mediaeval theologians per- 
 formed, and the artificial strain to which they sub- 
 jected their intellects in the process, we see the 
 chasm still yawning between the abstract notions of 
 the mind and the concrete facts of the universe. It 
 is remarkable that any of them were satisfied with the 
 accuracy of their reasonings. We can explain it only 
 by the intellectual habit of the age, and the (misread) 
 traditions of the Stagyrite. They made use, uncon- 
 sciously, of that intuition which carries us across the 
 gulf, and they misread the process by which they 
 reached the other side. They set down to the credit 
 of their intellect what was due to the necessities of 
 the moral nature, and to the voice of the heart. 
 
 Descartes was the most illustrious thinker, who, 
 at the dawn of modern philosophy, developed the 
 scholastic theism. While inaugurating a new method 
 of experimental research, he retained the most charac- 
 teristic doctrine of mediaeval ontology. He argued 
 that necessary existence is as essential to the idea of 
 an all-perfect being, as the equality of its three angles 
 to two right angles is essential to the idea of a 
 triangle. But though he admits that his ' thought 
 imposes no necessity on things,' he contradicts his 
 own admission by adding, ' I cannot conceive God
 
 THEISM. 169 
 
 except as existing, and hence it follows that existence 
 is inseparable from him.' In his ' Principles of Philo- 
 sophy ' we find the following argument : — 
 
 ' As the equality of its three angles to two right angles is 
 necessarily comprised in the idea of the triangle, the mind is 
 firmly persuaded that the three angles of a triangle are equal to 
 two right angles ; so from its perceiving necessary and eternal 
 existence to be comprised in the idea which it has of an all- 
 perfect being, it ought manifestly to conclude that this all-perfect 
 being exists.' — (Pt. i. sec. 14.) 
 
 This argument is more formally expounded in his 
 ' Reply to Objections to the Meditations,' thus : — 
 
 ' Proposition I. The existence of God is known from the con- 
 sideration of His nature alone. Demonstration : To say that an 
 attribute is contained in the nature or in the concept of a thing, 
 is the same as to say that the attribute is true of this thing, and 
 that it may be affirmed to be in it. But necessary existence is 
 contained in the nature or the concept of God. Hence, it may 
 be with truth affirmed that necessary existence is in God, or that 
 God exists.' 
 
 It is not difficult to show that, in this elaborate 
 array of argumentation, Descartes is the victim of a 
 subtle fallacy. Our conception of necessary existence 
 cannot include the fact of necessary existence, for 
 — to repeat what we have already said — the one is 
 an ideal concept of the mind, the other is a fact of 
 real existence. The one demands an object beyond 
 the mind conceiving it, the other docs not. All that 
 the Cartesian argument could prove would be that 
 the mental concept was necessary, not that the con- 
 cept had a counterpart in the outer universe. It is, 
 indeed, a necessary judgment that the three angles of 
 a triangle are equal to two right angles, because this
 
 1 70 THEISM. 
 
 is an identical proposition ; the subject and the 
 predicate are the same, the one being only an expan- 
 sion of the other. We cannot, therefore, destroy the 
 predicate and leave the subject intact. But it is 
 otherwise when we affirm that any triangular object 
 exists, we may then destroy the predicate ' existence,' 
 and yet leave the subject (the notion of the triangle) 
 intact in the mind. 
 
 It is true that Descartes has not limited himself to 
 this futile a priori demonstration. He has buttressed 
 his formal ontology by a much more suggestive argument; 
 although logically, it is quite as inconclusive. He again 
 reasons thus in his 'Principles:' We have the idea 
 of an all-perfect being in the mind, but whence do 
 we derive it ? It is impossible that we can have an 
 idea of anything, unless there be an original somewhere 
 in the universe whence we derive it, as the shadow is 
 the sitm of a substance that casts it. But it is manifest 
 that the more perfect cannot arise from the less perfect, 
 and that which knows something more perfect than 
 itself is not the cause of its own being. Since, there- 
 fore, we ourselves are not so perfect as the idea of 
 perfection which we find within us, we arc forced to 
 believe that this idea in us is derived from a more 
 perfect being above us, and consequently that such a 
 being exists. 
 
 It will be observed that this second argument of 
 Descartes is partly cosmological, although it ultimately 
 merges in the ontological, and falls back upon it for 
 support. Hence, Descartes himself called it an a pos- 
 teriori argument. And it may therefore serve as a 
 link of connection and transition to the second group 
 in our scheme of theories.
 
 THEISM. 1 7 1 
 
 Before passing to these, however, we may observe 
 that the majority of a 'priori theorists, professing to 
 conduct ns to the desired conclusion along the level 
 road of demonstration — while they all contradict their 
 own principles, and furtively introduce the contingent 
 facts of experience — have but a faint conception of the 
 magnitude of the question at issue. To work out a 
 demonstration as with algebraic formulae, to contem- 
 plate the problem as one of mathematical science, under 
 the light and guidance of the understanding alone, and 
 unaided by the moral intuitions, betokens a lack of 
 insight into the very problem in question. The Object, 
 of which we are in search, is not a blank colourless 
 abstraction, or necessary entity. Suppose that a 
 supreme 'existence' were demonstrable, that bare entity 
 is not the God of theism, the infinite Intelligence and 
 Personality, of whose existence the human spirit 
 desires some assurance, if it can be had. And a for- 
 mal demonstration of a primitive source of existence 
 (more geometrico) is of no theological value. As a 
 mere ultimatum, its existence is conceded by every 
 philosophical school, but it amounts to very little. It 
 is an unillumined, colourless, blank admission. So 
 far as intellectual and moral recognition go, the object 
 is an absolute zero, inaccessible alike to the reason and 
 to the heart, before which the human spirit is either 
 hopelessly perplexed, or absolutely paralysed. 
 
 The germs of the cosmological argument (as of the 
 antological) are found in the scholastic philosophy ; 
 although its elaboration was left to the first and second 
 periods of the modern era. Diodorus of Tarsus, John 
 Damascenus, Hugo of St Victor, and Peter of Poitiers, 
 have each contributed to the development of this mode
 
 172 THEISM. 
 
 of proof. It is the argument a contingentia mundi, 
 or ex revum mutabilitate ; and may be briefly stated 
 thus : If the contingent exists, the necessar} r also exists. 
 I myself, the world, the objects of sense, are contin- 
 gent existences, and there must be a cause of these, 
 which cause must be also an effect. Go back, there- 
 fore, to the cause of that cause, and to its cause again, 
 and you must at length pause in the regress ; and by 
 rising to a First Cause, you escape from the contingent 
 and reach the necessary. From the observation of 
 the manifold sequences of nature, you rise to the causal 
 fountain-head, since you cannot travel backwards for 
 ever along an infinite line of dependent sequences. 
 
 This argument is as illusory as the ontological one, 
 from which indeed it borrows any strength it has, and 
 of which it shares the weakness. Why should we ever 
 pause, in the regressive march of thought, along the 
 lines of phenomenal sequence in the universe, of which 
 we only observe the slow evolution through immeasur- 
 able time ? How do we reach a fountain-head at all ? 
 We are not warranted in saying that because we can- 
 not think out an endless regress of infinite antecedents, 
 therefore we must assume a first cause. For that 
 assumption of the upyji, of an uncaused cause, when we 
 have wearied ourselves in mounting the steps of the 
 ladder of finite agency, is to the speculative reason 
 equally illicit, as its assumption would be, when 
 standing on the first rung of the ladder. Why should 
 we not assume it, why should we not step over to it 
 at the first, if we may do so, or are compelled to do so, 
 at the last ? The fact of our having wandered a little 
 way backwards from our present standing ground, 
 amongst antecedent phenomena, will not warrant our
 
 THEISM. 173 
 
 ultimately leaving the sphere of phenomena unless we 
 are warranted in doing so before we begin our wander- 
 ings. The cosmological argument starts from the con- 
 crete, and works its way backward along the channel 
 of the concrete, till it turns round, faces the abstract, 
 looks up, takes wing, and ' suddenly scales the height.' 
 The speculative reason at length essays to cross over 
 the chasm between the long series of dependent 
 sequences, and the original or uncreated cause ; but it 
 does so furtively, and illegitimately. It crosses over 
 by an unknown path, to an unknown source, supposed 
 to be necessary. 
 
 Furthermore, what light is cast by this ambitious 
 regress, on the nature of the fountain-head 1 How is 
 the being whom we are supposed at length to have 
 reached, the source of that series of effects, which are 
 supposed to have sprung from his creative fiat ? If we 
 experienced a difficulty in our regress in connecting the 
 last link of the chain with the causa causans, we 
 experience the same or a counter-difficulty in our 
 descent, in connecting the first link of the same chain 
 with the creative energy. And how, it may be 
 further asked, do we connect the supreme cause with 
 intelligence, or with personality ? We have called this 
 assumption of an apyji, a leap in the dark ; and we 
 ask, how can we ever escape from the phenomenal 
 series of effects, which we perceive in nature, to the 
 noumenal source of which we are in search ? By the 
 observation of what is, or of what has been, we merely 
 ascend backwards in time, through the ever-changing 
 forms of phenomenal energy (our effects being only de- 
 veloped causes, and our causes latent or potential 
 effects), but we never reach a noumenal source
 
 174 THEISM. 
 
 That is reserved for the flight of the speculative 
 reason, soaring into the empyrean, beyond the very 
 atmosphere of thought. 
 
 It is constantly forgotten that in this controversy 
 the admission that some kind of being, or substance, 
 must always have existed in the universe, is the 
 common property of all the systems of philosophy. 
 Materialist and idealist, theist and atheist, alike admit 
 it ; but its admission is theologically worthless. ' The 
 notion of a God/ says Sir William Hamilton, in his 
 admirable manner, ' is not contained in the notion of a 
 mere first cause ; for, in the admission of a first cause, 
 atheist and theist are at one.' So far as this argument 
 can carry us, the being assumed to exist is, there- 
 fore, a blank essence, a mere zero, an everything= 
 nothing. Nature remains a fathomless abyss, telling 
 us nought of its whence or whither. It is still the 
 fountain-head of inscrutable mystery, which over- 
 shadows and overmasters us. The natura naturata 
 casts no light on the natura naturans. The systole 
 and diastole of the universe goes on ; the flux and 
 the reflux of its phenomena are endless. That some- 
 thing always was, everyone admits. The question 
 between the rival philosophic schools is as to what that 
 something was, and is. "We may choose to call it ' the 
 first cause,' (an explanation which implies that our 
 notion of endless regression has broken down) and we 
 may say that we have reached the notion of an un- 
 caused cause. But is that a notion at all ? Is it 
 intelligible, representable, conceivable ? Do we not, 
 in the very assumption, bid farewell to reason, and 
 fall back on some form of faith ? 
 
 Finally, the moment that the supposed cause is
 
 THEISM. 175 
 
 reached, does not the principle that was supposed to 
 bring us to it break down ? And by thus destroying 
 the bridge behind us, the very principle of causality, 
 which was valid in our progress and ascent, valid in the 
 limited area of experience — now emptied of all philo- 
 sophical meaning, when we desert experience, and rise 
 to the transcendental — invalidates the whole series of 
 effects, which are supposed to have sprung from it ? 
 We need not rise above any single event, contingent and 
 finite, to any other event as its proximate cause ; 
 if, when we have essayed to carry out the regress, we 
 stop short, and, crying efyjjxa, congratulate ourselves 
 that we have at length reached an uncaused cause. 
 
 Thus, when the cosmological theorist asks : Does 
 the universe contain its own cause within itself? and, 
 answering in the negative, asserts that it must there- 
 fore have sprung from a supra-mundane source, we 
 may validly reply, may it not have been eternal? 
 May not its history be but the ceaseless evolution, the 
 endless transformation of unknown primeval forces ? 
 So far as this argument conducts us, we affirm that it 
 may. And to pass from the present contingent state 
 of the universe to its originating Source, the theorist 
 must make use of the ontological inference, of which 
 we have already indicated the double flaw. There is 
 one point of affinity between all forms of the cosmolo- 
 gical and ontological arguments. They all profess to 
 reach a necessary conclusion. They are not satisfied 
 with the contingent or the probable. But the notion 
 of necessity is a logical notion of the intellect. It 
 exists in thought alone. Whoever, therefore, would 
 escape from the ideal sphere must forego the evidence 
 of necessity. Real existence is not and never can be
 
 176 THEISM. 
 
 synonymous with necessary existence. For necessary 
 existence is always ideal. It is reached by a formal 
 process. It is the product of pure thought. 
 
 The teleological argument is the one which has been 
 most popular in England. It has carried (apparent) 
 conviction to many minds, which have seen the futility 
 of the a 'priori processes of proof. It is the stock 
 argument of British ' natural theology ;' in explanation 
 and defence of which, volume upon volume has been 
 written. It is, as Kant remarked, ' the oldest, the 
 clearest, and the most adapted to the ordinary human 
 reason.' Nevertheless, its failure is the more signal, 
 considering that its reputation has been so great, and 
 its claim so vast. The argument has at least three 
 branches, to which we have already referred. We con- 
 fine ourselves meanwhile to the first of the three, the 
 techno-theological argument, or that which reasons 
 from the phenomena of design to a designing intel- 
 ligence. 
 
 The following is the argument, stated in brief com- 
 pass. We see marks of adaptation, of purpose, or of 
 foresight in objects, which — as we learn from experi- 
 ence — proceed from the contrivance of man. We see 
 similar marks of design or adaptation in nature. We 
 are therefore warranted in inferring a world-designer ; 
 and, from the indefinite number of these, an infinite 
 designer; and from their harmony, his unity. Or 
 thus — We see the traces of wise and various purpose 
 everywhere in nature. But nature could not of herself 
 have fortuitously produced this arrangement. It could 
 not have fallen into such harmony by accident. There- 
 fore the cause of this wise order cannot be a blind, 
 unintelligent principle, but must be a free and rational
 
 THEISM. 177 
 
 mind. The argument is based upon analogy (and 
 might be termed analogical, as strictly as techno- 
 logical). It asserts that because mind is concerned 
 in the production of those objects of human art, which 
 bear the traces of design, therefore a resembling mind 
 must have been concerned in the production of nature, 
 where we recognise similar traces of design. 
 
 The objections to this mode of proof are manifold. 
 In the first place, admitting its partial validity, it 
 falls short of the conclusion it attempts and professes 
 to reach. For, 
 
 First, the effects it examines, and from which it 
 infers a cause, are finite, while the cause it assumes 
 is infinite ; but the infinity of the cause can be no 
 valid inference, from an indefinite number of finite 
 effects. The indefinite is still the finite ; and we can 
 never perform the intellectual feat of educing the 
 infinite from the finite by any multiplication of the 
 latter. It has been said by an acute defender of the 
 teleological argument, that the number of designed 
 phenomena (indefinitely vast) with which the universe 
 is filled, is sufficient to suggest the infinity of the 
 designing cause. And it may be admitted that it is 
 by the ladder of finite designs that we rise to some of 
 our grandest conceptions of divine agency ; but this 
 ascent and survey are philosophically possible only after 
 we have discovered from some other source that a 
 divine being exists. The vastest range of design is 
 of no greater validity than one attested instance of it, 
 so far as proof is concerned. It is not accumulation 
 of facts, but relevancy of data that we need. 
 
 But, secondly, at the best, we only reach an artificer 
 or protoplast, not a creator, — one who arranged the 
 
 M
 
 J 7 8 THEISM. 
 
 phenomena of the world, not the originator of its 
 substance, — the architect of the cosmos, not the 
 maker of the universe. Traces of mind discoverable 
 amid the phenomena of the world cast no light upon 
 the fact of its creation, or the nature of its source. 
 There is no analogy between a human artificer arrang- 
 ing a finite mechanism, and a divine creator originating 
 a world. Nor is there a parallel between the order, 
 the method, and the plan of nature ; and what we 
 see, when we watch a mechanician, working according 
 to a plan, to produce a designed result. The only 
 real parallel would be our perception, by sense, of a 
 ivorld slowly evolving from chaos, according to a plan 
 previously foreseen. From the product, you are at 
 liberty to infer a producer, only after having seen a 
 similar product formerly produced. But the product 
 which supplies the basis of this argument is unique 
 and unparalleled ; ' a singular effect,' in the language 
 of Hume, whose reasoning on this point has never 
 been successfully assailed. And the main difficulty 
 which confronts the theist, and which theism essays 
 to remove, is precisely that which the consideration 
 of design does not touch, viz., the origin, and not 
 the arrangements of the universe. The teleological 
 analogy is therefore worthless. There is no parallel, 
 we repeat, between the process of manufacture, and 
 the product of creation, between the act of a carpenter 
 working with his tools to construct a cabinet, and the 
 evolution of life in nature. On the contrary, there 
 are many marked and sharply defined contrasts be- 
 tween them. For example, 1st, in the latter case, 
 there is fixed and ordered regularity, no deviation 
 from law ; in the former contingency enters, and often
 
 THEISM. 179 
 
 alters and mars the work. Again, 2nd, the artificer 
 simply uses the materials, which he finds lying ready 
 to hand in nature. He detaches them from their 
 ' natural ' connections, and arranges them in a special 
 fashion. But in nature, in the successive evolution 
 of her organisms, there is no detachment, no displace- 
 ment, no interference or isolation. All things are 
 linked together. Every atom is dependent on every 
 other atom, while the organisms seem to grow and 
 develop ' after their kind ' by some vital force, but by 
 no manipulation similar to the architect's or builder's 
 work. And yet again, 3rd, in the one case, the 
 purpose is comprehensible — the end is foreseen from 
 the beginning. We know what the mechanician 
 desires to effect ; but, in the other case, we have no 
 clue to the ' thought ' of the architect. Who will 
 presume to say that he has adequately fathomed the 
 purposes of nature, in the adjustment of any one of 
 her phenomena to another ? 
 
 Again, thirdly, the only valid inference from the 
 phenomena of design would be that of a phenomenal 
 first cause. To infer the existence of a personal 
 divine Agent or Substance from the observation of 
 the mechanism of the universe, is invalid. Where is 
 the link connecting the traces of mind discerned in 
 nature (those vestigia animi) with an agent who 
 produced them ? There is no such link. And in 
 its absence the divine personality remains unattested. 
 The same may be said of other attributes. Why 
 should we rest in our inductive inference of one 
 designer, from the phenomena of design, when these 
 are so varied and complex ? May not the complexity 
 and variety of the phenomena suggest a polytheistic
 
 J 80 THEISM. 
 
 group of ruling, yet conflicting powers ? May not 
 the two broadly marked classes of phenomena — the 
 one good and the other evil, and both presenting the 
 evidence of design — warrant the dualistic interpreta- 
 tion of two hostile deities, Ahriman and Ormuzd ? 
 Or, grant that in all that we observe a subtle and 
 pervading ' unity ' is found, and that as a conse- 
 quence all existing arrangements point to one 
 designer, why may not that Demiurgos have been 
 himself at some remote period designed ? And so on 
 ad infinitum. 
 
 In the second place, not only is the argument 
 defective — admitting its validity so far as it goes — 
 but even partial validity cannot be conceded to it. 
 The phenomena of design not only limit us to a finite 
 designer, not only fail to lead us to the originator of 
 the world, or to a personal first cause, but they con- 
 fine us within the network of observed designs, and 
 do not warrant the inference of a being detached from, 
 or independent of these designs, and therefore able to 
 modify them with a boundless reserve of power. 
 These designs only suggest mechanical agency, work- 
 ing in fixed forms, according to prescribed law. In 
 other words, the phenomena of the universe, which 
 distantly resemble the operations of man, do not in 
 the least suggest an agent, exterior to themselves. 
 We are not intellectually constrained to ascribe the 
 arrangement of means to ends in nature, to anything 
 supra-mundane. Why may not these arrangements 
 be due to a principle of Life imminent in nature, the 
 mere endless evolution and development of the world 
 itself? We observe that phenomenon A fits into 
 phenomena B, C, and D, and we are therefore asked
 
 THEISM. 181 
 
 to infer that A was fitted to its place by an intelligent 
 mind. But suppose that A did not fit into B, c, or D, 
 it might in some way unknown fit into X, Y, or Z. 
 It would, in any case, be related to its antecedent and 
 consequent phenomena. Our perception of the fitness 
 or relationship, however, gives us no information be- 
 yond the fact of fitness. Any other (larger) conclusion 
 is illegitimate. 
 
 It is often asserted that the phenomenal changes 
 which we observe in nature, bear witness to their being 
 effects. Bat what are effects ? Transformed causes, 
 modified by the transformation — mere changed ap- 
 pearances. If a cause is, in one sense, simply an 
 effect concealed ; the effect will be, in the same sense, 
 merely the cause revealed. Now, we see the effects of 
 volitional energy in the phenomena, which our con- 
 sciousness forces us to trace back to our own per- 
 sonality, as their producing cause. But where do we 
 see in nature, in the universe, phenomena which we 
 are similarly warranted in construing as the effects of 
 volitional energy, or of constructive intelligence ? We 
 are not conscious of the process of creation, nor do we 
 perceive it. We have never witnessed the construc- 
 tion of a world. We only perceive the everlasting 
 flux and reflux of phenomena, the ceaseless pulsation 
 of nature's life, — evolution, transformation, birth, 
 death, and birth again. But nature herself is dumb, 
 as to her whence and her whither. Even, as we have 
 already hinted, if we could detect a real analogy 
 between the handiwork of man, and the processes or 
 products of Nature, we are not warranted in saying 
 that thu constructive intelligence which explains the
 
 182 THEISM. 
 
 one class of phenomena is the only possible explanation 
 of the other.* 
 
 It is thus that no study of the arrangements and 
 disposition of Nature's mechanism can carry us beyond 
 the mechanism itself. The teleological argument 
 professes to carry us above the chain of natural 
 sequence. It proclaims that those traces of intelli- 
 gence, which are everywhere visible, are a hint to us 
 that long ago Mind was engaged in the construction 
 of the universe. It is not that the phenomena 
 
 give forth at times 
 
 a little flash, a mystic hint 
 
 of a living Will within or behind the mechanism, 
 of a Personality kindred to that of the artificer who 
 observes it. With that suggestion, as will presently 
 be seen, we should have no quarrel. But the teleo- 
 logical argument is said to bring us authentic tidings 
 of the origin of the universe. If it does not carry us 
 beyond the chain of dependent sequence it is of no 
 value. Its advocates are aware of this, and they assert 
 that it is able to carry us thus, beyond the adamantine 
 links. But this is precisely what it fails to do. It 
 can never assure us that those traces of intelligence, 
 to which it invites our study, proceeded from a con- 
 structive mind, detached from the universe ; or that, 
 if they did, another mind did not fashion that mind, 
 and so on ad infinitum. And thus, the perplexing 
 puzzle of the origin of all things remains as insoluble 
 as before. 
 
 Farther, the validity of the teleological argument 
 
 * And a possible explanation is of no use. It must be the onhj 
 possible one. It has no theistic value, if it merely brings the 
 hypothesis of a Deity within the limits of the conceivable.
 
 THEISM. 183 
 
 depends upon the accuracy of our interpretation of 
 those ' signs of intelligence ' of which it makes so 
 much, and which it interprets analogically in the light 
 of human nature. To describe Nature as a mechanism 
 is to employ a figure or metaphor, which may be 
 helpful to our understanding of some of those features 
 in which it resembles the ' works of art or man's 
 device ; ' but it must never be forgotten that we are 
 speaking metaphorically, not literally ; and that it is 
 one function of Philosophy to expose the illusion of 
 mistaking the symbolic for the real, and if possible to 
 eradicate it. The ' interpreter ' of symbols is ever 
 ' one among a thousand.' Who is to guarantee to us 
 that we have not erred as to the meaning of Nature's 
 secret tracery ? Who is to secure us against mistake 
 in this ? Before we can deduce a conclusion so 
 stupendous, from data so peculiar, we must be assured 
 that no further insight will disallow the interpretation 
 we have given. But is not this presumptuous in 
 those who are at present acquainted, in a very partial 
 manner, with the significance of a few of Natui'e's 
 laws ? Who will presume to say that he has pene- 
 trated to the radical meaning of any one of these 
 laws ? And, if he has not done so, can he validly 
 single out the few resemblances he has detected, and 
 explain the nature of the Infinite, by a sample of the 
 finite ? Nature is so inscrutable that, even when a 
 law is discerned, the scientific explorer will not venture 
 to say that he has so read its character, as to be sure 
 that the law reflects the ultimate meaning of the 
 several phenomena it explains. Nay, is he not con- 
 vinced that other and deeper meanings must lie 
 within them ? A law of nature is but the generalized
 
 184 THEISM. 
 
 expression of the extent to winch our insight has as 
 yet extended into the secret laboratory of her powers. 
 As that insight deepens, our explanations change. 
 We say that the lower law is resolved into a higher 
 one, that the more detailed is taken up into the more 
 comprehensive. But, if our scientific conceptions them- 
 selves are thus constantly changing and enlarging, 
 how can we venture to erect our natural theology on 
 the surface interpretation of the fleeting phenomena 
 of the universe ? ' Lo, these are a part of His ways, 
 but how little a portion is known of Him ! ' 
 
 And this consideration may be advanced with 
 equal force against those who dogmatically deny that 
 there can be any resemblance between the forces of 
 nature and the volitional energy of man. Both 
 assumptions are equally arbitrary and illegitimate. 
 We shall immediately endeavour to show, on what 
 grounds, remote from teleology, we are warranted in 
 believing- that a resemblance does exist. 
 
 But, to return, if the inference from design is valid 
 at all, it must be valid everywhere. All the pheno- 
 mena of the world must yield it equally. No part of 
 the universe is better made, than any other part. 
 Every phenomenon is adjusted to every other pheno- 
 menon, with more or less of nearness or remoteness, 
 as means to ends. Therefore, if the few phenomena 
 which our teleologists single out from the many are a 
 valid index to the character of the source whence they 
 have proceeded, everything that exists must find its 
 counterpart in the divine nature. If we are at liberty 
 to infer an Archetype above, from the traces of mind 
 beneath, on the same principle must not the pheno- 
 mena of moral evil, malevolence, and sin be carried
 
 THEISM. 185 
 
 upwards by analogy ? — a procedure which would 
 destroy the notion of Deity which the teleologists 
 advocate. If we are at liberty to conclude that a few 
 phenomena which seem to us designed, proceed from 
 and find their counterpart in God, a reason must 
 be shown why we should select a few, and pass over 
 other phenomena of the universe. In other words, if 
 the constructor of the universe designed anything by 
 the agency he has established, must he not have 
 designed all the results that actually emerge ; and, if 
 the character of the architect may be legitimately 
 deduced from one, or a few designs, must we not take 
 all existing phenomena into account, to help out our 
 idea of his character ? Look, then, at these pheno- 
 mena as a whole. Consider the elaborate contrivances 
 for inflicting pain, and the apparatus so exquisitely 
 adjusted to produce a wholesale carnage of the animal 
 tribes. They have existed from the very dawn of 
 geologic time. The whole world teems with the 
 proofs of such intended carnage. Every organism has 
 parasites which prey upon it ; and not only do the 
 superior tribes feed upon the inferior (the less yielding 
 to the greater), but the inferior prey, at the very same 
 time, no less remorselessly upon the superior. If, 
 therefore, the inference of benevolence be valid, the 
 inference of malevolence is at least equally valid : and 
 as equal and opposite, the one notion destroys the 
 other. 
 
 Lastly, while we are philosophically impelled to 
 consider all events as designed, if we interpret one as 
 such, nay, to believe that the exact relation of every 
 single atom to every other in the universe has been 
 adjusted by ' a pre-established harmony,' the moment
 
 186 THEISM. 
 
 we do thus universalize design, that moment the 
 notion escapes us, is emptied of all philosophical 
 meaning, or theological relevancy. Let it be granted 
 that phenomenon A is related to phenomenon B, as 
 means to end. Carry out the principle — as philo- 
 sophy and science alike compel us to do, — and consider 
 A as related by remoter adaptation to C, D, E, and all 
 the other phenomena of the universe ; in short, regard 
 every atom as inter-related to every other atom, every 
 change as co-related to every other change ; then the 
 notion of design breaks down, from the very width of 
 the area it covers. We can understand a finite 
 mechanician planning that a finite phenomenon shall 
 be related to another finite phenomenon so as to pro- 
 duce a desired result ; but if the mechanician himself 
 be a designed phenomenon, and all that he works 
 upon be equally so, every single atom and every in- 
 dividual change being subtly interlaced and all recipro- 
 cally dependent, then the very notion of design vanishes. 
 Seemingly valid on the limited area of finite observa- 
 tion and human agency, it disappears when the whole 
 universe is seen to be one vast network of intercon- 
 nected law and order. 
 
 Combining this objection with what may seem to 
 be its opposite, but is really a supplement to it, we 
 may again say, that we, who are a part of the universal 
 order, cannot pronounce a verdict as to the intended 
 design of the parts, until we are able to see the whole. 
 If elevated to a station whence we could look down on 
 the entire mechanism, if outside of the universe (a 
 sheer impossibility to the creature), we might see the 
 exact bearing of part to part, and of link with link, so 
 as to pronounce with confidence as to the intention of
 
 THEISM. 187 
 
 the contriver. If (like the wisdom of which Solomon 
 writes), a creature had been with the Almighty 'in 
 the beginning of his way, before his works of old, set 
 up from everlasting, or ever the earth was ; when as 
 yet he had not made the world, when he prepared the 
 heavens, and gave his decree' to the inanimate and 
 animated worlds as they severally arose, such a specta- 
 tor might be able to understand something of the 
 meaning of creation. But unless the supposed specta- 
 tor were equal in knowledge to the Architect and 
 Builder himself, he could affirm nothing with absolute 
 certainty as to his designs. 
 
 Thus the teleological argument must be pronounced 
 fallacious. It is illusory, as well as incomplete : and 
 were we to admit its relevancy, it could afford no 
 basis for worship, or the intellectual and moral recogni- 
 tion of the Object whose existence it infers. The con- 
 ception of deity as a workman, laying stress upon the 
 notion of clever contrivance and deft manipulation, 
 whilst it subordinates moral character to skill, could 
 never lead to reverence, or give rise to the adoration 
 of the architect. 
 
 It must be conceded, however, that there is a 
 subsidiary value in this, as in all the other arguments, 
 even while their failure is most conspicuous. They 
 prove (as Kant has shown) that if they cannot lead to 
 the reality we are in search of, the phenomena of 
 nature cannot discredit its existence. They do not 
 turn the argument the other way, or weight the scales 
 on the opposite side. They are merely negative, and 
 indeed clear the ground for other and more valid modes 
 of proof. 
 
 They are of farther use (as Kant has also shown)
 
 1S8 THEISM. 
 
 in correcting our conceptions of the Divine Being, in 
 defining and enlarging our notions of his attributes, 
 when, from other sources, we have learned his existence. 
 They discourage and disallow some unworthy concep- 
 tions, and enlarge the scope of others. 
 
 But now, to leave these celebrated lines of argument, 
 which have gathered around them so much of the 
 intellectual strife of rival philosophies, it is needful 
 to tread warily, when we are forced to come to so 
 decided a conclusion against them. 
 
 We do not deny that the idea of God exists in the 
 human mind as one of its ultimate and ineradicable 
 notions ; we only dispute the inference which ontology 
 has deduced from its existence there. We do not deny 
 that by regressive ascent from finite sequences we are 
 at length constrained to rest in some causal fountain- 
 head ; we only dispute the validity of the process by 
 which that fountain-head is identified with the absolute 
 source of existence, and that source of existence with 
 a personal God. We do not deny the presence of 
 design in nature when by that term is meant the signs 
 or indices of mind in the relation of phenomena to 
 phenomena as means to ends ; we only assert that 
 these designs have no theistic value, and are in- 
 telligible only after we have discovered the existence 
 of a supreme mind within the universe, from another 
 and independent source. Till then, the book of nature 
 presents us only with blank, unilluminated pages. 
 Thereafter, it is radiant with the light of design ; full 
 of that mystic tracery, which proclaims the presence of 
 a living will behind it. To a mind that has attained 
 to a knowledge or belief in God, it becomes the 
 'garment it thereafter sees him by;' as one might see
 
 THEISM. 1S9 
 
 a pattern issuing from a loom, while the weaver was 
 concealed, and infer some of the designs of the work- 
 man, from the characteristics of his work. 
 
 The remaining lines of proof, followed, though not 
 worked out in the past, are the intuitional and the 
 moral. And it is by a combination of the data from 
 which they spring, and a readjustment of their har- 
 monies, that the foundations of Theism can alone be 
 securely laid. As the evidence of intuition is of 
 greatest value, and is also most generally disesteemed, 
 we shall take its testimony first, and examine the 
 moral evidence of conscience afterwards. 
 
 The modern spirit is suspicious of the evidence of 
 intuition. It is loudly proclaimed on all sides, by the 
 teachers of positive science, that instinct is a dubious 
 guide, liable to the accidents of chance interpretation, 
 variously understood by various minds ; that, in follow- 
 ing it, we may be pursuing an ignis fatuus ; that, at 
 the best, it is only valid for the individual who may 
 happen to feel its force ; that it is not a universal 
 endowment — as it should be if trustworthy — but is 
 often altogether awanting ; and, that it can never yield 
 us certainty, because its root is a subjective feeling or 
 conviction, which cannot be verified by external tests. 
 These charges cannot be ignored, or lightly passed 
 over. And for the theist merely to proclaim, as an 
 ultimate fact, that the human soul has an intuition of 
 God, that we are endowed with a faculty of apprehen- 
 sion of which the correlative Object is divine, will 
 carry no conviction to the atheist. Suppose that he 
 replies, ' This intuition may be valid evidence for you, 
 but I have no such irrepressible instinct ; I see no 
 evidence in favour of innate ideas in the soul, or of a
 
 190 THEISM. 
 
 substance underneath the phenomena of Nature, of 
 which we can have any adequate knowledge;' we may 
 close the argument by simple re-assertion, and vindi- 
 cate our procedure on the ground that, in the region 
 of first principles, there can be no farther proof. We 
 may also affirm that the instinct, being a sacred en- 
 dowment, and delicate in proportion to the stupendous 
 nature of the Object it attests, may, like every other 
 function of the human spirit, collapse from mere dis- 
 use. But, if we are to succeed in even suggesting a 
 doubt in the mind of an agnostic as to the accuracy of 
 his analysis, we must verify our primary belief, and 
 exhibit its credentials, so far as that is possible. We 
 must show why we cannot trace its genealogy farther 
 back, or resolve it into simpler elements ; and we must 
 not keep its nature shrouded in darkness, but must 
 disclose it, so far as we can. This, then, is our 
 task. 
 
 The instinct, to which we make our final appeal is, 
 in its first rise in the soul, crude, dim, and inarticu- 
 late. Gradually, it shapes itself into greater clearness ; 
 aided, in the case of most men, by the myriad influ- 
 ences of religious thought and historical tradition, 
 heightening and refining it when educed, but not 
 creating it ; separating the real gold, from any spurious 
 alloy it may have contracted. Like all our innate 
 instincts, this one is at first infantile ; and, when it 
 begins to assert itself, it prattles, rather than speaks 
 coherently. We do not now raise the general ques- 
 tion of the existence of a 'priori principles. We 
 assume that the mind is not originally an abrasa 
 tabula, but that it commences its career with sundry 
 latent endowments, with the unconscious germs of
 
 THEISM. 11)1 
 
 power in embryo. They are not explicit powers, but 
 they are the capacities and potentialities of mental 
 life. Their growth to maturity is most gradual ; and 
 the difference, between their adult and their rudimen- 
 tary phases, is as wide as is the interval between a 
 mature organization, and the egg from which it springs. 
 It is therefore no evidence against the reality, or the 
 trustworthiness of the intuition to which we appeal, 
 that its manifestations are not uniform ; or, that it 
 sometimes seems absent in the abnormal states of 
 consciousness, or among the ruder civilisations of the 
 world. We admit that it is difficult for the uninitiated 
 to trace any affinity between its normal and its 
 abnormal manifestations, when it is modified by 
 circumstances to any extent. We farther admit that 
 while never entirely absent, it may sometimes seem 
 to slumber, not only in stray individuals, but in a 
 race or an era ; and, that it may be transmitted from 
 generation to generation, in a latent state. It may 
 hybernate ; and then awake, as from the sleep of 
 years, arising against the will of its possessor, and 
 refusing to be silenced. Almost any phenomenon 
 may call it forth, and no single phenomenon can 
 quench it. It is the spontaneous utterance of the soul, 
 in presence of the object whose existence it attests ; 
 and as such, it is necessarily prior to any act of reflec- 
 tion upon its own character, validity, or significance. 
 Reflex thought, which is the product of experience, 
 cannot in any case originate an intuition, or account 
 for the result which we attribute to instinct, suppos- 
 ing it to be delusive. Nothing within us, from the 
 simplest instinct to the loftiest intuition, could in any 
 instance create the object it attests, or for which it
 
 192 THEISM. 
 
 gropes and searches. All our ultimate principles, 
 irreducible by analysis, simply assert and attest their 
 own object. 
 
 The very existence of the intuition, of which we 
 now speak, is itself a revelation, because it points to 
 a Revealer within or behind itself. And however 
 crude it may be in its elementary forms, it manifests 
 itself, in its highest and purest state, at once as an 
 act of intelligence and of faith. It may be most fitly 
 described as a direct gaze, by the inner eye of the 
 spirit, into a region over which mists usually brood. 
 The great and transcendant Reality, which it appre- 
 hends, lies evermore behind the veil of phenomena. 
 It does not see far into that reality, yet it grasps it, 
 and recognises in it ' the open secret ' of the universe. 
 This, then, is the main characteristic of the theistic 
 intuition. It proclaims a supreme Existence without 
 and beyond the mind, which it apprehends in the act 
 of revealing itself. It perceives, through the vistas 
 of phenomenal sequence, as through breaks in a 
 cloud, the glimpses of a Presence, which it can know 
 only in part, but which it does not follow in the 
 dark, or merely infer from its obscure and vanish- 
 ing footprints. Unlike the ' necessary notion ' of the 
 Cartesians, unlike the space and time which are but 
 subjective forms of thought, unlike the ' regressive 
 inference ' from the phenomena of the world, the con- 
 clusion it reaches is not the creation of its own sub- 
 jectivity. The God of the logical understanding, 
 whose existence is supposed to be attested by the 
 necessary laws of the mind, is the mere projected 
 shadow of itself. It has no more than an ideal signi- 
 ficance. The same may be said, with some abate-
 
 THEISM. 1 9 ?> 
 
 ments, of the being whose existence is inferred from 
 the phenomena of design. The ontologist and the 
 teleologist unconsciously draw their own portrait ; and, 
 by an effort of thought, project it outwards on the 
 canvass of infinity. The intuitionalist, on the other 
 hand, perceives that a revelation has been made to 
 him, descending as through a break in the cloud, 
 which closes again. It is 'a moment seen, then 
 gone ;' for while we are always conscious of our close 
 relation to the natural, we are less frequently aware of 
 the presence of the supernatural. 
 
 The difference between the evidence of intuition, 
 and the supposed warrant of the other proofs we have 
 reviewed, is apparent. It is one thing, to create or 
 evolve — even unconsciously — a mental image of our- 
 selves, which we vainly attempt to magnify to infinity, 
 and thereafter worship the image that our minds have 
 framed ; it is another, to discern for a moment, an 
 august Presence other than the human, through a 
 break in the clouds, which usually veil him from our 
 eyes : and it is to the inward recognition of this self- 
 revealing object that the theist makes appeal. What 
 he discerns is at least not a ' form of his mind's own 
 throwing ; ' while his knowledge is due, not to the 
 penetration of the finite spirit, but to the condescen- 
 sion of the infinite. 
 
 Wo admit, however, that this intuition is not natu- 
 rally luminous. It is the presence of the transcend- 
 ant Object which it recognises, that makes it lumin- 
 ous.* Its light is therefore fitful. It is itself rather 
 
 * 'Were I to speak precisely,' says John Smith in his ' Select Dis- 
 courses' (1600), alluding to this intuition, 'I would rather call it 
 bp)ir)v 777565 rbv Qebv, than, with Hutarch, QeoO vLi)<siv.''
 
 194 THETSM. 
 
 an eye than a light — a passive organ, rather than an 
 active power — and when not lit up by light strictly 
 supra-natural, because emanating from the object it 
 discerns, it is dull and lustreless. The varying intel- 
 ligence it brings of that object, corresponds to the 
 changing perceptions of the human eye, in a day of 
 alternate gloom and sunlight. It is a trustful surmise 
 which ripens gradually into a matured belief, rather 
 than a clear perception, self-luminous from the first. 
 
 Since, however, the evidence of intuition is so 
 generally disesteemed, it may be useful to look a little 
 more closely into its credentials. 
 
 Our knowledge of the object which intuition dis- 
 closes is, at first, and in all cases, necessarily unreflec- 
 tive. In the presence of the object, the mind does not 
 double back upon itself, to scrutinise the origin, and 
 to test the accuracy of the report that reaches it. 
 Thus the truth which it apprehends is at first only 
 presumptive. It must be afterwards tested by reflec- 
 tion, so that illusion be not mistaken for reality. What, 
 then, are the tests of our intuitions ?* 
 
 The following seem sufficient criteria of their 
 validity and trustworthiness. 1. The persistence 
 with which they appear, and re-appear, after experi- 
 mental reflection upon them, the obstinacy with 
 which they reassert themselves when silenced, the 
 tenacity with which they cling to us. 2. Their 
 
 * There are sundry elements in every intuition on which we do 
 not enlarge, since they are necessary features rather than criteria, cha- 
 racteristics rather than tests. Two of them may be merely stated — 
 
 1 . Every intuition is ultimate, and carries its own evidence within 
 itself : it cannot appeal to any higher witness beyond itself ; and 
 
 2. The fact or facts which it proclaims, while irreducible by ana- 
 lysis, must be incapable of any other explanation.
 
 THEISM. J 9 5 
 
 historical permanence ; the confirmation of ages and 
 of generations. The hold which they have upon the 
 general mind of the race is the sign of some ' root of 
 endurance,' planted firmly in the soil of human 
 nature. If, 
 
 deep in the general heart of men, 
 their power survives, 
 
 we may accept them as ultimate truths ; or interpret 
 them as phases of some deeper yet kindred truth, of 
 which they are the popular distortion. 3. The 
 interior harmony which they exhibit with each other, 
 and with the rest of our psychological nature ; each 
 intuition being in harmony with the entire circle, and 
 with ' the whole realm of knowledge.' If any alleged 
 intuition should come into collision with another, and 
 disturb it, there would be good reason for suspecting 
 the genuineness of one of them ; and in that case, the 
 lower and less authenticated must always yield to the 
 higher and better attested. But if the critical intel- 
 lect carrying an intuition — to adopt a very crude 
 figure — round the circle of our nature, and placing it 
 in juxtaposition with all the others in turn, finds 
 that no collision ensues, it may safely conclude that 
 the witness of that intuition is true. 4. If the results 
 of its action and influence are such as to elevate and 
 etherealize our nature, its validity may be assumed. 
 This bv itself is no test of truth or error : for an 
 erroneous belief may for a time elevate the mind that 
 holds it ; and the intellectual life, evoked by many 
 of the erroneous theories, and exploded hypotheses of 
 the past, has been great. But error cannot per- 
 manently educate. No illusion can survive as an 
 elevating power over humanity ; and no alleged instinct
 
 1 9 6 THEISM. 
 
 can sustain its claim, and vindicate its presumptive- 
 title, if it cannot stand the test we mention. A 
 theoretic error becomes visible, when we attempt to 
 reduce it to practice ; as a hidden crack or fissure in 
 a vessel is seen whenever any strain is applied, or 
 the folly of an ideal utopia is seen in the actual life 
 of a mixed commonwealth. Many of those scientific 
 guesses, which have done good service as provisional 
 hypotheses, have been abandoned in the process of 
 working them out. Similarly the flaw that lurks 
 within an alleged intuition — if there be a flaw — will 
 become apparent, when we try to apply it in actual 
 life, and take it as a regulative principle in action. 
 Thus, take the belief in the Divine existence, attested 
 as we affirm by intuition, and apply it in the act of 
 worship or adoration. Does that belief, which fulfils 
 all the conditions of our previous tests, — for it appears 
 everywhere, and clings tenaciously to man, and comes 
 into collision with no other normal tendency of his 
 nature, and defrauds no instinct of its due — does it 
 tend to elevate the character of those who hold it ? 
 The reply of history is conclusive ; the attestation of 
 experience is abundantly clear. The power of theistic 
 belief over human nature is such that it has frequently 
 quickened the faculties into a more vigorous life. 
 Its moral leverage has been vast ; while it has 
 sharpened the esthetic sense to some of its most 
 delicate perceptions, and has in some instances brought 
 a new accession of intellectual power. This intuition, 
 which men trust in the dark, gradually leads the 
 whole nature towards the light. Its dimness is by 
 degrees exchanged for clearness, its silence for an in- 
 telligible voice ; and, while it thus grows luminous,.
 
 THEISM. 11»7 
 
 •and articulate, it gains in power, and our confidence 
 in its verdict strengthens. 
 
 We have now stated what seems to us the general 
 nature of the theistic intuition, and added one or two 
 criteria by which all our intuitions must be tested. 
 It remains for us however, to indicate more precisely, 
 some of the phases which it assumes, and the channels 
 in which it works. Though ultimate and insusceptible 
 of analysis, it has a triple character. It manifests 
 itself in the consciousness which the human mind has 
 -of the Infinite (an intellectual phase) ; in our per- 
 ception of the world-soul, which is Nature's ' open 
 secret ' revealed to the poet (an esthetic phase) ; and 
 in the act of worship, through which an Object, cor- 
 relative to the worshipper, is revealed in his sense of 
 dependence (a moral and religious phase). 
 
 It is not only essential to the validity of the theistic 
 intuition that the human mind should have a positive 
 though imperfect knowledge of the Infinite, but this 
 is involved in the very intuition itself. If we had no 
 positive knowledge of the source it seeks to reach, the 
 instinct, benumbed as by intellectual frost, and un- 
 able to rise, would be fatally paralysed ; or, if it coul< 1 
 move along over its finite area, it would wander help- 
 lessly, merely groping after its object, ' if haply it 
 might find it.' All who deny the validity of this in- 
 tuition, either limit us to a knowledge of phenomena, 
 or, while admitting that wo have a certain knowledge 
 of finite substance, adopt the cold theory of nescience. 
 From the earliest Greek schools, and from the earlier 
 speculations of the Chinese mind, a powerful band of 
 thinkers has denied to man the knowledge of aught 
 beyond phenomena, and from Confucius to Comte the
 
 198 THEISM. 
 
 list is an ample one. In our own day this school' 
 includes some of the clearest and subtlest minds 
 devoted to philosophy. Comte, Lewes, Mill, Bain, 
 Spencer, and the majority of our best scientific guides^ 
 — however they differ in detail — agree in the common 
 postulate, that the only thing we can know and 
 intelligibly reason about, is phenomena, and the laws 
 of these phenomena, ' or that which doth appear.' 
 There is, however, a positivist ' religion,' which consists, 
 now in the worship of certain selected phenomena, and 
 again in homage paid to mystery, to the unknown 
 and the unknowable which lies beyond the known. 
 Comte deified man and nature, in their phenomenal 
 aspects, without becoming pantheist ; and the instinct of 
 worship, though speculatively outlawed from his philo- 
 sophy, which denies the existence of its object, asserted 
 itself within his nature — at least in the second period of 
 his intellectual career — and led him not only to deify 
 humanity, but to prescribe a minute and cumbrous- 
 ritual, as puerile as it is sectarian, as inconsistent as 
 puerile. It is true that worship is philosophically an 
 excrescence on his system. The advanced secularist 
 who disowns it is logically more consistent with the- 
 first principle of positivism. To adore the grande etre, 
 personified in woman, is as great a mimicry of worship, 
 as to offer homage to the law of gravitation. Comte,. 
 says his acutest critic, ' forgot that the wine of the Ileal 
 Presence was poured out, and adored the empty cup.' 
 But we may note, in this later graft upon his earlier 
 system, a testimony to the operation of that very 
 intuition, which positivism disowns ; its uncouth form, 
 when distorted by an alien philosophy, being perhaps 
 a more expressive witness to its irrepressible character.
 
 THEISM. 190 
 
 Mr Spencer, on the other hand, bids us bow down 
 before the unknown and unknowable power, which 
 subsists in the universe. The highest triumph of the 
 human spirit, according to him, is to ascertain the 
 laws of phenomena, and then to worship the dark abyss 
 of the inscrutable beyond them. But there is surely 
 neither humility nor sanity in worshipping darkness, 
 any more than there would be wisdom in erecting an 
 altar to chaos : and the advice seems strange as 
 coming from those, who claim to be the special teachers 
 of clear knowledge, and comprehensible law. If we 
 must at length erect an altar at all, we must have 
 some knowledge of the Being to whom it is erected ; 
 and we must have some better reason for doing so, 
 than the blank and bland confession that we have not 
 the smallest idea of its nature ! Mr Spencer under- 
 takes to 'reconcile' the claims of science and religion ; 
 and he finds the rallying-point to be the recognition of 
 mystery, into which all knowledge recedes. But if 
 religion has any function, and a reconciliation between 
 her and science be possible, the harmony cannot be 
 effected by first denying the postulate from which 
 religion starts, quietly sweeping her into the back- 
 ground of the inconceivable — consigning her to the 
 realm of the unknowable — and then proclaiming that 
 the conciliation is effected. This is to silence, or to 
 annihilate one of the two powers, which the philosopher 
 undertook to reconcile. It is annexation accomplished 
 by conquest ; the cessation of strife, effected by the 
 total destruction of one opposing force, not by an 
 armistice, or the ratification of articles of peace. Mr 
 Spencer does not come between combatants, who are 
 wounding each other needlessly, and bid each put his
 
 '200 THEISM. 
 
 sword into his sheath, for they are brethren ; but he 
 turns round, and — to his own satisfaction — slays one 
 of them, and then informs the other that the reconcili- 
 ation is complete ! 
 
 We must therefore ask the positivist for his warrant, 
 on the one hand, in denying the existence of a world 
 of substance, underneath the fleeting phenomena of 
 beiDg, out of tuhicli a revelation may emerge, appre- 
 hensible by man ; and on the other, in denying to 
 man a positive knowledge of the Infinite, as a Substance, 
 and a Personality. We must remind him that infinite 
 and finite, absolute and relative, substance and pheno- 
 mena, are terms of a relation : while we ask him for 
 his warrant in differentiating these terms, and pro- 
 claiming that the one set are knowable and known, 
 the other unknown and unknowable. He arbitrarily 
 singles out one of two factors — which together consti- 
 tute a relation, and which are only known as com- 
 plementary terms — and he bestows upon it a -spurious 
 honour, proclaiming that it alone is intelligible, while 
 he relegates the other factor or term to the region of 
 darkness. We ask him on what ground he does so ? 
 and whether the law of contrast does not render 
 phenomena as unintelligible without substance, as sub- 
 stance without phenomena ? Have we any right to 
 affirm that the one is known and the other unknown, 
 merely because the former reaches us through the five 
 gateways of sense, and the latter through the avenue 
 of intuition ? 
 
 No wise theist ever asserted that God was pheno- 
 menally unknown. God is no phenomenon, but the 
 noumenal essence underlying all phenomena. We have 
 admitted and contended that a study of the laws of
 
 THEISM. 201 
 
 Nature cannot give us direct information as to the first 
 cause ; for a first cause could never be revealed to the 
 senses, nor could it be an inference deduced from the 
 data which sense supplies. The assertion, therefore, 
 that the phenomena of nature — of which the phy- 
 sical sciences are the interpretation — do not reveal 
 God, is as strongly asserted by the theist as by the 
 positivist. They may reveal his footprints or his 
 handiwork, but we only know whose foot or hand 
 has left its mark on nature, when we have learned 
 from some other source that He is ; while, in the em- 
 ployment of these terms, it must never be forgotten 
 that we are making use of a dubious analogy. 
 
 As little, however, can the laws of nature discredit 
 faith in a first cause, which springs from a region at 
 once beneath, above, and beyond phenomena. The 
 theistic doctrine is not an inference : it is a postulate. 
 It is an axiomatic truth, affirmed on the evidence of 
 intuition, of which the root is planted so firmly in the 
 soil of consciousness, that no form of positivist philo- 
 sophy can tear it thence. Let science, therefore, march 
 as it will, and where it will — being hemmed in by the 
 very laws of the universe which give rise to it, and of 
 which it is the exposition — it cannot interfere with 
 the theistic intuition or encroach upon it. If there is 
 a region behind phenomena and their laws, accessible 
 to knowledge or to philosophic faith, a region pene- 
 trable in any sense by intellectual, moral, or esthetic 
 intuition — no conclusion gathered from the scientific 
 survey can touch it, whether to attest or to discredit. 
 
 The fundamental doctrine of both the schools of 
 nescience is the relativity of human knowledge; and 
 that doctrine, as taught by the Scottish psychologists
 
 202 THEISM. 
 
 — and notably by Scotland's greatest metaphysician 
 since Hume, Sir William Hamilton — has been wrested 
 out of their hands, and turned against the theism they 
 also advocate. Mr Spencer would exhibit them all, 
 as ' hoist with their own petard.' It is necessary, 
 therefore, to inquire whether this doctrine of relativity 
 favours a theory of nescience, or warrants a counter- 
 doctrine of the knowledge of the Infinite, or is indif- 
 ferent to either. 
 
 The relativity of knowledge is a first principle in 
 philosophy. To affirm it, however, is merely to assert 
 that all that is known occupies a fixed relation to the 
 knower. It is to affirm nothing as to the character or 
 contents of his knowledge. But, as regards the objects 
 known, we further maintain that they are apprehended, 
 only in their differences and contrasts. We know self 
 only in its contrast with what is not self, a particular 
 portion of matter only in its relation to other portions, 
 which surround and transcend it. So also, and for the 
 same reason, with the finite and the infinite. The 
 one is not a positive notion, and the other negative ; 
 the one clear and the other obscure. Both are equally 
 clear, both sharply defined, so far as they are given 
 us in relation. If the one suffers, the other 
 suffers with it. In short, if we discharge any intel- 
 lectual notion from all relation with its opposite or 
 contrary, it ceases to be a notion at all. The finite, 
 if we take it alone, is as inconceivable as the infinite, 
 if we take it alone ; phenomena by themselves are 
 as incogitable as substance by itself : and the relative, 
 as a notion cut off from the absolute which antitheti- 
 cally bounds it, is not more intelligible than the 
 absolute, as an essence absolved from all relations.
 
 THEISM. 20$ 
 
 Thus, the entire fabric of our knowledge being founded 
 on contrasts, and arising out of differences, involving 
 in its every datum another element hidden in the 
 background, may be said to be a vast double chain of 
 relatives mutually complementary. It looks ever in 
 two directions, without and within, above and beneath, 
 before and after. 
 
 We maintain, therefore, that we have a positive 
 knowledge of the Infinite. Whosoever says, that the 
 infinite cannot be known, contradicts himself. For he 
 must possess a notion of it, before he can deny that he 
 has a positive knowledge of it, before he can predicate 
 anything regarding it. And so he says that he cannot 
 know, what he affirms, in another fashion, that he does 
 know. The infinite could never have come within the 
 horizon of hypothetical knowledge, it could never have 
 become the subject of discussion, unless it had been 
 positively (though inadequately) known. It is thus 
 that the infinite stands as the antithetic background of 
 the finite. Sir William Hamilton's and Dean Mansel's 
 doctrine of nescience is quite as suicidal as that of Mr 
 Spencer. It implies that we have no knowledge of 
 that, which we are nevertheless compelled to conceive, 
 in order to know that it is unknowable. We could not 
 compare the two notions, if one of them were unthink- 
 able. If all knowledge is a relation, in each act of 
 knowing, I must know both the terms related. The 
 one term — -the finite — occasions no difficulty, being 
 admitted on both sides. But the other, which so per- 
 plexes our teachers of nescience, is necessarily vague. 
 It is without an outline, ' without form,' but not there- 
 fore ' void ' of content. It is not given us with the 
 luminous clearness that its correlative is given ; never-
 
 204 THEISM. 
 
 theless, it is a real term, in a real relation. The 
 moment we proceed to analyse our consciousness of the 
 finite, we find it as the penumbra of the notion, its 
 shadowy complement. We may never obtain more 
 than a vague, and what we may call a moonlight view 
 of it : nevertheless, behold it we do, apprehend it we 
 can, realise it we must. 
 
 It is objected, however, that as human knowledge is 
 always finite, we can never have a positive apprehen- 
 sion of an infinite object ; that as the subject of know- 
 ledge is necessarily finite, its object must be the same. 
 Let us sift this objection. 
 
 I may know an object in itself, as related to me the 
 knower ; or I may know it, in its relation to other 
 objects, also known by me the knower. But in both 
 instances, and in all cases, knowledge is limited by the 
 power of the knower ; therefore, it is always finite 
 knowledge. But it may be finite knowledge of an 
 infinite object, incomplete knowledge of a complete 
 object, partial knowledge of a transcendent object. 
 The boundary or fence may be within the faculty of the 
 knower, while the object he imperfectly grasps may not 
 only be infinite, but be known to transcend his faculties, 
 in the very act of conscious knowledge. For example, 
 I may know that a line is infinite, while I have only a 
 finite knowledge of the points along which that line 
 •extends. And similarly my knowledge of the infinite 
 Mind while partial and incomplete, may be clear and 
 defined. It may be definite knowledge of an indefinite 
 object. We may have a partial knowledge, not only 
 of a part, but of the whole. Thus, I have a partial 
 knowledge of a circle, because I know only a few of its 
 properties ; but, it is not to a part of the circle that my
 
 THEISM. 205 
 
 partial knowledge extends, but to the whole circle, which 
 I know in part. In like manner as the infinite object 
 has no parts, it is not of a portion of its being that we 
 possess a partial knowledge, but of the whole. We 
 know the Infinite as we know the circle, inadequately 
 yet directly, immediately though in part. It is dark 
 to us by excess of light. Thus, although our know- 
 ledge of the infinite may be vivified, it is not really 
 enlarged, by goading our thought to wider and wider 
 imaginings, by spurring our faculties onwards, over areas 
 of space, or intervals of time. The knowledge in 
 question is directly elicited or revealed, while we are 
 apprehending any finite object, as its correlative and 
 complementary antithesis. 
 
 Again, it is said, that to know the infinite is to know 
 the sum of all reality ; and, as that would include the 
 universe and its source together, it must necessarily 
 include, on the one hand, the knower along with his 
 knowledge, and on the other all the possibilities of 
 existence. The possibility of our knowing the infinite 
 Being as distinct from the universe is denied, since 
 infinite existence is said to be coextensive with the 
 whole universe of things. But that the assertion that 
 the Infinite must necessarily exhaust existence, and 
 contain within itself all actual being is a mere theoretic 
 assumption. The presence of the finite does not limit 
 the infinite. The area of the latter is not contracted 
 by so much of the former as exists within it. For the 
 nlation of infinite to finite Existence is not similar to 
 the relation between infinite space and a segment of it. 
 It is true that so much of finite space is so much cut 
 out of the whole area of infinite space — although, if the 
 remainder be infinite, the portion removed will not
 
 206 THEISM. 
 
 really limit it, But as our intuition of the infinite has 
 no resemblance to our knowledge of space, we believe 
 that the relations which their respective objects sustain 
 have no affinity with each other. The intuition of God 
 is a purely spiritual apprehension, informing us not of 
 the quantity of existence in the universe, but of the 
 quality or characteristics of the supreme Being. And 
 to affirm, that the finite spirit of man, standing in a 
 fixed relation to the Infinite Spirit, limits it, by virtue 
 of that relation, is covertly to introduce a spatial 
 concept, into a region to which it is utterly foreign, 
 and which it has no right to enter.'"" 
 
 We therefore maintain, in opposition to the teachers 
 of nescience, that a positive knowledge of the Infinite 
 is competent to man, because involved in his very 
 consciousness of the finite. When psychologically 
 analysed, this intuition explains and vindicates itself. 
 
 There is another aspect, however, no less important, 
 in which it may be regarded. To say that the infinite 
 is wholly inscrutable by man, is to limit not man's 
 faculty only, but the possibilities of the divine nature 
 also. If God cannot unveil himself to man through 
 the openings of the clouds which ordinarily conceal 
 his presence, can his resources be illimitable, can 
 He be the infinitely perfect ? It is said, on the one 
 hand, that an unknown Force reveals itself in the laws 
 of nature, but cannot disclose its essence ; and, on the 
 
 * Similarly with the action of the infinite and absolute cause. The 
 creative energy of that cause is not inconsistent with its changeless- 
 ness. To say so, is to introduce a quantitative notion into a sphere 
 where quality alone is to be considered. A cause in action is the force 
 which determines all the changes which occur in time. But the 
 primum mobile, the first cause, need not be itself changed, by the 
 forthputting of its causal power.
 
 THEISM. 207 
 
 other, that the infinite Being- reveals his handiwork, 
 from which He permits us to infer his existence, but 
 that He cannot reveal himself. Such assertions are 
 either subtle instances of verbal jugglery, or manifest 
 contradictions in terms. All revelation, of whatsoever 
 kind, pre-supposes some knowledge of the Revealer. 
 That knowledge may be imparted, either the moment 
 the revelation is made, or beforehand, and from an in- 
 dependent source ; but no revelation could be made, 
 were the being to whom it was addressed, wholly 
 ignorant of the source whence it came. Is there any 
 real difficulty in supposing that the infinite intelligence 
 can disclose his nature, to a creature which reflects his 
 image ; the disclosure quickening a latent power of in- 
 tuition, which, thus touched from above, springs forth 
 to meet its source and object ? 
 
 The question between the theist and the positivist 
 is brought to its real issue when the latter is forced to 
 recognise that the God of theism is no inference from 
 phenomena, but, if we may so speak, a postulate of 
 intuition. And hence it is so necessary frankly to 
 .concede the failure of the teleological argument from 
 final causes, as well as of the ontological proof from the 
 necessary notions of the intellect. We not only admit, 
 we are zealous to affirm that by inductive science we 
 «an never rise higher than phenomena ; and hence, at 
 the end of our search, we should be no nearer God 
 than we were at the outset. But although we cannot 
 reach the Divine Nature by induction, we may do so 
 before we begin our induction, by giving the intuitions 
 of the soul free scope to rise towards their source. And 
 to dislodge the theist from his stronghold, the agnostic 
 must succeed in proving that this intuition — whose root
 
 208 THEISM. 
 
 springs from a region beneath phenomena, and which 
 in its flight outsoars phenomena — is as baseless and 
 unanthenticated as a dream. 
 
 Two principles, one of them metaphysical, and the 
 other scientific, are helpful at this point in our inquiry. 
 They are the principle of causality, and the doctrine of 
 the correlation of forces, or the conservation of energy. 
 We cannot discuss them at any length, but their 
 nature, and their relation to the theistic intuition must 
 be briefly stated. 
 
 The phenomena of nature (using that term in its 
 widest sense) are not only a series of sequences, they 
 are also the revelations of a mysterious Power or 
 Force. All that we perceive by the senses, and in- 
 ductively register in the sciences, is a series of pheno- 
 mena, of which the laws of nature are the generalized 
 expression, and interpretation. But every change is a 
 revelation, not only of succession, but of causal power. 
 No matter where we take our stand along the line of 
 sequence mental or material, always and at ever}' 
 point, this conviction is flashed in upon the mind, 
 ' there is Power hidden behind.' But we instinctively 
 ;isk, ' what is this power or force determining the 
 changes of the universe V Is it material or spiritual ? 
 (Jan the force which moves the particles of matter be 
 material? We do not perceive it by the senses, which 
 take note only of the modified phenomena of matter. 
 It is neither visible, nor audible, nor tangible. It is 
 invisible. Must we not therefore believe it to be in- 
 corporeal ? We cannot reach it by analysis. We 
 conclude that it is not physical but hyper-physical, not 
 natural but supra-natural. We have an intellectual 
 intuition of it. It announces its presence in every
 
 THEISM. 209 
 
 change that occurs, but it nowhere shows its face as a 
 material entity. It is a mystic agency, endlessly 
 revealing its existence, everywhere concealing its source. 
 We watch its evolutions, but it escapes our scrutiny ; 
 we try to detain it, and we find that it is gone ; yet we 
 perceive it reappearing in the next thing we examine, 
 and in the very phenomena of our search for it. The 
 agency is manifest, but it is the Agent we wish to dis- 
 cover. Must it be, like the sangreal of mediaeval 
 legend, sought for in many lands, but nowhere found, 
 by auy wanderer in quest of it ? 
 
 Before attempting an answer, we shall state the 
 scientific principle referred to, which is entitled to rank 
 as one of the greatest of modern discoveries. All the 
 forms of force are convertible amongst themselves. Thev 
 are ultimately identical, and are endlessly passing and 
 repassing into each other: the mechanical, the chemical, 
 the vital, are all one. 'The many' are 'the one ;' its 
 varying phases, its protean raiment. In short, there 
 is but a single supreme Force, ubiquitous and plastic, 
 the fountain of all change. It now evolves itself in 
 heat, now masks itself in light, again reveals itself in 
 electricity, or sleeps in the law of gravitation: one soli- 
 tary pulse within Nature's vast machine, and behind 
 the barrier of her laws. This force, thus endlessly 
 changing, is neither diminished nor replenished ; it is 
 not added to, nor subtracted from; it is perennial, and 
 is its own conservator. It is not by synthesis, but by 
 analysis that its unity has been discovered. But can 
 synthesis re-combine its manifold phases, under one 
 regulative notion ? In realising its general character, 
 it is clear that we cannot merely discharge from our 
 minds in turn, all the known features of particular 
 
 o
 
 210 THEISM. 
 
 forces, so as to leave only a vague resultant, common 
 to them all, j^et specially identified with none. The 
 diverse tj'pes must have an archetype. What is that 
 archetype ? 
 
 It seems to us self-evident that we must seek for 
 it, not in nature, but in man ; not in the lower plane 
 of the cosmical forces, but in the human will, which is 
 the root of our own personality. Comte begins with 
 the lowermost grade of force (to wit, the mechanical), 
 and ascends with it, bringing all the finer and more 
 subtle forms under its sway, and interpreting the 
 higher by the lower. "We, on the contrary, begin 
 with the highest known type, that which lies nearest 
 ourselves, that with which we are earliest acquainted, 
 and whence we derive our notion of force beyond 
 ourselves ; and we descend with it, as a light to guide 
 our footsteps amongst the lower. This is surely the 
 correct, is indeed the only admissible philosophical 
 procedure. If it is only through the consciousness of 
 force within ourselves, that we have any intelligible 
 notion of it in nature — and are thus first initiated 
 into the idea — we must come back to the will, for an 
 explanation of what the one force, external to us in its 
 essence is. Our own personality supplies us with the 
 archetype of which we are in search. We thus throw 
 the plank across the chasm between man and nature ; 
 we interpret the latter by the former ; and thus the 
 correlation of forces, and the conservation of energy, 
 become the scientific equivalent of the doctrine of 
 philosophical theology, that one Supreme Will per- 
 vades the universe, and that in it Nature ' lives and 
 moves and has its being.' 
 
 If we .can vindicate this procedure, and prove our
 
 THEISM. 211 
 
 right to interpret the forces, if not the phenomena of 
 nature, as the outcome of a living will, the energy 
 of a nature like our own, our goal is reached. But, 
 say the agnostics, that is a mere imagination of 
 theology, the creation of a superstitious mind, ' trans- 
 cendant audacity, ' a form of the mind's own throw- 
 ing,' just as much as the teleological explanation of 
 nature. It has been spoken of as presumptuous, as well 
 as fanciful, as betokening a lack of humility and 
 philosophic caution. It has been denounced as sheer 
 egotism to interpret nature by what we are, as a 
 return to the Protagorean doctrine that ' man is the 
 measure of all things.' In reply, we give only hints 
 and suggestions ; for the region is high, and the 
 atmosphere rarefied. 
 
 In the first place, it is to be observed that we do 
 not take one class of phenomena to explain the inner 
 nature of another class ; the phenomena of will, to 
 explain, say those of electricity, in outward nature ; 
 for, in that case, we might as well, with just as much 
 reason and plausibility, with just as much authority, 
 take the latter class of phenomena to explain the 
 former ; and we should learn quite as much, that is to 
 say, we should learn nothing at all. But we take a 
 certain special noumenal force, one that is trans- 
 cendant, but revealed in our innermost life and con- 
 sciousness, in the will's autocracy, and by the help 
 and suggestion of this known force we explain — not 
 the phenomena of Nature, nor her laws — but the 
 darker, the unknown noumenal Force, the pulse of 
 aature. 
 
 In the next place, it is to be observed that as the 
 human will, while noumenally free is phenomenally
 
 212 THEISM. 
 
 under law, and governed most rigidly by motives ; so 
 the force, which we interpret as the expression of 
 personal will in nature, acts in perfect conformity to 
 law. The laws of nature are the expression of its 
 bondage. The minor scattered forces, which may be 
 spoken of as the messengers and servitors of the 
 supreme will, are no more fitful, but they are no less 
 capricious than is the human will, in which the causal 
 nexus is not broken, while it remains free. The 
 supernatural reveals itself, in an orderly fashion, 
 through the natural. Its will is expressed by law. 
 
 In the third place, so far as bridging the chasm 
 between the two orders of phenomena, is not accom- 
 plished by the poetic intuition (to which we shall 
 immediately refer), but by the human intellect, it 
 seems legitimated by analogy. In our inductive 
 interpretation of nature we perceive resemblances, 
 and infer a likeness. ' Analogy is the soul of induc- 
 tion.' If, therefore, it be an illicit act of the reason 
 which ventures to trace a parallel between nature and 
 man, and interpret the former by the latter, how 
 fares it with the foundations of human knowledge, 
 and with the pillars of science herself? Is not all 
 physical science the rational interpretation of nature ? 
 If we may not read the meaning of the great central 
 Force in the light of that force which we carry in the 
 will, how can we warrantably interpret the laws of 
 nature in the light of that which we carry in the 
 intellect ? Are we not left in uncertainty as to the 
 character of the entire fabric of our knowledge ? The 
 oracle is altogether dumb. If the way which seems 
 to lead from the human will into the temple of out- 
 ward nature be really a cul-de-sac, what warrant have
 
 THEISM. 213 
 
 we for opening a door on the other side, and walking 
 down the avenues of positive science, imagining that 
 in these pathways we shall find the only key to 
 nature ? To bring the analogy into effect, let us take 
 two instances : the force with which I discharge a 
 projectile, and the force of gravitation. The former 
 proceeds from the will, which is the originating power, 
 though mechanical and physiological causes intervene. 
 Since, therefore, similar effects have similar or re- 
 sembling causes, it is a strictly analogical inference 
 that as the effects correspond, the causes will resemble, 
 and the essential part of the correspondence will not 
 consist in the apparatus used (the phenomena), but in 
 the will underlying, which is noumenal.* 
 
 In the fourth place, as the force of the will is 
 both higher and better known than the mechanical, 
 chemical, and vital forces of nature, we are warranted 
 in interpreting the lower by the higher, and not in 
 reducing the higher to the level of the lower. As we 
 ascend in nature, from the lowest organisms to the 
 highest types of organisation, we find that the higher 
 is not only an advance upon the lower, but that it 
 includes it ; and no naturalist would describe a 
 vertebrated animal by that which it held in common 
 with the mollusca. That in which it differs from 
 the types beneath it is its distinctive and descriptive 
 feature. When, therefore, we reach man at the top 
 of the scale, separated by a distinct endowment from 
 the classes beneath him, yet conserving all their main 
 
 * ' I take the notion of a cause,' said Dr Thomas Reid, in a letter 
 to Dr Gregory, ' to he derived from the power I feel in myself to 
 produce certain effects. In this sense we say that the Deity is the 
 cause of the universe. '—(Works, Hamilton's Edition, p. 77.)
 
 2 J 4 THEISM. 
 
 characteristics in his nature — and describe him not 
 by what he has in common with the lower animals, 
 but by that in which he differs from them — we act on 
 the principle of selecting the highest feature we can 
 find, and taking it as our guide. Similarly when we 
 are in search of the Supreme Principle of the universe, 
 the Causa causans, we interpret it by the loftiest 
 features characterizing human nature, because that 
 nature is the highest with which we are experimentally 
 acquainted. And we may validly throw the burden 
 of proof upon the agnostic, and ask why the great 
 cosmical force that rules in nature should be radically 
 different from the volitional force which is the root of 
 our personality ? Reverting again to the force of 
 gravitation, why should it not be the outcome, in 
 nature, of a Will vaster than man's, resembling yet 
 transcending it ? To what does that force amount ? 
 The phenomenalist cannot arrest our inquiry by simply 
 drawing the veil of nescience over it. He cannot 
 slip a lid over the end of our telescope, turned sky- 
 ward, by merely exclaiming ' mystery of mysteries, all 
 is mystery.' And it seems to us that we must either 
 divest the word gravitation of all intelligible mean- 
 ing ; or, while perceiving the unlikeness at a glance, 
 we must ' invest it with a human, or quasi-human 
 vitality.' 
 
 Quasi ; for again, in the fifth place, this all-per- 
 vasive protean force assumes many a phase which is 
 exceedingly unlike the operations of a personal power. 
 In many of her moods, Nature has the countenance of 
 the sphinx. She is sublimely silent as to her inmost 
 essence. Cold, stern, inflexible, neutral, taciturn, 
 apathetic — all these terms seem applicable to her at
 
 THEISM. 215 
 
 times, as we gaze across the chasm between man aud 
 Nature. But the regulative idea, which we find in 
 the analogy of the human will, is not to be regarded 
 as exhaustive or exclusive of other notions which may 
 unite with it. The personal force may at the same 
 time be more than personal. Its highest quality be- 
 comes to us what we have called its regulative idea. 
 Less than personal it cannot be, but more than personal 
 it may surely be. It may contain elements within 
 the infinite compass of its nature, different from those 
 features of which we find the mirror in ourselves.* It 
 is sufficient if we know that the causa causarum, the 
 all-pervading life of the universe, can in any sense be 
 described as personal, that we can speak of ' the soul 
 of nature,' without being the dupes of a fanciful analogy, 
 dealing merely with figure and hyperbole. It is ad- 
 mitted by every theist that there are myriad facets 
 which the subtle life of nature may present to the 
 beholder. We not only may, but we must think of 
 
 it, as 
 
 He, they, one, all, within, without, 
 The power in darkness which we guess. 
 
 It reveals itself to us now as personal, awakening and 
 responding to our instinct of worship, calling forth our 
 wonder and reverence, with the hunger and the thirst 
 of the human spirit in rising to its Source. Again 
 it turns its cold, impassive, silent face towards us ; 
 and, as we feel its immeasurable transcendency, we 
 are warned against the error of construing it into a 
 
 * As one who sustains a fatherly relation may be at the same time 
 son, brother, citizen, member of a commonwealth, and member of a 
 profession ; or, as we describe a being of compound nature, such as 
 man, who is both body and soul, by the higher term of the two.
 
 216 THEISM. 
 
 mere exaggeration of ourselves. We thus learn on 
 the one hand, the indefinite unlikeness between man 
 and the supreme Spirit of the universe, and on the 
 other their positive likeness or kindredness. We 
 escape the prevailing error of medievalism, and the 
 opposite error of the modern scientific spirit. The 
 tendency of the schoolmen was to interpret all the 
 laws of nature in the light of a priori notions of the 
 mind. They did not search laboriously for her own 
 meaning, and wait patiently for her revelations ; but 
 distorted nature by outre hypotheses, fetched altogether 
 from within. It is, however, an equal, if not a greater 
 instance of onesidedness, to do exactly the reverse ; to 
 interpret the human spirit exclusively in the light of 
 external nature and organic law. The apotheosis of 
 man was at least no worse — we think it rather better 
 — than making a fetish of nature ; and explaining the 
 sublime mysteries of the human will, by the phenomena 
 of molecular action. We therefore maintain that, 
 amid the many possible manifestations of the infinite 
 Life, they may be reduced to two primary forms or 
 aspects ; the one impersonal, and the other personal. 
 God is infinitely unlike the creature. He is also the 
 archetype, of which we are the type. And we have 
 less need to be philosophically warned against the 
 possible caricature of the latter doctrine — of which 
 the teachers of nescience remind us — than to be 
 cautioned against the partial truth of the former, 
 which, in isolation, may so easily drift into exaggera- 
 tion and a lie. 
 
 The intellectual intuition of the Infinite, which we 
 have endeavoured to vindicate, so far attests this 
 correspondence ; but the inspired utterance of the
 
 THEISM. 217 
 
 Poet, in reference to the soul of nature, also bears it 
 witness. The affinity or identity of the force within 
 him, with the forces without, is felt by the poet, when 
 the speculative thinker perceives it not. He cannot 
 analyse into its constituent elements the mystic mean- 
 ing of the universe, which is flashed into his soul, in 
 moments of glowing inspiration, as the chemist 
 analyses his earths in a crucible. But he is the 
 
 Mighty prophet, seer blest, 
 With whom those truths do rest, 
 Which we are toiling all our years to fiud 
 In darkness lost. 
 
 And he may be able to help the scientific explorer 
 out of that abyss of mystery in which he is specu- 
 latively lost, and prevent him from erecting an altar 
 to ' the unknown God.' While his soul, in ' a wise 
 passiveness,' lies open to the visitations of the super- 
 natural, he sees a vision, and he hears a voice, of 
 which he can give no scientific explanation, but which 
 announce to him the ' open secret ' of the universe. 
 
 One of the finest analyses of intuition in all litera- 
 ture is that given by Lowell, the ' prevailing poet ' of 
 America. He writes — 
 
 As blind nestlings, unafraid, 
 
 Stretch up wide-mouthed to every shade, 
 
 By which their downy dream is stirred, 
 
 Taking it for the mother-bird ; 
 
 So when God's shadow, which is light, 
 
 My wakening instincts falls across, 
 
 Silent as sunbeams over moss, 
 
 In my heart's-nest half-conscious things 
 
 Stir with a helpless sense of wings, 
 
 Lift themselves up, and tremble lmig 
 
 With premonitions sweet of song.
 
 218 THEISM. 
 
 The poet may thus throw the plank for us, where 
 the psychologist and the metaphysician fail. He 
 
 sees into the life of things. 
 
 His insight — which comes and goes, in flashes marvel- 
 lous but fugitive, which dart across the world and 
 bring back this report of correspondence — illumines 
 every realm of nature. He tells us that it is 
 
 haunted for ever by the Eternal Mind. 
 
 He finds the whole temple of nature exquisitely rilled 
 with symbols of his own deepest thought. She is a 
 storehouse of imagery, expressing the subtlest grada- 
 tions of his feeling. Wherever he moves, he finds 
 that the forms and the forces around him are an in- 
 terpretation of what he is. They are the symbolic 
 language of his deepest thoughts, and highest aspira- 
 tions ; while his innermost life again interprets them. 
 He explains the inner world in terms of the outer, and 
 the outward in terms of the inward. In the grand 
 vocation of the poet, we know of nothing grander 
 than his function of mediator, between the baffled on- 
 tologist and the man of science. He is a reconciler, 
 who presents a common truth, which those on either 
 side of the barrier may recognise, and the recognition 
 of which may draw them together. 
 
 A vast and varied region of our complex nature, 
 the aesthetic or poetic, thus comes to the aid of our 
 theology. The great imaginative poets, in their de- 
 lineations of man and nature, do not idealise ; they 
 see. Or, they first see, and then they idealise. Who 
 will affirm that Wordsworth's ' inward eye,' — by the 
 use and cultivation of which he became the greatest
 
 THEISM. 219 
 
 of all interpreters of the symbolism of nature — in see- 
 ing visions, saw but the ghostly forms of his own im- 
 agination, and was not in contact with real existence ? 
 Are his ' spiritual presences ' as unreal as the fawns 
 and dryads of polytheistic legend ? And was not even 
 the personification of nature, in the early centuries, a 
 cruder testimony in the same direction, — the belief in 
 the deities of wood and hill and sea and stream, being 
 the dumb homage of the savage mind, to a divinity in 
 nature kindred to man ? Is the poet, then, a seer,'"' 
 or only the elaborator of fancies ? — the weaver of 
 ideal shapes, or the discerner of real existence ? He 
 tells us that nature is a luminous veil, behind which 
 visions are to be seen, and voices heard ; that some- 
 times, in a moment, he comes upon the footprints of 
 the supernatural ; and that, in such moments, he is in 
 contact with a reality, which he calls ' the soul of the 
 world.' Why should he call it a soul, if he has no in- 
 tuition of its analogy, and correspondence with his own 
 nature ? — and why should he not call it a soul if he 
 perceives its kindredness to himself? What though 
 he speaks continually in the plural, and tells us of the 
 myriad 'presences;' as the scientific explorer speaks of 
 manifold 'forces?' What though he lapses now into 
 a semi-polytheist, and again into a quasi-pantheistic, 
 interpretation of nature ? It is but the sign of a 
 weight of inspiration too vast for utterance at one time, 
 in one form. It indicates that his feeling of the 
 
 * We use this word according to its ancient meaning. It describes 
 the way in which the inspired soul of a prophet or a poet ' became 
 possessed of his truths,' in distinction from his other function as an 
 ' utterer of truths.' And we refer only to those poets who, as 
 'utterers of truth,' have spoken of the spiritual presences of nature, 
 amongst whom, Wordsworth is chief.
 
 220 THEISM. 
 
 central life has broken up into diversity ; that nature's 
 great soul — 
 
 The Presence that disturbs him with the joy 
 Of elevated thoughts — 
 
 ~o 
 
 cannot disclose itself at once, as all-in-all and all in- 
 clusive, within the boundaries of the finite mind. In 
 its very wealth, it reveals itself as manifold. But, as 
 the poet and the philosopher may combine the mani- 
 fold, in the unity of their own mind, why may they 
 not do so in the unity of the Object, revealing itself 
 to them ? 
 
 It is to be observed, however, that the object which 
 the poet's insight attests and reveals, is not phenomenal, 
 but substantial. Hence no question arises as to its 
 origin. It is only that which enters on the theatre 
 of phenomenal existence, that demands a further ex- 
 planation. The entrance and the exit of phenomena 
 are explained, when we refer them to the substance 
 out of which they have emerged, and to which they 
 return. But we do not ask for the origin of substance, 
 any more than for the origin of space, time, or number. 
 Substance has no origin, being eternal. 
 
 There is still another branch of the theistic evidence 
 from intuition. It arises out of the instinct of worship, 
 which has many separate phases. It is seen in the 
 mere uprise of the soul, spontaneously doing homage 
 to a Higher-than-itself ; in the sense of dependence, 
 felt by all men who ' know themselves ; ' in the need 
 which the worshipper feels of approaching One who 
 is higher and holier than himself, and in whom all 
 perfection resides, one who is recognisable by him, 
 and is interested in his state ; in the workings of the
 
 THEISM. 221 
 
 filial instinct seeking its source, and, as St Augustine 
 said, ' restless till it rests in Thee ; ' in the suffrage of 
 the heart, rising amid the miseries of its lot, and even 
 against the surmises of the intellect, to the 'Rock that 
 is higher than it ; ' in the soul's aspirations ; in its 
 thirst for the ideal, while it feels the necessity of 
 an absolute centre, or ultimate standard of truth, 
 beauty, and goodness ; and even, finally, in the 
 passionate longings of the mystic to reach an utterly 
 transcendent good. All these things bear witness to 
 an instinct, working often in the dark, but always 
 seeking its Source. They are almost universal, and 
 they are certainly ineradicable. They show how 
 deeply the roots of theism are planted in the soil of 
 the moral consciousness. "We cannot, however, pursue 
 these several lines of proof in detail. They form a 
 fitting link of connection with the more strictly ethical 
 evidence, on which we must add a few paragraphs. 
 
 The Kantian argument is more intricate, and is 
 much less satisfactory than the common evidence, 
 from the phenomena of conscience itself. It is 
 founded on the moral law, with its ' categorical im- 
 perative,' asserting that certain actions are right and 
 others wrong, in a world in which the right is often 
 defrauded of its legitimate awards, and the wrong is 
 temporarily successful. This, however, says Kant, 
 points to a future, in which the irregularity will be 
 redressed, and therefore to a supreme Moral Power, 
 ;il)le to effect it. The argument is altogether inferen- 
 tial. It is circuitous; its conclusion being, in a sense, 
 an appendix to the doctrine of immortality ; and it 
 has only a secondary connection with the data of the 
 moral law itself. But the phenomena of conscience
 
 222 THEISM. 
 
 afford the data of theism directly. We do not raise 
 the question of the nature or the origin of the moral 
 faculty. We assume its existence, as an a priori 
 principle, carrying with it, not a contingent, but an 
 absolute and unconditional authority. This moral 
 imperative within us, however, is the index of another 
 power, of a higher personality whence it emanates, 
 and of whose character it is the expression. The law 
 carries in its heart, or centre, the evidence of a moral 
 law-giver ; his existence not being an inference from, 
 but a postulate of this law. It is given with the 
 direct and antithetic clearness, with which the infinite 
 is given as the correlative of the finite ; and the ascent 
 from the law, to the supreme Legislator, is not greater 
 than is the ascent from space and time, revealed in 
 limited areas and intervals, to immensity and eternity. 
 The two data are the terms of a relation. Thus we do 
 not rise to the Divine Existence by any ' regressive 
 inference,' as the Kantian argument reaches it ; we 
 find God in conscience. Moral analysis reveals the 
 presence of another personality within, and yet above 
 our own ; and, if we reject this implicate, folded 
 within the very idea of conscience, it ceases to be 
 authoritative; and, divested of all ethical significance, 
 it sinks to the level of expediency. 
 
 Thus, the moral part of our nature rests upon the 
 background of another, and a divine personality. Let 
 us analyse the notion of duty, the idea of obligation 
 contained in the word ' ought' If it resolves itself 
 into this, ' it is expedient to act in a certain manner, 
 because, if we do not, we injure the balance of our 
 faculties, promote a schism amongst the several powers, 
 and put the machinery of human nature out of work-
 
 q 
 
 theism. 22:; 
 
 ing gear : ' then it does not point to one behind it, 
 any more than the phenomenal sequences and designs 
 in nature point in that direction. But, if we ' ought, 
 simply because ive ought,' i.e., because the law which 
 we find within us (but did not produce) controls us, 
 haunts us, and claims supremacy over us, then we 
 find in such a fact, the revelation of One, from whom 
 the law has emanated. As Fenelon says, in reference 
 to the idea of the infinite, breathing the spirit of St 
 Augustine — 
 
 ' Where have I obtained this idea, which is so much above rue, 
 which infinitely surpasses me, which astonishes me, which makes 
 me disappear in my own eyes, which renders the infinite present 
 to me. It is in me ; it is more than myself. It seems to me 
 everything, and myself nothing. I can neither efface, obscure, 
 diminish, nor contradict it. It is in me ; I have not put it 
 there, I have found it there : and I have found it there only 
 because it was already there before I sought it. It remains there 
 invariable, even if I do not think of it, when I think of something 
 else. I find it wherever I seek it, and it often presents itself 
 when I am not seeking it. It does not depend upon me. I 
 depend upon it.' * 
 
 Similarly Newman writes of conscience — 
 
 ' A voice within forbids, and summons us to refrain ; 
 And if we bid it to be silent, it yet is not still : it is not in 
 
 our control, 
 It acts without our order, without our asking, against our will. 
 It is in us, it belongs to us, but it is not of us : it is above us. 
 It is moral, it is intelligent, it is not we, nor at our bidding ; 
 It pervades mankind, as one life pervades the trees.' t 
 
 "Whence then comes this law which is ' in us, yet not 
 of us, but above us,' which we did not create, and 
 which circumstances do not alter, though they modify 
 
 * De l'Existence de Dieu. Part II. ch. i. s. '29. 
 + Theism, pp. 13, 14.
 
 22-t THEISM. 
 
 its action ? It is not the moral echo within, of a Voice 
 louder and vaster without — a voice which legislates, 
 and in its sanctity commands, issuing imperial edicts 
 for the entire universe of moral agency ? In one 
 sense conscience is the viceroy ; or representative of a 
 higher Power; in another, it is the voice of one crying 
 in the wildernesses of the human spirit, ' Prepare ye 
 the way for the Law.' It ever speaks ' as one having 
 authority;' and yet its central characteristic (as pointed 
 out by a living teacher) is not that the conscience has 
 authority, but that it is 'the consciousness of authority.' 
 It testifies to another : the implanted instinct bearing 
 witness to its Implanter ; and through the hints and 
 intimations of this master-faculty, thus throned amidst 
 the other powers, we are able to ascend intuitively and 
 directly to God. We are ' constituted to transcend 
 ourselves ; ' and conscience becomes a ladder by which 
 we mount to the supernatural, as well as the voice, 
 which speaks to us of God. Thus, to quote the 
 language of one of the Cambridge Platonists of the 
 17th century (Dr John Smith) — 
 
 'As Plotinus teaches us, "he who reflects upon himself reflects 
 upon his own original" God has so copied forth himself into the 
 whole life and energy of man's soul as that the character of the 
 divinity may be most easily seen and read of all within them- 
 selves. And whenever we look upon our souls in a right manner 
 we shall find a Urim and a Thummim there ; and though the- 
 whole fabric of this visible universe be whispering out the 
 notion of a Deity, yet we cannot understand it without this 
 interpreter loithin. -1
 
 THE STJMMUM BONUM. 
 
 (The North British Review, March 1SG9J 
 
 ' What is the chief end of man ? ' is a question with 
 which Scotland has been familiar for two centuries. 
 In its terse simplicity it states one of the ultimate 
 •questions in Philosophy. Its theoretical solution 
 would be the answer to a fundamental problem in 
 Ethics ; its practical realization would be the ideal of 
 a perfect life. In one form or other it occurs to all 
 men in whom the reflective life has dawned, and who 
 look beneath the surface of human action, to discover 
 its underlying root and ultimate purpose. It arises 
 out of the instinctive craving for unity in our life, 
 which is spontaneous and ineradicable. We are not 
 satisfied by studying the phenomena of human nature 
 .as a miscellaneous mass of mere detail ; but we 
 desire to know the relation of the parts to the whole, 
 and the connexion of the whole with its parts. 
 
 The question thus raised has been discussed in every 
 philosophical school. It is as old as the meditations 
 of the seers in Palestine and the remoter East. We 
 find it treated with marvellous subtlety and great 
 breadth of insight by the more noticeable of the 
 Greek thinkers. Every philosopher of mark in 
 modern times has rediscussed it, and in his own way 
 deepened the current of research, or added a contri- 
 bution to our knowledge of the problem ; while it 
 
 p
 
 226 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 
 
 remains as fresh and full of interest as if the race had 
 just awakened from the sleep of centuries, to ponder 
 it for the first time. Being thus one of the 
 problems of the philoscyphia perennis, its solution 
 must vary with the character of the great systems, 
 and be essentially modified by the prevailing type of 
 each. 
 
 It is closely related to two other cardinal questions 
 in philosophy, ' whence are we ? ' and ' whither do 
 we tend ? ' — what is our origin ? and what our 
 destination ? — questions which have nursed the specu- 
 lative passion, and aroused the wondering curiosity of 
 men in all ages. But the third great inquiry, ' What 
 is the ultimate end, or final purpose of our life, 
 what its present ideal ? ' is quite as fundamental 
 as the others, and its solution is much more 
 urgent. 
 
 It may not be possible to give an altogether 
 satisfactory answer to any one of these questions 
 without partially answering the other two, since the 
 three problems intersect each other, and their solutions 
 are finely interlaced. The conclusions of Speculative 
 Philosophy (culminating in Theology) and those of 
 Ethics are ultimately based upon the data which 
 human nature supplies ; and, as human nature is 
 an organic whole, the results we arrive at in one de- 
 partment of inquiry must necessarily modify our view 
 of all the others. Thus, if we have no light as to our 
 origin and destination beyond that which the law of 
 evolution, and the sequences of physical nature supply, 
 our ideal of conduct will be proportionately lowered. 
 We could scarcely find a motive for the culture of our 
 powers that would not be crippled in its action, by
 
 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 227 
 
 the obscurity of the source whence we have arisen, 
 and the dreariness of the goal to which we tend. 
 And it is historically certain that those systems which 
 have denied to man all knowledge, of his source or of 
 his destiny, have lowered his ideal of culture. 
 
 The discussion of every great philosophical question 
 however, must be untrammelled by the answer 
 which other problems yield us, or even by the data 
 which the several sciences supply ; and we propose 
 now to examine the third of the correlated questions 
 referred to, partly in the light of a recent discussion 
 by one of the ablest of living critics, and partly as a 
 theme of permanent philosophic interest, unaffected 
 by the passing controversies of our age. 
 
 The late occupant of the chair of Poetry at Oxford 
 (himself a poet and a thinker of no mean rank) has 
 recently brought the question of culture before the 
 British mind, with singular freshness and emphasis. 
 We shall not, in the first instance, follow Mr Arnold 
 into those bypaths of subtle criticism, where he 
 ranges with so free a step, and applies his doctrine 
 to the prevailing tendencies of England with rare 
 discriminative power. We shall rather approach the 
 group of questions raised by him, through a brief 
 discussion of the philosophical problem, ' What is 
 the chief end of human existence — the ideal of a 
 perfect life ? ' 
 
 We must distinguish, however, at the outset, be- 
 tween the theoretic ideal, as an object of thought and 
 contemplation, and its practical realization in human 
 life. The ideal always stands contrasted with the 
 actual as that to which no one can absolutely attain, 
 however he may succeed in his approach to it. There
 
 228 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 
 
 are conditions by which the range of culture is 
 inevitably bounded, obstacles which resist its progress 
 and impede its freedom, which are irremovable within 
 the limits of mundane life. These do not concern us 
 at present. We propose, in the first instance, to 
 discuss the ideal of culture by endeavouring to answer 
 the question, ' To what would the most perfect edu- 
 cation of the faculties amount, supposing all hindrances 
 to that education withdrawn ? ' Having answered 
 this question, we shall be in a position to consider 
 how the hindrances which prevent its realization may 
 be most successfully overcome. 
 
 What, then, is the relation in which human culture, 
 with a view to human perfection, stands to the supreme 
 end of life, as an ideal aim? Our answer may be stated 
 generally thus : — That when the term is broadened 
 and deepened in its meaning far beyond its customary 
 limitation, culture, prosecuted with a view to the entire 
 perfection of our nature, is the one absolute' and un- 
 transferable end of human existence. This is our thesis. 
 We proceed to the proof of it. 
 
 It may conduce to precision of statement if we dis- 
 tinguish between the two principal terms made use of 
 in the proposition with which we thus set out. The 
 former term ' culture,' we regard as the means of 
 attaining the latter, 'perfection:' this denoting the 
 ripe result, when all the human faculties act together, 
 vigorously and harmoniously ; that denoting the pro- 
 cess of education, by which the faculties are trained to 
 reach their end in concord. The distinction, however, 
 is fundamentally empirical, inasmuch as the resulting 
 perfection, however harmonious and complete, can 
 never be regarded as final. Its supreme value consists
 
 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 221) 
 
 in the facilities it affords for further advance. The 
 stages of perfection reached, become in turn, and 
 necessarily, but ' the stepping-stones of their dead 
 selves,' on which men rise to 'higher things.' In 
 other words, the states of human nature to which the 
 terms culture and perfection are applicable, are at 
 once both ends and means. Looked at on one side, as 
 possessed of a certain inherent value, they are ends ; 
 surveyed on the other, they are but means, as the 
 conditions of still higher ends. 
 
 But the determination of the final end of human 
 existence must depend essentially upon the answer 
 which we give to the prior question, 'What are the 
 essentials of human nature ? What are the funda- 
 mental characteristics of man, as a beiug distinct from 
 the other existences, that surround him in the universe?' 
 Driven thus backwards to consciousness, — our final 
 court of appeal in every philosophical question, — we 
 discern (in a way we need not tarry to explain) the 
 ultimate fact of our personality, and, along with this, 
 as a correlated fact, our personal freedom. We assume, 
 we take for granted in this discussion, our free human 
 personality, and along with it the possession of certain 
 faculties (intellectual, moral, religious, esthetic, social). 
 Now, if these faculties cannot be said to have a defined 
 existence till their activity is called forth, — if for man 
 they are practically real, only in so far as by man they 
 are consciously realised ; and if they are consciously 
 realised, only in so far as they are cultivated, — in that 
 case it is plain that the very end of the possession is 
 use ; that the activity of the faculties is the supreme 
 end of their existence. The fullest, freest, least im- 
 peded, and best balanced energy amongst the several
 
 230 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 
 
 powers of our nature thus becomes that nature's 
 end. 
 
 Whether an ulterior end is or is not subserved by 
 this proximate one is a further question which we shall 
 presently discuss. But in so far as man is to be 
 regarded as a centre of personality, and as reaching 
 his manhood only through the concurrent action of his 
 powers, it is clear that he fulfils the end of his being, 
 is in short truly man, only in so far as he fulfils the 
 law of catholic or eclectic culture. We thus view man 
 as a personal and free agent, whose nature is made up 
 of certain innate powers, and whose perfection consists 
 in their harmonious action and reaction. The list or 
 circle of the faculties is the same in every rational 
 creature. However stunted, there is none absolutely 
 awanting in any human being. Even in the idiot 
 and the insane (these malformations of humanity), the 
 missing power is merely suppressed. It is buried 
 under a bad organization, crushed by a weak physique. 
 The supreme and final end of every human life is 
 therefore the perfection of each faculty in detail, and 
 the harmony of all in unison. 
 
 Though no analogy can adequately illustrate an 
 ultimate truth, the following symbol may be of slight 
 use. Imagine an inverte d cone, with its apex slightly 
 blunted, but rising on all sides upwards to infinity. 
 Round the narrow circle, forming the base, cluster the 
 normal infant energies of human nature. From the 
 apex there is an expansion upwards ; but with the rise 
 perpendicular, there is also an expanse horizontal ; 
 and they are equally indefinite and limitless. The 
 human faculties, in their progress from infancy to 
 manhood, rise as do the sides of the graduated cone ;
 
 THE SUMMUM BONTJM. 231 
 
 but, as they gain in height, they expand at an equal 
 ratio, in the widening circles of breadth. Progress 
 intellectual, moral, esthetic, religious, may be mea- 
 sured by the places gained by the agents who toil on 
 the sides and circles of the cone. The base represents 
 that zero of ignorance whence we set out ; the posi- 
 tions gained, and the prospects beheld, are the stages 
 and the partial lights of knowledge. The lines and 
 circles, out-reaching to the surrounding infinite, and 
 lost above and around in the clouds, symbolize that 
 veil of mystery which encircles our last truths, as it 
 enveloped the first, and which girdles our faculties 
 when they have reached their loftiest culture, as it 
 wrapped them round in their embryo development. 
 The progress from absolute ignorance to partial science, 
 ending in a return to relative ignorance — the sum of 
 our intellectual destiny, and a favourite theme of 
 philosophic men — is thus faintly symboled in the 
 inverted cone. However inadequate the illustration, 
 it may at least represent a circle of faculties advancing 
 in harmony, each one being supposed to be linked to 
 the first circle which formed the inverted apex. But 
 as analogy casts but a pale and lunar light upon a 
 problem which touches the region of transcendent 
 truth, we lay it aside ; and content ourselves with 
 announcing once more, as a first principle of ethical 
 doctrine, that man's chief end is to cultivate his facul- 
 ties ; that the great desideratum is how to secure the 
 deepest, widest, and intensest life ; and that all the 
 education he receives is only a system of means by 
 which this is more or less perfectly or imperfectly 
 secured. 
 
 We may remember, however, that in that religious
 
 232 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 
 
 catechism with which Scotland is so familiar, ' man's 
 chief end ' is denned as • to glorify God, and to enjoy 
 him for ever ; ' and no one who is at once thoughtful 
 and reverent will quarrel with the definition. It 
 states a great truth in brief compass. But it does 
 not present the entire range of the truth. The aim 
 of the compilers of that manual of instruction was not 
 to write a series of philosophical aphorisms, but to 
 arrange a practical digest of religious belief. And the 
 philosophic student of the ultimate ends of human 
 action may learn from the definition of the divines at 
 Westminster, while he is in search of other aspects of 
 the question with which they were unfamiliar. Let 
 us take for granted that the chief end of the creature 
 is to glorify the Creator ; the further question imme- 
 diately arises — How is he to do it ? By what method 
 is he to proceed to the execution of the stupendous 
 task ? If our answer is to be more than a barren 
 formula — if it is to be a fruitful maxim of life and 
 conduct — we must know how to translate the first of 
 the two propositions from indefiniteness into clearness. 
 How is man to proceed, that he may succeed, in this 
 high and seemingly transcendent effort to glorify the 
 Infinite ? If we answer that, by the cultivation and 
 increase of all the powers of his nature, to the utmost 
 possible intensity, and in the greatest possible har- 
 mony, he is able to do so ; we may perhaps find that 
 the formula is translated for us from" the abstract to 
 the concrete. It is by the use of all our powers, by 
 becoming the very best and highest that we can be- 
 come, by neglecting no part of our natures, but 
 developing to the uttermost all the faculties with 
 which we are endowed, that our humanity can alone
 
 THE SITMMUM BONUM. 23 
 
 •> 
 
 grow up, ' compacted by that which every joint sup- 
 plieth.' It may be that in this process of assiduous 
 culture and effort, man is but the agent of the will of 
 One higher than himself, whose perfection he is in- 
 strumentally revealing. He may be achieving an end, 
 and furthering a plan, which reaches immeasurably 
 beyond himself; but, as he is also an end to himself, 
 personal perfection should be no less a conscious 
 aim of his life. We do not say that he may concen- 
 trate attention upon himself, and pursue his culture 
 in isolation from his fellows ; but we do say that the 
 perfection of his nature is at once a definite end of his 
 labour, and the only means by which he can glorify 
 the Author of his being. ' It is manifest,' says Sir 
 William Hamilton, ' that man, in so far as he is a 
 mean for the glory of God, must be an end unto him- 
 self, for it is only in the accomplishment of his own 
 perfection that as a creature he can manifest the glory 
 of his Creator. Though, therefore, man by relation to 
 God be but a mean, for that very reason, in relation 
 to all else, he is an end.' The apparent paradox is 
 thus strictly true, that man is an end to himself, 
 although that end is not_a selfish or utilitarian one ; 
 and, the self-regarding with the self-forgetting instincts 
 are the two forces (centripetal and centrifugal) which, 
 working in union — a union most perfect when it has 
 become so natural as to be unconscious — cause his 
 nature to revolve in harmony around the central sun of 
 the universe. 
 
 When, now, we turn to the educational schemes of 
 so-called 'practical men,' we find that they nearly 
 all ignore the foregoing principle. The fundamental 
 flaw which vitiates their systems (whether they ex-
 
 234 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 
 
 plicitly avow it, or only tacitly hold it) is the ignoble 
 concession that man may renounce his prerogative as 
 an end, and become mainly or merely a professional 
 mean. The practical educationist abhors an ideal, as 
 nature was said of old to abhor a vacuum ; and his 
 dislike to an ' ideal ' explains the fact that he cannot 
 comprehend how a man can be an end to himself. 
 He has no appreciation of culture which does not 
 promise a utilitarian return ; and, to secure some 
 obvious practical advantage, certain educational ap- 
 pliances are set agoing to obtain it, in the shortest 
 possible time, and with the least possible cost. For 
 example, it is desirable to know the facts of history, 
 and the laws of social statics, because these bear 
 practically upon modern political progress. It is wise 
 to wrest her secrets from Nature, for these can be 
 made available in industrial production, and thus 
 increase the ' well-being ' of man. Science is a fruitful 
 branch of education, because science has joined hands 
 with utility. But t\\v, ideal of a many-sided culture, 
 considered as an end in itself, and not as a means to 
 any end lower than itself, — a state in which one rests 
 in the insight and intellectual harmony which culture 
 brings him, — is regarded by our practical educationists 
 as at once unsubstantial, and incapable of realization. 
 It is also represented as inconsistent with the position 
 which men occupy in a world of manifold competition, 
 and highly complex civilisation, with enormous and 
 increasing subdivision of labour. 
 
 We admit that to succeed in any one pathway of 
 culture, a man must willingly renounce much that lies 
 along its margin, and invites him on either side. 
 There must be distinct concentration of faculty upon
 
 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 235 
 
 a special object to effect a special end. The brevity 
 of life, the division of labour, the complexity of 
 civilisation, and the many new and recondite paths of 
 research that are being continually opened up — all 
 these necessitate a sacrifice of some things for the 
 attainment of others ; and while, without division of 
 labour no culture would be possible, with that division 
 comes inevitably the narrowing influence of the exer- 
 cise of a special faculty. As our doctrine is meant 
 to apply not merely to the few who have the leisure, 
 and the means for the prosecution of the highest 
 culture, but also to the many who have them not, we 
 admit that most men must concentrate themselves 
 with a piercing intensity of aim on one field of action. 
 There must be a point towards which their main 
 efforts tend, and around which their chief sympathies 
 gravitate. Without such precision of aim, even 
 splendid powers would be lost ; and the practical man 
 must always work by concentration and limitation. 
 At the same time, the general cultivation of the other 
 ] towers, on every possible occasion, should not have 
 the effect of weakening the special power, which is 
 more exclusively developed. General education, with 
 its wide and varied knowledge, while it gives a larger 
 mental horizon, and broadens the range of sympathy, 
 should never paralyse special effort in a chosen sphere. 
 But the position assumed by the advocates of 
 special and practical, as opposed to general and 
 catholic culture, is usually tainted by a false spirit 
 of utilitarianism. Whether in its grosser or more 
 refined form, it estimates the value of culture, in the 
 department it selects, by the use to be made of it, by 
 the ends it may subserve. It thus degrades it to the
 
 236 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 
 
 position of an instrumental means. It reverses the 
 true position of ' means ' and ' ends ' respectively. 
 Instead of regarding the universe as a storehouse of 
 educational forces, — and man himself as greater than 
 anything that educates him, — instead of interpreting 
 the whole arrangements of life as a complex apparatus 
 by which the human powers may be developed to 
 their noblest height, it turns these powers into a 
 number of instruments for the conquest of Nature, and 
 the accumulation of results ! But to estimate the 
 worth of any department of culture by the extent to 
 which it is available for professional use, is as com- 
 plete a degradation of it, as it would be to measure 
 the excellence of knowledge by its market value in 
 the world. It turns man into an ignoble utilitarian 
 machine, an instrument for the attainment of trivial 
 ends, relative to this brief time-life. We maintain, 
 on the contrary, that professional success, however 
 brilliant, if unidealized by this wide view of- human 
 culture, and sympathy with man's varied nature and 
 possibilities, is of slightly higher value than mere skill 
 in a handicraft. Therefore, to train and to invigorate 
 the entire circle of the powers ; to form not so much 
 the accomplished professional man, the thinker, or the 
 artist, or the man of science, or the statesman ; but 
 to form a harmonious human being, with all his 
 faculties educated to the fullest self-government, self- 
 possession, repose, refinement, and activity, is the true 
 goal of human endeavour. To secure this inward 
 ripening and outward expansion of life, the culture of 
 thought and feeling, of imagination and sympathy, of 
 the power of reflection and the power of action, in a 
 harmonious many-sidedness, is a clearly intelligible
 
 THE SUMMUM BOXUM. 237 
 
 end of human existence. To secure it is unquestion- 
 ably a nobler ambition than to convert one's-self into 
 a passive means for the attainment of any result 
 connected with our earthly life. 
 
 But as this doctrine of culture has been rashly 
 stigmatised as an appeal to the selfish principle in 
 human nature, we must observe the real breadth of the 
 area it covers. It is not separative and exclusive, but 
 intensely social. One large section of our complex 
 humanity, of which the powers must be evoked, is that 
 which unites us with our fellowmen. It is at the 
 peril of our own highest culture if we neglect to carry 
 others with us to the best of our ability. Effort to 
 educate and raise the tone of society, to redress all the 
 wrongs we see and can redress, to relieve misery, to 
 promote the freedom and happiness of our fellows, and 
 the moral health of the community in which we live, 
 — all these are parts of culture, as we understand the 
 term. It is true that the doctrine which we teach 
 tends to concentrate thought and attention in the first 
 instance on the individual. He strives after the 
 realisation of the ideal in himself; but he finds that its 
 realisation is impossible, if he does not interest himself 
 profoundly and unselfishly in the good of his fellow- 
 men. Thus, as he advances, he creates around himself 
 an altered world. In all culture Ave must consider our 
 neighbours along with ourselves ; only it is necessary 
 that our consideration be enlightened, and that our 
 deeds be wise, — not the crude and hasty efforts of our 
 own idiosyncrasy, but broad, large-minded, and humane. 
 If the actions which tend outwards from self to reach 
 and help our fellows are to prove either stable or pro- 
 ductive, they must be based on wisdom, they must
 
 238 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 
 
 spring from a cultivated state of the soul. But the 
 ideal of culture includes within it the self-forgetting, as 
 certainly as it embraces the self-regarding instincts. 
 We dwarf our natures by the neglect of self-sacrifice, as 
 much as by despising any section of knowledge. Thus, 
 healthful culture is not the mere expansion of the 
 individual, who, intent upon his own perfection, 
 feels ' his isolation grow defined.' Such culture 
 narrows the soul in one direction while it widens it in 
 another ; and the human ties which connect man with 
 man, which unite one thinker with another, the specu- 
 lative philosopher with the poet, the poet with the 
 man of science, the scientific labourer with the indus- 
 trial worker, and so forth, must be recognised by each 
 labourer, while he pursues his course along his own 
 selected pathway. 
 
 One of the best criteria of a well-educated mind is 
 the extent of its sympathy with lines of study and 
 departments of research, with which it has a very 
 limited acquaintance, and over which it may have no 
 expectation of ever ranging freely. An ungrudged 
 recognition of their value, as probably equal to that 
 which the individual is pursuing, and a power of 
 appreciating their results — while the processes by 
 which these results have been reached are not known 
 — is as rare, as it is fruitful, to the mind that has 
 attained to it. But surely it is possible to glance 
 over the broad areas, or down the long avenues of 
 culture, which we can never hope ourselves to traverse 
 step by step, without falling into the snare of the 
 dilettante. We may sympathise with much, that we 
 cannot personally pursue ; and appreciate many things, 
 which we have neither the leisure, nor the genius to 
 explore.
 
 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 23J> 
 
 The advocates of special and utilitarian, as dis- 
 tinguished from a harmonious and many-sided educa- 
 tion, aim at completeness in one special direction. It 
 is in this that their strength lies : in their clear 
 mastery of what they do achieve. And in so far as their 
 practice tends to thoroughness, as opposed to shallow 
 or surface culture, it is a useful protest against 
 dilettantism. Concentration of effort to one path, how- 
 ever, usually begets a bias in favour of it so strong, 
 that it absorbs the whole energy of the individual, and 
 blinds his eye to the value of what lies on either 
 side. Thus, many of the advocates of scientific culture, 
 not content with magnifying the importance of a 
 wide knowledge of the phenomena and laws of nature, 
 proceed to depreciate literary culture ; or the par- 
 tisans of classical study similarly ignore the claims of 
 physical science. The speculative thinker, the poet, 
 the historian, the mathematician, the artist, the 
 musician, severally exalt their own department, to the 
 disparagement of other, and (as they think), outlying- 
 provinces. Each magnifies his own department, but 
 usually sacrifices his completeness to his specialty. It 
 is so far essential that he should do so ; for the prose- 
 cution of culture, no less than the business of life, is 
 regulated by the division of labour. But when the 
 partisan of one department would urge others to 
 follow him, and to desert the ancient pathways, with 
 which he is unfamiliar, or which he has no genius to 
 pursue, he violates a fundamental rule of culture, and 
 a primary laAv of progress. Thus some reformers 
 would remove from the old curriculum of University 
 study, or shut up within the narrowest possible limits, 
 sections of culture most valuable to the race, and which
 
 240 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 
 
 have evoked its noblest powers, because to themselves 
 they are of little worth, and possess but a slight 
 significance. Like all iconoclasts, they betray a 
 certain rudeness towards unfamiliar phases of know- 
 ledge and of human interest, not far removed from the 
 conceit which vaunts its little light, though it be but 
 ' the twinkling of a taper,' as the most important light 
 for future ages. 
 
 To possess a soul at once intense and many-sided, 
 free in thought, flexile in sympathy, yet energetic in 
 action ; ready to receive and to retain new impressions, 
 yet swift in its executive function which carries these 
 into practice ; willing to see as many sides of every 
 question as the question possesses for finite minds, yet 
 not paralysed by the multitude of competing views, 
 .and not indifferent to a decision because a fragment 
 of truth may lie in every one of these ; not languid in 
 action, from the width of the intellectual prospect it 
 surveys — such is the ideal of an educated life.- It in- 
 volves the possession of the amplest knowledge that is 
 possible, in alliance with the largest feeling ; the widest 
 range of sympathy, in alliance with the most vigorous 
 and energetic action ; every healthy human tendency 
 finding freest scope for its exercise, every desire that is 
 legitimate getting satisfaction, every one that is illegiti- 
 mate being controlled, the defective called into power, 
 those in excess restrained ; — in other words, the 
 highest human culture is the greatest possible health of 
 the ivhole man. All our powers must be braced by 
 exercise, if they are to be healthy ; while the activity 
 of each is at once a stimulus and a check to the rest. 
 From the very constitution of human nature, every 
 power must be curbed to make room for the action of
 
 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 241 
 
 the others ; and self-denial, instead of being a special 
 duty to be exercised towards a special portion of our 
 nature under a religious sanction, is a universal 
 necessity of our human life, if we are to approach 
 towards the ideal of health. 
 
 Health is maintained only through the control of 
 each of our powers by the joint action of all the rest. A 
 curb must be laid upon certain appetites, if a human 
 being is to be even a healthy animal. Restraint must 
 be laid upon his animal nature if he is to be a healthy 
 human being, and his intellectual nature unstarved. 
 But he must deny himself the exclusive pursuit of 
 knowledge, as much as the unrestrained pursuit of mere 
 physical perfection. He must check the outflow of 
 his feelings by his reason ; his moral perfection must 
 go hand in hand with the culture of his imagination ; 
 his religious aspirations must have free course to 
 ascend above the horizon of the present, but they must 
 rise in union with his reason, and in harmony with his 
 understanding. We do not mean that he is to turn to 
 one part of his nature for guidance in the education of 
 another ; but he is to allow no part to encroach upon 
 the rights of another ; and that involves self-restraint 
 in the culture of all. Thus our doctrine is opposed to 
 the unbridled individualism of modern culture. It 
 opposes all forms of anarchic liberty, in the prosecution 
 of a special end, as ' the one thing needful ' for man ; 
 quite as much as it opposes a general torpor of 
 thought, or lazy acquiescence in one set of ideas or one 
 system of opinions. 
 
 It will thus be seen that religious culture is but a 
 part of the universal completeness, which is the ideal 
 of man's destiny. We assume it as an axiom which 
 
 Q
 
 242 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 
 
 no thoughtful man can gainsay, that exclusive absorp- 
 tion in religious enterprise, or devotion to religious 
 thought and contemplation, is not the absolute end of 
 a human being's existence. It is in these things 
 that human nature culminates. Within the area of 
 religion, we find the sphere for the highest exercise 
 of our highest faculties. But if the call to be devout 
 were a call to subordinate our whole nature to the 
 religious faculty, to secure for that not only a domi- 
 nant and regulative, but an exclusive authority over 
 us, then the sooner we adopted the rules of asceticism 
 the better, the sooner that the ideal of the mediaeval 
 church were made real on our earth the better. We 
 may not confound the perfection of our religious 
 being, with the perfection of our whole nature. 
 Many a man is tolerably well disciplined as a religious 
 being, who is signally defective as a thinker, as a 
 student of nature, and of humanity, or as a member 
 of society. His mind may never have received the 
 genial influences of Nature ; or, it may be so cabined 
 and confined to the narrow path of some outre expe- 
 rience, that it may shrink sensitively from exposure to 
 the bracing air of the world of thought. His feelings 
 may be austere, his sympathies with his fellow-men 
 soured and contorted, his very patriotism twisted, all 
 through his exclusive absorption in what he deems 
 religious culture. But ultimately his religion itself will 
 suffer. It will pay the penalty of its own ambition. 
 Desirous to absorb the whole nature, it may ultimately 
 lose its rightful hold of a part. Religious progress may 
 be pursued in such a fashion as to take all grace and 
 loveliness out of it, and to turn it into the grim and 
 forbidding image of a superstition. Nay, it is pos- 
 sible, in an unhealthy and overstrained sanctimony
 
 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 243 
 
 which is not religion, to neglect the common duties of 
 life, on the plea that all the energies of the soul are 
 engrossed with devotion. In all ages, the merely 
 ' religious world ' has tended to narrowness, by con- 
 tracting the basis from which devotion springs. 
 ' Mere spirituality,' says one of our most thoughtful 
 writers, ' seems to exhaust the soil that rears it, so 
 that Christianity must always gain much from extrane- 
 ous sources.' 
 
 On the other hand, a culture which ignores religion, 
 — which is so devoted to the perfecting of the other 
 powers that the religious instincts lie untouched, — is 
 equally biassed, defective, and narrow. The advocates 
 of such culture forget that our powers must culmi- 
 nate in worship, before they bear their noblest fruit. 
 Wordsworth used to say that the man who despised 
 anything in Nature had ' faculties within, which he 
 had never used.' The same may be said of those who 
 omit the instinct of worship from their inventory of 
 the powers of the soul. The speculative thinker, the 
 poet, the artist, or student of science, who are so 
 absorbed in their special pursuit, that they do not 
 allow the religious instinct to assert itself, or do not 
 give it scope for its fullest development, are to that 
 extent defective as men, however perfect as thinkers, 
 poets, artists, or men of science they may be. They 
 practically allow a portion of their nature (and that 
 the noblest) to lie unused within them ; and a singular 
 nemesis attends the neglect. The very faculty in 
 course of time vanishes. The repressed instinct 
 ceases to assert itself. They become accustomed to 
 the want, and can dispense with the action of the 
 faculty ; and ultimately they may traduce their very
 
 244 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 
 
 nature, by denying the existence of that to which 
 they were at first indifferent, the culture of which 
 they found irksome, and finally ignored. 
 
 We may thus explain the attitude assumed by 
 some of the teachers of modern science towards 
 religion. They have been so absorbed in the study of 
 nature, so possessed by the scientific passion, that they 
 have quietly ignored the grander sphere of religious feel- 
 ing. The instincts, which would naturally have asserted 
 themselves, have gradually collapsed. Neglected, they 
 have finally ceased to appeal ; being crushed out by 
 mere disuse and neglect. We place in the same cate- 
 gory the biassed advocate of logical culture, whose ideal 
 Wordsworth happily satirised, as 
 
 A reasoning self-sufficient thing, 
 An intellectual all-in-all. 
 
 The merely knowing man is in reality a half-edu- 
 cated man, because he is so exclusively knowing. He 
 cannot fail to be so, if he ignores the feelings, which 
 either underlie, or are intertwined with all our know- 
 ledge ; and, in so doing, he not only mutilates his 
 nature, but attenuates his very intellect. No intel- 
 lectual conclusion is ever reached, or, if reached, is of 
 much value, without the co-operation of those instincts 
 and emotions which intertwine their roots with all our 
 knowledge. Thus the logical mind, always clear and 
 exact, but sharpened to a thin point, ma} r tunnel 
 its way into the heart of problems ; but it works like 
 the mole, underground. It fails in vision, because it 
 is destitute of feeling, which is so often the key to 
 knowledge. And so, those systems of the universe 
 built up by the logical mind alone, present us with the
 
 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 245 
 
 mere skeleton, or frame-work of knowledge. They are 
 not clothed with flesh, or animated with the blood of 
 humanity ; while the cloistered students who elaborate 
 them, cut off from the complex and many-coloured 
 streams of emotion, are generally as imperfect men, as 
 their systems are defective structures. 
 
 To return to the relation in which religious culture 
 stands to human perfection ; instead of regarding the 
 religious as one of the faculties, we may broaden the 
 meaning of the word ' religion,' and include within it 
 the harmony of the whole individual life, as re-united 
 to its Source. It is a fair question whether this 
 extension of the meaning of the word is not at once a 
 more accurate interpretation of it, and a better safe- 
 guard both for religion and for culture. Religious 
 culture would thus describe the uprise of all the 
 powers of human nature, and their homage in the 
 course of their education into life and power. In 
 either case, however, we must guard against identify- 
 ing a narrow range of special thought and feeling 
 which we choose to call ' religion,' with the true des- 
 tination of man, the end which all men ought exclu- 
 sively to aim at. 
 
 In advocating this many-sided culture, we do not 
 forget that the majority of men must limit themselves 
 to a very narrow sphere of effort, and that the result 
 to which they attain cannot but be exceedingly partial 
 in the present life. This fact, however, does not in- 
 validate the general axiom that the primary aim of 
 every life, fettered as it must be by circumstance, 
 should be to develops to the very utmost limit of which 
 it is capable. That remains the ideal, however much 
 its realisation is hindered by the accidents of our pre-
 
 246 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 
 
 sent lot. And the injury that would otherwise accrue 
 to one who is ' in narrowest working shut,' may be 
 indefinitely lessened, if he admits that his nature 
 ought to be trained to the very highest energy and 
 harmony of which it is capable ; and if he refuses to 
 acquiesce, with bland contentment or dull apathy, in 
 the limits of inevitable fate. It is the recognition of 
 the ideal, we might almost say its worship, that is the 
 grand condition of human progress. 
 
 Three results will follow, from the admission of what 
 we have now advanced. One of these is the attain- 
 ment of a large-minded catholicity. This arises directly 
 and inevitably. No man may scorn another's pathway 
 to perfection, however different from his own, if it be 
 a real track, leading to the common goal. As the 
 original balance of the powers is different in each 
 man's life, the order in which his powers will awake 
 to action must vary, and the harmony that results will 
 vary also. As every class in society has something to 
 gain from contact with every other class — as from each 
 stratum in the great social fabric sympathetic move- 
 ments may pass and repass endlessly — so the most 
 highly cultivated in one department may learn much 
 by a study of the course which others are pur- 
 suing; and all may learn how varied a treasure-house 
 human nature is, how manifold are the pathways of 
 its progress, and how endless the lights of knowledge 
 which conduct it to a common end. One of the most 
 evident inferences from the variety of human nature 
 and the possibilities of human progress, is the value of 
 an eclectic spirit, and of sympathies that are truly and 
 inexhaustibly catholic. 
 
 A second result is, that self-satisfaction, or the con-
 
 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 247 
 
 ceit of attainment — that worse foe of progress — 
 becomes impossible. Every one who feels that the ideal 
 overhangs his actual performances will retain a sense 
 of insufficiency. Always craving deeper insight and 
 a larger wisdom, aspiring after new attainment, and 
 on the outlook for fresh knowledge from every quarter, 
 he will show a proportionate humility, and invariable 
 candour towards new truth. No conclusion come to, as 
 tlif result of the research of other men, will be despised, 
 and none that he has himself reached will be dog- 
 matically assumed to be final. There may be confi- 
 dence in what has been gained, in alliance with the 
 grander Socratic feeling, ' all that I know is that I 
 know nothing.' We may have learned that ' best of 
 all philosophical lessons,' that we know only in part ; 
 without ignoring the value, and the validity of what 
 we do know. We may repose in the light we have, 
 while we seek its increase ; and sensitively shrink from 
 the vanity, which imagines its little light to be the 
 centre of all truth and knowledge. 
 
 Thus culture, while diffusing intellectual calm, 
 always induces a slight intellectual restlessness. As 
 it is a progress towards a result which can never be 
 wholly attained — a constant process of becoming, of 
 which the issues are very dimly seen, — the stimulus 
 it receives from the unattained breeds humility in the 
 pursuer. In proportion to its manifoldness, to the 
 number of forces that co-operate to produce it, and to 
 the unforeseen issues that arise out of it, there is a total 
 absence of the self-satisfaction which accompanies a 
 clearly defined mental horizon. Self-complacency is 
 impossible to one, the possibilities of whose nature are 
 infinite ; and the pride of attainment, however fre-
 
 248 THE SUMMUM BONTJM. 
 
 quently it exists, is philosophically inadmissible by 
 those who recognise the doctrine we enforce. 
 
 Another result of equal value is that the harmonies, 
 in search of which some of the ablest minds have toiled 
 so earnestly, — harmonies between science and religion, 
 between the spheres of knowledge and of feeling, 
 between reason and faith,— emerge naturally, and 
 without a struggle. If we recognise the fact that all 
 our powers are in their own place lights and guides, 
 that all co-operate to one end since human nature is 
 a unity — and that our perfection consists in the har- 
 mony of all and the suppression of none — the possi- 
 bility of a collision between faith and reason is pre- 
 vented. If we have a faculty of reason, and also an 
 instinct of trust which outsoars the methods of the 
 reason, and which carries us into regions where the 
 understanding does not follow, — except to put into 
 subsequent intellectual shape the conclusions which 
 that instinct reaches, — there can be no final antagon- 
 ism between the several parts of our nature. Each 
 faculty or instinct leaves scope for the simultaneous 
 action of every other tendency. 
 
 Moreover, it is evident that in no department of 
 research, or province of inquiry can we employ only one 
 portion of our nature, if we are to employ it faithfully ; 
 least of all, when our study is directed to that which 
 appeals to, or addresses the whole nature. We may 
 not, at one stage of inquiry, make use of reason alone, 
 and at another fall back on faith exclusively ; any 
 more than we may expect to solve the problems of 
 history, by rational analysis alone ; or elaborate the 
 canons of criticism, by acts of faith ; or bring contro- 
 versy to a close, by the mere juxtaposition of sentences,
 
 THE STJMMUM BONUM. 249 
 
 wrenched from their context, and taken at random from 
 a long series of historical books. Equally, at all 
 times, and in every inquiry, we must combine the 
 action of all our powers, so far as that is possible, and 
 exert the entire force of our intellectual and moral being. 
 Thus, it would be as great an evil in the interest of 
 Philosophy to arrest, by some intellectual ligature, the 
 free circulation of the moral life, or the spontaneous 
 action of the heart; as it would be a mistake in the in- 
 terest of Religion to limit the keen sweep of our 
 reasoning faculty. To be the partisan of the higher 
 nature is as foolish a procedure, as to be the biassed 
 advocate of the lower ; and all such exclusiveness 
 brings with it, soon or late, the penalty of anarchy, 
 or a tumult of the powers, more or less conscious. It 
 has the brand of imperfection stamped upon it at the 
 first ; and, in addition, it works to its own destruction. 
 But the question may still be put, Can any one 
 realise this ideal ? It is easy to issue the abstract 
 precept, ' Be perfect,' — cultivate your nature till it is 
 perfect ; but can any one approach within even distant 
 range of that perfection ? Has not the pursuit been 
 ahvays destined to disappointment, and does not the 
 precept, when tested by actual practice, seem issued 
 in sublime irony to man ? as the majority of answers 
 to our philosophical problems seem little else than the 
 echoes of the questions we propose ; or, as Carlyle says 
 of hope, 
 
 What is Hope ? a smiling rainbow, 
 Children follow through the wet ; 
 'Tis not here, still yonder ! yonder ! 
 Never urchin found it yet. 
 
 Is not the same thing true of this Ideal, held up, like
 
 250 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 
 
 the cup of Tantalus, before human lips ? Are there not 
 gigantic obstacles in the way of its realization, inevitable 
 bias, incurable one-sidedness, faults of mental balance, 
 twists in moral vision, inveterate prejudice, irremovable 
 by culture ? Nay, is it not better that the imperfec- 
 tions of the individual should last, that the race, com- 
 posed of many individuals, may attain to that to which 
 no one man can reach ? Is it not true that in propor- 
 tion to the eagerness with which any one aspires after 
 this all-sidedness, he falls short in details, — that he loses 
 the perfection of the parts, in aiming at the perfection 
 of the whole ? Does not the pursuit of culture 
 lose in intensity what it gains in breadth, and 
 while it widens the horizon of the mind, does it not 
 dim its sight ? Finally, may not the cultured contem- 
 plation of many sides of a problem — especially if it 
 concerns human duty — relax the sinews of moral effort, 
 emasculate the man, and result in dilettantism ? 
 
 These objections are not to be lightly dismissed. It 
 is true that no man has ever attained to the ideal ; but 
 that is only saying that all men are incomplete, that 
 no one has reached the harmony of a perfect life. It 
 is also true, as already stated, that perfection of 
 achievement is only possible by division of labour ; and 
 that, in proportion to excellence in one department is 
 our inevitable deficiency in another. With the indi- 
 vidual, and with the nation alike, the flow of the tide 
 on one shore involves its ebb from another ; the swing 
 of the pendulum to one side implies that it has left the 
 other. And it is a problem whether this oscillation 
 will ever end, whether a nation can ever unite in its 
 corporate life, as at a common focus, the grander 
 characteristics of its predecessors ; as it is a question
 
 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 251 
 
 whether an individual will ever arise with an indi- 
 viduality absolutely cosmopolitan, and who will there- 
 fore comprehend the scattered excellences of others 
 blent in harmonious union. It is not likely, though 
 Ave cannot say it is impossible. The analogy of the 
 past is against it, but the possibilities of the future 
 embrace it. It may be, that in the future, as in the 
 past, the man of thought will be lamed for action, by 
 the very fact that he is widened for contemplation ; 
 and that the man of practice will be narrowed in 
 thought, by the very fact that he is animated in action. 
 The temperament which men inherit conditions the type 
 of character and culture, which they realise ; and it may 
 be as impossible for the individual to choose his own 
 type, or to regulate it when chosen, as it is for him to 
 alter the form of his countenance, or to add a cubit to 
 his stature. It is also possible that, in some natures, 
 the strength of one faculty implies the weakness of 
 another. 
 
 Let us admit then, that no one is able to reach the 
 ideal harmony, to which the laws of culture point ; 
 none the less is it the end of his existence ; and, as 
 he proceeds upon his journey, he approaches nearer to 
 that, which he can never absolutely reach. While he 
 lives on this planet he is surrounded by most imperfect 
 educational influences. He inherits a certain bias from 
 his ancestors. He carries it in his blood, and develops 
 it in many forms. He acquires another bias, towards 
 special lines of thought, feeling, and action. He con- 
 tracts it by contagion, in subtlest ways, from all with 
 whom he associates. Certain prejudices, sympathies, 
 and antipathies are inextricably bound up with the very 
 constitution of his nature ; while hindrances lie across
 
 2-"i2 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 
 
 his path, in the very realms of culture into which he 
 enters. In part, every man shapes his own ideal ; 
 while humanity shapes for him the other part. The 
 most that he can therefore hope to reach is an approxi- 
 mation to that, which for ever eludes his grasp. He 
 even ascends to heights which he finds he is incom- 
 petent to keep. He breathes for a time a serener and 
 less troubled air, and is invigorated by some gleaming 
 prospect from the mountain summit; but he must soon 
 descend to the more prosaic valley, perhaps to toil in 
 some vineyard in the heat of the day. The very 
 definition of his * chief end ' is, as we have said, a con- 
 stant process of becoming, rather than an act of realiza- 
 tion. It is a movement, now swift and now tardy, 
 towards a goal, which ever shifts and recedes as his 
 culture rises. Always about to be, it never fully is. 
 The ideal grows as he grows, advancing towards the 
 measure of the stature of the perfect. The same power 
 of intellectual vision which enables him to discern the 
 ideal in the distance, reveals at the same instant his 
 own defects, and he feels from what a solemn depth of 
 experience Wordsworth spoke when he wrote of those 
 
 Fallings from us, vanishings, 
 
 Blank misgivings of a creature 
 
 Moving about in worlds not realized ; 
 
 High instincts, before which our mortal nature 
 
 Doth tremble, like a guilty thing surprised. 
 
 If, however, we admit the ultimate necessity of 
 cultivating all our powers in conformity with the precept 
 ' Be ye perfect,' how are we to know our immediate 
 duty, with a view to that perfection ? What particular 
 powers ought we to cultivate at a given time, to secure 
 a special end ? Since all our powers cannot be trained
 
 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 2 6 
 
 together, is there no risk of arbitrary selection, in our 
 choice of one at a particular period ? Nay, is there no 
 risk that the inventory we make of the powers and 
 capacities of human nature may be as incomplete as 
 our own idiosyncrasy is defective ? Manifestly, we may 
 become the victims of a faulty ideal, and may carry on 
 the education of our natures along a beaten track of 
 mere individualism, mistaking it for what is broader 
 and freer. We may never traverse the wide areas of 
 existing knowledge, feeling, and action ; just as we may 
 obstinately take 
 
 the rustic murmur of our burg 
 For the great wave that echoes round the world. 
 
 Hence the need of a wide acquaintance with what our 
 fellowmen are doing around us, of the pathways they 
 are traversing, of the inheritances on which they have 
 entered, or the regions they are exploring. We may 
 say of culture, as Tennyson says of freedom, let it 
 
 broaden slowly down 
 From precedent to precedent. 
 
 We must be guided by our predecessors, while we are 
 not their slaves ; just as we enter into their labours, 
 while we cannot rest in any of them. But we are in 
 no case left to the workings of mere caprice, in the 
 choice of a special pathway, at a special time. Our 
 great guiding instincts decide these pathways for us. 
 The balance of the powers being, as we have said, ori- 
 ginally different in each man, and the subsequent 
 training of the faculties being ver} r diverse, we find 
 that long before we reach the time at which we must 
 decide what track we shall mainly pursue, it is already 
 marked out for us, by the working of these instincts
 
 254 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 
 
 themselves. That we may often educate ourselves 
 amiss, we must accept as more or less inevitable. We 
 must end by being to a great extent unsymmetrical, 
 because we began with an unconscious mental twist 
 which we inherited. But it is the function of culture 
 to rectify the bias, to redress the inequality, and to re- 
 adjust the balance, so far as that is possible. One 
 thing no man is at liberty to do, — to yield hopelessly 
 to the difficulties of his position, and acquiesce in his 
 fate as the inevitable victim of a bias. We magnify 
 the virtue of the chase, even though the pursuit is not 
 always rewarded with immediate success. It is the 
 condition of future attainment, and is nobler even 
 without the attainment, than is the attainment with- 
 out the chase. He who gives up the pursuit not only 
 succumbs ignobly to defeat, but the defeat becomes 
 more real and appalling, as he continues to succumb. 
 Losing sight of the real destination of man, and the 
 end of his existence, he becomes, perhaps, the slave of 
 some profession, or trade, or handicraft ; solacing him- 
 self, after the ignominy seems past, by the more obvious 
 practical utilities of life. It would be easy to show in 
 detail how fatal to the highest life of the individual is 
 this despair of culture, and of how little value is any 
 material benefit he may confer upon his fellows, if his 
 own life has withered, or its growth been arrested at 
 the root. 
 
 There is a wide difference between the preceding- 
 doctrine, and the many special ' schemes ' which have 
 been devised and submitted to men, for the rectifica- 
 tion of their life. The laws of culture are briefly 
 summed up in this, ' Let your tvhole nature expand 
 to the very uttermost of which it is capable, in every
 
 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 255 
 
 possible direction, that %t may grow into a perfect 
 structure, compacted by that ivhich every joint sup- ff* 
 plieth! It prescribes no rules. It is utterly catholic, 
 cosmopolitan, and inexhaustible ; yet it is precise, de- 
 fined, and clear. It bids us ' forget what is behind, 
 and reach out to what is before ; nevertheless where- 
 unto we have already attained,' it bids us ' walk by 
 the same rule, and mind the same thing.' Now, in 
 contrast to this severe simplicity, many philosophical 
 moralists point to one special end, the realization of 
 which would lead mankind, they say, to blessedness. 
 Sanguine that they had discovered some scheme by 
 which to rectify the disorganization of human life, they 
 have assumed the office of guide, and have said to 
 others, ' Follow us ; act thus, and you will succeed ; 
 take this path, and you will reach the shrine.' Select 
 any one of those schemes, devised and lauded as a cure 
 for the varied ills under which humanity labours ; 
 suppose it in full operation, and achieving the results 
 which the most sanguine of its teachers could desire, 
 — would there be an approach to the ideal of human 
 nature ? We venture to affirm that even the most 
 ardent and enthusiastic advocate of a special scheme, 
 would, in the gradual working out of his idea, pause, 
 and wish some new expedient added to it. He would 
 find that as men gradually adopted his suggestion, it 
 appealed to but a portion of their nature, and that while 
 it quickened one part, it left others untouched ; that 
 its isolation was its weakness. He would speedily de- 
 sire to supplement, or underprop his scheme, by sun- 
 dry new devices of larger import ; and, whether he did 
 so or not, humanity would soon overstep the limits 
 prescribed to it by its self-constituted teacher. It
 
 2-3G THE SUMMUM BONUM. 
 
 would either quietly, or turaultuously, break down the 
 barrier ; and advance, on its many-sided career, to a 
 destiny beyond its own calculation to foresee. It is 
 for this reason that systems of Philosophy are endlessly 
 changing, that new schools of Poetry and Art rise and 
 fall again. It is for the same reason that History is 
 re- written by new analysts and explorers, who study 
 the fossil remains of humanity from fresh points of 
 view ; and that Science marches ever forward with un- 
 impeded feet on its pathways of discovery. We 
 might add that, indirectly, it is for the same reason 
 that Social and Political schemes are perpetually oscil- 
 lating, and that Commerce finds endless outlets for its 
 energy. The great tidal waves of human thought, 
 feeling, and action sweep onwards with the revolutions 
 of the ages, carrying new treasure, and depositing it 
 upon the shore ; and these become successive strata, 
 each with its own record of past life, which the future 
 historians and interpreters of humanity have to decipher 
 and reveal. 
 
 In the light of what has now been advanced, we 
 may be able to estimate Mr Arnold's teaching on 
 the subject of culture. There are two tendencies 
 which stand somewhat sharply contrasted in human 
 nature — that, viz., which tends to thought and con- 
 templation, and that which tends to work and action. 
 To these two tendencies Mr Arnold has given 
 the names of Hellenism and Hebraism ; because the 
 former — or the tendency to thought and contempla- 
 tion — was the ideal of the ancient Greeks; the latter 
 — the tendency to obedience and action — was pre- 
 dominant in the Jewish race, and characteristic of the 
 Hebrew law. He says that ' the force which en-
 
 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 257 
 
 courages us to stand stanch and fast by the rule and 
 ground we have is Hebraism ; and the force which 
 encourages us to go back upon this rule, and to try 
 the very ground on which we appear to stand, is 
 Hellenism — a turn for giving our consciousness free 
 play, and enlarging its range.' There is much to 
 justify this distinction. It signalises a radical differ- 
 ence between two tendencies of human nature. The 
 terms Hellenism and Hebraism may therefore be taken 
 as descriptive of the two main streams of human 
 effort, as these tend respectively to thought and to 
 action. It is undeniable that they often act as counter 
 currents in the sea of human life, producing storm ; 
 while they ought always to blend and to co-operate. 
 Mr Arnold thinks that a predominance of Hebraism 
 now threatens our English national life, and all our 
 modern culture ; and he would correct this by a strong 
 infusion of the Hellenic element — that spirit which 
 sits apart from practical questions, and lets the mind 
 and consciousness play around the problems which are 
 raised. 
 
 The contrast between the two tendencies is seen in 
 its sharpest form, in the way in which they would re- 
 spectively deal with the practical evils, which menace 
 every human life. ' Sit still, and contemplate them,' 
 is the advice of Hellenism. ' Arise and abolish them,' 
 is the counsel of Hebraism. ' Let your consciousness 
 play freely round about the problems, lest you fall 
 down and worship the fetish of some practical reform,' 
 says the man of thought. ' Go forth into their midst, 
 and " whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with 
 thy might," ' says the rule of Hebrew action. 
 
 It seems evident that to continue thinking over 
 
 R
 
 258 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 
 
 problems that relate to action, without proceeding to 
 act, is to become ultimately paralysed. Our faculties 
 of thought may refuse to play any longer round the 
 problem, lest in the process it becomes a different but 
 less worthy fetish than the other. The Hellenist 
 is in no haste to remove the evils that linger in the 
 world. He appreciates the principle, ' Let both grow 
 together until the harvest.' They are but a few tares 
 amongst the wheat, a variety to study and contem- 
 plate. It would be an unsafe experiment to try to 
 uproot a single tare by an effort of the will ; rather 
 let your consciousness play freely around the tare. 
 He is averse to all crusades against existing evil. Did 
 not the crusaders of mediaeval times, embarking on a 
 bootless errand, come back in ignominy and failure ? 
 
 But is not history — even Greek history — full of 
 abrupt and stormy movements ? And have not some of 
 the most sudden and revolutionary changes in history 
 heralded the seasons of choicest intellectual growth in 
 a people ; just as the most energetic efforts of the will 
 have promoted the moral life of the individual ? Even 
 Nature has her earthquakes, symbolic of those human 
 forces that are subterranean and under-working ; and 
 violent changes have been productive of ultimate good, 
 in keeping up the balance of force in the universe. 
 Whether therefore his action resembles nature's more 
 violent changes, or her more tranquil processes, when- 
 ever an unquestionable evil exists, it is the duty of 
 each one to endeavour to remove it; and to clear the 
 way for future contemplation, by the vigour with which 
 he works in beating it down. As Browning pro- 
 foundly says —
 
 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 259 
 
 The common problem, yours, mine, every one's, 
 Is not to fancy what were fair in life 
 Provided it could be — but finding first 
 What may be, then find how to make it fair 
 Up to our means — a very different thing ! 
 No abstract intellectual plan of life 
 Quite irrespective of life's plainest laws, 
 But one, a man, who is man, and nothing more, 
 May lead within a world which (by your leave) 
 Is Koine or London — not Fool's Paradise. 
 Embellish Rome, idealise away, 
 Make paradise of London if you can, 
 You're welcome, nay, you're wise. 
 
 In the same great poem he condenses much thought 
 in a single line, which we may apply, as we have 
 applied the preceding extract — 
 
 I am much, you are nothing ! you would be all, 
 I would be merely much. 
 
 There can be no doubt that a doctrine which lays 
 an almost exclusive stress on mere thought, tends 
 less or more to emasculate the character, and indefi- 
 nitely postpones action. The efforts of the will are 
 subordinated to the calm procedure of the serene in- 
 telligence. Be it admitted that we need more of the 
 light of reason to check the vagaries of a capricious 
 activity, and the imjDulsive enthusiasm of a very prac- 
 tical people, in a practical age. Nevertheless, as the 
 age is on the whole as practical as it is contemplative, 
 we must sympathise with its forward movements, or we 
 unfit our natures for the reception of that light which 
 these movements reveal, and cramp our intellectual 
 energies. It is true that the majority of men need 
 to reflect more accurately before they act, and the 
 discipline of thought is the most valuable means of
 
 260 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 
 
 regulating the very miscellaneous and ill-assorted forces, 
 which tend continually to action in an unreflective man- 
 ner. But no careful student of history can fail to see 
 that the risk of lapsing into quietism has been greatest 
 in the most intellectual men, and the most intellectual 
 ages. Meditative luxury may breed inaction and a 
 loss of faith in the worth and power of action, which 
 is one of the greatest calamities that can befall a 
 thinker. In proportion to the very delicacy of his 
 perceptions, he may shrink from action, till he has 
 satisfied himself that he has avoided the risk of bias. 
 Thus, a disinclination to arise and take part in re- 
 dressing unquestionable wrongs is very easily engen- 
 dered. The fascinations of cultured thought are great, 
 especially when accompanied by a recoil from the raw- 
 ness of Philistine modes of action, with their precipi- 
 tate and unreflective ardours. But the Hellenist is 
 most likely to become disgusted with practical life 
 altogether ; and, in his anxiety to escape from the 
 whirlpool of blind endeavour, he runs the risk of being 
 left high and dry on the rock of a listless inactivity. 
 
 This evil is one which menaces human culture in 
 every age. Although we may admit in words that 
 thoughtful action is as necessary as active thought can 
 be, we may unduly circumscribe the sphere of action, 
 and find ourselves biassed towards the Hellenism, 
 which rests and thinks that it may not work unwisely, 
 in our nervous horror of the Hebraism which works 
 promptly (though it may be awkwardly) that it may 
 at length see aright and wisely. And this is the ex- 
 treme to which some teachers tend. They admire all 
 calm repose, self-centered, serene, undisturbed by the 
 roar and strife of time. They pity the minute aod
 
 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 261 
 
 toilsome workers who lack profounder vision, and 
 who labour in a groove, because they see but one 
 thing which they ought to do, and do it eagerly. 
 They overlook the fact that in all moral pro- 
 blems the legislative function of the intellect is the 
 mere herald of the executive function of the will, and 
 that we must sometimes act and obey, in order that 
 we may see and know. 
 
 Every worker, who seems to carry his ideal into 
 practice, must come into close contact with the un- 
 gainliness and awkward movements of those, who are 
 acting without an ideal around him. And this is pre- 
 cisely the difficulty which the man of the highest cul- 
 ture finds in all his efforts to translate his ideal into 
 actual life. The moment he begins to work amongst 
 the raw unidealized portions of humanity, that 
 moment he meets with an arrest ; and, it may be 
 sometimes necessary to make a compromise, in order 
 to succeed at all. He may have to descend, 
 with his ideal somewhat veiled, to a level where, if 
 fully displayed, it would not be understood ; in order 
 that, by slowly unveiling it, he may raise the tone 
 of society by degrees. It might even seem as if the 
 worker's own ideal must suffer from his contact with 
 the masses of mankind ; and that thus all reformers 
 must lay down their Hellenic completeness on an altar 
 worthy of the sacrifice. Inevitably, they are men of 
 one, or at most a few ideas. If burdened with many, 
 they would be proportionably fettered in the carrying 
 out of each. Let it be granted that practical action 
 is one-sided, — that it involves a sacrifice to the com- 
 pleteness of the individual or the nation. The want 
 of it, however, is equally one-sided, and involves an
 
 2G2 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 
 
 equal sacrifice. And both the world and individuals 
 have hitherto advanced by a series of one-sidednesses. 
 Time, nevertheless, tends to rectify these. Reactions 
 are inevitable, from the very fact that the extreme has 
 been approached ; and thus both Nature and Humanity 
 readjust themselves. But the man or the nation that 
 would rest in the centre of intellectual calm, and 
 dread activity from the risk of one-sidedness, invariably 
 stagnate in the repose they love, and miss the gain of 
 the extremes when the mean state is reached. 
 
 At the beginning of this article we referred to the 
 relation in which the doctrine of ideal culture stands 
 to kindred problems ; and especially to the two questions 
 closely related to the one with which we started, 'What is 
 the chief end of Man V viz., ' Whence have we come V 
 and ' Whither do we tend V We may be able to answer 
 the first of the three, without obtaining a philosophical 
 reply to the other two ; we may know our duty while 
 we are ignorant of our origin and our destiny ; but we 
 could with difficulty pursue the course which the 
 answer to the first question indicates, without some 
 approximate solution of the others. And every doc- 
 trine of culture which ignores them, or pronounces 
 them insoluble, is to that extent defective in moral 
 power, if it does not lack moral leverage. We need 
 some dpxv xivijfoug. What force is to urge us forwards 
 in the career of a many-sided life ? What is to facilitate 
 the progressive harmony of our powers ? Is it true, 
 as Mr Arnold represents Empedocles as saying — 
 
 Once read thy own heart right, 
 And thou hast done with fears; 
 Man gets no other light, 
 Search he a thousand years ?
 
 THE SUMMUM BONUM. 263 
 
 Must the force proceed from human nature itself? or 
 must it rather spring from a perception of our Origin 
 and our Destination ? If we have approximate evi- 
 dence for the belief that we have emerged from the 
 Infinite, not as atoms developed by the slow evolution 
 of an eternal Force, but as beings cast in the image 
 of the Creator, and destined to immortality, we have 
 at least a motive for the culture of our powers that is 
 inexhaustible. If, on the contrary, we merely stand 
 by the side of the stream of existence, or float on its 
 upper surface, ignorant of its origin and of its issues, 
 we may drift with the current, but we can have little 
 motive to advance. It is a matter of comparative 
 indifference where we stand along the margin of a line, 
 both ends of which are lost in the darkness of the 
 Infinite. But if we know the points from which and 
 to which we tend we have inducements and stimuli to 
 urge us forward. Every branch of philosophic study, 
 of scientific labour, or of artistic toil, yields some new 
 element with which to carry on the education of our 
 powers. We reverence the past, and we strive to learn 
 from its accumulated store, but we aim at a larger 
 and mellower culture than any that the past has 
 bequeathed to us ; while we remember than Man 
 himself is ' greater than anything that educates him,' 
 greater than any object that surrounds him, in the 
 universe of finite existence. 
 
 ,, ^ h *^fu *~y '' 
 
 a. civ-i.e^-] -'• 
 
 J <j
 
 A CONTRIBUTION TOWARDS A THEORY 
 OF POETRY. 
 
 (The British Quarterly Review, January 1873. J 
 
 There are many things, the nature of which we 
 know somewhat vaguely by intuition, while their 
 rational or scientific basis remains unknown. Our 
 earliest notions are necessarily due more to instinct 
 than to knowledge ; and a characteristic dimness is 
 attached to all our ultimate ideas, simply because 
 they are final, and insusceptible of farther analysis. 
 What are Time, Space, Substance, Force, Causation, 
 Beauty ? As St Augustine said of one of these, ' If 
 not asked, I know ; if you ask me, I know not ' — 
 expressing aphoristically the truth that all our know- 
 ledge recedes into mystery, and arises out of the inex- 
 plicable. But human curiosity, which gives rise to 
 Science, seeks an explanation of whatsoever exists ; and 
 all inquiry, if pushed beyond the superficial collection 
 and register of facts, lands the inquirer in Philosophy. 
 Of the three great departments of Philosophy, 
 intellectual, ethical, and esthetic (or that of knowledge, 
 of morals, and of taste), the two former have yielded 
 results which are undoubtedly more definite and satis- 
 factory than the latter. A complete theory of art is 
 still amongst the desiderata of speculative research. 
 Even when the inquiry has been limited to points 
 of comparative detail — such as the nature of Poetry, 
 the first principle of Music, or the essence of Archi-
 
 A THEORY OF POETRY. 265 
 
 tectural law — the question cannot be said to have 
 been wrought out so successfully as the corresponding- 
 problems in intellectual and moral science. Whether 
 from the nature of the theme, or from the mis- 
 cellaneousness of the facts whence the theories have 
 been drawn, we usually miss the rigor of scientific 
 accuracy. Nor is this to be wondered at. The 
 region which they traverse, and of which they en- 
 deavour to furnish us with some intellectual chart, is 
 much more subtle, ethereal, and delicate, than that of 
 ethics or of mental philosophy. To men in general, 
 there is an obviousness in the dictates of morality, in 
 the reports of the senses and the intellect, which 
 does not belong to the judgments of the esthetic 
 faculty. 
 
 It is impossible, within the limits of a brief article, 
 to discuss the whole of this wide and difficult subject. 
 We offer no doctrine of the Beautiful, as a whole ; 
 but, confining ourselves to one sub-section of the great 
 ' hierarchy of the arts,' we propose a theory as to the 
 nature and origin of Poetry, which may perhaps cast 
 a ray of light on the intricacies of the problem. 
 
 The definitions of poetry advanced by critics, and 
 by poets themselves, are numerous and distracting in 
 their variety. But the accumulation of these — no 
 matter how opposite or even contradictory to each 
 other they may be — presents no obstacle to a true 
 philosophy of art. Every theory springs from a root 
 of truth, however outre and distorted the stem may 
 be. Nor is it difficult to account for the inadequacy 
 of many existing definitions. They have arisen, on 
 the one hand, from the limited area whence the 
 theorist has gleaned his facts ; and, on the other,
 
 26G A THEORY OF POETRY. 
 
 from the exigencies of some hypothesis assumed at 
 starting, which has led its author to ignore certain 
 necessary data, or to misread others. Every adequate 
 theory must contain the intellectual essence of the 
 phenomena with which it deals ; and a true theory of 
 poetry is simply the scientific interpretation of the 
 very miscellaneous features which poetic literature 
 presents. Hence it must be absolutely catholic in its 
 recognition of all the facts of poetic production. It 
 must not be the theory of the lyric, or of the epic, or 
 of the drama ; but of that common element, out of 
 which they all arise, and of which they are the mani- 
 festations. 
 
 This is precisely one difficulty in the way of the 
 scientific theorist. He must discover the universal 
 element underneath all special or particular forms, a 
 principle definite and precise, yet elastic and relevant 
 to all the varied phases which imaginative literature 
 has assumed in the past. His knowledge ought to be 
 great, his critical tact greater, and his power of 
 generalisation greatest of all. 
 
 Another source of difficulty is the widely different 
 senses in which the word poetry is used, not only in 
 common speech, but also in philosophical discussion. 
 Scarcely two writers make use of it in exactly the 
 same signification. Now it denotes the mere ' art of 
 versification/ apart from its subject matter ; again it 
 is regarded in its root or origin in the soul of the 
 poet, apart from its outward form. Now the product, 
 and again the process of production is referred to. 
 Sometimes the term denotes the vague spirit, or 
 subtle essence of Nature, or of the various arts. Thus 
 we hear of the poetry of science, of music, or of
 
 A THEORY OF POETRY. 267 
 
 human life. There is a vagueness, to some minds 
 delicious, but to others altogether distracting, in this 
 irregularity in the popular use of the term. We 
 desire to get beneath the confusion, and to ascertain, 
 if possible, the essential nature of the thing itself, or 
 its generic character and relations. 
 
 At the outset of our inquiry some very obvious 
 distinctions pi'esent themselves. We must not con- 
 found the poetic faculty or instinct, in the mind of 
 the poet, with the result of its operation in the poetic 
 product, or the construction of imaginative forms. 
 The one is the root whence the other, as a many- 
 branched tree, arises. The root is underground, in 
 the soul of the poet ; the branch alone becomes 
 visible to others, in the creation of poems. The 
 poetic faculty, however, is no special endowment of 
 the more gifted seers or men of genius. The poet's 
 soul is not of a radically different structure from that 
 of other men. His temperament, the balance of his 
 powers, and the calibre of some of them, may be 
 different. But the peculiar talent which constitutes 
 him a poet, in addition to the imaginative faculty 
 which everyone possesses in a greater or less degree, 
 is the capacity of representing, in the fit language of 
 rhythmic forms, that higher intellectual insight to 
 which he has risen, or that vivid feeling with which 
 his own spirit has been pre-eminently inspired. It is 
 the power of translating thought and emotion, from 
 their inarticulate and latent state, into the forms of 
 articulate speech, whether these be metrical or not. 
 
 Again, we must distinguish between the scientific 
 and the poetic imagination. It is not mere insight 
 into the secrets of Nature or of Humanity that con-
 
 268 A THEORY OF POETRY. 
 
 stitutes a man a poet — although all true poets are 
 seers — for the end and aim of science is also to ex- 
 plore these secrets, and to register the results of the 
 exploration. Nor is it sufficient to fall back on the 
 etymology of the word ' Poet/ which signifies ' maker ' 
 or ' creative artist.' The constructor of a steam 
 engine is also a maker, though what he produces is 
 usually (it may be erroneously) regarded as most 
 prosaic. The mind, which originates a philosophy, or 
 consolidates a nationality, is as truly a maker, as the 
 writer of a tragedy, or the composer of a song. The 
 poet is thus manifestly a creator of a particular order. 
 His sphere is not a limited one ; for he deals with 
 the whole area of Nature, and the entire keyboard of 
 Humanity. But he surveys his area in a special 
 mood of mind. He records and reproduces the notes 
 he hears, in a manner peculiar to himself. The world 
 which presents itself to his eye is the same as that in 
 which the truth-seeker and the moralist move ; but 
 he sees it under a different guise. The characteristic 
 to which he primarily looks, and the apprehension of 
 which moves him to utterance, is that of Beauty, in 
 one or other of its manifold forms. Beauty, however, 
 never presents itself to his eye in absolute perfection, 
 it is always recognised over against a foil of imperfec- 
 tion : and it is the presence of its opposite, alongside 
 or intermingled with it, and marring this perfection, 
 which gives rise to the poetic passion. The percep- 
 tion of the latter element, producing uneasiness, leads 
 to an idealisation of the real, as it exists around us in 
 its concrete forms, whether in nature or in character, 
 in historic incident or in individual life. This, how- 
 ever, is to anticipate.
 
 A THEORY OF POETRY. 209 
 
 It may be convenient, before going farther, to 
 recall some of the more famous definitions of poetry 
 advanced by philosophers or critics. 
 
 Aristotle held that its essence consisted in the imita- 
 tion {ji.iu.ntf i i) of Nature, corresponding to the pre-Raphael- 
 itism of the Realist school of painters. In this he 
 has had a large following, notably amongst recent 
 writers, H. Taine. Lord Bacon, with deeper insight 
 in this direction than his Greek predecessor, placed 
 its essence in imagination, or the idealization of 
 nature ; and he, too, is the founder of a school. 
 It has been denned as ' the natural language of excited 
 feeling, intense and inspired ; ' and as ' a work of the 
 imagination wrought into form by art.' A suggestive 
 definition is that which represents it as ' the indirect 
 expression' of that which ' cannot be expressed directly.' 
 Still more suggestive is that recently advanced by a 
 writer in one of our weekly journals of criticism — 
 ' Poetry is the protest of the emotions against the domin- 
 ion of the intellect ; ' and the various schools of poetry 
 have been thus described : — Greek poetry, as ' the 
 protest of free-will against the domination of fate or 
 necessity;' Jewish poetry, as 'the passionate out- 
 break of human love, devotion and trust, against the 
 restraints of mere outward law ; ' Dante's poetry, as 
 ' the protest of human instincts against ecclesiastical 
 tyranny ; ' Chaucer's against ' the iron monotony of 
 mediaeval life ; ' Shakspeare's, as ' the general assertion 
 of the right of man to be as various and as wonderful 
 a creature as God had made him, which was the fit 
 accompaniment of that new spring-time of human 
 thought and enterprise, the revival of learning, and 
 the discovery of the New World.' And in the
 
 270 A THEORY OF POETRY. 
 
 modern poetry of Coleridge, Shelley, Wordsworth, 
 Tennyson, and Browning, there is detected the same 
 remonstrance of the human spirit against external 
 pressure, against the despotism of nature, and even the 
 yoke of mere science or knowledge. This is a much 
 more valuable contribution to a true theory than the 
 definition of Keble, who, in his lectures delivered 
 from the Oxford Chair of Poetry, considered it as 
 ' a vent for overcharged feeling or a full imagination, 
 when the mind is overpowered and requires relief; ' 
 or than that of Sir Francis Doyle, who traces it to 
 ' dissatisfaction with what is present and close at 
 hand ; ' which, he says, is, ' one of nature's silent 
 promises to the heart, one stimulus to the advance- 
 ment of the race, one source of the abiding greatness 
 of man.' In a remarkably beautiful essay ' in defence 
 of poetry,' Shelley is quite as remarkably deficient 
 in clearness of definition. ' To be a poet,' he says, 
 ' is to apprehend the true and the beautiful, in a 
 word the good, which exists in the relation between 
 existence and perception, and between perception and 
 expression.' Again, he says, 'poetry expresses those 
 arrangements of language which are created by that 
 imperial faculty, whose throne is curtained within the 
 invisible nature of man.' This is nearly as unsatis- 
 factory as the deliverance of a recent ambitious 
 writer, on ' Poetics ' that poetry is ' the record of 
 pleasure, intended to produce pleasure.' Wordsworth's 
 essays on this subject — like all that he ever wrote — 
 are worthy of the most thoughtful pondering ; although 
 his theory, erring through a restriction of the sphere 
 of imagination, stands in marked contrast to his own 
 practice of the art. It would be easy to multiply
 
 A THEORY OF POETRY. 271 
 
 definitions ; but those given will sufficiently illustrate 
 the drift of speculation, and of criticism, on the subject. 
 
 In seeking a solution of the problem from a fresh 
 point of view, we find two laws governing all our 
 intellectual processes, the adequate recognition of 
 which may perhaps afford a key to the true nature 
 of poetry. The first is, that all our knowledge is, in 
 one sense, a knowledge of differences and contrasts. 
 We neither know, nor can know anything, except in its 
 contrast with something unlike it. We are conscious 
 of self, only in contrast with what is not self ; of matter, 
 in its contrast with mind ; of good, as opposed to 
 evil ; of beauty, in its opposition to ugliness ; of the 
 infinite intelligence, in its antithesis to the finite. 
 The fact of opposition, of difference, or contrariety, 
 thus conditions all our knowledge. The second law is 
 that, in the free and unimpeded energy of the faculties, 
 apprehending the objects to which they stand related, 
 there is always an attendant joy. As Aristotle 
 pointed out, and Sir William Hamilton has illus- 
 trated in detail, pleasure is the concomitant or reflex 
 of the free action of the human faculties. 
 
 Taking, then, these two simple — and I think 
 ultimate laws with us, let us realize our position in 
 the surrounding universe. With both the outward 
 and inward eye, with the senses and the intellect 
 combined, we gaze around us. Our faculties appre- 
 hend a multitude of objects which arrest and detain 
 them, which at once engross and stimulate their 
 action. There are lights, colours, forms, motions, 
 sounds ; and the objects of nature are beheld by us 
 clothed with the raiment of the beautiful. In the 
 apprehension of this, if the energy of our faculties be
 
 272 A THEORY OF POETRY. 
 
 free and unimpeded, there is pleasure. But associated 
 with the beautiful, we discern the presence of a counter 
 element, that, viz., of the ugly or deformed. By the 
 presence of this alien element, the imaginative faculties 
 are arrested in their freedom ; and in proportion to 
 the pleasure arising from their unimpeded action is 
 the pain which springs from their arrest. The human 
 spirit tends instinctively towards the beautiful. It has 
 a natural affinity with all beauty and harmony, and 
 their perception awakens a joyous activity of the 
 powers. But the deformed or the inharmonious also 
 surrounds it, hindering the freedom and repressing the 
 action of its faculties. Our yearning for the beautiful 
 is keen, in proportion to our experience of its opposite. 
 No one relishes the solitude and glory of the moun- 
 tains so vividly as he who comes to them direct from 
 city smoke and noise. The sense of the inharmonious 
 and the artificial around us quickens our percep- 
 tion of natural harmony ; but in no case is our 
 enjoyment of the latter unalloyed. We always feel 
 that the beauty we behold in nature, or in humanity, 
 might be more perfect than it is ; and we constantly 
 detect the notes of discord in the midst of harmony, 
 which betray the presence of its opposite. 
 
 That type of perfect in the mind, 
 In nature we can nowhere find. 
 
 The uneasiness which this creates originates both a 
 desire and an effort to escape from the presence of the 
 inharmonious, and to get into the presence and under 
 the influence of the beautiful. We desire to subdue 
 the deformed by the lovely. Instinctively — without 
 ever thinking of this as the rationale of our act — we
 
 A THEORY OF POETRY. 27 3 
 
 strive to rid ourselves of the uneasiness, produced by 
 that element with which the human spirit is in natural 
 and abiding 1 conflict, and which arrests its freedom. 
 And it is precisely in this effort to reach the beautiful, 
 through all conscious or unconscious hindrance, that 
 poetry has its birth. We perceive in the mingled 
 phenomena of the universe, beauty marred by deform- 
 ity. Instinctively, we rise towards the beautiful, 
 urged on by the stimulus — whether gentle or severe 
 — of its opposite, with its uncongeniality, and hin- 
 drance to the free action of our natures : and the very 
 effort thus to rise is the spring of the poetic impulse. 
 
 Suppose now that w T e inhabited a world ' of beauty 
 all compact,' from which every discordant element was 
 absent, we might rest in the passive contemplation of its 
 loveliness, but we should be without poetry. There is 
 some truth in the extreme position of Vinet, that poetry 
 is due to our decline from perfection. ' When Innocence 
 retreated tearfully from our earth,' says Vinet, ' she 
 met Poetry on the threshold. They passed close by, 
 looked at each other, and each went her way — the 
 one to heaven, and the other to the dwellings of men.' 
 Translated from the language of allegory into fact, this 
 means that Poetry, being the outcome and expression 
 of our yearning for perfection, could not exist in a 
 perfect world. If every object in Nature, if every fact 
 and occurrence, or element in life presented us with 
 harmony, the poet's vocation would cease. The human 
 faculties would no longer be creative. They could not 
 reach after the ideal ; for the ideal and the real would 
 be identical. Imagination's highest effort would be a 
 transcript of what is, not the creation of what might 
 be, and of a nobler than that which is. The poet
 
 274 A THEORY OF POETRY. 
 
 would be merely the historian of past types of beauty, 
 and the recorder of its present forms ; and all that 
 varied interest, passionate enthusiasm, and nameless 
 spell which now allures him in his quest for the ideal, 
 would vanish in the prosaic chronicle of facts. But, 
 with deformity subtly intermingled with beauty in the 
 universe that now is, — surrounded as we are with dis- 
 cords, material and moral, in the midst of harmony, — 
 the imagination feels a constant spur to effect, in the 
 interests of the beautiful, a reconciliation of the things 
 opposed. 
 
 Thus, Poetry may be roughly said to pursue Beauty 
 as marred by deformity; and the intensity of the 
 pursuit marks the intensity of the poetic character. 
 The highest poet is he who aims most earnestly after 
 the perfection of ' the beautiful ' in the poetic recon- 
 ciliation of the discords of the universe. Towards this 
 all-embracing Universal he strains his energies. In 
 his products, the creations of his faculty in this high 
 quest, there must always be the blending of the real 
 with the ideal, or rather, the leavening of the former 
 with the latter. He deals with the real as he finds 
 it — beauty blent with ugliness, discord in the midst 
 of harmony, sorrow in the heart of joy, good corn- 
 minded with evil — and he strives to idealize it, to 
 transfigure the reality, and to harmonize the discord, 
 by means of poetic idealization. Standing on the 
 level and prosaic earth of the actual, he breathes, 
 through imagination, the higher air of the ideal. 
 Etherealized by it, and borne on subtle wing into the 
 region of a higher harmony, he discerns the remote 
 reconciliation, which men who only breathe the air of 
 the actual never know, and cannot comprehend.
 
 A THEORY OF POETRY. 275 
 
 Thence inspired, he descends again to the sphere of 
 the actual, and proclaims the ' open secret ' to his 
 fellows. 
 
 But, in this disclosure to his fellows, he makes use 
 of an instrument which distinguishes the poet, as an 
 interpreter, from others in the artist fraternity. That 
 medium is Language, shaped into metrical or musical 
 form. Language is the branch which springs from 
 the root of poetry in the poet's soul ; while its metrical 
 or rhythmical forms may be said to correspond to the 
 foliage which clothes the branches. 
 
 There might be the most delicate appreciation of 
 the beautiful in the mind of the seer, without any 
 embodiment of the results of that appreciation, in art ; 
 that is to say, without the creation of poems. Sym- 
 pathy with every phase of esthetic loveliness might 
 exist, without its taking shape, and clothing itself in 
 a communicable form. It might remain personal to the 
 seer himself, and not being recorded for others, would 
 never become an inheritance of the race. In its silent 
 birthplace, however, this seed of poetry always runs 
 the risk of decay. It must rise from its seed-bed, if 
 it is to be an abiding property even of the poet him- 
 self; and imaginative genius usually proclaims its 
 presence by the facility with which its possessor — who 
 is otherwise the mute contemplator of the beautiful — 
 reveals his insight to others, through his mastery of 
 language. Written language is to the poet, what the 
 notes of the gamut are to the musician, and his pig- 
 ments are to the painter, his marble to the sculptor, 
 and stone, wood, &c, to the architect. All these are 
 expressive media of thought and feeling; but Language 
 immeasurably transcends them in its power of render-
 
 27 G A THEORY OF POETRY. 
 
 ing the minutest shades of spiritual meaning. It is- 
 the garment in which Mind is most fitly clothed, and 
 through which it is made most intelligible. 
 
 This instrument which the poet wields is, in one 
 sense, the most curious of all existences. Being the 
 vocal expression of thought uttered by corporeal organs, 
 or its written expression appealing to the sense of 
 sight, it is half-material ; being the symbol of ideas, 
 and the index of feeling, it is half-spiritual. It is the 
 vehicle of emotion, and the record of intelligence; 
 and with it the Poet records in permanent forms the 
 visions of his inward eye, making them glow with the 
 life of the imagination. Much of the charm of his 
 words is due to the power of metrical language which 
 shrouds the bare conceptions of the intellect in a 
 luminous veil, so as to transfigure and glorify them. 
 It at once defines the vague aspirations which tend 
 towards the Infinite, and brings them home to the 
 earth. Condensing them into clear expression, it gives 
 a voice to that dumb wonder which the glory of the 
 universe calls forth. Thus a single line of poetry often 
 contains more concentrated thought than a dozen pages 
 of prose ; while the thought is etherealized, and ascends, 
 till it loses itself in the infinite and the divine. 
 
 We may perhaps see further into the origin of poetry 
 if we compare the tendency which gives rise to it, with 
 the impulse which leads to the study of the laws of 
 nature, and originates the sciences. One whose spirit 
 lies open to the teachings of the outer Universe, sur- 
 rounded by manifold and mysterious phenomena, finds 
 arising within him a twofold impulse. The first leads 
 him to investigate the processes of Nature, to explore 
 her hidden recesses, that he may know more and. 

 
 A THEORY OF POETRY. 277 
 
 more accurately ivhat is. The other leads him to 
 recombine what he has seen, in fresh imaginative 
 forms, to reproduce what he has already beheld and to 
 idealize it, or to create new artificial products suggested 
 by it. In the former case he finds himself under the 
 dominion of law. His investigations are not only 
 within its domain, they are directed to the discovery 
 of wider and yet wider laws. In the presence of 
 nature, he fain would penetrate into her farthest 
 recess to wrest her secret, if possible, from the shrine. 
 As he continues his research, he comes upon innumer- 
 able arcana, the mysteries of which stir his wonder. 
 These secrets baffle him, and arrest his powers. But 
 as he again looks forth upon the universe, he sees the 
 raiment of the beautiful around these very phenomena 
 into the heart of which he cannot pierce. The glory 
 •of nature at once overawes his spirit, and quickens his 
 wonder into admiration, till gradually it ceases to be 
 silent, becomes vocal, and breaks into a song. He 
 perceives that this Universe, which he cannot fathom, 
 is in constant motion, in alternate ebb and flow. The 
 rhythm of nature's inscrutable force moves his spirit to 
 rhythmic utterance. The perception of mystery, baffling 
 liis faculties of knowledge, brings with it a certain 
 amount of pain or uneasiness. The discernment of 
 the beautiful, covering or surrounding this very mystery, 
 awakens pleasure. There is a smile which the poet 
 sees in the heart of the universe, into which the mere 
 t] linker cannot penetrate. And whenever this is dis- 
 cerned, the calm contemplation of science, with its dry 
 light, is exchanged for feeling, and a movement more 
 or less impassioned, leading to an outburst of rapture 
 and ending in song. While the poet ' muses, the fire
 
 278 A THEORY OF POETRY. 
 
 burns ; and then he speaks with his tongue.' It is 
 when the tide of emotion is at the flood, — the waters 
 of the great outer universe urging it from behind, — 
 that he is roused to freest and fullest utterance. None- 
 of the allied arts awaken the same glowing ardour of 
 imaginative passion. Poetry, in short, is what Bettina 
 named the music of Beethoven, ' intellectual wine.' 
 
 But nature, thus potent and genial in its influence, 
 does not create the poetic fire. It only evokes it from 
 the depths of the human spirit, to which it has made 
 appeal. Nor, on the other hand, does the poet pro- 
 ject his own subjectivity upon nature, covering it with 
 an ideal robe of glory, that has been altogether wrought 
 within himself. He is, before all things else, a seer. 
 There is a ' pre-established harmony ' between the 
 power within, ' the vision and the faculty divine,' and, 
 the recognised and interpreted beauty without. These 
 two act and re-act upon each other. If nature simply 
 set her seal upon the poet, and created within him all 
 that he is thereafter able to body forth, his finest pro- 
 ductions would be simply photographic. But her 
 function is to elicit and develope those imaginative 
 powers which in their full maturity are able to tran- 
 scend herself. There is an exquisite harmony between 
 Man and Nature — between the most delicate emotions 
 of the one, and the forms, colours, and changes of the 
 other, — so that its symbols are the fittest language in 
 which human feeling can be expressed. Poetry thus 
 mediates between man and nature. It is a bridge 
 connecting the material and the spiritual spheres; the 
 physical universe being a storehouse of analogies which 
 mirror to us the secrets of humanity, while humanity 
 gives back a reflection of nature's silent processes. It
 
 A THEORY OF POETRY. 279 
 
 is an obvious, but little-noticed fact, that the most 
 luminous descriptions of the inner world of human 
 emotion are invariably expressed in terms gathered 
 from the outer realm of Nature ; and also, that we 
 always borrow from Humanity in endeavouring to 
 interpret nature. All languages contain the evidence 
 of this principle, embedded as fossil remains in their 
 structure, proving it to be universal. 
 
 Whether, therefore, we think of lyric poetry, as the 
 expression of a single jet of feeling, or the embodiment 
 of one passion ; of epic poetry, as the concentrated 
 story of an age or generation, picturesque and full of 
 moving incidents and changes ; of the drama, as the 
 tragic struggle of individuals against untoward destiny; 
 of comedy, as a portrayal of the ludicrous elements 
 which enter into all existence ; of the elegy, as the 
 memorial song of regret and lamentation over the 
 unfinished ; or of narrative and descriptive poetry, 
 as an attempt to interpret some human incident, or 
 give the meaning of some mood of nature — the essence 
 of all is fundamentally the same. It is essentially a 
 representation of what is, or has been, a new embodi- 
 ment hinting of some deeper secret hidden under- 
 neath ; and evermore it pursues the perfect ideal, 
 through the maze, the imperfection, or the discord 
 of the actual world. It is the shallowest theory of 
 Art, which confines it to a transcript or imitation of 
 what is, — the mere copy or mimicry of the actual. 
 Always based upon the real, it is the idealization or 
 exaltation of it. It is (as the Greek term hints) a 
 creation ; a fashioning, which is a re-fashioning, of 
 elements already present in the universe. But the 
 range of the poet's art, as reproducer and interpreter,
 
 280 A THEORY OF POETRY. 
 
 is almost boundless. He can create imaginative pictures 
 which have no real existence and never could have 
 any; not because they fall beneath the actual, but 
 because they transcend it. 
 
 In the exercise of this power of imagination, he may 
 realize his relation to the Supreme Spirit of the 
 universe, for the creative power of the Infinite has 
 its shadowy adumbration in the finite. He can create 
 nothing new, but he can make use of all existing 
 material, while he fashions, unmakes, re-fashions, 
 idealizes. In the scientific region, the investigator 
 employs analysis as well as synthesis : and the former 
 is a necessary pre-requisite to the latter. But the 
 poet is always synthetic. He is at once discoverer 
 and inventor, architect and builder. He finds through- 
 out the vast expanse of Nature magnificent storehouses 
 of imagery, expressing the subtlest gradations of human 
 thought and feeling. Through these his spirit wanders 
 brooding, till it becomes vocal, having found • the fit 
 embodiment of thought in language. He sees that 
 every phenomena is a symbol of something else ; that 
 each object contains a parable ; that all Nature is 
 connected by analogy, and interrelated by its sym- 
 bolism. But in order to this, there must be high 
 imaginative insight. It is this, more than anything 
 else, — the possession of intellectual second-sight, — 
 which constitutes a poet. He has a clearer, finer, 
 and more delicate vision than other men ; while his 
 soul is moved to rhythmic strains by the gentle 
 stimuli of which we have spoken. His mental glance 
 and temperament are such, that having seen, he must 
 record his vision ; having heard, he must declare it ; 
 being inspired, he cannot keep silence.
 
 A THEORY OF POETRY. 281 
 
 The poet must also possess what we may call 
 selective poiver, in the choice of his materials. Almost 
 everything in nature may become the subject of a 
 poem ; but a severe fastidiousness is essential to poetic 
 unity. A rigid spirit of exclusiveness, with the in- 
 stinct to reject materials which crowd in from the 
 fertile regions of nature and humanity, is one test of 
 the true artist. ' In what he leaves unsaid/ wrote 
 Schiller, ' I discover the master of style.' All nature 
 is fair, but there are moods of nature brighter and 
 fairer than her common ones. There are moods in 
 which she is obstinate, and almost dumb, in which she 
 will not yield up her secret to the investigator. And 
 the poet must not only select an object which he can 
 shape into an ideal whole, but in endeavouring to 
 grasp the symbolism of Nature, he must seize the 
 moment when she seems to be giving forth the burden 
 of her secret. It is in his insight in this direction 
 that we see the esthetic tact, or fine spiritual touch of 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 It is scarcely possible to exaggerate the value of 
 poetic culture in elevating the individual, as well as 
 educating humanity, especially in an age in which the 
 purely scientific impulse is making such gigantic strides; 
 and in which, according to the teaching of some of its 
 most accomplished leaders, it is threatening to narrow 
 the domain of poetry, until it reigns itself supreme. 
 It is well that amongst our scientific guides we have 
 some who (like Samuel Brown in the last generation) 
 recognise the ' scientific uses of the imagination.' 
 For it may easily be shown that instead of misleading 
 the student of nature, Imagination is the great pioneer 
 in the discovery of her laws; and that, when inductive
 
 282 A THEORY OF POETRY. 
 
 research and generalization have reached their last 
 results, Imagination has still its office, soaring above 
 the processes of law, into that region of sublimest 
 mystery, in which its winged power is ultimately lost. 
 Poetry is also, in its highest types, the best counter- 
 active to materialism. Sympathy with it, an apprecia- 
 tive understanding of it in its nobler forms, brings 
 man into contact with nature's freshest life, and 
 unwearied processes ; while it reveals the exhaustless 
 treasures, which lie latent in the human spirit. It is 
 thus — as it has well been called — 'the safety-valve 
 of the heart.' It lifts its devotees, and even its 
 average sympathisers, into a higher atmosphere than 
 they are wont to breathe. It calls us out of ourselves, 
 and by bringing the vast powers of the Universe and 
 of Humanity before our gaze, it frees us from morbid 
 egotism. It may even help the perplexed student of 
 nature, who sees nothing in the universe but a network 
 of adamantine law, cold, silent and obscure, -to regard 
 it also as a Temple in which he may worship. The 
 poet leads us into the heart of that sphere, which 
 some physicists proclaim to be a region of impenetrable 
 darkness ; but to him it is the real wonderland — a 
 region girt, it is true, at its circumference with a fringe 
 of solemn mystery, but at its centre, radiant with the 
 light of intelligence. The frontiers may be dim, but 
 the shrine is luminous. It is much if the poet help 
 to teach us that the world, in which we live, is not 
 only a Home for present residence, and a School for 
 transient discipline, but also a Temple for perpetual 
 praise.
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 A Lecture delivered in May, 187S, at Cockermouth, to the 
 Cumberland Association for the Advancement of Litera- 
 ture and Science ; and afterwards to the Ladies' 
 Educational Association, at Cork. 
 
 So much has been said about the genius and poetic 
 mission of Wordsworth — and said so well — that I 
 daresay some of you, who live in his birthplace, may 
 think that the subject is exhausted. After the criti- 
 cisms of Coleridge and De Quincey, of Sir Henry 
 Taylor, of Brimley, Clough, Robertson, Lowell, Hutton, 
 and above all of Mr. Stopford Brooke, and the present 
 Professor of Poetry at Oxford, there seems little need 
 to say more. 
 
 And yet, there is no possibility of exhausting Words- 
 worth, any more than of exhausting Plato. When the 
 time comes for the world to believe that the last word 
 has been said about the great idealist of antiquity, 
 men may perhaps think that Wordsworth also is ex- 
 hausted. Plato, indeed, moves in a sphere, and speaks 
 in a dialect, that is philosophically more profound ; but 
 he never soars into a more ethereal region. He docs 
 not interpret Nature or human Life more adequately, 
 nor does the student of his works breathe a more un- 
 troubled air, than that in which Wordsworth lived and 
 had his being. 
 
 In order to a just appreciation of this poet, two 
 things are flecessary. First, we must mark the growth
 
 •2 8 4 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 and development in his own mind of a new attitude 
 towards Nature, and Man in relation to nature, as this 
 is disclosed in his autobiographical poem, 'The Prelude,' 
 — by far the greatest work of its kind ever contributed 
 to literature. Secondly, we must ascertain the relation 
 in which he stood to the poetical literature of England 
 in the immediately preceding age, and what new 
 elements he introduced into it, by his twofold inter- 
 pretation of nature and man. 
 
 [I omit the earlier paragraphs of this Lecture, which 
 dealt exclusively with the first of these two points — 
 the life and individuality of the poet — as it has been 
 often and ably unfolded : and I pass to the second of 
 the questions raised in the preceding sentence.] 
 
 I have now to ask, What was it that Wordsworth 
 did for literature and for the world, as no poet before 
 him had done, and no one need attempt to do again ? 
 What, in other words, were the distinctive elements of 
 his genius and his power, constituting him a teacher 
 for all time ? It is a large question, and one to which 
 many lectures might be devoted. 
 
 It is to him, beyond question, that we mainly owe 
 the nineteenth century renaissance, in the poetical 
 literature of England. The so-called poets of the 
 eighteenth century were simply ' men of letters.' They 
 had various accomplishments, and great general ability; 
 but their thoughts were expressed in prose, or in mere 
 metrical diction, which, in the low ebb tide of creative 
 imagination, passed current as poetry, without being 
 so. Towards the close of the century, however, there 
 was a reaction, and a quickening of mind, which took 
 shape in many different directions. One of its most
 
 WORDSWORTH. 285 
 
 prominent signs was a rise in the poetical temperature. 
 This may be traced mainly to two great European in- 
 fluences; to the growth of modern German philosophy, 
 and to the social and political forces that culminated 
 in the French Revolution. In Germany, Lessing, 
 Goethe, Schiller, and Jean Paul, were all the products 
 of this movement. A new way of looking both at 
 Nature and Society had been inaugurated by Rousseau, 
 and our insular mind — never long unaffected by the 
 great pulse of European thought — caught the contagiou, 
 and responded sympathetically in many ways, carrying- 
 forward the stream of tendency, to new and original 
 issues. Amongst the poets, in whom we trace the 
 working of the new spirit, themselves influenced from 
 very diverse quarters, were Cowper, Crabbe, and Burns. 
 All the greater poets, though in part the product of 
 their age, are more conspicuously its formative and 
 inspiring spirits. In them, the intellectual and esthe- 
 tic energy of a period finds one of its most character- 
 tic expressions. And in the group of illustrious men, 
 who created the poetical literature of England, towards 
 the close of last century, and during the first quarter 
 of this, — Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, Byron, Shelley, 
 Keats, with many others of lesser note, — we find a 
 sudden outcome of energy long repressed: as, in this 
 district of yours, after a tardy Spring, one week 
 of genial weather will sometimes liberate the im- 
 prisoned life of Nature, and cause it to burst suddenly 
 into leaf and bloom. 
 
 Of this brotherhood of poets (which in originality 
 and genius excelled the earlier constellation of the 
 Elizabethan era) Wordsworth was, beyond all question, 
 the leader. In him, the creative impulse, and the
 
 286 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 new attitude towards nature and man, assumed features 
 altogether unique ; and he may therefore be taken as 
 their most prominent literary representative in England. 
 
 Accurately to measure his genius, however, either as 
 to its positive amount or special quality, Wordsworth 
 must be compared both with his predecessors and his 
 contemporaries. Few things are more interesting than 
 to contrast his work in detail with that of those earlier 
 writers, from whom the whole new movement was a 
 reaction, and with that of those who were borne for- 
 ward along with him on the rising tide of the renais- 
 sance, bringing out succinctly the precise points of 
 -difference. Take only two. 
 
 Comparing him with Pope, you find in Wordsworth 
 a. frankness and directness, the absence of all round- 
 about or artificial ways of dealing with and describing 
 things. He spoke and he wrote, because he felt, and 
 as he felt ; therefore clearly, freshly, adequately. He 
 did not describe what all men saw, but what the 
 majority failed to see only because their 'inward eye' 
 had not been trained to see it. Their mind had never 
 awakened to perceive, nor their heart to feel, the sig- 
 nificance of the simplest things ; and so, in reading 
 Wordsworth, many became aware for the first time 
 that they 
 
 had faculties 
 Which they had never used ; that thought with them 
 "Was in its infancy. 
 
 They felt as if a new sense had been given to them, or 
 a power, higher than sense, had suddenly arisen from 
 obscure and shadowy recesses. As Keats wrote, when 
 he first looked into Chapman's Homer —
 
 WORDSWORTH. 287 
 
 Then felt I as some watcher of the skies 
 When a new planet swims into his ken. 
 
 Comparing him again with Byron, you find in 
 Wordsworth a healthful radiance, the supreme note of 
 naturalness. His serenity was due to a clear-eyed 
 freshness of perception, and — what is often denied to 
 him — his objectivity of mind. He is never morbid, 
 or hollow, or cynical ; while to those who craved ex- 
 citement he had nothing to offer. As he wrote in the 
 poem of ' Hart-leap Well ' : — 
 
 The moving accident is not my trade, 
 To freeze the blood I have no ready arts ; 
 'Tis my delight alone, in summer shade, 
 To pipe a simple song for thinking hearts. 
 
 He could not have wailed out his own sorrows to 
 the world in a misanthropic manner, even supposing 
 him to have felt that ' vanity of vanities ' was the last 
 word of the wise, in reference to earthly good. To 
 carry, like Byron, through Europe, 
 
 The pageant of a bleeding heart, 
 
 was impossible to Wordsworth ; both, because his heart 
 
 never bled like Byron's — 
 
 the holy forms 
 Of young imagination kept it pure ; — 
 
 and also, because he would have scorned to parade his 
 misery. One element in his greatness was, that with 
 open soul he felt the spirit of the age, which took him 
 out of himself, in the first instance to Nature. He 
 saw that Nature had a revelation to impart which 
 man ought, in ' a wise passiveness ' to receive. This 
 he perceived very early, and may be said to have
 
 288 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 absorbed the idea within a spirit singularly pliant, and 
 open to such influence. It gradually consolidated and 
 matured — the form changing, but the substantial part 
 of the idea remaining unaltered ; and it became the 
 increasing purpose of his life to proclaim it to his con- 
 temporaries, carrying it out through a long literary 
 career, against all adverse criticism and the want of 
 popular appreciation, and embodying the result in a 
 series of immortal poetic creations. 
 
 It is the easiest thing in the world to criticise 
 Wordsworth as Jeffrey did, — the acute Edinburgh 
 lawyer, blind of one eye, who neither ' saw life steadily 
 nor saw it whole,' and for whom nature contained no 
 oracle or shrine. It is poor criticism even to say, as 
 others have done, that Wordsworth had no humour, 
 and no dramatic faculty ; and that he, therefore, 
 belongs to the secondary rank of genius. Humour is 
 doubtless a great power, and Wordsworth had little or 
 none of it. But though the sunny laughter of the 
 humourist is a source of inexhaustible delight to men 
 who have to face much vanity and vexation of spirit, 
 it is intrinsically a poorer thing to resuscitate our 
 cheerfulness by laughter, than to rouse our flagging 
 energies by insight, and fellowship with nature. It 
 is true that Wordsworth would have had comparatively 
 little appreciation of the intricate culture of our age, 
 an age that is daily growing more involved. His 
 poetry traverses a few great lines of thought and 
 feeling, more profoundly than any other poetry does ; 
 but its area is not wide. The complex civilisation of 
 the nineteenth century, with its endless detail, was on 
 the whole distasteful to him ; and its best side, its 
 redeeming side, was probably not understood. On the
 
 WORDSWORTH. 289 
 
 other hand, the cure for the fever and fret of the 
 nineteenth (or of any) century was well known, and 
 profoundly grasped by him. The best antidote to 
 the distractions of life — to the frittering away of 
 strength, and the dissipation of energy in trifles — was 
 understood ; and by no writer, ancient or modern, has 
 it been more nobly uttered. 
 
 It is, perhaps, useless to revive the criticisms of 
 half a century ago, the long-buried judgments that 
 were passed, by the guides of literary opinion in their 
 time, on the merits of this new poet ; except, in so 
 far as they afford one of the most significant instances 
 on record, of the powerlessness of hostile or partisan 
 reviews to extinguish original genius, and the certainty 
 of a reversal of their verdict by the next generation. 
 The Edinburgh Reviewers did, on the whole, more 
 harm than good, by their smart writing. They 
 retarded for years the appreciation both of Words- 
 worth and of Coleridge, and prevented many of our 
 fathers from coming under an influence, which would 
 have deepened their lives and broadened their culture, 
 wh ether it increased their cleverness or not. But as 
 surely as those who lose their temper injure only 
 themselves, all literary curses come home to roost ; 
 and the verdict of the scornful, though brilliant, 
 essayist, dealing with a mind he cannot comprehend, 
 is reversed in the next generation, and soon forgotten 
 altogether. 
 
 We do not now even laugh at Jeffrey's sentence, 
 ' This will never do,' with which the Edinburgh Poly- 
 phemus began his assault upon ' The Excursion ; ' 
 because criticism has itself taught us that Jeffrey was 
 incapable of appreciating one so new, original, and
 
 290 WOKDS WORTH. 
 
 great. It was his misfortune, as much as his fault. 
 The commonplace mind (and many acute critics have 
 very commonplace minds), however clear - sighted 
 within its own domain, cannot take the measure of 
 an intellect like Wordsworth's. And in this connec- 
 tion, it is most interesting to look back for half a 
 century and compare the estimate formed of him by 
 the 'Edinburgh' and the 'Quarterly' with the appre- 
 ciation of Coleridge, who, during his undergraduate 
 residence at Cambridge, and before the two men ever 
 met, read the ' Descriptive Sketches,' and said of them, 
 ' Seldom, if ever, was the emergence of a great and 
 original poetic genius above the literary horizon more 
 evidently announced.' It always ■ requires some 
 originality to discover the merits of an original mind ; 
 and, after all, the poets are the best critics of each 
 other, as may be seen in Mrs Browning's ' Vision of 
 Poets ; ' although, to be candid, they are sometimes also 
 the worst, witness the ' English Bards and Scotch 
 Reviewers.' You will remember, I dare say, South ey's 
 reply to the Ettrick Shepherd, who had said to him, 
 ' I suppose you have heard what a crushing review 
 Jeffrey has given " The Excursion." ' — ' He crush 
 " The Excursion ! " Tell him he might as easily 
 crush Skiddaw.' 
 
 It must be admitted that there are structural 
 defects in the framework or ground-plan of each of 
 Wordsworth's larger poems, and also in many of his 
 shorter ones. It may even be natural to wish that a 
 mind like Scott's, for example, had constructed the 
 plot of ' The Excursion ' for him, in whole or in part, — 
 Sir Walter would have done it with so much more 
 artistic skill. But such literary copartnery is not
 
 WORDSWORTH. 291 
 
 possible. Supposing all initial difficulties removed, 
 irregularities would be seen in the work, in proportion 
 to the originality of the minds engaging in it. The 
 respective portions would not dovetail into one 
 another. The sutures would not fit. Then, had the 
 plot of ' The Excursion ' been prepared for Wordsworth 
 by such a master of construction as Scott, he would 
 not have kept to it. His idiosyncrasy would have 
 rebelled against the suggested plan, as something that 
 trammelled the freedom of his own mind ; and he 
 could not have woven into the more perfect frame- 
 work, handed to him by Scott, that wealth of imagina- 
 tion which now lies within the less interesting skeleton 
 of his own story. It is easy to see that all literary 
 work has its blemishes, and that the most perfect, in 
 form and substance alike, must have its lacunce, 
 which are even essential to its limited perfection. 
 But it is not always seen, that excellence in one 
 direction must of necessity be balanced by defect in 
 another ; and hence, that the wish to possess a perfect 
 poem, or a perfect philosophy, or a perfect work of 
 art, is as Utopian and absurd as the longing for a 
 perfect human being. 
 
 It is extremely easy to point out the infelicities and 
 transitions in Wordsworth's style, its ' inconstancy,' its 
 occasional abrupt descents to an inferior level, its 
 sinking from ideality into matter-of-factness, its fre- 
 quent prolixity, due to the poet's lingering over 
 details and elevating secondary incidents to a primary 
 place, and hence 'an eddying instead of a progression 
 of thought.' But what is the use of such nimble- 
 witted criticism now ? It may be of use to prevent 
 an unaccredited poet from fancying that he has secured
 
 292 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 a place amongst the immortals, merely because he has 
 succeeded in becoming a clever writer of verses. But 
 when one so great, original, and rare as Wordsworth 
 has once taken his place in that Hierarchy, where so 
 few sit together through all time — and when that 
 place is assured to him by the suffrage of posterity 
 — what is the use of obtruding our petty critical 
 estimates ? Is it said to prevent those who belong to 
 his school, and are pleased to rank as his ' disciples,' 
 from a too indiscriminate eulogy ? Good : an in- 
 telligible aim, and a useful end. But, surely the 
 world has a superabundance of critics and very few 
 original minds. We are all born critics, but how 
 many are creators ? and is it difficult to put even 
 Shakespeare and Goethe, Plato and Aristotle, on the 
 Procrustes bed of criticism, and stretch them curiously 
 about ? Besides, every critic has his critic ; and 
 while admiration for excellence unites men, animad- 
 version divides them. All the above-mentioned faults 
 in Wordsworth's style were noticed by Coleridge long 
 ago in his ' Biographia Literaria,' where the enumera- 
 tion of blemishes is followed by one of the finest and 
 most discriminative eulogies to be found in the annals 
 of literature, and in which — with true prophetic in- 
 sight — he says, ' His fame belongs to another age, and 
 can neither be accelerated nor retarded.'* This esti- 
 mate of Wordsworth by his friend Coleridge is so just 
 (and in vigour it has not been surpassed by later 
 criticism) that I cannot do better than quote to you 
 its chief points. 
 
 He notes ' First, an austere purity of language, a 
 perfect appropriateness of the words to the meaning. 
 * Biographia Literaria, p. 165. Ed. 1847.
 
 WORDSWORTH. 293 
 
 .... Second, a corresponding weight and sanity of 
 the thoughts and sentiments, won not from books 
 but from the poet's own meditative observation. 
 
 They are fresh, and have the dew upon them 
 
 Third, the sinewy strength and originality of single 
 lines and paragraphs ; the frequent curiosa felicitas 
 
 of his diction Fourth, the perfect truth of 
 
 nature in his images and descriptions taken imme- 
 diately from nature. . . . Fifth, a meditative pathos, 
 a union of deep and subtle thought with sensibility ; 
 a sympathy with man as man ; the sympathy, indeed, 
 of a contemplator, rather than a fellow-sufferer or 
 co-mate, but of a contemplator, from whose view no 
 difference of rank conceals the sameness of the nature ; 
 no injuries of wind or weather, of toil or even of igno- 
 rance, wholly disguise the human face divine. The 
 superscription and image of the Creator still remain 
 legible to him under the dark lines with which guilt 
 or calamity had concealed or cross-barred it. In this 
 mild and philosophic pattern, Wordsworth appears to 
 me without a compeer. . . . Last, and pre-eminently, 
 I challenge for this poet the gift of Imagination, in 
 
 the highest and strictest sense of the word In 
 
 imaginative power he stands nearest of all modern 
 writers to Shakespeare and Milton; and yet, in a kind, 
 perfectly unborrowed and his own.' * With this I 
 conjoin the estimate of another acute critic, the poet 
 Delta. Dr Moir says, ' Never, perhaps, in the whole 
 range of literary history, from Homer downwards, did 
 any individual, throughout the course of a long life, 
 dedicate himself to poetry with a devotion so pure, so 
 perfect, and so uninterrupted, as he did. It was not 
 * Biographia Literaiia, pp. 161-1SG.
 
 294 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 his amusement, his recreation, his mere pleasure. It 
 was the main, the serious, the solemn business of his 
 being. It was his morning, noon, and evening 
 thought, the object of his out-door rambles, the sub- 
 ject of his in-door reflections; and, as an art, he studied 
 it as severely as ever Canova did sculpture, or Michael 
 Angelo painting.' " /r 
 
 This leads me to a fresh point in the estimate of 
 Wordsworth. It was the ambition and aim of his life 
 to construct ' a literary work that might live ;' and 
 he first wrote his own autobiography in verse. The 
 result was such, that he determined to compose ' a 
 philosophical poem, containing views of Man, Nature, 
 and Society, to be called " The Recluse." One part 
 of this only — ' The Excursion ' — was written. ' The 
 Prelude,' he tells us, was meant to have the same 
 relation to ' The Recluse ' as the ' ante-chapel has to 
 the body of a Gothic church ; ' and he hoped that his 
 minor poems, when properly arranged, would be found 
 ' to have such a connection with the main work as 
 might give them claim to be likened to the little cells, 
 oratories, or sepulchral recesses, ordinarily included in 
 these edifices.' y 
 
 In this ambition, you see the love of artistic 
 symmetry and completion. He was not satisfied with 
 occasional ' lyric cries,' or short swallow-flights of 
 song. He wished to leave behind him a literary whole, 
 gathered up into unity, and with a defined purpose 
 from first to last, stately, with massive proportions, 
 and manifold embellishments.- 
 
 And in connection with this, note his conviction of 
 
 * The Poetical Literature of the Last Half-Century; p. 65. 
 t Poetical Works, vol. vi., Preface, p. 4.
 
 WORDSWORTH. 295 
 
 the high calling of the Poet, and of his responsibility 
 as an educator of his age. He held that the poet's 
 function was not to descend to the level of other men 
 but to endeavour to raise them up to his own level. 
 As he wrote to Sir George Beaumont, from Goslar, 
 ' The poet is a teacher. I wish to be considered as a 
 teacher, or as nothing.' The strength of resolution 
 with which he pursued this purpose has probably had 
 few, if any, parallels in literature. Fiercely abused, 
 even ridiculed — not by puny assailants, but by the 
 accredited critics of the day — he went on, with a 
 grand tenacity of purpose, to write fresh poems, of the 
 same character ; the creative impulse welling up 
 within him, like the waters of a perennial spring. 
 He felt sublimely sure of the verdict of posterity. 
 And yet, it was not his confidence that the judgment 
 of contemporaries would be reversed that kept him 
 loyal to his vocation ; but his conviction of the inhe- 
 rent worth of that vocation, his belief in himself, and 
 in the ends to which his life was devoted. His sense 
 of the dignity of his calling, as a Poet, is the greatest 
 in literature. He expresses it in a noble sonnet to his 
 friend Haydon — 
 
 High is our calling, friend ! creative art 
 
 Demands'the service of a mind and heart 
 
 Though sensitive, yet in their weakest part 
 
 Heroically fashioned —to infuse 
 
 Faith in the whispers of the lonely muse, 
 
 While the whole world seems averse to desert, etc. 
 
 Mr Lowell thinks that his early conviction of being 
 ' a dedicated spirit ' led to ' a one-sided, as well as to 
 an intense development of his intellectual powers ; 
 and that this was fostered by the solitude of his life,
 
 296 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 which deprived him of any standard of proportion 
 outside himself, by which to test the comparative 
 value of his thoughts.' Let us grant it. But had he 
 possessed such 'a standard' the world would probably 
 have been deprived of much that he has given it. A 
 ' standard of proportion ' would have repressed the 
 outflow of his genius, dwarfed his originality, and 
 checked the free course of that stream of imaginative 
 ardour to which we owe so many immortal creations, 
 and so much of the scattered wealth of his poetry. 
 We may be thankful that the greater poets have 
 seldom had a perfect ' standard of proportion.' The 
 rounded completeness which comes of culture would 
 have maimed Wordsworth altogether. 
 
 It is refreshing to turn from the critics, and listen 
 to the poet's own estimate of his office, and of its fulfil- 
 ment in the future. He said to his nephew: — 'Every 
 poet must diffuse health and light; he must prophesy 
 to his generation ; he must teach the present . age by 
 counselling with the future ; he must plead for pos- 
 terity.' * To his friend, Lady Beaumont, he writes as 
 follows of the ' Lyrical Ballads.' The quotation is a 
 little long, but it is so excellent that I must give it in 
 full. ' It is impossible that any expectations can be 
 lower than mine concerning the immediate effect of 
 this little work upon what is called the public. I do 
 not here take into consideration the envy and male- 
 volence, and all the bad passions which always stand 
 in the way of a work of any merit from a living poet ; 
 but merely think of the pure, absolute, honest igno- 
 rance in which all worldlings of whatever rank and 
 situation must be enveloped, with respect to the 
 
 * Memoir, vol. ii. p. 7.
 
 WORDSWORTH. 297 
 
 thoughts, feelings, and images on which the life of my 
 poems depend. The things which I have taken, 
 whether from within or from without, what have they 
 to do with routs, dinners, morning calls, hurry from 
 door to door, from street to street, on foot or in 
 carriage, with Mr Pitt or Mr Fox, Mr Peel or Sir 
 Francis Burdett, the Westminster election or the 
 
 borough of Honiton There neither is, nor can 
 
 be any genuine enjoyment of poetry among nineteen 
 out of every twenty of those persons who live, or wish 
 to live, in the broad light of the world, amongst those 
 who are striving to make themselves people of con- 
 sideration in society. Trouble not yourself about the 
 present reception of my poems ; of what moment is 
 that compared with what I trust is their destiny ? 
 To console the afflicted ; to add sunshine to daylight, 
 by making the happy happier ; to teach the young and 
 the gracious of every age to see, to think, and feel, 
 and therefore to become more actively and securely 
 virtuous ; this is their office, which, I trust, they will 
 faithfully perform, long after we (that is, all that 
 
 is mortal of us) are mouldered in our graves 
 
 Never forget what was observed by Coleridge, that 
 every great and original writer, in proportion as he is 
 great or original, must himself create the taste by 
 which he is to be relished, he must teach the art by 
 which he is to be known My ears are stone- 
 deaf to their idle buzz, and my flesh as insensible as 
 iron to their petty stings. I doubt not that you will 
 share with me an invincible confidence that my writings 
 (and among them these little poems) will co-operate 
 with the benign tendencies in human nature and 
 society wherever found ; and that they will, in their
 
 298 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 degree, be efficacious in making men wiser, better, 
 and happier.' 
 
 Again, in the same strain, to Sir George Beaumont 
 he writes : ' Let the poet first consult his own heart, 
 as I have done, and leave the rest to posterity — to, I 
 hope, an improving posterity.' 
 
 No one can fail to be struck with the nobleness, I 
 might almost say the sublimity, of these thoughts. 
 The grandeur of dedicating life to work has been taught 
 us by Carlyle in a very significant manner ; but to 
 consecrate it to thought and communion with Nature; 
 to prolonged, devoted, wistful fellowship with her, in 
 her ever-changeful moods, while at the time faithful to 
 the moral ideal ; this is a still grander aim, and a yet 
 nobler achievement. 
 
 I shall not say much about Wordsworth's special 
 theory of poetry. He believed that it takes its origin 
 in ' emotion recollected in tranquillity.' The poet, he 
 held, should represent the incidents or scenes of real 
 life, in which the emotions are at their natural height, 
 or in their intensest outflow. To this, few discriminat- 
 ing minds can take exception. But then, he went on 
 to say, that since at these times men naturally use a 
 language precisely adapted to the situation, the poet 
 ought to use the same language, modifying it only to 
 this extent, that he must omit the disagreeable, 
 remembering that his function is to give pleasure. 
 Further, the metrical form into which he casts his 
 language delights the reader or hearer, by ' the succes- 
 sion of pleasurable surprises ' which it gives, and rhyme 
 adds an additional delight. 
 
 Now, it is doubtless true that, if we remove all the 
 crude phrases used by men in a state of vivid emotion,
 
 WORDSWORTH. 299 
 
 the natural language they then employ is sometimes 
 the choicest. But, this ' natural lanouagre ' before it is 
 fitted for the purposes of poetic expression, must pass 
 through a further process of refining, in the alembic of 
 the poet's own soul. The language of real life, if it be 
 natural, spontaneous, and unconscious, very often 
 assumes a poetic form ; but the conversational style of 
 speech, however simple and natural, could never become 
 the sole, or the highest style for literary or artistic 
 expression. The most animated and brilliant conver- 
 sational style does not make the best literary style ; 
 and the choicest language of real life must come forth 
 from the poetic mint — not in the hard, realistic shape 
 in which it entered in, nor, on the other hand, arti- 
 ficialised by its presence there — but recant in a form 
 of ideal grace, the 'naturalness ' of its original form pre- 
 served, and a new adequacy imparted to it. This much 
 may fairly be said in criticism of Wordsworth's theory, 
 as to the language of which the poet should make use. 
 In the preface to the first edition of the ' Lyrical 
 Ballads ' he says that his aim was ' to ascertain how far 
 the language and conversation of men in the middle 
 and lower classes of society is adapted to the purposes 
 of poetic pleasure ;' and, in the second edition, he 
 describes it as ' an experiment.' His own practice was 
 better than his theory, and in part disproved it. No 
 doubt, he frequently carried out the latter consistently, 
 to the verge of a bald literalism ; and it was easy for 
 the critics to hold up to ridicule the ' tub ' of the blind 
 boy, and the ' swollen ancles ' of Simon Lee. But on 
 the other hand, had Wordsworth not carried the realistic 
 tendency at times too far, it may be doubted it' the 
 literary world, in his own and the next generation,
 
 300 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 would have learned to appraise it truly. It is to be 
 farther observed, that what his theory sanctions, and 
 tends to, is the use, not of the language of common 
 life, but of simple, natural, unaffected life. 
 
 Much more important than the form, however, is 
 the subject-matter of all poetry. It has been affirmed 
 that its essence consists in its form alone, — the form 
 given to thought by language. This is one of the 
 delusions against which Wordsworth's whole vocation 
 and achievements are a protest. You hear it some- 
 times said vaguely, that the movement which in Eng- 
 land began with Cowper, which Burns carried out so 
 fully in one direction, and which Wordsworth developed 
 to such magnificent results, was a return to nature, to 
 the simplicity and truth of nature, from the artificiality 
 and mannerism of the past. This is undoubtedly true ; 
 but it is too indefinite a statement to be of much value. 
 The precise significance of the ' return to nature ' must 
 be ascertained. Now, you will not only find a clear 
 natural note struck by Wordsworth, in the simple way 
 in which he described what he saw, and was not 
 ashamed to speak of it as he saw it — calling the sun, 
 the sun, and not ' bright Phoebus,' as the eighteenth 
 century men would have done. But, in addition to 
 this, in selecting the subjects on which to write, he 
 found that his predecessors had departed so far from 
 nature, into artificial regions, and dealt so largely with 
 conventional topics, that he had, in the first instance, 
 to go back, in the homeliest fashion, to the most obvious 
 facts of every-day experience. The idea of writing a 
 poem about sheep, or daisies, seemed to the magnificent 
 men of the Pope and Johnson era to indicate some 
 incipient lunacy. They thought that the man was
 
 WORDSWORTH. 301 
 
 moonstruck who could write serious verses about 
 ' daffodils/ or ' pedlars,' or ' boats,' or ' waggoners.' 
 Now one element in the greatness of Wordsworth was 
 that, by ' the power of a peculiar eye,' he saw a mean- 
 ing in the lowliest things of earth, and in the apparently 
 forlorn specimens of humanity, which few other eyes in 
 his time perceived. He did not roam over the broad 
 earth, seeking materials for romantic narrative, and 
 thrilling story. He asked, What is to be found at 
 hand, if we open our eyes to see it ? what meaning in 
 nature ? what significance in life ? Can we not get 
 beneath the surface of both ? and apprehend, in a real 
 and verifiable mauner, the truth of that which is 
 unfolding itself around us every day, instead of floating 
 down the stream, chasing the shadows of excitement, 
 or vaguely sighing for changes ? Though intensely 
 fond of travelling, he never could have said or felt, 
 with Goethe, 
 
 To make room for wandering was it 
 That the world was made so wide. 
 
 On the contrary, within the circle of his own 
 mountains, and among the simple unconventional 
 d.desmen of the north he sought for a deeper meaning, 
 underlying the commonplaces of life and nature. To 
 Wordsworth, the ' open secret ' lay at the heart of the 
 most familiar, lowly, and even common things. The 
 humblest object in nature, if approached with reverence, 
 the most trivial task in life, if discharged with dignity, 
 was at once transfigured, and lit up with ideal grace 
 in the light of that transfiguration. 
 
 But how are we to see this latent significance in 
 common things, this worth within the trivial and the 
 familiar ? The difficulty is a most real and serious
 
 302 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 one to many. Wordsworth's answer is substantially 
 this — It is by the opening of the inward eye. There 
 is no veil on the face of Nature, needing to be re- 
 moved : the film is on the human eye. We do not 
 see what is everywhere around us to be seen, because 
 our organ of vision is impaired ; and the malady is, to 
 a great extent, hereditary. But the recovery of the 
 power of sight — that second sight, which divines the 
 secrets inaccessible to the material organ — is effected 
 by simple contact with Nature herself; not by the 
 secondary study of her through books, through litera- 
 ture, or through science, but by familiarity with her 
 face to face, in the ever-fresh and renovating processes 
 incessantly at work around us. 
 
 If we are to reach the secret of Wordsworth, how- 
 ever, and find his ' healing power,' we must apprehend 
 something more about it, even than this. There are 
 one or two preliminary things to be noticed. Those of 
 you who have made his acquaintance at all, will not 
 have failed to note the accuracy of his local allusions, 
 the rigid fidelity of his descriptions. They are 
 not photographs : they are far better. They are 
 divinations of the spirit of the places he describes. 
 His topographical allusions are so numerous and minute 
 that some have felt them to be wearisome ; but there 
 is no spot in all your district, to which he has referred, 
 which he has not interpreted, illumining it with 
 
 The light that never was, on sea or land. 
 
 It is this element of local colour in his poems, that 
 has made the whole region of the English Lakes pre- 
 eminently classic ground. There is no place in Scot- 
 land associated with the genius of Burns or of Scott —
 
 WORDSWORTH. 803 
 
 Ayrshire, Tweedside, Loch Katrine, or the Western 
 Isles — over which the ethereal light of imagination 
 still broods, as it lingers amongst the hills and dales of 
 Cumberland and Westmoreland. And if the remark 
 of Mr Lowell, that the poet was ' the historian of 
 Wordsworthshire,' has any force, it is part of his im- 
 perishable renown that he created such a shire, and 
 gave it a meaning vastly more interesting than those 
 geographical county boundaries, to which the poet's 
 work as stamp-collector was confined. 
 
 Wordsworth possessed, first of all, a wide knowledge 
 of nature ; a knowledge that was broad, intimate, 
 minute, and thorough. Hence the perfect truth of 
 his description of the external aspects of a scene, 
 before he sought its inner meaning, or ' its soul.' 
 Without such accuracy of perception and report, no 
 divination was possible. He was unerring in the 
 fidelity with which he observed the minute features of 
 nature, which other eyes failed to see. One day some 
 one told him that he (Wordsworth) had written a poem 
 upon a daisy. ' No,' said the poet indignantly, ' it 
 was on the daisy, a very different thing ! ' He had 
 unusually fine physical senses ; and, with rapid intui- 
 tion, he pierced beyond the reports they brought him, 
 of form, colour, sound, etc., that he might discern the 
 underlying suggestions, with which the scene was 
 charged. His special greatness, as an interpreter of 
 Nature, lay in his power of divining the genius loci, 
 — that subtle arrowy glance going direct to the very 
 core, always adequate, and usually profound, often 
 tenderly human ; in every instance bringing back 
 some secret, and disclosing the immeasurable signifi- 
 cance of common things. He was never contented
 
 3 4 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 with deciphering outward features. Forms, colours, 
 
 sounds, always led up to some 
 
 Remoter charm 
 Unborrowed from the eye, 
 
 or ear. Nature's face was full of expression : and 
 this expression revealed character, as truly as a human 
 face reveals the workings of emotion in a human soul. 
 Other poets were content simply to chronicle natural 
 phenomena, as beautiful, or grand, picturesque, or 
 sublime. Wordsworth always asked, What is the 
 meaning of Nature, in those places where she has con- 
 centrated her expressiveness, and in those moods in 
 which she seems to be unburdening herself to man ? 
 What is the secret of the glory of the sky, at sunrise 
 or sunset ? and their difference ? What is the mean- 
 ing of the motions and balancings of the clouds ? of 
 the alternate wail and sigh of either wind or ocean ? 
 Or, if he did not ask these questions, he answered 
 them without asking. All that is distinctive in his 
 poetry, grows out of the belief that Nature's soul has a 
 definite expression, whether in rock or flower, in tree 
 or stream, and can be recognised. It can appeal to 
 us, and mould us. In each natural object, some ■ in- 
 visible thing ' is ' clearly seen.' Wordsworth, in short, 
 had a strong, intuitive grasp of that subtle spirit of 
 the Beautiful, which breathes throughout the whole 
 framework of nature, emanating from, and expressing 
 itself in, the life of every material thing. 
 
 But it is important to go, if possible, a little deeper 
 down, and see to what this distinctive feature 
 amounted ; because we hear it constantly reiterated — 
 and with vague inaccuracy affirmed — that Wordsworth 
 was a subjective poet, that he thrust himself into the
 
 WORDSWORTH. 305 
 
 scene he described, and saw his own individuality (nay 
 his own idiosyncrasies) mirrored in Nature. Nothing 
 could be more erroneous ; nothing less exact. It is 
 both an utterly irrelevant, and a totally ignorant 
 criticism. It is irrelevant, because I suppose it is not 
 possible for a poet, any more than for a critic, to 
 escape from his own shadow. It is ignorant, because 
 Wordsworth's subjectivity is not greater than, it is not 
 nearly as great as, that of his contemporaries, — Scott 
 only excepted. Byron's heroes, for example, are more 
 Byronic, than Wordsworth's are Wordsworthian. It 
 is one of the most foolish and futile of charges, either 
 that he was imprisoned within the circle of his own 
 subjective broodings about Nature, or that his characters 
 were the mere duplicates of himself. Not only was 
 ' the mind of man ' (as he says) 
 
 The haunt and the main region of my song ; 
 
 but Nature was nothing to him apart from man. Still 
 further, it was man as social, man in relation to his 
 fellows, man organised in society, that chiefly interested 
 him. 
 
 The charge of throwing his own subjectivity into 
 Nature, and 'seeing himself in all he saw,' is so foolish 
 that it is difficult to deal with it. He saw a life in 
 Nature distinct from his own, yet kindred to it, 
 a reciprocal and complementary life. You may say, if 
 you choose, that imagination enabled him to do this; 
 and that, without imagination, he could not have been 
 brought into such a living rapport with Nature, as 
 certainly, without it, he never could have chronicled 
 the things he saw. But imagination gives insight, as 
 well as creative power ; and insight must in all cases 
 
 u
 
 306 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 go before creation, if the latter is worth anything. 
 Poetic creation is simply the embodiment in an imagi- 
 native form, or in an intellectual and esthetic shape, of 
 what has previously been discerned or divined. Now 
 Wordsworth's very speciality as a poet lay in this, that 
 he interpreted the universe in terms of humanity, 
 without throwing over it the mantle of his own sub- 
 jectivity. He read its secret, by the use of his own 
 faculties of course, and with the aid of the ' auxiliar 
 light' which 'came from his mind,' but not by a pro- 
 cess of mere idealisation. He saw Nature through his 
 own lens — less he could not do without ceasing to be 
 a poet, or even a man. But he did more than this. 
 He saw into Nature's innermost heart, and was through- 
 out and pre-eminently, a seer, and not an idealiser. 
 He perceived that the universe is animated by a living 
 and recognisable soul; that we do not err in describing 
 it as, at least, quasi-human : and conversely, he not 
 only desired to bring humanity into vital con-tact with 
 the sunshine of the broad world, and to 
 
 Feed it, 'mid nature's old felicities ; 
 
 but he saw that human life finds its deepest interpre- 
 tation, in direct relation to nature. Thus Nature 
 reveals man, while Man mirrors nature. 
 
 Not only so : not only was Nature, according to 
 Wordsworth, instinct with personality (or what 
 resembled it), but the spirit or soul of nature, animat- 
 ing and informing it everywhere, was recognisable and 
 realisable in detail. It was not always, nor indeed 
 usually recognisable, as one all-comprehending Force : 
 but to our vision, it was divided into many separate 
 forms and phases. Each single object, every flower, 
 every mountain, every star, had its spiritual essence or
 
 WORDSWORTH. 307 
 
 informing soul, which was vitally related to the larger 
 soul of the world, the poet could not tell how. It was 
 for the speculative philosopher to say, — if he could, — 
 what were the relations between the separate objects, 
 and the universe as a whole. The poet might 
 occasionally refer to the underlying unity, which he 
 realised as vividly as the philosopher, or more so. But 
 his special function was to interpret the detail, or the 
 specialisation of nature; its variety rather than its unity. 
 Thus the soul of nature, localised here and there — 
 just as humanity is individualised in separate men and 
 women — has, to the poet, its own peculiar life and 
 changing moods. Not only has each mountain or 
 stream its genius loci; but that genius is fully as 
 changeful as man — now bright and radiant, again 
 depressed and dull. It is alternately glad and festive, 
 mourning and bereaved. Nature is seen toiling, re- 
 joicing, sorrowing, just as we toil, rejoice, and sorrow. 
 And this is not the polytheistic notion of separate 
 beings, as tutelary gods, oreads, dryads, &c, inhabit- 
 ing distinct localities. These were detached from 
 nature, spirits that came and went, and were as capri- 
 cious in their comings and goings, as fairies are alleged 
 to be. But there is a wide interval between a belief 
 in ghosts and fairies, and a recognition of those ' souls 
 of lonely places,' or the ' spirit of the Avoods,' moun- 
 tains and floods, of which Wordsworth speaks. In 
 the latter case, the inner spirit of the Universe is 
 recognised, revealing itself to us, in this way, as the 
 breathing life of the place — a portion of the infinite 
 Existence, not really cut off from the rest, but only 
 seeming to be so, to our finite imagination. The link 
 connecting part with part may be too subtle for us to
 
 308 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 trace, but it exists, and is felt to exist, at the very 
 moment when our perception of difference in the 
 parts is keenest. 
 
 Thus ' the mighty being ' of Nature, ever ' awake,' i 
 manifests itself incessantly and simultaneously, in a 
 hundred different ways, all over the world ; its diver- 
 sity not destroying its unity, nor its unity abolishing 
 its diversity. It is too vast for human realisation as 
 a whole. In virtue, however, of its apparent divi- 
 sions, its dismemberment to the human eye —assuming, 
 as it does, an immense variety of phases — it can be 
 realised in detail ; and, in fellowship with any one of 
 the details, the soul of man has unquestionable fellow- 
 ship with the very essence of nature. Each of these, 
 when apprehended by us, awakens a kindred or corre- 
 spondent state of feeling, while the conviction of the 
 profound unity of the whole remains unshaken. The 
 highest life of each separate object having thus an 
 interior relation to the life of every other, there is 
 reciprocity amongst them all, a never-ceasing inter- 
 communion, as the common element ebbs and flows 
 throughout them. This is admirably expressed by 
 Mr Stopford Brooke. He says : — 
 
 ' This idea is the loveliest of all which Wordsworth has intro- 
 duced into English poetry, and it flowed from his conception of 
 everything in nature having its own peculiar life. . . . There 
 was ceaseless intercommunion founded on the unutterable love 
 which flowed through all things, and with which everything 
 acted on every other. The whole world was linked together ; 
 every part, every element, gave and received, honoured and did 
 service, to each other. . . . And they delight in social inter- 
 course, like friends who love each other — there is no jar, no 
 
 * Miscellaneous Sonnets, part i. Sonnet 30 (vol. ii. p. 275).
 
 WORDSWORTH. 309 
 
 jealousy, no envy there — their best joy is in being kind to one 
 another.' * 
 
 And better illustrations of this idea than those 
 which Mr Brooke has selected from the poems could 
 not be chosen : — 
 
 Through all her depth, St Mary's Lake 
 
 Is visibly delighted, 
 For not a feature of the hills 
 
 Is in that mirror slighted. 
 
 6 
 
 Or again 
 
 &■ 
 
 There is a blessing in the air, 
 
 Which seems a sense of joy to yield 
 
 To the bare trees, and mountains bare, 
 And grass in the green field. 
 
 ■ • • • • • 
 
 Love, now an universal birth, 
 
 From heart to heart is stealing, 
 From earth to man, from man to earth, 
 
 It is the hour of feeling. 
 
 It must be observed, however, that the perception 
 of this feature in the life of Nature — its semi-human 
 characteristic — and the intercommunion and reci- 
 procity to which it gives rise, is not possible at all 
 times. It is only perceived when certain subjective 
 states of the percipient mind correspond with special 
 objective conditions in Nature itself. When these 
 conditions are realised, material forms seem but the 
 raiment of a life beneath them, which alone is real. 
 As this life is not discerned by us equally in every 
 object, but only in some, so it is not apprehended 
 every moment, but only occasionally. If an apoca- 
 
 * Theology in the English Poets, p. 107.
 
 310 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 lypse were constant, it would be like the sunrise, and 
 cease to be an apocalypse ; just as a constant discern- 
 ment of the underlying unity of things would prevent 
 us from recognising the diversity which plays upon 
 the surface. But when our faculties are at their 
 keenest stretch, and when our external conditions and 
 surroundings are favourable — as, when on the high 
 hill tops, or under the clear vault of the sky on a still 
 and luminous night, or by the shore of the everlasting 
 sea — the veil is at its thinnest ; and the conviction is 
 flashed upon us, that the life of Nature is fundamen- 
 tally kindred to our own. The persuasion that Nature 
 desires our fellowship is then no fancy, but an in- 
 tuition of the heart and the intellect and the esthetic 
 sense combined. For example, if you gaze into the 
 heart of some tenderly beautiful flower as it looks up 
 from the moorland to the sky, or listen to the sound 
 of running waters on a far-off mountain side, or watch 
 the radiance of the clouds that gather round the setting 
 sun, does the sense of solitude deepen, or does the 
 feeling of a latent bond and hidden social unity sur- 
 vive ? Is the prevailing thought that of the coldness, 
 and silence, and unrecognisableness of nature, or of its 
 kindredness, its affinity, and its friendship ? What- 
 ever it may be with the laws of nature — whether 
 they do or do not correspond, as Mr Hinton put it, to 
 the habits of a friend — the life of nature (of which 
 the laws are the expression) is a continual revelation 
 of character; unfolding itself, now more clearly, and 
 again more dimly, as the clouds break or gather upon 
 its face, and as the eye of the beholder is fresher or 
 duller in its perceptions. 
 
 I need scarcely guard myself against mistake, by
 
 WORDSWORTH. 311 
 
 adding that it is easy to carry this notion of kindred- 
 ness too far, and thus to degrade it altogether. If we 
 do not recognise the transcendant unlikeness of nature 
 to man, along with the likeness which exists, the latter 
 idea is more than vulgarised. It becomes distorted 
 and untrue. Only through the recognition of the 
 former notion does the latter gain in reality and 
 grandeur. We do not need, however, to be reminded 
 of the difference so much as of the resemblance. The 
 former idea always takes care of itself. It is con- 
 stantly suggested, and sometimes painfully obtrusive : 
 the latter is occasionally grasped, is often dimly pos- 
 sessed, and is always fugitive. Too soon the curtain 
 falls, the glory fades ; and after every disclosure of 
 Nature's heart, in the most lovely of its apparitions, 
 we are again in the presence of the old grey skies, the 
 silent and the seemingly unresponsive heaven. But 
 the two feelings, whether major or minor, whether for 
 the time in the foreground or the background of con- 
 sciousness, are complementary ones. They are, indeed, 
 but the two sides of the knowableness and the un- 
 knowableness of the Infinite. 
 
 Our inability to look on nature as Wordsworth did, 
 is as often due to our artificiality as to our shallowness. 
 If nature is to continue to subdue, to teach and to 
 mould, as well as to fascinate us, we must retain the 
 heart of childhood, with its natural wonder, delight, 
 admiration, and reverence — let the intellect develope 
 as it may. In a ' wise passiveness ' we must receive 
 her sweet influences from without. She will not yield 
 up her secret to us when we are being whirled along 
 on the surface of life's stream, absorbed, and excited 
 by artificial things, or magnetised by any secondary
 
 312 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 interest. This was nobly taught by Wordsworth in 
 
 the sonnet beginning — 
 
 The world is too much with us. Late and soon, 
 Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers. 
 Little we see in nature that is ours. 
 
 There is a most intimate relation between Words- 
 worth's moral elevation and his intellectual insight. 
 The artificiality and mannerism, the haste and dis- 
 traction, of our modern life, with its many prolix cere- 
 monies, prevents the simple harmony of the mind with 
 Nature, in which all natural poetry is born. Further- 
 more, the marriage of the soul with nature is a union 
 of equals ; and its result is a realisation of that other 
 or higher self, our alter ego in nature, not (as I have 
 already said) as an idealisation of the mind, but as a 
 reality of mental vision. Transcending all subjective 
 bonds, we enter a region ' where time and space are 
 not ' — a world of higher apperception, in which the 
 unity of self and not-self, of the mind within and the 
 universe without, is clearly understood — while neither 
 the one nor the other is overborne, but their funda- 
 mental separateness preserved. 
 
 Too much stress cannot be laid upon another feature 
 kindred to this, in the teaching of Wordsworth. It is 
 Nature's office to cure us of morbidity and melancholy, 
 as well as of artificiality ; its healing and restoring 
 function calming us, reanimating and reassuring us. 
 He shows, as few teachers have shown, that while full 
 of sympathy with us, Nature will not abide our sad- 
 nesses. She feels them to be an intrusion on her 
 peace, her immense latent life, out of which all that 
 allays them proceeds. Our introspectiveness and self- 
 consciousness are rebuked by Nature, whenever we are
 
 WORDSWORTH. 3 1 3 
 
 alone with her, and open to her influences ; and it is 
 as necessary that these should be taken out of us, as 
 the conceit that we have fathomed her ways and pro- 
 cesses of work. She reveals an impersonal Order as 
 well as a personal power, a transcendent and utterly 
 mysterious life, with which we may not presume to be 
 too familiar ; and it is merely this side that is turned 
 towards us, — the seemingly stony and unresponsive 
 side, — when we complain of her mysteriousness. But 
 who will say, that, in this, she does not educate us 
 also ? 
 
 In the same connection, I claim for Wordsworth a 
 clear knowledge of the profoundest problems, with 
 which the human mind has grappled, from Heraclitus 
 to Immanuel Kant.* He seems to have penetrated to 
 the very core of philosophical ideas, not by laboured 
 argumentation, but by intuitive discernment — both 
 intellectual and moral — which began early and de- 
 veloped rapidly, keeping pace with the growth of his 
 imagination. By that consummate vision, which is 
 superior to all processes of reasoning, he reached the 
 ultimate data of speculative Philosophy and Theology. 
 
 Further, in dealing with the perennial problems, 
 Wordsworth almost always keeps to their elements. 
 He therefore moves within a verifiable region ; and 
 hence his treatment of the questions cannot be super- 
 
 * It is for this reason that a knowledge of Wordsworth is one of 
 the very best introductions to the Platonic (or any other) Philosophy. 
 There are numerous passages in ' The Prelude' and ' The Excursion,' 
 as well as in the minor poems, which condense within them the essence 
 of the great ideal systems of Plato, Spinosa, and Kant. Many a 
 single line of Wordsworth's contains a precise and singularly 
 felicitous embodiment of the philosophical ideas which lie at the 
 heart of these systems.
 
 314 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 seded. His poetry is intrinsically durable ; not only 
 because— like all poetry of the first magnitude — it is 
 a joy to the human race for ever ; but also because it 
 has no mythological elements, which Science may some 
 day compel us to lay aside. He carries us into a 
 region altogether unaffected by the discoveries, which 
 imperil a merely traditional faith. Let Science march 
 forward as it may, and where it may, Wordsworth's 
 poetry moves in a sphere unaffected by its conclusions, 
 a sphere indeed to which its widest generalisations 
 bear witness, and pay tribute. 
 
 And this leads me to speak of the bracing effect, the 
 moral tonic, to be found in his poetry. It presents a 
 hisfh ideal of life, elevated alike above the sordid and 
 the capricious, above the trivial, the artificial and the 
 ignoble. Hence there is no ennui, no tedium vitce, 
 in Wordsworth. Every one knows his reference in the 
 sonnet to 'plain living and high thinking :' but few 
 have adequately realised the immense serenity, the 
 large divine tranquillity, and the indefinite hopefulness, 
 that breathe through all his writings. In him, aspira- 
 tion blends with contentment ; placidity and calm, 
 with effort to be other than we are, and with a belief 
 in the endless possibilities of human nature. This is 
 the secret of what Mr Arnold has so happily called his 
 ' healing power.' You feel it, just as you feel the 
 effect of mountain air after languishing in a city. 
 The ' strength of the hills ' is in almost everything he 
 w T rote. And there is no influence so good and gracious 
 as Wordsworth's, so directly sanative, to those who 
 have felt a relaxation of fibre, from long pondering 
 the ' riddle of the painful earth,' or brooding over the 
 antinomies of our intellectual and moral nature. There
 
 WORDSWORTH. 3 1 5 
 
 is a well-known sense of hopelessness, when one is 
 beaten down before the mysteries of the universe, if 
 these have been wrestled with and found insoluble, and 
 a feeling of languor and indifference — the cui bono 
 feeling — is incipient. To one, in such a mood of 
 apathy or life-weariness, the influence of Wordsworth 
 is incomparable. His poetry is a moral tonic, re-in- 
 vigorating the heart, by taking it straight away to 
 some fresh natural well of feeling, or of thought. Great 
 as he is, therefore, as a poet, I consider him still greater 
 as a moralist. His sense of the infinite moral unity 
 of which we are but parts, and his conviction of a 
 
 Central peace, subsisting at the heart 
 Of endless agitation, 
 
 are as guide-posts in ethics. In the forest paths of 
 human life, with their labyrinthine windings, or, when 
 out in the open, crossways meet and perplexity is in- 
 evitable, he, of all poets, best helps you to know where 
 you are, what direction to take, and how to travel for- 
 ward with serenity, and even with joy. If his teach- 
 ing — as embodied, for example, in the ' Ode to Duty,' 
 or in the chapter of ' The Excursion ' entitled ' Des- 
 pondency Corrected,' — is inconsistent with a Goethean 
 sweep and universality, delighting in all things with 
 frank objectivity, simply because they are, its narrow- 
 ness is the narrowness of one who has a root in him- 
 self, of one who has found 
 
 Within himself a measure and a rule. 
 And one, thus taught and disciplined, will ' live and 
 breathe,' as he says — 
 
 For noble purposes of mind ; liis heart 
 1 !r;i ts tn thr lit'i'uir snug i if ancient days ; 
 His eye distinguishes, his heart creates.
 
 3 1 G WORDSWORTH. 
 
 In all that I have said, I have been giving you the 
 merest introduction to the poetry and poetic mission 
 of Wordsworth. Those of you who have not yet begun 
 the earnest study of this poet — and he requires not 
 only to be read but to be studied — may consult, along 
 with the poems themselves, two discussions, which, 
 amongst the large literature that has now accumulated 
 on the subject, are, in my judgment, by far the most 
 thorough and satisfactory : — I refer to Principal 
 Shairp's ' Essay on Wordsworth,' originally contributed 
 to the North British Review, and republished in his 
 ' Studies in Poetry and Philosophy ;' and Mr Stopford 
 Brooke's volume, entitled ' Theology in the English 
 Poets.' The former is more condensed and finished as 
 a work of art ; the latter is more detailed in its 
 analysis, and almost exhaustive in one direction. 
 
 Before closing, I merely add, as I have already 
 hinted more than once, that there is no poet after 
 Shakespeare more worthy of prolonged, careful, and 
 even reverential study, and especially of study by 
 women. There is none whose influence on character 
 is more ennobling, and from contact with whose spirit 
 you can draw a serener inspiration. And though our 
 poetical literature is now becoming more complex, and 
 many a kindred spirit has embodied fresh forms of 
 Imagination in the raiment of our English speech, since 
 Wordsworth breathed his last at Rydal Mount, he 
 remains one of those 
 
 Stars pre-eminent in magnitude 
 
 Which, from the zenith, dart their beams, 
 
 of which he spoke ; and he has deeper things to teach 
 us, in our nineteenth century haste and high pressure,
 
 WORDSWORTH. oil 
 
 than any of his co-mates, who are seated along with 
 him, on the imperial height. 
 
 It may be as difficult for some to get within his 
 circle, as it is for others to understand Beethoven or 
 Fra Angelico. Nevertheless, his is an ' open secret,' 
 and as he said of Burns, 
 
 In busiest street, and loneliest glen, 
 
 Are felt the flashes of his pen. 
 
 He rules 'mid winter snows, and where 
 
 Bees till their hives. 
 
 Deep in the general heart of men 
 
 His power survives. 
 
 And sure I am that long as the streams of Westmore- 
 land sing their songs of peace ' with quiet blending,' 
 long as Helvellyn rears its head above the neighbour- 
 ing hills, and the sunlight and the moonlight come and 
 p-o amongst the mountains, the radiance of this Poet's 
 genius will shed a more ethereal light over the whole 
 district, and will disclose the inmost soul of Nature, 
 and the boundless significance of Life, to the English 
 generations of the future. 
 
 He found us when the age had bound 
 Our souls in its benumbing round ; 
 He spoke, and loosed our hearts in tears. 
 He laid us as we lay at birth 
 On the cool flowery lap of earth, 
 Smiles broke from us, and we had ease ; 
 The hills were round vis, and the breeze 
 Went o'er the sunlit fields again ; 
 Our foreheads felt the wind and rain. 
 Our youth returned ; for there was shed, 
 On spirits that had long been dead, 
 Spirits dried up and closely finTd, 
 The freshness of the early world.
 
 THE ETHICS OF CREED-SUBSCRIPTION. 
 
 (The Contemporary Review, August 1S72.J 
 
 It is universally felt among reflecting men, that in 
 proportion to the growth of a cultivated reason, the 
 dogmatic standards of the past become less and less 
 adequate, as charts of human belief. And there is 
 noticeable at present, here and there throughout 
 Christendom, a desire to recast and to simplify the 
 theological creeds ; to retrench their details, on those 
 matters on which the mediseval and renaissance theo- 
 logy alike rashly dogmatized, and to revert to the facts 
 of history as the basis of belief. It is the constitu- 
 tional duty of the Church to revise its creed ; but, 
 whether from the vis inertice of human nature, and 
 the tendency to endure what time has tolerated long, 
 or from the fear of ulterior consequences arising out of 
 the process of revision, and a willingness rather to 
 
 bear those ills we have 
 Than fly to others that we know not of, 
 
 this duty is never discharged, till some crisis is reached, 
 grave enough to necessitate it. 
 
 We may anticipate much discussion throughout 
 Christendom in future years as to the fittest form 
 which the articles of the Catholic faith should assume. 
 There is a question, however, much more important 
 than the re-arrangement of any theological document, 
 the wise settlement of which may lessen much of the
 
 THE ETHICS OF CREED-SUBSCRIPTION. 319 
 
 heat of religious controversy over disputable points. 
 It is the relation in which the subscriber, who sicrns 
 
 3 © 
 
 any public standard of belief as the confession of his 
 faith, stands to that document ; or the attitude (intel- 
 lectual and moral) in which assent or conformity to a 
 creed places the man who assents ; in brief, the ethics 
 of subscription. 
 
 In discussing this subject, we assume at the outset 
 as indisputable, that all creeds are only approximations 
 to an adequate statement of Truth. A creed is the 
 intellectual expression of those facts or principles, 
 which belong to the spiritual order of things. It is 
 the product of the systematizing intellect, which 
 endeavours to arrange in symmetrical order, and to 
 present in logical coherence, the data of religious 
 knowledge and faith. But the very necessity for a 
 creed at all arises from the imperfection of the human 
 mind, and its inability to retain these data as a whole, 
 without the help of some framework which binds them 
 into unity. The truths with which the creed deals 
 are not only immeasurably greater than the form 
 which encloses them ; they are in their very nature 
 transcendent realities, which no creed could ever 
 adequately formulate. The nature of God, and of 
 the human soul, with the relations which subsist be- 
 tween them, are themes which the intellectual grasp 
 of no one man, or set of men associated in council, 
 could ever exhaustively analyse. And yet, it is this 
 immeasurable transcendency of the subject-matter, 
 which has in one sense given rise to the various theo- 
 logical formulae. The scientific schools do not con- 
 struct creeds, in part because their subject-matter is 
 less disputable, but also in part because science deals
 
 320 THE ETHICS OF CREED-SUBSCRIPTION. 
 
 not with the transcendent, but with the phenomenal. 
 It is the glory of Theology that it deals with the 
 transcendent ; but, on that very account, its creeds 
 are at once a necessity, and an imperfection. We 
 assume, therefore, from the limitations of human 
 thought, and the essential inadequacy of all intel- 
 lectual forms to express ultimately mysterious truth, 
 as well as from the poverty of those verbal frameworks 
 in which we express our intellectual concepts, that it 
 is absolutely impossible ever to have a perfect creed. 
 It is perhaps natural for the Church to desire it, but its 
 attainment is a Utopian dream. Our choice is between 
 a form more or less accurate and expressive, to the in- 
 dividual who uses it, and the Church which adopts it. 
 Secondly, while all forms are ultimately inadequate, 
 it is impossible for the same form equally to satisfy 
 every mind within the Church, or even within a very 
 limited section of it. So long as men differ in the 
 original structure and balance of their powers, their 
 attitude towards Truth must vary ; and in proportion 
 to their growth (in other words, to the development 
 of their intellectual life) differences of opinion will 
 inevitably increase, along with the increase of their 
 unity. It is a common delusion, that in proportion as 
 the minds of men approximate to Truth, they must 
 necessarily approximate to each other. Their unity 
 will doubtless be fostered ; and, on many questions of 
 intellectual and moral apprehension, their opinions will 
 coincide. But it is neither possible nor desirable for 
 them to contemplate Truth from points of view abso- 
 lutely identical. Their diversity will and ought to 
 remain, and to grow, alongside of their unity. This, 
 then, is another primary position from which we start.
 
 THE ETHICS OF CREED-SUBSCHIPTION. 321 
 
 Uniformity of opinion among thinking men (whether 
 within or without the Church) is unattainable and 
 undesirable. It is simply stagnation and death. Life 
 always differentiates or diversifies. Increase the life, 
 and you do not tend to intellectual sameness, but to 
 difference ; and the greater our speculative divergence, 
 the more intense our life. In a club of intelligent 
 men, no one would desire an echo of his own opinion 
 all round the circle of its membership. Were it so, 
 the life of the club would cease, and it would speedily 
 and deservedly be extinguished. So also in the Church. 
 If a number of men agree to unite together under a 
 common symbol, it is impossible for them honestly to 
 do so on the theory of an absolute identity of belief. 
 They must do so with an esoteric understanding that 
 the formula they mutually adopt is only partially valid, 
 an approximate or tentative statement, essentially in- 
 adequate. There is thus a certain self-abandonment 
 in the act of subscription, a sacrifice of the individual 
 for the common weal, without, however, surrendering 
 his right to carry on continuous and independent 
 thought. Rational sympathy with our fellow-men, 
 with whom we must be associated in some way or 
 other, whether as thinkers or worshippers or workers, 
 leads to this self-abandonment in subscription. If the 
 members of a Church refuse to sign a document as the 
 confession of their faith, until they discover or construct 
 a form which corresponds in all details to their own 
 ideal, they will not only wait till Doomsday — suppos- 
 ing their search to be thorough -going — but they will 
 also inevitably cut themselves off from their brethren ; 
 they will isolate and leave themselves out in the cold, 
 beyond all existing ecclesiastical enclosures. In short,
 
 322 THE ETHICS OF CREED-SUBSCRIPTION. 
 
 there is a certain vicarious element in all healthy 
 creed-subscription. We assent to it as a common 
 symbol, not only as our own confession, but also as 
 that of the community or religious organization with 
 which we are associated. In other words, it is framed 
 in the plural, not in the singular. 
 
 In the third place, it is impossible for the same 
 intellectual form to continue to satisfy the Church 
 from age to age : and, in most instances, to continue 
 adequate to the individual, during a lifetime — i.e., 
 provided he continues to grow mentally and morally. 
 Suppose a creed to have been constructed in the first 
 century of the Christian era, and then made as per- 
 fect as the limits of human frailty allowed. As time 
 rolled on, it would inevitably become obsolete in 
 practical use and application. Not that it would 
 cease to be of the highest historic value, and the 
 greatest practical use, not that it would cease to be an 
 expression of truth ; but it would infallibly become 
 an inadequate expression of it. A creed, which is a 
 few centuries old, of necessity becomes obsolete in 
 form. It is not like wine, which improves with age. 
 It appeals to the new generation as a dead unspoken 
 language does. Neither is it desirable that the 
 creeds bequeathed from the past should be adequate 
 expressions of the advancing thought and insight to 
 which each new age attains. It would not only be 
 an anachronism if the beliefs of earlier centuries were 
 thus prospectively adequate ; but the form which was 
 more perfect for the future, would be less perfect for 
 the era in which it first appeared. And its very per- 
 fection would arrest theological inquiry, and prevent 
 the unabated study of those problems with which all 
 the creeds are alike concerned.
 
 THE ETHICS OF CREED-SUBSCRIPTION. 323 
 
 Thus, what many would regard as an ideal creed, 
 a brief statement of simple facts, purged of dialectic, 
 composed of what artists call ' neutral tints,' if 
 adopted, on that account, as absolute and final, 
 instead of being a benefit to the future, would fetter 
 research, and obstruct the progress of theological thought. 
 Several of the creeds which exist assuredly contain 
 some hard and gritty propositions, the legacy of 
 mediaeval theology ; but no wise man despises them 
 on that account. He finds in each, on the contrary, 
 some aspect of Truth which others present less per- 
 fectly, while none exhausts the whole. 
 
 Take even the most barbaric form, into which the 
 traditions of the past have crystallized themselves, a 
 creed which was the product of a rough warlike time, 
 written, as some one has said, ' as if it were a despatch 
 from a battlefield, the heated manifesto of a victorious 
 faction.' Grant that it was framed at a time when 
 there was a passion for system, as such, — when theo- 
 logians undertook to explain everything, and could 
 scarcely believe that there were any divine riddles in 
 the universe, which it was impossible for man to 
 solve, — we cannot say that the subsequent develop- 
 ments of theological thought would have taken place, 
 had not the way been prepared for them by the exist- 
 ence of such a system. As it is impossible for any 
 one who has reached and who breathes a freer air of 
 thought, to say how much he is indebted for it to his 
 earlier nurture in opinions which he has learned to 
 discard ; so with generations ; so with Churches. 
 They are beholden for their subsequent freedom, to 
 the very creeds, whose fetters they have shaken of. 
 We may appeal to individual experience, for evidence
 
 324 THE ETHICS OF CREED-SUBSCRIPTION'. 
 
 of the fact that a final standard of belief is quite mi- 
 attainable. Suppose any truth-seeker to note down, 
 in due pixmositional order, what he believes at a 
 certain age. If he lives and pursues his researches, 
 his opinions must inevitably change. Have not 
 the majority of those now 'in orders,' in the several 
 Churches, outgrown those views which seemed to 
 them almost final, when they left the university, and 
 entered the profession of the ministry ? If it be so 
 with the individual, a fortiori, with an associated 
 company of men, united together in a Church. As 
 the intellectual area enlarges, the probabilities of 
 mental divergence increase. The more numerous 
 and competent the seekers after truth, the more varied 
 their points of view, and the more diverse the con- 
 clusions at which they arrive. It may be farther 
 asserted that it is morally illegitimate in any one to 
 subscribe a document as the final expression of his 
 faith ; or to feel toiuards any creed whatsoever that 
 it is, or that he would like it to be, ultimate. He is 
 not only foolish, he is to blame, if he binds himself 
 never to think otherwise than he does at the time of 
 subscription.* It would be an immoral vow, and 
 tantamount to intellectual suicide ; besides being a 
 vow impossible to fulfil. He might just as well bind 
 himself, as the late Bishop of Norwich has well said, 
 1 never to grow taller or thinner.' And practically no 
 one ever does so. Even the most unenlightened sub- 
 
 * It is a noteworthy circumstance that the Free Church of Scot- 
 land, in revising the questions to be put to its ministers at 
 ordination, has modified those which are put to the clergy of the 
 Establishment in one important respect. At the close of the fourth 
 question, the promise to believe ' for all the days of your life ' is 
 omitted.
 
 THE ETHICS OF CREED-SUBSCRIPTION. 325 
 
 scriber, who may be half consciously an infalliblist, 
 will always tell you that he has not bound himself to 
 ignore fresh critical enquiry. In theory then, all who 
 subscribe creeds hold that their act of subscription 
 does not foreclose enquiry, and that it is in the power 
 of the Church at any time to alter and re-adjust 
 its creed, when fresh lio-ht is obtained. But with the 
 majority this is a perfectly barren admission. It is 
 always barren, so long as the fresh light is neither 
 looked for, nor discerned when it shines. 
 
 The question has another aspect equally important, 
 viz., this : How far is one who, in the course of theologi- 
 cal enquiry, has come to entertain opinions different 
 from the majority of his co-religionists, bound to avow 
 these differences ? and how far is he at liberty to 
 maintain an esoteric doctrine of his own ? This part 
 of the subject is of immense importance in our time. 
 In discussing it we must endeavour to avoid ' the 
 falsehood of extremes.' * 
 
 Manifestly, no one can consistently maintain that 
 all men are bound to give public expression to every 
 divergence in opinion from their brethren. To do so, 
 would turn ecclesiastical gatherings into arenas of per- 
 petual conflict, and religious conferences into theo- 
 logical bear-gardens. Besides, it would deflect the 
 enquirer from the main purpose of his research, were 
 he bound in the end to make a public declaration of 
 the results of his enquiry. It would neutralise the 
 more silent processes of personal growth, and the 
 
 * It has been ably discussed from one point of view by Mr 
 Henry Sidgwick, in a pamphlet entitled ' The Ethics of Con- 
 formity and Subscription,' published by Missis Williams & Norgate, 
 1S"0; and, from another, by the late Bishop of Norwich, in the 
 first of his papers on ' Free Discussion of Religious Topics.'
 
 326 THE ETHICS OF CREED-SUBSCRIPTION. 
 
 gradual ripening of conviction. We are never bound 
 to wear our opinions on our sleeve ; or to proclaim 
 aloud, as from the housetop, how far we differ from 
 other men. That may be the ideal of those who 
 glory in ' the dissidence of dissent, and the pro- 
 testantism of the protestant religion ; ' but there is 
 neither ' sweetness, nor light ' in it. We are no more 
 called to announce to all and sundry how far we agree 
 and how far we differ from them, than it is our duty 
 to be inquisitive about our neighbour's faith, and with 
 vulgar curiosity or selfishness to strive to be his con- 
 science keeper. Such procedure would engender a 
 miserable egoism, and the ceaseless obtrusion of our 
 idiosyncracies, it might be our singularities, upon the 
 notice of others. It is true that no one is at liberty 
 to cloak or conceal his opinions, from indolent 
 acquiescence, or from a desire for ' peace at any 
 price.' But it is enough if he lets his convictions 
 find utterance, when it is spontaneous and natural to 
 do so; or when Truth would be compromised by 
 silence or by reticence — a very different thing from 
 obtruding his ideas, or courting inopportune dis- 
 cussion. 
 
 It is practically impossible, then — as everyone with 
 moral perception will at once allow — for a man to 
 leave a Church on the ground of doctrinal divergence, 
 as easily as he would leave a political society, when he 
 objected to any of its superannuated rules : — 
 
 ' Feelings/ says Mr Sidgwick, ' that everyone must respect, 
 make it impossible for a man voluntarily to abandon a Church 
 as easily as he would withdraw from a scientific or philanthropic 
 association. The ties that bind him to it are so much more 
 intimate and sacred that their severance is proportionately more
 
 THE ETHICS OF CREED-SUBSCRIPTION. 327 
 
 painful. The close relations of kinship and friendship in which 
 he may stand to individual members of the congregation present 
 an obstacle to severance which all in practice recognise, if not in 
 theory ; but even to the community itself, and its worship, he is 
 still bound by the strong bands of hereditary affection, ancient 
 habit, and possibly religious sympathies outliving doctrinal 
 agreement.' 
 
 It will be admitted that religious affinities are 
 deeper than any theoretical divergences can be ; and 
 that ties, such as those to which Mr Sidgwick refers, 
 which are the result of years of sacred labour amongst 
 one's fellow-men, cannot be abruptly severed. The 
 man who would break them, on the ground of mere 
 intellectual divergence would be really a very weak 
 man, morally obtuse, and devoid of all healthy per- 
 ceptions of duty, instead of the courageous and honest 
 individual, which some of those who are jealous about 
 uniformity of doctrine, would make him out to be. 
 
 It will be replied, all these ties are trifles com- 
 pared with the duty of veracity in subscription, and of 
 loyalty to the great dogmas which are held by the 
 man's co-religionists. But suppose the dogma, which 
 the Church regards as fundamental, is not so regarded 
 by the individual in question ? The Church cannot 
 force him to think it fundamental, if to his own mind 
 it is subsidiary. Nor can it expect a man to excom- 
 municate himself, or to adopt a standard of public 
 virtue which is to his mind morally unsound ; and to 
 bring his work (presumably fruitful) to a sudden end, 
 simply because his brethren think that it would be an 
 act of magnanimous virtue and of high-principled 
 honesty to do so. It is well that the responsibility 
 of excommunication lies with the collective Church, 
 and that the duty of leaving it does not rest with the
 
 328 THE ETHTCS OF CREED-SUBSCRIPTION. 
 
 individual. Let him remain, then, wherever he finds 
 a sphere of usefulness and modest labour, and con- 
 tinue at his work, despite his differences from his 
 brethren, until they exclude him from their company. 
 We may further observe, that were the Church to 
 reckon it a public duty in all its office-bearers at once 
 to proclaim their slightest dissent from its standards, 
 and to leave the old enclosures in consequence of them, 
 it would be rapidly impoverished, if not destroyed. 
 None of those who desire uniformity in opinion pro- 
 fess a wish to arrest the progress of free inquiry, and 
 thorough-going research as to the origin of Christianity 
 and the nature of Christian doctrine. They all hold 
 it to be the theologian's duty evermore to pursue Truth 
 with passionate ardour, not considering that he, or his 
 fathers, ' have already attained, or are already perfect.' 
 Well, he occupies meanwhile a certain position in his 
 Church, where he wields certain influences, as well as 
 discharges certain duties. Is it to be supposed that 
 he is bound, on the first discovery of an intellectual 
 difference between his own views and those of his 
 brethren, to withdraw from their society, to bring his 
 labours amongst them to a close, while he searches 
 for a new field for the fruitful employment of his 
 powers ? It is folly to assert it. For the process 
 would be an endless one. If he is in search of an 
 ideal Church, with an ideal creed, he will find none 
 upon the earth ; and he will be, like the knights-errant 
 in quest of the Holy Grail, a fruitless traveller over 
 the world, a theological wanderer to the ends of it. 
 He will be perpetually ' arising and departing ' out of 
 this, that, and the other religious organization, feeling 
 that they were 'not his rest.' What then? Let
 
 THE ETHICS OF CREED-SUBSCRIPTIOX. 329 
 
 him remain where he is, and not obtrude his singu- 
 larities. Let him associate with, and learn from his 
 brethren, who differ most widely from himself; and 
 if anything theological 'be revealed to him that sitteth 
 by, let him hold his peace, that all may learn, and 
 that all may be edified.' 
 
 Again, we ask if it is possible for the theological 
 inquirer to pursue his researches with absolute candour, 
 when he knows that as soon as he deflects by one or 
 two degrees from the faith of his brethren, he must 
 forsake their company, revoke his subscription to the 
 common creed, or be reckoned dishonest in his con- 
 formity to it. By the adoption of what may be called 
 a rigorous literalism in the ethics of subscription, 
 there is always a premium on conformity, and a bribe 
 against enquiry. Nor is it necessary that one who 
 desires a less stringent formula of subscription should 
 be the special advocate of ' Free-thought ' as against 
 'Authority.' The plea of many modern Liberals who 
 boast of their emancipation from all the fetters of 
 authority is frequently as narrow and illiberal, as it is 
 loud, fussy, and vulgar. But we ask, on the other 
 hand, how an inquirer who is candid, conscientious, 
 free from bias, and intent on the discovery of truth, 
 can pursue his researches with a single eye and an 
 untrammelled heart, if he has this alternative always 
 before him — Conform, or resign ; assent to the old 
 creed absolutely, or leave the goodly fellowship of your 
 co-religionists ? And while it is only the ignorant, 
 the stolid, or the worldly-minded who are able to go 
 on in the routine of past convictions, the moral ami 
 spiritual value of intellectual changes in belief is, 1 
 think, not sufficiently recognized. It is indeed hardly
 
 330 THE ETHICS OF CREED-SUBSCRIPTION. 
 
 recognized at all in the modern Church. Hence the 
 need for reiterating what is to thoughtful men a truism : 
 that change of intellectual position is the sign or 
 synonym of intellectual health. We progress only as 
 we change. Therefore the more change the better, 
 provided it be a movement forward, and not a slipping 
 backward. One generation cannot tie up succeeding 
 generations to its decisions ; and some progress has 
 surely been made, since the latest settlement of the 
 Articles of Religion, by the youngest section of the 
 Church, which has attempted to draw them up. But 
 in all these Articles we have merely a series of decisions, 
 by fallible though intelligent men, open to modifica- 
 tion by their successors ; and every such modification 
 must begin, as has been frequently remarked, from 
 within the Church itself. It cannot be done by out- 
 siders. The Church will not (perhaps to its own loss) 
 listen to the voice of reformers who stand outside its 
 pale. Jealous enough of innovators within, she is 
 usually more jealous of physicians without, whose 
 diagnosis she thinks must necessarily be superficial, 
 and whose prescriptions cannot therefore be followed. 
 But if the modifications of the common Articles must 
 originate within the Church, does not that imply that 
 the individual or individuals who suggest it must 
 themselves have first departed from the position 
 occupied by the framers of the creed. It is self- 
 evident. The Reformer must have already broken 
 with the old landmarks, at least to the extent, to 
 which he desires their modification. Therefore, to 
 concede that the Church may at any time alter its 
 creed, if it receives fresh light, is virtually to concede 
 all that we contend for — viz. that the Church must
 
 THE ETHICS OF CREED-SUBSCRIPTION. 331 
 
 be prepared to tolerate men within its pale, as honest 
 subscribers to its public documents, whose individual 
 opinions diverge from them less or more — -that is to 
 say, men who regard their form as defective, and even 
 some of their statements as positively erroneous. The 
 concession of the Church's right to revise her standards 
 logically carries with it the toleration of diversities of 
 opinion within the Church itself. And the fact that 
 a man is ordained to office in a Church, and at ordina- 
 tion gave assent to certain documents, becoming an 
 agent of the corporate body, does not tie up his free- 
 dom to enlighten it as to what he may discover to be 
 errors in its formulae. It would be an immoral act to 
 sign away that freedom. No Reformation of the 
 Church could ever have taken place, had such a 
 principle been acted on. But it is equally clear that 
 the Christian teacher who discovers the insufficiency 
 of the creed he has subscribed, is not bound, unless 
 he deems it his duty or his mission to commence an 
 agitation for reform, to avow to all and sundry, 
 • •specially to those who cannot understand his position, 
 the precise details of his divergence from it. In doing 
 so he runs the risk of giving needless pain to some, 
 and of startling and unsettling others. He excites a 
 commotion, and is sure to constitute himself a mark 
 for the theological arrows, which the foolish and the 
 fanatical will discharge against him. Besides he runs 
 the risk of breeding in his own spirit the vice of self- 
 sufficiency ; as if, his detection of a flaw in the old 
 ami venerable documents was so important a matter 
 for his contemporaries, that he must set a whole 
 Church in commotion about it, fostering Ins personal 
 vanity and self-importance. It would be far more
 
 o 
 
 32 THE ETHICS OF CREED-SUBSCRIPTION. 
 
 dignified, and far more healthful for him to keep 
 silence, and use his freedom to profit by a deeper 
 pondering of the questions at issue, and a modest 
 effort to teach his fellow-men around him. 
 
 But, on the other hand, the reticence of opinion, 
 and concealment of the chasms which exist between 
 us and others, might be so excessive as to lead 
 to an unbridled individualism, which would go far to 
 destroy the cohesion of a Church. A Church symbol 
 is a bond of union amongst the members of a corporate 
 body ; and were public sanction given to unlimited 
 secret divergence from it, the sense of duty, which 
 the individual owes to his fellows, might be weakened. 
 It might lead to the hiding- — and therefore to the 
 weakening — of conviction, and to a policy of conceal- 
 ment which would have disastrous moral issues. It 
 would be a palpable evil if either society at large, or 
 the common body of worshippers, were deceived by 
 the action of their guides. 
 
 Is the question, then, one of degree ? Is each 
 individual to determine for himself when his diverg- 
 ence has become so wide, that he must in honesty 
 separate himself from the community with which he 
 has been associated ; and when it is sufficiently slight 
 to warrant his remaining within the Church pale, and 
 making no fuss about it ? Is the individual, in short, 
 to determine when his ' particular dissent ' has 
 become greater than his ' general assent ' to the 
 existing creeds ? We suspect the answer must be an 
 affirmative one ; that while the Church adopts a 
 common symbol for its members, it cannot enforce 
 an absolutely rigorous interpretation of it ; and that a 
 solution of the difficulties which beset the question
 
 THE ETHICS OF CREED-SUBSCRIPTION. 333 
 
 must be sought in the direction of a relaxed formula 
 of subscription. Our relief does riot seem to consist 
 so much in the substitution of a simpler and less in- 
 tricate creed for one more involved and detailed — though 
 that is certainly expedient, — as in a healthier and 
 more humane attitude towards all creeds ivhatsoever. 
 Let the Church announce explicitly that she regards 
 her most perfect creed as, at the best, a very partial 
 approximation to an ideal statement of Truth, a 
 statement carrying within it the signs of imperfection, 
 (and therefore of transition and decay), as truly as it is 
 the record of discovery, or the trophy of victory. If 
 she cannot bring herself to this humbling confession 
 — which would be a sign of real greatness — let the 
 individual members, who bear office in the Church, 
 act upon that couviction. Surely it is as much the 
 dutv of a corporate body, as of an individual, not 
 only to abjure the notion of infallibility, but also to 
 renounce the conceit of great attainment. It is always 
 a sign of mental and spiritual poverty in a Church to 
 be self-complaisant as to the soundness of its creed. 
 It is its permanent duty to ' forget what is behind,' 
 even in the construction of its best theological formulae, 
 and to reach out after a better, while ' whereunto it 
 has already attained, it may walk by the same rule, 
 and mind the same thing.' To the student of the 
 history of opinion it is curious to observe how often 
 Churches drift into the idea, that all candid men 
 must ultimately come round to their way of thinking 
 on religious questions, and this precisely on those 
 points where their reasonings are most precarious, and 
 their conclusions most disputable. The fact that men 
 of equal intelligence, earnestness, learning, and com-
 
 33-i THE ETHICS OF CREED-SUBSCRIPTION. 
 
 petence arrive at conclusions the most diverse, on the 
 most momentous of all subjects, is too notorious to 
 need either proof or illustration. What is the infer- 
 ence to be drawn from this wide divergence ? Not 
 that one is the victim of bias, and another of inveterate 
 prejudice ; that one is fatally in error, and another 
 altogether in the right ; but that all ' see through a 
 glass darkly,' that all ' know in part,' that there is 
 a residuum of truth within every error, and therefore 
 that the difference in theological opinion, and the 
 creeds in which they are formulated, is but a differ- 
 ence in degree, all being fundamentally inadequate and 
 everyone doomed to change. It is a besetting snare 
 of theologians and creed compilers, however, to tran- 
 scend the limits of the knowable; to employ language, 
 in expressing the inner essence of mysteries, which it 
 is altogether incompetent to unfold ; and thus, to draw 
 out an exhaustive chart of doctrine, while the explorer 
 may be himself far out at sea, and can take sound- 
 ings with no other result, than to proclaim that the 
 ocean is unfathomably deep. 
 
 Again, since intellectual agreement is of less and 
 less consequence to educated men, since they usually 
 receive more from those with whom they differ than 
 from those with whom they agree, it cannot greatly 
 signify whether the opinions of the religious teacher 
 are exactly parallel with those whom he teaches ; 
 while it is always undesirable that theirs should be 
 a mere echo of his. 
 
 It would be well to leave the spread of uniformity 
 to the spontaneous action of that tendency to union 
 which always exists amongst men, side by side with 
 their inclination to diverge. And if, to insist on an
 
 THE ETHICS OF CREED-SUBSCRIPTION. 335 
 
 absolute uniformity would be fatal to the intellectual 
 and spiritual life of the Church, it is clear that no 
 individual theologian, and no company of theologians 
 in council assembled, neither bishop nor presbyter, are 
 able to draw the exact line of doctrinal assent, divert- 
 
 3 © 
 
 ence from which is not permissible. 
 
 Theology, like all other sciences, is progressive. 
 Being progressive, its data must undergo constant revis- 
 ion and scientific scrutiny. It follows that the doctrinal 
 standards of the Church must change from age to age. 
 And while the existence of many in the Church who 
 cannot accept the creeds in the sense in which the 
 majority accept them is an absolute necessity, it would 
 be well if, by frequent revision and readjustment of 
 the standards, this necessity were minimised. It 
 cannot be wholly removed. But as events tend 
 continually to increase it, as the progress of knowledge 
 renders the old forms more and more fossiliferous, it 
 is wise for the Church repeatedly to adapt its symbols 
 to the onward stage which theology as a science has 
 reached. If this is not done, the temptation to 
 resort to allegoric modes of interpretation, and to 
 make use of an esoteric sense, is proportionately 
 increased. 
 
 To recapitulate, then, the conclusions at which we 
 have arrived, on the ethics of subscription : — 
 
 1. The most perfect attainable creed is only an 
 approximation to an adequate statement of Truth ; and 
 all creeds are ultimately inadequate. 
 
 2. It is impossible for the same creed equally to 
 satisfy every mind within the Church at any given 
 time. 
 
 3. It is impossible for any creed to continue adequate
 
 ooG THE ETHICS OF CREED-SUBSCRIPTION. 
 
 from age to age. Every intellectual form tends to 
 become obsolete. 
 
 4. It is illegitimate in anyone to subscribe a docu- 
 ment as the final expression of his Faith. Intelligent 
 assent does not imply a determination to adhere always 
 to the adopted or inherited form. 
 
 5. To leave a Church because of intellectual diverg- 
 ence in belief is cowardly, if not criminal ; it is weak, 
 if not irrational. It is deserting the Church, and for- 
 saking the post of duty. 
 
 6. Reforms of all sorts are not only best accom- 
 plished from within ; they are only possible through 
 the patience, forbearance, modesty, tact, and temper of 
 those who are already within, when they seek to carry 
 out the reformation. 
 
 7. The best kind of reform is not accomplished by 
 agitators who begin a crusade against existing creeds, 
 ^-the men whose watchword is, agitate for a change, 
 but do not innovate till the change is sanctioned. For 
 the agitation would be endless ; it would need to be 
 chronic, in order to be thorough-going, — debate suc- 
 ceeding debate, with perpetual heart-burnings, strife, 
 and loveless controversies, devoid of the scientific spirit. 
 And in the intermediate period, till the change was 
 publicly sanctioned and ratified, the Church would 
 suffer from the evils of unhappy controversy, if not of 
 internecine war, with schisms, and endless protests from 
 dissenting minorities. 
 
 What then is our conclusion as to the moral import 
 
 of assent to a creed ? Premising that no one can 
 
 rationally assert that subscription has necessarily the 
 
 same moral import to all men as to himself, we affirm 
 
 first :
 
 THE ETHICS OF CREED-SUBSCRIPTION. 337 
 
 That public assent to a creed is the expression of 
 deep reverence for the faith of our forefathers ; a 
 reverence, which the lapse of time, and the increasing 
 inadequacy of the forms they used, only deepens and 
 confirms. We look on their formularies, not as anti- 
 quarian relics which have survived the wear and tear 
 of time ; but as the venerable memorials of their 
 religious insight, and theological attainment, guided by 
 that Divine Spirit, which has never been withheld from 
 the Church in its work of creed-makinsf. 
 
 Secondly, we express our personal sympathy with, 
 and our respect for the doctrinal conclusions at which 
 they arrived, not as a final expression of Truth, or their 
 creed as a perfect mould in which that truth should 
 be cast ; but as a trustworthy expression, and a valid 
 mould for their age and time. We assent to it, and 
 to its place in history — in the history of Symbols. 
 We avow our belief, that the particular creed to which 
 we assent, contains the truth without exhausting it. 
 It may be erroneous on many points, incomplete in 
 others, exaggerated and one-sided here and there. 
 But we accept it, as more satisfactory than unsatisfac- 
 tory, as more complete than defective, more trustworthy 
 than misleading. We never can renounce our right to 
 think independently of it, or outside of its limits, while 
 we believe that it niuat be defective on some points. 
 
 Thirdly, we sign it with a certain self-renunciation, 
 or abandonment. We sign it, as we have already said, 
 in the plv/ral, and not in the singular. We assent 
 to it as the expression of the common faith, the belief 
 of the collective Church. And here, as elsewhere, the 
 logical law finds scope ; the wider the comprehension, 
 the narrower the extension, or the less the particulariza- 
 
 Y
 
 338 THE ETHICS OF CREED-SUBSCRIPTION. 
 
 tion. That is to say, if we are to have a public 
 standard, expressive of the faith of the Church catholic, 
 including all the diversities of Christendom, we must 
 either have a neutral creed, very general in its terms ; 
 or the individual subscribers to the detailed creed 
 (which expresses the faith of the majority) must assent 
 with reservations, and with self-abandonment for the 
 sake of their brethren, not expecting a perfect formula 
 in any case. Suppose that those who object to this, 
 had been present at any of the great councils in which 
 dogma was discussed and decided, had stated their 
 views, and been opposed, what would have been their 
 attitude? Would they not have continued to hold 
 their opinions, even though the council decided against 
 them by a majority ? And if they gave their assent 
 to the formula, as finally constructed, would it not have 
 been with a certain reservation ? It is no demoraliza- 
 tion to the individual conscience thus to subscribe ; but 
 it would be directly demoralizing to assent unconvinced, 
 or because the majority decided so. If, therefore, when 
 we can assent to the propositions of a creed literally, 
 we do so ; when we cannot assent to them literally, 
 but can give them a figurative meaning, may we not 
 also do so ? and, when we can do neither, may we not 
 accept them as more adequate to our brethren, with 
 whom we are associated, than they are, or can be to us ; 
 and be thankful for their satisfaction with them ? We 
 stand, indeed, between two opposite risks in this whole 
 matter; but they unite in this, the danger of unveracity. 
 If we subscribe a long and intricate document as the 
 confession of our faith, which we have not examined 
 with the fullest and most careful scrutiny, in the light 
 of Philosophy, of History, and of Criticism — and have
 
 THE ETHICS OF CREED-SUBSCKIPTIOX. 339 
 
 satisfied ourselves that it is a trustworthy expression of 
 a rational man's faith — we are, to that extent, un- 
 veracious in subscription. If, on the other hand, we 
 assent to a document containing propositions from 
 which our reason and conscience revolt, as if we received 
 it implicitly, we are to that extent unveracious also. 
 But if we sign it, not only as a personal expression of 
 belief, but as the manifesto of a Church, — and in so 
 doing, proclaim our unity and deep religious affinity 
 with our brethren, — we escape from all unveracity, and 
 can conscientiously sign documents, which are to us 
 only partially adequate, documents which we would 
 fain see altered, both for our own and for our brethren's 
 sake. The vicarious element that enters, or may 
 always enter, into healthy creed -subscription has not 
 yet received the prominence it deserves. A man must 
 have a strong reason to justify him in separating him- 
 self from the community in which he has been edu- 
 cated ; and it would surely tend more to his personal 
 growth, insight, and edification, were he to remain 
 within its pale, and learn from those who think diffe- 
 rently from him, than were he to add to the schisms 
 which exist, or wander in pursuit of the unattainable 
 ideal of a perfect Church on earth.
 
 THE FUNCTION OF PRAYER IN THE 
 ECONOMY OF THE UNIVERSE. 
 
 ( The Contemporary Review, January 1873.) 
 
 Recent controversy regarding the function of prayer 
 in the economy of the Universe has illustrated the 
 almost chronic tendency of two schools of philosophical 
 thought, and the seemingly inveterate bias which they 
 produce. The reluctance of the religious world to 
 admit that there is a sphere to which prayer — in the 
 sense of petition — is inherently inapplicable, is quite 
 as conspicuous, as is the hesitation of the physicist to 
 concede its legitimacy, and to admit its power, within 
 the spiritual domain. It is natural that those whose 
 life-work is the investigation of physical law, and 
 whose researches are rigorously governed by the 
 methods of induction, should wish to prove the value 
 of an alleged power by definite experimental tests, 
 such as the collection of statistics, or by some process 
 not inferior in accuracy to those on which all Science 
 rests. But, it is manifestly unfair to deal thus with a 
 power, which the wisest of their opponents remove 
 altogether from the sphere of physical causation. It 
 is, perhaps, equally natural that those whose experi- 
 ence affirms that prayer ' availeth much,' should 
 shrink from narrowing the area to which its efficacy 
 extends ; and, perceiving that the spiritual and phy- 
 sical forces are inter-related and reciprocal, should be
 
 THE FUNCTION OF PRAYER. 341 
 
 jealous of any encroachment from the physical side. 
 It is equally unphilosophical, however, for the 
 spiritualist to thrust within the province of the 
 naturalist a power, whicli is unchallengeable within its 
 own sphere ; as it is for the naturalist to slight a 
 force, the rationale of which escapes his physical tests. 
 The controversy resembles that which has lasted, 
 from the dawn of speculation, between the Intuition- 
 alists and Experientialists ; in which the disciples of 
 both schools are reluctant to concede the full value of 
 the data, in which the counter-theory takes its rise. 
 It is, indeed, but a subordinate phase of the same 
 controversy ; kindred, in this respect, to that which 
 separates the advocates of Evolution from those who 
 believe in successive incursions of creative force. The 
 success which has attended the labours of naturalists 
 in accounting for the origin of species by ' natural 
 selection ' has induced them to extend the operation 
 of that law to the intellectual and moral nature of 
 man ; where, although it explains subordinate pheno- 
 mena, in the presence of free will, it breaks down. 
 While the discussion is exhilarating, and the whole 
 controversy a stimulus to patient and accurate re- 
 search, collision between the two schools is philo- 
 sophically illegitimate, and fruitless of result. In the 
 one system, we see the spiritual protest of the reason 
 and the conscience, against the domination of material 
 law, and the paralyzing sense of necessity ; but, in 
 alliance with it, a frequent vagueness of statement, 
 the airiness of mysticism, and occasional indifference 
 to facts. In the other, we experience the healthful 
 recoil of the scientific mind against all rash ontology, 
 and alleged but unverifiable data ; but, along with it,
 
 342 THE FUNCTION OF PRAYER 
 
 the frequent collapse of the spiritual instinct, which 
 leads behind the barriers of physical sequence. It is 
 the part of a wise Eclecticism to attempt a reconcilia- 
 tion between the opposite schools ; and in the question 
 at present brought to the front — the validity of 
 prayer — to vindicate against the physicist its function 
 in the economy of nature ; and, against the ultra- 
 spiritualist to maintain the invariability of natural 
 laws, and the irreverence of human entreaty for any 
 interference with these. It is a blot upon our 
 civilization that, in the conduct of this controversy, 
 there has been so much heat and acrimony, and a 
 lack of comprehensive fairness on either side. 
 
 No one, even slightly acquainted with scientific 
 methods and results, can for a moment brook the idea 
 of any interference with the laws of external nature, 
 produced by human prayer. We may add — however 
 slight our knowledge of scientific detail — that the 
 amount of physical force within the Universe is in- 
 capable either of increase or diminution, but only of 
 endless modification ; that the physical nexus between 
 phenomena, in their ceaseless flux and reflux, is never 
 broken ; while the order in which the phenomena 
 appear is governed by the rigour of adamantine law. 
 The links of the chain of physical sequence continue 
 to lengthen out interminably, connecting the past with 
 the present, and uniting the present to the future 
 infallibly. Catastrophe — the breaking of the chain — 
 is simply inconceivable ; and so far as we can think 
 of the complex economy of Nature as a series of pre- 
 arrangements, they have been adjusted each to each, 
 with the completest mastery of all possible emergencies. 
 Were they altered at the suggestion of a creature,.
 
 IN THE ECONOMY OF THE UNIVERSE. 343 
 
 either they were imperfect before the suggestion was 
 made, or they were made less perfect by means of it. 
 If previously perfect, the change would be undivine ; 
 and if not perfect until the change, we could with 
 difficulty believe in the perfection of Him who made it. 
 This conception of the absolute fixity of physical 
 law is one which the progress of Science has made 
 axiomatic. Belief in an all-comprehending Intelli- 
 gence, which saw ' the end from the beginning,' and 
 ' determined beforehand ' the history of every inorganic 
 atom, and the evolution of each sentient structure, is 
 a postulate of Rational Theology. That, in the 
 guidance of the universe, its great Superintendent 
 acts according to laws ' set up from everlasting,' is no 
 less axiomatic. The more vehement opponents of 
 this doctrine boldly challenge the datum from which 
 it starts, viz., the invariability of material law. They 
 say that it is an unproved, and therefore an un- 
 scientific assertion, that the sequences which seem to 
 us invariable are so necessarily. Let us grant that 
 the invariability is not 'in the nature of things.' The 
 calm rejoinder of the physicist is, ' we have no 
 scientific experience to warrant the belief that Nature's 
 sequences are ever variable.' And were experience 
 taken as our guide, the solution of the question on 
 both sides would be easy. On the one hand, the 
 efficacy of prayer to quicken and exalt, to change 
 character, and to elevate human life, is a fact of con- 
 sciousness. On the other hand, we have no experience 
 of the suspension of physical law in answer to prayer. 
 Alike in the physical and moral region, the causal 
 nexus is inviolate and inviolable. In both spheres, it 
 is as a man sows, that he invariably reaps. If he
 
 344 THE FUNCTION OF PRAYER 
 
 injures his physical frame, he reaps the consequence 
 in physical detriment ; if he impairs his moral power, 
 and spiritual vision, he gathers the harvest of moral 
 degeneracy. But, there is no confusion of the spheres 
 of moral and physical agency. To put it otherwise, a 
 spiritual antecedent does not produce a physical con- 
 sequent. It may co-operate with physical causes, to 
 increase or intensify the result ; as the physical may 
 influence or modify the spiritual. But the exercise 
 of the religious function of prayer cannot directly effect 
 any material change. It is the appeal of spirit to 
 Spirit, conducted within the spiritual sphere, for pur- 
 poses that are strictly supra-natural. 
 
 It is vain to reply that we are continually inter- 
 fering with the seemingly fixed laws of the universe, 
 and altering their destination by our voluntary activi- 
 ties, or scientific appliances ; for in all such cases we 
 simply make use of existing forces. We are ourselves 
 a part of the physical cosmos ; and in accordance with 
 its laws, we exert a power which changes external 
 nature. But we can never escape from the domain 
 of law. Were we to attempt it, our act would itself 
 be a link in the chain of phenomenal sequence. The 
 very moment we put it forth, as agents in a pheno- 
 menal world, that instant the energy we exert — itself 
 determined by prior influence — enters as a new element 
 into the vast chain of physical causation. In short, 
 we can only change the existing Order, by the exercise 
 of a power which is itself a part of that order, and 
 whose every movement is regulated by law. 
 
 The extremely vague manner in which those, who 
 imagine that prayer can directly alter the sequences 
 of nature, state their case, is in the last degree un-
 
 IN THE ECONOMY OF THE UNIVERSE. 34 o 
 
 scientific. Thus, it is said, may not God, who is sovran 
 and free, direct the forces of nature in one direction 
 rather than another, in reply to the free entreaty of 
 the creature, whom He encourages to pray : and 
 atmospheric phenomena are supposed to be peculiarly 
 amenable to such 'direction.' Suppose then, that 
 after a period of dry weather, prayer is offered, and 
 rain begins to fall, will the theologian venture to deny, 
 that there was as exact an order in the physical 
 antecedents, as there would have been had no prayer 
 been offered ? Will he hazard the assertion that there 
 was a break in the nexus between the descent of the 
 rain, and the physical causes Avhich produced it ; that 
 a spiritual agency, exerted by the petitioner, has 
 become the cause of the atmospheric change — the 
 condensation of the cloud and the descent of the rain 
 — at a particular spot, and a special time? The crude 
 notion seems to be widely entertained, that because the 
 changes of the weather are apparently capricious, the 
 wind blowing 'as it listeth,' it may be sent forth on 
 special errands in answer to human entreaty. Is not 
 this the polytheistic notion of Eolus, with the winds 
 in his fists ? It is supposed that the destination of a 
 physical force can be arrested, and the otherwise in- 
 evitable result prevented, by an act of Divine volition. 
 But the antecedent force mud spend itself, and deter- 
 mine some consequent. It cannot be lifted out of its 
 place amongst the links of physical causation, without 
 the whole chain falling to pieces. Its efficiency, in 
 giving rise to a new sequence, is involved in its very 
 i-sisfmce; while the discovery of the correlation and 
 transmutation of the forces proves that the prior agent 
 is still present, and operative under an altered form.
 
 846 THE FUNCTION OF PRAYER 
 
 But, it is said, that while the chain of physical 
 sequence remains unbroken, the local incidence of each 
 phenomenon, or the direction taken by the links of the 
 chain, may be determined by some ethereal wave of 
 hyper-physical energy, transmitted along the entire 
 line from its fountain-head, in delicately subtle un- 
 dulations, resembling the waves of light and sound, 
 or the flash of electricity through a telegraph wire ; 
 and that the course of this hyper-physical energy may 
 be determined in answer to the requests of men. 
 This assertion has all the characteristics of a hypo- 
 thesis devised to escape from the horns of a dilemma. 
 1 st, It is not supposed to apply to the whole domain of 
 Nature, but only to a part of it ; since no one would 
 pretend that the rotation of the seasons was thus 
 determined. Nevertheless, the fluctuations of the 
 weather between two seconds of time are as rigorously 
 determined by law, as are the larger successions of the 
 seasons ; and to imagine that the Supreme Power 
 would thus isolate some physical events from the rest 
 is inconceivable. It would introduce the most arbi- 
 trary casualism, in place of the orderliness of law. 
 Again, 2nd, suppose there be no physical ' fountain- 
 head,' but an endless cycle of recurrent energy ; and 
 what becomes of the hypothesis ? Farther, 3rd, what 
 purpose would this hyper-physical wave subserve, that 
 is not already and better accomplished in the ordinary 
 causation of the universe ? Again, 4th, the introduc- 
 tion of this causal element, overruling and deflecting 
 some phenomena of nature, would infallibly disturb the 
 rest, and introduce bewildering chaos. For, though 
 hyper-physical in its origin and character, the effect it 
 is said to produce is not hyper-physical — in that case
 
 IN THE ECONOMY OF THE UNIVERSE. 347 
 
 we should have no controversy with its advocates — 
 but physical ; and it is believed to give rise to an 
 interminable series of fresh physical results. That it 
 should be in the power of any creature thus to launch 
 a new agency at will, into the pre-arranged system of 
 Nature, and thereby to start a series of changes 
 which are absolutely interminable in their effect, is 
 simply incredible. Lastly, 5th, we have no experi- 
 mental evidence of this subtle wave of influence, or 
 of its results, from which we might infer a cause. It 
 is an unverified hypothesis at the best. 
 
 Setting it aside, therefore, we are forced to the 
 conclusion that human prayer has no validity as a 
 force working directly within the domain of physical 
 nature. To pray for fine weather, or for rain — except 
 as a humble expression of man's dependence upon 
 forces that are vaster than himself, and on Him from 
 whom they emanate — is quite as illegitimate as it is 
 to pray against the approach of winter, or the return 
 of summer, or even against to-morrow's sunrise. If 
 the rain we wish is needful for our particular district, 
 in the ultimate and general economy of Nature, it 
 will fall, in due course. If it does not do so, that is 
 simply because it — or its physical equivalents — were 
 required elsewhere, in the balance of that supreme 
 economy. To desire its local cessation when it seems 
 excessive, or its local presence when there is a drought, 
 is the impulse of human selfishness, anxious to possess 
 the most desirable things in one's immediate neigh- 
 bourhood (and ignorant of what these really are) ; 
 forgetting that the Administrator of the Universe has 
 to consider the greatest good of the whole number ; 
 that He is superintending the entire economy of
 
 S-iS THE FUNCTION OF PRAYER 
 
 Nature, in which the apparent bane of one district 
 is the blessing of another, while He is devoid of 
 favouritism ; and that these terms ' bane ' and ' bless- 
 ing ' have really no meaning to the physical universe 
 at large. We do not mean to affirm that such ' sel- 
 fishness,' on the part of the suppliant, is very culpable. 
 It is natural to wish for fine weather, after protracted 
 rain ; or for showers, after long continued drought. 
 It is only absurd to suppose that our wishes can 
 regulate the weather, or our requests determine it ; 
 and its selfishness, usually quite unconscious, is apparent, 
 only when we change the wish, and suppose its grati- 
 fication possible. 
 
 But we are repeatedly told by theologians that 
 answers to prayer, within the physical realm, are signs 
 of the Divine Presence, helpful to the suppliant's faith. 
 Is this, then, a worthy conception of God's relation to 
 the universe, that He interferes every now and then 
 with his established order, to prove his own supremacy ? 
 That He interrupts the working of his machine, to 
 prove that He is there behind it, and has power to 
 alter Nature, or to grant the requests of his creatures? 
 Is not such a notion the offspring of the very crudest 
 anthropomorphism ? It is difficult to imagine a poorer 
 idea of Divine revelation than is implied in such 
 arbitrariness. To those who think it gracious con- 
 descension, it may be replied, that it would be quite 
 as significant of caprice. It is supposed that having 
 created a tiny creature, and brought him into the 
 midst of the universal Order — a creature who scarcely 
 ever comprehends the meaning of that order — the 
 fSupreme Artificer finds it expedient continually to 
 announce himself, by an alteration of the course and
 
 IN THE ECONOMY OF THE UNIVERSE. 349" 
 
 destination of phenomena, at the unenlightened — it 
 may be the selfish — call of that creature ; and that 
 He does so, while at the same time his presence is 
 ceaselessly revealed, within every pulse and movement 
 of the universe. But the very purport of revelation 
 — which is merely the withdrawal of a veil — is not 
 to show the creature that primeval order can be 
 violated, or that ' the material is subordinate to the 
 spiritual.' It is to announce the fact that the spiritual 
 lies abidingly iv it/tin the material, as its underlying 
 essence ; that it is omnipresent, and always con- 
 fronting us, although phenomena perpetually veil it 
 from our sight. And, while this is the philosophical 
 notion, is it not also the biblical idea of the relation 
 which God sustains to the cosmos ? We have no 
 evidence that the writers of our Sacred Books re- 
 garded the power, which manifested itself to them in 
 unusual ways, as essentially different from that of 
 which we see a daily apocalypse in the material 
 world. So far from this, these writers uniformly 
 speak of all natural phenomena as the direct outcome 
 of divine agency. God ' walks on the wings of the 
 winds;' the clouds are 'his chariot;' 'his voice' is 
 heard when it thundereth, and so forth. To the 
 Hebrew prophets and psalmists at least, the Super- 
 natural was the Power which works through the 
 natural order, and of which all the forces of the 
 universe are manifestations to men. 
 
 But, there is a farther question, to which the phy- 
 sicist may validly demand an answer. All men in- 
 stinctively abstain from presuming to ask God for 
 certain things within the physical sphere — for example, 
 for constant daylight, for perpetual summer, for phy-
 
 350 THE FUNCTION OF PRAYER 
 
 fiical immortality, or for the resurrection of the dead. 
 The physicist asks us why we abstain from such 
 requests ? Is it not because we find that they are 
 contrary to the laws of nature, that the occurrence of 
 such things would involve the absolute overthrow of 
 the existing cosmical order ? And he is entitled to 
 press for an answer to the farther question, ' Why 
 should we draw a line, and exclude any physical 
 phenomena whatsoever, from the category of the fixed 
 and prearranged ? ' By degrees, we learn to include 
 what seemed at first anomalous, within the majestic 
 sweep of predetermined law. And is it not in exact 
 proportion to our ignorance of what is fixed, that we 
 make it the subject of petition ? Religious men do 
 not pray for eternal sunshine or for physical immor- 
 tality. Why ? Simply because they recognize that 
 such would be contrary to the will of God, as revealed 
 in the laws of external nature; and it rests with them 
 to prove that one siugle physical event may validly be 
 excluded from the list of the predetermined, before they 
 call upon us to pray with reference to it. The religious 
 world is surely bound to reply to this appeal of the naturalist. 
 Meanwhile, there is another objection that is fatal 
 to this habit of prayer for things that are purely 
 23hysical. It distorts the petitioner's idea of the 
 character of God, leading him almost invariably to im- 
 agine that special catastrophes are signs of displeasure, 
 calling for confession of sin and repentance. A season 
 of unusual cold and rain, resulting in a bad harvest 
 and threatened famine, or a winter of prolonged storm, 
 strewing our shores with wrecked vessels and wasted 
 cargoes, or a time of cattle plague, or an outbreak of 
 cholera — these are regarded as signs of the displeasure
 
 IN THE ECONOMY OF THE UNIVERSE. 351 
 
 of Heaven, calling for general confession of sin, and 
 prayer for the lessening or the removal of disaster. 
 Men do this, and yet they call their ancestors irrational, 
 because they prayed against eclipses ; and they reckon 
 the mediaeval warriors foolish, because they feared a 
 •catastrophe on the earth, when the auroral light was 
 coloured in the sky. In both cases, it is to cower 
 with craven hearts, as before a capricious Deity. The 
 habit of mind it induces is disastrous to piety, and 
 even to sincerity ; and there is often mere arbitrariness, 
 as well as spiritual unreality, in the appointment of 
 humiliation days for bad harvests or the presence of a 
 plague. It would be more rational to appoint a fixed 
 hour for humiliation, to last the whole year round, 
 for the thousand human miseries that are more acute 
 and terrible than loss of crops, or death of cattle, or 
 winter wrecks, or the incursions of pestilence can ever 
 be. Even the most ignorant of those w r ho observe 
 such days, do not regard calamitous events as judg- 
 ments for special sin. The divine words touching the 
 tower of Siloam have dissipated that idea, at least for 
 Christendom. But it is judged expedient, when disaster 
 overtakes a nation, or a community, to make some 
 confession of sin in general; and, in conjunction with 
 it, to pray for the removal of the calamity. Now, so 
 far as it can be obviated or lessened, by human action, 
 prudence, foresight and conformity to the laws of 
 nature, man may validly pray to be enabled to put 
 forth that foresight and sagacity, and to conform to 
 these laws. But in so far as the disaster is due to 
 causes with which ho cannot interfere, his obvious 
 duty is to acquiesce in the will of the Supreme. If 
 he prays — as he undoubtedly should, — it ought to be
 
 352 THE FUNCTION OF PRAYER 
 
 simply for the spirit of submission. Even in the 
 former case, it is only indirectly that he ought to pray 
 for the removal of a pestilence. He may ask for wis- 
 dom to cope with it, for a knowledge of the laws of 
 health, and for ability to conform to these ; inasmuch 
 as unconscious aid is frequently afforded to the will of 
 the agent who is striving to observe them. Doubt- 
 less this is often involved in petitions for the removal of 
 existing evils ; but it is as commonly ignored, in the 
 selfish longing for some ' special providence ' which may 
 sweep the pestilence away. 
 
 There is superficiality as well as irreverence in the 
 easily uttered cry for deliverance, which so frequently 
 dulls the edge of practical endeavour, to remove the 
 evil, and to conform to the neglected law, expressive 
 of the Divine will. There is irreverence in all distrust 
 of the absoluteness of the Divine wisdom and love : 
 and petition is altogether irrational, if offered up in 
 opposition to the clear evidence of experience that it 
 is fruitless, and that God does not thus gratify wishes, 
 which may be the mere caprices of his creatures. 
 Doubtless the undertone of all devout prayer is, ' Not 
 my will, but thine be done ;' that is to say, the 
 petitioner confesses his ignorance of what ought to be, 
 and rejoices in the surrender of his wishes. But in 
 addition to this acknowledged undertone, if God reveals 
 the fact that his will is done, through the laws He has 
 established, is it not supreme irreverence in man, 
 craving for a ' sign and a wonder,' to cry out for some- 
 thing more ? It is blasphemous to imagine that God 
 ever violates a law. The only violation of law, of 
 which we can form any rational conception, is its non- 
 observance by an agent, who can and should obey it: and,.
 
 IN THE ECONOMY OF THE UNIVERSE. 353 
 
 in reference to such a possibility, he may always pray 
 for strength, patiently to conform to the Eternal Order. 
 
 Conceding all this, and that not reluctantly, because 
 it is in conformity with the dictates of reason, and 
 also with ' the sweet reasonableness' of Christianity, 
 we must also vindicate against those who impu«n it, 
 the function — and the 'sweet reasonableness' — of 
 prayer, as a spiritual factor within the economy of 
 Nature. It is unfortunate that physicists do not begin 
 their inquiry into the rationale of prayer, by testing- 
 its value within the spiritual domain. They might 
 disarm hostility to the doctrine they teach touching 
 physical nature, were they to recognise in spiritual 
 prayer, not a mere ' potent supplement' to the reli- 
 gious life, but the very pulse of that life itself. 
 
 Now, it is incorrect to say that prayer is ever 
 regarded by its advocates as 'a form of physical 
 energy.' Unless it be used as a very loose figure of 
 speech, that is simply a travesty of what is held by all 
 rational theologians. Prayer is always believed — even 
 by the most illiterate — to be a spiritual power, the 
 exercise of which by the suppliant on earth determines 
 the action of the Spiritual Power above him, which in 
 its turn accomplishes a change amongst phenomena. 
 This may be erroneous ; and it is for the naturalist to 
 combat it, if he is scientifically able to do. But when 
 physicists say that they 'cannot express their repugnance 
 at the notion that Supreme Intelligence and Wisdom 
 can be influenced by the suggestions of any human 
 mind, however great,' is not this to deny the validity 
 of prayer altogether, by a direct assertion to the con- 
 trary ? We are informed that modern science contends 
 only for ' the displacement ' of prayer, not for its
 
 r> 
 
 54 THE FUNCTION OF PRAYER 
 
 ' extinction.' But when we ask, what is the value 
 attached to it within its own domain, we receive this 
 very vague reply, ' that in some form or other, not yet 
 evident, prayer may, as alleged, be necessary to man's 
 highest culture.' It is a peradventure at the best. 
 It may be of use ; and that only as a means towards 
 ' man's highest culture ; ' and that in a way ' not yet 
 evident.' Does the experience of the ages then go for 
 nothing on these two points — that the prayer of the 
 righteous ' availeth much,' that it is the opening 
 of a window to the Supernatural ; and that, while a 
 devout man prays, his spirit is touched from above, to 
 finest spiritual issues ? Have all religious men, 
 who have prayed for inward light quickening and help, 
 and believed that they were listened to, no claim to 
 be heard, as witnesses in favour of a fact, which is 
 dim to the scientific eye ? 
 
 We maintain that the true sphere and function of 
 prayer are purely spiritual — though in one important 
 respect its results tend out beyond that region — and 
 that it is, in the spiritual freedom of man on the one 
 hand, and the eternal freedom of God on the other, 
 that we find its rationale. The being and the moral 
 character of God must, of course, be taken for granted, 
 in any discussion as to the function of prayer. To 
 every theory of the universe that dispenses with 
 his existence, or merges it in Nature, prayer is mani- 
 festly an excrescence. It might still be an impressive 
 utterance of the soul in moments of sorrow, or tragic 
 loss, or even of triumph, like a stream chafing between 
 the rocky barriers of its course ; but it would have no 
 rational ground, and could never be a duty. It is 
 noteworthy, however, that the act of devotion, arising
 
 IN THE ECONOMY OF THE UNIVERSE. 355 
 
 out of the felt dependence of the creature, is one means 
 by which the latent sense of the Divine presence may 
 be quickened into life. Starting then with the postu- 
 late, of the existence and the recognisability of God, 
 the raison d'etre of prayer is almost self-evident. In 
 a sense, it is by the avenue of prayer that — speaking 
 always in a figure — we ' come unto God, even unto 
 his seat.' The act of devotion leads the worshipper 
 into his presence, not as revealed in space or time, or 
 through any representative form, but as the ever- 
 present and eternal Life. It is the inarticulate lan- 
 guage of the heart, the voice of the spirit, recognising 
 its own Original. This power of recognition, however, 
 implies superiority to the unconscious forces of the 
 material world. Had we no free spiritual power, dif- 
 ferentiating us from surrounding existences, we could 
 not ' come into ' God's presence in the act of devotion ; 
 for, in that presence, man, as well as unconscious 
 nature, necessarily lives and has his being. Being en- 
 dowed with intelligence and spiritual freedom, however, 
 he may, by an act either of simple aspiration, or of 
 will, present his spirit to the Divine, withdrawing it 
 from the sphere of the sensuous, and subjecting it to 
 the influence of the super-sensible. And the Divine 
 Nature may then act upon the human, to quicken and 
 exalt ; directly ' enduing it with power from on high.' 
 In the conscious freedom of our own wills, we recog- 
 nise a power, irreducible by analysis, which proclaims 
 our superiority to the links of physical causation, while 
 it acts in unbroken harmony with these. It testifies 
 that, in our inmost essence, we are not the mere pro- 
 ducts of organising force ; but that we have — to use 
 the Kantian term — natures noumenally free, and
 
 356 THE FUNCTION OF PRAYER 
 
 therefore, noumenally related to God. The sphere of 
 prayer is, therefore, the Jife of the creature, endowed 
 with moral freedom, arid the capacities of spiritual 
 growth. Its value to the individual consists in the 
 impulse it conveys to the inmost energies of the soul, 
 in their ascent and progress. By a direct divine 
 afflatus, it tends — when it is, in Pauline phrase, 
 ' prayer with the spirit, and with the understanding 
 also' — to clarify the intellect, and to elevate the 
 heart, to rectify the bias of the passions, to strengthen 
 the conscience, to discipline the will, and to foster all 
 the virtues. Are these results to be slighted, because 
 the subjective power which co-operates to effect them 
 is wholly inoperative in external nature ? In that 
 outer region, all is orderly and fair. But, in the region 
 of the spiritual, there is conscious disorder, there is 
 moral chaos, which is at once an evidence of the need, 
 and a vindication of the reasonableness, of interference 
 with it. Since then, it can be altered for the better, 
 and since the alteration of this internal world is accom- 
 plished by the efforts of free will, while God works 
 within it, — and is impossible in its highest phases, 
 without help and co-operation from him, — why should 
 not man petition for that help, why should he not ask 
 for the presence of the Co-operator ? For that is ab- 
 solutely all. Prayer involves petition : but it is request 
 for nothing outward. The petition is but the expres- 
 sion of that hunger and thirst for the Divine Presence, 
 of which the Hebrew psalmists write with such pas- 
 sionate ardours, the longing for perfection, the desire 
 to escape from conscious disorder, and to conform to 
 the order of everlasting right, with absolute submission 
 to the will of the Eternal. Thus the act of prayer is-
 
 IX THE ECONOMY OF THE UNIVERSE. 357 
 
 the very key to the kingdom of God. We cannot dis- 
 pense with it, without discarding all worship whatso- 
 ever, all recognition of the Supreme Being, or of ' the 
 power which makes for righteousness' in the world. 
 If religion be the recognition of, and allegiance to the 
 personal and ever-present God, a man cannot be 
 religious, and neglect devotion. He may be modest, 
 reverent, humble, full of admiration, or awestruck 
 before the mysteries and sublimities of the universe : 
 but religious, in the sense above defined, he cannot be. 
 We are told, however, by all agnostic teachers, that 
 this is a mistake ; that the essence of religion is the 
 recognition of mystery, the essential element in prayer 
 being a feeling of wonder and admiration in presence 
 of resistless force, unerring wisdom, and everlasting 
 power. As our confidence in the eternal order 
 deepens, we are lifted to the ' Rock that is higher than 
 we,' and filial piety evidences itself by the absence 
 of any wish for a change of that which is. Mute 
 dependence on resistless force, fearing no catastrophe, 
 believing in none, independent of all ' means of grace ' 
 and seasons of devotion, — that is the alpha and the 
 omega of piety. Surely it is the old Stoic fate, with 
 its one virtue of submission, under a roseate modern 
 guise ? To work, and to wonder ; that, and that alone 
 is to pray. We are further told that whatever be the 
 wisdom of the petitioner, his knowledge is literally less 
 than nothing and vanity, to the Most High ; and th.it 
 it is only his ignorance that leads him to offer up any 
 petition. In short, the more ignorant a man is the 
 more he will pray for, the more intelligent he is the 
 less he will pray for, and when his intelligence is per- 
 fected, lie will not pray ;it alL
 
 n 
 
 58 THE FUNCTION OF PJRAYER 
 
 It would conduce to clearness, and lessen the risk 
 of misrepresentation, if we were informed whether such 
 a sweeping condemnation applies to all petition what- 
 soever, or only to prayer for physical well-being, and 
 interferences with nature. The opponents of prayer 
 do not sufficiently recognise the fact, that few, if any, 
 petitions are offered up, in an absolute and unsubor- 
 dinated manner. Even when unaccompanied by the 
 express reservation, ' Thy will be done,' this is — as we 
 have remarked — the essential undertone, or the sup- 
 pressed premiss, in all true prayer. It is the unvary- 
 ing, yet most musical refrain, running through every 
 song of the Church's devotion. And if rash suggestions 
 touching the physical world are occasionally heard from 
 the lips of rude though pious worshippers, we may be 
 sure that the Hearer of prayer, ' unto whom all flesh 
 shall come,' does not despise the stammering speech, 
 due to infancy of mind. Such stammering, however, 
 becomes irreverence in mental manhood ; and in this 
 matter emphatically, when ' we become men, we must 
 put away childish things.' 
 
 We have already said that the mind, trained in the 
 patient study of nature's processes, learns gradually to 
 include even seeming anomalies within the sweep of 
 predetermined law ; but if it is also trained in reflec- 
 tive science, it will ask, ' What constitutes a law V and 
 it will discover that it is but the expression of the way 
 in which the forces of the Universe fulfil their mission ; 
 in other words, by which the eternal Mechanist and 
 Sustainer works within his own creation. He, is the 
 living pulse, within the whole machinery of nature ; 
 and the laws of matter or of mind are but the indices 
 of his activity, the generalised expression or interpre-
 
 IN THE ECONOMY OF THE UNIVERSE. 35!) 
 
 tation of the way in which the Supreme Artist, Builder, 
 and Administrator controls his own creation. So far 
 all is fixed, although it is the fixity of unerring wisdom. 
 It is unalterable, simply because it is the arrangement 
 of an Optimist Ruler. But within the mind, contem- 
 plating this unchallengeable order, there is something 
 that is not fixed. We are conscious of moral freedom, 
 of the autocratic power of self-determination ; while we 
 are simultaneously conscious of moral disorder, and the 
 need of rectification. The latter consciousness impels 
 the spirit instinctively to look beyond itself for aid ; 
 while the former suggests the presence of One who is 
 the source of its freedom, and is able to readjust. 
 
 It is not possible, in this paper, to unfold the 
 evidence which our moral freedom bears to its own 
 Archetype and Original. But, assuming the Divine 
 Existence, and the resemblance between the human 
 and the divine, the corollary is evident enough. If, 
 within the fountainhead of the Divine Nature, in 
 which the human lives and has its being, there is a 
 fulness of life, unexhausted in the support of the 
 existing Universe — power in reserve, yet communi- 
 cable — prayer is but the approach of the human spirit 
 to its Source, that it may receive the inspiration of 
 that power. We must admit the existence of this 
 reserve of communicable life within the Divine Essence, 
 unless we hold that it has exhausted itself in creation; 
 or that the moral fountain-head is an exact counter- 
 part of a physical spring, and that what issues from 
 it previously entered it in an altered form ; that is to 
 suy, unless we believe in the reabsorption of human 
 souls in the universal life. But if an addition is made 
 to the moral contents of the universe, on the appear-
 
 360 THE FUNCTION OF PRAYER 
 
 ance of every new human life, there must be a reservoir 
 of unexhausted power within the moral Source. And 
 if it exists in eternal wealth and communicable fresh- 
 ness — its most spiritual features suggested by the wells 
 of earth, those ' fountains and depths that spring out 
 of valleys and hills ' — man may surely pray for it ; and 
 may find it descend upon him, or rather rise up within 
 him, pervading his faculties, moulding his life, and 
 replenishing his will. Intelligent recognition of the 
 ever-present Mind is itself an act of prayer. The 
 expression of such prayer in the language of adoration 
 or of trust, is secondary to the act of recognition itself. 
 But no sooner does the soul look, as through a window, 
 upon the supernatural, — we must speak in material 
 figures, although we allow them to drop from the mind 
 in the act of using them — than desire to approach the 
 Divine Presence, and to be brought into harmony with 
 it, instinctively arises. And that longing (of which 
 St. Augustine has left so noble a record in his ' Con- 
 fessions ') the desiderium of the heart, is most truly 
 the essence of prayer. It is petition for the loftiest 
 order of good, tempered with submission, and yet 
 prescient of success. 
 
 If, now, we are told by those, whose researches have 
 confined them for a lifetime within the tracks of 
 physical law, that with this region of ' inner mysteries ' 
 they are unfamiliar, it might be a perfectly valid and 
 strictly philosophical rejoinder that they 
 
 have faculties within, 
 Which they have never used. 
 
 If, recognising the Divine existence, they are not con- 
 scious of the stirrings of that instinct which prompts
 
 IN THE ECONOMY OF THE UNIVERSE. 301 
 
 the prayer of the devout, — of that flagging of the wing 
 of all endeavour which evokes it in some, or that 
 sense of loneliness which awakens the filial cry in 
 others, — they are not at liberty to treat it, either as a 
 weakness, or an unproductive act, to be banished from 
 the realm of scientific utilities. By the very conditions 
 of the case they are precluded from pronouncing on its 
 validity, because they cannot isolate the phenomenon 
 in question, throw it into a crucible, and subject it to 
 analytic tests. It is simply impossible to bring the 
 life of the petitioner within the compass of any experi- 
 mental gauge. As has been well remarked, ' we can- 
 not enter into the heart of those who pray, and take 
 scientific precautions lest the experiment be delusive, 
 and measure what was the moral strength before the 
 prayer, and what accession of strength has come after 
 it' (F. Newman). Besides, the deepest aspirations of 
 the soul are least discernible by those who study the 
 
 process from without : and the most intense replies 
 
 accessions of spiritual power — are necessarily unper- 
 ceived by those who merely watch the current in its 
 flow, that they may compute the volume of its waters. 
 They always reduce the worshipper to silence, and 
 breed reserve. The soul may be kindled to unwonted 
 glow with the inspiration of heaven, and may find that 
 the words of a litany, or the music of a psalm, are the 
 fittest channel in which to express itself; but the 
 Power, which lias reached it from above, can never be 
 subjected to scrutiny, in its origin or transit. Th< 
 concession made by the physicist that prayer may 
 ' strengthen the heart to meet life's losses, and thus 
 indirectly promote physical well-being, as the digging 
 of ^Esop's orchard brought a treasure of fertility greater
 
 3G2 THE FUNCTION OF PRAYER 
 
 than the treasure sought/ needs only to be extended 
 a little farther in the same direction, to warrant all we 
 are contending for. If along with the ' wise passive- 
 ness ' which it breeds, helping us to bear the loss and 
 the defeat, it becomes an active power, stirring the 
 fires of devotion, and leading to moral victory, the 
 immeasureable range of its influence will be conceded ; 
 and even a scientific truth may be discerned in that 
 counsel of perfection, Ask, and ye shall receive. 
 
 So far, our position may not be challenged by any 
 one except the dogmatic materialist, the necessi- 
 tarian, or the agnostic. But we have raised the 
 question, Is there anything beyond the subjective 
 experience of the petitioner that may be legitimately 
 sought through prayer ? and we have added that, if 
 the spiritualist maintains that there is, he is bound to 
 define the thing, or class of things, with rigorous pre- 
 cision, and to show the reasonableness of his act. 
 Now, the character of the class in question is easily 
 defined. It might be thought that, as the popular 
 adage puts it, ' man's extremity is God's opportunity/ 
 the class would be that to which human efficiency 
 does not extend. It is precisely the reverse. What- 
 ever may be accomplished by human instrumentality 
 within the physical domain may be a subject of 
 petition, inasmuch as prayer may originate a move- 
 ment which tends outward from the will of the agent, 
 and indirectly accomplishes these results. This admis- 
 sion is in full consistence with our primary statement 
 that the sphere of prayer is wholly spiritual ; for the 
 area within which the answer is vouchsafed is the life 
 of the petitioner, — or of those for whom he prays — 
 where the will of the Supreme may freely move the
 
 IN THE ECONOMY OF THE UNIVERSE. 3G3 
 
 natures underneath its touch. Thus, in asking for 
 deliverance at a time of peril, the really devout heart 
 will pray, — perhaps unconsciously — not for interfer- 
 ence with existing order, but for help to enable it to 
 conform to that order. And it may pray for the 
 result, without alluding to the instrumentality ; just 
 as we set down a contraction, or a shorthand sign, 
 for a full word. 
 
 Take two simple instances. We pray for a friend's 
 life, that seems endangered. Such prayer can never 
 be an influential element in arresting the physical 
 course of disease by one iota. But it may bring a 
 fresh suggestion to the mind of a physician, or other 
 attendant, leading him to adopt a remedy which, by 
 natural means, turns the tide of ebbing life, and deter- 
 mines the recovery of the patient. Or we may pray 
 for the removal of a pestilence, and the answer is given 
 within the minds and hearts of those, who take means 
 to check it, or uproot it. The latent power, that lies 
 within the free causality of man, may be set in motion 
 from a point beyond the chain of physical sequence ; 
 and crises innumerable may be averted through human 
 prayer, dislodging a spiritual force that slumbers, and 
 sending it beneficently forth, from its 'hiding-place of 
 power.' Nevertheless, it will always be exceedingly 
 unsafe to infer, from the observation of results, that 
 any such dislodgment has taken place. For, in the 
 first place, there will always be a larger number of 
 petitions offered up for recovery than are ever grants 1 : 
 and secondly, there will be many mere coincidences 
 between prayer and recovery that have no causal con- 
 nection. Restoration may begin immediately after 
 prayer has been offered up, but it would be extremely
 
 '364 THE FUNCTION OF PRAYER 
 
 rash to infer that the former was the direct conse- 
 quence of the latter. Suppose a case in which prayer 
 is made, and there is no subsequent interference by 
 man in an}^ way, and the patient recovers, it would be 
 an unwarrantable assumption to affirm that the prayer 
 had caused the cure. Even were it able directly to 
 affect the physical chain of antecedents and conse- 
 quents — which it is not — it would be impossible in 
 any single case to know that it had done so. As in 
 the case of a spiritual response, we cannot insulate the 
 phenomena one from another, so as to apply an experi- 
 mental test. There is manifestly no scope for the 
 application of inductive science to an invisible agency, 
 which eludes observation. We, therefore, believe that 
 answers to prayer, touching things physical, are only 
 possible when effected through the agency and instru- 
 mentality of man ; and that, even then, we can never 
 know how far they have, or have not been granted. 
 It is easy to perceive the reason of this inability, and 
 also to see the mischievous results which would ensue, 
 were such knowledge ours. 
 
 There is another aspect, in which prayer for 
 physical results may be regarded, although no reply is 
 ever granted. It ma}^ be a legitimate expression of 
 our longing for perfection, or our desire for the har- 
 mony of creation, with the abolition of all that now 
 •seems to mar its order. It is doubtless a consistent 
 theory that, as we live in an optimist universe, there is 
 now no real blot, or lack of harmony, within it ; and 
 that what seems imperfect is simply due to the nature 
 •of our lenses, or to the limited range of the human 
 eye, that cannot see all round the perfect sphere. It 
 is more consistent, however, to believe that a real
 
 IN THE ECONOMY OF THE UNIVERSE. 3G5 
 
 chaos exists, which will be but temporary ; that its 
 temporariness does not destroy its present reality ; and 
 that ' the discords have rushed in ' only that harmony 
 ' should issue thence.' If, then, a disturbing element 
 really exists, one who sees the meaning of the Universal 
 Order, and is attracted towards it, may validly desire 
 the extinction of its opposite, and may express that 
 longing, in petition. This, indeed, is the very essence 
 of the prayer, ' Thy kingdom come ; Thy will be done 
 in earth, as it is in Heaven.' It is a prayer for 
 universal harmony. The blight and pestilence of the 
 world are surely abnormal. They are not a part of 
 the absolute order, are not even the outcome of law. 
 We cannot speak of the laws of disease, as we speak of 
 the laws of health. Disease is the non-fulfilment of 
 the conditions of health. It is anarchic and lawless. 
 It seems reasonable, therefore, to desire the extinction 
 of disease, and blight, with physical discord of every 
 kind, as well as to desire the abolition of all moral 
 evils. The gradual wearing out of an organic structure 
 by slow decay, when it has fulfilled its function in 
 nature, is no encroachment on physical perfection ; but 
 its removal by a sudden stroke we lament as untimely: 
 though in both cases, it is the same ending of terres- 
 trial life. Just as the destruction of a bud is a 
 different kind of a loss from the gradual decay of the 
 flower, when its bloom is over. And our desire for 
 the physical perfection of the whole creation, might 
 prompt the expression of that longing to its Author. 
 
 Here again we are on the verge of rashness, and 
 run the risk of inexactitude. It may be that the 
 varieties of disease are as much a part of the fixed 
 arrangements of the cosmos, as are the different types
 
 3Q6 THE FUNCTION OF PRAYER 
 
 of organisation. Certainly the causes which produce 
 them have worked for centuries, and must continue 
 operative in the future. Their variety may also have 
 a certain physiological beauty. It is more in keeping 
 with the general plan of nature, that human life should 
 terminate in a hundred ways, than that all should 
 reach old age, and fall monotonously into the tomb. 
 Besides, we find a system of elaborate contrivances to 
 inflict pain, and to effect slaughter and sudden death, 
 in the animal world. The whole living system of 
 nature, from the Infusoria to the Mammal, is a store- 
 house of illustrations of the same apparent evil, 
 while — 
 
 Nature, red in tooth and claw 
 
 With ravine, shrieks against our creed. 
 
 And may it not be the best arrangement in our 
 human world that hundreds and thousands should die 
 — as we say prematurely — to make way for their 
 successors? Is not their own life continued elsewhere ? 
 
 Thus, on the one side, the fatalist alternative meets 
 us full in the face ; and, over against it are the signs 
 of disorder, wreck, loss, and pain, presenting us with a 
 physical text, which we interpret as disease, as an 
 element foreign to the perfection of the universe. We 
 may refuse to be dragged either into the Scylla or the 
 Oharybdis of this philosophical antinomy. But we 
 can only do so, by the recognition of a Living Will, 
 which rules the universe beneficently. The theistic 
 faith and prayer do not remove the mystery which 
 shrouds it, but they relieve its forward pressure. 
 
 History and experience alike testify that the power 
 of prayer is simply immeasurable. Although to approach 
 God with endless and irregular requests, soliciting him
 
 IN THE ECONOMY OF THE UNIVERSE. 307 
 
 for favours, instead of arising to do his will, or acquiesc- 
 ing in it, is unquestionable irreverence ; no theory of 
 causation can defraud the heart of its right to pray 
 ' without ceasing,' or rob the intellect of its assurance 
 that spiritual ' prayer availeth much.' Mutual con- 
 cessions, such as those which often end the strife of 
 rival litigants, are unknown in philosophical con- 
 troversy. But it would promote a better understand- 
 ing between fellow-workers in the cause of Humanity, 
 were our theologians and teachers of science to bestow 
 upon each other a more frank ungrudging recognition; 
 and to say, as Aprile to Paracelsus, in Browning's noble 
 
 drama — 
 
 Let our God's praise 
 Go bravely through the world at last : 
 What care through thee, or me.
 
 PRATER: 'THE TWO SPHERES:' THEY 
 ARE TWO. 
 
 (The Contemporary Reviev), December 1873.) 
 
 Although this Review is not intended to be an arena 
 for debate between opposite schools of philosophical 
 thought, I have been asked to reply to the criticism of 
 a previous paper of mine, on ' The Function of Prayer 
 in the Economy of the Universe,' by the Duke of 
 Argyll. His Grace entitled his reply, ' The two 
 Spheres : Are they two ? ' I cannot better indicate 
 the scope of the following pages, than by modi- 
 fying his title thus, ' The two Spheres : They are 
 Two.' * 
 
 Our provincial controversies pass, and are forgotten. 
 Happily the features which disfigure them are soon 
 buried in oblivion. But the eternal problem remains, 
 and must confront our children's children, who will 
 inherit its burden, and be perplexed by the mystery 
 that encircles it. It has been of late discussed almost 
 to weariness ; and those who have come to fixed con- 
 clusions may perhaps now turn from the controversy 
 with distaste. But the reflective mind cannot lay up 
 
 * I ought also to state that I have hitherto abstained from publish- 
 ing this reply, out of respect to the Church with which I have been 
 up to this time connected ; a judicial process having been raised 
 against me in consequence of my previous article. While proceedings 
 were still pending, I felt precluded from adding to the controversy 
 by another essay in these columns.
 
 PRAYER : ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 361) 
 
 the data of its creed, as we store treasures in a museum. 
 Our convictions must be continually surveyed from fresh 
 points of view, in the light of all knowledge and 
 experience ; and the thoughtful worshipper, who 
 habitually consecrates his work by prayer, can no more 
 cast aside the problem of its rationale, than he can 
 cease to think, or to meditate on his relations to the 
 universe in which he lives. 
 
 The Duke of Argyll, ' not having time or oppor- 
 tunity to write more fully on the subject, simply speci- 
 fied a number of propositions which are to be found 
 in my paper, either directly asserted, or by implication 
 involved, with a few comments upon each of these.' 
 I might validly object in limine, to this method of 
 discussing a question of wide and varied significance ; 
 especially as it leads us into the heart of a historical 
 controversy much larger than itself. It is foreign to 
 the philosophic spirit of judicial calmness and compre- 
 hensiveness, to select short sentences or parts of sen- 
 tences — the most casual of which are treated as if they 
 had been announced in the form of independent apho- 
 risms, — and to criticise these in detail. Any reader of 
 the Duke's paper, who had not seen my essay, might 
 imagine that I had advanced a series of statements, 
 like the successive propositions of Spinosa's Ethics, and 
 tried to deduce my conclusion by a lengthened sorites. 
 
 Those who have read the Duke of Argyll's treatise 
 on ' The Reign of Law ' will be aware that the ques- 
 tion, raised in his paper in this Review, is there dis- 
 cussed. And both in the treatise and in the article 
 it is admitted, that ' what are or are not the legiti- 
 mate objects of supplication is a question which may 
 well be open' (pp. G2 > ^ 3 )- That is the very ques- 
 
 2 A
 
 370 PRAYER: ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 
 
 tion which has led to the formal distinction of the 
 ' two spheres,' and in reference to it I humbly think 
 there are materials for a clear and definite answer. 
 But dealing with the treatise on ' The Reign of Law,' 
 as its author deals with my essay on Prayer, we might 
 find a score of sentences, which, taken by themselves, 
 yield conclusions absolutely fatalistic. Thus, in the 
 great controversy as to free-will, the Duke of Argyll 
 appears as an advocate of the necessitarian scheme, 
 saying, ' By freedom, I mean freedom from compulsion, 
 and nothing else' (p. 415). Dr Ward, replying in 
 the Dublin Review in 1867, has clearly shown that 
 this is not a real but only a fictitious freedom. Again, 
 in his answer to Mr Mahaffy, the author of ' The Reign 
 of Law' says, ' 1 deny altogether that "creating" of 
 anything is the function of the will ' (p. 427). Again, 
 ' The will of the lower animals is, within their narrow 
 sphere of action, as free as ours. A man is not more 
 free to go to the right hand or to the left-, than the 
 eagle, or the wren, or the mole, or the bat' (p. 304). 
 I cannot, in this brief paper, plunge into the vast 
 metaphysical controversy touching free-will and neces- 
 sity. It is important to note, however, that in his 
 scientific treatise the Duke of Argyll has explicitly 
 taken the necessitarian side, though he calls it ' the 
 amended doctrine of necessity' (p. 313), because with 
 the majority of his school he gives up the idea of 
 compulsion ; the only freedom which he admits being 
 freedom from constraint. With equal philosophical 
 warrant, an advocate of the counter theory of free-will 
 miffht call his an ( amended doctrine,' if he admits — 
 as the wisest do — that the causal nexus is nowhere 
 broken, and that the will never acts without a motive.
 
 PRAYER : ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 371 
 
 It is the Duke's necessitarianism in philosophy that 
 leads him to identify the two spheres, over which he 
 thinks that the same necessity presides. It would be 
 ungracious, however, to attribute to him the logical 
 consequences of that philosophy which seems to me to 
 shut up the universe in the iron rigour of fatalistic 
 atheism. But it is a relevant, and not I think un- 
 gracious, rejoinder to the charge of ' those loose rhetori- 
 cal terms which are now so common on the reign of 
 law,' to affirm that the rhetoric winch attacks the 
 physical doctrine of the invariability of natural law is 
 loose, and quite valueless in its vagueness. His Grace 
 admits, in the excellent work referred to, that ' laws 
 are in themselves, if not unchangeable, at least un- 
 changing,' and ' the least uncertainty in them would 
 render them incapable of any service ' (p. 97). ' Every 
 law is in its own nature invariable, producing always 
 precisely and necessarily the same effects, that is, pro- 
 vided it is worked under the same conditions ' (pp. 
 96-7). This last appended clause is really nothing 
 to the purpose ; for, by altering the conditions, we 
 bring in some new phenomenal antecedent, or leave 
 out some old one, and hence of necessity the result is 
 different. When the Duke says, ' there is no com- 
 bination of forces which is invariable, none which are 
 not capable of change in infinite degrees,' and adds 
 that, in these senses, ' Law is not rigid, is not immu- 
 table, is not inviolable, but is, on the contrary, pliable, 
 subtle, various/ I am quite at a loss to sec how he 
 i '"ipes from the very confusion of tonus, which he 
 censures the physicists for indulging in. Surely it is 
 nature that is ' pliable, subtle, and various ;' not law. 
 The phenomena are in incessanl change, and new
 
 372 PRAYER : 'THE TWO SPHERES.' 
 
 combinations of causes issue in new effects. But to 
 speak of law not being rigid, seems to me to be mere 
 confusion of speech. 
 
 The detached character of the Duke of Argyll's 
 criticism makes it impossible for me to follow him 
 into all the by-paths he has taken. I shall glance at 
 several of them (and only those which charge me with 
 ' unsoundness/ not where the charge is irrelevancy) ; 
 and return to the main track of argument, and the 
 central question round which all the rest revolve. 
 
 The statement tbat there is ' a sphere to which 
 prayer in the sense of petition is inherently inappli- 
 cable,' is said to be very different from the assertion 
 that there are ' many things that ought not to be 
 prayed for, as manifestly unreasonable.' Let ' the 
 spheres,' then, be the spheres of the reasonable and 
 the unreasonable. The problem is, Can these be de- 
 fined 1 Can we indicate ' a particular class of things " 
 in reference to which request for a change of the exist- 
 ing order is unreasonable ? One aim of my essay was 
 to define that class. The Duke of Argyll affirms that 
 we cannot reasoDably assert that the spheres of the 
 physical and the spiritual are distinct ; because, we 
 cannot tell where, in our own organism, the one begins 
 and the other ends. ' None such probably exists,' he 
 says ; and adds, ' many men are now in the con- 
 stant habit of talking of thought as ' a cerebration.' ' 
 Were I to affirm that this is tantamount to the accept- 
 ance of a materialistic psychology, the conclusion would 
 be quite as valid as the inference which the Duke 
 draws from the next sentence he quotes. He asserts 
 that I must maintain that ' the will of man is not 
 subject to law/ because I affirm that the principle of
 
 PRAYER: ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 373 
 
 evolution breaks down in the presence of free-will. I 
 have nowhere maintained that ' the operation of law ' 
 is ' not applicable to the intellectual and moral nature 
 of man.' On the contrary, I have affirmed that we 
 can never escape from the domain of law ; and that 
 ' alike in the physical and the moral region the causal 
 nexus is inviolate.' Then, of the sentence in which 
 1 affirm that ' the order in which phenomena appear 
 is governed by the rigour of adamantine law,' it is 
 said, ' There is no intelligible sense in which this is 
 true. The order of phenomena is capable of endless 
 change.' But is the change ever lawless ? Grant 
 that the order might be other than it is, are not the 
 .sequences that actually do emerge governed invariably 
 by the rigour of law ? By the invariability of law I 
 mean, that underneath all seeming apparent variability 
 there is, and must be, a real invariability that is abso- 
 lutely necessary ; and that the apparent variability 
 results from the weakness and inherent deficiency of 
 our powers of observation, which are unable to detect 
 the causes producing the variation, or those differences 
 in the antecedent which produce differences in the 
 consequent. To allege that ' the laws of nature are 
 variable' is surely a statement which fails to distin- 
 guish what is apparent to the common eye, from what 
 is real to the scientific mind. 
 
 Next, the assertion that ' a spiritual antecedent 
 does not produce a physical consequent ' is adduced, 
 as if this were a general axiom of belief held by me 
 — as it was apparently held by some of the Stoics, — 
 u doctrine contradicted by the influence which the 
 will exerts over the muscles of the frame. This is the 
 most conspicuous instance of the unfair method, to
 
 374 PRAYER: ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 
 
 which I have alluded, of fastening on a passing; 
 explanatory clause, and dealing with it as if it were a 
 metaphysical postulate. As used by me it was 
 avowedly ' another way of putting ' the previous 
 sentence, viz., that there ' is no confusion of the 
 spheres of moral and physical agency,' so that, as a 
 man sows he reaps. It is simply a statement, in 
 altered phraseology, of the truth that moral causes 
 produce moral results, while physical causes determine 
 physical issues. No physical antecedent can give rise 
 to a spiritual consequent, though — as I expressly 
 assert — it may co-operate with spiritual antecedents to 
 produce or to intensify it ; and, vice versa, no spiritual 
 antecedent gives rise directly to a physical sequent. 
 By pre-established harmony, they act and react con- 
 tinually. But it is not, for example, the morality or 
 immorality of an act — a spiritual antecedent — that 
 determines the physical consequences that result from 
 the act. It is the physical habit (say intemperance) 
 that alone produces the physical detriment, injury to 
 the frame ; while that which is spiritual in the act 
 (i.e., its character as moral or immoral) always has its- 
 own spiritual consequence within the moral sphere. 
 This is the only sense in which the clause is used, 
 which has been, by so many critics, dragged out of its 
 Legitimate context in the article. Next, I am told 
 that I ' give up the doctrine of free-will altogether,' 
 by the statement that it is vain to reply to the 
 physicist who maintains the invariability of law, that 
 ' we are continually interfering with the seemingly 
 fixed laws of the universe, and altering their destina- 
 tion,' etc. And I am asked what other answer I have 
 to give ? I reply, the only answer that is possible,.
 
 PRAYER: ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 375 
 
 viz., the conscious fact of freedom. It is ' a vain 
 reply ' to allege that we can ever escape from the 
 domain of law ; because the laws of the physical 
 system always encircle, and invariably rule us in the 
 phenomenal sphere. It is not in that region that we 
 are free. It is only in the possession of a transcen- 
 dental or noumenal freedom, the autocratic power of 
 self-determination. Then my sentence that ' we are 
 ourselves part of the physical cosmos ' is quoted as if 
 it implied that ' we are parts only of the cosmos, all 
 that is of us, and all that is in us determined by 
 prior influence.' I can only say that the whole drift 
 and the express teaching of my article is that we are, 
 at one and the same time, a part of the physical, and 
 agents in the spiritual cosmos — these are the two 
 spheres — and that in virtue of our being in the phy- 
 sical, we are under the domain of invariable law ; 
 while in virtue of our relation to the spiritual or 
 transcendental, we possess the autocratic power of 
 freedom. Next, the alleged statement that ' the 
 destination of a physical force cannot be arrested, and 
 the otherwise inevitable result prevented by an act of 
 divine volition,' is regarded as equivalent to the 
 assertion that ' divine will cannot even direct physical 
 forces to the accomplishment of particular ends.' 
 Those who have read the previous essay will have 
 observed that I have not advanced the former state- 
 ment as a proposition expressive of my own belief. I 
 said, 'it is supposed that the destination of a physical 
 force can be arrested,' etc. Then I affirm that ' the 
 antecedent force must spend itself and give rise to a 
 new consequent.' It would have been well had the 
 Duke confined himself to a literal and relevant quota-
 
 376 PRAYER: ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 
 
 tion. In quoting ' a proposition ' to be afterwards 
 commented upon as ' unsound/ it is necessary to 
 quote accurately. The question to be determined 
 is really this : — Does the assertion that ' every ante- 
 cedent force must spend itself and give rise to some 
 consequent ' involve the further assertion ' that the 
 divine will cannot even direct physical forces to the 
 accomplishment of particular ends ? ' Suppose a new 
 and unfamiliar force to appear, breaking through the 
 crust of familiar appearances, and influencing existing 
 phenomena, the latter would not cease to act, although 
 they would be modified by the former. The introduc- 
 tion of the new element (supposing it to take 
 place by an immediate fiat of will) would have no 
 meaning, were it not met by a previously existing 
 agency, which still spent its energy around or against 
 the novel element while modified by it. The function 
 of the new agent would not be to uproot, or to extin- 
 guish ; but to blend with the existing agency, and to 
 determine a fresh result. Then, the statement that 
 ' the fluctuations of the weather between two seconds 
 of time are as rigorously determined by law as are the 
 larger successions of the seasons,' is said to be quite 
 true in one sense, viz., that physical phenomena 
 are never uncaused, and quite untrue in another, viz., 
 that these phenomena are ' incapable of direction.' 
 I am not aware of any one (not an atheist) who has 
 had the hardihood to affirm that physical phenomena 
 are ' incapable of direction.' The fundamental postu- 
 late of theism is that all phenomena are invariably 
 and continuously under the guidance of a supreme In- 
 telligence. We cannot conceive a single occurrence 
 undirected, if the universe is pervaded by an infinite
 
 PRAYER: ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 377 
 
 Mind, and an omnipresent Will. The error consists 
 in the isolation of any one phenomenon or class of 
 phenomena from the rest, and predicating a special 
 direction of these, while others are left out of the 
 reckoning. And to request the infinite Administrator 
 and universal Orderer of events to direct certain 
 physical phenomena (which may seem more variable 
 than others) to the accomplishment of specific ends, — 
 while in reference to the rest of the system of Nature 
 (which seems fixed in established order) no such 
 request is ever tendered, — is the practical error 
 which follows in the wake of the speculative incon- 
 sistency. 
 
 The Duke of Argyll refers us to ' the reasonableness 
 or the unreasonableness of a petition' touching external 
 nature. But who can judge of the reasonableness or un- 
 reasonableness of such petitions ? To make a suggestion 
 under the pressure of apparent calamity, that we would 
 prefer the course of physical events to be different from 
 what it is, or is apparently about to be — that we would 
 like more or less rain, that we would prefer fewer storms, 
 milder weather, earlier harvests, less piercing winds, in 
 short, an alteration in the course of nature — who 
 can reasonably judge of the wisdom of such petitions ? 
 A time of apparent physical disaster may bring tem- 
 porary loss to a few, but it may tend to the ultimate 
 gain of thousands. A wet season may destroy the 
 crops of a district, but it may lessen the death-rate in 
 a nation. A storm at sea may wreck some vessels, 
 but the same storm on land may sweep a pestilence 
 from crowded cities. And to suggest a change in 
 the physical order, which is divinely and infallibly 
 directed, is to presume that the hints of our finite
 
 378 PRAYER : 'THE TWO SPHERES.' 
 
 intelligence are fit to regulate the divine procedure ; 
 that wishes — which may be the dictates of selfish- 
 ness, or unenlightened caprice, — should determine the 
 supreme Will towards an arbitrary favouritism. The 
 rational prayer of the devout mind in reference to the 
 order of physical events, — which is invariably the 
 outcome of providential goodness, — is in all cases, ' Thy 
 kingdom come, thy will be done ;' while the fact that 
 the actual course of nature and the fitful current of 
 human wishes occasionally conflict, is one of the means 
 of disciplining the human spirit, and educating us in 
 trust, resignation, and dependence. The sequences of 
 nature, and the ordered evolution of events, are a per- 
 petual revelation of the divine will ; and it is for the 
 creature modestly and patiently to discipline his wishes 
 into accordance with it. 
 
 Further, I have been told by the Duke of Argyll 
 (and by many other critics) that by maintaining the 
 invariability of the order of nature, I make God less 
 free than man, even although the Divine will be re- 
 vealed in every beat of nature's life and physical 
 processes. I am frequently met by the question, ' Is 
 man more free than God, because you say He cannot 
 interfere with his own laws ? ' I accept the alterna- 
 tive. In one sense it is so : in the non posse peccare 
 of the schoolmen. The divine will is necessitated to 
 an absolutely perfect administration of the physical 
 universe. The absolute Lawgiver, Artist, Mechanician, 
 cannot undo what He has done, or do otherwise than 
 He does. It is a simple contradiction in terms to 
 suppose that, with a perfect foresight of the whole 
 process of evolution, the divine Evolver should alter 
 that which his omniprescience predetermined, and
 
 PRAYER : ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 379 
 
 bring out an equally perfect result. Doubtless the 
 phases which that perfection assumes may be very 
 various : and a new manifestation, wholly different 
 from the old, may be equally perfect, being the out- 
 come of the same animating and directing Intelli- 
 gence. It is on this ground that the occurrence of a 
 miracle can be vindicated before the tribunal of 
 reason. But a miracle involves neither the violation 
 of natural order, nor the uprooting of existing 
 agencies.""' 
 
 Again, I am charged with laying the stress of the 
 exclusion of physical phenomena from the sphere of 
 petition, not upon ' the moral features ' of the request, 
 but upon its physical character. On the contrary, I 
 rest the invalidity of the petition, as a power adequate 
 to work a change in the order of external nature, 
 upon its irrationality, and its contrariety to the 
 spirit of creaturely submission and dependence. Let 
 the petitions, which solicit a change in the order of 
 nature, be tested by the standard of their reasonable- 
 ness, or by their moral character, as humble, trustful, 
 reverential ; and, in both respects, they fail. The Duke 
 
 * We are arrested and surprised by anything unexpected, startled 
 as from a reverie. But what is the effect of the start or arrest ? 
 The surprise begets attention, closer scrutiny, and a more intelligent 
 activity of the mind. The sudden or the rare may for a moment 
 bewilder ; but as the unusual glory of the sky reveals nature in one 
 of its heightened moods, disclosing the presence and the power of a 
 living Agent, — a presence that is always real, though not always 
 realized — so with the unexpected action of the Divine Spirit in 
 history. In both cases, we come to believe in the constancy of law, 
 by a closer scrutiny of what is apparently inconstant, or has broken 
 away from its customary course ; the seeming irregularity giving us 
 the hint of a deeper regularity underlying it, while the monotony of 
 Mature is broken by the momentary Hash of its sleeping powers.
 
 380 PRAYER: 'THE TWO SPHERES.' 
 
 of Argyll maintains that, according to my teaching, 
 ' any part of the chain of physical causation extending 
 beyond our knowledge will cut off our communication 
 with God.' How this can be affirmed is one of those 
 puzzles, which occasionally perplex one's mind, in 
 attempting to understand the position assumed by an 
 opponent in controversy. The very essence of my 
 whole contention is that the Divine Nature is so 
 signally revealed in its omnipresence, within every 
 element or movement of the physical universe, that 
 whatever comes to pass is the necessary outcome of 
 its agency : every force and every change in nature 
 being an apocalypse of God, and every link in the 
 chain of its sequences attesting the indwelling Pre- 
 sence. 
 
 I now turn to some aspects of the question which 
 have been overlooked in the previous discussion ; the 
 consideration of which is more important and satis- 
 factory than the rejoinders of an ephemeral controversy. 
 
 The general charge brought against me is that I 
 have drawn too hard and fast a line between the 
 spheres of the spiritual and the material, in the 
 doctrine that physical nature is not directly amenable 
 to the influence of prayer, while human nature is : 
 that, in giving up the physical, I surrender that 
 which the religious world is reluctant to concede : 
 that, in retaining the spiritual, I keep what the 
 scientific world will not allow me to retain. Now, I 
 draw no harder or sharper line between the two 
 spheres, than is implied in the proposition, that the 
 one is the sphere of fixed cosmical order, and the 
 -other that of moral freedom. While the creature 
 may pray with reference to both, his prayer ought in
 
 PRAYER: ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 381 
 
 the former case to take the form of thanksgiving, 
 adoration, acquiescent trust, and creaturely submis- 
 sion ; while in the latter it may assume the form of 
 incessant and fervent petition : or, if petition be 
 offered in reference to the former, it should be for the 
 simple accomplishment of the divine will. The im- 
 manence of God in nature is quite as much a first 
 principle of theism, as is the balancing doctrine of his 
 extra-mundane agency ; and the difference between 
 his manifestations is but a difference in the way in 
 which he announces himself to men. The gist of the 
 whole argument in my previous essay is, that as God 
 is the universal and omnipotent worker — all power 
 and energy, physical and spiritual, being his — He is 
 as fully revealed in those phenomena which go before, 
 and in those which follow after, as He is in the inter- 
 mediate and unwonted ones, which by their infre- 
 quency or peculiarity arrest attention. 
 
 No answer has ever been given to the demand of 
 the scientific mind, why we should separate a class of 
 physical phenomena from the rest, and offer petitions 
 in reference to them, in a way in which we never act 
 in reference to others ; why, for example, we should 
 regard the rain-law as more amenable to direction, 
 than the sun-law, or the force of gravitation. The 
 whole question is thus reduced to a narrow issue. Is 
 there, or is there not, a department in Nature of which 
 the processes are variable, and in reference to which 
 we may reasonably believe that they are, in any sense, 
 amenable to our wishes ? Requests for a particular 
 adjustment of the weather are irrelevant, unless the 
 petitioner believes that the prayer he offers may co- 
 operate in the production of the effect. Now, as has
 
 382 PRAYER : ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 
 
 been again and again remarked, the physical pro- 
 cesses which we see repeated at regular and fixed 
 intervals — such as the succession of day and night, 
 and of the seasons, or, after an average limit, the 
 death of the body — seem to us so inevitable, that we 
 never presume to solicit that they should be other 
 than they are. But what to our vision seems end- 
 lessly diversified — such as the kaleidoscopic changes 
 of the weather — we are apt to imagine fitful; and 
 therefore amenable to fresh direction, and special 
 interference. If the rain descended, and the tem- 
 perature rose and fell, as regularly and steadily as the 
 tides ebb and flow, the dull monotony of the law 
 would deaden our sense of wonder, would check the 
 fluctuations of hope, and the excitement of possible 
 surprises ; and we should no more think of petition- 
 ing for their change, than of asking that the sunset 
 should be hastened, or delayed. It is therefore simply 
 because we do not know what is to happen in the 
 weather of the future, that we venture to ask that it 
 should take one course rather than another. But if 
 the science of meteorology were as advanced as 
 astronomy is, and our predictive power as great in 
 both cases — which it may ultimately come to be — our 
 requests would in both cases take the form of simple 
 petition for the accomplishment of the divine will. 
 If, however, what the petitioner means is simply to 
 express his desire, or his hope, that out of the infinite 
 diversities of possible weather, that should actually 
 emerge, which coincides with his wishes for himself, or 
 his district, or his country, the expression of that 
 desire is legitimate enough. We continually do so to 
 one another in the colloquial speech of the day ; and,
 
 PRAYER: ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 383 
 
 we may rationally hallow our wishes, by presenting 
 them to God in an act of devotion. It is altogether 
 different, if we presume to imagine that, but for the 
 presentation of our wishes, the natural process would 
 be other than it is. 
 
 The invariability of the laws of Nature has a 
 theological equivalent or corollary, which is the 
 immanence of God in Nature, ' working all in all,' 
 according to inviolable laws, which are the expression 
 of his eternal will. Whatever, therefore, be the way 
 in which he announces his presence, He is everlast- 
 ingly within creation as its inmost life, omnipresent, 
 and omniactive. There can be no possible inter- 
 ference, with his laws, because his agency must be 
 equally manifest in that which precedes and in 
 that which succeeds the alleged interference, as 
 in the interference itself. Being himself within all 
 phenomena, — the great Mover unmoved, — He is not 
 only the fountain-head of all the streams of force, but 
 the very essence of the forces themselves. Inasmuch, 
 therefore, as in all the processes of nature, we see the 
 agency of this omnipresent mind and all-prescient 
 Love, — whatsoever comes to pass being the expression 
 of the divine will, — the attitude of the creature towards 
 the Creator's providence ought not to be that of 
 a petitioner for change, but rather that of a dependent 
 child, accepting whatsoever is divinely given. I 
 have taught that the range of petition in the 
 spiritual sphere, is simply immeasurable ; but that, 
 in the physical, it is bounded. It is bounded by the 
 fact, that divine Providence has already arranged the 
 evolution of nature ; and, is not only superintending it, 
 but is itself inseparably within every link of the chain
 
 384 PRAYER: ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 
 
 of established causation. Thus the doctrine of the 
 persistence of physical force, and the invariability of 
 natural law, is a physical truth, of which the theological 
 phase or corollary is the uniformity of divine operation, 
 and the inviolableness of divine love. The perman- 
 ence of the order of nature is the scientific equivalent 
 of the divine constancy, ' the same yesterday, to-day, 
 and for ever.' * All the laws of nature are the out- 
 come of will, or the expression of the way in which a 
 living Divinity is working in his omnipresence. In 
 the contrary conception of them as created existences 
 apart from God, to be bent and manipulated at pleasure 
 from without, God is separated from the universe. 
 Creation is regarded as an iron framework underneath 
 him, to be animated or not as He pleases, and with 
 which He may occasionally interfere, if so disposed. 
 What we call the laws of nature however, are but an 
 expression of the way in which the divine will effects 
 its purposes ; because He is for ever behind and 
 within the chain of physical sequence, as the omni- 
 present Life, of which they are the outward revelation. 
 It is thus that one limitation of the sphere of 
 petition emerges. The evolution and succession of 
 phenomena are so infallibly adjusted, the balance is 
 so perfect, that when what we desire to be present 
 around us is absent, it is because were it present, it 
 would be misplaced. We are not fit judges when we 
 presume to suggest its presence, any more than we 
 
 * In nature there are a thousand laws, forces, agencies, crossing 
 and recrossing, blending, interlacing, co-operating ; but all may be 
 generalised under a central law, because each may be interpreted 
 as the outcome of one supreme and all-dominant Force. None of 
 them can be overborne by this central Power, because they are all 
 its expression, its radiant and many-faced manifestation.
 
 PRAYER: 'THE TWO SPHERES.' 385 
 
 are competent to criticise the order of physical nature. 
 What seems to us disastrous turns out to be a bless- 
 ing in disguise, and would always be seen to be so, 
 were the range of our vision perfect. A request for 
 a particular adjustment of the conditions of physical 
 existence may arise from ignorance, or it may pro- 
 ceed from selfishness. When devout men offer up 
 these petitions, they fail to realize that the balance of 
 physical nature is adjusted with inscrutable perfection, 
 and the completest mastery of all possible emergencies. 
 They cannot know whether the rain or the sunshine, 
 which they wish, are really needed, because they cannot 
 estimate more than a fragment of the conditions of 
 the case. 
 
 Is it said, ' If the living Spirit of the universe 
 stands in a parental relation to the petitioner, ma}' 
 not the latter ask him so to administer his laws as to 
 meet special cases and secure special ends ? ' Doubt- 
 less he may. The Divine Father will not despise the 
 crudest suggestions of his creatures, even when they 
 arise out of a forgetfulness of his administrative 
 wisdom. And we might ask him so to regulate the 
 machinery of nature in this or that province, as to 
 secure the most desirable results to certain individuals, 
 were it possible to think of him as ever indifferent to 
 particular cases, or oblivious of special ends. But the 
 supposed specialty vanishes if his administrative 
 agency takes in the whole area of nature, and the 
 entire cycle of her laws; and if its exercise be inces- 
 sant, uniform, and impartial. To ask, 'Is not the order 
 of nature amenable to divine influence, and open to 
 fresh direction V is not to state the problem accurately. 
 The plasticity of nature is conceded, the moment you 
 
 2 B
 
 o8G PRAYER: ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 
 
 admit the agency of a living Spirit within the whole,, 
 and interpret its laws as the mere indices of his 
 activity. But that theistic axiom carries with it a 
 consequence which makes the assertion of flexibility, 
 and a possible variation of the order of nature, barren 
 and useless. For if the existing order be changed, 
 the changed and the previous order being equally the 
 outcome of the same governing Intelligence, immanent 
 everywhere in the whole, they would together afford 
 but a slightly varying evidence of one and the same 
 Supernaturalism. There is no difficulty in supposing 
 a change to occur in the common order of events, 
 which we may call ' miraculous ; ' but the events 
 preceding it, and those which follow, would be equally 
 the result of divine preadjustment, as the particular 
 change which arrested and elicited the wonder 
 or the admiration of men. The specialty in some 
 which we call ' extraordinary/ — to distinguish them 
 from others which we term 'ordinary,' — is due, not to 
 a superabundance of divine agency within them, but 
 to such a significant display of it as rivets and 
 awakens us by its unwontedness. Were our vision 
 perfect, we should discern a specialty in all. 
 
 As regards the power of prayer to effect changes 
 within the spiritual sphere, aud its impotence within 
 the physical, I trust I shall be pardoned for again 
 quoting from myself, in a footnote.* 
 
 * ' I shall now try to translate, out of the phraseology of which T 
 have made use in my article, the truth which I hold, and have taught, 
 as to the immutability of the laws of Nature.. 
 
 ' Looking at it from the doctrine of the divine decree, God has 
 made " a decree for the rain," says Job. What science calls the 
 rain-law, theology interprets as the rain-decree. "Looking unto 
 the ends of the earth, and seeing under the whole heavens, he made
 
 PRAYER: 'THE TWO SPHERES.' 387 
 
 If we suppose that prayer has any causal influence 
 upon physical processes, or upon the means used, 
 say, for recovery from sickness — so that the one could 
 not be effectual without the other, and that both have 
 been predetermined from the first, the petition fore- 
 seen and fitted as a link in the chain of secondary 
 causation — that supposition reduces the prayer to the 
 
 a weight for the winds, and weighed the waters by measure, he 
 made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the 
 thunder ; " and in so doing he ' ' saw, declared, prepared, and 
 searched out wisdom." Similarly, in the book of Proverbs, the 
 Eternal Wisdom, set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or 
 ever the earth was, is represented as with God when he " prepared 
 the heavens, the clouds, the fountains of the deep, and when He 
 gave to the sea his decree. " Iu these statements, God is represented 
 as giving a decree to the rain and to the sea, just as he gave a decree 
 to the sun and the planetary bodies. One aspect of the decree for 
 the sun is that, it should rise and set with daily regularity. And 
 though I do not affirm that it must continue to do so, apart from the 
 will of God, experience of the fact that it does do so, informs us that 
 such is the divine will : and therefore we could not, for any reason 
 whatsoever, presume to ask that it should not do so. We would 
 deem it sheer irreverence to ask God to deflect or prolong the day- 
 light, in order to enable his creatures to accomplish any bit of their 
 terrestrial work, because we perceive that it would interfere with 
 vaster plans that concern millions of his creatures. We would not 
 presume to ask him to change his sun-decree. And I maintain that, 
 for the ^ ■ lj 'same reason, we cannot rationally ask him to alter his 
 rain-law or rain-decree : for though its temporary outcome may seem 
 to us to be inconvenient or destructive, our utter ignorance not only 
 prevents us from knowing that the cessation of rain would not be 
 more destructive to other creatures than its continuance would be, 
 but prevents us from knowing that a change would be really bene- 
 ficial to ourselves. But whether beneficial or not, we abstain from 
 the suggestion. Why? Simply because we trust in a Providence 
 that is inscrutably wise. Even then, however, I cannot see anything 
 to furl iid the offering up of our desires — if they are mere desires or 
 wishes — to God for a change of that which is — a change in our 
 physical experiences. It is a totally different thing, if we venture 
 to solicit him for an alteration, believing that we are either Jit judges-
 
 388 PRAYER: 'THE TWO SPHERES.' 
 
 sphere of mechanical agency. It cuts away the free- 
 dom of the petitioner, and interferes with the spon- 
 taneousness of his request. But this is not the 
 common belief of devout suppliants. It is the after- 
 thought of a philosophy which, in trying to meet the 
 difficulty by reason, drifts into a mechanical solution 
 of it. 
 
 of its expediency, or that we will receive it because we ask it. If 
 an east wind is blowing, and men would like a west wind, the wish, 
 like every other wish, may be expressed in prayer. If men express 
 it to one another, they may express it to God. But to suppose that 
 the wish has any influence in effecting a change in the course of 
 Nature is what I deny ; because I believe that the course of all the 
 seasons of all the years of all the ages was adjusted with as much 
 wisdom and fixity from the beginning, as the law of gravitation was 
 adjusted, and that our prayers cannot now arrest, or hasten, or 
 change, or modify it. We are not ' workers together with God ' 
 now, in time, and on the earth, for these ends. But the case is 
 different in the spiritual region, within ourselves. It is in this 
 sense that I maintain that there are two ' spheres,' in one of which 
 our petitions effect an alteration and accomplish change. We are 
 workers together with God in that spiritual region. In such prayer, 
 the feeblest wrestler may prevail. But the accomplishment of the 
 divine will in nature is not dependent on the forth-putting of our 
 efficiency. 
 
 'It is that wide-spread notion that we are able to accomplish 
 results by our petitions within the realm of the physical, similar to 
 those which we are able to accomplish in the region of the spiritual, 
 that I am combating in the introductory paragraphs of my article ; and 
 it is that which many physicists oppose. I maintain that it would 
 be equivalent to a power, placed within the hand of man, to work 
 miracles in nature ; and that power does not exist : whereas in the 
 spiritual sphere the petitioner can effect an alteration, whenever he 
 puts forth the energy of spiritual prayer. It is in that region 
 alone that he is able, still working according to law, 'to remove 
 mountains. ' To put it otherwise still, the transmission of messages 
 along the telegraph wire may be taken as a symbol of the power of 
 prayer in the spiritual region ; although all such symbols are utterly 
 inadequate. In answer to the requests of the petitioner, a definite 
 response is vouchsafed, which would not be granted but for the petition.
 
 PRAYER : ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 389 
 
 The popular notion that prayer for physical change, 
 when devoutly offered, can then and there determine 
 the course of the event (regulate the rain-fall or avert 
 disease), we deem irrational and unconsciously irrever- 
 ent. That the otherwise inflexible course of nature is 
 perpetually interfered with and re-adjusted, by a fresh 
 edict, sent forth in reply to the suppliant ; that, in short, 
 
 It is otherwise in reference to the course of physical nature. We 
 need transmit no request for that ; because the system is already 
 divinely pre-arranged, and our requests cannot hasten, or hinder, or 
 touch, or modify, or alter it. 
 
 ' I know that it has been said that, if this be all, the question is a 
 verbal one ; that there is no real difference between the two positions. 
 But what I have been opposing, in that article, is really a wide-spread 
 notion — viz., that God, in answer to human prayer, deflects, re- 
 arranges, or alters the otherwise inevitable course of nature. What, 
 on the contrary, I urge men to do is to trust God for the physical 
 course or order, to believe that in reference to it there has been a 
 vast system of pre- arrangement and pre-adjustment, absolutely per- 
 fect, and eternally good ; and I think that with such confidence 
 there may be absolute security that all prayer in accordance with 
 the divine will will be answered. What I have combated is the 
 notion that God ' interrupts the working of his own machine to 
 prove his supremacy to it,' and that he does so in reply to our 
 requests. I dare say it might have lessened the risk of misconstruc- 
 tion had I added a clause to the sentence, ' There is a sphere to 
 which prayer (in the sense of petition) is inherently applicable,' to 
 the following eil'ect : ' Illegitimate in the sense of seeking an inter- 
 ference with, and inapplicable in the sense of accomplishing a change 
 in, the existing order of nature. ' But that such is my meaning is 
 abundantly plain from many passages in the article. Then I have 
 explicitly asserted that if, through the weakness and infirmity of 
 our natures, in the undisciplined or less reflective stages of the 
 religious life, we make requests for change — not distinguishing things 
 that differ — these are not despised by the Hearer of prayer; and 
 that as he is the universal worker, and has pre-adjusted the whole 
 economy of nature, whatsoever ive receive is an answer to the prayer 
 — «Thy will be done.' 
 
 ' It has been said to me, however, that if we can interfere with
 
 390 PRAYER: ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 
 
 the sovereign Ruler issues a new order when He 
 approves of a request for it, instead of carrying out 
 his transcendent purposes and the behests of his ever- 
 lasting will, is a notion which must be abandoned. 
 In addition to its being philosophically untenable, it 
 is noteworthy that it is opposed to the consensus of 
 the Catholic Church, and especially to the theology of 
 Augustine and Calvin. 
 
 The other notion, of a pre-established harmony 
 between our petitions for physical blessings and their 
 reception, is a widely different one. Results, however, 
 do not prove the existence of any such pre-arrangement. 
 The thousand, the million of unanswered petitions 
 
 nature, much more can God ; and that as we work in and through 
 it, freely changing its course, much more can he. I assent to this ; 
 but I remember at the same time that there is no ' before ' or 
 'after' with God. Time is an 'eternal present' to the eternal 
 Mind ; and, as he saw the end from the beginning, with him there 
 is no change of plan effected in answer to prayer. Prayer is answered 
 in the evolution of Nature through pre-arranged, pre-.established 
 harmonies. But ' the alteration of the conditions under which laws 
 operate,' 'bending them to meet the wants of petitioners,' would 
 be the sign of a changeful purpose, not the index of an immutable 
 Mind. Let me, therefore, say again explicitly and distinctly that I 
 do not deny (1) the lawfulness of bringing all our desires to God for 
 all things whatsoever. On the contrary, I affirm and enforce the 
 duty of so doing. Nor (2) do I deny the legitimacy of petition for 
 physical things, as the evolution of the divine and benignant will. On 
 the contrary, I affirm and enforce the duty of doing so. Nor (3) do 
 I deny the legitimacy of petitioning God for the removal of disease, 
 or of all that is interfering with the perfection of terrestrial life. On 
 the contrary, I affirm and enforce the duty of doing so. I maintain, 
 however, the unlawfulness of seeking alterations of nature which are 
 interferences with existing law ; while I believe (as already stated) 
 that all prayers for things physical, which in spirit and substance 
 are petitions for the accomplishment of the divine will, must be 
 answered.' — (Statement to Free Presbytery of Dundee, March 25th, 
 1873.)
 
 PRAYER : ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 391 
 
 touching external nature effectually negative it. Were 
 it a matter of pre-arrangement and pre-deterraination 
 that there should be a coincidence between the petition 
 and the reception of the benefit, the former automati- 
 cally performed would invariably coincide with the 
 latter; like the beat of two pendulums, stroke for stroke, 
 or the working of two wheels, cog fitting into cog, with 
 mechanical regularity. This idea, then, of pre-adjust- 
 ment between the prayer (say, for the recovery of the 
 sick), and the physical sequences that tend to the 
 result, helps us no way towards a solution. What we 
 wish to know is whether the one is to any extent causal 
 of the other. Suppose the petitioner knew the entire 
 course the disease was certain to take, his request 
 would simply be, 'Thy will be done: ' but, inasmuch as 
 he cannot know its course with certainty, he is tempted 
 to ask that it may be as he wishes it to be, hoping 
 that his request may be helpful toward the desired 
 result. I have already indicated how it may be so, in 
 the subjective region of our own personality ; how a 
 suggestion, darted into the mind of a physician, may be 
 the direct cause of the use of a remedy, which results 
 in the preservation of life. It is our absolute ignorance, 
 however, of what is about to happen, which prompts the 
 expression of any strong desires we may have in refer- 
 ence to it. Now it may seem superfluous to remark 
 that no one would think of praying for the non-occur- 
 rence of an event which had already taken place, any 
 more than he would then ask that it should occur ; 
 although he might validly request that its influence over 
 the minds and hearts of those who had experienced it 
 might accomplish certain definite results. But this 
 very obvious truth will cast light on the meaning and
 
 3 1)2 PRAYER : 'THE TWO SPHERES.' 
 
 value of similar requests, while the petitioner is in 
 ignorance as to whether the event, about which he prays, 
 has or has not occurred. If I know a friend is dead, 
 I do not ask that his life may be spared ; but if he is 
 dead, and I am ignorant of it, but believe him to be 
 still alive, I pray that he may continue to live ; and 
 such prayer is not irrational. When we pray for those 
 who are absent, or at sea, our ignorance of their state 
 does not throw an arrest upon our petitions. On the 
 contrary, it is the very ground or reason of them. 
 And the ejaculation of the heart — prayer thrust out, 
 or rather directed upwards, at a time of crisis (who has 
 not experienced it ?) — is not only instinctive, it has its 
 origin in a region that is deeper than reason. Still, 
 its utterance ought to be under the control and 
 discipline of the reason. And being so, the request 
 that is made, or the wish that is expressed, must be in 
 its inmost essence submissive. Could we venture to 
 split up the request into two parts (and distinguish 
 them as form and spirit, or outer husk and inner germ 
 respectively), we would find that the particular things 
 we seek, along with the petitory features of our prayer, 
 are the mere husk or envelope ; while the accomplish- 
 ment of the divine will, and the acquiescence of the 
 creature, is in all cases the inward germ, out of which 
 the life of devotion springs. The one is the accidental 
 form, the other the essential soul of our petitioning. 
 Doubtless the two things invariably go together, for 
 the analyses of our reason are the syntheses of living 
 experience. But the difference between them ought 
 never to be forgotten ; while our ignorance as to 
 Avhether the particular thing we seek be really a boon, 
 and as to whether it will ever be granted, might itself 
 suggest this distinction to the petitioner.
 
 PRAYER : ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 393 
 
 I repeat that no theory of the universe, no philo- 
 sophy of human nature, and no conclusion of science, 
 can ever lay an arrest upon the instincts of the heart 
 in the presence of calamity. Let men philosophize as 
 they will, and let science march where it will — 
 conquering realm after realm, and reducing all under 
 the rigour of law, — the human spirit will always find 
 immeasurable solace in ' committing its causes ' unto 
 God ; and the instinct to pray for relief in times of 
 anxiety, or of peril, is one which can never be exorcised 
 from, the heart of man. But it does not follow that it 
 will always, or that it ought ever, to imagine that by 
 so doing it can deflect the order of nature, or induce 
 God to alter his pre-arrangements. The relief is 
 obtained in the act of submission, not in the notion of 
 being able to persuade an infinitely powerful and 
 sympathetic Listener. We may be sure that what- 
 ever takes place subsequent to our petition is not an 
 after-thought of God, suggested or obtained by dint of 
 our continued solicitation ; while it is the shallowest of 
 solutions to imagine that the condition of the petitioner, 
 and his request, were together uniquely pre-adjusted to 
 the precise physical occurrences which ensure a reply 
 to his request. Were these two things the only ones 
 that were pre-adjusted ? Are not all the antecedent 
 phenomena, both of the material and the spiritual 
 spheres, adjusted with minutest correlation to all their 
 subsequent issues ? every thought and feeling in the 
 spiritual, adjusted to every turning of the wheel of the 
 physical? * The causes that tend to the recovery of the 
 sick are correlated to the petitions which solicit it, but 
 are they not also correlated to everything else in the 
 universe, in botli hemispheres (the physical and the 
 * See 'Essay V.,' p. 1SG, &c.
 
 a 
 
 394 PRAYER: ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 
 
 spiritual) ? In short, the adjustment is either universal, 
 or it is non-existent ; it is either everywhere, or it is 
 nowhere. To maintain — as has been lately done — 
 that we may pray for what we know to be an 
 impossibility, is to degrade prayer, and to render it 
 utterly futile. It is even to disgust men with 
 paradox, instead of consoling them with a verifiable 
 truth, offering a stone in place of bread. If we wish 
 not merely to increase the habit of prayer, but also to 
 foster the spirit of devotion, the advocacy of such a 
 doctrine must operate directly the other way. 
 
 When we ask, ' What is our warrant for presenting 
 petitions for physical benefits, which amount to an 
 alteration of the order of nature ? ' the usual answer 
 is, ' the felt wants of the suppliant.' But, if he has 
 any modesty or humility, he will admit that he can 
 never be sure that he is not construing an utterly 
 selfish desire as a divine suggestion to his spirit. We 
 have obviously no right to infer, for example, from the 
 absence of rain for a time in a particular district, and 
 when our crops begin to suffer in consequence, that a 
 change is desirable for the universe at large. Who 
 are we, or what is the measure of our wisdom, that we 
 presume to solicit a change in that, which, by its very 
 occurrence, is a sufficient indication of the divine 
 will? The question is thus narrowed to a very 
 simple issue. Some of my opponents, in this con- 
 troversy, affirm that we have no right to infer the 
 divine will, from that which actually happens : we 
 merely know that it has been permitted to occur, but 
 we cannot be sure that something different might not 
 have been preferred by the eternal Arranger of events. 
 Admit (as we must) our ignorance of the best of all
 
 PRAYER : ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 395 
 
 possible arrangements, who is to determine this hypo- 
 thetical state or condition of affairs ? If we are not 
 to take the actual course of events as an indication of 
 the ' best of all possible ones,' what help are we to 
 obtain from our own conception of one more perfect ? 
 Is not the very notion of a better physical adjustment, 
 analogous to the vain suggestion of king Alfonso ? * 
 Does it not savour of his arrogance ? Does it not 
 elevate our most capricious or selfish desires into a 
 position of higher authority and reasonableness, than 
 the actual arrangements of nature which reveal the mind 
 of the Arranger ? Who will venture to assert that 
 the order of nature does not reveal the will of the 
 Supreme ? or that his will — thus disclosed — is not 
 perfect ? 
 
 At the root, however, of all irregular petitioning in 
 reference to external nature lies a crude conception of 
 the character of him to whom the petition is addressed. 
 If the notion of a Sovereign is more dominant than 
 that of a Father, the wish to solicit the sovereign, for 
 such favours as he may be pleased to confer, will be 
 proportionately strong. But, if the whole economy of 
 nature — the fluctuations of the weather as well as the 
 order of the seasons — is the outcome of an infinite 
 Mind, whose fatherliness is his supremest characteristic ; 
 then, the creature, who is also a child, will not pre- 
 sume to suggest — any more than he will venture to 
 dictate — the means by which he or others around him 
 should be externally blessed. To whom, do men pray ? 
 whether in times of disaster, or of prosperity ? Is it 
 not to the infinite Wisdom, and the absolute Righteous- 
 
 * Who affirmed that, had he heen consulted, he could have 
 suggested some improvements on the solar system.
 
 396 PRAYER: ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 
 
 ness, the perfect Purity and the eternal Love ? to the 
 omnipotent Administrator truly, but to one whose 
 regulation of the affairs of the universe has no parallel 
 in the statesmanship of a ruler, who has to make the 
 best of circumstances, to decide on cases as they 
 emerge, and regulate his actings accordingly ? Our 
 prayer is not the importuning of a dictator, any more 
 than it is an appeal to a despot, or a suit before a 
 judge. It is the voice of a child to its Father, the cry 
 of aspiration directed towards the accomplishment of 
 that father's will, and therefore in its very essence 
 submissive, and therefore essentially unselfish. Being- 
 unselfish, it can never be an attempt to bring pressure 
 to bear upon one, who may or may not be induced to 
 respond. 
 
 The difference between the spheres of the physical 
 and the spiritual is most obvious. In reference to 
 the latter only, may we ask for change, or a reversal 
 of what is. And the reason of the difference is 
 abundantly plain. In the one case, it is unquestion- 
 able that much of what exists is inconsistent with the 
 divine will, that error and evil, blight and disorder, 
 are out of harmony with it ; in the other we know 
 that 'whatever is, is right.' In the former case, we 
 may co-operate to change the order of that which is ; 
 and the results accomplished are as verifiable and 
 authentic, as are our sense-perceptions of a world 
 external to ourselves. In the latter, we cannot co- 
 operate, or touch a single spring, by which the 
 machinery of causation can be either accelerated or 
 retarded. Even in the former sphere, we dare not 
 proffer a purely selfish request. For the pain, disaster, 
 and loss, from which we shrink, are often the best of
 
 PRAYER : 'THE TWO SPHERES.' 397 
 
 all things for us, and form part of the divine plan for 
 the education of men. We can never be certain that, 
 if we receive any particular physical blessing, others, 
 who have as good a right to it as we have, may not 
 be deprived of it ; but, we may be sure that the in- 
 crease of our mental light and the moral development 
 of the will cannot interfere with the possession of these 
 things by others, but on the contrary may be directly 
 helpful to their enlightenment and progress. It 
 comes to this, that the essential end of prayer is 
 not the gratification of our wishes, but the subordina- 
 tion of the human will to the divine ; or the gratifica- 
 tion of the former only in so far as caprice and 
 irregularity are extinguished, and their correspondence 
 with the latter perfected. That correspondence can 
 be attained only by patient submission, resigned trust, 
 .and acquiescence in whatsoever the sovereign will 
 ordains. The end sought is not the extinction of our 
 humanity, nor the absorption of the individual in 
 the universal life, with nirvana as its goal. It is 
 rather the development of the creaturely will, freed 
 from caprice, under allegiance to a Lawgiver, ' whose 
 service is perfect freedom.' The difference between 
 the pantheistic merging of the universe in God, and 
 the theistic subordination of it to him, is not specu- 
 latively greater than it is practically momentous. 
 
 There is another anthropomorphic notion, which, 
 although occasionally helpful to the mind — as all sym- 
 bols and parables are helpful to it, and sometimes even 
 necessary — is apt to interfere with a rational concep- 
 tion of God, as well as with the tranquillities of devo- 
 tion. I have said that it is the extra-mundane con- 
 ception of God — while his immanence is overlooked
 
 398 PRAYER : 'THE TWO SPHERES.' 
 
 — that leads to the farther notion of his interference 
 from without, readjusting the order of events. We 
 forget that this agency could not be more truly mani- 
 fested by the alteration, than it is shewn in the order- 
 that now is. And so, the idea of a Sovereign, occupy- 
 ing some vast semi-physical, semi-spiritual throne, in 
 the aerial regions of the universe, whither our petitions 
 ascend and whence his responses come, destroys both 
 the grandeur and the spirituality of his omnipresence. 
 The throne is not more truly in the upper heaven, 
 than it is in the lower earth, and within the heart of 
 the petitioner : for the divine Presence, being neces- 
 sarily universal, cannot be localised upon a spot. 
 Thus, the idea of distance, between the suppliant and 
 him to whom he prays, is abolished. The divine in- 
 finity does not remove God from the creature, on the 
 contrary it abolishes the distance between them. As 
 truly as finite and infinite are correlatives in thought, 
 so truly are the divine Presence and the human in- 
 separables in fact. ' Whither could we flee from his 
 presence V says a psalmist. Thus, the replies vouch- 
 safed are not transmitted from a distance, as messages 
 would be flashed along a wire. They are the intel- 
 lectual rays, the spiritual suggestions, the inward 
 inspirations, the fresh disclosures, the new desires, the 
 onward energies, the aims ennobled and motives ethe- 
 realized, the heightening and the quickening of the 
 petitioner's life, — all of which have their origin in 
 God, and their destination in the heart of man. The 
 answer comes along the channel of the petitioner's life 
 — just as normally as a brook is fed by subterranean 
 springs, or by a fresh rain-fall amongst the mountains. 
 Within the Petitioned, the petitioner ' lives and moves
 
 PRAYER : ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 399 
 
 and has his being ;' and the pulse of his life beats 
 quick or slow, according to the fulness of his inspiration, 
 and the extent of his receptivity. 
 
 Stress ought also to be laid upon the non-verifiable 
 character of all alleged answers to prayer for physical 
 good : that is to say, our interpretation of special 
 events as specific answers — while in the so-called 
 ' general course of providence,' no such specialty is 
 recognised — cannot be vindicated. Why should I 
 arbitrarily isolate a few phenomena from the general 
 chain, and because they happen to coincide with my 
 wishes, interpret these as a divine reply to my entreaty, 
 while I fail to see an equally beneficent response in 
 all the other links, in the special phenomena I did not 
 seek, and could not foresee, when I merely said ' Thy 
 will be done ?' No record of coincidences can prove 
 a causal connection, or even suggest it ; unless the 
 instances are exceptionally numerous, and unless other 
 causes leading to the result are excluded by rigid 
 methods of verification. In the inner sphere, how- 
 ever, verification is possible. In the realm of our 
 spiritual freedom, the request and the reply are alike 
 definite and clear. And the one is causal of the other, 
 in the only sense in which causality can belong to a 
 request, viz., that it leads to its fulfilment. 
 
 On the necessitarian theory of the universe, petition- 
 ary prayer is manifestly an excrescence. It might be 
 the pathetic cry of the heart in pain, as the nerves of 
 sensation shrink before inflicted suffering ; but it 
 could not be an intelligent appeal. If our freedom is 
 but the absence of constraint — and not a positive 
 power transcending necessity — we need not present, 
 our suit at all. For the question, which both the
 
 400 PRAYER; ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 
 
 heart and the intellect raise, is not, ' May we, if we 
 choose, offer up petitions for a special destination of 
 the physical forces?' It is, 'What is our warrant for 
 expecting that certain responses will follow, which 
 would not be ours, save for the requests which solicit 
 them ? ' Now the only sphere in which replies of 
 this kind are verifiable, is the life of the petitioner, or 
 other kindred lives, or humanity at large. We cannot 
 suppose the divine presence or energy increased, within 
 the physical realm ; but wherever there is a moral 
 nature, or an aggregate of such natures, in society, there 
 is room for increase, there is scope for incessant change, 
 with endless modifications and additions. If human 
 nature be distinct from, and yet kindred to, the divine 
 — if human society be amenable to a ' power that 
 worketh in it '■ — there can be no limit to the efficacy 
 of petition directed to that end. The sphere of peti- 
 tionary prayer will thus cover the whole area of human 
 life, and be verifiable throughout that area. There 
 can be no possible pursuit, enterprise, or vocation, in 
 reference to which a man may not pray, if in the 
 course of it he needs assistance ; but, even then, the 
 essence of his prayer will be aspiration tempered by 
 submission. The accomplishment of the divine 
 will must, in every case, form — as I have already 
 said — 'the undertone of all devout petitioning;' and 
 the distinction drawn between the contrasted ' spheres' 
 arises simply from the fact, that in the one we co- 
 operate towards the production of results, while in the 
 other we ' stand still ' and witness them. In the 
 former sphere, 
 
 More things are wrought by prayer 
 Than this world dreams of.
 
 PRAYER: ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 401 
 
 In the latter, 'the sun rises on the evil and on the 
 good ' impartially ; and 'the rain falls on the just and 
 on the unjust/ whether men pray for it, or abstain. 
 
 I must, however, notice an objection which has 
 more force than any I have seen urged, against this 
 doctrine of ' the two spheres.' I have objected to 
 requests for specific physical details on the ground 
 that we are absolutely ignorant whether rain or sun- 
 shine, storm or calm, be really the best thing for any 
 particular district of the earth, at a particular time. 
 But neither, it may be said, can we know that the 
 illumination of our minds and hearts, in a particular 
 manner at a particular time, is the best for us ; and, 
 therefore, if the objection be valid in the one case, 
 it is equally so with regard to the other. We must 
 consider this. Every man is presumably aware of 
 what he most needs, in the way of light and personal 
 help. He may miscalculate much. That is inevitable. 
 But as self-knowledge grows, he learns his weaknesses, 
 and frailties. He can therefore ask for the rectifica- 
 tion of what is amiss or disorderly, with more or less 
 assurance that his request for particulars is wise. 
 Whatever may be his subjective state, he always 
 stands in need of more intellectual light, and moral 
 steadfastness, of strength of will, purity of heart, up- 
 rightness, humility, and charity. He will not, in this 
 case any more than in the former, specify minute 
 details with excessive unreserve. But he cannot err 
 in petition for spiritual good, for the control of all his 
 wayward tendencies, the regulation of his passions, 
 the removal of every bias, and the discipline of his 
 spirit in righteousness. The change which he seeks 
 is in himself, not in the order of the universe or of 
 
 2 c
 
 402 PRAYER : ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 
 
 the divine administration. It is personal ; it is in- 
 telligible ; it is verifiable. 
 
 There is another special point to be noted in con- 
 nection with the general statement that the accomplish- 
 ment of the divine will is ' the undertone, or the 
 suppressed premiss,' in all true prayer.* Since this 
 Will is manifested throughout the whole economy of 
 nature, its entire compass and detail naturally becomes 
 a fit subject for petition. If the course of nature is 
 seemingly adverse to the petitioner, his desires may 
 find expression in such words as these: 'Let thy good 
 and holy and merciful will be done, in all these our 
 troubles and adversities : In thine own time, grant us 
 deliverance from them, and from all evil : Be pleased 
 to supply all our earthly wants, and all our human 
 needs : We cast ourselves upon thy gracious care : 
 We put our trust in thee.' In praying, therefore, for 
 our daily bread, without any suggestion of details, we 
 virtually include within the request all the specific 
 particulars by which the petition could possibly be 
 answered. And thus, our request is substantially, 
 though indirectly, met by whatsoever comes to pass. 
 In short, since all unselfish prayer, touching outward 
 things, contemplates the universal good along with 
 individual benefit, our special requests — say for rain, 
 or an abundant harvest — may be responded to by the 
 descent of the former, or the ingathering of the latter, 
 
 * 'It is,' (as I have elsewhere said) 'in different aspects, the 
 essence, or pre-supposition, or appendix of every request worthy of 
 the child on earth to its Parent in heaven. But it is not a mere cr} T 
 of ignorance, couched in the modest phraseology of submission. It 
 it an intelligent assertion, the embodiment of a rational conviction, 
 that the Divine Will is infallibly working out its remote transcend- 
 ent purposes.'
 
 PRAYER : ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 403 
 
 anywhere over the whole area of the globe. We 
 petition for rain, and it falls amongst the Andes ; we 
 ask for fair weather, and the sun shines out upon the 
 plains of India ; but our requests are fulfilled as truly 
 as if we experienced what we sought at home. 
 
 I cannot close this second article without remarking, 
 that if prayer be absolutely powerless as a spiritual 
 agency in human life, there is not only a logical 
 inconsistency in all the Christian litanies, but there 
 would be a latent hypocrisy in their use, most wither- 
 ing to the heart. To practise prayer, without belief 
 in its efficacy, is either the shallowest of delusions, 
 the most miserable of mockeries, or it is an attempt 
 to invoke the ghost of a dead conviction, to revisit us 
 from the realm of shadows. On the other hand, if 
 its uselessness be accepted as a foregone conclusion, 
 and the practice abandoned as fanatical, the spirit of 
 man will droop to the level of material interests. 
 Religion will rapidly deteriorate, if it is not ex- 
 tinguished ; and all the heroism of morality, all 
 ardour in the practise of difficult virtue, will be 
 paralysed in the very moment of its birth. For 
 prayer is the lever of the spiritual life ; nay — to 
 speak in various figures — it is the lung by which it 
 breathes, the atmosphere in which it floats, the wing 
 by which it speeds its flight, and the language in 
 which it communes with its Original. To deny the 
 accessibility of the human spirit to the secret influences 
 and inspiration of heaven is the coarse negation of 
 materialism. But no one who believes in God as the 
 inward Light, as well as the outward glory of the 
 universe, can have any overpowering difficulty in 
 seeing how ho answers prayer. Whether as a sigh
 
 404 PRAYER: ' THE TWO SPHERES.' 
 
 of aspiration, or an act of surrender, or as the hunger 
 of the soul for an immortal consolation, it brings with 
 it its own evidence unsought. 
 
 It may be the lot of no one finally to bridge the 
 gulf which has so often separated the scientific from 
 the religious mind, and kept them at unsympathetic 
 distances and in alien territories, or as rival com- 
 petitors for the homage of mankind. He would be 
 more foolish than bold who hoped to do so, by a 
 theory, or an essay, or a treatise. The reconciliation 
 will be accomplished by the slow developments of 
 eclectic thought, when generations happier than ours 
 learn to avoid the 'falsehood of extremes.' But every 
 attempt to throw a plank across the chasm — if made 
 with reverent purpose — may tend to lessen the mis- 
 understandings, and to heal the estrangements of our 
 time. It would be something gained, were those, 
 whose creed is a simple laborare orare, to suspect 
 that they may be ignoring a mystic power within 
 themselves, — that they may possess 
 
 a faculty which they have never used ; 
 
 and were those, on the other hand, who imagine that 
 the course of nature can be altered at the request of 
 a creature, to perceive that the invariability of her 
 laws is but the synonym of divinest Constancy. Our 
 theoretic belief that ' all things are possible ' with 
 God, must be limited by the practical conviction that 
 He does only what is best; and our individual requests 
 must follow the example of the Highest: 'Si possibile 
 transeat calix, seel non quod ego volo, sed quod Tvu.'
 
 NATURE AS INTERPRETED BY 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 (A lecture delivered to the Halifax Literary and Philosophical 
 Society, and to the Birmingham and Midland Institute, February 
 and March 1879). 
 
 I AM to explain the way in which our English poet 
 Wordsworth interpreted Nature, and to indicate the 
 value of that interpretation, as one which unites and 
 harmonises the conclusions of Science and Philosophy, 
 of Poetry and Religion. 
 
 It may be a useful introduction, if I begin with 
 some remarks on the poetic as contrasted with the 
 scientific interpretation of Nature. 
 
 The two objects with which both Poetry and Science 
 deal are Nature and Man : on the one hand this won- 
 drous universe in which we live, which surrounds us 
 from the cradle to the grave, and to which we have so 
 many complex relations ; and on the other, our own 
 human nature where many elements are blended, 
 and diverse currents meet, alike in the individual and 
 the race. These are the objects with which both 
 Science and Philosophy are occupied. They constitute 
 the spheres within which all poetic effort moves ; and 
 their relations are singularly close and vital. They 
 form two worlds, united in a larger whole ; so that 
 between them there are affinities and correspondences 
 of the most subtle order. They are so adjusted that
 
 40 G NATURE AS INTERPRETED BY WORDSWORTH. 
 
 reciprocal influences are incessantly coming and going, 
 across the barrier which separates them ; and that 
 when the one appeals, the other invariably in due 
 time responds. 
 
 While this is the case, it has been sometimes 
 imagined that there can be no natural alliance between 
 the scientific and the poetic interpretation of Nature, 
 or between these and the philosophic and religious in- 
 terpretation ; that, if there is not antagonism, there is 
 at least no concord, that they do not constitute a natu- 
 ral harmony. I think it may be shown, on the con- 
 trary, that there is a luminous point, where all the 
 four unite ; a common focus, at which indeed their 
 respective conclusions are one. ' If the true/ ' the 
 beautiful,' ' and the good ' can be combined in the har- 
 mony of a single principle, then Science, Poetry, and 
 Religion are of necessity three allied provinces ; while 
 Philosophy may be said to underlie them all : and I do 
 not know a greater intellectual service that one can 
 render to his fellow-men than by helping to remove 
 misunderstandings between labourers in these pro- 
 vinces, and to destroy the artificial barriers which still 
 unhappily exist as walls of separation between them. 
 
 It is the merest commonplace to tell you that 
 Science deals with phenomena and their laws ; that 
 Philosophy is occupied with first principles, with the 
 essence and the unity of things ; that Poetry deals with 
 the beautiful, and Religion with what pertains to the 
 divine. So elementary and surface a statement, how- 
 ever, will not enable us to solve the problem of the 
 respective relations of these provinces. But, if I go 
 on to say, that the aim of Science is to reduce the 
 miscellaneous to order, and the manifold to unity, by
 
 NATURE AS INTERPRETED BY WORDSWORTH. 407 
 
 the discovery of simpler and simpler laws, till it com- 
 bines all the phenomena of which it takes cognisance 
 under the widest possible generalisation ; and that it 
 is the aim of Philosophy to grasp the underlying 
 essence of the universe, to find the unity of the whole 
 by the exercise of thought, and to explain existence 
 by an effort of the speculative reason, you will see that, 
 in reference to two of the departments in question, we 
 have at least got beyond the commonplace. When I 
 go on farther to say that Poetry is the rhythmic utter- 
 ance of human thought and feeling, dealing with cer- 
 tain phenomena of nature and of human life, not as 
 science deals with them, under the cold light of intel- 
 ligence, that it may discover laws, but imaginatively, 
 — while the sflow of emotion mingles with the wonder 
 of the intellect, and the mind rests delightedly in the 
 contemplation of its object, — it may perhaps be felt 
 that we have made a farther advance, both towards the 
 separation of the provinces, and a perception of the 
 harmony of their aim. If I say, in addition, that 
 Relic/ion pursues its way, more by feeling than by 
 thought (though with both conbined), to find a cen- 
 tral Unity, and to repose upon it — namely, that unity 
 of Life, Reason, and Feeling, which lies at the heart of 
 the universe, and pervades it from centre to circumfer- 
 ence, it may be supposed that we have taken another 
 step in the same direction. 
 
 Now, since the unity of the world may be discerned 
 either by reason or by imagination, it is a conclusion 
 to which we are led, both by Philosophy and by 
 Poetry: and, as there is a point at which philosophy 
 and poetry meet, this unity will be most clearly appre- 
 hended, when the result we have reached by a specula-
 
 408 NATURE AS INTERPRETED BY WORDSWORTH. 
 
 tive process is vivified by a subsequent poetic glance. 
 You will observe, however, that in neither case — 
 neither as a conclusion of Philosophy nor of Poetry — 
 is this unity reached by the summing up of particulars 
 into a larger whole, or by any expansion or multiplica- 
 tion of individual things. We cannot apprehend the 
 unity of the world, by adding together a number of 
 finite elements. We perceive it only when we pass 
 beyond the finite, in a single glance, directed towards 
 the whole of Nature, throwing all consideration of 
 particulars out of account in the process. The scien- 
 tific search, on the other hand, begins by analysis and 
 division ; and it proceeds by the method of addition, 
 or the summation of results. It is true that it tends 
 towards unity in the long run ; but it starts from the 
 variety and multiplicity of Nature. Its aim is the 
 discovery of law. But in order to the discovery of 
 law, Nature must, in the first instance, be studied in 
 fragments. It must be explored piecemeal, scrutinised 
 and questioned in detail. It is for this reason that 
 each science has a comparatively limited area. Moving 
 within the sphere of a special group of phenomena, its 
 conquests are always won by concentration, and minute- 
 ness of analysis. Thus none of the special sciences 
 unfold either the principle of Nature as a whole, or its 
 unity. Of course they all conduct us into regions 
 worth exploring, and all yield results that are helpful 
 in the higher enquiry which follows. But it is not by 
 groping amongst details that the meaning of Nature 
 as a whole, or the principle of its unity can be dis- 
 covered. It is by a totally different process — viz., by 
 the synthesis, which may either follow the analyses of 
 science, or may precede them. In other words it is,
 
 NATURE AS INTERPRETED BY WORDSWORTH. 409 
 
 by the joint exercise of Reason and of Imagination, or 
 by speculative and poetic Intuition combined. I need 
 hardly add that this insight into the unity of things is 
 not inconsistent with a scientific knowledge of detail ; 
 but is, on the contrary, either its pre-supposition, or 
 its natural sequel and supplement. Nay, it is perhaps 
 never thoroughly appreciated, till some of the sciences 
 of observation have been mastered. But as all science 
 ends in mystery (its last word being of the unknown 
 and the unknowable), there is a sense in which Avhen 
 that last word has been spoken, its utterance has simply 
 cleared the way, for Philosophy to essay what I think 
 is the grander task of interpreting the unity of things, 
 for Poetry to unfold the symbolism, and for Religion to 
 apprehend the ' open secret ' of the world. 
 
 So much for the different ways in which Science, 
 Poetry, Philosophy, and Religion respectively tend, 
 while they unitedly seek the harmony of Nature and 
 Man. 
 
 Turning now to the poetic attitude and interpreta- 
 tion, as distinct from the others, there are many 
 different ways in which the poets have felt, and tried 
 to explain the significance of Nature. And probably 
 Ave shall best understand the way in which Wordsworth 
 regarded it (which I believe to be the highest) if we 
 begin by considering some other aspects, under which 
 it has been more usually contemplated. 
 
 (1.) There is the simple delight felt by all un- 
 sophisticated hearts, in the presence of the grander 
 or more beautiful phenomena of Nature ; a sense of its 
 loveliness which soothes, and of its freshness which 
 re-invigorates. I do not refer to the mere exuberance 
 of spirit, with which, in childhood, or early youth, we
 
 410 NATURE AS INTERPRETED BY WORDSWORTH. 
 
 may have wandered in the fields, or woods, or 
 mountains, rejoicing in nature, because our physical 
 frames thrilled with the bounding sense of health and 
 freedom. Exquisitely delightful while it lasts, this 
 gradually passes away; and it is, at its best, an animal 
 exhilaration, although in elevated natures it may be 
 indefinitely refined. If it is not on the same level, 
 with the delight of bird or beast in warm days, clear 
 air, sweet sounds, and happy gambolings ; such appreci- 
 ation of Nature rises certainly to no higher level than 
 that of Peter Bell the potter. But I refer to that 
 delight in Nature which the child sometimes feels, 
 while gazing on a cloud, or listening to the murmur of 
 a brook, or to the roar of the ocean, or in looking up 
 with clear and wondering eye to the blue heaven, or 
 into the bright heart of a flower, — an experience in 
 which ivonder and restfulness are the main constituents. 
 It is admirably expressed by Henry Vaughan, in his 
 poem ' The Retreate,' when he speaks of his ' angel 
 infancy ' as a time 
 
 When on some gilded cloud or flower 
 My gazing soul would dwell an hour. 
 
 Chaucer has embodied it, still more felicitously, in 
 many passages ; and he may be taken as its chief 
 representative in English poetry, while this attitude 
 towards nature may be said to be distinctive of the 
 Chaucerian period. In all cases, it is simple, unreflec- 
 tive gladness. The very essence of the feeling con- 
 sisting in this, that there is no analysis or subtlety in 
 it. The soothing influence of Nature is felt, diffusing 
 a spirit of contentment and repose, filling the mind 
 with restful gladness, or with deep emotion, or inspiring 
 peace. But you will observe that this is due, not
 
 NATURE AS INTERPRETED BY WORDSWORTH. 411 
 
 merely to Nature, as known through the senses, but as 
 appreciated by the soul, though not analysed by the 
 understanding. Wordsworth has expressed the same 
 feeling in his well-known lines on Tintern Abbey, 
 although he has added something of his own, quite 
 different from the ' child-feeling ' of Chaucer, and 
 Vaughan. He says, 
 
 For nature then 
 To me was all in all. I cannot paint 
 What then I was. The sounding cataract 
 Haunted me like a passion, the tall rock 
 The mountain and the deep and gloomy wood 
 Their colours and their forms, were then to me 
 An appetite : a feeling and a tone 
 That had no need of a remoter charm. 
 By thought supplied or any interest 
 Unborrowed from the eye, &c. 
 
 (2.) Another way of contemplating Nature — in some 
 respects higher, in others lower than this — is that of 
 looking at it mainly as a storehouse of imagery, or 
 illustration of things which belong to the world of 
 humanity. As such, it is regarded with no special 
 interest of its own, certainly with no fascination on its 
 own account, but as a treasury of emblems which may 
 be drawn upon at will, to relieve the dry narration of 
 events, or to make vivid the portraiture of human 
 affairs. In this case, the human element and interest 
 are supreme ; the illustrations from Nature are quite 
 a secondary and subordinate filling up of the picture. 
 You see the tendency conspicuously in Homer, when 
 after the description, say of the preparation for battle, 
 or of the appearance of a chieftain, or the effect of his 
 address, or of his prowess in the fray, it is added, ' as 
 when ' — and then follows a picture, drawn straight
 
 4 1 2 NATURE AS INTERPRETED BY WORDSWORTH. 
 
 from Nature, which usually in a few simple touches 
 photographs the scene, and vivifies the whole by a 
 striking surface parallel. I do not mean to affirm that 
 there is no appreciation of Nature in Homer, quite the 
 contrary. Still, on the whole, Nature is rather utilized 
 by him for the purposes of illustration, than described 
 with any special interest, or rejoiced in on its own 
 account. 
 
 (3.) There is next the interest taken, not in natural 
 phenomena so much as in particular localities, which 
 have been invested with human associations, from their 
 having been the scenes of great exploits, or of any 
 memorable historical event. Now, this is not an 
 appreciation of Nature in itself, as a whole, nor of 
 individual things in themselves, and in detail ; but 
 certain places become interesting from what has 
 happened in or near them, and their consequent sugges- 
 tions of man and his history. Thus, a memorial cairn 
 on a battle field, a ruined temple or an obelisk, the site 
 of an ancient city, a circle of Druidic stones, like that 
 of Stonehenge or Stennis, suggest far more than meets 
 the eye, or appeals to the other senses. Natural objects 
 become eloquent of the past life of the human race. 
 They tell of deeds of daring or heroic endurance, of 
 patriotic achievement or national disaster, of primitive 
 life or of a vanished faith. But in all these cases, 
 Nature becomes interesting, only in so far as it suggests 
 and recalls some human incident, only in so far as it 
 speaks to us of man. It is not valued on its own 
 account ; and the tendency is for Nature to fall more 
 and more into a secondary place, while the interest of 
 the antiquarian extinguishes that of the poet. 
 
 Then, (4.) There is a delight in Nature which is
 
 NATURE AS INTERPRETED BY WORDSWORTH. 41 
 
 n 
 
 purely realistic. It is in some respects, opposed to that 
 last mentioned interest in places ; and approaches the 
 first mentioned delight of the child or youth, in Nature 
 as such ; but it is an extension and development of it, 
 in a way peculiar to a certain type of mind or character. 
 It finds expression in minute descriptions of outward 
 things, not as objects of natural history, but in their 
 external features, as they appeal to the eye and ear and 
 other senses. Rural sights and sounds, the pleasures 
 of country life are dwelt upon delightedly in detail. 
 But this faithful realism, this close observation of 
 Nature, however accurate, and however picturesque, is 
 apt to stiffen into a dry chronicle of facts. It tends to 
 degenerate into a mere spirit of recording, or taking an 
 inventory of natural objects. It is seen at its best, 
 perhaps, in Virgil amongst the ancients, and in Thom- 
 son, in modern English poetry. In the Georgics, and 
 in the Seasons, we have admirable rural photographs, 
 most accurate and happy delineations of common 
 objects, enlivened by many allusions to less obvious 
 phenomena ; but nowhere lit up by a single flash of 
 insight, or by the suggestions of an invisible world, 
 revealing itself through the shadows of the visible. 
 After reading the finest passages of these writers, you 
 feel as though you had been turning over the pages of 
 a photographic album full of exquisite landscape views. 
 You have been breathing an atmosphere of pure realism, 
 — the landscape is delineated as it appeals to the 
 senses. There is not a single jet of imaginative feeling, 
 not a ray of ideal light. Such poets do not understand, 
 do not believe in the existence of, ' the light that never 
 was, on sea or land.' In so far as they deny the 
 deeper truth beyond, behind, or within the visible, we
 
 414 NATURE AS INTERPRETED BY WORDSWORTH. 
 
 may apply to them Plato's answer to a shallow critic of 
 his ideal theory, who said to the master, ' I do not see 
 the ideas,' ' Because you only see with your eyes, 
 Diogenes, and not with your soul.' 
 
 But, (5.) There is a much deeper way of looking 
 upon Nature than this, one deeper than any of those 
 I have mentioned. It is, in part, a return to the 
 delight in natural objects for their own sake, which I 
 noticed as a characteristic of childhood, and of those, 
 the freshness of whose perceptions has not been 
 spoiled by conventionality ; but it is accompanied by 
 a deeper vision of Nature, and a new sense of 
 its attractiveness. That early charm, felt in the out- 
 ward world, was unrefiective ; and, on the whole, a 
 surface feeling of delight, however intense or even 
 passionate it might occasionally be. But the feeling, 
 to which I now refer, is born of insight. It arises 
 out of a deep appreciation of the meaning of Nature, 
 which begins to exert an influence over the mind and 
 character, amounting to fascination. As such, it is a 
 product of certain intellectual and esthetic tendencies, 
 which have been in operation only during the latter 
 half of the last century, and the whole of this ; and it 
 could not have arisen earlier. Many conspiring 
 causes have led to it, which it would be foreign to the 
 purpose of this lecture to trace. Note only, that so 
 long as the sterner phenomena of Nature had no 
 special attraction, and were even shunned with dis- 
 like, there could be no profound appreciation of it as 
 a whole. 
 
 The interpretation of Nature, and the feeling 
 towards it, to which 1 now refer, is built upon the pre- 
 ceding views ; it includes them, but it transcends
 
 NATURE AS INTERPRETED BY WORDSWORTH. 415 
 
 them. Nature is not only rejoiced in it, with the 
 primitive and almost dumb wonder of the savage who 
 is subdued, or of the child who is awed by it ; it is 
 not only regarded as a store-house of imagery and 
 symbol ; localities are not only invested with interest 
 or pathos by their association with the affairs of 
 human life, character, and destiny ; not only are the 
 details of a landscape, or of a particular object, studied 
 with minute realistic care ; but a new interpretation 
 is given to the universe as a whole, to every separate 
 group of natural phenomena as a class, and to every 
 individual thing which illustrates the class. Nature 
 is loved for its own sake. It is delighted in, because 
 it is understood ; and because it is found to be every- 
 where a symbol of man, a mirror of humanity. As 
 Coleridge said, ' It hath been the music of gentle and 
 pious minds in all ages, it is the poetry of all human 
 life, to read the book of Nature in a figurative sense, 
 and to find therein the correspondences and symbols of 
 the spiritual world.' Now you will see, if you go 
 back in detail over the other ways of looking upon 
 Nature, how the truth that is in each of them, is 
 taken up within the comprehensiveness of this last, 
 which is itself expanded by its union with the others. 
 Take the second as an illustration — viz., the symbolic 
 or allegoric. The last and highest conception may be 
 said to be a return to the second, because Nature is 
 regarded as a store-house of imagery which illustrates 
 human life and affairs ; but it is not on surface or 
 chance parallels that it dwells, but on the under- 
 working unity, the common life in Nature and in 
 lii.iii, which finds expression in these analogies and 
 similitudes. Similarly, you will find that all the
 
 41 G NATURE AS INTERPRETED BY WORDSWORTH. 
 
 restful delight of Chaucer and Vaughan, all the minute 
 pre-raphaelite detail of Virgil, all the historic and 
 human interest in localities, which is their sole attrac- 
 tion to others, is preserved and glorified in the poetry, 
 which recognises the deeper symbolism of Nature. 
 
 This highest conception, however, is very easily 
 caricatured. For example, it has been represented as 
 the projection of our own moods into Nature. And, 
 doubtless, there is a falsetto note sung by many poets,- 
 in which this takes place. It has often happened 
 that the only thing that men have seen in natural 
 phenomena has been the morbid reflex of themselves. 
 Thus, the bright sunrise, the peaceful sunset, or the 
 gracious spring-time have seemed to them divine ; 
 while the storm has seemed wrathful, and the thunder 
 revengeful. All this is a figurative and unreal way 
 of looking upon Nature. It is an instance of the ex- 
 travagance which results from pushing a truth so far, 
 that it becomes positively erroneous, in its extreme 
 development. If, for example, we say, with Coleridge 
 that, ' in our life alone doth nature live,' this ultra 
 idealism will distort our views both of Nature and of 
 man. For such is the solidarity of truth, that an 
 erroneous reading of the text of the physical world 
 leads usually by reaction to an erroneous conception 
 of human nature. It does not follow, however, that 
 physical nature is a Sphinx, wholly inscrutible to our 
 faculties, because many fail to read the text aright, or 
 to listen to its oracle. It does not follow that our 
 humanity is not the key by which to unlock its 
 secrets, because many have used that key at random, 
 or turned it improperly in the wards. 
 
 Let us see, then, somewhat more particularly to
 
 NATURE AS INTERPRETED BY WORDSWORTH. 417 
 
 what this conception amounts. It is not meant that 
 Nature is, or can be, a perfect mirror of humanity ; 
 or that we can find the exact counterpart of our con- 
 sciousness, in the world beyond us. But it is meant 
 that between man and nature there is such a co-relation 
 or established harmony, a correspondence so close and 
 vital, that it is only through the one, that the other 
 can be understood. Man being at once a link in the 
 chain of nature, and its highest development, the 
 meaning of all the lower grades or stages becomes for 
 the first time intelligible, when the higher is reached; 
 and the significance of the higher is then seen to be 
 shadowed forth in the lower. Now this interpreta- 
 tion of nature and man, in their twin relationships 
 and affinities, is reached, as I remarked at the begin- 
 ning of this lecture, both by Philosophy and Poetry. 
 It is a conclusion of the Speculative Reason ; and the 
 highest function which Poetry fulfils is that of media- 
 tion between man and nature, interpreting each in the 
 light of the other. Its office is to bring the human 
 spirit into full imaginative harmony with Nature, 
 such harmony as assures us that Nature no longer 
 dominates over us, but that we have somehow divined 
 its secret, or got into the heart of things ; although a 
 sense of overshadowing mystery remains. Of course, 
 it is not possible for the poet, any more than for the 
 speculative philosopher, or the scientific explorer, to 
 penetrate to the shrine, and to clear up the final 
 mystery. But it is equally true that the poet gets 
 face to face with the luminous side of Nature. It is 
 intelligible to him, in the light of reason and of 
 imagination combined. He apprehends it, by a 
 process of divination, or second sight ; which is quite 
 
 2 D
 
 418 NATURE AS INTERPRETED RY WORDSWORTH. 
 
 as verifiable by experience, as any scientific law is 
 verifiable. 
 
 And this is the central thought, which lies within 
 the whole of Wordsworth's poetry, as its animating 
 and inspiring soul. It is the sympathetic relation- 
 ship, which arises out of the pre-established harmony 
 between man and nature, the far-reaching correspond- 
 ences of thought and feeling, of which we become 
 increasingly conscious, as our communion with Nature 
 widens and deepens. It is not only that Nature is 
 alive, that 
 
 The mighty Being is awake, 
 
 and that its life is stimulating to ours ; not only that 
 it is incessantly renewing that life, and fulfilling a 
 stupendous purpose which we are able in part to 
 apprehend ; but also, that between Man and Nature 
 there are relations of the very closest intimacy and 
 essential kindredness, of fellowship, and reciprocity. 
 It is of course evident to the most ordinary observer, 
 that Nature exercises a peculiar influence over man, 
 that it attracts and charms the human spirit. That 
 it exhilarates is manifest ; that it soothes and tran- 
 quilises is also apparent ; and that it exerts a ' heal- 
 ing power' is often seen. But hoiv does it do all 
 this ? In virtue of what feature, or function, or 
 characteristic does it wield over us its magic spell ? 
 That is the question. Take the case of one closely 
 confined for months to city life ; his brain racked by 
 financial problems, and his physical vigour impaired 
 by the confinement and routine of business. He goes 
 for a short holiday amongst the mountains or by the 
 sea. What is it that he finds, in these places, to re-in-
 
 NATURE AS INTERPRETED BY WORDSWORTH. 419 
 
 vigorate him ? It may be a very complex affair ; and, 
 it is no doubt different in different individuals. In 
 some cases, it may be easier to say what it is not, 
 than to define what it is. But, of one thing we may 
 be always sure ; it is not exclusively the effect of 
 change, the contrast of scene or of occupation. The 
 refreshment which change produces, may be almost 
 invariably one element in it. But contrast is again 
 experienced, when one returns to town ; and, while 
 the man who is city-born and bred, finds the best 
 antidote to depression in an escape to Nature and to 
 solitude, the lonely dweller amongst the mountains 
 finds his re-invigoration in periodical visits to the city. 
 If, therefore, it requires much more than a mere change 
 of scene, and a sense of contrast, to account for the 
 ' healing power ' of Nature, in what does it consist ? I 
 think that we must fall back for explanation upon the 
 language, with which Nature speaks to every mind 
 that is open to her influences, to every heart that is 
 susceptible to her voices. We, of course, speak in a 
 figure, in supposing that Nature has a language ; but 
 surely we do not err in so doing ? The symbol 
 reveals fully more than it conceals. If, then, Nature 
 has a language, can that language be translated \ or, 
 if it cannot, can it be understood, in its own original 
 and untranslatable vernacular ? Is there any method 
 of initiation, by which we can learn it ? any mode of 
 instruction, by which we may be taught it ? If these 
 questions are answered in the negative, — if the poetic 
 interpretation of Nature be an illusion, and we can 
 get no farther than an inventory of phenomena and 
 an induction of laws, — then all poetry, such as Words- 
 worth's, will of necessity be relegated to a secondary
 
 420 NATURE AS INTERPRETED BY WORDSWORTH. 
 
 rank ; just as, on the same principles, all philosophy, 
 such as Plato's, will be consigned to the region of 
 mist or of dreamland. But, if Nature has a soul or 
 essence, that is recognisable by intuition — though for 
 that very reason it may be incapable of being trans- 
 lated into the prosaic language of ordinary fact, — if 
 Nature's ' secret ' is in any sense an ' open ' one, and 
 if the interpretation of the secret be man, then, as 
 an interpreter of the secret, Wordsworth is of all poets 
 facile princeps. In this direction he has no rival, 
 scarcely even a competitor. In every other direction 
 he may have been excelled ; in this, he stands abso- 
 lutely alone. No Greek or Latin poet, no English or 
 German one, not Homer, nor Virgil, nor Dante, nor 
 Chaucer, nor Spenser, nor Shakespeare, nor Milton, nor 
 Burns, nor Goethe, — not one of his predecessors, and 
 certainly no successor, — has grasped the profound 
 symbolism of Nature as Wordsworth did, or seen that 
 humanity supplied the key. The great goddess had 
 been admired, and often delightfully described ; and 
 she had been occasionally idolized. But all idolatry 
 is puerile : and Nature had never been loved for its 
 own sake, with a love born of reverence and rational 
 insight, till Wordsworth's day. 
 
 At the risk of a slight recapitulation, I shall try to 
 unfold this conception of Nature a little more in 
 detail ; because it is, if I mistake not, a conception in 
 which the conclusions of Poetry and Science, of Philo- 
 sophy and Religion all meet together at a luminous 
 focus. It is, as I have said, a continuation and 
 development of all the other and earlier ways of con- 
 templating Nature. It is an expansion of the primitive 
 feeling of pure delight, which is seen in the infancy of
 
 NATURE AS INTERPRETED EY WORDSWORTH. 421 
 
 nations, and in the heart of the unsophisticated child. 
 It is the culmination of the symbolic view of Nature, 
 which is regarded no longer as a mere storehouse of 
 analogies, to be casually gathered and elaborated arti- 
 ficially by the understanding, but as a treasury of 
 symbols through which the invisible may be seen, of 
 parallels and correspondencies by which the Eternal 
 may be understood. To make use of the technical 
 terms of Philosophy, Nature is the macrocosm, of 
 which man is the microcosm; and, between the two 
 there exists an old established harmony, a relationship 
 of mutuality and perpetual indebtedness, of reciprocal 
 fellowship and conscious intercourse. 
 
 In the ongoings and processes of nature outside of 
 us, we see the workings of a stupendous Life, which 
 is one, and yet infinite ; although to our vision it is 
 broken up, or rather seems to be broken up 
 into detail. This life is co-ordinated with our 
 own, and aw T akens the most subtle correspond- 
 encies of thought and feeling. It embraces and 
 enfolds us, yet it is distinct from us. We are taken 
 up into its vast unity ; while as individuals we retain 
 our separateness, aud find that the barriers of our 
 personality are not invaded and broken down by that 
 all-absorbing life. Thus there is room, in the philoso- 
 phy of Wordsworth, both for a dualistic and a monistic 
 interpretation of Nature; for the unity of all things in 
 the Infinite, and for the separateness of each from 
 each as finite. 
 
 To whatever school of Philosophy we may belong, 
 the final mystery of the problem of the universe must 
 be frankly admitted. There is no possible escape 
 from it, in this, or in any conceivable condition of
 
 422 NATURE AS INTERPRETED BY WORDSWORTH. 
 
 existence. But the peculiar feature in the teaching 
 of "Wordsworth (which I venture to think has not 
 yet been adequately appraised) is the relief which any 
 genuine communing with Nature gives to the pressure 
 of the mystery, which still remains to elevate, and to 
 ennoble the fellowship. Nature understood, con- 
 versed with, interpreted, and loved in the spirit of 
 Wordsworth, is the great tranquilizer and restorer of 
 the human faculties, not only when we are prostrated 
 by sorrow and adversity, but when disorganised by 
 speculative puzzles, unhinged by moral perplexities, 
 or even when crushed by the burden of finally 
 insoluble problems. And the relief which Nature 
 gives, in such moods of mind and feeling, is not 
 obtained by a clearing up of the mystery, but by the 
 removal of the things which make the mystery dis- 
 turbing, by resetting it in another form ; presenting 
 it again, in short, with a curious light at the heart 
 of it, — a knowledge of the significance of things, 
 illumining the darkness which remains. 
 
 This conception of Nature is one to which, as I 
 have said, the highest efforts of speculation lead us : 
 it is not alien to science ; and it is a profoundly 
 religious view, of the relation of the universe as 
 product, to its formative and producing Cause. Of 
 the four provinces of human effort, however, it is 
 perhaps the special function of Poetry to bring out 
 the conception luminously and fully. The scientific 
 view of the universe may become quite as much a 
 fetter to the human spirit, as the traditional one which 
 it supplants. Taken by itself, its natural alliance 
 with poetry broken, it is certain to enslave it. In 
 the primitive ages, nature subdued man altogether.
 
 NATURE AS INTERPRETED BY WORDSWORTH. 423 
 
 Its immense life and its unfathomable mystery over- 
 powered him, made him feel his utter insignificance 
 and inevitable transitoriness. Only here and there, 
 only now and then, did the stronger spirits learn — 
 and they learned it very gradually — that there was 
 a sense in which Man was greater than Nature, be- 
 cause he could interpret it, because it was intelligible 
 as well as mysterious ; and because, to him and to his 
 race it had a friendly as well as a forbidding side. 
 But if science dispels this mystery, as an illusion of 
 primitive days, and reduces every phenomenon that 
 has been, is, or shall be, under the control of rigid 
 and calculable law, — if it does this, and does no more, 
 — it may end by re-establishing the old tyranny, from 
 which it was itself a specially healthful recoil. But 
 let science travel where it may, and as it will, sub- 
 duing new domains, conquering province after province, 
 there is one thing which its victories cannot do. 
 They cannot extinguish, or make superfluous, the 
 labours of the poetic imagination, because poetry 
 always follows in the wake of the most brilliant 
 scientific discoveries, not as a competitor, but as a 
 sharer in the conquest, not as rival but as a partner 
 in the triumph. Poetry seizes the truths, which science 
 has already verified, in order that it may interpret 
 and vivify them, by subsequent expansion, giving a 
 new significance to the facts already recognized. 
 
 And it is this that Wordsworth has done for us, so 
 pre-eminently. He has taught us to love Nature for its 
 own sake ; and also, because we find our humanity 
 revealed within it ; that alter ego, which is so much 
 larger and fuller than our narrow dividual selves. It 
 is thus that one, who has been taught by him, or
 
 424 NATURE AS INTERPRETED BY WORDSWORTH. 
 
 who has imbibed his spirit loves to be alone with 
 Nature : finding in its solitudes ' blithe society ' — 
 while every reflex thought of his own personality is 
 borne down ; and he perceives that outside of him, 
 yet unfolding and alluring him, there is a Presence, 
 
 That disturbs him with the joy 
 
 Of elevated thoughts, a sense sublime 
 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
 
 And the round ocean, and the living air, 
 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man ; 
 
 A motion, and a spirit, that impels 
 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
 
 And rolls through all things. Therefore is he still 
 
 A lover of the meadows, and the woods, 
 
 And mountains, and of all that he beholds 
 
 From this green earth, of all the mighty world 
 
 Of eye and ear — both what they half create 
 
 And what perceive — well pleased to recognise 
 
 In Nature, and the language of the sense, 
 
 The anchor of his purest thoughts, the nurse, 
 
 The guide, the guardian of his heart, and soul 
 
 Of all his moral being. 
 
 *S" 
 
 In conclusion, I would ask those, who may still be 
 sceptical of the conclusion come to, to ask themselves 
 the first time they are amongst the mountains, or by 
 the sea-shore, or in any delightful woodland retreat, 
 what is it that appeals so forcibly, and with such an 
 irresistible charm to the mind and heart ? Is it the 
 material substance of Nature ? Surely not. Is it 
 then the living force, the fresh life, the ceaseless move- 
 ment and the unwearied power of Nature ? These 
 may be elements, or parts of it ; but surely they are 
 not the whole. Is it not also the expressive, the in- 
 telligible personality of Nature ? Do not tell me that
 
 NATURE AS INTERPRETED BY WORDSWORTH. 425 
 
 the word is a metaphoric one. I know it is. But 
 we can surely use the symbol — and use it to good 
 purpose — while we let it drop from the mind, in the 
 very act of using it. It is not the movements of a 
 machine that affect us. Nor is it a mere impulse, an 
 emanation, an influence reaching us from some wholly 
 inscrutable source. It is the utterance of thought and 
 feeling, the contact of life with our lives, of the In- 
 finite with our finite personalities. And the percep- 
 tion, the experience (often as it is ours), brings joy 
 and gladness with it, sometimes even extasy. We are 
 calmed by the calm of Nature, strengthened by her 
 sublime repose and immeasurable patience ; made 
 tranquil by her silence, by her majestic delay, and 
 her irresistible might, hid within the very gentlest 
 movements. 
 
 As a sequel to these remarks, an interesting enquiry 
 might be raised, as to the particular mood or condition 
 of mind, in which we are best able to interpret Nature, 
 and to find its secret. It is too wide a question, how- 
 ever, for discussion, at the close of this lecture. I 
 therefore content myself with quoting the following- 
 suggestive sentences from a French writer : ' Calm is 
 requisite for the enjoyment of Nature. The soul agi- 
 tated by passion feeds upon itself alone, and consumes 
 itself thus. It is when calm returns, that we look 
 around, and nourish ourselves through the eye, with 
 the harmonies of Nature.' Again : ' An age that is 
 civilised into disease gladly turns away from the spec- 
 tacle of itself to that of the external world.' Another 
 remark of Vinet is worth quoting, as it might be 
 thought that those whose lot it is to live habitually 
 amongst the mountains, or in the midst of glorious
 
 42G NATURE AS INTERPRETED BY WORDSWORTH. 
 
 natural scenery, would have the keenest eye and heart 
 for the varied charms of Nature. But it is not so. 
 Ruskin has dispelled this delusion in that chapter in 
 ' Modern Painters ' which treats of ' the mountain 
 gloom.' Vinet says : ' It is only the social man who 
 is in a condition to feel Nature. The impression it 
 produces is the result of a relation, often of a con- 
 trast.' ' The more we have cultivated ourselves by 
 social intercourse, and especially the more we have 
 suffered from it ; the more, in short, society is dis- 
 turbed and agonised, the more rich and profound is 
 Nature ; mysteriously eloquent to one who comes to 
 her from out the ardent and tumultuous centres of 
 civilisation.' 
 
 THE END. 
 
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