LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Deceived DEC 12 1891 
 Accessions No. j.CtnU..(i . Class No. 
 
BURNETT TREATISE 
 
 MDCCCLIV 
 
 THEISM: THE WITNESS OF EEASON AND NATUKE 
 
 TO AN ALL -WISE AND BENEFICENT 
 
 CEEATOE 
 
T? 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH. 
 
JG.A 
 
 THEISM: 
 
 THE WITNESS OF REASON AND NATURE TO 
 
 AN ALL-WISE AND BENEFICENT 
 
 CEEATOE, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 EEV. JOHN TULLOCH, D.D. 
 
 PRINCIPAL, ANU PRIMARIES PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGV, 
 
 sx MARY'S COLLEGE, ST ANDREWS. 
 
 Zr t rt7v TOV K^/cc, It yi ^r l \oc4>Y l (riia.v \nov KOC,} iSgonv KAITOIFE 
 OT MAKPAN AnO ENO2 EKA2TOT HMflN THAPXONTA. 
 
 Acts of the Apostles, xrii. 27. 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLV 
 
TO 
 
 SIE DAVID BEEWSTEB, 
 
 C.I.. F.R.S. V.P.R.S., EDINBURGH, MEMBKR OF THH INSTITUTE OF FRANCE, 
 PRINCIPAL OK ST I.EONAKD's COM.EOE, ST ANDREWS. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR DAVID, 
 
 I DEDICATE this Volume to you with sincere pleasure. 
 Through your kindness I was enabled, while engaged in its compo- 
 sition, to have beside me certain volumes which otherwise I would 
 have had great difficulty in procuring in my retirement in the 
 country. I am glad to have such an opportunity of acknowledging 
 this favour, as well as of expressing my grateful sense of the hearty 
 interest which you have always taken in my studies, and my convic- 
 tion of the cordiality with which you are always ready to respond 
 to any demands on your literary sympathy, and to lend your 
 encouragement to studious aspiration. 
 
 I feel, moreover, that I can, with peculiar fitness, dedicate to you 
 the attempt which is made in this Volume to trace some portion of 
 the Divine meaning everywhere inscribed on Nature, and illustrated 
 by the progress of Scientific Discovery. However imperfect this 
 attempt may be, I am sure that it is one which will warmly engage 
 your regard. 
 
 Allow me to express the hope that you may be long spared to 
 adorn our ancient University, on which your name and distin- 
 guished labours in science and literature have already conferred 
 so much lustre. 
 
 I have the honour to be, 
 
 MY DEAR SIR DAVID, 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 JOHN TULLOCH. 
 
 ST MARY'S COLLEGE, 
 ST ANDREWS. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE circumstances in which this Essay originated 
 are probably familiar to many. It has been thought 
 proper, however, briefly to state them here. 
 
 Mr Burnett, a merchant in Aberdeen, whose 
 character appears to have been marked by a rare 
 degree of Christian sensibility and benevolence, 
 amongst other acts of liberality, * bequeathed certain 
 sums, to be expended at intervals of forty years, in the 
 shape of two Premiums, inviting to the discussion 
 of the evidences of religious truth, and especially to 
 the consideration and confirmation of the attributes 
 of Divine Wisdom and Goodness. The exact terms 
 
 * Mr Webster, agent for the Burnett Trustees, informs me that Mr 
 Burnett's Christian liberality extended itself to many important objects 
 but too little attended to in his time; for example, the care of pauper 
 lunatics, and the religious instruction of poor persons in jail, for both of 
 which objects he left benevolent provision. The date of Mr Burnett's 
 Deed of Bequest is 1785. 
 
V1U PEEFACE. 
 
 of the subject of inquiry, as given in Mr Burnett's 
 own deed of bequest, will be found to head the 
 Introduction which opens the present Essay. 
 
 On the previous occasion of competition, the first 
 of the Premiums was awarded to the late Principal 
 Brown of Aberdeen, and the second to the Kev. John 
 Bird Sumner, Fellow of Eton College, and now 
 Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 
 On this occasion, the First Premium of 1800 
 has been adjudged to the Eev. E. A. Thompson, 
 M.A., Lincolnshire ; and the second, of 600, to the 
 present writer; the judges having been Mr Isaac 
 Taylor, Mr Henry Eogers, and the Eev. Baden 
 Powell. 
 
 In passing my Essay through the press, I have 
 submitted it to a careful and thorough revision. 
 Although the subject had been long in my mind, it 
 had, in the end, assumed form very hurriedly ; and 
 on my receiving the manuscript back, many parts 
 appeared to me greatly capable of improvement. I 
 have not hesitated, therefore, to correct freely, with 
 the view of imparting to the argument greater con- 
 sistency, and to the whole a better finish. In its 
 general plan and principles, however, the Essay 
 remains substantially the same. Of the truth of 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 these principles I feel, with the farther opportu- 
 nity of reflection, only the more convinced, if I 
 still continue to feel, as I truly do, that my repre- 
 sentation of them is very imperfect. 
 
 In reference to much of the illustrative matter 
 embraced in the Essay, I think it right to state here, 
 that I make no pretensions to an independent 
 investigation of the scientific details. My special 
 studies, such as they are, have been devoted to quite 
 different provinces of inquiry. I have gathered 
 my illustrative materials, therefore, from the most 
 available sources which occurred to me, writing in a 
 retired country Manse, where the difficulty of pro- 
 curing the requisite books for such a miscellaneous 
 course of study can only be understood by those who 
 have experienced it. These sources, in some cases, 
 are certainly not so original as I could have desired ; 
 but I have conscientiously aimed, in all cases, to 
 present the facts as accurately as I could ascertain 
 them; and there is little, if anything, of what I 
 have thus collected that will, I think, be found open 
 to a charge of inadvertency or inaccuracy. 
 
 The spirit of fairness and comprehensiveness in 
 which I have endeavoured to seize my subject 
 throughout, will, I hope, commend itself to my readers. 
 I have sought the truth simply; I have sought it 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 with respect and tolerance for the opinions of those 
 from whom I differ, but have never shrunk, in defe- 
 rence to any names, from the assertion of my own 
 convictions. I certainly did not undertake the sub- 
 ject from the first as a mere taskwork, but because 
 I felt a true interest in it, and conceived that it was 
 capable, in some respects, of a more argumentatively 
 consistent treatment than it had hitherto received. 
 How far I have accomplished this my aim must be 
 left to the judgment of others. 
 
 I have further to express my acknowledgments 
 to the kind friends who have given me their aid 
 and advice in the correction of the press. I would 
 fain have mentioned my obligations in this respect 
 more particularly, had I been permitted. 
 
 It is my earnest prayer that the volume now sub- 
 mitted to the public may in some degree fulfil, under 
 the Divine blessing, the benevolent purpose in which 
 it originated. May it strengthen, in the hearts of 
 those who read it, impressions of that Divine wisdom 
 and love which are all around them, and ever near 
 to them. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 INTRODUCTION, . 1 
 
 SECT. I. PRINCIPLES OF INDUCTIVE EVIDENCE, . . 9 
 
 CHAP. 1. PRINCIPLES OP EVIDENCE, . . . .11 
 
 ... 2. DOCTRINE OP CAUSATION, . . . .22 
 
 ... 3. DOCTRINE OF FINAL CAUSES, .... 40 
 
 ... 4. THEISTIC CONCLUSION (GENERAL LAWS), ... 61 
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY. SPECIAL (GEOLOGICAL) EVIDENCE OF A CREATOR, 68 
 
 SECT. II. ILLUSTRATIVE (INDUCTIVE) EVIDENCE, . 81 
 
 CHAP. 1. COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS, .... 83 
 
 ... 2. STRUCTURE OF THE EARTH, .... 103 
 
 ... 3. COSMICAL AND TERRESTRIAL MAGNITUDES DIVINE POWER, 113 
 
 ... 4. ELEMENTARY COMBINATIONS CRYSTALLISATION, . 118 
 
 ... 5. ORGANISATION DESIGN, ..... 126 
 
 ... 6. SPECIAL ORGANIC PHENOMENA VEGETABLE, . . 137 
 
 ... 7. SPECIAL ORGANIC PHENOMENA ANIMAL, . . 151 
 
 ... 8. TYPICAL FORMS DIVINE WISDOM, . . .171 
 
 ... 9. MENTAL ORDER, ...... 182 
 
 ... 10. SENSATION DIVINE GOODNESS, . . . .186 
 
 ... 11. INSTINCT, ....... 194 
 
 ... 12. COGNITIVE STRUCTURE IN MAN, .... 202 
 
 ... 13. EMOTIVE STRUCTURE IN MAN, . . . .224 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 SECT. III. MOKAL INTUITIVE EVIDENCE, . . .249 
 
 CHAP. 1. MORAL INTUITIVE EVIDENCE, .... 251 
 
 ... 2. FREEDOM DIVINE PERSONALITY, . . . 254 
 
 ... 3. CONSCIENCE DIVINE RIGHTEOUSNESS, . . . 268 
 
 ... 4. REASON INFINITY, (A PRIORI ARGUMENT), . . 277 
 
 SECT. IV. DIFFICULTIES REGARDING THE DIVINE WISDOM 
 
 AND GOODNESS, 293 
 
 CHAP. 1. STATEMENT OF DIFFICULTIES, ETC., . . .295 
 
 ... 2. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS, INTENDED TO OBVIATE DIFFI- 
 CULTIES, ...... 298 
 
 ... 3. SPECIAL EXAMINATION OF DIFFICULTIES PHYSICAL PAIN 
 
 AND DEATH, ...... 305 
 
 ... 4. SPECIAL EXAMINATION OF DIFFICULTIES SORROW, . 314 
 
 ... 5. SPECIAL EXAMINATION OF DIFFICULTIES SOCIAL EVILS, 322 
 ... 6. SPECIAL EXAMINATION OF DIFFICULTIES SIN, . 329 
 
 ... 7. CONSIDERATIONS, ETC. DERIVED FROM "WRITTEN 
 
 REVELATION," ..... 344 
 
 ... 8. THE DIVINE MAN INCARNATE WISDOM AND LOVE, . 350 
 
 ... 9. THE GOSPEL A DIVINE POWER OF MORAL ELEVATION AND 
 
 CONSOLATION, ...... 356 
 
 ... 10. LIMITED RECEPTION OF THE GOSPEL MILLENNIAL PRO- 
 SPECT, \ 362 
 
 CONCLUSION, . . 367 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Page 79, lines 15, 16, delete marks of quotation. 
 
 91, line 15, for sway read sways. 
 ... 120, line 5, for induce read produce. 
 
 ... 127, begin quotation with "only finds," 7th line from bottom. 
 ... 172, Note, read " In so far as we know, the term Morphology," &c. ; 
 
 and for Burduch read Burdach. 
 ,. 307, line 8th from bottom, delete "not." 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " THE EVIDENCE THAT THERE IS A BEING, ALL-POWEEFUL, 
 WISE, AND GOOD, BY WHOM EVERYTHING EXISTS ; AND 
 PARTICULARLY TO OBVIATE DIFFICULTIES REGARDING THE 
 WISDOM AND GOODNESS OF THE DEITY; AND THIS, IN 
 THE FIRST PLACE, FROM CONSIDERATIONS INDEPENDENT 
 OF WRITTEN REVELATION ; AND, IN THE SECOND PLACE, 
 
 FROM THE REVELATION OF THE LORD JESUS ; AND, 
 FROM THE WHOLE, TO POINT OUT THE INFERENCES MOST 
 NECESSARY FOR, AND USEFUL TO, MANKIND/' 
 
 SOME ambiguity seems to rest on the main subject here 
 claiming the consideration of the Essayist. The words may 
 be so interpreted as to give for the special subject of Essay 
 the polemical treatment of the various objections that have 
 been urged against the wisdom and goodness of the Deity. 
 This, however, is not the interpretation which they were 
 probably intended to bear. The special attention claimed to 
 difficulties respecting the Divine wisdom and goodness was 
 not meant, in all likelihood, to constitute these the chief 
 topics of treatment, in contrastto thegeneral subject announced 
 
2 THEISM. 
 
 in the first clause ; but simply to indicate that, inasmuch as 
 these attributes have been more frequently the objects of 
 sceptical assault, and are in themselves more obviously ex- 
 posed to cavil, so they deserve a more particular proof, not 
 only on positive grounds, but in direct reference to the ob- 
 jections which readily occur, and have been often brought 
 against them. The truth is, that, in any attempt " to obvi- 
 ate" these difficulties, the main recourse must ever be to the 
 vastly preponderating positive evidence in favour of the 
 wisdom and goodness of the Deity ; and just the more 
 thorough and complete the presentation of this evidence, 
 the less force will be felt in such difficulties, and the less 
 trouble in dealing with them polemically. 
 
 In any point of view, therefore, we consider ourselves justi- 
 fied in regarding the main and proper subject of Essay as 
 that announced in the first clause viz., the " Evidence that 
 there is a Being, all-powerful, wise, and good, by whom 
 everything exists." And to this subject, accordingly, the 
 bulk of the present treatise is devoted. 
 
 The science of Natural Theology has especially suffered 
 from the narrow and one-sided spirit in which it has been 
 cultivated. Separate inquirers have generally given them- 
 selves to some favourite branch of evidence, which they 
 have not been content merely to explore by itself, but which 
 they have aimed to exalt over other branches. The succes- 
 sive labours of natural theologians appear in this way to 
 present the spectacle rather of inconsistent structures, dis- 
 placing or overlying one another, than of parts fitting har- 
 moniously together into one great scheme of argument. The 
 still standing dispute between the a posteriori and a priori 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 classes of thinkers, testifies strongly to this discordance. 
 While some profound and earnest men have sought to 
 raise the whole superstructure of natural theology upon an 
 a priori datum, others, equally earnest, though with less 
 speculative power, have at once put aside all such attempts 
 as useless, and even impugned them with a jealous restric- 
 tiveness. 
 
 Zeal on the one side has provoked contempt on the other ; 
 and here, as in other cases, the abstract reasoner and the 
 popular expositor have seemed to stand as opponents, rather 
 than as helpmates in the same cause.* 
 
 The result of this has been not a little confusion and un- 
 certainty as to the principles of the science on the one hand, 
 and its comprehensiveness on the other. With a general 
 acknowledgment of the convincing mass of evidence on 
 which it is based, the clear logical coherence and relative 
 bearing of that evidence are still very indistinctly appre- 
 hended. The problem of natural theology what it really 
 is ? what principles it involves ? and the distinctive character 
 and force of these principles ? it cannot be said that there 
 exists anything like harmony of opinion on these questions. 
 Great as was the service rendered to the science by the 
 varied interest and argumentative skill of the Bridgewater 
 Treatises, these questions lay beyond the formal range of 
 any of them ; and, with all the light which they cast on its 
 diversified applications, they contributed but little to the 
 
 * This conflict among natural theologians was already indicated by Kant 
 in his great work, in which he submits all the separate modes of theistic 
 argument to a keenly scientific sifting. And it is impossible that any can be 
 familiar with even our own British literature on the subject, without being 
 made aware of the existence of such a conflict. 
 
4 THEISM. 
 
 determination, the scientific analysis and co-ordination of its 
 fundamental doctrine. 
 
 But so far as the interests of the science are concerned 
 in our day, this is undoubtedly the special task required of 
 the natural theologian. It is in the region of First Prin- 
 ciples, above all, that an earnest and sifting discussion is now 
 taking place. There is an evident striving to grasp in a 
 clearer solution, to hold in a more thorough unity and 
 comprehensiveness than have been hitherto attained, the 
 elements of our science. The spirit of eclecticism which 
 has largely penetrated philosophy in general, is seeking, in 
 this department of it, with special eagerness, a common 
 centre and pervading interest. We have ourselves, at least, 
 strongly felt the necessity for a treatment of the theistic 
 problem at once more penetrating and synthetic, and have 
 accordingly aimed at such a treatment of it in the present 
 essay. 
 
 We apprehend the theistic evidence, as far as possible, 
 under one plan or scheme, which may be generally called 
 " Inductive/' Inasmuch, however, as this plan of evidence, 
 in its very conception, rests upon certain definite principles 
 of philosophical belief, we consider it necessary, in the first 
 instance, to lay down and verify these principles. We have 
 felt that, in the present state of speculative discussion, we 
 could not for a moment take these principles for granted, 
 seeing that the two most living and active schools of philo- 
 sophical unbelief proceed upon the express negation of them, 
 and that in them really lies the gist of the theistic problem. 
 It is our aim, accordingly, not merely to state these princi- 
 ples, but to establish them. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 Having laid down a satisfactory basis of principles, we 
 proceed, in the second section of the essay, to unfold, in 
 something like organic relation and coherence, the array of 
 inductive or a posteriori evidence for the Divine power, 
 wisdom, and goodness presented by the vastly diversified 
 phenomena of matter and of mind. This obviously is a 
 boundless field, which no range of inquiry can exhaust, and 
 which, even were it possible, it would be needless, for the 
 end in view, to try to exhaust. Our object is simply to 
 unfold the distinguishing and essential features of this ever- 
 accumulating mass of evidence, and to present them, as far 
 as we can, in an order of progression, in which they may be 
 seen to bear with expansive force upon the vindication and 
 illustration of the Divine character. We advance from the 
 more general and simple phenomena of nature, through the 
 more complex, up to the highest and most subtle combina- 
 tions to be found in man's intellectual and emotive consti- 
 tution ; and in the course of this procession it is our chief 
 aim that under the guidance of which we advance to 
 seize and set forth those ultimate typical realities which all 
 along meet us, and which, while in their mystery they point 
 directly back to a Divine Source, serve at the same time 
 prominently to characterise this Source. It is only some 
 guiding aim of this sort, however imperfectly it may be 
 carried out, that could bring within any intelligible limits, 
 or give any living interest to, such a survey. 
 
 Whereas the section on " Principles " will, it is hoped, 
 serve to verify on the deepest grounds the fundamental 
 theistic conception of an intelligent First Cause, this 
 second illustrative section will serve to clothe the bare 
 
6 THEISM. 
 
 abstract idea of such a Cause in the attributes of power, 
 wisdom, and goodness reflected from the great leading 
 forms or facts of nature. 
 
 Having completed our inductive survey, we return, in a 
 third section, which we have entitled "Moral Intuitive 
 Evidence/' to the region of First Principles, and in this 
 region endeavour further to establish certain elements of the 
 theistic conception viz., Personality, Righteousness, and 
 Infinity without a special verification of which, every 
 theistic argument must, according to our view, utterly fail of 
 its purpose. Under this section of evidence we are led to 
 treat of the common a priori argument, and to assign to it its 
 distinctive value in the general plan of theistic speculation. 
 
 It may be inferred from what we have said that, while 
 our second section of Evidence corresponds to the common 
 treatment of the a posteriori argument, as exemplified in 
 Paley and the Bridgewater Treatises, both our first and third 
 sections deal simply with the elements of the a priori argu- 
 ment. And if any choose to apply the term a priori to the 
 discussions contained in these sections, it matters very little. 
 They really, however, embrace a course of reasoning to which 
 that term, in the restrictive sense in which it has been 
 applied to definite arguments for the existence of the Deity, 
 has no proper application.* 
 
 Upon any definite scheme of a priori argumentation, 
 involving a process of mere abstract deduction from some 
 
 * The term a priori is not, in fact, applied with any consistency even to 
 these arguments, some of the different forms of the Cartesian argument, and 
 that of Clarke especially, resting on an express datum of experience ; whereas 
 it is the pretension of a pure a priori argument to demonstrate the Divine 
 existence from the formal conceptions of the human mind. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 single element of thought, or even of experience, it will be 
 seen in the sequel that we do not place any reliance. We are 
 as little inclined as those who have most zealously opposed 
 this sort of argumentation, to ascribe a convincing force to 
 it. So far we are at one with the general spirit of natural 
 theological inquiry which prevails in this country, as repre- 
 sented by such writers as Brown, Brougham, and Chalmers. 
 But, then, we consider that these writers, while rightly 
 repudiating the conclusiveness of a priori reasoning in re- 
 ference to our subject, have failed to set forth, and even to 
 apprehend with clearness and comprehensiveness, the subjec- 
 tive conditions, or, in our previous language, principles, which 
 their a posteriori argument at once presupposes as its essen- 
 tial basis, and demands in order to its complete and effective 
 validity. Now, it is simply the object of the first and third 
 section of this essay to determine and verify these conditions 
 or principles, which, as thus forming both the only adequate 
 foundation, and the culminating force of the general evidence 
 for the Divine existence and character, seem eminently in 
 the present day to claim the attention of the natural theo- 
 logian. The chain of induction goes up in unnumbered 
 links; but this chain rests at both points on principles of 
 intuitive belief, which must be thoroughly understood and 
 substantiated. 
 
 While, therefore, our third section receives a distinctive 
 name, and might, as a branch of theistic evidence, to some 
 extent stand by itself, we would yet have it to be viewed in 
 strict connection with the preceding sections ; in which con- 
 nection alone our general Evidence will be seen in its fully 
 conclusive bearing. 
 
8 THEISM. 
 
 A fourth and concluding section is devoted, according to 
 our view of the terms of the subject, to a particular exami- 
 nation of the " difficulties regarding the wisdom and good- 
 ness of the Deity/' as they derive any explanation from the 
 light of Nature, or finally from the disclosures of " written 
 Revelation/' 
 
 Throughout the essay we have kept in view very pro- 
 minently the anti-theistic tendencies of our time, especially 
 as manifested in the form of Positivism. This seemed to 
 be demanded by the character of the essay, which, pre- 
 scribed at intervals of forty years, was probably designed to 
 meet the forms of speculative scepticism likely to arise at 
 such intervals. In the history of thought, forty years is a 
 wide period, during which great changes of opinion may be 
 expected to occur. And it is at least certain that, since the 
 date of the publication of the last essays on our subject, the 
 questions between the Christian Theist and the speculative 
 Sceptic, if, as they must ever be, essentially the same, have 
 yet assumed very changed aspects. Materialistic Pantheism, 
 in the shape of " Positive Philosophy/' has especially assumed 
 a dignity and pretension which in some respects invest it 
 with a new character, and require a new and more compre- 
 hensive mode of treatment. Our essay throughout will be 
 found to bear the impress of this conviction.* 
 
 * Miss Martineau's recent translation of Comte's great work, and Mr G. H. 
 Lewes' popular exposition of Positivism (published as one of the volumes of 
 Bohn's Scientific Library), give additional significance to the purpose that 
 animates our essay. 
 
SECTION I. 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF INDUCTIVE EVIDENCE 
 
L CHAPTER I. 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF EVIDENCE. 
 
 THE Theistic Evidence, in its common inductive form, 
 derives its logical force from certain principles implied in 
 its very conception. It is necessary, therefore, in entering 
 upon our subject, to determine these principles, and the 
 grounds on which they rest. The special necessity of such 
 an initial explanation and verification of principles, is 
 shown by the fact that it is in regard to them alone that 
 there remains any dispute. The question between the 
 Theist and the Anti-Theist Pantheist or Atheist neces- 
 sarily always resolves itself into one of this fundamental 
 character. It becomes a controversy, not as to the exist- 
 ence of certain phenomena in nature whose existence is 
 really indisputable on either side but as to the true 
 meaning or interpretation of these phenomena. And 
 especially is this the present aspect of the question, amid 
 the new stir which, from opposite quarters, has begun in 
 philosophical inquiry. We cannot therefore save our- 
 selves, even if we would, from taking up the speculative 
 discussions which lie across the threshold of our subject, 
 
12 THEISM. 
 
 and endeavouring to establish our position securely on the 
 narrow platform of First Principles. In this way, besides, 
 we shall exhibit, better than in any other, the condensed 
 logical force of the Evidence, illustratively expanded in the 
 succeeding section. The theistic argument may be syllo- 
 gistically expressed as follows, in a form which appears to 
 us at once simple and free from ambiguity viz., First or 
 major premiss, 
 
 Order universally proves Mind. 
 Second, or minor premiss, 
 
 The works of Nature discover Order. 
 Conclusion, 
 
 The works of Nature prove Mind.* 
 It is of great importance to keep clear in the outset of 
 all ambiguous or misleading terms. And this conviction 
 has led us to reject from our syllogism such common ex- 
 pressions as not only " cause " and " effect," but also 
 
 * Dr Eeid long ago expressed the theistic argument in a syllogistic form, 
 as follows : " First, That design and intelligence in the. cause may, with cer- 
 tainty, be inferred from marks or signs of it in the effect. This is the major 
 proposition of the argument. The second, which we call the minor proposi- 
 tion, is, That there are in fact the clearest marks of design and wisdom in the 
 works of nature ; and the conclusion is, That the works of nature are the 
 effects of a wise and intelligent Cause. One must either assent to the conclu- 
 sion, or deny one or other of the premises." 
 
 To this statement of the theistic syllogism, which, to say the least, is not 
 remarkable for precision, considerable exception has been taken by suc- 
 ceeding writers. Dr Crombie, in his work on Natural Theology, main- 
 tains that the syllogism of Keid is vicious in this respect, that in passing from 
 the major to the minor proposition, he tacitly carries over to the "works of 
 nature " the conclusion suggested by the term " effect ;" while yet, according 
 to Dr Crombie, this is the very thing to be proved viz., That the world is an 
 effect. He thus represents Reid's statement of the argument : " Marks of 
 design in the effect prove design in the cause. The works of nature are an 
 effect, and exhibit marks of design ; therefore the works of nature prove design 
 
PRINCIPLES. 13 
 
 "design/' There will be abundant use in the sequel for 
 this latter expression in all its full and appropriate signifi- 
 cance, when we have established the great general doctrine 
 on which it rests viz., That Mind is everywhere the only 
 valid explanation of Order its necessary correlate. 
 
 It is this doctrine the equivalent obviously of the major 
 premiss of our syllogism which appears to us to present, 
 in its really valid and fundamental character, the theistic 
 problem. Essentially, it is neither more nor less than the 
 old doctrine of Final Causes ; but, for the reason already 
 stated, we prefer considering it in the mean time in a new 
 and untechnical form of expression. 
 
 Upon this fundamental position rests the whole burden 
 of the inductive theistic argument. If this position can 
 be established if the right of Intelligence to stand every- 
 where as the correlate of Order can be made good 
 the Pantheist or Positivist very well knows that, even 
 
 in the cause." Besides the invalid assumption which Dr Crombie maintains 
 is here introduced into the minor premiss, he objects, and we think with 
 perfect justice, to the mode in which the first proposition is stated, "marks 
 of design in the effect" being simply equivalent to " design in the cause." 
 
 The more general form in which we have put the syllogism in the text, 
 appears to us entirely to obviate these objections ; and especially to liberate 
 us from any such preliminary necessity as that of proving the world to be an 
 " effect." By putting out of view this term, and dealing simply with the fact 
 of order, we have already, according to the truth of our first proposition, 
 Mind as its cause. It is not necessary that we show previously that the orderly 
 fact or phenomenon is an " effect," for this simple reason, that in its very 
 nature it is such. In virtue of its character as manifesting order it is already 
 declared a product or effect. This of course may be held equally true on the 
 syllogistic basis of Keid ; and we do not therefore concur in this part of Dr 
 Crombie's criticism. Only by avoiding the use of the term " effect," we 
 obviate such an objection. Our mode of expression disencumbers the argu- 
 ment of an extraneous element of debate, and so far places the sceptical cavil 
 of Hurne simply beside the question. 
 
14 THEISM. 
 
 according to his own favourite mode of viewing nature as 
 a system of law or order, the theistic conclusion directly 
 follows. The fact of a supremely Intelligent Cause then 
 everywhere asserts itself. The discoveries of science, in all 
 their rich variety, became only tributary witnesses to this 
 fact. Here, accordingly, the whole contest of Theism centres, 
 and finds its most vital struggle. And of this the opposite 
 school of thinkers are sufficiently aware. They clearly feel 
 that it is here alone that a consistent position of denial can 
 be taken up. The right of Mind to be held everywhere as 
 the correlate of Order, and so to stand at the head of nature, 
 is stoutly, and even scornfully, impugned by them. That 
 Mind is in man and animals the appropriate explana- 
 tion of many facts of order, is of course not denied ; but it 
 is expressly denied that it has any claim to be regarded as 
 the only true source, and final explanation, of all order. 
 
 We may seem to have put the theistic problem in a 
 somewhat unfamiliar form. But, while confessedly not the 
 form in which it has been usually discussed, it is neverthe- 
 less that in which, beyond all doubt, it most urgently presses 
 itself upon our attention. Even in the writings of Hume it 
 is this aspect of the question which suggests itself most power- 
 fully, and which gives the main point to his famous sceptical 
 reasoning a fact which has not been sufficiently perceived. 
 Interest has been concentrated upon his ingenious attempt 
 to represent the world as a " singular effect/' but without a 
 clear insight into the deeper principle by which he was led to 
 take up this ground, and which alone gives to it all its force. 
 If we can establish Mind as the universal correlate of order, 
 
PEINCIPLES. 15 
 
 it must be manifest that there is no room for such a position 
 as that the world is a " singular effect/' The only question 
 is, Does the world discover order ? That Hume was perfectly 
 aware of this, and that the real and final question regarding 
 Theism related to the rightful claims and dignity of Mind, is so 
 abundantly plain in the course of his reasoning, that it seems 
 strange that it has not hitherto attracted more special exami- 
 nation. Even Dr Chalmers who plainly enough saw that 
 the mode, adopted by Eeid and Stewart, of settling the 
 matter by at once declaring design to be an intuitive prin- 
 ciple of belief, was not all that was demanded against such 
 an opponent does not seem to have penetrated to this 
 essential element of the subtlety which he manfully encoun- 
 ters. So far triumphant in his vindication of the theistic 
 inference, as resting on the same basis of experience as 
 any other inference from design, he does not yet reach, 
 and bring out fully, the ultimate rational truth on which 
 alone that inference, in the end, must rest. 
 
 To employ his own illustration, " If we can infer the 
 agency of design in a watchmaker, though we never saw a 
 watch made, we can, on the very same ground, infer the 
 agency of design on the part of a world-maker, though we 
 never saw a world made." All that is requisite to constitute 
 the inference valid in either case is not, as the sceptical 
 objection implied, experience with the actual production of 
 the special effects with the making of a watch on the one 
 hand, or the making of a world on the other but only with 
 the simple fact of adaptation on the one hand, and Mind as 
 its explanation on the other. This general form of experience 
 
16 THEISM. 
 
 is the sufficiently warrantable basis of inference in either 
 case.* But it must be plain, we think, that the result of 
 experience, generalise it as we may, can only be argumenta- 
 tively valid when seen to be a truth of reason in other 
 words, when transformed into the position laid down in 
 our first premiss, viz. that adaptation or order universally 
 proves Mind. For otherwise we do not see how it would 
 avail to say that the " watch/' so far as our experience of its 
 production is concerned, is in the very same category as the 
 " world/' The old objection would still recur, in this higher 
 form, exactly the opposite of the position we have laid down 
 viz., that order (confessed in many cases to be the result 
 of mind) cannot yet be validly maintained, in all cases, to 
 flow only from Mind. No basis of experience simply can 
 warrant such a conclusion. Admitting the effects to be 
 similar, we are not thereby warranted in asserting that the 
 explanation of the human effect is the only valid explana- 
 tion of the universal effect. It can only be on grounds of 
 reason on the basis not simply of experience, but of the 
 inherent laws of our rational constitution that we can im- 
 pregnably take up such a position against the Anti-Theist. 
 This must, beyond doubt, come to be the final argumenta- 
 tive bearing of the question which is thus really, when 
 pushed back to its last analysis, one not so much regarding 
 the world as a singular effect, as regarding Mind as a 
 singular cause. 
 
 How this appears in the writings of Hume as the really 
 
 * This is virtually the import of Chalmers' amplified argument. See his 
 Natutal Theology, pp. 150-151. 
 
PRINCIPLES. 17 
 
 vital element of the question, is abundantly clear from the 
 following paragraphs : * 
 
 " But can you think, Cleanthes, that your usual philosophy 
 has been preserved in so wide a step as you have taken, 
 when you compared to the universe houses, ships, furniture, 
 machines, and, from their similarity in some circumstances, 
 inferred a similarity in their causes? Thought, design, 
 intelligence, such as we discover in men and other animals, 
 is no more than one of the springs and principles of the 
 universe, as well as heat or cold, attraction or repulsion, 
 and a hundred others which fall under daily observation. 
 It is an active cause by which some particular parts of 
 nature, we find, produce alterations on other parts. But 
 can a conclusion, with any propriety, be transferred from 
 parts to the whole ?" 
 
 " But, allowing that we were to take the operations of 
 one part of nature upon another for the foundation of our 
 judgment concerning the origin of the whole (which never 
 can be admitted), yet why select so minute, so weak, so 
 bounded a principle as the reason and design of animals is 
 found to be upon this planet ? What peculiar privilege has 
 this little agitation of the brain, which we call thought, that 
 we must thus make it the model of the whole universe ? " 
 
 " Admirable conclusion ! Stone, wood, brick, iron, brass, 
 have not, at this time, in this minute globe of earth, an order 
 or arrangement without human art and contrivance ; there- 
 fore the universe could not originally attain its order and 
 arrangement without something similar to human art. But 
 
 * Dialogue concerning Natural Religion, HUME'S Works, vol. ii. pp. 446, 448. 
 
 UHI7EESIT7 
 
18 THEISM. 
 
 is a part of nature a rule for another part very wide of the 
 former ? Is it a rule for the whole ? Is a very small part 
 a rule for the UNIVEKSE?" 
 
 The real subject of dispute, then, on the old battle-ground 
 of Theism, which has descended to us, regards the valid 
 claim of Mind to stand universally as the Interpretation of 
 Order. And more eminently than ever, in the present day, 
 is this the vital point at issue. The views thrown out with 
 such an apparently heedless, yet far-reaching subtlety, by 
 Hume, have at length been taken up in a strictly scientific 
 form, and elaborated into a philosophical creed, which boasts 
 numerous and able advocates. Positivism, indeed, if spring- 
 ing directly from the irreverent soil of French scientific 
 culture, yet traces back its lineage to the Scottish sceptic, of 
 whose keen and arrogant genius it is so fitting a represen- 
 tative. 
 
 It is true that, in this modern sceptical system, the theo- 
 logical bearing of the views advocated is not always pro- 
 minently brought forward sometimes rather simply passed 
 by, as beyond the concern of science. This is especially 
 the case with the writer who is, in this country, its 
 ablest and most systematic expositor. But in other cases 
 no opportunity is lost of bringing out this bearing in the 
 most decided manner ; and, even in the chief work of the 
 writer in question, it is so clear and unmistakable that it is 
 impossible not to perceive, under the show of courtesy, the 
 deadly shafts levelled at the foundation of the theistic argu- 
 ment. This will be sufficiently apparent from the following 
 quotation, which condenses the result of a train of argument, 
 
PEINCIPLES. 19 
 
 the object of which is to prove that what Mr Mill calls the 
 " Volitional Theory " * meaning thereby the very truth 
 which we have laid down in our first proposition is incom- 
 petent to stand as the only (ultimate) explanation of pheno- 
 mena in general. We present it, in the mean time, merely 
 in order that the antagonistic position with which we have 
 to deal may be seen in its full meaning and force. 
 
 " Though it were granted," he says,-)- " that every pheno- 
 menon has an efficient, and not merely a phenomenal cause, 
 and that volition, in the case of the peculiar phenomena 
 which are known to be produced by it, is that efficient 
 cause, are we, therefore, to say with these writers, that 
 since we know of no other efficient cause, and ought not to 
 assume one without evidence, there is no other, and volition 
 is the direct cause of all phenomena ? A more outrageous 
 stretch of inference could hardly be made. Because among 
 
 * Mill's transposition of the Theistic Principle into a " Volitional Theory," 
 is just one of the many instances in which the real import of the principle has 
 been obscured under a one-sided and wilfully perverted nomenclature. It is 
 surely time that, in the search after truth, men should cease to be content to 
 escape from the pressure of an antagonistic doctrine, by hiding its highest 
 meaning under an easily degraded phraseology ! There is a further misrepre- 
 sentation conveyed by Mr Mill's language, which, although it will be after- 
 wards fully cleared up, it may be well to notice here, as tending to involve our 
 own position in some degree of doubt. He speaks of the writers, against whom 
 he argues, maintaining volition to be the "direct cause of all phenomena" 
 a statement very readily suggesting a caricature of their true doctrine which 
 does not for a moment deny the fact of physical causes, in Mr Mill's sense of that 
 term, but only that these causes, save as taking their rise in a RATIONAL Will, 
 and forming an expression of such a Will, afford no satisfactory explanation 
 of the phenomena. It is not by any means as their direct or immediate cause 
 (in the sense of excluding physical causes general laws), but only always 
 as their First or Original Cause, that Mind is spoken of as the explanation of 
 physical phenomena. 
 
 t MILL'S Logic, vol. i. p. 371. 
 
20 THEISM. 
 
 the infinite variety of the phenomena of nature there is one 
 namely, a particular mode of action of certain nerves 
 which has for its cause, and, as we are now supposing, for its 
 efficient cause, a state of our mind ; and because this is the 
 only efficient cause of which we are conscious, being the only 
 one of which, in the nature of the case, we can be conscious, 
 since it is the only one which exists within ourselves, does 
 this justify us in concluding that all other phenomena must 
 have the same kind of efficient cause with that one eminently 
 special, narrow, and peculiarly human or animal pheno- 
 menon?" 
 
 In endeavouring to verify the position which forms the 
 argumentative basis of our Evidence, there are two special 
 lines of proof demanded of us the one relating directly to 
 the position itself that Order universally proves Mind, or, 
 in other words, that Design is a principle pervading the 
 universe ; and the other relating to a doctrine which, as it 
 appears to us, lies everywhere involved in the more special 
 theological principle. This principle, in the form announced 
 in our first proposition, undoubtedly implies a definite doc- 
 trine of causation. In asserting the principle of design, we 
 clearly assert, at the same time, that Mind alone answers to 
 our true, or at least ultimate, idea of cause. We pronounce 
 causation, or at least our highest conception of it, to imply 
 efficiency. But does it really do so ? We find ourselves met 
 on this general philosophical ground as to the true nature of 
 causation, as well as on the ground of the special theological 
 application which we make of the general truth. They who 
 dispute the theistic interpretation of nature, no less dispute 
 
PRINCIPLES. 21 
 
 the doctrine of efficient causation, and in fact base their 
 opposition to the higher principle on this lower and wider 
 ground. 
 
 In order, therefore, fully to sustain our position, we must 
 make it good on this lower ground. According to our whole 
 view, the one position is untenable apart from the other. 
 The two doctrines of final causes and of efficient causation 
 we regard as essentially related. They are not to us, 
 indeed, separate doctrines, but only separate phases of 
 the same fundamental necessity of our rational nature : the 
 relation of the two is not that of dependency the one 
 upon the other but of intricacy the one in the other ; 
 for while the theological principle virtually asserts the 
 philosophical, the latter, in its highest conception, already 
 implicitly contains the former. 
 
 It is very true that many theistic thinkers, and eminently 
 among ourselves Dr Chalmers,* have not recognised this in- 
 terchangeable relation between the general doctrine of cau- 
 sation and the special theological doctrine. But a fact of 
 this sort has no farther claim to our consideration, than to 
 lead us to ponder more thoroughly the grounds of our own 
 conviction ; and the more this is done, the more, we feel 
 confident, will the view set forth in the following pages 
 approve itself as the only sound and comprehensive one. 
 
 * Natural Theology, vol. i. pp. 121-161. 
 
ICHAPTER II 
 
 DOCTKINE OF CAUSATION. 
 
 THEEE have been few if any questions in Philosophy more 
 thoroughly discussed than that of causation. Especially 
 since the sceptical genius of Hume carried its pitiless search 
 into the foundations of the prevailing philosophy of his day, 
 and exposed its genuine logical consequences, has speculative 
 discussion gathered round this point as a centre, and found 
 unceasing life in it. It appears to us that at length the 
 ground may be said to be pretty well cleared, if not for a 
 settlement of the question, yet for a definite truce regarding 
 it. For it has become clearly apparent that the combatants, 
 on one side at least, contend, not so much in direct opposi- 
 tion to the view held on the other side, as for a further and 
 higher view in addition. The two classes of thinkers are 
 indeed fundamentally opposed, but they are not throughout 
 opposed. For the one class only insists on carrying up the 
 position of the other into a higher, and, as they think, more 
 comprehensive Truth than the other will admit. The one 
 feels impelled to look beyond the mere physical view, and to 
 
DOCTEINE OF CAUSATION. 23 
 
 find everywhere in Nature a further and more sacred MEAN- 
 ING than the other is content to accept. 
 
 It is no longer, for example, disputed by any school of phi- 
 losophy, that all we perceive of the relation between physical 
 phenomena is a relation of succession. " It is now univer- 
 sally admitted that we have no perception of the causal nexus 
 in the material world/' * The writings of Hume and of 
 Brown, and again of Mill in our own day, have been so far 
 successful in making this plain beyond doubt, and exposing, 
 in its precise form, the bearing of the question between them 
 and the opposite school of thinkers. We see events follow- 
 ing events in regular succession. All that we really see and 
 apprehend is the succession. " The impulse of one billiard 
 ball is attended with motion in the second. This is the 
 whole that appears to the outward senses/'-f But is this 
 perception of sequence commensurate with our notion of 
 causation ? Is it what we specially mean when we express 
 the relation of cause and effect ? If the measure of our ex- 
 perience be the measure of our conception, why is it that we 
 do not apply the one universally to the objects of the other ? 
 To take the often repeated illustration of the relation between 
 day and night. This we apprehend as an invariable succes- 
 sion. Yet we never understand nor speak of day as the 
 cause of night, or the reverse. It must be admitted, then, 
 that our empirical apprehension is at least not commensurate 
 with our causal judgment. And this is in fact admitted by 
 Mr Mill in reference to this very relation, and the " very 
 
 * SIR W. HAMILTON'S Discussions, Appendix, p. 587. 
 t HUME'S Works, vol. ii. p. 74. 
 
24 THEISM. 
 
 specious objection" which he acknowledges has been often 
 founded upon it, against his view of the subject. " When 
 we define/' he says,* " the cause of anything to be ' the 
 antecedent, which it invariably follows/ we do not use 
 this phrase as exactly synonymous with 'the antecedent 
 which it invariably has followed in our past experience/ 
 Such a mode of conceiving causation would be liable to 
 the objection very plausibly urged by Dr Keid namely, 
 that, according to this doctrine, night must be the cause 
 of day, and day the cause of night ; since these phenomena 
 have invariably succeeded one another from the beginning 
 of the world. But it is necessary to our using the word 
 cause, that we should believe not only that the antecedent 
 always has been followed by the consequent, but that, as 
 long as the present constitution of things endures, it 
 always will be so, and this would not be true of day and 
 night." 
 
 The concession forced upon Mr Mill, and expressed in 
 this passage is, we cannot help thinking, remarkable. It 
 is here clearly admitted, that the measure of our observa- 
 tional experience is not the measure of the idea of causation, 
 even as held by him. It is not the perception of uniform suc- 
 cession merely, but a certain belief regarding the succes- 
 sion, which specially determines it to be a relation of cause 
 and effect. But what do the opponents of a mere sensational 
 philosophy everywhere contend for, but just the admission of 
 such an element of belief, as the determining element of the 
 idea of causation? The belief, no doubt, is with them 
 
 * MILL'S Logic, vol. i. p. 350. 
 
DOCTRINE OF CAUSATION. 25 
 
 of a very different character, and arises in a very diffe- 
 rent manner from that represented by Mr Mill ; but it is 
 significant how, in the most earnest effort which has been 
 made in our time to resolve the idea of causation into that of 
 mere antecedence and consequence, there should be allowed 
 to enter an element of belief which is confessedly not gene- 
 rated by our mere observation of sequence. The sequence, 
 besides being invariable, or, in other words, uniformly ob- 
 served, Mr Mill says must be unconditional ; and day and 
 night is not a sequence of this character. " We do not be- 
 lieve that night will be followed by day under all imaginable 
 circumstances, but only that it will be so, provided the sun 
 rises above the horizon." According to this view, before we 
 can pronounce any two phenomena to be in the relation of 
 cause and effect, we must not only have observed the fact of 
 their invariable association, but we must know that, accord- 
 ing to the " present constitution of things/'* they always 
 will be associated. We must understand the conditions of 
 
 * There seems to be an inaccuracy and misapplication of language here, 
 singular in a writer generally so clear-sighted and accurate as Mr Mill. For 
 surely the regular rising of the sun above the horizon, or, in other words, the 
 diurnal revolution of the earth, is, if anything can be said to be so, a part of 
 " the present constitution of things." According to this " constitution," then, it 
 may be said to be truly known that night will always be followed by day. The 
 terms of this sequence, even on his own interpretation, are therefore uncondi- 
 tional, and yet we do not regard them as cause and effect. 
 
 We can, no doubt, conceive the sun not to rise above the horizon, com- 
 patibly with the "general laws of matter," a phrase by which Mr Mill makes 
 his meaning more distinct and unequivocal. But, in the first place, the "ge- 
 neral laws of matter," while they MAY be conceived by us apart from such a 
 special result of their operation, can yet be only said to be really known to us 
 in their varied actual results, apart from which they are simply abstractions ; 
 nonentities, on a mere physical view of things ; and, in the second place, we 
 can as easily conceive, it appears to us, the general laws of matter themselves 
 
 C 
 
26 THEISM. 
 
 the sequence so thoroughly, as to comprehend whether they 
 form a part of " the general laws of matter/' before we can 
 rightly pronounce the one term of the sequence to be the 
 cause of the other. 
 
 But if it were not already apparent in the outset of Mr 
 Mill's discussion, this conclusion were enough to show that 
 the subject with which he concerns himself, under the name 
 of causation, and that which is commonly meant under that 
 name, and in our view is alone entitled to it, are quite 
 different. While, under this name, he really speaks of the 
 order which, according to the " general laws of matter," 
 obtains among the phenomena of nature the "invariable 
 and unconditional" dependence which, in virtue of these 
 laws, subsists among physical sequences the intellectual 
 common sense, by causation, does not mean to express any- 
 thing of this sort. It does not concern itself with the 
 special conditions under which phenomena emerge, so as to 
 determine their invariable and unconditional antecedents (in 
 Mr Mill's language, their causes) ; but on the emergence of 
 any phenomenon, the appearance of any change, it simply 
 says that it is caused; meaning by this, that the change 
 does not originate in itself, but in something else. It says 
 this wholly irrespective of the special sources or conditions 
 
 to cease, or be entirely changed. The unconditionalness, therefore, which he 
 considers to attach to them, and which he believes a " distinction of first-rate 
 importance for clearing up the notion of Cause," does not seem, even in their 
 case, to be available to any further extent than in reference to the constant 
 experience respecting day and night. The fact is, as shown in the text, that 
 the constant succession of day and night is not regarded in the light of cause 
 and effect, simply because it is not succession, but something else, and quite 
 distinct, with which the mind, directly and initially, concerns itself in pro- 
 nouncing this relation. 
 
DOCTRINE OF CAUSATION. 27 
 
 of the change ; and says it equally, although it should 
 never learn anything of these sources or conditions. It 
 pronounces, in short, not what is the relation among 
 observed phenomena, but only that all phenomena, whether 
 lying within the sphere of our observation or not, are 
 related. Springing from even a single basis of experience, 
 this judgment goes forth without hesitation into the whole 
 world of reality, and everywhere proclaims its validity ; and 
 it is this judgment which constitutes to the common sense 
 the doctrine of causation. 
 
 It is of importance to understand what is the real diffe- 
 rence which thus exists between sensationalists of the 
 school of Hume and Mill, and those who contend for a 
 deeper meaning in causation than they allow. Artfully 
 shifting the question of causation into the domain of 
 physical observation, they come, in fact, to treat of some- 
 thing quite special, which, under whatever protestations, 
 they in the end assume to be the whole matter, so 
 far as it has any intelligible relation to the human 
 mind. Mr Mill, for example, while declaring that he is " in 
 no way concerned " in the question of efficient causes, 
 and that he simply passes it by, has no sooner laid 
 down his own "law of causation/' than he turns to con- 
 template in its light the doctrine of causation as commonly 
 understood, and on the strength of his own principles to 
 engage in an elaborate refutation of this doctrine. Now, this 
 does not seem to us to be really the fairest way of dealing 
 with a subject of so much importance. To profess to have 
 in view simply the discussion of physical causes and effects 
 
28 THEISM. 
 
 as to the relation of which there is really no dispute and 
 yet to pass over from this to the truth of causation as a 
 principle of human knowledge, can only tend to mislead the 
 reader, and embroil still farther the metaphysical contro- 
 versy which Mr Mill is desirous of avoiding. The Positiv- 
 ist must either abide in the domain of physical phenomena 
 where none deny that all which comes directly within the 
 sphere of human knowledge is mere antecedence and conse- 
 quence or he must be prepared to take up the general fact 
 of causation, as it reveals itself in the common intellectual 
 consciousness, and show it to be coincident in import with 
 the law of mere succession. It is on this ground of common 
 belief that the question must be discussed. We have already 
 so far seen what this belief signifies. Let us still more pre- 
 cisely fix its import. 
 
 When, on the appearance of any change, we instinctively 
 pronounce it to have a cause, what do we really mean ? Do 
 we affirm merely that some other thing has gone before the 
 observed phenomenon ? Is priority the constitutive element 
 of our intellectual judgment ? Is it not rather something 
 quite different ? Is not our judgment characteristically to 
 this effect that some other thing has not only preceded 
 but produced the change we contemplate ? Nay, is it not 
 this element of production that we peculiarly mean to 
 express in the use of the term " cause " ? Succession is no 
 doubt also involved, but it is not the relation of succession 
 with which the mind, in the supposed judgment, is directly 
 and initially concerned, but rather the relation of power. 
 That when we speak of cause and effect, we express merely 
 
DOCTRINE OF CAUSATION. 29 
 
 the relation of conjunction between phenomena of ante- 
 cedence and consequence in any defined sense, is something 
 of which no ingenuity of sophistry will ever be able to per- 
 suade the common mind. It matters not in the least degree 
 that it can be so clearly proved that nothing intervenes 
 between the simple facts observed, that all we see is the 
 sequence of the phenomena. This is not in dispute. Only, 
 the intellectual common sense insists on recognising a deeper 
 relation among phenomena than mere sequence. It accepts 
 the order of succession, which it is the special function of 
 Science to trace everywhere to its most general expression ; 
 but it moreover says of this order, that it is throughout 
 produced, or, in other words, that it is only explicable as 
 involving a further element of power. That this is really 
 the import of the intellectual judgment which we pronounce 
 in speaking of cause and effect to which the very words 
 themselves testify in an unmistakable manner is so clear, 
 that it is now admitted by every school of philosophy which 
 does not rest on a basis of materialism, and has even been 
 conceded by writers of this school, however irresolvable on 
 their principles.* 
 
 Causation, therefore, implies power. What we mean by 
 a cause is something quite different from a mere ante- 
 cedent, however we may define the conditions of its relation 
 to the consequent. It is peculiarly an AGENT. 
 
 But in order to see this more fully, it will be neces- 
 sary to consider whence we have the idea of power, which 
 we have seen to constitute the main element of causation. 
 
 * See LEWES' Biographical History of Philosophy, vol. iv. p. 47, seq. 
 
30 THEISM. 
 
 That this idea is not derived from without that it does not 
 come through any phase of sensational experience is already 
 clear in the fact admitted on all hands, that we only perceive 
 succession that we are only conversant, through the senses, 
 with the two terms of a sequence. But if not from without, 
 it must be from within ; we must have the idea of power 
 given us in our own mental experience. This we hold to 
 be the fact ; and recent psychological analysis has pretty 
 sufficiently explained the more special origin of this prime 
 intellectual element. It flows from the depths of our self- 
 consciousness ; or, more truly speaking, it is nothing else 
 than the ideal projection of our self-consciousness. With 
 the first dawn of mind we apprehend ourselves as distinct 
 from the objective phenomena surrounding us ; the Ego 
 emerges, face to face, with the non-Ego. And in this spring- 
 ing forth of self, so far back in the mental history as to elude 
 all trace, is primarily given the idea of power. 
 
 What is commonly called the Will, therefore, is, according 
 to this view, the ultimate source or fountain of the notion of 
 causation. We apprehend ourselves as agents, and in this 
 apprehension we have already, in the fullest sense, the idea 
 of cause. Had we not this apprehension, it seems impos- 
 sible that we could have ever risen above sequence, as the 
 obvious fact given us in outward observation. With this 
 apprehension lying at the very root of our being, and con- 
 stituting it essentially, it is equally impossible that we can 
 hold by that fact as furnishing the exhaustive conception 
 of the Universe. According to the radical and imperative 
 character of our mental constitution, we must recognise a 
 
DOCTKINE OF CAUSATION. 31 
 
 deeper life than mere sequence, however grand and orderly, 
 in the phenomena of nature ; and this deeper life is just 
 what we mean by a cause. Not sequency, therefore, but 
 agency, or, in other words, efficiency, is the attribute com- 
 mensurate with our notion of causation. 
 
 The question before us then really passes into the old one 
 as to the origin of our knowledge. Let it only be admitted 
 that our knowledge is the product of a spiritual as well as 
 a material factor, and then it is quite beside the question 
 to argue that because cause, according to our interpre- 
 tation of it, is not given in external nature, the notion 
 of it is not a valid and real portion of human know- 
 ledge ; on the very contrary, it becomes, in such a case, 
 only an obvious and expected conclusion that we should 
 find more in outward phenomena than they, so to speak, 
 contain. The subjective brings its element of knowledge as 
 well as the objective ; and it is not merely what we appre- 
 hend by the senses, but what, through the whole mental 
 life awakened in us by the original contact of subject and 
 object, spirit and matter, we intuitively know or believe to 
 be the truth that we must hold as the truth. The only 
 available argument against this position save on a basis of 
 pure materialism would be to dispute the reality of any 
 such primitive mental experience as we have asserted the 
 fact of that consciousness of agency, which we have assumed 
 as indisputable. 
 
 It is of great importance that the view which we have 
 thus endeavoured to set forth should be comprehended in its 
 precise import, with reference both to certain objections 
 
32 THEISM. 
 
 which have been urged against it, and to the final conclusion 
 to which it seems to us to lead. It will be observed that 
 we trace the idea of causation, in its primitive origin, to 
 our self - consciousness, our apprehension of ourselves as 
 distinct activities, not carried away in, but exercising a 
 reaction upon, the flow of physical sequences. This appre- 
 hension, in its most obscure form, involves what has been 
 specially called the Will. The apprehension of ourselves is 
 and can be nothing else than the apprehension of our per- 
 sonal voluntary activity. In its most mature and developed 
 form this apprehension becomes what is called the conscious- 
 ness of free will. The causal idea, however, is not dependent 
 on any particular manifestations of this highest form of our 
 activity. It is already present in its dawn in our primitive 
 self-consciousness. It awakens side by side with the Ego ; and 
 is therefore truly, as M. Cousin calls it, the " primary idea." 
 The clear perception of this will clear away some diffi- 
 culties from the view exhibited. It has been represented, 
 for example, as if the advocates of the theory of efficient 
 causation held the notion to be given altogether independ- 
 ently of experience in the very conception of voluntary 
 action, apart from its exercise. They have been held as 
 maintaining that the " feeling of energy or force inherent in 
 an act of will is knowledge d priori ; assurance prior to 
 experience that we have the power of causing effects/' * 
 But, so far as we understand this statement at all, it seems 
 to us to imply something which could not well be delibe- 
 rately maintained by any one, however an incautious use of 
 * MILL'S Logic, vol. i. p. 360. 
 
DOCTKINE OF CAUSATION. 33 
 
 expressions may have led the writer to suppose so. It im- 
 plies something, certainly, which we are so far from main- 
 taining, that it appears to us to be simply absurd and 
 inconceivable. To speak of any mental possession as prior 
 to or independent of experience, in the right and comprehen- 
 sive meaning of that term, is to speak of something which, 
 in the nature of things, is impossible. Our consciousness 
 only comes into being under experience -conditions. All 
 our mental life only arises under them ; and of what it 
 would be or contain apart from them, we can have no con- 
 ception. Of an "assurance prior to experience, that we 
 have the power of causing effects," we therefore know 
 nothing. Experience is already present in the first act of 
 consciousness, and our idea of cause flows from the primitive 
 awakening of consciousness under the contact of experience. 
 It is already given in the primary apprehension of our per- 
 sonal existence. It may, therefore, certainly be held before 
 the mind apart from special results ; but apart from voluntary 
 activity, as such, and in a true sense, it is inconceivable. 
 
 Again, with reference to a special objection of more 
 importance, the view we have presented seems to render it 
 inapplicable. The objection in question deserves examina- 
 tion, as having been taken up by Sir W. Hamilton, and 
 urged by him against our doctrine. The weakness, however, 
 which Sir William assails successfully, does not lie in the 
 doctrine itself, but only in the special statement of it which 
 is the subject of his criticism. This statement is that of a 
 distinguished French philosopher, M. de Biran, who has cer- 
 tainly the eminent merit of having, in the most elaborate 
 
34 THEISM. 
 
 manner, fixed attention on the theory of causation under 
 discussion. It is to this effect : " I will to move my arm, 
 and I move it." This complex fact gives us on analysis : 
 1, The consciousness of an act of will ; 2, The consciousness 
 of motion produced ; 3, The consciousness of a relation of 
 the motion to the volition. This relation is in no respect 
 a simple relation of succession. The motion not merely fol- 
 lows our will, or appears in conjunction with it, but it is 
 consciously produced by it. The idea of power or cause is 
 thus evolved. Sir W. Hamilton objects to the theory thus 
 laid down, that the empirical fact on which it is founded is 
 incorrect. " For/" he says,* " between the overt fact of cor- 
 poreal movement, which we perceive, and the internal act 
 of the will to move, of which we are self-conscious, there 
 intervenes a series of intermediate agencies, of which we are 
 wholly unaware ; consequently, we can have no conscious- 
 ness, as this hypothesis maintains, of any causal connection 
 between the extreme links of this chain that is, between 
 the volition to move and the arm moving/' The same objec- 
 tion to the general doctrine is hinted at by Mr Mill,^ and 
 stated fully, and with all his usual ingenuity, by Hume, in 
 his famous chapter on the idea of " necessary connection/' 
 
 Now, it is not to be disputed that the point upon which this 
 objection rests is indubitable viz., that it is only through 
 the intermediate agencies of the nerves and muscles that the 
 act of volition goes forth in corporeal movement. Volitions 
 produce nervous action, and this action again expresses itself 
 
 * Phil. Discussions, Appendix, p. 588. 
 f Logic, pp. 361, 371. 
 
DOCTRINE OP CAUSATION. 35 
 
 in outward movement. We have not, therefore, and cannot 
 have, any proper consciousness of this movement. The volition 
 or act of will itself is all of which we are properly conscious. 
 But in this act, as we conceive, we have already sufficient basis 
 for our theory. For what is this simple movement of the will 
 but the Ego expressing itself ? And in this original act of 
 self-expression we have already, according to our view, the 
 idea of cause. Will it be said that, apart from resultant 
 motion or special activity, we could have no evidence of such 
 self-expression? It may be readily granted that, had we pos- 
 sessed no experience of volition passing into activity ; had, in 
 truth, the present constitution of things been entirely different 
 from what it is for this is really what is asserted, in such 
 a supposed case there is no certainty that we could have had 
 such evidence, or that which is the same thing volition 
 could have been to us any longer a fact. We cannot tell ; 
 we have simply again to reply that we pretend to no ele- 
 ments of knowledge apart from experience in the sense here 
 intended. All we know is, and can be, only known to us 
 within the conditions of our actual being ; in other words, 
 within the sphere of experience. What we might or might 
 not have known out of this sphere, it is utterly idle to con- 
 jecture, as we cannot, in the nature of the case, transcend it, 
 and survey ourselves from a point above it. Thus, in the pre- 
 sent case, the sense of will or power is to us a fact, given in the 
 first dawn of self-consciousness, and repeated in every moment 
 of self-consciousness. It is implied in every forth-putting 
 of our being. It lies at its. root, and our whole mental 
 life is only a continual passing of it into activity. That 
 
36 THEISM. 
 
 which is specially called the Will is, as already represented, 
 implicitly contained in this original affirmation of self, in 
 which all our knowledge begins. Special acts of freedom are 
 merely special manifestations of a power quickened in us, or, 
 more truly, which constitutes us (the Me) from the first. It 
 is by no means necessary, therefore, that we should be 
 directly conscious of corporeal movement, as the special 
 result of an act of volition, in the sense set forth by M. de 
 Biran, and questioned by Sir W. Hamilton and others, 
 before we can attain the idea of cause. This idea emerges 
 far more deeply in our spiritual life than is thus implied, 
 and is quite independent of such special realisations as are 
 here connected with it. 
 
 Let us review, then, the conclusion at which we have 
 arrived ; the meaning of causation as thus determined. 
 A cause we have found to be truly coincident with an 
 agent; to have its primitive type in the Ego, the living 
 root of our being ; and to be specially represented in that 
 which constitutes the highest expression of our being, Free 
 Will. A cause, therefore, implies Mind. More definitely, 
 and in its full conception, it implies a rational will. 
 
 Let this conclusion be fairly pondered, and it will be 
 found to sustain itself irrefragably. The Ego, which in its 
 first dawn and highest life alone gives us the idea of cause, 
 is simply the rational being which we call by the name of 
 Mind. It is this being, no doubt, apprehended predomi- 
 nantly on the side of activity. But this activity, apart from 
 the reason in which it inheres, and which it expresses, is 
 nothing. We can never subtract the one element and leave 
 
DOCTRINE OF CAUSATION. 37 
 
 the other. We have been in the habit, indeed, of speaking 
 of different mental faculties ; but the mind is really one, and 
 not a separable congeries of powers. Free will is and can 
 be nothing else, therefore, than the highest or consummate 
 expression of our rational being or mind ; and a rational 
 will the only fully answering idea to that of Cause. The one 
 idea is the only commensurate of the other. The latter only 
 exhausts itself, and finds rest, in the former. 
 
 We will now be able to understand the true character of 
 the causation which we apprehend in nature. In the light 
 of our spiritual consciousness, we everywhere perceive in 
 nature a deeper meaning than it contains. We apprehend 
 a living power in its continual flow. This is the general 
 expression of what reason demands. It never stops short 
 of this. But already it contains a higher and more explicit 
 truth. Already, in its lowest indications, it points to one 
 original, comprehending Will. The savage or childish appre- 
 hension of nature, as animated in its different movements 
 by separate voluntary agents like ourselves,* is a mere dim 
 and temporary expression of the rational necessity which 
 knows no satisfaction till, driven upwards, it rests in the idea 
 of one all-pervading Power an Ultimate Cause. 
 
 According to this whole view, there is no such thing as 
 mere physical causation. What is so denominated is of 
 course a reality ; but inasmuch as it is only in virtue of our 
 spiritual life that we could ever find a cause in nature, 
 this term is truly inapplicable to physical phenomena per 
 se: nature cannot give what it does not contain. Physical 
 
 * COUSIN On Locke, p. 166 : Ed. Didier ; Paris, 1847. 
 
38 THEISM. 
 
 causes, apart from the idea of a will in which they originate, 
 and which they manifest, have no meaning. Kemove the 
 one idea, and the other disappears. It is assuredly only in 
 the reflection of a POWEE beyond them, and in which they 
 are contained, that such causes are or can be to us anything 
 but antecedent phenomena. It is only as the expression of 
 such a Will or Power that the physical order of the universe 
 is recognised as caused. And this recognition is truly in- 
 eradicable and necessary ; in no way affected by the dis- 
 coveries of science ; still asserting itself by the side of the 
 most extended of these discoveries. Let science expose the 
 domain of physical order as it may, Will is still present as 
 its implicate and only explanation. And this Will, according 
 to what we have already said, is no mere naked potentiality. 
 We know nothing of Will apart from Eeason ; the one is to 
 us merely the peculiarly active, the other the peculiarly 
 intelligent, side of the same spiritual energy. They unite 
 and form one in what we comprehensively call Mind, which 
 we therefore recognise as the only adequate source and 
 explanation of the universe. 
 
 It will be observed that we have confined ourselves to the 
 fact of causation what it implies. Our aim has been to 
 find a true and final explanation of what we mean by a 
 " cause." The principle of causality, in its characteristic of 
 irresistibleness and necessity, has been rather assumed than 
 dealt with : and rightly so ; for the principle, under one 
 form of explanation or another, cannot be said to be in dis- 
 pute. The real and important subject of dispute is unques- 
 tionably what the principle admitted to be one which con- 
 
DOCTEINE OF CAUSATION. 
 
 39 
 
 ditions human Intelligence involves. What is its import ? 
 Does it lead us upwards merely from one link of sequences 
 to another ; or does it necessitate our finding, in all sequences, 
 a higher element in which alone they inhere ? Is Cause, in 
 short, Antecedence or Power ? This is the essential question, 
 and it is this to which we have endeavoured to give an 
 answer. 
 
40 THEISM. 
 
 L_CHAPTER III. 
 
 DOCTEINE OF FINAL CAUSES. 
 
 THE conclusion of the preceding chapter already clearly 
 pointed to what we mean by the doctrine of Final Causes. 
 The idea of causation we found to resolve itself into that 
 of the operation of a rational will or mind in nature ; and 
 this operation, looked at deductively from a theological point 
 of view, is neither more nor less than the doctrine before us. 
 But while thus implicitly given in our previous argument, 
 this doctrine, in its distinctive form, deserves from us a 
 further and more attentive consideration. It deserves this 
 especially, on account of the obscurity and misrepresentations 
 in which it has been involved. 
 
 There is no doctrine which has been more misunderstood. 
 The scientific applications of it have been confounded with 
 its genuine theological import, and abuses resulting from the 
 former perversely passed over to the discredit of the latter. 
 What it really signifies, what is the comprehensive mean- 
 ing in which the doctrine must be held, if it is to be held at 
 all ; has been often as little understood by its supporters as 
 by its opponents. 
 
DOCTKINE OF FINAL CAUSES. 41 
 
 The notion of Final Causes, for example, is frequently 
 represented as if limited to organic or physiological pheno- 
 mena. In a purely scientific relation, viewed as a method 
 of scientific discovery, it may be rightly so limited ; although, 
 even in this respect, it seems only an absurd perversion of 
 the doctrine, and not the doctrine itself, which can be truly 
 held as an invalid guide of inquiry in any department of 
 nature. It is only the confusion of its genuine meaning 
 with an impertinent and barren curiosity, the very oppo- 
 site of its inquiring and reverent gaze, which can render it 
 abusively applicable to any order of phenomena.* But 
 certainly, whatever view may be held on this point, there 
 cannot remain any doubt in the minds of those who really 
 understand the doctrine, that, in its higher theological mean- 
 ing and relation, it is equally applicable to all orders of 
 phenomena, organic and inorganic. It is true that, even in 
 this higher relation, the doctrine has been especially applied 
 to the organic products of creation, so that the argument 
 from Design or Final Causes is probably interpreted by 
 many, if not most minds, with exclusive reference to these 
 products, the wonderful structures of the vegetable and 
 animal kingdom. But this has simply arisen from the fact, 
 that design is capable of being more conspicuously traced 
 in these structures, than in the more general and comprehen- 
 sive phenomena presented to us by the inorganic kingdom. 
 Assuredly it will not for a moment bear to be affirmed that 
 
 * This is the simple explanation of Lord Bacon's frequently-quoted dispa- 
 ragement of Final Causes. It was not the doctrine itself, in any true sense 
 of it, but only the scholastic abuse of it, that he condemned. 
 
 D 
 
42 THEISM. 
 
 the principle of design, rightly apprehended in the funda- 
 mental form in which alone it concerns the theistic argu- 
 ment, has any real application to the one class of phenomena 
 which it has not to the other. It may have, in the one case, 
 a more manifest application, and one, therefore, more effective 
 for purposes of popular argumentation; but, beyond all 
 question, there are no logical grounds on which the prin- 
 ciple can sustain itself in the one case and not in the other. 
 These grounds are equally valid or invalid in both cases. 
 Supposing we admit them, design, the operation of Mind, 
 is everywhere recognised in nature. Supposing we reject 
 them, every such conception as that of " design/' or " final 
 cause/' " end " or " purpose," disappears from nature.* 
 
 Let us then look still more closely at these grounds, that 
 we may be thoroughly satisfied of their validity. Why is it 
 that we apprehend everywhere in phenomena of order the 
 operation of a rational will or mind ? Simply because we 
 cannot help doing so ; because the laws of our rational 
 
 * The different modifications of the doctrine of Final Causes form a very 
 interesting subject, were we reviewing the doctrine historically, instead of 
 expounding the right view of it. The double relation of the doctrine has of 
 course attracted attention, yet without any definite effort, so far as we are 
 aware, to bring into clear harmony the more general doctrine, and the special 
 form in which it has been applied in physiology. Boyle and Stewart both 
 point to the respective theological and scientific uses of the doctrine, but they do 
 not expound the relation of the latter to the former, which is all-important 
 both for the interests of theology, and the validity of the equally disputed 
 scientific principle. Nor do they concern themselves with the consideration 
 of the more general and the more special form in which, even in a purely theolo- 
 gical point of view, the doctrine admits of being apprehended and applied. 
 Any obscurity that may seem to rest on these respective bearings of the doc- 
 trine is, we trust, sufficiently cleared up in the course of our discussion, and 
 especially in a subsequent chapter, where the peculiar significance of the 
 action of design in organic phenomena receives attention. 
 
DOCTEINE OF FINAL CAUSES. 43 
 
 being compel us to do so. These will not permit us to rest 
 short of Mind as an ultimate explanation of such phenomena. 
 The theistic position, therefore, is based on an inherent 
 rational necessity. We do not know where it could be so 
 strongly based. We do not know, indeed, where else it 
 could be based. 
 
 But this strong foundation is not conceded to us with- 
 out controversy. How plainly the right and dignity thus 
 claimed for Mind are repudiated by a certain school of 
 thinkers, we have already seen ; and the special arguments 
 by which our position has been assailed by the same able 
 writer with whom we have already engaged, and who so 
 eminently, in the present day, represents the school in Eng- 
 land, certainly deserve examination. These arguments no 
 doubt originate in a fundamental opposition of philosophical 
 principle, to which the discussion must always at length be 
 driven back, and to which we might, therefore, confine our- 
 selves ; this opposition being neither more nor less than 
 the old one of Spiritualism and Empiricism, Platonism and 
 Epicureanism. Yet it may serve in some respects to 
 strengthen our ground and elucidate the truth, to examine 
 the more special reasoning of Mr Mill. 
 
 It is wholly denied by this writer that the tendency to find 
 Mind everywhere in nature rests on an ineradicable necessity 
 of reason. This is simply " the instinctive philosophy of the 
 human mind in its earliest stage, before it has become fami- 
 liar with any other invariable sequences than those between 
 its own volitions and its voluntary acts." * ..." Sequences 
 
 * Logic, vol. i. p. 365 ; second edition. 
 
44 THEISM. 
 
 entirely physical and material, as soon as they had become 
 sufficiently familiar to the human mind, came to be 
 thought perfectly natural, and were regarded not only as 
 needing no explanation, but as being capable of affording it 
 to others, and even of serving as the ultimate explanation of 
 things in general."* And, as illustrations of this, are 
 instanced the early Greek philosophers, some of whom held 
 that Moisture, and others that Air, was the universal 
 cause. These are brought forward as examples to show that 
 mankind, so far from regarding the action of matter upon 
 matter as inconceivable, have even rested satisfied with 
 some material element as a final principle of explanation. 
 Others and he mentions Leibnitz and the Cartesians are 
 also stated to have been so little of our way of thinking, that 
 they found the " action of mind upon matter to be itself the 
 grand inconceivability," to get over which they were forced 
 to invent their respective theories of Pre-established Har- 
 mony and Occasional Causes. On the case of the Carte- 
 sians he dwells particularly according to whose system, he 
 says, " God is the only efficient cause, not qua mind, or qud 
 endowed with volition, but qud omnipotent." *f- 
 
 The best way of approaching the strength of our argu- 
 ment will be through these supposed illustrations of the 
 adverse position. In the two latter instances, the real 
 point at issue is certainly to some extent mistaken. The 
 ground of discussion is at least so shifted as to draw 
 off attention from that point. In speaking, for example, 
 of the action of matter upon matter, and again of that 
 
 * Logic, vol. i. p. 366. t IMd., p. 369. 
 
DOCTRINE OF FINAL CAUSES. 45 
 
 of mind upon matter, the special idea suggested is clearly 
 as to the mode of action in the one case and the other, 
 as if the real point were the conceivableness of this mode 
 in the respective cases. But this is not in any sense the 
 true question. The Theist does not profess to compre- 
 hend or explain the difficulty thus suggested. The mode of 
 action of mind upon matter, or indeed the mode of connection 
 between matter and matter, is acknowledged to be wholly 
 inscrutable. The point in dispute is simply the fact of action 
 or efficiency at all. In the one case that is to say, when we 
 apprehend Mind as the cause of phenomena we are satisfied 
 with this apprehension, not because we understand how Mind 
 is the cause or, in other words, how it acts upon matter 
 but simply because we know, in our own experience, that it 
 does so act. We rest in Mind as a source and explanation of 
 action generally, just because it is to us all this, and we 
 know of nothing else that is this. 
 
 It is true that Leibnitz and the Cartesians did not regard 
 the human mind in this light. Denying, as they did, finite 
 efficiency, they could not, of course, rest in it as an explan- 
 ation of action, any more than they could hold one physical 
 element or event to be an explanation of another. Within 
 the sphere of finite existence they did not recognise any 
 efficiency ; and hence the theory of Pre-established Harmony 
 on the one hand, and that of Occasional Causes on the other, 
 to account for the connection between finite spirit and matter. 
 But so far was either Leibnitz or the Cartesians from 
 denying the fact of efficiency as applied to the Divine Being, 
 that it was just this fact they called in to solve the absurd 
 
46 THEISM. 
 
 difficulty in which they had involved themselves. They 
 could not conceive the action of finite mind upon matter. 
 The fact was not enough for them ; but they must under- 
 stand it logically ; and, being unable so to understand it, 
 they arbitrarily called in the Divine efficiency to explain it. 
 In the case of the Cartesians this is clearly admitted by Mr 
 Mill ; and it is undeniable in both cases, whatever may be 
 said to the contrary.* 
 
 It does not seem, therefore, that the views of these philo- 
 sophers, in their true and comprehensive sense, avail much 
 for Mr Mill's position. It is, indeed, admitted that they did 
 not recognise the fact of limited efficiency in the human 
 mind, from which we rise argumentatively to the fact of the 
 Divine efficiency, and that in their respective philosophies, 
 accordingly, they did not leave any rational basis for Theism. 
 We willingly abandon them as consistent theistic thinkers. 
 Yet they were so far from resting short of the theistio con- 
 clusion the conclusion of a Supreme Mind efficiently con- 
 nected with things in general that their respective theories 
 rest expressly on the supposition of Divine efficiency. Mr 
 Mill's refinement as to the Divine efficiency being appre- 
 
 * See (Logic, vol. i. p. 368) Mr Mill's strange attempt to prove that Leibnitz 
 denied the ultimate adequacy of the Divine efficiency to account for things in 
 general. Nothing could be farther from the true thought of Leibnitz. He 
 merely says that he cannot conceive this efficiency working save in certain 
 ways. The fact of the Divine efficiency is not in question, but only the mode 
 of its working. The following are the words of Leibnitz, quoted and emphasized 
 by Mr Mill : ' ' Si Dieu donnait cette loi, par exemple, a un corps libre, de 
 tourner a 1'entour d'un certain centre, il faudrait ou qu'il y joignit d'autres 
 corps qui par leur impulsion 1'obligeassent de rester to uj ours dans son orbite 
 circulaire, ou qu'il mit un ange a ses trousses, ou enfin il faudrait qu'il y con- 
 courat extraordinairement ; car naturellement il s'ecarterapar la tangente." 
 LEIBNITZ'S Works, iii. 446 : Ed. Dutens. 
 
DOCTKINE OF FINAL CAUSES. 47 
 
 hended, not qud mind or qud volition, but qud omnipotence 
 even if we were disposed to grant it does not in the 
 least militate against our view, according to which, as will 
 be immediately more fully explained, it is only as resting in 
 Mind that power has any meaning, or can have any. So far, 
 therefore, from denying the theistic position or, in other 
 words, the fact of a Supreme Kational Will as the only 
 explanation of things it was in truth the peculiar error 
 of Leibnitz and the Cartesians, that they pushed this posi- 
 tion to such excess as to overbear the no less valid fact of 
 the finite rational will, through which alone, according to 
 our whole apprehension, the higher fact can be consistently 
 reached. 
 
 A little examination will equally avail to obviate the force 
 of the more pertinent illustration, drawn from the case of 
 the early Greek philosophers, and even to show how its 
 more correct understanding may be turned in favour of our 
 position. These philosophers, says Mr Mill, found in some 
 single physical element a sufficient explanation of things. 
 If they could rest satisfied with such an explanation, this is 
 a proof that there is no inherent mental necessity which 
 compels us to place Mind at the head of things as their 
 ultimate cause. But admitting that Thales * and Anaxi- 
 menes acknowledged in the physical elements the one of 
 
 * Thales whose case is out of all question the most in point, he having, in 
 virtue of his supposed views, been accused of Atheism is yet expressly stated 
 by Cicero to have only held that the vet/? or Divine Intelligence created all 
 things from water ; a statement which at least ought to have so much weight 
 as to convince us how little can be drawn from the fragmentary memorials 
 of ancient Grecian philosophy to determine authoritatively the question 
 before us. 
 
48 THEISM. 
 
 Water, and the other of Air not only a primordial prin- 
 ciple or prima materia, but an ultimate cause or final 
 explanation of things, it may be shown beyond dispute that 
 they only held such an opinion in virtue of their having re- 
 cognised in Water or Air respectively a peculiar formative 
 energy. To borrow Mr Mill's own mode of explanation, 
 with a fairer application than he makes of it, it was not 
 qua matter (this or that material form), but qud the vital 
 Energy or Soul * with which they were supposed endowed, 
 that these elements were apprehended to be the fountain 
 of existence. The idea of Originant force was what they 
 mainly associated with the dp X r] which they sought, what- 
 ever may be the merely material character which its name 
 now suggests to us. 
 
 Now, in this recognition of the ancient Grecian philo- 
 sophy, we have really, it is important to observe, the essen- 
 tial germ of our doctrine. Even if it be indisputable that 
 the clear conception of the Ultimate Cause as intelligent 
 were a later product of the same philosophy, it can be shown 
 that in the acknowledgment (under whatever special form) 
 
 * That this was really the opinion of Anaximenes in regard to Air is ad- 
 mitted by Lewes, in his rapid and clever review of the Ancient Philosophers in 
 the first volume of his Biog. History of Philosophy, p. 34 ; and the admission 
 on his part, as being so truly a thinker after Mr Mill's own heart, is significant. 
 Nay, so truly did Anaximenes recognise his original principle on the side of 
 activity or productive energy, that he made it identical with the soul the 
 <( something which moved him he knew not how." While Mr Lewes repre- 
 sents the doctrine of Thales as being of a lower character, he yet admits, in 
 his case as well, the apprehension of a vital force, as prominent in the sup- 
 posed primordial element, as indeed it is impossible in our view to conceive 
 otherwise. He says in a note, p. 34 : "When Anaximenes speaks of Air, as 
 when Thales speaks of Water, we must not understand these elements as they 
 appear in this or that determinate form on earth, but as Water and Air preg- 
 nant with vital energy" 
 
DOCTRINE OF FINAL CAUSES. 49 
 
 of Force as the original spring of existence, there is already 
 enfolded the great truth, of Mind forming the only final 
 explanation of things. The grounds on which we rest this 
 assertion will be immediately apparent. Kightly regarded, 
 therefore, these early Grecian speculations, so far from being 
 opposed to our position, furnish a powerful testimony to its 
 strength. For what were they, one and all of them, but 
 attempts to rise to the origin of things, and to apprehend 
 them in the light of some single Living power or principle? 
 To endeavour to represent them as evidences of the mind's 
 capacity to rest short of such a living supernatural Cause, 
 is profoundly to mistake, not only them, but the whole 
 course and meaning of human speculation.* 
 
 The position, indeed, on which we rest viz., the irrepres- 
 sible necessity of the human mind thus to ascend to the 
 origin of things, and to apprehend this origin as a Power 
 above nature is a position that so directly carries with it its 
 own evidence, that, like all self-evident truths, it is difficult to 
 deal with it argumentatively. All Eeligion and all Philoso- 
 phy testify to it. They express, the one, the deep feeling of 
 the common consciousness, the other the modified but no less 
 genuine feeling of the reflective consciousness, that there is a 
 Higher Source from which flow all the visible changes that 
 occur around us. So far from this being the mere dictate of 
 that instinctive philosophy of the human mind which dis- 
 appears with the advance of science, it is the utterance of 
 an ineradicable rational necessity, which never changes, how- 
 
 * It is even to mistake the fundamental law of human development ex- 
 pounded by Positivism, according to which man's earliest speculations are 
 always of a theological character. 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
50 THEISM. 
 
 ever it may change its mode of expression. In one case the 
 Ultimate Source or Power may be so rudely apprehended, and 
 in another so refined and unified, that the two results may 
 seem not to represent the same conviction ; but it is the same 
 rational necessity that speaks in both. It is the same truth, 
 however in certain cases obscured and even distorted, that 
 forces itself upon us. Men cannot rest in any lower truth : 
 they are driven unceasingly upwards, till they rest in some 
 ultimate and comprehending Power. They cannot be satisfied 
 with any mere endless series of changes, which does not origi- 
 nate in such a Power, however various may otherwise be their 
 notions of it. Every ascent along the chain of mere natural 
 facts, leaves the mind still in search of an Origin beyond 
 nature. Here alone it searches no more, but rests in peace. 
 " We pass from effect to cause, from sequence to sequence, and 
 from that to a higher cause, in search of something on which 
 the mind can rest ; but if we can do nothing but repeat this 
 process, there is no use in it. We move our limbs, but 
 make no advance. Our question is not answered, but evaded. 
 The mind cannot acquiesce in the destiny thus presented to 
 it, of being referred from event to event, from object to 
 object, along an interminable vista of causation and time. 
 Now this mode of stating the reply to say that the mind 
 cannot thus be satisfied appears to be equivalent to saying 
 that the mind is conscious of a principle in virtue of which 
 such a view as this must be rejected ; the mind takes refuge 
 in the assumption of a First Cause from an employment 
 inconsistent with its own nature/'* 
 
 * Dr WHEWELL'S Indications of the Creator, p. 199. 
 
DOCTEINE OF FINAL CAUSES. 51 
 
 But tliis irresistible tendency to believe in some Power 
 above nature is not in itself, it may be said, commensurate 
 with the position we have laid down viz., that Mind is 
 the only finally valid explanation of order. It gives us 
 merely the vague idea of some First Cause. Now of course 
 we do assert that the conception of Intelligence is plainly 
 present in that most universal form of the faith in a First 
 Cause to which we have appealed, and on which, in the 
 last case, our position rests. We are content to accept this 
 faith, in all its variety of explicit meaning, for what it 
 is in itself simply and incontrovertibly, viz., a testimony 
 to some Higher Power. But what we do assert is, that 
 this faith in the vaguest form implicitly contains the 
 idea of Mind. For the lower fact has only existence in 
 and through the higher. Mind is to us the only anala- 
 gon of power or force. Our self-consciousness accord- 
 ing to the whole scope of our previous argument supplies 
 us with our only type of efficiency. Apart from, and inde- 
 pendently of, Mind, there is no reason to think that the 
 conception of force could have ever arisen within us. How- 
 ever, then, the generic element Intelligence may, in certain 
 cases, be concealed behind mere Power, we only require to 
 analyse and carry out the true meaning of the latter in 
 order to find the former. Power may perhaps be held 
 apart from Mind ; but as it only comes through the latter, 
 it certainly, as a fact, everywhere involves it, and has a con- 
 stant tendency to return into it. It is true, there are states 
 of society in which, either from gross ignorance or an over- 
 driven speculative rage which is no less, in the most real 
 
52 THEISM. 
 
 sense, ignorance the higher and more comprehensive signi- 
 ficance is lost sight of, or does not distinctively emerge ; but 
 it is equally true that such states are abnormal and tempo- 
 rary, and that the narrower and more special idea can no- 
 where be long or consistently held without expanding into 
 the other. Power can only permanently assert itself as the 
 acknowledged attribute of Mind. 
 
 To those who have not thoroughly reflected on the subject, 
 this may not seem an obvious conclusion ; but there is 
 nothing appears to us at once more true, and more impor- 
 tant to be kept in view. Let it but be granted that we 
 obtain the idea of force solely from the conscious operation 
 of our own minds and it does not seem, according to all we 
 formerly said, and even according to the express basis of 
 materialism, that this admits of any dispute, and let it fur- 
 ther be admitted that it is this idea of power or force in 
 which alone we can ultimately rest in our impelled ascent to 
 the Source of things, it seems impossible that we can help 
 recognising this Source as Intelligent, when it is only through 
 the conscious fact and operation of our own intelligence that 
 we have the idea with which it is identical. Power being only 
 known to us at all as the expression of Mind, the Ultimate 
 Power necessarily becomes to us an Ultimate Mind. Let it 
 be, that the dim unexamined promptings of consciousness 
 may permit us to rest for a little, and may even permit races, 
 in whom intelligence, save as a blind force, is scarcely deve- 
 loped, to rest for ages, in the mere vague conception of 
 Power in the external universe, this conception can never 
 fail, in the clearer working of consciousness, to be transferred 
 
DOCTKINE OF FINAL CAUSES. 53 
 
 into its full symbol Mind.* We can no more, in fact, help 
 making Mind objective, and apprehending it as the only 
 ultimate cause or explanation of things, than we can help 
 recognising existence under the forms of our mental consti- 
 tution at all. The one result is simply the carrying out of 
 the other. 
 
 * " Let us ask how the primordial force of pantheism is legitimately trans- 
 formed into an attribute of an intelligence ? Let a designer stand for an in- 
 telligence who is possessed of power, and who intentionally adapts means to an 
 end. Design, therefore, will stand for intentional adaptation ; and from the 
 contemplation of man, we are enabled to make the above definitions without 
 transcending the realm of experience. When we have made man objective, 
 we can affirm, 4 man can design ; ' and when we contemplate the product of 
 man's design, we find it expressed in the terms, ' adaptation of means to an 
 end,' where neither of the terms are psychological, but such are used legiti- 
 mately in physical science. And when, on the other hand, we find in nature 
 the adaptation of means to an end, we infer design and a designer, because 
 the only circumstances within our experience in which we can trace the origi- 
 nation of adaptation, are those in which human mind is implicated. And thus 
 what was at first an omnipresent and immortal substance, and afterwards an 
 omnipresent and immortal power, becomes transformed into an omnipresent 
 and immortal intelligence" We give this quotation from a recent work 7 
 marked by eminent ability (The Theory of Human Progression, p. 481-2), not as 
 coinciding with its representation of the mode in which force becomes trans- 
 formed into an attribute of Intelligence (Mind), in so far as that representation 
 is exclusive ; although we recognise the influence of the process to which the 
 writer ascribes the origin of the idea of Intelligence, in educating and clearing 
 up this phase of the theistic conception, as indeed our whole illustrative evi- 
 dence is based on such a recognition. In this, however, we disagree with 
 the representation of the writer before us, that we recognise Mind as already 
 implicitly given in Force the higher, as already contained in the lower phase 
 of the theistic conception and on the very grounds on which he finds design 
 in nature, viz., that the only circumstances within our experience, in which 
 we can trace force or origination of any kind, are those in which Mind 
 is implicated because Mind, in short, is to us the only analagon of force. 
 Not only does adaptation, as a fact, give Mind, but Force (Cause), already 
 in our view, however obscurely, gives it. The study of design in Creation 
 does not, as we hold, add Intelligence for the first time to our original causal 
 belief. For this belief already in its vaguest form only takes its rise in 
 the conscious operation of Mind. The manifestations of design are, how- 
 ever, of the utmost value in quickening and educating the idea of Mind or 
 Intelligence. 
 
54 THEISM. 
 
 This is the final view of our position ; and so clearly is it 
 felt to be so, that it will be found that the opposite school of 
 thinkers have retreated thither in an attitude of denial. This 
 is felt to be the last and essential point on either side, and 
 appears to us to be clearly indicated as such in that remark- 
 able passage of Mr Mill which we quoted in the outset. Let 
 it be admitted that Mind is the only efficient cause of things 
 with which we are or can be acquainted : does this entitle 
 us to place it at the head of nature ? Because Mind is to 
 us the only conceivable origin, does this justify us in mak- 
 ing it the origin of things in general ? Have we any right, 
 in short, to apply the limited modes of our rational concep- 
 tivity to the universe ? This appears to be a fair statement 
 of the ultimate question. Mr Mill, indeed, might repudiate 
 this statement. His eagerness to argue the question of 
 efficient causes on the lower ground of their rejection 
 not being incompatible with the " laws of our mental con- 
 ceptivity," would seem to imply his willingness to abide 
 by what might be proved to be the true character of these 
 laws. But we think it plain beyond dispute, that the true 
 source of his views lies in that deeper scepticism which 
 treats the human soul as a mere product of nature, whose 
 essential modes of conception do not necessarily mirror, 
 in any true sense, the universe. And this position, 
 which is more implied than asserted in his work, is openly 
 and explicitly assumed by other writers of the same school. 
 Human ideas are denied any correspondent relation to 
 the Divine Existence. The attempt to bring the universe 
 within the forms of man's reason, is represented as being 
 
DOCTRINE OF FINAL CAUSES. 55 
 
 equivalent to the old sophistic canon of " man the 
 measure of things." " At all times/' writes Mr Lewes, 
 " man has made God in his own image ; he has idealised and 
 intensified his own nature, and worshipped that. This he 
 has ever done ; this, perhaps, he ever will do. But we who, 
 in serene philosophy, smile condescendingly on the ill-taught 
 barbarian, whom we find attributing his motives, his pas- 
 sions, his infirmities, to the Creator of all we who shud- 
 der at the idea of such anthropomorphism, how comes it 
 that we also have fallen into the trap, and, having withdrawn 
 from God the investiture of Passion, persist in substituting 
 for it an abstraction named Reason ? Is not God conceived 
 to be pure Reason omnipotent Intelligence ? and as Intelli- 
 gence is Lord and Master of this Universe, so what Intelli- 
 gence recognises as perfect or imperfect, must be perfect or 
 imperfect/' * 
 
 This last assertion of materialistic infidelity deserves par- 
 ticular attention, for it embraces the whole sum of the 
 question between it and a theistic Philosophy. It presents, 
 we feel assured, the only consistent argument by which this 
 Philosophy can be assailed. And it is full of pregnant mean- 
 for the great issue at stake in Natural Theology, that it 
 should become manifest that the validity of its conclusions 
 can only be consistently disputed on grounds which can be 
 shown to involve the negation of all Philosophy and all 
 Theology, and which spring from a mode of thought essen- 
 tially hostile to those highest expressions of truth which we 
 so deeply venerate in Christianity. 
 
 * COMTE'S Philosophy of the Sciences. By G. H. LEWES, pp. 89, 90. 
 
56 THEISM. 
 
 Let us see more particularly what this assertion involves. 
 When it is alleged that the facts of the universe are not ne- 
 cessarily correspondent to the modes of human reason, what 
 is implied ? Undoubtedly this, that however man may ob- 
 serve and classify the facts of nature, these facts can never 
 become to him truth, for it is only the light of interpreta- 
 tion with which his reason invests them, that makes them to 
 him TEUTH. This, however, is called by our Positive Philo- 
 sophers " anthropomorphism/' and the boundless Life of the 
 universe is represented as unwarrantably confined within the 
 forms of man's interpretation. It is surely enough to say, in 
 answer to such a view, that it is not possible to conceive how 
 man could have ever known truth save under the conditions 
 of his reason ; and to allege, therefore, this necessary condi- 
 tion of his having any knowledge in proof of the weakness and 
 incompetency of that knowledge, is simply a desperation of 
 scepticism so ridiculous that we might well be pardoned for 
 not attempting any reply to it. Whether or not there be 
 any other truth in regard to the universe than that which 
 the forms of his reason compel him to accept as such, must 
 be to man an utterly idle question. There can be no 
 other truth to him than that which he is thus compelled 
 to accept. To state the matter still more pertinently, 
 let it be admitted to be a fair hypothesis that there 
 may be efficient causes in the universe entirely different 
 from that of which alone he has, or can have, any idea, 
 it yet remains a fact, that the universe is to him only 
 conceivable as the production of Mind Intelligent Power. 
 It is a fact, according to our whole theory, that this 
 
DOCTEINE OF FINAL CAUSES. 57 
 
 conception is one inextinguishable in human nature. And 
 the refusal of the Positivist, therefore, to accept the verdict 
 of human nature on the subject, simply amounts to an asser- 
 tion of utter scepticism a denial of any truth being possible 
 to man. 
 
 Indeed, if the demands of our rational consciousness be 
 repelled in this, one of its deepest expressions, it seems a clear 
 inference, that not only truth in the highest sense is ren- 
 dered impossible, but that even the foundations of Science are 
 assailed. For if we refuse to accept the rational interpreta- 
 tion of nature in its full extent, we can have no right to accept 
 it to any extent. If it be an inherent necessity of our men- 
 tal constitution which we have so fully shown it to be that 
 we recognise Mind in nature as its source, and we refuse that 
 recognition, we thereby impugn the veracity of the human 
 consciousness altogether, and leave no foot-hold fbr truth of 
 any kind, according to the well-known maxim, which in such 
 an application can admit of no dispute, " falsus in uno, falsus 
 in omnibus/' The final position assumed by Positivism might 
 well, therefore, be left to its own refutation ; for a position 
 of such a character is self-destructive. Positivism is, in 
 fact, essentially, whatever philosophical pretensions it may 
 arrogate to itself, nothing else than a species of philosophical 
 suicide. 
 
 The condition of all true science, as of all philosophy, lies 
 in a totally different view of the relation of the human mind to 
 the universe. They essentially presuppose, as the ground of 
 their veracity, an original harmony between Mind and nature, 
 
 E 
 
58 THEISM. 
 
 so that the former finds its own laws in the latter, and rightly 
 relies on the reality of what it there finds. Man is thus con- 
 ceived to stand to the whole world of material existence in the 
 light of Interpreter. He is the prophet of the otherwise 
 dumb oracle, the voice of the otherwise silent symbol. He 
 looks abroad with a clear confidence, that what he every- 
 where reads in the light of his own consciousness is the very 
 truth and meaning which is there, and which he therefore 
 ought to receive. Let this confidence be destroyed, and there 
 remains for him no truth or genuine science that we can 
 imagine. 
 
 It is important to observe the exact character of the rela- 
 tion thus maintained to exist between Mind and nature. 
 The correct perception of it dissipates at once all ingenious 
 and plausible misrepresentations with which it may be 
 attacked. It is a relation of correspondence or harmony 
 as already stated, so that Mind apprehends nature in a 
 faithful mirror, and finds a reality answering to its intui- 
 tions ; but it is not asserted to be a commensurate relation 
 in the sense of the old dictum, " Man the measure of things/' 
 There is a most important distinction between the two views, 
 amounting to all the difference between a sound and reverent 
 philosophy, and that higher and more vaulting speculation 
 which overleaps itself in the attempt to construct the uni- 
 verse from the mere abstract forms of human thought. In 
 the latter case, alone, is man made the " measure of things/' 
 when he aspires not merely to apprehend truth, and to 
 stand face to face with it, but to comprehend and contain 
 all truth within the limits of his mental conceptivity. In 
 
DOCTEINE OF FINAL CAUSES. 59 
 
 the one case man only aspires to the knowledge of God, 
 without which he were the most miserable of all beings 
 that inexplicable contradiction which he has been sometimes 
 painted ; in the other he aspires to be as God an attitude 
 in which he appears just as ridiculously and falsely exalted, 
 as, in the other, he is wretchedly and falsely degraded. 
 
 We approach here that significant opposition in the modes 
 of thought we are considering, at which we have already 
 hinted, and which is highly worthy of our notice in conclu- 
 sion. The question before us, resolved into this its most gene- 
 ral shape, comes undoubtedly to be one regarding the whole 
 position and dignity of man in the universe. According to 
 the old religious view, on which Christianity, as well indeed 
 as all Religion and all Philosophy, rests, man is considered 
 to be not merely a creature, making his appearance in the 
 course of nature, but a creature, while in nature, at the same 
 time in a true sense above it specially allied to its Divine 
 Source. The perfect expression of this only truly religious 
 and philosophic view is given in the imperishable language 
 of Scripture " God made man in His own image/' The 
 same truth is classically expressed in the memorial words 
 " In nature there is nothing great but man ; in man there 
 is nothing great but mind." 
 
 According to this view, man, while in the very fact of his 
 present existence a product of nature, is yet endowed with 
 capacities which exalt him far above it, and place him in a 
 perfectly peculiar relation to the universe. He is indeed 
 Matter, but yet Spirit. There is a Divine element of 
 conscious reason in him, which asserts its superiority over 
 
60 THEISM. 
 
 the whole sphere of nature, and validly finds its own laws 
 in all. In one aspect of his being, indeed, he is purely 
 natural a mere element, and a very frail one, in the world- 
 progress ; but, in another aspect, he is truly supernatural, 
 and <even the whole universe is his inferior and subject. 
 According to the fine thought of Pascal, " Man is but a reed, 
 the feeblest thing in nature ; but he is a reed that thinks 
 (un roseau pensant}. It needs not that the universe arm 
 itself to crush him. An exhalation, a drop of water, suffices 
 to destroy him. But were the universe to crush him, man 
 is yet nobler than the universe, for he knows that he dies ; 
 and the universe, even in prevailing against him, knows not 
 its power/' * 
 
 "Man is yet nobler than the universe." Here, where 
 clearly centre the most significant depths of Christian doc- 
 trine, lies also the essential doctrine of Theism. The Infi- 
 delity which rejects it, therefore, is really, probed to its bot- 
 tom, an infidelity not only in God, but in man. Reason is 
 with it only the plaything of time the growth of nature. 
 With the Theist it is the first-born of Eternity the very 
 " image of God/' The soul is infinitely higher than all 
 nature, and validly, therefore, brings all nature within its 
 sphere, and finds its own reflection everywhere in it. Mat- 
 ter is only glorified in the light of Spirit. Nature is only 
 beautiful only, in fact, intelligible in the mirror of EVEK- 
 LIVING MIND. 
 
 We receive but what we give, 
 And in our life alone does Nature live. 
 
 * Pensees. Faugere's edit. Tome ii. p. 84. 
 
GENERAL LAWS. 61 
 
 I CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 THEISTIC CONCLUSION. (GENEKAL LAWS.) 
 
 THE major premiss of our theistic syllogism has been made 
 good, according to the validity of our previous reasoning. 
 More than this, the theistic conclusion itself, in its primary 
 and most naked form, has been made good along with it. In 
 the very nature of the case, the question passed over from its 
 initiative and abstract, to its direct and conclusive statement. 
 The minor premiss was held as implied; and the essential 
 question came to be whether a mode of conception, valid in 
 certain human applications, was valid in reference to nature 
 at large whether, in short, Mind, admitted to be to man 
 the only efficient cause, was yet entitled to be considered the 
 only efficient cause and final explanation of the universe. 
 
 We have claimed this position for Mind in virtue of a 
 rational necessity, which will not allow us to rest short 
 of such a conclusion. More particularly, we have endea- 
 voured to vindicate it by determining the true nature of 
 causation, which we find to be always a relation of effi- 
 ciency, and which, therefore, at the very first, carried us be- 
 
62 THEISM. 
 
 yond the mere range of physical sequences to some Power in 
 which they originate. This Power can be nothing else than 
 a Mind, as it is only in the fact and conscious operation of 
 our own minds that we have the conception of power at all. 
 The rational necessity on which the argument thus rests can 
 only be consistently set aside by denying the veracity of our 
 rational being altogether, and so destroying the foundations 
 of all science and philosophy whatever. Mind is found in 
 nature as a whole, and held to be its only ultimate explan- 
 ation on the very same grounds on which we apply to 
 nature the forms of our mental life at all. The theistic 
 conclusion is only the fair result of the rational interpreta- 
 tion of nature carried out. 
 
 The conclusive sum of our previous argument gives us, 
 then, when fully expressed, an Intelligent First Cause of 
 nature. The root of this conclusion, however, is not in 
 external nature, but in our rational consciousness. Nay, it 
 emerges in what is distinctively called our moral conscious- 
 ness. It starts from this as its special source. But, inas- 
 much as our spiritual life is a unity, this distinctive origin 
 of the theistic conception does not affect, as some would 
 seem to think, the appropriate significance and validity of 
 the general argument from design. It only points to the 
 deep harmony which underlies the whole of the theistic evi- 
 dence. It only indicates where the links of that evidence 
 gather up into a final and irrefragable postulate of our 
 spiritual being. 
 
 Before passing from this branch of our subject, there is a 
 relation of it which it may be well to consider, with such 
 
GENERAL LAWS. 63 
 
 perverseness has it been misinterpreted and misapplied. 
 It has been held that our conclusion is at variance with the 
 results of Science. Science gives us, as the final expression 
 of phenomena everywhere, general laws, to which the 
 phenomena may all be traced back, and upon which they 
 seem to depend. It is simply the aim of Science to discover 
 these laws in every department of nature, and so to give to 
 man a greater mastery over its multiplied resources. It is 
 not, perhaps, much to be wondered at that, in the proud 
 and continued triumph with which Science has pursued her 
 course, there should have been some of her votaries who 
 believed themselves not only exposing the domain of nature, 
 but revealing the last truths which it concerns man to 
 learn. And while the great conclusion of Theism has been 
 thus deliberately discarded by certain minds, it has been felt 
 by many more as if that conclusion were somehow dan- 
 gerously affected by the discoveries of Science. 
 
 It will afterwards be our aim, in a more special way, to 
 show how little the theistic position is affected by the most 
 notable of these discoveries ; how little, in truth, we can 
 rest in even the most signal of general laws as self- 
 explanatory, as furnishing the last expression of truth 
 for the human mind. The fact is, that any such law, 
 instead of explaining the phenomena which seem to issue 
 from it, is merely the general condition in which these 
 phenomena express themselves, and apart from which it has 
 no existence. Instead of the law explaining the pheno- 
 mena, therefore, it might be more truly said that the pheno- 
 mena explain the law, just as a sum in arithmetic gives 
 
64 THEISM. 
 
 the answer rather than the answer the sum. The true 
 realities are the separate facts. The law is only the sum- 
 mary expression by which we hold these facts before our 
 mind. 
 
 In the mean time it concerns us to show how finely and 
 truly, in a right point of view, the highest conceptions of 
 Science harmonise with the theistic conclusion. It is only 
 an unworthy and absurd representation of either that leaves 
 any ground for hostility between them. 
 
 It has been presumed, for example, that there is an incon- 
 sistency between a self-acting power and that invariable 
 uniformity which is seen to characterise the operations of 
 nature. The order which Science discovers everywhere 
 is supposed, in its silent and undeviating march, to exclude 
 any personal agency. This agency is apprehended as some- 
 thing necessarily arbitrary, and hence as conflicting with 
 general laws. Volition, in short, and law or order, are con- 
 ceived of as incompatible realities ; and the idea of any 
 directing Volition is held as dispelled by the knowledge 
 which Science enables us to acquire of natural phenomena, 
 so that we can foretell and even control them.* Now, 
 
 * The following quotation will show that we do not misrepresent the doc- 
 trine of Positivism : " The fundamental character of all Theological Philosophy 
 is the conceiving of phenomena as subjected to Supernatural Volition, and con- 
 sequently (! !) as eminently and irregularly variable. Now, these Theo- 
 logical conceptions can only be subverted finally by means of these two gene- 
 ral processes, whose popular success is infallible in the long run (1) the exact 
 and rational prevision of phenomena, and (2) the possibility of modifying 
 them, so as to promote our own ends and advantages. The former immediately 
 dispels the idea of any ' Directing Volition ;' and the latter tends to the same 
 result, under another point of view, by making us regard this power as subor- 
 dinate to our own." COMTE'S Philosophy of the Sciences, by LEWES, pp. 102, 
 103. 
 
GENERAL LAWS. rtfj 
 
 nothing can well be imagined more absurd and unphiloso- 
 phical than such a notion of volition applied to the Supreme 
 Being. The only valid presumption in the case would be of 
 a totally different character. Instead of regularity being 
 supposed inconsistent with the agency of such a Being, it 
 would be held as only its appropriate expression. It is only the 
 most vicious idea of will, as divorced from reason, that could 
 for a moment give rise to a different apprehension. A 
 Supreme Will, which is at the same time Supreme Wisdom, 
 we can only think of as manifesting itself in order. The 
 actual order of nature, therefore, so far from affording a 
 ground of objection to the fact of superintending Volition, 
 is just the very form in which we should rationally conceive 
 that Volition to express itself. And the mastery which, by 
 the help of Science, we acquire over the resources of nature, 
 instead of destroying the notion of such Volition, only serves 
 to bring into clearer view the wonderful means by which it 
 works, and through which it provides for human happiness. 
 The scientific prevision of phenomena is simply the inter- 
 pretation of the plans of the Divine Reason by that human 
 reason which is allied to it, and which only finds in the 
 Divine plans the realisation of its own highest conceptions of 
 order. 
 
 The same fundamental prejudice, strange as it may seem, 
 is found even to pervade the language of Theology. Look- 
 ing upon general laws more as vast mechanisms than 
 living forces, the theologian too has been apt to consider 
 them as inconsistent with the idea of directing Volition, 
 or special Providence. They have seemed to him to destroy 
 
66 THEISM. 
 
 that living guardian presence of God in nature which the 
 heart instinctively cherishes : and he has, accordingly, some- 
 times spoken of them with a sort of jealousy. But, accord- 
 ing to their right conception, they are very far from thus 
 displacing and putting out of view the Divine Agency. 
 So very far from doing this, they are truly nothing else 
 than the expression of that Agency the continual going 
 forth of the Divine Efficiency. Instead, therefore, of post- 
 poning or removing to a distance the Divine Presence, they 
 are everywhere simply the manifestations of that Presence. 
 To suppose that, because the order of nature is fixed to us, 
 the Divine Father cannot exercise through that order a 
 special providence towards His children, is simply a presump- 
 tuous imagination of the most unworthy kind. For to the 
 great Source of Being, who " seeth in all His works the end 
 from the beginning," these only are at any moment, in all 
 their endless intricacy of action and reaction, even as He 
 appoints. The truer view, therefore, would be to regard the 
 whole course of Providence, the whole order of nature, as 
 special, in the sense of proceeding directly every moment 
 from the awful abysses of Creative Power. 
 
 Certainly, if there is any correction needed in our theological 
 conceptions and nomenclature on this subject, it is in reference 
 to the supposition of a, general rather than of a special Provi- 
 dence of the former as in any true or intelligible sense dis- 
 tinguished from the latter. For surely, to conceive of any order 
 of events, or any facts of nature, as less directly connected 
 than others with their Divine Author, is an absurdity. And 
 what, save this, can be distinctively meant by a general 
 
PROVIDENCE. 67 
 
 Providence, we are at a loss to imagine. Only suppose the 
 Deity equally present in all His works, equally active in all, 
 and Providence no longer admits of a twofold apprehension. 
 It is simply, in every possible mode of its conception, the 
 Agency of God ; equally mediate in all cases as expressing 
 itself by some means, but also in all cases equally immediate 
 as no less truly expressed in one species of means as in an- 
 other. According to this higher and comprehensive view, 
 the Divine Presence lives alike in all the Divine works. God 
 is everywhere in nature, speaking to us the same language. 
 He is equally near to us in all its more ordinary and more 
 striking aspects ; in the glad sunshine or the gentle shower, 
 as in the boding darkness and the dreadful storm ; in the 
 fall of the leaf amid the fields of autumn, as in the waste of 
 the whirlwind on the desolated plains of winter. 
 
68 THEISM. 
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER.* 
 SPECIAL (GEOLOGICAL) EVIDENCE OF A CEEATOE. 
 
 THE doctrine of an Intelligent First Cause, which it has been 
 the aim of the foregoing chapter to establish, has been sup- 
 posed to derive a special testimony and confirmation from 
 the facts of Geological science. It has been maintained that 
 these facts not only enable the Natural Theologian as in 
 the case of existing organic products to infer a supreme 
 Creative Mind, although this, too, they eminently do ; but 
 moreover conduct us directly backwards to the presence and 
 agency of such a Mind. In a word, they are said to take 
 us out of the region of natural cause and effect, and to 
 bring us face to face with the great Creative Cause. Lord 
 Brougham, in his review of the memorable labours of Cuvier 
 in the department of Fossil Osteology, was among the first to 
 draw attention to the distinctive character and cogency of 
 this branch of the theistic evidence. Dr Chalmers was dis- 
 
 * The character of the evidence treated of in this chapter sufficiently sepa- 
 rates it from the general range of merely illustrative evidence. This, upon the 
 whole, seemed to be the proper position for it. 
 
SPECIAL EVIDENCE OF A CEEATOE. 69 
 
 posed to place great stress upon it, especially as serving in a 
 direct and tangible way to extricate the Natural Theologian 
 from the meshes of Hume's sophistry. The question it in- 
 volves, the reader will at once recognise as one which has 
 recently assumed a peculiar prominence and importance in 
 scientific discussions. 
 
 Interesting, however, as this question is to the Natural 
 Theologian, it is right to observe that we do not hold it 
 to involve the essential interests of Theism. The theistic 
 argument no doubt receives a striking illumination from the 
 idea of successive creative interpositions, manifest in the 
 very structure of the earth and its organic remains. It is in 
 the highest degree significant, that, as we turn over the stony 
 tablets of the Geological volume, we should not merely be 
 arrested at every page with impressive manifestations of 
 that pervading design which we perceive everywhere, but 
 at definite intervals should gaze with awe upon the very 
 record of Creation, and behold, as it were, the finger of 
 Omnipotence in mysterious operation. Yet it is clearly 
 evident to us, and deserves to be carefully considered, that 
 even should advancing science tend to throw obscurity 
 upon the supposed traces of direct Creative Energy, the 
 great doctrine of Theism would remain altogether un- 
 touched. Even if those finger-prints of the Creator, upon 
 which the Christian Geologist has delighted to expatiate, 
 should become dim and obliterated, as the eye of Science 
 grows more familiar with them, and pierces them with a 
 keener scrutiny, the fact of a Creative Presence would 
 not thereby be really affected. God would equally, if 
 
70 THEISM. 
 
 not so strikingly, live and work in the supposed extended 
 development of creation, as in the supposed instances of 
 direct Creative Power. 
 
 It is worthy of notice how completely this is admitted by 
 the chief expounder of the development hypothesis in our 
 own country.* However his conclusions may seem, as they 
 certainly seem to us, to obscure and pervert, in its highest 
 meaning, the doctrine of Theism, they are yet by no means 
 essentially, still less expressly, atheistic. On the contrary, 
 the author strongly recognises a Supreme Mind, as necessarily 
 implied in all the order of the universe ; and, in the most 
 recent edition of his work, he has added the special confes- 
 sion, that he "believes" in a personal and intelligent God, and 
 
 * This admission is, upon the whole, so clearly and happily expressed, that 
 we are prompted to submit it to the reader. " What, in the Science of Na- 
 ture," asks the author of the Vestiges, " is a law ? It is merely the term appli- 
 cable where any series of phenomena is seen invariably to occur in certain given 
 circumstances, or in certain given conditions. Such phenomena are said to 
 obey a law, because they appear to be under a rule or ordinance of constant 
 operation. In the case of these physical laws, we can bring the idea to mathe- 
 matical elements, and see that numbers, in the expression of space or of time, 
 form, as it were, its basis. We thus trace in law, Intelligence. Often we can 
 see that it has a beneficial object, still more strongly speaking of Mind as con- 
 cerned in it. There cannot, however, be an inherent intelligence in these laws. 
 The intelligence appears external to the laws : something of which the laws are 
 but as the expressions of the Will and Power. If this be admitted, the laws 
 cannot be regarded as primary or independent causes of the phenomena of the 
 physical world. We come, in short, to a Being beyond nature its Author, its 
 God ; infinite, inconceivable, it may be, and yet one whom these very laws 
 present to us with attributes showing that our nature is in some way a faint 
 and far-cast shadow of His, while all the gentlest and beautifullest of our emo- 
 tions lead us to believe that we are as children in His care, and as vessels in 
 His hand. Let it then be understood and this is for the reader's special 
 attention that when rational law is spoken of here, reference is only made 
 to the mode in which the Divine Power is exercised. It is but another phrase 
 for the action of the ever-present and sustaining God." P. 10. 
 
SPECIAL EVIDENCE OF A CEEATOE. 71 
 
 cannot conceive of dead matter receiving life otherwise than 
 through Him* 
 
 The peculiar question involved is not one which properly 
 affects the existence of God, however deeply it may affect 
 all for which that truth is important and dear to us. It is 
 truly a question as to the mode of the Divine Agency. In 
 the one case as in the other, a Creator is admitted ; only in 
 the one case it is maintained that we have (in the fact of 
 the origin of life, for example and again, of the successive 
 animal species that have peopled the earth) the manifesta- 
 tions of a special Creative Energy ; in the other, that we 
 have merely the manifestations of an advance in the course 
 of natural law an advance not alleged to exclude the 
 Creator, yet the immediate result of an inherent impulse 
 originally imparted to matter, and not of a special creative 
 fiat. 
 
 In the question thus at issue, the burden of proof lies 
 plainly upon the advocate of the development hypothesis. 
 He proposes a special theory to account for the ascending 
 phenomena of creation, and the successive changes of organic 
 being to which Geology testifies. This theory is one which 
 is undeniably at variance with the law which now most 
 obviously regulates the production of life. The very words 
 in which the author of the Vestiges has expressed his theory 
 imply this. The hypothetical development which he defends 
 is one whereby, he says, " the simplest and most primitive 
 type, under a law to which that of like production is sub- 
 
 * Appendix to Vestiges, p. 55 ; tenth edition. 
 
72 THEISM. 
 
 ordinate, gave birth to the type next above it this again 
 produced the next type, and so on to the highest/' * But 
 the law of like production, which he here subordinates to a 
 higher and more comprehensive law, is the only one with 
 which, in the historical period of creation, we are familiar. 
 As yet we certainly possess no valid evidence of a different 
 l aw or, in other words, of the transmutation of species and 
 still less of the origin of life under any material influences, 
 electrical or otherwise. 
 
 True, it is admitted on all hands, that both vegetable and 
 animal organisms are capable of certain degrees of variation 
 and modification under external circumstances. There are 
 even, it must be granted, certain indications among the 
 lower forms of life of this modifiable capacity extending 
 farther than was at first supposed. The alleged case of the 
 JSgUops ovata ) is an illustration. But, admitting all this, 
 it will not be contended that any series of facts, as yet 
 discovered by science, tends to establish a doctrine of muta- 
 tion of species. Indications there have been sufficiently 
 curious, and fitted to arrest the inductive inquirer as to the 
 supposed accuracy of his specific distinctions, but certainly 
 no foundation whatever for denying the reality of such dis- 
 tinctions. Nay, the fact that organisms generally are modi- 
 fiable within certain limits, but not beyond them that this 
 is the unquestionable law of organic species within the his- 
 torical period, would seem to imply that there is, in all 
 
 * Vestiges ; Appendix, p. 60. 
 
 *t* This naturally barren grass, according to the alleged discovery of M. 
 Esprit Fabre, is merely the wild form of cultivated wheat. 
 
SPECIAL EVIDENCE OF A CEEATOE. 73 
 
 cases, a set boundary to the operation of external influences. 
 Definite variability within the range of species would seem 
 to form just the most strongly presumptive evidence of the 
 substantive and radical distinction of species. This is clearly 
 the truth to which the " overbalance of physiological autho- 
 rity" testifies. The decision of the authority is thus expressed 
 by Dr Whewell : " There is a capacity in all species to 
 accommodate themselves, to a certain extent, to a change 
 of external circumstances, this extent varying greatly accord- 
 ing to the species. There may thus arise changes of appear- 
 ance or structure, and some of these changes are transmis- 
 sible to the offspring ; but the mutations thus superinduced 
 are governed by constant laws, and confined within certain 
 limits. Indefinite divergence from the original type is not 
 possible ; and the extreme limit of possible variation may 
 usually be reached in a short period of time. In short, 
 species have a real existence in nature, and a transmutation 
 from one to another does not exist/' * 
 
 We are aware that it is argued by the advocate of 
 development that the law of mutation of species, which we 
 fail to discover in the present order of things, may yet have 
 been in active operation throughout the lengthened periods 
 of Geological history, in comparison with which the years 
 of man's scientific observation of the earth are not to be 
 reckoned ; but until he can show this, it is at least the safer 
 course to abide by the testimony of historical experience. 
 Here and now we perceive that the law of like from like is 
 
 * Indications of the Creator, p. 100. 
 F 
 
74 THEISM. 
 
 the law of organic production ; and if the fact of this being 
 the present law will not perhaps entitle us to pronounce 
 authoritatively that it was the law as well of the ancient 
 periods of the earth, still less, surely, are we warranted in 
 admitting the operation of a wholly different law during 
 these periods, without a wholly different kind of evidence 
 from that which Geology has yet furnished. 
 
 But even if there were as many presumptions in favour of 
 the theory of the transmutation of species as there are pre- 
 sumptions against it, there would still remain the stubborn 
 and inexplicable fact of LIFE (not to mention the higher 
 facts of Intelligence and Responsibility) in the way of the 
 adoption of the hypothesis of the Vestiges. For it will 
 hardly be seriously maintained that any of the attempts 
 which have been made to explain by natural means the 
 genesis of life from dead matter, deserves from us other 
 acknowledgment than is ever due to the persevering and aspir- 
 ing efforts of Science, in whatever direction. The theory of 
 spontaneous generation, in any shape, has undoubtedly been 
 losing rather than gaining ground from the late advances of 
 physiology. Suppositions, at one time pretty generally enter- 
 tained, as to the production of infusory animalcula apart from 
 ova, have been pronounced by Professor Owen, in conformity 
 with the result of his recent researches into the various modes 
 of reproduction with which nature has provided these ani- 
 mals, to be " quite gratuitous/' * The more thoroughly, 
 indeed, the minuter facts of nature are apprehended the 
 
 * Lectures on Comparative Anatomy, vol. ii. p. 190, quoted by Hitchcock in 
 Iris Religion of Geology, p. 269. 
 
SPECIAL EVIDENCE OF A CKEATOE. 75 
 
 more the light of science is cast upon them only the deeper 
 becomes the mystery of Life. Instead of our approaching 
 the exposure of this secret, we are only the more fully 
 taught that it lies beyond our scrutiny, and must for ever 
 baffle our research. 
 
 In the view of the facts thus briefly urged, which leave 
 the development hypothesis at the best a mere unsupported, 
 if not uninteresting, conjecture, it cannot be doubted that 
 the theory of successive creations, defended by all our 
 highest Geologists, is the one which has most claim to our 
 acceptance. It proceeds on an obvious basis of facts, which 
 not only warrants, but, in the mean time at least, seems to 
 necessitate it. In tracing backwards the Geological history, 
 we meet with phenomena which do not relate themselves to 
 antecedent phenomena in the way of natural cause and 
 effect. The supposition of a Supernatural or Creative Cause 
 seems inevitable. Be it observed that this theory, according 
 to its just meaning, does not put itself forward as a dogma. 
 It does not interdict inquiry, and pronounce that there are 
 no links of natural sequence between the phenomena in 
 question ; it only states that none such have been proved. 
 It does not judge nature, but simply interprets it ; asserting 
 merely as matter of fact, that no such links have been exposed; 
 that in our retrogressive ascent along the course of creation 
 we reach gaps in the evolution of physical sequences 
 points which yield no natural explanation, and which there- 
 fore necessitate a Supernatural. We trace backwards the 
 threads of physical relations, till we can go no farther by the 
 boldest light of Science, until, by the very penetrating blaze 
 
76 THEISM. 
 
 of its torch, we are brought face to face with directly Crea- 
 tive Power. 
 
 In thus recognising successive interventions of direct 
 Creative Power in the Geological history, we do not for a 
 moment necessarily deny the presence of a general order of 
 procession among the phenomena of creation. The advo- 
 cates of development have indeed dexterously sought to 
 represent their theory as the only possible conception of 
 processional order, applied to the universe. They have put 
 the question as between it and any intelligible theory at all. 
 But this is wholly unwarrantable ; for it surely is not in the 
 least degree necessary that we hold that the whole process 
 of creation has been a mere evolution from primordial prin- 
 ciples at first imparted to matter that, in the language of 
 Dr Whewell, " Life grows out of dead matter, the higher 
 animals out of the lower, and man out of brutes"* in order 
 to be able to discover a true and vast order of progress in 
 the course of creation. Such a merely mechanical develop- 
 ment appears, on the contrary, from its very affectation of 
 simplicity, to be an ambiguous and suspicious conception. 
 In any case it can have no claim, a priori, to represent the 
 process of creation ; and they who discredit it are not to be 
 supposed at all insensible " to the wonderful order and har- 
 mony, the gradations and connections, which run through 
 the forms of animal life, and enable the anatomist and phy- 
 siologist to pass in thought, along the unbroken line, from 
 the rudest and simplest organic germs to the most completely 
 developed animal structure/' f 
 
 * Dr WHEWELL'S Indications, Preface, p. 12. f Ibid., p. 13. 
 
ORDEE OF CREATION. 77 
 
 The idea of an ascensional order of creation is one which, 
 in our opinion, the Christian Theist is by no means called 
 upon to dispute ; and perhaps it will be admitted, on a calm 
 review of the recent controversy on the subject, that too 
 much anxiety has been evinced to break up the alleged evi- 
 dence of ascension of development, in a true sense, upon 
 which the author of the Vestiges has founded his con- 
 clusions. Even should the supposed discovery of vertebrated 
 fossils in the lower Silurian rocks, as recently reported, be, 
 in the end, able to sustain itself, this would by no means 
 settle the matter against the theory of ascent. It would 
 by no means follow that the course of creation may not have 
 been, as a whole, from the lower to the higher, although we 
 may yet discover the highest animals in the lowest strati- 
 fied rocks. Such a discovery would, no doubt, bear with 
 damaging effect against the author of the Vestiges, but it 
 would not at all necessarily destroy a rational theory of 
 development. It does not and cannot overturn the idea of 
 a regular procession of species ; it only removes the date 
 and verge of that procession farther back. This is all that 
 such a discovery would necessarily imply ; and as Theism 
 has nothing to dread from the idea of a processional advance 
 from the lower to the higher types of being, rightly appre- 
 hended while this idea is one which commends itself by 
 its suggestive grandeur we do not see that it should either 
 attract suspicion or provoke refutation. 
 
 If only we hold by the clear conception of the course of 
 nature or, in other words, Providence being nothing else 
 than a continued forth-putting of originally Creative Energy, 
 
78 THEISM. 
 
 we shall see nothing to surprise us in the gradual rise and 
 ever-expanding development of new forms of being along the 
 march of creation. These will seem to us, on the contrary, 
 just what we might expect, so far as our expectations have 
 any claim to be regarded in the matter ; only brighter flush- 
 ings, as it were, of the Divine Presence, here and there, 
 along the extended scroll of creation, telling more directly 
 of the radiant Power which it everywhere reveals. 
 
 And this view is that which no less tells most decisively 
 against the hypothesis of the Vestiges. It is the same 
 vicious metaphysical assumption which we have seen to un- 
 derly the reasoning of the Positive School as to the direct 
 action of Divine Will being something necessarily irregular 
 being what is called (in language which concentrates the 
 whole perverted essence of the assumption) an " interference/' 
 It is undoubtedly this vicious idea, as to a necessary op- 
 position between law and Creative Will, which lies at the 
 root of the whole reasoning of the Vestiges, and forms the 
 most vital question between the author and his opponents. 
 But why, we may surely ask, should direct Creative action 
 be necessarily conceived of as an interference, and, as 
 such, unworthy of the Infinite repose and majesty of God?* 
 What is law itself, according to the clear admission of the 
 writer, but a mode of the Divine Efficiency an expression 
 of the Divine Mind or Will ? What is it that constitutes 
 the permanence which we peculiarly ascribe to law 
 
 * Every one familiar with the Vestiges will recall how repeatedly the 
 author falls back upon this assumption as to the Divine character and mode 
 of action. It is the pervading idea, in fact, in which the book obviously ori- 
 ginated. 
 
CREATIVE WILL. 79 
 
 to the order of Providence but the continued forth- 
 putting of that Efficiency? Were this forth-putting to cease 
 any moment, the law would disappear, the course of Provi- 
 dence would dissolve and vanish away. Now, because God, 
 for obvious reasons, maintains the forth-puttings of His Effi- 
 cient Energy, after certain modes which, collectively, we call 
 Nature, why should this exclude new and special forth- 
 puttings of that energy, when He may see meet in other 
 words, when fitting occasions may arise ? "Why should such 
 fresh expressions of Creative Power be supposed to be irre- 
 gularities, "interferences" in the great plan of creation 
 and not, as according to the genuine theistic conception 
 they truly are, parts in the development of that great plan 
 contemplated from the first ? Is not the former supposition 
 the one which truly degrades that Infinite Being, " who 
 knoweth all His works from the beginning to the end ?" 
 
 The truth is, it is only the most deep-seated anthropomor- 
 phism (which is yet the peculiar contempt of Materialism) 
 that gives rise to the imagination of a conflict between 
 law or order, and the special action of the Divine Will, 
 in any case. For if we remove the wholly human element 
 of imperfection, all such possible discrepancy disappears. In 
 this conception of the Highest, all arbitrariness vanishes, and 
 the whole order of nature is apprehended as simply a con- 
 tinued efflux of Infinite Power and Wisdom. 
 
SECTION II. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE (INDUCTIVE) EVIDENCE, 
 
IL CHAPTER I. 
 
 COSMICAL AEEANGEMENTS. 
 
 IN the course of our previous argument we have assumed 
 that nature everywhere presents an aspect of ORDEK. This 
 we were quite warranted in doing from the universal testi- 
 mony of Science ; and on this assumption our argument 
 advanced directly to its conclusion. Mind was found entitled 
 to stand at the head of nature as its only valid explanation. 
 With a view, however, to the complete exhibition of the 
 theistic doctrine, it is necessary to return to the minor 
 premiss of our syllogism, and unfold it at length. It is only 
 by a detailed exposition of the fact of order, as it reveals 
 itself in manifold forms in nature, that we can fully show 
 "that there is an all-powerful, Wise, and Good Being, by 
 whom everything exists." 
 
 We begin our illustrative survey with the most general 
 and comprehensive phenomena that can engage us ; those, 
 namely, disclosed by astronomy. The celestial arrangements 
 are at once the most simple and the most magnificent of 
 which we have any knowledge the most independent, and at 
 
84 THEISM. 
 
 the same time the most widely influential, of all others. Astro- 
 nomical science, above every other, has enlarged and trans- 
 formed our conceptions of the universe. Has the grand 
 utterance of ancient piety, " The Heavens declare the glory 
 of God/' lost anything of its meaning in the light of modern 
 discovery ? Or have the ever-expanding disclosures of the 
 telescope only added to it a depth and grandeur of meaning 
 hitherto inconceivable ? We will endeavour in this chapter 
 to find an answer to these questions. 
 
 The general character of our solar system may be said to 
 be now familiar to the common intelligence. It is composed, 
 so far as has hitherto been discovered, of eight planetary 
 bodies of what is called first-class magnitude, surrounding 
 the sun at different distances, with a comparatively nume- 
 rous group of smaller bodies circling between the orbits of 
 Mars and Jupiter. Previous to the year 1845 there were 
 only reckoned four of these lesser bodies ; but, on the 8th of 
 December of that year, a fifth member of the group was dis- 
 covered by Hencke ; and, since then, yearly observation has 
 been adding to their number.* It is, moreover, only a few 
 years since the last we know of the larger order of planets 
 was discovered. Previously, Uranus was supposed to be the 
 outermost of our system ; but, in the year 1846, the inde- 
 pendent calculations of two students ) conducted almost 
 simultaneously to the discovery of another planetary body 
 removed far beyond the orbit of Uranus, and circling round 
 
 * Up to the present date no fewer than thirty-two of these smaller bodies have 
 been discovered, chiefly through the labours of an English observer, Mr Hind. 
 *f- Leverrier and Adams. 
 
COSMICAL AEEANGEMENTS. 85 
 
 the sun in about double its year. The extent of the solar 
 system was thus immensely augmented. Before, it was cal- 
 culated to embrace a portion of space not less than three thou- 
 sand six hundred millions of miles in diameter. But now 
 this vast tract has been to our view nearly doubled. Almost 
 twice the distance of Uranus, another world has been found 
 attached to our system, and revolving in the warmth of 
 our sun. 
 
 But the solar system, stupendous as it is, occupies only a 
 small portion of the expanse of space. Even to the eye, 
 that space is seen to be peopled with a multitude of starry 
 bodies, of a character quite different from those that move 
 around our sun ; and the telescope brings into view not 
 merely thousands, but millions of these bodies. The great 
 zone of the Milky Way, which has in all ages arrested atten- 
 tion from its peculiar appearance, is found, on the application 
 of the telescope, to verify the conjecture of an ancient philoso- 
 pher, and to be nothing else than a pathway of stars, so densely 
 crowded as to be separately indistinguishable to the unaided 
 eye. These countless orbs Science teaches us to regard as 
 suns similar to our own, with attendant planetary trains, 
 although actual traces of these latter can scarcely be said 
 to be yet discovered. Every bright and twinkling point 
 above us, that seems to stand as a mere brilliant gem in 
 the nocturnal crown of our earth, is probably the lumi- 
 nous centre of a system often far exceeding that to which 
 we belong. For, shining as many of the stars do, with 
 a brilliancy greatly more intense than that of our sun 
 
86 THEISM. 
 
 (Sirius is reckoned equal to sixty-three suns), it is only a 
 likely inference that they irradiate and control much vaster 
 systems. 
 
 But not only has Science taught us to see in the starry 
 firmament unnumbered repetitions of simple systems resem- 
 bling our own ; it has, moreover, disclosed binary systems, 
 and even triple and quadruple, and higher combinations, all 
 entering into the scheme of the stellar universe. The mind 
 is thus not only transported in space far beyond our system ; 
 the magnitudes and distances with which it makes us 
 familiar are not only enlarged beyond all our powers of ima- 
 gination the nearest star (a Centauri) being not fewer than 
 twenty millions of millions of miles away from us, or about 
 seven hundred times farther removed from our sun than the 
 planet Neptune ; we are further introduced into wholly new 
 orders of worlds, marked by the most wonderful diversities. 
 What strange and interesting changes alone must result 
 from the simplest of the combinations which we have men- 
 tioned ! If we suppose, as it is allowable to do, that each 
 of the suns in such a system has its attendant planets, how 
 novel the physical conditions ! how singular the complexities 
 of relationship which they must present ! " Besides passing 
 through the varying climates of a year, depending on its 
 revolution around its own luminary, every planet of either 
 system must undergo the changes of another cycle, whose 
 course is the great period of the Binary system, and which 
 at one of its terms must subject it to the influence of two 
 suns virtually in contact ! And as to the movements of 
 

 COSMICAL AKRANGEMENTS. 87 
 
 bodies acted on by forces so strange and fluctuating, we 
 can have little other idea except that it is a sequence or 
 succession of bouleversements, the virtual periodic overthrow- 
 ing by each sun of the independence of the system estab- 
 lished by the other, which again is to recover itself in so far 
 during the years leading to their elongation/' * If we add 
 to these considerations the well-ascertained fact of the diver- 
 sity of colour which distinguishes not a few of the double 
 stars,-f- we shall derive a still more striking impression of 
 the peculiarities of Existence to be found in the stellar 
 spaces peculiarities doubtless increasing in novelty and 
 intricacy with the ascending complexity of the starry 
 groups. In the language of Sir John Herschel, " it may be 
 easier suggested in words than conceived in imagination 
 what a variety of illumination two stars a red and a green, 
 or a yellow and blue one must afford a planet circulating 
 around either ; and what cheering contrasts and grateful 
 vicissitudes a red and a green day, for instance, alternating 
 with a white one and with darkness must arise from the 
 presence or absence of one or other, or both, from the 
 horizon ! " 
 
 But all this even by no means exhausts the extent of view 
 or variety of cosmical life which the telescope has revealed 
 to us. We are enabled, by the light of recent astronomy, 
 
 * NICHOL'S Architecture of the Heavens, p. 217. 
 
 *t* Struve records that in at least one hundred and four binary systems the 
 two stars exhibit the complementary colours that is, the colour of one con- 
 stituent belongs to the red or least refrangible end of the spectrum, while that 
 of the other belongs to the violet or most refrangible extremity. Hid., p. 218. 
 
88 THEISM. 
 
 to penetrate to still vaster depths and hitherto unimagined 
 worlds. In various quarters of the heavens the telescope 
 has discovered patches of dim hazy light, now well known 
 by the name of Nebulce. Some of these were from the first 
 recognised to be dense clusters of stars, only rendered indis- 
 tinct and nebulous from their immense remoteness ; others, 
 however, were supposed to possess a quite distinct character 
 to be portions of diffused gaseous matter incapable of being- 
 resolved by any telescopic power, but, as was conjectured, in 
 the course of being condensed into separate stars. And so 
 generally did this view prevail for a while, that an hypo- 
 thesis was built upon it to explain the whole course of 
 cosmical creation. Many of the phenomena, however, upon 
 which this hypothesis rested, have been found to lose their 
 supposed character of distinction under the application of 
 Lord Kosse's magnificent telescope, so recently brought to 
 the service of astronomy. Nebulous masses, previously 
 irresolvable, have been at once resolved by it. What had 
 seemed only dim patches of twilight haze, as yet unformed 
 into suns, are discovered to be already systems of countless 
 suns glowing with ancient fire. 
 
 The great conclusion to which these nebulous phenomena 
 everywhere point is, that the starry firmament of which our 
 system is a part, is only a member of innumerable galaxies 
 of firmaments that people the tracts of space. The millions 
 of suns that shoot towards us their arrowy light from such 
 immeasurable distances, and the millions of systems attached 
 to them, are after all, as it were, an insignificant portion of 
 
COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 89 
 
 the suns and systems that actually exist. Beyond the 
 limits of our sidereal firmament, and with what spaces of 
 desert and trackless gloom intervening we cannot in the 
 feeblest degree imagine, there lie other firmaments, it may 
 be far vaster and grander than our own. Looking out far 
 beyond the milk-white girdle of our own galaxy, we are 
 transported into regions where other galaxies lie all 
 around, some of them of the most strange and marvellously 
 impressive shapes. " Improbable as it must have seemed," 
 says Dr Nichol,* " previous to discovery by unimpeachable 
 observation, the spiral figure is characteristic of an exten- 
 sive class of galaxies. Majestic associations of orbs, arranged 
 in this winding form branches, as above, issuing like a 
 divergent geometric curve from a globular cluster, these 
 rise up on all sides as the telescope journeys onward, sup- 
 planting shapes formerly imagined to be most simple, be- 
 cause of their obscurity/' Unexhausted marvels thus crowd 
 upon us as we penetrate into space ; for, after all that the 
 telescope has even now revealed, we know not what may 
 still lie beyond. When we remember that, in order to 
 enable us to see anything by the telescope or otherwise, 
 light must reach us from it, may there not be firmaments so 
 immeasurably distant as to be beyond our utmost powers of 
 vision? So distant are some of the ascertained nebulas 
 that their light is not supposed to reach us in less than 
 fifty thousand or sixty thousand years. How true may it 
 be, then, that there may be many starry shores in the sea of 
 
 * Architecture of the Heavens, p. 94. 
 G 
 
90 THEISM. 
 
 immensity, bright with a beauty of their own, no ray from 
 which ever shines on us. 
 
 If we now turn from the first bewildering view of these 
 vast cosmical revelations to contemplate them more steadily, 
 we find throughout all the august presence of OEDEK. Even 
 in those twilight regions, in which the telescope is our only 
 guide, and among phenomena whose very existence it strug- 
 glingly essays to determine, we find ever, along with the 
 mere fact of existence, indications of arrangement. Speaking 
 of those most recent marvels of cosmical being, the spiral 
 nebulse, Dr Nichol testifies that, mysterious and bewilder- 
 ing as seem such shapes, they "have nothing in common 
 with the fantastic creations of a dream. It is the essence of 
 these nebulae that they are not formless, but, on the con- 
 trary, impressed indelibly by system on the grandest scale : 
 clearly as a leaf, they have an organism ; something has 
 seized on their enormous volumes, and moulded them into a 
 wonderful order/' * 
 
 Passing to our own galaxy, and the diversified phenomena 
 which it presents, we can, in the nature of things, trace more 
 distinctly the indications of system. Besides the motions to 
 which we have already referred of multiple stars around one 
 another, revealing such grand and peculiar varieties of 
 order, it may now be said to be established that there is 
 a general motion pervading our galaxy. So long ago 
 as 1783, Sir William Herschel was impressed with the 
 fact of our sun being in movement, and this fact has at 
 length been amply verified. The sun's course is found to be 
 
 * Architecture of the Heavens, p. 100. 
 
COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 91 
 
 towards the constellation Hercules, and the rate even of his 
 progress has been calculated. As there can exist no doubt 
 that this solar motion is only a type of what prevails among 
 the stars generally, we are thus led to the conclusion of a 
 grand galactic movement. Whatever credit may be due to 
 Professor Madler's conjecture, that the present position of 
 one of the Pleiades (the star Alcyone) represents the apparent 
 position of the common centre of force to the firmamental 
 system, there cannot be any question that our sun and the 
 other stars are revolving round such a distant centre. 
 And this mighty movement, however we may more particu- 
 larly regard it, is a vast harmonious one, shared in by the 
 several orbitual systems. The subordinate movements of so 
 much variety and complexity unite in the general proces- 
 sion, which sway, as with an instinct of brotherhood, all the 
 members of the galaxy. There is no appearance of disorder 
 or disruption. One vast government guides the whole. 
 
 As far as we can penetrate, therefore, and wherever we 
 trace existence, we trace, at the same time, order. The 
 discoveries of astronomy, in their widest and most marvel- 
 lous bearings, are simply revelations of hitherto hidden 
 harmonies. 
 
 And as we descend from these loftier stellar spaces in 
 which, with all we see, we still see so imperfectly to the 
 sphere of our own system, whose magnitudes and movements 
 have been so accurately determined, we find the evidences of 
 arrangement to multiply around us. This is only what we 
 might expect. While travelling, by the help of the tele- 
 scope, in regions so remote as those of stellar existence, we 
 
92 THEISM. 
 
 can but faintly note the special combinations which there 
 exist. It is only far-off and partial glimpses of those higher 
 mechanisms we can catch. Darkness still overhangs the 
 bright route of the telescope. It is enough that what we do 
 see everywhere speaks of order. 
 
 But in the contemplation of our own planetary system, 
 we are not only able to mark the general presence of order, 
 we can note and appreciate, moreover, the several special 
 conditions entering into the construction of the system, and 
 on which, as well as on the great pervading energies of 
 attraction and impulse, its maintenance depends. These 
 conditions are all so many instances of arrangement. This 
 has been recently so well shown by Dr Whewell in his 
 Bridgewater Treatise, that nothing almost remains to be 
 added to his impressive argument. We merely present one 
 or two of its features. 
 
 Among the most marked characteristics of our system is 
 the luminous nature of its central body. Nowhere else, 
 obviously, could light have been placed with equal advantage 
 for diffusion throughout the entire system. Now, whence 
 this light ? It cannot be said that there is any necessary 
 connection between the mere matter of the sun and its 
 luminousness. According to the conjectures of astronomers, 
 indeed, the heat and light of the sun are not supposed to 
 reside in its mass, but in a coating or envelope which sur- 
 rounds it. Why, then, should it come to pass that this 
 coating of light should be, among the bodies of the system, 
 confined to the sun, just where it is peculiarly adapted for 
 use? The mere position of the sun cannot furnish any 
 
COSMICAL AEEANGEMENTS. 93 
 
 adequate explanation of this. Its position displays the 
 fitness of the fact ; but we are unable to recognise any 
 necessity for the fact in the position. The only admissible 
 conclusion is, that this was an express arrangement designed 
 for the purpose which it so obviously serves. Newton was 
 particularly impressed with the force of this conclusion. In 
 the first of his famous series of letters to Bentley, he has 
 expressed it with his wonted simplicity and force. Allowing 
 that matter would collect into masses by the power of 
 attraction, he believes that the sun and fixed stars might 
 thus be formed, supposing the matter were of a lucid nature. 
 " But how/' he continues, " the matter should divide itself 
 into two sorts, and that part of it which is fit to compose 
 a shining body should fall down into one mass and make a 
 sun, and the rest, which is fit to compose an opaque body, 
 should coalesce, not into one great body, like the shining 
 matter, but into many little ones ; or if the sun were at first 
 an opaque body like the planets, or the planets lucid bodies 
 like the sun, how he alone should be changed into a shining 
 body, whilst all they continue opaque ; or all they be changed 
 into opaque ones, while he continued unchanged, I do not 
 think explicable by mere natural causes, but am forced to 
 ascribe it to the counsel and contrivance of a voluntary 
 Agent/' 
 
 The uniform character of the planetary motions presents 
 striking evidence of order. We find these motions to be all 
 in nearly circular orbits in the same direction, and in 
 nearly the same plane. There is here surely the clear im- 
 press of arrangement. For to what can we attribute this 
 
94 THEISM. 
 
 uniformity, save to a uniform determination of original 
 impulse ? " There is but one circle ; there are an infinite 
 number of ovals. Any original impulse would give some 
 oval, but only one particular impulse, determinate in velocity 
 and direction, will give a circle. If we suppose the planet 
 to be originally projected, it must be projected perpendicu- 
 larly to its distance from the sun, and with a certain precise 
 velocity, in order that the motion may be circular. . 
 No one can believe that the orbits were made to be so nearly 
 circles by chance, any more than he can believe that a 
 target, such as archers are accustomed to shoot at, was 
 painted in concentric circles by the accidental dashes of a 
 brush in the hands of a blind man/' * And this conviction 
 is greatly heightened when we bring into view the further 
 features of the planetary motions. For anything in the 
 nature of the case that we can see, any one of the planets 
 might have moved in a different direction, or in a different 
 plane ; 'but not one of them does so. It is not merely a 
 single uniformity which characterises their motions, but they 
 present exactly the same combination of uniformities. The 
 inference seems irresistible, that such a combination of 
 identical results could only spring from an identity of 
 purpose. 
 
 But the proof of arrangement comes out most strongly 
 when we contemplate the great end which these uniformities 
 of planetary movement subserve in the maintenance of the 
 system. Had a different determination been given to any 
 one of the elements of this movement, it is demonstrable 
 
 * Dr Whewell's Bridgewater Treatise, pp. 154, 156. 
 
COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 95 
 
 that the stability of the system would have been impaired. 
 Had, for example, the orbits of the planets been of extremely 
 varied eccentricity, instead of being, as they are, nearly cir- 
 cular had they moved in different directions, or in different 
 planes, it is undoubted that, under the existing law of gra- 
 vitation, their mutual interferences would have terminated 
 in confusion and destruction. Even as it is, the attraction of 
 the planets upon one another, as well as upon the sun, results 
 in a partial derangement, which, however insignificant over 
 a given space of time, it was for a time supposed might, in 
 the lapse of ages, end in breaking up the system. Under 
 the influence of their mutual attraction, changes are actually 
 going on in the motions of the planetary bodies ; the eccen- 
 tricity of the earth's orbit is diminishing, the moon is 
 approaching nearer the earth, and its motion in consequence 
 becoming accelerated. So slight, indeed, is the course of 
 these changes, and so vast the cycle in which they run, that 
 they have been going on progressively from the earliest 
 observations to our own times. Yet, if they were unlimited, 
 it cannot be doubted that they would at length reach a 
 climax of subversion and ruin. And for some time it was 
 really uncertain whether our system might not thus be 
 tending, from the inherent character of its constitution, to 
 decay. Newton did not undertake to pronounce upon the 
 question ; but Lagrange and Laplace succeeded in showing 
 that this partial derangement, extending over such length- 
 ened periods, was yet only of limited operation. After 
 reaching a certain stage, reaction ensues. The orbits do not 
 continue to deviate in one direction ; but they deviate period- 
 
96 THEISM. 
 
 ically now in this, and now in the opposite direction. The 
 planetary perturbations are not indefinitely progressive, 
 long as they continue in one direction, but oscillatory. 
 After reaching a certain height they return and correct 
 themselves. And what chiefly deserves our attention is, 
 that the special conditions of this periodical adjustment of 
 the planetary system are those uniformities of movement 
 which so prominently characterise the various bodies of the 
 system. " I have succeeded/' says Laplace, " in demonstrat- 
 ing that whatever be the masses of the planets, in conse- 
 quence of the fact that they all move in the same direction, 
 in orbits of small eccentricity, and slightly inclined to each 
 other, their secular inequalities are periodical, and included 
 within narrow limits; so that the planetary system will 
 only oscillate about a mean state, and will never deviate 
 from it except by a very small quantity/'* 
 
 When we turn from these special characteristics of the 
 planetary movements to the great law expressed in all, and 
 under which they all proceed, the same aptitude of appoint- 
 ment meets us. While it cannot be said that of all 
 laws that of gravitation is the only conceivable one, the 
 only one compatible with the maintenance of the system, 
 it has yet been shown, in the clearest manner, that of all 
 others this law is at once the most fitting and the most 
 simple. It is owing alone to the particular measure of the 
 attractive force that the planets return regularly in the same 
 track, preserving with very slight deviations the same 
 periods in their revolutions. Had this force varied other- 
 
 * Systeme du Monde, book iv. chap. ii. p. 226, quoted by Dr Whewell, p. 164. 
 
COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 97 
 
 wise than inversely with the square of the distance, this 
 regularity in the orbits of the planets would have been 
 entirely destroyed.* It is remarkable, moreover, that this 
 is the only law save that of direct distance (otherwise 
 unsuitable) which is the same for spherical masses, such as 
 the planets, and for the separate particles composing them. 
 This is surely a significant and wonderful provision. The 
 mind is filled with a solemn sense of simplicity as it con- 
 templates the varied and beautiful operation of such a law, 
 alike binding the dew into glistening gems, and holding the 
 planets and the stars in their courses. 
 
 On the whole, we perceive everywhere among the celes- 
 tial phenomena, adaptation. Order meets us wherever we 
 turn our gaze. The old atheistic notion of chance has 
 wholly disappeared before the discoveries of science. Every- 
 where, therefore, in the course of our survey, the theistic 
 conclusion is impressively forced upon us. The agency of a 
 mighty Mind, working in all this order, is irresistibly mani- 
 fested. As of old, the " heavens declare the glory of God/' 
 In the language of Newton, " Elegantissima hcecce compages 
 solis, planetarum et cometarum (et stellarum) non nisi 
 consilio et dominio Entis cujusdam potentis et intelli- 
 gentis oriri potuit." 
 
 In this conclusion we might rest securely on the grounds 
 already laid down. It is irrefragable, on our general basis 
 of reason. In reference, however, to certain objections 
 which have been specially urged against it in this region, 
 it deserves some further attention. Astronomy is the 
 
 * Dr Whewell's Bridgewater Treatise, p. 220. 
 
98 THEISM. 
 
 favourite sphere of the scientific materialist. Whatever 
 sciences may still linger within the domain of theology, this 
 is considered finally emancipated from its control. Those 
 same facts which to the reverent mind of Newton were so 
 irresistibly demonstrative of Divine power and wisdom, to 
 the minds of others are only indicative of a vast necessity, 
 which, unintelligent in its character, is by no means to be 
 considered perfect in its working. And this antagonism of 
 opinion, of ancient date, continues to live, and even to de- 
 velop itself with clearer prominence than ever, in our present 
 modes of thought. 
 
 According to the modern school of scientific materialists, 
 the planetary and cosmical order is sufficiently explained by 
 the law of gravity. It is simply the necessary result of 
 this law, beyond which, as an explanation of the universe, 
 we are not competent to go. This mode of explanation, 
 if not distinctly announced by Laplace himself, has sought 
 confirmation in the tone of his reasoning in different parts 
 of the Systeme du Monde, and especially in his famous cos- 
 mogonic hypothesis. Laplace certainly discarded all notion 
 of design in connection with the planetary mechanism as 
 unphilosophical, and even ventured to point out in one 
 instance, in regard to the motion of the moon, how it 
 might have been, for the bestowal of light, more advantage- 
 ously arranged.* 
 
 M. Comte has however outstripped his master, and declares 
 the inconsistency of astronomy not only with the doctrine 
 of final causes, but with every idea of religion. He ridi- 
 
 * Sy steme du Monde, book iv. chap. v. p. 266. 
 
COSMICAL AKEANGEMENTS. 99 
 
 cules the grand sentiment of the Psalmist with which we 
 set out, and pronounces that to minds "early familiarised with 
 true philosophical astronomy, the heavens declare no other 
 glory than that of Hipparchus, of Kepler, of Newton, and of 
 all those who have aided in establishing their laws." "No 
 science/' he says, "has given more terrible shocks to the 
 doctrine of final causes than astronomy. The simple know- 
 ledge of the movement of the earth must have destroyed the 
 original and real foundation of this doctrine the idea of the 
 universe subordinated to the earth, and consequently to man. 
 Besides, the accurate exploration of our solar system could 
 not fail to dispel that blind and unlimited admiration which 
 the general order of nature inspired, by showing in the most 
 sensible manner, and in a very great number of different 
 respects, that the orbs were certainly not disposed in 
 the most advantageous manner, and that science permitted 
 us easily to conceive a better arrangement by the develop- 
 ment of true celestial mechanism since Newton. All the 
 theological philosophy, even the most perfect, has been 
 henceforth deprived of its principal intellectual function, 
 the most regular order being thence consigned as neces- 
 sarily established and maintained in our world, and even 
 in the whole universe, by the simple mutual gravity of its 
 several parts." * 
 
 The grounds on which we rest the doctrine of final 
 causes, and on which we consider it wholly untouched by 
 the discoveries of science, have already been sufficiently 
 explained. All, therefore, which demands our present atten- 
 
 * COMTE, Philosophic Positive, tome ii. p. 36-38. 
 
100 THEISM. 
 
 tion in this famous classical passage of atheism is, the asser- 
 tion of the necessity and explanatory sufficiency of the law 
 of gravity. Have we any right to regard this law as neces- 
 sarily existent ? Would it explain the phenomena in ques- 
 tion even if it were ? 
 
 Now, so far from our having any right to regard the law 
 of gravity as necessarily existent, the truth is, that it is a 
 mere assumption to speak of this law as existent by itself 
 at all. We know the law in certain phenomena in those 
 orderly manifestations of which we have been speaking. It 
 is the expression of the relation of these phenomena, but 
 nothing more. It is the name by which we generalise and 
 hold before our mind the action of these phenomena, but 
 nothing more. To regard it for a moment, therefore, by 
 itself, as a necessary power or property, to whose operation 
 we can conceive the cosmical order to be owing, is simply 
 to impose upon our imagination by a fiction ; and if it is 
 not so regarded, it amounts to nothing ; it explains nothing. 
 It simply assigns for the fact of the cosmical order, the fact ; 
 while yet our reason imperatively demands an explanatory 
 origin of this fact. 
 
 But even if we allowed the necessary existence of gravity, 
 it would not explain the whole order of phenomena before 
 us. Even if we granted it to be an independent property 
 working in matter, the position of the materialist would not 
 be made good. So far, indeed, it may be admitted, accord- 
 ing to the Laplacian cosmogony, that the simple operation 
 of gravity would account for the successive formation of the 
 planetary bodies, and their motion round a common centre; 
 
COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 101 
 
 yet how much would this still leave unexplained ! Given 
 the nebulous mass and the force of gravity, it is conceivable 
 that, under the continued action of this force, the mass 
 would be broken up and condensed into separate parts, each 
 taking a necessary position and assuming a necessary mo- 
 tion. But, as has been urged, whence the existence of the 
 nebulous mass itself? Whence the peculiar character which 
 enabled it to separate and contract in the fitting way, and in 
 no other ? Whence the determinate velocity of the primi- 
 tive movement, destined to such results, and no other? 
 Whence, particularly, certain phenomena which do not lie 
 in the plane of the planetary movements, nor proceed in 
 the same course, although, according to the Laplacian view, 
 all the generated motions must lie in the same plane, and 
 be in the same direction ? * To such questions the theory 
 gives no answer. Gravity, therefore, even if admitted to 
 be the cause of the planetary order so far, entirely fails to 
 account for that order as a whole. Even if necessary, it 
 is inadequate as a source of explanation. 
 
 In truth, and in conclusion, the Laplacian cosmogony, 
 while interesting as a speculation, and serving to point, as 
 by a venturous aim, the path of knowledge beyond the exist- 
 ing order of things, is yet, no less than any other cosmogonic 
 theory, wholly worthless as a final explanation of things. 
 
 * When Laplace proposed his hypothesis, it was believed that not only the 
 planets, but their satellites, all moved in the same direction, from west to east ; 
 "but since that time," says Sir D. Brewster, "all the satellites of Uranus 
 have been found to move in an opposite direction ; and Mr Hind has very re- 
 cently found that the satellite of Neptune also moves in the opposite direction ; 
 thus proving that the hypothesis is utterly incapable of explaining the celestial 
 motions." More Worlds than One, p. 122. 
 
102 THEISM. 
 
 To suppose it for a moment to be such an explanation, were 
 not merely to exalt man to be the interpreter, but the God of 
 nature. It were to constitute his proud dreams the measure 
 of existence in the most daring sense, and verily, with Comte, 
 to make the heavens reflect his glory. The highest, which 
 is also the most reverent reason, at once shrinks from and 
 contradicts such pretensions. It allows the speculation 
 for what it may be worth, but utterly disallows it as a final 
 efficient explanation. Here, as everywhere, we can only 
 rest in an original self-subsistent Mind, in which the whole 
 cosmical order lives, and from which it ever proceeds. This, 
 the conclusion in which the great intellect of Newton rested, 
 is that which the common reason universally demands, and 
 in which alone it can find satisfaction evermore. 
 
STRUCTUKE OF THE EAETH. 103 
 
 II. CHAPTER II. 
 
 STEUCTUEE OF THE EAETH. 
 
 DESCENDING from the contemplation of the celestial order, 
 in the composition of which our globe is only an insignifi- 
 cant element, we turn our attention to the massive structure 
 of that globe itself. We carry our illustrative survey from 
 the vast regions and unnumbered worlds, lying all around us 
 in space, and with which we are only enabled dimly to con- 
 verse, to the bosom of that familiar earth on which we 
 dwell, and which everywhere invites our inspection. 
 
 We are prepared to trace order here, as in the far-off 
 regions we have been traversing. To the untutored eye, 
 the mass of our earth may seem a mere vast conglome- 
 ration, even as the heavens seem a mere mazy dance of 
 sparkling lights ; but as science has disclosed the magnificent 
 system of the one, so has it unfolded the special structure 
 of the other. As in the heavens we still read in the blaze 
 of modern astronomy the glory of God, so in the crust of the 
 earth do we read, in the light of modern geology, the im- 
 press of Divine power and wisdom. As we confine our 
 
104 THEISM. 
 
 attention here to the massive construction of this crust, a 
 few words will suffice to bring before us the facts which the 
 subject involves. 
 
 The component rocks of the earth are divided into two 
 great classes stratified and unstratified. The latter repre- 
 sent the oldest, and, so to speak, the original material of the 
 earth. They constitute its solid basement. The foundations 
 of the structure are laid in granite. The hard and agglu- 
 tinated character of these rocks favours the supposition that 
 they were originally in a state of fusion. There cannot, at 
 least, be any doubt that they are of igneous production. 
 Their unworn and angular crystals clearly point to such a 
 mode of production. 
 
 The stratified rocks, in all their varieties, present different 
 peculiarities of formation. Those which lie immediately 
 above the unstratified granitic mass, closely resemble the 
 latter in character : they are in fact composed of the same 
 constituents, different only in the form and proportion in 
 which they are aggregated. Their crystalline texture betrays 
 the same fiery agency which discovers itself in the parent 
 rock. At the same time, they bear marks of distinctive origin. 
 Their crystals are worn and abraded by the action of atmos- 
 pheric and aqueous influences. Yet the igneous character 
 is here still predominant ; and, as might be expected, in the 
 fire-locked embrace of these primary rocks there is to be 
 found no trace of organic existence. 
 
 Above what we may call this hard and unfossiliferous 
 basis, the fossiliferous rocks rise in an ascending series, com- 
 prehending various systems which geologists have grouped 
 
STEUCTUKE OF THE EARTH. 105 
 
 into three great periods or epochs, successively called Palceo- 
 zoic, Secondary, and Tertiary. The Palaeozoic group, which is 
 next in age to the metamorphic rocks, comprehends the vast 
 systems of the lower and upper Silurian, the Old red sand- 
 stone, and the Coal-measures. The crystalline texture of the 
 previous rocks disappears, save among the lowest of these 
 strata, and a clayey or sandy texture takes its place, dis- 
 covering the more powerful working of those atmospheric 
 and aqueous influences which we have mentioned. Here, 
 also as the name of the group implies in the Llandeilo flags 
 of the lower Silurian, we find the first traces of organic 
 being, which henceforth multiply, in endless and marvellous 
 forms, in the onward course of the earth's growth. In the 
 great carboniferous system we perceive in a very large de- 
 gree the operation of a further influence in the formation of 
 the earth's crust the submersion and depression, namely, of 
 organic remains. This, in the ascending history of our globe, 
 is one of the most extensive of all the causes contributing to 
 the earth's formation, in respect not merely of vegetable, 
 but also of animal remains. The former, it is well known, 
 are the peculiar ingredient of the vast coal-measures. In them 
 we behold the deposition of the enormous vegetation which, 
 in the carboniferous era, must have overspread the earth 
 vegetation in comparison with which, it has been said, the 
 existing jungle of the tropics is mere barrenness. 
 
 In the secondary period we have, as in the Palasozoic, three 
 great systems, the New red sandstone, the Oolitic, and the 
 Chalk the Oolitic being especially remarkable as the era of 
 
 H 
 
106 THEISM. 
 
 those gigantic reptiles, whose strange and fearful forms at 
 once amaze the ignorant and interest the curious. 
 
 With the tertiary period with whose subdivisions, as 
 laid down by Lyell, and generally accepted by geologists, 
 we need not here concern ourselves we approach our own 
 era. We meet with animals of dimensions, indeed, far ex- 
 ceeding any with which we are now familiar, but in struc- 
 ture allied to existing species. We are carried forwards to 
 an arrangement of physical conditions not differing widely 
 from the present. 
 
 Such is a brief statement of the successive materials, so to 
 speak, which compose the structure of the earth. Imperfect 
 as it is, it is sufficiently complete for our purpose. In the 
 mere facts thus disclosed, there seems already evidence of 
 the order for which we seek. The actual structure of the 
 earth, however, is something very different from that now 
 suggested. It is not built up in the manner we have de- 
 scribed, with the successive systems regularly laid upon one 
 another, as they were progressively formed the earliest 
 everywhere lowest, and the latest highest. If such had been 
 its actual construction, that construction would probably 
 have for ever remained a secret to us. We could not have 
 penetrated to its deep and hidden foundations. As it is, 
 however, we are enabled to explore the whole structure, and 
 find order and beauty in it, through means which might have 
 seemed only destined to insure its destruction. Its founda- 
 tions have been laid bare to us ; while its later architecture 
 lies equally exposed, not in mere disrupted fragments, but in 
 vast and orderly terraces. The fact is, that in the process of 
 
STRUCTURE OF THE EARTH. 107 
 
 the earth's formation, during the long periods which had been 
 employed in the gradual deposition of the various strata in 
 the order of time we have described, those igneous agencies 
 concerned in the production of the earliest rocks continued 
 at work, breaking up and dislocating the incumbent strata, 
 and forcing the granite upwards in all directions. To the 
 same causes the different species of trap-rocks, piercing up- 
 wards in great veins, owe their elevation causes which we 
 still see in some degree active in our volcanoes. Whatever 
 theory may be held as to the special intensity of these causes 
 in the past periods of the earth's history whether we adopt 
 a catastrophic or a uniformitarian hypothesis the result 
 is the same. The granite, which is everywhere the base of 
 the earth's crust, has yet been elevated far above all the 
 posterior strata. It is no longer merely the impenetrable 
 foundation or central abutment of the rocky systems ; 
 but it stretches upwards in vast branches, forming, so to 
 speak, a skeleton framework for the earth. Somewhat as 
 the bony skeleton in the living body everywhere ramifies 
 it, giving strength and consistency to all its parts, so the 
 granitic framework pierces on all sides throughout the 
 earth's crust, compacting and consolidating it into its pre- 
 sent state. And even somewhat as the muscular tissues 
 and folds of flesh overlie the bony skeleton, and find in it 
 their ultimate points of support, so do the various rocky 
 tissues, the successive folds of softer material, rest against 
 the mountain masses. We must surely in all this trace evi- 
 dence of special arrangement. " It is not," as Dr Chalmers 
 has said, " from some matter being harder than others that 
 
108 THEISM. 
 
 we infer design ; but when we see the harder placed just 
 where it is most needed, the inference seems irresistible/' 
 And in the present case it is surely impossible to contem- 
 plate the peculiar disposition of the granite in our earth, with- 
 out recognising that so it must have been placed. The very 
 terms which we are compelled to use in speaking of it, after 
 the least theological fashion, imply so much. That so it is 
 by any mere accident, is altogether inconceivable. The enor- 
 mous agencies concerned in the elevation of the granite 
 could we have seen them operating might have seemed 
 merely blind and lawless ; but the result is order, and we 
 cannot help concluding that some presiding mind has been at 
 work. The granite has been upheaved, it may be, by con- 
 vulsive agencies of a magnitude and intensity far beyond any 
 of which we have now experience ; the superimposed strata 
 have been rent, and tossed hither and thither. The vast 
 process by ^vhich this was accomplished might have seemed 
 mere wild confusion. But pierce and bore the earth in all 
 directions, there is really nothing like confusion. The term 
 is indeed unknown to science, and to no science more than 
 to geology, immense and catastrophic, according to the most 
 common opinion, as are the changes with which it has to do. 
 Let the granite, for example, rise to whatever heights let it 
 tower in whatever alpine magnitudes we never find that 
 its proper, or what we might call its constitutional position, 
 is altered : the foundations are still granite, if the granitic 
 mass yet stretch in cleaving branches through the sedimen- 
 tary strata, and far overreach their roof. 
 
STRUCTURE OF THE EARTH. 109 
 
 And even so of all the different strata over the diversi- 
 fied surface of the earth ; they all of them lie, as we have 
 mentioned, severally exposed, characterising, in their dis- 
 tribution, different countries and localities. The old red 
 sandstone and carboniferous systems of the palaeozoic era, 
 for instance, form the immediate platform of large tracts of 
 our island. The oolitic system of the reptilean era marks its 
 eastern seaboard, while the chalk extends on the south and 
 south-east. The whole economy of the terrene architecture 
 is thus laid bare. It is spread out for our inspection ; but, 
 while all the various depositions thus appear on the surface, 
 there is no confusion in their relative positions. They are 
 never found at random one set of strata being now below 
 and then above another set but always occupying the same 
 relation to one another. If we find, for example, the lower 
 silurian formation exposed in Wales, it is everywhere found 
 to rest directly on the granite ; if we find the old red sand- 
 stone in Devonshire, it again rests on the silurian, and the 
 carboniferous system again on it. We never find the 
 silurian imposed on the old red sandstone, nor the chalk 
 below the oolitic. A set structure is surely here in the 
 clearest manner discernible. We cannot well conceive any 
 higher idea of structure than just such a special distribution 
 of parts, the parts of the same character being always 
 found in the same place, in relation to the others. 
 
 The order, indeed, which the mass of our earth discovers, 
 is on a vast and comprehensive scale, which may not very 
 readily fall in with our preconceptions or fancies. Man's 
 
110 THEISM. 
 
 feebleness is apt everywhere not merely to limit, but to spoil 
 his judgments, so that order is perhaps more easily seen by 
 him in mere neatness and formality, than in the bursting 
 and glorious fulness of Nature's own form. Could the crust 
 of our earth, for example, have preserved that appearance of 
 uniform regularity which would have followed from the con- 
 tinuance of the sedimentary strata in the successive positions 
 of the order of their formation had it been a granite 
 nucleus surrounded, in the words of Dr Buckland, " by entire 
 concentric coverings of stratified rocks like the coats of an 
 onion," and could we have been cognisant of this regularity, 
 it might, we dare say, have impressed many more than the 
 actual structural appearance which it presents. The order 
 in the one case might have seemed more direct and apparent 
 than in the other. But as it is, it is undoubtedly a far 
 more glorious order the product of a boundlessly compre- 
 hensive Plasticity, moulding the most mighty and appa- 
 rently lawless agencies to the most magnificent, yet most 
 exquisite results, and the more perfect just as it may 
 transcend our feebleness and awaken our wonder. 
 
 Apart from the disruptive movements of which our earth 
 has been the scene, it would not have presented any of 
 its characteristic and beautiful variety of hill and valley, 
 of glen and stream. Its surface would have been a mere 
 uniform level, without life or picturesqueness ; its rivers 
 mere sluggish canals ; its whole aspect destitute of that 
 interchangeable sweetness and grandeur, softer loveliness 
 and rugged magnificence, which now makes it so glorious 
 
STKUCTUKE OF THE EAKTH. Ill 
 
 a mirror of Power and Wisdom and Goodness. To the same 
 causes obviously does it also owe its peculiar fitness as the 
 abode of human life. Tor otherwise the metals, without 
 some knowledge of which man has never been able to rise 
 above barbarism, would have been for ever concealed in 
 their native crypts. Coal would have been sunk at an im- 
 penetrable depth, which no eye could have seen, and no skill 
 have reached. And where, again, would have been our 
 oceans, with no vast hollows to repose in ? But it is need- 
 less, and even absurd, to make such suppositions. We have 
 only done so for a moment, in order to make it clear how 
 the mighty agencies which have been concerned in the pre- 
 sent structure of the globe, wild and convulsive as they may 
 have been, have been directed by the most far-reaching 
 foresight to purposes of human improvement and happi- 
 ness. They were only the tools in the Divine hand for the 
 construction of man's abode. Far from being, in any sense, 
 interferences with the terrene architecture, they were 
 the very means by which it has been built up into the 
 special order, at once most beautiful and most appropriate 
 for him. 
 
 In contemplating the great movements which geology 
 reveals, it is important to observe further how completely 
 dependent they appear. In those disruptive agencies, as well 
 as in Lhe various atmospheric, aqueous, and organic influences, 
 under the operation of which the earth has assumed its pre- 
 sent structure, it seems impossible that any one could for a 
 moment find the ultimate explanation of the phenomena 
 
112 THEISM. 
 
 presented. If there are minds content to linger among the 
 ultimate harmonies of astronomy, which stand forth so pal- 
 pably to the intellectual view, we cannot yet imagine any 
 abiding by the final agencies of geology, as if they carried 
 with them any self-sustaining or efficient energy. They 
 appear in the highest degree to be simply instrumental, 
 the merely blind agencies of a creative and designing 
 Mind. 
 
DIVINE POWER. 113 
 
 IL CHAPTER III. 
 
 COSMICAL AND TERRESTRIAL MAGNITUDES DIVINE POWER. 
 
 IN the two previous chapters we have dwelt mainly on the 
 celestial and terrestrial structures, as evincing an intelligent 
 First Cause. It is order, as such, we have been contemplat- 
 ing. We have glanced but slightly at the peculiar evidence 
 which the phenomena both of astronomy and geology fur- 
 nish of immense power concerned in their creation and 
 maintenance. So striking and impressive, however, is this 
 evidence, that it seems right to. devote a brief chapter to its 
 statement. The phenomena in question bring before us, 
 more signally than any other, an all-powerful as well as 
 wise Being. 
 
 It is of course obvious, according to our whole plan of 
 treatment, that we do not present this illustrative evidence 
 as a logical proof of the Divine omnipotence. We do not 
 profess to find the infinite in the mere bewildering magni- 
 tude and duration of the finite. This was indicated already 
 in our introductory remarks. Yet it deserves to be noticed, 
 that the only conceivable way in which the infinite could be 
 
114 THEISM. 
 
 exhibited and impressively set forth to finite beings, is by 
 such an array of phenomena as the sciences of astronomy 
 and geology unfold to us namely, by an accumulated dis- 
 play of vast magnitudes and apparently interminable dura- 
 tions. If we do not amid such views logically reach the 
 infinite, we are yet carried onwards to it, on the wings of an 
 imagination which in vain essays to grasp the immensity of 
 the fields of contemplation open to it. 
 
 The simple extent of the celestial space, briefly exhibited 
 in our first chapter, is well calculated to fill our minds with 
 vast ideas of Divine power. Looking out from beyond our 
 earth, the sphere of observation extends immeasurably on 
 all sides. Inexhaustible to the naked eye, it is equally 
 inexhaustible when, by the aid of the telescope, we are car- 
 ried into regions so inconceivably remote that the mind 
 sinks utterly overwhelmed by the spectacle. Neptune circles 
 round the sun at a distance of nearly three thousand millions 
 of miles ; the nearest fixed star (a Centauri) is seven hundred 
 times farther removed ; while the bright Dog-star, according 
 to the parallax given to it by Professor Henderson, is almost 
 four times farther off than a Centauri, or about eighty bil- 
 lions of miles ! These distances, however, inconceivable as 
 they are, are nothing to those of the nebulous clusters which 
 people the more inaccessible tracts of space, whose light, it 
 is stated, can only reach us in thousands and even millions 
 of years.* There is, in short, no limit to creation. In the 
 expanse of cosmical phenomena we have assuredly, there- 
 
 * Sir J. HERSCHEL'S Astronomy, 590. 
 
DIVINE POWEK. 115 
 
 fore, the only visible type of the infinite that it was possible 
 for us to possess. 
 
 If from the mere boundless expanse of the cosmical 
 regions we turn to contemplate some of the special magni- 
 tudes and velocities with which they make us familiar, the 
 attribute of power will perhaps display itself even more 
 strikingly. Let the mass of our earth, possessing a diameter 
 of about eight thousand miles, and of which we may be 
 supposed to have some not indistinct conception, be taken 
 as our starting-point. Enormous as it is, it dwindles into a 
 mere point among the stellar magnitudes, and becomes even 
 small beside its planetary companions. Jupiter is fourteen 
 hundred times larger, and Saturn nearly the same size, 
 encircled by a gorgeous envelope or ring which, it has been 
 said, would enclose five hundred worlds as large as ours.* 
 The mass of the sun itself is three hundred and fifty-four 
 thousand nine hundred and thirty-six times that of the earth. 
 It would not only fill up the orbit of the moon, but would 
 extend nearly as far again. But this is as nothing compared 
 with the mass of some of the stars. Who can conjecture 
 the magnitude of a body which would fill the vast orbit of 
 the earth? But the bright star in Lyra has a diameter 
 which, it has been said, would fill even that orbit.")* And 
 among the nebulous stars some are supposed to be of even 
 greater dimensions. 
 
 Let us think, then, of the force concerned in the move- 
 ments of such enormous masses. A cannon-ball projected 
 
 * DICK'S Celestial Scenery, p. 274. 
 
 f HARRIS'S Pre-Adamite Earth, p. 145. 
 
116 THEISM. 
 
 from the mouth of a gun moves at the rate of about a thou- 
 sand miles an hour, which is the rate of the diurnal motion 
 of the earth at the equator ; but the velocity of the earth's 
 motion round the sun is sixty-five times faster than this. 
 " Jupiter, equal in weight to fourteen hundred earths, moves 
 with a velocity of 29,000 miles an hour. The rate of Mer- 
 cury is 107,000 miles an hour. The velocity of the comet 
 of 1680 is estimated at 880,000 miles an hour."* The 
 annual motion of one of the (fixed !) stars, 61 Cygni, has 
 been computed at one hundred and twenty millions of mil- 
 lions of miles. How mighty and transcending is the power 
 displayed in these celestial masses and movements ! It is 
 certainly quite impossible that the conception of an all- 
 powerful Being could have been more impressively set 
 forth to the human mind. For whatever limit is at length 
 reached in such contemplations does not arise from the 
 exhaustion of evidence, but from the feebleness of our men- 
 tal capacity to grasp the phenomena presented to it. 
 
 The vast periods of geology, and the immense forces that 
 must have operated in the formation of the earth, are 
 eminently calculated to give us the same impression of an 
 eternal and omnipotent Being. The data with which the 
 science of geology furnishes us, are not, indeed, so indisput- 
 able as those furnished by astronomy. For while there are 
 some who estimate the geological cycles by millions of years, 
 there are others who strive to bring them within much 
 narrower bounds ; while there are some who recognise 
 the agency of elemental forces in the past career of the 
 
 * HARRIS'S Pre- Adamite Earth, p. 148. 
 
DIVINE POWER. 117 
 
 earth, of a magnitude of which we have now no expe- 
 rience, there are others who contend for a uniformity of 
 those agencies with those presently existing. The character 
 of the agencies employed, it is clear, must be estimated 
 according to the different reckoning of the periods allotted 
 to the work. On any special geological hypothesis, how- 
 ever, the data are sufficiently significant for our purpose. 
 According to any admissible estimate, we find ourselves, in 
 tracing back the progress of the earth's formation, contem- 
 plating not a succession of days and years, but of ages and 
 cycles of ages. The epochs that must have elapsed since 
 the first great stones of the terrene structure were laid, and 
 while terrace after terrace was added to it, carry us back 
 into the night of time, far beyond the most fabulous com- 
 putations of History. We ascend into the past by steps 
 that weary our imagination to keep in view. 
 
 Again, the power concerned in the production of the vast 
 effects which we see around us would seem to be equally 
 indubitable, whether we assume them to have been brought 
 about by suddenly violent or by gradual action. On any 
 tenable supposition as to the mode of the elevation of the 
 Alps and the Andes to their present heights, we must surely 
 recognise in such phenomena the agency of a Power, before 
 which we can only bow in dumb and lowly reverence. 
 Here, surely, we behold the doing of the Almighty of Him 
 before whom " the nations are as a drop of the bucket," and 
 who " taketh up the isles as a very little thing/' 
 
118 THEISM. 
 
 II CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ELEMENTAKY COMBINATIONS CKYSTALLIS ATION. 
 
 BENEATH the architectural structure of the earth, there is 
 an interior elementary structure of great interest and signi- 
 ficance. The stones of the building are not merely disposed 
 in an orderly and fitting manner, but in the composition of 
 the stones themselves there is found an order of the most 
 exquisite kind. The separate masses of matter are not only 
 arranged ; but matter itself, with which we have been 
 hitherto only dealing in masses, presents a constitution of 
 the most exact and definite character, highly illustrative of 
 the Divine wisdom. As geology makes us familiar with 
 the mechanical, or, as we have termed it, architectural 
 structure of the earth, chemistry unfolds its elementary 
 constitution. 
 
 Chemists reckon at present upwards of sixty elementary 
 substances. This; however, is a merely provisional reckon- 
 ing, liable any day to alteration. A hitherto hidden bond 
 of identity may yet be discovered between many substances 
 which now obstinately resist identification. It is found, in 
 

 CRYSTALLISATION. 119 
 
 fact, that only a comparatively small number of these sub- 
 stances enter, to any large and pervading extent, into the 
 constitution of nature viz., oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, 
 carbon, and, among the metals, silicium and aluminium. 
 Oxygen is considered by far the most abundant substance in 
 the earth. United with hydrogen, it constitutes water; 
 with nitrogen, and a comparatively small proportion of 
 carbon, it makes common air ; while it enters, at the same 
 time, largely into every kind of rock in the crust of the 
 earth. Carbon, again, is the main constituent of all vege- 
 table and animal matters ; and silicium, in nearly equal com- 
 binations with oxygen (making silica), is said to form the 
 basis of about half of the rocks of the earth. 
 
 There appears to us to be something profoundly impres- 
 sive in the contemplation of the few simple substances to 
 which we can thus trace back all the multiform diversity of 
 nature. How marvellous to reflect that the solid earth, the 
 compact rocks, the limpid stream, and the clear atmosphere, 
 the fields clothed with grass, and the valleys covered over 
 with com, are only the varied combinations of a few elemen- 
 tary ingredients ! So plastic is Nature ! Science strips 
 off the glorious forms in which she is everywhere robed, 
 and brings us into her secret laboratories. But surely 
 this does not diminish, but only heightens, the impres- 
 sion of wonderful intelligence which she everywhere reveals. 
 So exquisite did nature's forms seem to the Grecian mind, 
 that a Divine Presence seemed to speak from all of them. 
 Beside the beautiful there everywhere arose the spiritual. 
 The Oread, the Dryad, and the Nereid, were the graceful 
 
120 THEISM. 
 
 embodiments of the plastic Life, that seemed thus to animate 
 the mountain, the forest, and the ocean ; and, surely, intel- 
 ligence is not less but more visible, that science shows 
 us the few ingredients which, in different combinations, 
 induce these diverse phenomena of nature. Although the 
 mystery has been so far unveiled, and we can look far 
 beyond the simple-hearted view of Paganism, yet we can- 
 not get rid of the truth to which it dimly testified. We 
 find ourselves among the last analyses of nature's pro- 
 cesses, more impressively than ever in the presence of a 
 living and presiding Intelligence. 
 
 This is in the highest degree evident, when we contem- 
 plate the special character of those elementary combinations 
 with which chemistry makes us acquainted : for it is ascer- 
 tained, not merely that all the great features and products 
 of nature are compounded of a comparatively few ele- 
 mentary ingredients, but that these ingredients everywhere 
 combine only in certain definite and unvarying propor- 
 tions. They obey laws of the greatest simplicity and ex- 
 actness, "which never change, and which govern the for- 
 mation of compounds of all classes and descriptions." 
 Thus " water, however produced, always consists of oxygen 
 and hydrogen, in the proportion of 8 parts of the former 
 to 1 of the latter by weight. Chalk, whether formed by 
 nature or by the chemist, yields 43.71 parts of carbonic 
 acid, and 56.29 parts of lime. The rust which forms 
 upon the surface of iron by the action of the atmo- 
 sphere, is as invariable in its composition as if it had been 
 
 * FOWNES' Chemistry, p. 39. 
 
ELEMENTAKY COMBINATIONS. 121 
 
 formed by the most delicate adjustment of weight, by the 
 most accurate manipulator, being 28 parts of iron, and 12 
 parts of oxygen. This law is the basis of all chemical 
 inquiry/'' * 
 
 "Where, again, the same elements unite, as they often do, 
 to form different bodies, such combinations are always 
 related as multiples. Thus, in the different compounds of 
 nitrogen with oxygen, we find that with the same propor- 
 tion of the former the latter unites only in the successive 
 ratios of 8, 16, 24, 32, and 40. " There are no intermediate 
 compounds whatever. And this law is perfectly general ; 
 whenever bodies combine in more than one proportion, a 
 relation of this kind between the quantities concerned can 
 be observed. It applies alike to elementary substances, and 
 to compounds formed by the union of bodies themselves 
 compound/' )* There may be an interruption in the series of 
 numbers, or the relation of the numbers may not be quite 
 so simple as in the case mentioned, but an exact numerical 
 relation is found to underlie all compounds. So, in the 
 gaseous state, bodies only unite according to exact measures 
 or volumes, depending upon the wonderful connection be- 
 tween the specific weight of a gas or vapour and its volume. 
 The volumes are always equal, or multiples the one of the 
 other, and any extra quantity that may be present is sure to 
 be left over when combination ensues. 
 
 It is impossible to conceive anything more grand and 
 simple than the mode in which the infinitely varied pro- 
 cesses of nature are thus carried on. By merely multiply- 
 
 * HUNT'S Poetry of Science, p. 253. f FOWNES' Chemistry, p. 41. 
 
 I 
 
122 THEISM. 
 
 ing the proportion of one of the ingredients, the most diverse 
 substances are produced from the same elements. Thus, in 
 the case mentioned by us, and so often instanced for its 
 impressive simplicity the combinations of oxygen with 
 nitrogen the several compounds are well known to possess 
 the most different qualities a definite increment of one of 
 the ingredients making all the difference between a viru- 
 lently noxious poison and the breath of man's life. What 
 an unerring providence and skill does this evince in the 
 continual assortment of nature's elementary products ! 
 What power, save an almighty one, could, from the mere 
 varying composition of the same few elements, produce all 
 this wonderful diversity of result ? What intelligence, save 
 an infinite one, could order and preserve with such a nice 
 adjustment the infinitely multiplied combinations so as not 
 to interfere with animal life and happiness ? What striking 
 and beautiful alliances, moreover, thus pervade nature ! 
 Things apparently the most opposite are yet radically akin. 
 The pleasant nutriment and the noxious poison are of the 
 same parentage ; the rude lump of charcoal and the glitter- 
 ing diamond are the same substance. Matter is truly 
 kindred in all its forms ; nature a vast brotherhood, con- 
 fessing to the same Maker and the same Preserver. 
 
 But what perhaps especially claims our notice is, the 
 numerical exactitude thus found to lie at the root of 
 nature. In breaking up its rounded and beautiful forms, 
 they are found to rest on the most strictly arithmetical basis. 
 It is seen to be the most literal scientific truth that the 
 " mountains are weighed in scales and the hills in a balance." 
 

 ELEMENTARY COMBINATIONS. 123 
 
 As in the mighty movements of the heavens we are dealing 
 with the most rigorous measurements ; so, in the minute 
 and hidden movements of matter, the great discovery of 
 Dalton shows us to be equally dealing with such measure- 
 ments. Whether or not we are justified in concluding all 
 that the atomic theory demands, the law of definite and 
 multiple proportions which it serves to express remains 
 indubitable ; and in contemplating the constitution of mat- 
 ter, this leaves us, in the last resort, face to face with 
 numerical order. 
 
 Whence, then, this order? Science has disclosed its 
 character ; what has it to say as to its explanation ? It 
 has expressed, under the name of chemical affinity, all that 
 it has to say on this subject. Elementary combinations 
 take place under the influence of an elective force, so 
 described with reference to the special dispositions to union 
 manifested by all ultimate particles. It is under the opera- 
 tion of this so-called force that the constant interchange and 
 balance of nature's ingredients are alone preserved, and 
 that its existing forms are maintained with such nice and 
 unvarying discrimination. As we have, in the wide region 
 of space, gravitation uniting all bodies, and drawing them 
 to common centres, so we have the attraction of cohesion 
 holding the masses of the different bodies together ; and 
 finally, chemical or elective attraction, serving by its occult 
 power to give determinate character or form to every kind 
 of material creation.* But, after all, science merely conceals 
 its ignorance by such general expressions. The laws in 
 
 * HUNT'S Poetry of Science, p. 262. 
 
124 THEISM. 
 
 question are simply the last reductions of its persevering 
 research ; and so far from their furnishing any adequate 
 explanation of the phenomena, they imperatively claim 
 themselves to be explained. It is only, according to our 
 whole argument, when we recognise in these general laws 
 the operative modes of a Supreme Intelligence, that we 
 reach a satisfactory meaning in nature, or an adequate 
 explanation of its order. 
 
 There is a further order of inorganic matter peculiarly 
 mathematical in its character, and well deserving our atten- 
 tion before proceeding to higher illustrations of our subject 
 that, namely, which is expressed in the beautiful and 
 well-known phenomena of crystallisation. If, among the 
 last results of chemistry, we find ourselves in the region of 
 numbers, we here become conversant with the exact forms of 
 geometry. Stones and minerals we are familiarly apt to 
 regard as not possessing any definite shape and structure 
 an idea which lies with somewhat vitiating force at the 
 bottom of Paley's famous comparison of the stone found 
 upon the heath, and the watch. In fact, however, there 
 are few things so exactly defined as simple minerals ; 
 and this not only in their external figure, but peculiarly 
 in their interior and most hidden structure. Crystallisa- 
 tion, which is the ordinary state in which a great number 
 of the substances of the earth are found, is nothing else 
 than a regular geometrical form, accompanied by and 
 dependent upon a regular structure. It has been well 
 described to be a "peculiar and most admirable work of 
 nature's geometry;" and so minutely and elaborately has 
 nature wrought her geometrical patterns, that they are 
 
CRYSTALLISATION. 125 
 
 found to reappear after the most minute subdivision. 
 Beneath the fixed variety of external or secondary forms 
 which crystalline bodies assume, there is an ultimate or 
 primitive form retained by the smallest particles of each 
 crystal. Thus, to employ the illustration of Dr Buckland, 
 "we have more than five hundred branches of secondary 
 forms presented by the crystals of the well-known substance 
 of carbonate of lime. In each of these we trace a five-fold 
 series of subordinate relations of one system of combinations 
 to another system, under which every individual crystal has 
 been adjusted by laws acting correlatively to produce harmo- 
 nious results/' Again, he adds, " Every crystal of carbonate 
 of lime is made up of millions of particles of the same com- 
 pound substances having one invariable primary form viz., 
 that of a rhomboidal solid, which may be obtained to an 
 indefinite extent by mechanical division." * Some, as Pro- 
 fessor Moh, reckon four, and others six, of these primitive 
 crystalline forms. 
 
 It is needless for us to dwell upon the abundant theistic 
 meaning which such phenomena present. The only concep- 
 tion which we can have of crystallisation, the definition by 
 which alone we can express it, indicates, in the clearest 
 manner, the working of intelligence. The geometric stamp 
 is impressed on the minutest particle. The die is inwrought 
 beyond the furthest process of cleavage or mere mechanical 
 division. Shiver the crystalline mass as we may, the figure 
 still lives. Where form is so deeply and curiously impressed, 
 we must surely recognise a Former. Nature's " admirable 
 geometry " irresistibly points to nature's great Geometer. 
 
 * Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise, pp. 576, 577. 
 
126 THEISM. 
 
 II CHAPTER V. 
 
 OEGANISATION DESIGN. 
 
 WE have been hitherto tarrying amid the comparatively 
 simple and general phenomena of inorganic matter. By de- 
 grees we have advanced from the most simple and compre- 
 hensive to the more special and definite laws which mark 
 the inorganic world. We have contemplated the vast and 
 beautiful cosmical order subserved by the law of gravitation, 
 and the general laws of motion ; the structure of the earth 
 in its apparently irregular, yet most orderly nights of archi- 
 tecture the constitution of matter, revealing relations so 
 exact, and a higher and more refined law of kindred or 
 elective attraction. We have further observed the regular 
 geometrical forms exhibited in crystallisation no longer 
 merely chemical compositions, but symmetrical arrangement. 
 Our illustrations have been thus of a progressive character. 
 Material order has been contemplated in an ascending series 
 of complexity, from the ruder form of mere mechanical adjust- 
 ment, to the higher forms of chemical affinity and geometric 
 adaptations. 
 
OEGANISATION DESIGN. 127 
 
 Crystallisation is the most perfect form assumed by inor- 
 ganic matter. It is the highest order we reach among inor- 
 ganic phenomena. There are, however, far higher, or at 
 least more complex and impressive, modes of order presented 
 to us in the material world, and bearing, therefore, as they 
 have been always supposed to bear, with a special force 
 upon the illustration of our subject. 
 
 Clearly marked as is the highest kind of inorganic order 
 which we have considered, it is yet, so to speak, a mere 
 outward order, proceeding from external junction of parts. 
 It is the result of force from without, and dependent upon 
 the direction and degree of the compulsory application. On 
 the first view of organic phenomena, we are struck with 
 their essential difference in this respect. We contemplate no 
 longer merely a combination of outward relations, but a 
 product of inward forces. The material object is no longer 
 merely, as even in the case of the crystal, the result of 
 aggregation, of the external juxtaposition of particles ; it is 
 a living production forming itself from within. A new 
 power is seen stirring in matter a power not only of selec- 
 tion or of adaptation, but of assimilation, and, moreover, of 
 reproduction. Inorganic matter, it has been well said, 
 only finds, organic makes, what is added to its structure; 
 recasting the inert substance, and exhibiting it in new 
 unions, not of binary merely, but of ternary and quaternary 
 combinations. The inorganic changes that oh which it acts 
 chemically ; the organic vitalises, and imparts to the matter 
 which it vitalises the power of acting in the same way on 
 other substances. " This is the end and object of that series 
 
128 THEISM. 
 
 of functions which, beginning with absorption, conveys the 
 absorbed matter through the stem into the leaves, then sub- 
 jects it to a process of exhalation, submits the rest to the 
 action of the atmosphere, conveys it back into the system, 
 elaborates it by secretion, and ends in assimilation. The 
 plant is also generative. The inorganic mass can only in- 
 crease by cohesion, by agglomeration from without. But 
 the plant ' hath its seed in itself/ It exists in generations. 
 Besides vitalising that which is necessary to the conservation 
 of each of its own parts, it is endowed with the power of 
 giving existence to a new whole, and of providing the germ 
 with the nourishment necessary for it, in order to commence 
 its independent being." * 
 
 These two attributes of assimilation and reproduction 
 mark off and determine organic matter, in its lowest forms, 
 from inorganic. They are the distinctive attributes of life in 
 its feeblest developments. Our knowledge of life begins 
 with them ; and beyond such manifestations of the vital ele- 
 ment unsearchable in its hidden depths our knowledge 
 will probably never reach. Whenever matter is found to 
 possess these properties, in contradistinction to the mere pro- 
 perties of chemical attraction or crystallisation, it is said to 
 be organised. If we inquire more particularly for a defini- 
 tion of organisation, that given by Kant seems to be acknow- 
 ledged to be the best. " An organised product of nature/' 
 he says, " is that in which all the parts are mutually means 
 and ends." It is not only, it will be observed, the idea of 
 dependence among the parts which is here expressed ; this 
 
 * HARRIS'S Pre-Adamite Earth, p. 166. 
 
OKGANISATION DESIGN. 129 
 
 would not form an advance beyond the formerly considered 
 phenomena of matter. There is a beautifully coherent de- 
 pendence between the several particles of a crystal. But the 
 definition of Kant expresses further an adjustment or depend- 
 ence between all the different parts of an organised body, so 
 as to subserve the definite purpose of maintaining the whole 
 body ; and not only so, but the further idea that the mainte- 
 nance of the whole is essential to the maintenance of any of 
 the parts. It expresses, in short, the fact of a constantly 
 subsisting relation between all the parts on which the sub- 
 sistence of the whole depends. Such an interacting relation 
 does not exist between the several parts of an inorganised 
 body. We can, on the contrary, break up a crystal, as we 
 have seen, even indefinitely, without destroying its primitive 
 constitutive form. But let us take to pieces a plant, and, 
 destroying the living relation between the parts, we destroy 
 the organism. Organisation, in its simplest appearance, 
 presents, therefore, a more complex and delicate so to 
 speak a more subtle and essential species of order than any 
 which we have hitherto contemplated. 
 
 In this mere fact of organisation furnishing us with a 
 farther and more refined example of order, we have an addi- 
 tional illustrative evidence of Divine intelligence. We re- 
 cognise, with impressive force, the artist, in the higher 
 specimen of art before us. To the query, Whence ? which 
 immediately arises here, as in the contemplation of all order, 
 we are carried, in answer, irresistibly back to a supremely 
 intelligent Will. 
 
 But is this all the theistic inference impressed upon us in 
 
130 THEISM. 
 
 the contemplation of organic phenomena ? Is not design in 
 some sense peculiarly present in such phenomena ? Physi- 
 ology has been commonly supposed to be the special sphere 
 of the doctrine of final causes, and its study held to possess 
 a special interest and value in this respect. It will be well 
 to set clearly before the reader the distinctive relation of 
 this branch of the illustrative evidence to that presented by 
 the simple phenomena of inorganic matter, especially as this 
 relation has not always been apprehended in a just and dis- 
 criminating light. 
 
 First of all, then, it seems undoubted that the phenomena 
 of organisation do possess a certain peculiar impressiveness 
 in regard to the theistic argument. Merely as examples of 
 a higher and more curiously related order, they are, to many 
 minds at least, peculiarly suggestive of creative intelligence. 
 The elaborate texture and delicately-wrought colouring of 
 vegetable forms, or again, the manifold and complex felicities 
 of animal structures, may be conceived more vividly pregnant 
 with the idea of design, of wisdom concerned in the result, 
 than even the most perfect and mathematically regular com- 
 binations of inorganic matter. In this view Paley's often- 
 impugned comparison the boldly-struck key-note of his 
 delightful work may be so far justified. Taking the stone 
 gathered from the heath on the one hand, and the watch on 
 the other, there can be no doubt that the absolute contrast 
 which he institutes between them is not to be defended. 
 The stone is by no means destitute of those marks of work- 
 manship which we recognise so immediately in the watch ; 
 and to the inquiry, " how the stone came to be there?" these 
 
ORGANISATION DESIGN. 131 
 
 marks or characters, on examination, furnish an answer no 
 less decided than the special adjustment of the several parts 
 of a watch does as to its origin. Supposing the stone were a 
 crystal, we have seen how skilfully configured is such an 
 inorganic product ; supposing it only a rude mass of sand- 
 stone, without symmetry of form or beauty of lustre, it yet 
 appears, in the light of Dalton's great discovery, to be an 
 exquisitely-arranged compound ; and its special composition, 
 whatever that might be, would be full of reply as to its 
 origin. Paley's comparison, therefore, fails when pushed to 
 the extent which he has implied ; but, when used as merely 
 serving to bring before the popular mind a more impressive 
 exhibition of design, it is sufficiently valid. A watch, with 
 its complicated mechanism of wheels and pulleys and 
 springs, causing a definite motion in a definite time, is ap- 
 parently the result of greater skill than any mineral composi- 
 tion, however exact. So at least it would doubtless seem to 
 most minds. In the same way, any flower or animal struc- 
 ture of peculiar delicacy and utility may be thought to 
 speak of God more plainly than even the most beautiful 
 and elaborate crystalline structure. 
 
 But farther than this beyond such a higher utility in 
 the way of popular illustration we cannot admit that 
 organic phenomena by themselves exhibit any peculiar 
 theistic meaning. They express the inference of design 
 more conspicuously, but this is all. This, we imagine, is 
 incapable of being disputed, on reflection. At the same 
 time, it appears to us that considerable confusion and in- 
 consequence of thought prevail upon this subject even among 
 
132 THEISM. 
 
 some of our highest scientific thinkers. The relation of the 
 doctrine of final causes, in its fundamental theological 
 import,, to the special scientific application which has been 
 made of it in physiology, is not apprehended with sufficient 
 clearness ; and a certain measure of doubt has been thus 
 allowed to rest on the subject, which seems to us perverting, 
 and even fatal, in reference to the general principle. Dr 
 Whewell, for example, has observed : "It has appeared to 
 some persons that the mere aspect of order and symmetry 
 in the works of nature the contemplation of comprehensive 
 and consistent law is sufficient to lead us to the conception 
 of a design and intelligence producing the order and carry- 
 ing into effect the law. Without here attempting to decide 
 whether this is true, we may discern, after what has been 
 said, that the conception of design arrived at in this manner 
 is altogether different from that idea of design which is sug- 
 gested to us by organised bodies, and which we describe as 
 the doctrine of final causes. The regular form of a crystal, 
 whatever beautiful symmetry it may exhibit, whatever 
 general laws it may exemplify, does not prove design in the 
 same manner in which design is proved by the provisions 
 for the preservation and growth of the seeds of plants and 
 of the young of animals. The law of universal gravitation, 
 however wide and simple, does not impress us with the 
 belief of a purpose, as does that propensity by which the 
 two sexes of each animal are brought together/' * 
 
 There is, according to what we have already said, a certain 
 measure of truth in this passage. The law of gravitation 
 
 * Indications of the Creator, p. 130. 
 
ORGANISATION DESIGN. 133 
 
 does not impress us with the belief of purpose and design in 
 the same degree, perhaps, as does that " propensity by 
 which the two sexes of each animal are brought together ;" 
 but surely there is nothing altogether different in the idea 
 of design in the two cases. It may be, that in the one case 
 the idea presents itself to our sensuous observation more 
 vividly, and is therefore entitled to guide us in our scientific 
 researches into physiological relations, in a way that would 
 be apt rather to mislead than assist the astronomer in his 
 researches among the heavenly bodies. Design, in short, 
 may not be with the astronomer, as with the physiologist, 
 an appropriate principle of discovery. The former does not 
 take it with him directly as a guide. The lower principle 
 of mere sequential induction sufficiently serves his purpose. 
 Yet if the higher principle be a reality and not a fiction, 
 it must meet the astronomer equally in the end. He 
 must ascend to it. He cannot rest, according to our 
 whole previous reasoning, in the mere relation of sequence 
 with which he sets out. The physiologist, on the other 
 hand, may be said to start with the principle of design 
 in possession, as a clue of discovery ; for the phenomena 
 with which he deals are no longer merely sequential, 
 but teleological. They express themselves not only as 
 related, but as related after the special manner of means and 
 ends. The principle of design has therefore, it may be 
 granted, a special application to these phenomena. So at 
 least it has been maintained by many of our highest physi- 
 ologists, and with apparent justice. Whereas in the one 
 case it is only the final answer to the inevitable inquiry, 
 
134 THEISM. 
 
 Whence ? in the other it is present from the first, every- 
 where suggesting the inquiry, Why ? 
 
 Yet it must never be forgotten that design is only thus 
 present in the latter case, because found in all cases, in rela- 
 tion to one class of phenomena as well as to another inor- 
 ganic as well as organic to establish itself as the only final 
 principle of explanation. It is only possibly present as a 
 scientific guide, because admitted as a theological principle. 
 It is only in the light of the ultimate rational necessity which 
 finds Mind everywhere in nature, that design, or the opera- 
 tion of Mind, can be especially maintained in organic pheno- 
 mena. This follows in the clearest manner from the whole 
 basis of our previous reasoning, and is indubitable on the 
 simple ground, that nature in no case of itself can gave us 
 Mind, but only reflects it in the mirror of our conscious- 
 ness. And assuredly there is no rational basis on which we 
 can conclude Mind to be thus reflected in one set of natural 
 phenomena and not in another. Now it is because the 
 language of Dr Whewell leaves this, as it were, in doubt, 
 that it appears to us objectionable. He puts aside the ques- 
 tion as to whether the mere aspect of order and symmetry 
 in nature is sufficient to lead us to the conception of design 
 and intelligence; or, in other words, demands this conception 
 in order to its explanation. He puts aside this question as 
 one not necessarily affecting the special scientific doctrine of 
 final causes ; whereas, according to our whole view, it is 
 one most vitally affecting this doctrine, and without a clear 
 settlement of which, this doctrine cannot for a moment be 
 consistently maintained. 
 
ORGANISATION DESIGN. ^ 135 
 
 The only theistic difference, then, in the phenomena now 
 before us, consists in the more vivid impression of Mind 
 which they give us. In the very conception of a set of 
 organs related to one another as means to ends, we have 
 intelligence directly suggested. The contrivance bespeaks 
 a contriver, yet only a contriver adequate to the special 
 result in each case. While here, therefore, we may be said 
 to be brought more immediately into the presence of Mind, 
 it may yet be doubted whether we are brought so near to 
 the first or supreme Mind as among the general laws of 
 astronomy and chemistry. The comparative value of the 
 respective phenomena for the theistic conclusion may in 
 this way truly admit of question ; and we can easily under- 
 stand how some minds feel themselves more directly borne 
 onward to this conclusion in the ultimate region of inorganic 
 order, than while merely tarrying amid the crowded and 
 endless intricacies of organic contrivance. 
 
 The true view seems to be, that the study of the latter 
 phenomena is more useful in educating and strengthening 
 within us the ideas of Divine wisdom and goodness ; the 
 contemplation of the former, in carrying us backwards to a 
 great First Cause. The element of intelligence, already lying 
 at the root of the theistic conception, is set forth in clear and 
 engaging brightness by the variedly curious and beautiful 
 phenomena of organic nature ; while, in the nature of the 
 case, the evidence for the Divine goodness only emerges as 
 we travel onwards to the facts of sentient organism.* The 
 higher complicacy of physiological order stamps on our 
 
 * See subsequent chapter on " Sensation." 
 
 UHIVERSIT7 
 
136 THEISM. 
 
 minds more impressively the fact of the Divine wisdom ; 
 while the subserviency of this order to ends of happiness 
 in the animal creation, brings before us the beneficence of 
 the Designer. 
 
 Our illustrative evidence, while resting from the outset on 
 the same logical basis, thus truly gathers force and compre- 
 hensiveness for our special conclusion as it proceeds. Setting 
 out with the theistic conception in its most naked form, 
 it clothes itself with the full attributes of that conception, 
 as it expatiates over a wider and more diversified field of 
 induction. 
 
ORGANIC PHENOMENA VEGETABLE. 137 
 
 II CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SPECIAL ORGANIC PHENOMENA VEGETABLE. 
 
 IN entering on the wide and diversified field of organic con- 
 trivance, our sole difficulty is that of selection. So crowded is 
 it with illustrations fitted to our subject, that volumes might 
 easily be devoted to special sections of it ; and in fact, there 
 is no other department of our evidence that has received 
 such ample and varied, and, we may add, such skilful treat- 
 ment. The work of Paley alone has made all familiar with 
 its interesting details ; and, conceived as this work is 
 throughout in so fine a vein of homely English sense ; rich 
 with the light of a meaning everywhere clear and impressive, 
 if not highly consecutive or profound ; written, moreover, 
 with such inimitable grace and felicity of style, it seems as if 
 it were at once presumptuous and useless for us to enter upon 
 ground which he has traversed with such fascinating success.* 
 
 * The Natural Theology, and in fact the general works of Paley, have of late 
 somewhat lost the distinction they once enjoyed. This is undoubtedly owing to 
 their marked deficiency in philosophic depth and comprehension, which leaves 
 the reader so often unsatisfied, while yet pleased with their admirable clear- 
 ness and sense. With an exquisite tact and homely intellect unrivalled, Paley 
 was certainly no philosopher ; and it is needless now to urge his claims in this 
 
 K 
 
138 THEISM. 
 
 We are only led to do so from a conviction of the too obvious 
 gap and imperfection which would otherwise be left in the 
 course of our illustrative evidence. The knowledge of what 
 has been already so fully accomplished in this department, 
 will at the same time lead us to dwell upon it as briefly as 
 we can, consistently with the necessities of our plan. 
 
 The two great characteristics of organic phenomena, in 
 their lowest forms, we have, in the last chapter, pointed out 
 to be assimilation and reproduction. The plant, down to 
 its least developed specimen, exhibits these properties in 
 contradistinction to any specimen of inorganic matter. Or- 
 ganisation analysed to its finest point the minute cell, which 
 it requires the highest powers of the microscope to detect 
 is marked by a forming power, quite distinct from anything 
 in the inorganic creation. While the inorganic, at the 
 highest point of development, is, as it has been said, a mere 
 carrier of force, the organic is essentially a centre of force. 
 
 It is deserving of notice how complete is the structure 
 which the microscope reveals in the elementary cell. Beach- 
 ing to the rudimentary source of organisation the hidden 
 workshop, may we call it ? of the beautiful forms of life 
 
 respect. What tie saw, he saw with a precision, and could express with a force 
 and lucidity unsurpassed by any writer ; but, for the most part, he not only 
 did not see far into the deeper bearings of his subject, but there does not seem 
 to have been any desire in his mind to do so. It will not, however, be 
 a good sign of British thought if the works of Paley ever come to be gene- 
 rally depreciated. Types as they are of that healthy sobriety, tolerant temper, 
 and quiet unobtrusive piety, which have hitherto distinguished the highest 
 products of British theology characteristics which, in the present day, we 
 may well pray God it may not lose their study can never fail to be highly 
 advantageous to the Christian student, and to reward him with an increase of 
 strength and manliness. 
 
ORGANIC PHENOMENA VEGETABLE. 139 
 
 that teem all around, we are here, as everywhere, in the pre- 
 sence of order. The forming hand appears in the most signal 
 manner, although we cannot trace its action, save by the 
 delicate scrutiny of the microscope. 
 
 The general process of assimilation or nutrition in plants 
 is of a highly interesting description. The various organs 
 concerned in the process the root, the stem, and the leaves 
 are all so many structures of the most exquisite delicacy 
 and beauty, furnishing, in their study, a continued illustra- 
 tion of the Divine wisdom. We cannot now, however, 
 dwell upon the simple construction of these organs. Their 
 functions, in the discharge of the nutritive process, are for 
 our object even more interesting ; and to the consideration 
 of these, therefore, we readily pass. 
 
 The root at once gives stability to the plant in the soil, 
 and, by the fibrils which it sends forth in all directions, 
 collects materials for its food. For this latter purpose, the 
 fibril roots, with the main root itself (caudex), are provided 
 with soft porous terminations, called spongioles, from their 
 peculiar efficacy in imbibing the surrounding moisture. 
 When the moisture, holding different matters in solution, 
 has been absorbed, it ascends through the stem by modes 
 which vary, and which are not yet in all respects thoroughly 
 understood to the leaves, where it is partly exhaled, and 
 partly undergoes an important chemical change, rendering 
 it fit for becoming assimilated. The leaves are the peculiar 
 seat of what has been called vegetable digestion, though 
 the entire process of this, and even the nature of the action 
 
140 THEISM. 
 
 of the leaves, are still involved in considerable obscurity. 
 It is certain, however, that during the day, and pre-emi- 
 nently during bright sunshine, they are ceaselessly inhaling 
 from the atmosphere carbonic acid, decomposing it, appro- 
 priating and assimilating its carbon, and exhaling its oxygen. 
 It is, indeed, believed that during darkness this process is 
 inverted; that oxygen is absorbed, and combined with waste 
 or superfluous carbon, and carbonic acid exhaled; but still 
 we know with certainty, from its own continued increment, 
 that the plant appropriates more carbon than it rejects ; 
 that it therefore removes from the atmosphere more carbonic 
 acid than it throws out into it ; and thus that the perma- 
 nent influence of these changes upon the atmosphere is in 
 the highest degree favourable, the assimilating functions 
 operating much more powerfully to purify than the respira- 
 tory to vitiate it. Plants are thus, in contradistinction to 
 animals, the great conservators of atmospheric purity. 
 
 The sap, strengthened and enriched in the laboratory of 
 the leaves, is sent back from them to the various parts 
 of the plant for assimilation, for which it has now become 
 exactly fitted. The same degree of uncertainty prevails 
 regarding the precise character of the sap's descent as exists 
 regarding its ascent. In dicotyledonous plants its main 
 current is through the liber, or inner portion of the bark, 
 but it also descends through the alburnum or most recently 
 formed wood, through which, in the same plants, flows the 
 main current of the ascending sap. In monocotyledo- 
 nous plants its passage is through the innermost layer of 
 
OKGANIC PHENOMENA VEGETABLE. HI 
 
 the structure, which is also the most recently formed.* The 
 sap in its descent deposits the materials of fresh growth in 
 the plant, as well as of the different well-known products, 
 gum, sugar, oils, and resin, so useful in domestic economy 
 and in the arts. At the root, whence the nutritive process 
 started, it terminates with imparting hardness and tenacity 
 to the fibrils, and bringing matter to form new spongioles, 
 while the old are gradually covered with an impervious 
 cuticle. 
 
 It is impossible to contemplate this process without being 
 impressed with its marvellous fitness and beauty. What a 
 busy scene of orderly activity is thus every plant around us, 
 from the noble forest-tree to the lowly lichen. And when 
 we contemplate all the successive and intervolved adapta- 
 tion conducing to the result, and again how the life, 
 which is the result, alone gives impulse and continuance to 
 the whole, we cannot, surely, doubt the Wisdom which 
 
 * It may be necessary to explain for some readers the general classification 
 of plants into three great divisions viz., Dicotyledons, Monocotyledons, and 
 Acotyledons, the name being derived from the structure of the seed in the first 
 two cases, which, in the plants of the first division, is composed of two coty- 
 ledons, or lobes enclosing the germ, or proper seed ; and in plants of the 
 second division, is composed of only one such cotyledon. Plants of the third 
 division, such as ferns, mosses, and lichens, have no seeds properly so called, 
 and hence, as their name imparts, no cotyledons. They are propagated by 
 minute granular bodies called sporules, which are really nothing else than dis- 
 tinct plants, disjoined from the parents, and increasing by the simple addition 
 of cellular tissue. The first and second classes are also respectively called 
 Exogenous and Endogenous, from the peculiar formation of the stem in each 
 case its increase in the first class proceeding from external additions, in the 
 second from internal development. New matter in the one case is formed by 
 successive layers on the outside, in the other by successive layers on the inside, 
 or towards the centre. 
 
142 THEISM. 
 
 directs and controls so finely adjusted a series of pheno- 
 mena. 
 
 The phenomena of vegetable reproduction are even more 
 strikingly manifestive of creative design. Passing by the 
 simpler facts displayed by the cryptogamous vegetation, we 
 have in the reproductive organs of the higher classes of 
 plants some very curious and complicated adaptations. 
 
 These organs are all embraced in what is botanically 
 called the flower. Its parts consist of four series or 
 whorls, as they are technically termed 1, the calyx ; 2, the 
 corolla ; 3, the stamen ; 4, the pistil. These are all now 
 regarded as merely transformations of leaves, altered so as to 
 suit the particular functions which each performs. They 
 sometimes appear in the form of true leaves, without any 
 marked modification. The calyx is the outer covering of 
 the flower the symmetrical cup in which it commonly 
 rests. It is usually of the same green colour as the 
 leaves, but sometimes also, as in the fuchsia and Indian 
 cress, it is differently coloured. Its several parts are 
 termed sepals. The corolla is the flower, popularly so 
 called; its parts, which are sometimes distinct and some- 
 times united in various ways, are termed petals. " The 
 petals are composed of a congeries of minute cells, each 
 containing colouring matter and delicate spirals inter- 
 spersed, all being covered by a thin epidermal coat or skin. 
 The coloured cells are distinct from one another, and 
 thus a dark colour may be at one part and a light col- 
 our at another. How exquisitely are the colours of 
 
OBGANIC PHENOMENA VEGETABLE. 143 
 
 
 
 flowers diversified, and with what a masterly skill are their 
 varied hues arranged ! Whether blended or separated, as 
 Thornton remarks, they are evidently under the control 
 of a taste which never falls short of the perfection of 
 elegance/' * 
 
 The two latter or inner organs, upon which the produc- 
 tion of seed essentially depends, show a peculiarly minute 
 and delicate structure. The pistil consists of a hollow tube 
 called the style, terminating at one end in a kind of 
 spongiole named the stigma ; at the other, in the seed- 
 vessel or ovary. The stamens, which commonly, as in the 
 rose, enclose the pistil, consist of a stalk or filament sup- 
 porting a rounded oblong body called the anther, the cells 
 of which are filled with the fine fecundating powder termed 
 pollen, which is sometimes little more than visible to com- 
 mon inspection, but presents, under the microscope, multi- 
 plied distinct forms. 
 
 There is a singular and highly interesting numerical 
 order found to characterise the relation of all these different 
 organs of the plant to one another. " Thus, if a flower 
 has 5 parts of the calyx, it has usually 5 of the corolla 
 alternating with them, 5, 10, 20, &c., stamens, and 5, or 
 some multiple of 5, in the parts of the pistil." And 
 equally so when the parts of the calyx are 3 the 
 numerical bases of 3 and 5 being the most generally pre- 
 vailing in the vegetable kingdom, although the numbers 
 2 and 4, with their multiples, are also to be found. "It 
 
 * BALFOUR'S Botanical Sketches, p. 148. 
 
144 THEISM. 
 
 is worthy of notice/' adds the author from whom we bor- 
 row these facts, " that flowers exhibiting 5 or 4, or mul- 
 tiples of these numbers, in their whorls, usually belong 
 to plants having two seed-lobes or cotyledons, and which, 
 when they form permanent woody stems, exhibit distinct 
 zones or circles, and have separable bark ; while flowers 
 having 3, or a multiple of 3 in their whorls, present 
 only one seed-lobe, and when they form permanent woody 
 stems, exhibit no distinct zones nor circles, and have no 
 separable bark. The numbers 2 and 4, or multiples of 
 them, are seen also in the parts of fructification of flowerless 
 plants which have no seed-lobes, such as ferns, mosses, sea- 
 weeds, &c. The processes which project from the urn-like 
 cases of mosses are arranged in the series 4, 8, 12, 16, 32, 
 64, &c. The parts of fructification of scale-mosses (Junger- 
 mannice) are in fours, as also the germs of some sea-weeds. 
 Thus the numbers 5 and 4 and their multiples prevail 
 among dicotyledonous and exogenous plants ; the number 3 
 and its multiples occur among monocotyledonous or endo- 
 genous plants ; while 2 and 4, and multiples of them, are 
 met with among acotyledonous or acrogenous plants/' * 
 
 The theistic conclusion undoubtedly receives confirmation 
 from these and all other evidences of exact numerical rela- 
 tions in nature. They express very clearly the Divine plan 
 everywhere stamped on it. 
 
 Let us now mark the reproductive process as subserved 
 by these organs. Fecundation is the immediate result of 
 * BALFOUE'S Sketches, pp. 137, 138. 
 
ORGANIC PHENOMENA VEGETABLE. 145 
 
 communication between the stamens and pistil, the former, 
 which produce the pollen, being the active or male, the 
 latter the receptive or female organs. In the great majority 
 of cases the stamens and pistil are found on the same plant, 
 the former overtopping the latter an arrangement which 
 gives the most simple mode of fecundation, by enabling the 
 stigma readily to receive the falling pollen as it bursts from 
 the anther. In order to secure this purpose more effectually, 
 the stigma exudes a slightly glutinous fluid, to which the grains 
 of the pollen adhere. These grains, whose manifold struc- 
 ture, as seen under the microscope, has been already noticed, 
 have each two coats, one of which bursts when the grain is 
 ripe, and the other, in touching the stigma, elongates itself 
 into the shape of a slender tube, passing downwards through 
 the style into the ovary, and so conveying to the germ the 
 vivifying fluid. "The cells of the stigma are beautifully con- 
 trived to admit the passage of these tubes, as they are long, 
 and extremely loose in texture, at the same time so moist 
 and elastic as to be easily compressed when necessary. It 
 is so contrived that the minute particles contained in the 
 grains enter slowly to the ovary, as it seems necessary that 
 the fecundating matter should be admitted by degrees. It 
 is also necessary that the tube should enter the foramen of 
 the ovule ; and as the ovule is not always in a proper posi- 
 tion to receive it, it will be found to erect itself or to turn, 
 as the case may be, while the granules of the pollen grains 
 are passing down the tubes." * 
 
 * Vegetable Physiology, p. 79. Edinburgh : Chambers. 
 
146 THEISM. 
 
 In drooping flowers, such as the fuchsia where it would 
 be obviously no longer fitting that the stamens should ex- 
 ceed the pistil in length, as thereby the pollen would be 
 scattered on the ground instead of reaching the stigma the 
 relation of the parts is found inverted in correspondence 
 with the altered character of the plant. And, in fact, 
 nothing can be more beautiful and impressive than the great 
 variety of adaptations by which, in special cases, communica- 
 tion is secured between the pollen and the pistils. " In 
 the common nettle the stamens have elastic filaments, which 
 are at first bent down, so as to be obscured by the calyx ; 
 but when the pollen is ripe, the filaments jerk out, and thus 
 scatter the powder on the pistils, which occupy separate 
 flowers. In the common barberry, the lower part of the 
 filament is very irritable ; and whenever it is touched, the 
 stamen moves forward to the pistil. In the style-wort 
 (Stylidium) the stamens and pistil are united in a common 
 column which projects from the flower ; this column is very 
 irritable at the angle where it leaves the flower, and when 
 touched, it passes with a sudden jerk from one side to the 
 other, and thus scatters the pollen. In the hazel, where the 
 pollen is in one set of flowers and the pistil in another, the 
 leaves might interfere with the application of the pollen, 
 and therefore they are not produced until it has been scat- 
 tered/'* In Dioecious plants, such as the willow, where the 
 flowers are not only unisexual, but the stamen-bearing are 
 on one tree and the pistil-bearing on another, the process 
 * BALFOUR'S Sketches, p. 152-154. 
 
ORGANIC PHENOMENA VEGETABLE. 147 
 
 of communication is effected in some cases by the winds, 
 but in other cases, after a more complicated and ingenious 
 manner, by insects. The bee, while providing food for its 
 young, is at the same time aiding in the dispersion of the 
 pollen. The peculiar shape of some flowers the Orchids 
 especially seems to form an attraction for certain insects 
 which are helpful in the same office. One of the most re- 
 markable examples of this insect-agency in the distribution 
 of the pollen is furnished by the birthwort (Aristolochia). 
 In this plant the " flower consists of a long tube in a chamber, 
 at the bottom of which the stamens and pistil are placed, 
 completely shut out from the agency of the winds. It is 
 frequented, in its native country, by an insect which enters 
 the tube easily, and gets into the little chamber. On attempt- 
 ing to get out, it is prevented by a series of hairs in the tube, 
 which all point downwards. It therefore moves about in 
 the little cavity, and thus distributes the pollen on the pistil, 
 soon after which the flower withers and the insect escapes." * 
 When impregnation is completed, the other parts of the 
 flower decay, whilst the " gravid seed-vessel" increases in 
 bulk, till it becomes, under very diversified forms, what is 
 called the fruit. All these forms, many of which are so 
 familiarly known and useful, would seem to have one prime 
 object in view, viz. the preservation of the seed. The 
 production of this seed has been the great end of the process 
 hitherto described; and, this end accomplished, the flower 
 dies, whilst the energies of the plant are turned to the nurs- 
 * BALFOUR'S Sketches, p. 158-159. 
 
148 THEISM. 
 
 ing of the little embryo which it has left behind, and which 
 is destined in its time to advance into new forms of floral 
 beauty. " Nothing/' adds Paley,* " can be more single 
 than the design, more diversified than the means. Pellicles, 
 shells, pulps, pods, husks, skin, scales armed with horns, are 
 all employed in prosecuting the same intention/' 
 
 When the seeds reach maturity, their dispersion is pro- 
 vided for in various interesting ways. In some cases the 
 fruit falls without opening, and gradually decays, forming a 
 sort of manure with the soil in which the plant sprouts. In 
 other cases the seed-vessels open and scatter the seeds. " In 
 the common broom, the pod, when ripe, opens with consi- 
 derable force ; so also the fruit of the sandbox-tree, and the 
 balsam, which is called Touch-me-not, on account of its 
 seed-vessel bursting when touched. The squirting cucumber, 
 when handled in its ripe state, gives way at the point where 
 the fruit joins the stalk, and the seeds are sent out with 
 amazing force. The common geranium seed-vessels curl up 
 when ripe, and scatter the seeds. In the case of firs, bigno- 
 nias, and some other plants, the seeds are furnished with 
 winged appendages ; while in the cotton-plant and asclepias 
 they have hairs attached to them, by means of which they 
 are wafted to a distance." " The plant called Kose of Jericho 
 becomes dried up like a ball, and is tossed about by the 
 wind until it comes into contact with water, when its small 
 pods open, and the seeds are scattered ; and a species of fig- 
 marigold in Africa opens its seed-vessel when moisture is 
 
 * Natural Theology, Knight's edit., vol. Hi. p. 58. 
 
OEGANIC PHENOMENA VEGETABLE. 149 
 
 applied." " In the dandelion, the leaves which surround 
 the clusters or heads of flowers are turned downwards, the 
 receptacle becomes convex and dry, the hairs spread out so 
 as to form a parachute-like appendage to each fruit, and col- 
 lectively to present the appearance of a ball, and in this way 
 the fruit is prepared for being dispersed by the winds/' * 
 
 The seed being deposited in the soil, the process of ger- 
 mination takes place under the influence of heat, air, and 
 moisture. The embryo sends forth, in one direction, a 
 number of fibrous threads, which fix the plant in the ground. 
 The radicle, in short, becomes the root. The plumule on the 
 other side elongates itself, rising into the air in the form of 
 the stem, frequently accompanied by one or more cotyledons 
 or seed-leaves, according to the nature of the plant. 
 
 And thus the great processes of nutrition and reproduc- 
 tion again proceed in the same varied and beautiful round, 
 proclaiming the Wisdom which guides and which guards the 
 whole. 
 
 We might add indefinitely to the force of these illustra- 
 tions, by a consideration of the same processes as exemplified 
 in the animal kingdom. In this field we might easily glean 
 some examples of peculiarly elaborate and striking contri- 
 vance^ subservient to the production and preservation of 
 those higher and more complex forms of life which here meet 
 us. The numerous and intricate organs employed in diges- 
 
 * BALFOUK'S Sketches, pp. 44, 172, 173, 174. 
 
 t The suckling the kangaroo, admirably described by Dr Whewell (Indica- 
 tions of the Creator, p. 123-124), is among the most remarkable of such in- 
 stances for complication, and at the same time propriety, of contrivance. 
 
150 THEISM. 
 
 tion, in the circulation of the blood, in respiration, and the 
 exquisite order and regularity with which they perform their 
 functions, are especially marked with instructive meaning in 
 reference to our subject. As, however, according to our 
 whole plan, we do not and cannot aim at a mere accumu- 
 lation of instances which do not add some significance to our 
 evidence, we pass onwards to those higher illustrations pre- 
 sented by the muscular and nervous phenomena, which are 
 considered to be the distinctive characteristics of the animal 
 kingdom. 
 
ORGANIC PHENOMENA ANIMAL. 151 
 
 IL CHAPTBB VII. 
 
 SPECIAL ORGANIC PHENOMENA CONTINUED ANIMAL. 
 
 BlCHAT first clearly propounded the distinction between 
 merely vegetable and animal life * which is now generally 
 accepted. Besides the functions of nutrition and reproduc- 
 tion which the animal shares with the plant, the former is 
 characterised by two special tissues, the muscular and the 
 nervous, issuing in distinctive manifestations of vitality, 
 higher than those to be found in the vegetable kingdom. It 
 is doubtful, indeed, as formerly said, whether the separa- 
 tion thus marked out be clear and decided. We have cer- 
 tainly, among plants, at least the shadow of these higher 
 vital developments which so prominently mark the animal 
 creation, as in the phenomena of irritability in the Venus' fly- 
 trap, the sensitive plant, and some others. In the former 
 plant the leaves are marked by three projecting hairs, which, 
 when touched, have the singular property of causing the 
 leaf to fold upon itself, shutting in the insect which may 
 
 * Bichat's own language is organic and relative ; but we prefer, for obvious 
 reasons, the less technical, more readily intelligible language. 
 
152 THEISM. 
 
 have caused the movement. The mode in which the leaves 
 of the sensitive plant fold themselves together on the slightest 
 touch is still more familiarly known. Remarkable as these 
 movements are, however, the conclusion of botanical autho- 
 rities, upon the whole, appears to be against the supposition 
 of their being identical in source with similar movements 
 in animals. " They are not dependent/' says the Professor 
 of Botany in Edinburgh, " on nervous and muscular power, 
 as is the case in animals, but they seem to be caused by the 
 greater or less distension of cells connected with the base of 
 the leaves and of the leaf-stalks/' * 
 
 The peculiar property of the muscular tissue is denomi- 
 nated contractility. It is simply the power possessed by 
 the muscles of contracting or shortening themselves. This 
 contractile power is observable in the lowest classes of 
 animals, although they do not present any distinct trace of 
 a fibrous structure. In the inferior zoophytes such as the 
 Infusoria, Polypi, Medusae the whole body seems to exhibit 
 an incessant action upon the surrounding fluid, maintained 
 by means of " very minute and generally microscopic fila- 
 ments " called cilia, and which apparently serve in the case 
 of these genera not only the purpose of progressive motion, 
 but also of respiration, and of procuring a supply of food-f- 
 in the Radiata generally, however, no distinct muscles can 
 be said to be traced, and their powers of movement are for 
 the most part very limited. 
 
 As we ascend the scale of animal life we begin to observe 
 the formation of fibres, at first irregularly dispersed through 
 
 * BALFOUR'S Sketches, p. 131. f Dr Koget, Bridg. Treat., vol. i. p. 126. 
 
ORGANIC PHENOMENA ANIMAL. 153 
 
 the soft body, and then, as the organisation becomes more 
 complex, collected into bundles, composing what are properly 
 called muscles.* In many of the Articulata the muscular 
 system is highly developed. Lyonet is said to have counted 
 in some species of caterpillar not fewer than four thousand 
 muscular bands ; and the extraordinary weights which ants 
 and beetles easily move, prove the muscular energy to be 
 very powerful in these creatures. It is in the Vertebrata, 
 however, and especially as displayed in the human body, 
 that the muscular system has been most carefully studied, 
 and is most familiarly known. And from this comparatively 
 limited, but very adequate sphere, our illustrations will for 
 the most part be drawn. 
 
 The bundle-form is one of the most remarkable charac- 
 teristics of the muscular tissue. The compact bundle is 
 found, on examination, to be composed of a series of lesser 
 and lesser bundles, firmly bound together in sheaths. 
 " The dilatation of the muscular fibres in thickness, which 
 accompanies their contraction in length, would, if these 
 fibres had been loose and unconnected, have occasioned too 
 great a separation and displacement, and have impeded 
 their co-operation in one common effect. Nature has 
 guarded against this evil by collecting a certain num- 
 ber of the elementary fibrils, and tying them together with 
 threads of cellular substances, thus forming them into a 
 larger fibre ; and, again, packing a number of these fibres 
 into larger bundles, always surrounding each packet with 
 a web of cellular tissue." f 
 
 * Dr Roget, Bridgewater Treatise, vol. i. p. 126. f Ibid., p. 130. 
 
 L 
 
154 THEISM. 
 
 As muscular action is wholly the result of the contractile 
 power possessed by the tissue, it is obvious that reciprocal 
 sets of such muscular bundles as we have described are 
 necessary to produce the varied and reciprocal motions of 
 animals. As Paley * states and illustrates the fact : " It is 
 evident that the reciprocal energetic motion of the limbs, 
 by which we mean motion with force in opposite directions, 
 can only be produced by the instrumentality of opposite or 
 antagonistic muscles of flexors and extensors answering to 
 each other. For instance, the muscles placed in the front 
 part of the upper arm, by their contraction bend the elbow, 
 and with such degree of force as the case requires or the 
 strength admits of. The relaxation of these muscles after 
 the effort would merely let the fore-arm drop down. For 
 the back stroke, therefore, and that the arm may not only 
 bend at the elbow, but also extend and straighten itself with 
 force, other muscles, placed on the hinder part of the arms, 
 by their contractile twitch, fetch back the fore-arm into a 
 straight line with the cubit, with no less force than that 
 with which it was beat out of it. The same thing obtains 
 in all the limbs, and in every movable part of the body. A 
 finger is not bent and straightened without the contraction 
 of two muscles taking place. It is evident, therefore, that 
 the animal functions require that particular disposition of 
 the muscles which we describe by the name of antagonist 
 muscles. And they are accordingly so disposed. Every 
 muscle is provided with an adversary. They act, like two 
 
 * Natural Theology, vol. i. pp. 104, 105 ; Knight's edit. 
 
OEGANIC PHENOMENA ANIMAL. 155 
 
 sawyers in a pit, by an opposite pull ; and nothing surely 
 can more strongly indicate design and attention to an end 
 than their being thus stationed/' To which Sir C. Bell in 
 a note adds : " The muscles are antagonists certainly, but 
 there is a fine combination and adjustment in their action, 
 which is not illustrated by the two sawyers dividing a log 
 of wood. The muscle having finished what we call its action 
 or contraction, is not in the condition of a loose rope, but, on 
 the contrary, there is always a perfect balance of action pre- 
 served between the extent of relaxation of the one class of 
 muscles and the contraction of the other; and there is a 
 tone in both by which the limb may be sustained in any 
 posture that is willed." 
 
 The muscles are attached by tendons or sinews to the 
 parts to be moved ; and there is often singular contrivance 
 shown in the mode in which these are made to act. The 
 most obvious and simple mode of producing motion, would 
 of course be to stretch the tendons in a straight line betwixt 
 the parts to be moved. But this would not, in many cases, 
 suit the convenience of the body. The muscles are, in con- 
 sequence, found in positions whence they can only act on 
 the movable object in an oblique manner, and with a corre- 
 sponding loss of force, but, at the same time, with an 
 increase of velocity, and a saving of muscular contraction 
 highly advantageous. Muscles acting after this oblique 
 fashion are often used in pairs, in which case the direction 
 of motion is the diagonal line between them, an arrange- 
 ment which, in certain movements of the body, is pro- 
 
156 THEISM. 
 
 ductive of a rapid and easy motion particularly desirable. 
 The action of the chest in breathing is of this kind.* 
 
 In certain parts of the body, where mobility is especially 
 requisite, a condensation of muscular fibres would have been 
 especially incommodious. By a skilful provision, the muscles 
 are in such cases placed at a distance, where their presence 
 is subservient to the beauty of the corporeal outline ; while 
 they are, at the same time, by a special apparatus of long 
 tendons, stretching like wires from a mechanical centre, 
 brought within range of their appropriate sphere of action. 
 It is in this way that the muscles which move the hands 
 and feet are found respectively in the arm and the calf 
 of the leg, instead of forming, as Paley expresses it, an 
 " unwieldy tumefaction in the hands and feet themselves. 
 The observation/' he adds, " may be repeated of the muscle 
 which draws the nictitating membrane over the eye. Its 
 office is in the front of the eye, but its body is lodged in the 
 back part of the globe, where it lies safe, and where it 
 encumbers nothing/" -f- 
 
 There are many other advantages connected with the use 
 of tendons which have been carefully pointed out. J By their 
 intervention the whole concentrated power of the muscular 
 fibres is conveniently brought to bear upon any particular 
 point where an accumulation of force is necessary. The 
 action is upon the very same principle on which a number 
 of men pull together at a rope, in order to influence by their 
 combined strength a given position. By means of tendons, 
 
 * Dr ROGET, p. 132. f Natural Theology, vol. ii. p. 106. 
 
 J Dr ROGET, p. 134-135, to whose treatise we are here, and throughout 
 this description, greatly indebted. 
 
ORGANIC PHENOMENA ANIMAL. 157 
 
 also, a change of direction may be imparted to the moving 
 power, without any alteration of its place. Tendons are 
 thus found, in numerous instances, " to pass round corners 
 of bones, and along grooves or channels expressly formed 
 for their transmission, producing the effect of pulleys/' The 
 trochlear muscle of the eye acts in this manner. It passes 
 round a cartilaginous support and turns back, just like a 
 rope round a pulley. By a similar mode of muscular action 
 the lower jaw is pulled down, the moving power proceeding 
 not from below but from above the jaw rising, in fact, in the 
 side of the face, and of course descending in the first instance, 
 but, at a certain point, taking a turn and then ascending 
 which is the direction in which it could alone produce the 
 appropriate effect.* 
 
 The peculiar configuration of certain muscles serves still 
 further to show the design with which they are marked. In 
 many cases " the fibres, instead of running parallel to one 
 another, are made either to converge or to diverge, in order 
 to suit particular kinds of movements ; and we frequently 
 find that different portions of the same muscle have the 
 power of contracting independently of the rest, so as to be 
 capable of producing very various effects, according as they 
 act separately or in combination/' f The muscle of the 
 back, called the trapezius, is an example of this. Some- 
 times they radiate from a common centre, as in the delicate 
 muscle of the ear-drum ; and at other times they run in a 
 circular direction, forming what is called an orbicular or 
 sphincter muscle. In the membrane of the eye called the 
 
 * PALET'S Natural Theology, vol. i. p. 116. f Dr KOGET, vol. i. p. 135. 
 
158 THEISM. 
 
 iris these two last-mentioned muscles are combined with 
 beautiful effect. On the application of too much light, the 
 circular fibres directly surrounding the pupil instantaneously 
 contract, diminishing its size ; while again, when more light 
 is needed, the contraction of the radiating fibres, acting on 
 the circular, serves as instantaneously to enlarge the pupil. 
 The instinctive character of this balanced action (the will 
 having but a slight and occasional control over it) espe- 
 cially evinces foresight ; for thus alone does it respond 
 with unerring precision to all the varying necessities 
 and circumstances of the animal. A somewhat corre- 
 sponding action of circular fibres with longitudinal, distin- 
 guishes the muscular coats surrounding canals of various 
 kinds, such as the blood-vessels, and the alimentary tube ; 
 the former tending, by their contraction, to extend the 
 canal and propel its contents the latter, again, by their 
 contraction, having a tendency to shorten it.* 
 
 One of the most general and remarkable characteristics 
 of muscular action in the limbs remains to be mentioned. 
 It takes place at what is called a mechanical disadvantage. 
 The axis of motion is much nearer to the exciting force than 
 to the resistance to be overcome. There is, of course, a 
 great sacrifice of power in this way ; but while this is com- 
 pensated, on the one hand, by the special energy of the mus- 
 cular exertion, on the other hand, velocity and freedom of 
 motion (which are the great requisites in the animal system) 
 are obtained in proportion to the mechanical disadvantage. 
 " Strength is sacrificed," as Dr Koget observes,")- " without 
 
 * Dr KOGET, vol. i. p. 147. t Ibid., vol. i. p. 141. 
 
ORGANIC PHENOMENA ANIMAL. 159 
 
 scruple, to beauty of form or convenience of purpose ; and 
 that disposition of the force is always adopted from which, 
 on the whole, the greatest practical benefit results. Every- 
 where do we find the wisest adaptation of muscular power 
 to the objects proposed, whether it be exerted in laborious 
 efforts of the limbs and trunk ; whether employed in balanc- 
 ing the frame or urging it into quick progression ; or whether 
 it be applied to direct the delicate evolutions of the fin- 
 gers, the rapid movements of the organs of speech, or the 
 more exquisite adjustments of the eye, or of the internal 
 ear." 
 
 It were difficult, indeed, to conceive a more impressive 
 display of design than is represented by all the varied and 
 intricate action of the muscular system in any of the higher 
 animals, and in the human frame especially. All is hidden 
 from our view beneath the covering of skin which encases 
 and protects the delicate machinery. But could we see 
 within, and trace the unceasing play of muscular adjustment 
 under any of our most common movements, nothing could 
 be more wonderful than the spectacle exhibited. The move- 
 ment of the eye in vision, of the ear in hearing, of the tongue 
 and larynx in speaking, all depend upon relations of the 
 nicest and most complicated description, whose operation, 
 unceasing as it is, is at the same time unwearying. How 
 wonderful the muscular endurance of the heart alone, which 
 contracts " with a force equal to sixty pounds eighty times 
 every minute, for eighty years together, without being 
 tired ! " * When the hand performs any common task exe- 
 
 * Animal Physiology, p. 74. Edinburgh: Chambers. 
 
160 THEISM. 
 
 cutes a piece of music, for example, or simply writes how 
 numerous the muscles brought into play, and yet how hap- 
 pily measured, definite, and wholly uninterfering their 
 mutual action ! " Not a letter," as Paley has well described 
 the latter case, " can be turned without more than one, 
 or two, or three tendinous contractions definite, both as to 
 the choice of the tendon, and as to the space through which 
 the contraction moves ; yet how currently does the work 
 proceed ! and when we look at it, how faithful have the 
 muscles been to their duty ! how true to the order which 
 endeavour or habit hath inculcated ! " * 
 
 The disposition of so many muscles in the human body 
 (anatomists have given names to between four and five 
 hundred), often so closely contiguous to one another, that 
 they are found " in layers, as it were, over one another, cross- 
 ing one another, sometimes imbedded in one another, some- 
 times perforating one another/' yet all so perfectly arranged 
 that they never obstruct or interfere with one another 
 this of itself surely furnishes evidence of design which it 
 is impossible to resist. What, save prescient Wisdom, could 
 have devised an arrangement at once so exquisitely inter- 
 volved, and so faultlessly harmonious ? 
 
 In advancing to a brief consideration of the nervous sys- 
 tem, we enter upon a sphere of illustration peculiarly signi- 
 ficant for our subject. For the nerves are not, like the 
 muscles, simply examples of organic contrivance ; they are 
 the seats of sensation, the media of animal conscious- 
 
 * Natural Theology, vol. ii. p. 113. 
 
OKGANIC PHENOMENA ANIMAL. 161 
 
 ness, in whose varied phenomena we find the appropriate 
 evidence, not only of Divine wisdom, but especially of 
 Divine goodness. In this chapter, however, we glance at 
 the nervous system simply in its organic arrangement, as 
 contributing, in the mere complicacy and order of its parts, 
 to the force of our preceding evidence. The mental meaning, 
 which everywhere underlies it, will immediately receive full 
 attention. 
 
 The nervous, like the muscular system, is found, in the 
 lower animal races, in a very undeveloped state. In the 
 very lowest, indeed, including the Porifera (sponges) ; Poly- 
 pifera (mushroom corals); Polygastrica (infusory animalcules); 
 Acalephae (sea-blubbers) ; and Entozoa (intestinal worms), no 
 trace of it can be detected by the closest scrutiny. These 
 animals are hence arranged by zoologists into a sub-kingdom 
 by themselves, under the name of Acrita. It must not, 
 however, be supposed that the neurine or nervous mat- 
 ter is really absent in these races. It is no doubt present, 
 although it cannot be traced ; not gathered into masses, 
 nor even into threads, but probably diffused in impercep- 
 tible atoms through the whole of their very simple struc- 
 ture.* 
 
 In the races immediately above the preceding, the nervous 
 matter is distinctly visible in the shape of threads dispersed 
 through the body. They are hence arranged in a sub-kingdom, 
 under the name of Nematoneura, the most interesting and im- 
 portant section of which are the Echinodermata, or star-fishes. 
 
 * GOSSE'S Text-Book of Zoology, p. 1. 
 
162 THEISM. 
 
 In the Articulata we reach a further and very significant 
 development of the nervous structure. It is no longer 
 merely in the form of threads, but presents the first appear- 
 ance of a spinal chord, with ganglions or nervous centres col- 
 lected on it ; that is to say, knots or swellings at regular 
 intervals along it, from which the nervous fibres run. From 
 the fact that these ganglions are, in the Articulata, regularly 
 disposed along the main line or chord to which they are 
 attached, it has been proposed to call this general division of 
 the animal kingdom Homogangliata, as being a name more 
 truly distinctive than the older and familiar one of Articu- 
 lata. The varied and deeply interesting class of insects, as 
 also the Arachnida (spiders, &c.), and Crustacea (crabs, &c.), 
 are representatives of this great division. 
 
 In the Mollusca the nervous system does not advance. 
 They are distinguished, Professor Owen has remarked, by 
 the development rather of the vegetal series of organs, or 
 those which are concerned in nutrition and reproduction. 
 The nervous matter is in them also collected into ganglions ; 
 but these are no longer symmetrically disposed along a main 
 line, but are unequally scattered throughout the body. " The 
 principal mass of nervous matter takes the form of a thick 
 ring or collar surrounding the gullet, whence threads are sent 
 off in an unsymmetrical manner to other parts of the body ; 
 several ganglions being placed around the collar, and others 
 dispersed in other parts, so as best to supply the most im- 
 portant organs/'* From this unequal distribution of the 
 * GOSSE'S Text-Boole, p. 193. 
 
ORGANIC PHENOMENA ANIMAL. 163 
 
 nervous centres in the races of this division of the animal 
 creation, it has been proposed to apply to them the more 
 definite and characteristic name of Heterogangliata. 
 
 It is only in the Vertebrata that we reach the fully deve- 
 loped form of the nervous system. Here we have a spinal 
 chord, truly so called, not only with ganglionic knots distri- 
 buted along it, but expanded at the summit into a collection 
 of nervous matter, which gradually becomes of main signifi- 
 cance in the system. To this terminal collection of nervous 
 matter the general name of brain is given. In all the classes 
 of the Vertebrata a brain and spinal marrow are present, but 
 the brain especially is extremely diversified in size, and in 
 the relation of its parts. It is composed of two hemispheres, 
 respectively named the cerebrum or proper brain, and the 
 cerebellum or lesser brain. It is by the full development of 
 the former that the nervous system in the human species is 
 distinguished. It extends so far back in man as to cover 
 the whole of the cerebellum, while, in the lower vertebrate 
 orders, the latter becomes always more apparent, till in rep- 
 tiles and in fishes it is wholly exposed. 
 
 With this very summary description of the nervous system 
 in the animal races generally, we will now look, for the 
 sake of special illustration, a little more closely at its struc- 
 ture and operations in man, in whom it assumes its chief 
 interest and importance. 
 
 The nervous matter in the human body presents the 
 appearance of an elaborate and intricate trace-work running 
 out to all its parts, from the vertebrate column and ence- 
 
164 THEISM. 
 
 phalon. Comparatively dense and unformed in the immediate 
 region of the central line or axis of the body, it branches off 
 into more rare and distinct outline towards the surface ex- 
 tremities. When this matter, as exhibited in the brain, is 
 examined, it is found to be composed of two different sub- 
 stances. The main substance, which is placed internally, is 
 white-looking and of fibrous structure. A coating of grey 
 matter, vesicular in structure, encloses the other, and gathers 
 into large ganglionic masses at the base, where it constitutes, 
 as we shall see, a special centre of nervous force. This two- 
 fold material is found also in the spinal marrow, but in an 
 inverted relation, the grey matter here forming the interior, 
 and the white matter the exterior mass. The grey or vesi- 
 cular matter is supposed to be the generating source of the 
 nervous energy, the white or fibrous matter to form the 
 lines of communication between the different parts of the 
 system. 
 
 In the diversified operation of man's nervous system, we 
 meet, first of all, with centres of nervous action, strictly 
 corresponding to those found in the lower orders, viz., simple 
 ganglions, distributed along the spine, or at least chiefly 
 there. But we also, as might be expected, meet with higher 
 and peculiar centres of such action in what are called the 
 sensory ganglions, collected at the base of the brain, and 
 especially in the cerebrum itself. From these respective 
 centres emanates the whole varied and wonderful activity of 
 human life. 
 
 To Sir Charles Bell we are indebted for the great dis- 
 covery which has opened up the whole field of nervous 
 

 OEGANIC PHENOMENA ANIMAL. 165 
 
 operation. He found that sensation and motion are depen- 
 dent upon different sets of nervous filaments. The sensifer- 
 ous filaments, stretching all along the surface of the body, 
 are constantly receiving impulses which they transmit along 
 the line to the different centres of nervous action, whence 
 again proceed the other or motor set of filaments running 
 to all the different parts of the body. These filaments 
 start from distinct roots in the nervous column the roots 
 of the former being in the posterior, and those of the 
 latter in the anterior, portions of that column. They 
 preserve throughout their distinct character and quality, 
 although in their ramifications they become inextricably 
 intermingled. According to their function, the former set 
 have been called afferent, as conveying impressions towards 
 the centre ; the latter efferent, as conveying the respondent 
 movement from the centre.* We have thus, in the most 
 simple form of nervous operation, three distinct organs, as it 
 were the afferent nerve, the gangiionic centre, and the 
 efferent nerve. These together form an apparatus which 
 has often been represented by the analogy of a voltaic 
 battery. The impression communicated at the sensitive 
 surface passes along the line of the afferent nerve to the 
 central station, where it is not expended or thrown away, 
 but, in virtue of its nature, acts upon the vascular structure 
 of the ganglions, developing a motive force which issues 
 along the efferent nerve to the parts originally affected. 
 An act or operation of sense always tends to complete itself 
 in this way. The stimulus passing inwards is reflected to 
 
 * Also esodic, or ingoing nerves ; and exodic, or outgoing nerves. 
 
166 THEISM. 
 
 the sentient surface whence it started, quickening there a 
 movement of closer contact, or, as it may be, of repulsion 
 towards the object of sensation. When we touch anything, 
 we have thus a tendency either to grasp it more firmly, or to 
 reject it, should there be anything in it disagreeable to the 
 organs of sensation. Without one or other of these results 
 the sensation has not completed its natural round. It has 
 fallen short through its own original weakness, or the weak- 
 ness of some of the organs ; or, as is very commonly the 
 case, in the ceaseless and complex play of the system, it has 
 been interfered with by some opposing influence of greater 
 power bearing on the same centre of nervous force. 
 
 The intimate union which is thus seen to exist between 
 the nervous and muscular systems is deserving of notice. 
 The action of the one always tends to pass into that of the 
 other. The two systems are not only combined, but so 
 combined, or rather inwrought, that the one everywhere 
 presupposes and includes the other. 
 
 We have been speaking all along of sensation as implied 
 in the nervous process ; and so it is. But, in the very lowest 
 forms of this process, that which we peculiarly mean by 
 sensation does not emerge. There are, in other words, 
 appropriate ranges of nervous action which transact them- 
 selves beyond the region of consciousness. Among these 
 are the common functions of organic life the action of the 
 heart, of the lungs, and of the stomach. These, as well as 
 sometimes also special motions of the limbs, are found, in a 
 state of health, to proceed wholly irrespective of any con- 
 scious recognition or sensation properly so called. The 
 

 OKGANIC PHENOMENA ANIMAL. 167 
 
 sense-impulses which have set them agoing do not, as it 
 were, awaken, or realise themselves. And in this we may 
 perceive a special mark of Divine wisdom ; for how impor- 
 tant is it that those functions upon which our daily health 
 depends, should be thus secured from the distracting influ- 
 ences that would be otherwise constantly bearing upon 
 them ! How comparatively imperfect and unhappy would 
 life be, did the respiratory or digestive processes incessantly 
 claim our attention ! As it is, these processes, proceeding 
 in a separate round by themselves, minister in the most 
 faithful and efficient manner to our daily maintenance and 
 well-being. 
 
 Such simple reflex actions constitute in man, however, 
 only the lowest circle of nervous operation. And even in 
 regard to them there is so intimate a relation between the 
 different parts of the system, that the processes which may 
 be, and in ordinary cases are, transacted beyond the region 
 of consciousness, yet very readily pass into it. For, 
 according to the full law of nervous action, whose exposi- 
 tion we owe only to the most recent physiological labours, 
 every impression is represented as having a tendency to pass 
 along the nerve of transmission upwards through every 
 intermediate position to the cerebrum itself.* This ten- 
 dency, we have seen, is not in many cases carried out. 
 The nervous impression is intercepted at a lower ganglionic 
 centre, and reflected there for the performance of various 
 important functions. Yet, even in those cases in which 
 there is no conscious recognition, the relation of the nerves 
 
 * MORELL'S Psychology, p. 97. 
 
168 THEISM. 
 
 to the higher conscious centre is so intimate that some 
 influence is probably at all times given forth upon it. 
 
 The reflections from the sensory ganglions at the base of 
 the brain may be said to form the second range of nervous 
 action in man, which, in its special character, is of the 
 most important kind. These ganglions are the great seat of 
 sensation. The nerves of the senses terminate in them, and 
 hence proceed all our well-known modes of sensation, so 
 various and exquisite. But while this range of nervous 
 action lies so completely within the sphere of feeling and 
 consciousness, it is yet irrespective of the will. The 
 responsive movements flow forth instinctively ; they are 
 the simple involuntary play of sensations. Such automatic 
 movements are the winking of the eye, shuddering, balanc- 
 ing of the body to prevent falling, and many others. 
 
 The highest and complete range of nervous action pro- 
 ceeds from the cerebrum itself. While, in truth, the lower 
 ganglionic centres are so constituted as to be capable of 
 originating independent ranges of action, they are yet so 
 intimately related to this highest centre as to be constantly 
 within its influence. The effects, for example, of intense 
 thought or of strong emotion upon the processes of organic 
 life are familiarly known. It is deserving of remark, how- 
 ever, that this cerebral influence can only be propagated 
 downwards after a certain manner. The mind can only 
 influence directly the sensory ganglions, the sensations 
 which are the appropriate expression of their action again 
 acting upon the lower ganglionic centres concerned in the 
 processes in question. The idea of a pleasant taste, for 
 
OEGANIC PHENOMENA ANIMAL. 169 
 
 example, will make the mouth water, and the sensation thus 
 created will stimulate, through the inferior excito-motor 
 centre, the action of the stomach. But the mind cannot 
 operate directly upon the alimentary apparatus. 
 
 The cerebrum, it is well known, is the special seat of those 
 varied ideas and emotions which constitute what is pecu- 
 liarly considered our mental activity. It is the seat, more- 
 over, of that moral activity which in man is the flower of 
 existence. In the will, as the only complete expression of 
 our cerebral energy, the whole complex human life does not 
 certainly take its rise, but here alone it finds its sum and 
 perfection. What grounds there may be for reckoning in the 
 cerebrum two distinct centres of nervous action an idea- 
 motor, so called and described by Dr Laycock,* and one (the 
 highest of all) specially volitional ( need not occupy us in 
 so cursory and second-hand a sketch as this. 
 
 We have presented more than enough to evince the clear 
 design stamped on every feature of man's nervous system. 
 On the one hand, its elaborate structure, so nicely and 
 curiously wrought, and on the other hand, its diversified yet 
 never conflicting action, are among the most impressive 
 manifestations of a wisdom which, shining forth everywhere 
 in nature, here shines forth with, perhaps, special signifi- 
 cance and beauty. It were a vain effort to exalt any one 
 aspect of creation above another, Divine order being equally 
 conspicuous in all ; yet it would seem that here, in the 
 exquisite organisation which we have been contemplating, 
 
 * In a paper read before the British Association, 1844. 
 t See MOKELL'S Psychology, p. 100-102. 
 M 
 
170 THEISM. 
 
 Eeason is eminent with a peculiar lustre. Here, standing 
 at the summit of the physical, on the verge of that self- 
 conscious reason which sees its own forms reflected every- 
 where, we seem to see the most perfect correspondence 
 between matter and spirit between the order that merely 
 shows Mind, and the mind that perceives Order. The pious 
 instinct which, on a comparatively inadequate view, lifted 
 the soul of the Psalmist to God, here awakens irrepressibly 
 in every reverent heart, " I will praise Thee ; for I am fear- 
 fully and wonderfully made/' 
 
TYPICAL FOEMS DIVINE WISDOM. 171 
 
 II. CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 TYPICAL FOEMS DIVINE WISDOM. 
 
 THE general conception of order with which we set out, 
 has in the few last chapters become mixed up with the 
 more special conception of design. The teleological aspect 
 of organic phenomena is that which most readily fixes the 
 attention of the Natural Theologian, as it is that which has 
 hitherto proved the most successful key of discovery in 
 prosecuting their study. Under the influence of the illus- 
 trious Cuvier, this teleological view had assumed such a pro- 
 minence in physiology as almost to obscure the more general 
 view of a unity of plan or order. Of late, however, and 
 especially through the profound and laborious researches of 
 Professor Owen, this latter view has begun to claim renewed 
 interest. In his two works " On the Archetype and 
 Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton," and " On the 
 Nature of Limbs " he has especially shown its value and 
 fruitfulness as a guiding principle of investigation in com- 
 parative anatomy ; and the same principle has, in truth, been 
 gaining ground in the whole region of physiology, as pro- 
 
172 THEISM. 
 
 bably furnishing, here no less than in other departments, 
 the deepest and most pervading key of explanation. It is 
 felt now, at length, after the extravagance of polemic on 
 either side has passed away, that there is no necessary 
 contradiction between the more special and the more com- 
 prehensive and yet grander doctrine. 
 
 We have already seen the numerical relation which sub- 
 sists between the different parts of plants. In the great 
 division of the vegetable kingdom, 3 is found to be the 
 pervading or typical number of the monocotyledonous plants, 
 and 5 the pervading or typical number of the dicotyle- 
 donous. This numerical unity is found, on closer examina- 
 tion, to be merely a single indication of the typical unity 
 which, throughout the whole range of the vegetable king- 
 dom, underlies its infinite variety. Beneath all this variety, 
 apparently and in reality so boundless, there emerges to the 
 critical gaze an identity of form of the most interesting and 
 wonderful character. 
 
 The science which treats of this pervading feature of the 
 organic kingdom has been termed Morphology,* and has 
 within the last half-century drawn the special attention of 
 naturalists. In so far as it relates to botany, Professor 
 Schleiden has devoted one of the chapters of his very attrac- 
 tive work, The Plant, a Biography, to the subject. He 
 thus describes the importance of form to the plant, and 
 the frequent subordination of every other thing to it : 
 
 * In so far as we know the term, morphology was first made use of in appli- 
 cation to anatomy in the year 1819, by Burduch, in his treatise Uber die 
 Aufgabe der Morphologic. Leipzig: 1819. 
 

 TYPICAL FOKMS DIVINE WISDOM. 173 
 
 "Whether it arises from the essential nature of the cir- 
 cumstances or not, we cannot say, but, at least so far as 
 appearance goes, the production of shape is so promi- 
 nent a point in the natural history of plants, that all the 
 rest has often been forgotten for its sake ; and thus the 
 study of form, or morphology, becomes in any case the most 
 important branch of teaching in all botany. But it would 
 be a great mistake to suppose that morphology is merely a 
 meagre enunciation and description of forms. It is also a 
 scientific question ; it has to seek for the knowledge of 
 laws, and must, at least as a preliminary step, arrange the 
 multitude of appearances under primary points of view, 
 place them according to rule and exception, and so gradually 
 approach nearer to the discovery of the actual laws of 
 nature/' * 
 
 The fundamental idea of morphology, therefore, is the 
 recognition of a common type of construction among plants 
 and animals. In the case of the former, with which we are 
 immediately concerned, science, penetrating beneath the 
 mere diversity of organs, and their enumeration and classi- 
 fication, discerns a persistent unity of plan or law, upon 
 which the whole plant, in its various and complicated struc- 
 ture, is moulded. And it is remarkable that this beautiful 
 conception, to which science owes so much, was, in the first 
 instance, due to the vivid intuition of a poetic, rather than 
 the patient induction of a merely scientific mind. It was to 
 the fine and subtle glance of Goethe, roaming through nature 
 
 * Pp. 81, 82. 
 
174 THEISM. 
 
 with so rich a perception of its harmonies, that typical forms 
 of structure, in the vegetable world, first revealed them- 
 selves. His Versuch die Metamorphose der Pflanzen zu 
 erklaren, in 1790, contained the first formal exposition of 
 the doctrine of typical unity, and must, therefore, be con- 
 sidered to have laid the basis of scientific botany. It was 
 not, however, till thirty years later, when the speculations of 
 Goethe were taken up by de Candolle, and embodied in his 
 work on Organography, that they attracted general attention, 
 and passed into the scientific mind of Europe. The idea of 
 the poet only then became the recognised doctrine of science. 
 Goethe, drawn to nature from the promptings of its mir- 
 rored harmony within him, carried over, as might be sup- 
 posed, a somewhat too ideal view of unity to the plant. His 
 idea of a typical plant, " whereby he signified an ideal plant, 
 the realisation of which, as it were, nature had proposed to 
 herself, and which she had only attained in a certain degree in 
 the individual plants/' is considered by Schleiden to be defi- 
 cient in clearness and grasp of reality. And it would indeed 
 have been wonderful if the first fresh glance of the poet 
 had expressed with perfect precision the deep-seated truth 
 of nature. It cannot even now be said that the funda- 
 mental forms of vegetable structure have been precisely 
 determined ; some, with Schleiden himself, finding a radical 
 twofoldness, and others aiming to establish a unity * as 
 
 * See a paper on "Typical Forms" in the North British Review, August 
 1851, in which an attempt is made "to reduce a plant, by a more enlarged con- 
 ception of its nature, to a unity." The paper, understood to be from the pen of 
 Professor M'Cosh of Belfast, gives throughout a very informing' and suggestive 
 view of the whole subject ; and we have been greatly indebted to it in the com- 
 position of this chapter. 
 
TYPICAL FORMS DIVINE WISDOM. 175 
 
 the most general plan of the plant. It is only by very 
 patient and comprehensive processes of induction that the 
 most hidden order of organic nature can ever be discov- 
 ered. As Schleiden says, "glorious systems may, indeed, 
 be thought out on paper in the study, but these have no 
 meaning or importance in the actual world. Thus, as we 
 enter upon these things, we must rather modestly inquire 
 whether nature is inclined to display her mysteries to us, 
 whether she will, in this or that individual instance, make 
 manifest what characters are essential in their shape ; in a 
 word, what basis she will afford us for the erection of our 
 system." 
 
 It will suffice for our general purpose to present a very 
 brief sketch of the now established reduction of the plant to 
 a twofold type of structure, as exhibited by Schleiden. The 
 two representative organs, to which all the others can be 
 reduced, are the stem and the leaf. The root, and the trunk 
 With its lateral branches, and these again with their lateral 
 branchlets, are simple modifications of the former. All these 
 are of " the same structure, and tend to assume the same 
 form/' * " If a thousand branches from the same tree are 
 compared together," says Lindley, "they will be found to 
 be formed upon the same uniform plan, and to accord in 
 every essential particular. Each branch is also, under favour- 
 able circumstances, capable of itself becoming a separate in- 
 dividual, as is found by cuttings, buddings, grafting, and 
 other horticultural processes." Each branch or branchlet, 
 therefore, is simply the plant repeating itself, in diversified 
 
 * North British Review, August 1851, p. 396. 
 
176 THEISM. 
 
 outline, as it advances in growth each containing within 
 itself the germ of individual existence, and ready to become 
 an individual plant on the application of the proper means. 
 The term phyton has accordingly been given with propriety 
 to each single part. 
 
 Upon the stem, and out of it, grows the leaf, which, in its 
 turn, is the undoubted type of all the special organs of in- 
 florescence, the calyx, corolla, stamens, and pistils. The 
 sepals of the calyx, and the petals of the corolla, or flower 
 commonly so called, are obviously enough foliar in their 
 structure. But the stamens and pistils have been proved 
 to be no less so, little as, on a mere cursory inspection of 
 them, this might seem to be the case. 
 
 The plant, in its most complete development, is therefore 
 capable of analysis into two distinct parts a twofold 
 system of constructive order. The diversity of stem and 
 flower is seen to flow from a typical unity in each case ; and 
 some have carried back, as we have said, the whole diversity 
 to a radical unity in the stem. If we cannot contemplate 
 the special relations and uses of different organs of the plant 
 without recognising in them the clear marks of design, it is 
 no less impossible, surely, to contemplate this wonderful unity 
 of organisation this plan of structure, underlying the whole 
 vegetable creation without the conception of Mind forcing 
 itself irrepressibly upon us. 
 
 But this conclusion is still more strongly enforced by 
 the most general glance at the result of Professor Owen's 
 researches in comparative anatomy. The labours of this 
 great investigator have opened up a new field of interest 
 
TYPICAL FORMS DIVINE WISDOM. 177 
 
 and significance in anatomical science. Carrying along 
 with him the principles and conclusions of Cuvier, he soon 
 found that their very force impelled him forward to a more 
 profound and comprehensive principle of discovery, which, 
 while it had been perverted by the arbitrariness of previous 
 theorisers, is yet of incalculable value and importance. The 
 simple fact of corresponding bones in different species, freely 
 recognised by former anatomists, became significant to him 
 of a great doctrine of homology, running through the whole 
 of the vertebrate skeleton. By the term homology he ex- 
 presses the unity or identity of character between the bones 
 so answering to one another in different animals. The 
 bones themselves he calls "homologues," in contradistinction 
 to " analogues," which he applies to parts performing the 
 same function ; whereas homologous parts, identical in 
 character, may exhibit every variety of form and function 
 are the same organs, in fact, under whatever change of 
 circumstances. Thus the fore limbs of a quadruped, the 
 wings of a bird, the pectoral fins of a fish, and the arms of 
 man, are respectively homologous, because they are really 
 the same organs, only differently modified ; while again the 
 wings of Draco volans are merely analogous to the wings 
 of a bird;* each organ performing the same function, but 
 being wholly different in structure. 
 
 Throughout the vertebrate skeleton from that of the fish, 
 the reptile, and bird, to that of the mammal from the ceta- 
 ceans up to man Professor Owen has demonstrated that 
 there are no fewer than seventy of such homologous bones, 
 
 * Quarterly Review, June 1853, p. 72. 
 
178 THEISM. 
 
 which may be clearly traced, showing the uniform plan, or 
 archetypal model, upon which the whole vertebrate races 
 have been formed. This vertebrate archetype has been 
 figured by him ; and, in connection with the respective type- 
 skeletons of the fish, the reptile, the bird, and the beast, is 
 said to constitute a perfect anatomical study. With the 
 details of the subject we feel ourselves incompetent to 
 meddle ; but the great conclusion is one which claims our 
 earnest attention the fact, namely, of the demonstrated 
 unity of constructive plan underlying all the singular diver- 
 sity of the vertebrate form. What a pregnant fact is this ! 
 and how vast a scheme of order does it open up in the ani- 
 mal creation ! " If there be/' says Professor Sedgwick, " an 
 archetype in the vertebrate division of animated nature, we 
 may well ask whether there may not be a more general 
 archetype that runs through the whole kingdom of the liv- 
 ing world. In a certain sense there is. All animals, if we 
 except the Eadiata, which come close to a vegetable type, 
 are bilateral and symmetrical,* have double organs of sense, 
 and have a nervous and vascular system, with many parts 
 in very near homology, even when we put side by side, for 
 comparison, the animal forms taken from the opposite 
 extreme of nature's scale. And even in the Radiata, where 
 we, at first sight, seem to lose all traces of the vertebrate 
 type, on a better examination many of the genera are proved 
 still to be bilateral and symmetrical." 
 
 There is in this grand conception of typical order a 
 
 * This statement regarding equilateral symmetry must be received with 
 some limitations. 
 
TYPICAL FOEMS DIVINE WISDOM. 179 
 
 significance for our subject in some respects quite peculiar. 
 Even if it were the case, therefore, that the teleological 
 principle of Cuvier suffered any abatement of its lustre 
 (which, according to a just view, it is yet far from doing) 
 from the promulgation of this more comprehensive prin- 
 ciple, the theistic argument would still be far from sus- 
 taining any loss. It gains, on the contrary, more than 
 by any possibility it could lose. As if the homage which 
 science had already from all quarters rendered to it were 
 not enough, this latest advance of physiology has returned 
 laden with an offering of most precious and conclusive 
 meaning. 
 
 The essential question of Theism, we formerly saw, resolved 
 itself into one regarding the rightful relation of man's reason 
 to the world at large. Is this reason entitled to bring the 
 manifold life of nature within its own forms, to embrace the 
 cosmical vastness in its own mirror? We found that, in 
 the nature of the case, it is and must be so entitled, as the 
 very condition of science or of truth at all. Reason is not 
 merely a growtt of nature, but truly an emanation from the 
 Divine Source of nature, and therefore validly brings all 
 nature within its laws. Now, looking at these latest dis- 
 coveries of physiological science, are they not found to bear 
 an emphatic testimony to this fundamental position ? For 
 what is the typical order recognised as pervading creation 
 but the signal expression of a reason allied to man's, and yet 
 above it ? What is the evidence of an ideal archetype for 
 the world, or any part of it, but the special evidence of a 
 Mind subsisting apart from the world, and antecedent to 
 
180 THEISM. 
 
 it ? For it is clear that such an archetype could never have 
 existed such a pattern could never have been stamped on 
 creation so deeply inlaid that we are only now discovering 
 it without a Mind to conceive and plan it. In the language 
 of Professor Owen language of the highest interest for our 
 subject " The recognition of an ideal exemplar for the ver- 
 tebrated animals, proves that the knowledge of such a being 
 as man must have existed before man appeared. For the 
 Divine Mind which planned the archetype also foreknew all 
 its modifications. The archetypal idea was manifested in 
 the flesh, under divers modifications, upon this planet, long 
 prior to the existence of those animal species that actually 
 exemplify it. To what natural or secondary causes the 
 orderly succession and progression of such organic pheno- 
 mena may have been committed, we are as yet ignorant. 
 But if, without derogation to the Divine Power, we may 
 conceive the existence of such ministers, and personify them 
 by the term Nature, we learn, from the past history of our 
 globe, that she has advanced with slow and stately steps, 
 guided by the archetypal light amidst the w^reck of worlds, 
 from the first embodiment of the vertebrate idea, under 
 its old ichthyic vestment, until it became arranged in the 
 glorious garb of the human form." 
 
 And here appropriately our evidence for the special fact 
 of the Divine wisdom may be said to culminate. Speak- 
 ing to us everywhere in the laws of nature in the special 
 ends of organic functions it seems in these last chapters to 
 rise before us with a clear and vivid force of the most irre- 
 
TYPICAL FORMS DIVINE WISDOM. 181 
 
 sistible kind. In all the intricate diversity, and yet vast 
 archetypal unity of organic life, we seem to see with a 
 brightness, undimmed by intervening medium, the impress 
 of a Wisdom as grand in simplicity as it is boundless in 
 fertility.* 
 
 * The evidence which this archetypal order or unity of plan in creation fur- 
 nishes of the unity of the Divine Being, is, moreover, deserving of notice. Here, 
 too, the language of Professor Owen is expressive of that sound Christian phi- 
 losophy, which in him, as in so many of the highest minds of our country, is 
 found in beautiful unison with the most eminent scientific attainments. "The 
 evidence," he says, " of unity of plan in the structure of animals, testifies to 
 the oneness of their Creator, as the modifications of the plan for different modes 
 of life illustrate the beneficence of the Designer." 
 
182 THEISM. 
 
 II CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MENTAL OKDER. 
 
 IN advancing to this farther and higher branch of our illus- 
 trative evidence, we do not consider it necessary to enter into 
 any formal proof of mind as a substance essentially distinct 
 from matter. That it is so distinct has been assumed in the 
 whole course of our preliminary reasoning, and quite warrant- 
 ably so. For, to say the least, mind is as much entitled, 
 apart from proof, to be held a distinct reality as matter. 
 Nay, of the two, there cannot be any doubt to the genuine 
 thinker which is the real, primary, and constitutive element 
 of knowledge : and for the materialist, therefore, to demand 
 a proof of the separate existence of mind, and for the philo- 
 sopher or theologian to grant him the validity of this 
 demand, is simply among the absurdities which have sprung 
 out of the degradation both of philosophy and theology.* 
 
 * The assumption that mind is nothing else than a material function, and 
 that the science of mind is only the highest range of the general science of 
 physiology, is one among the many specimens of the thoroughly unphilosophic 
 procedure which characterises Positivism. The whole tone and reasoning 
 of M. Comte on this subject (Philosophic Positive, tome ii. p. 766 et seq.) are 
 
MENTAL OEDEE. 183 
 
 The right of question, the burden of proof, lies plainly all the 
 other way; matter per se, nature independently of mind, 
 being, according to our whole reasoning, as well as according 
 to all true philosophy, the simply inconceivable and inex- 
 plicable. 
 
 It is only the fact of mind, the reality of a rational 
 consciousness in man, which at once gives occasion to the 
 theistic problem, and forms the condition of its solution. It 
 is only to reason that the question could ever arise, Is there 
 a God ? It is only reason that could ever originate an answer 
 to this question. Mind, therefore, in its full and compre- 
 hensive sense the sense in which we made such frequent 
 use of it in our first chapters is an element of wholly pecu- 
 liar significance for our argument. It is the condition of it 
 from the beginning. Within the mental or rational sphere 
 alone does the argument find a footing ; and within this 
 sphere alone, as we shall afterwards see, does it find its com- 
 pletion. It goes forth into the world of phenomena every- 
 where, seeking illustration and confirmation ; but the rational 
 human spirit, the voi>s, which is one and abiding amid all 
 variety and fluctuation of phenomena, is alone the home of 
 its birth, and equally of its full maturity and strength. 
 
 in fact ignorantly arrogant to such a degree as to need no refutation. His 
 followers in this country have expressly repudiated his confusion of psychology 
 with physiology as merely one of its branches. Vide Mr MILL'S Logic, vol. ii. 
 p. 422-423? and Mr LEWES' Exposition of Positivism, p. 212. 
 
 If any one desires to see the degraded and unintelligible substitute which, 
 under the name of " a New Cerebral Theory," M. Comte would give us, in 
 place of our mental philosophy, let him consult the statement of this theory, 
 in the Politirjue Positive, or in the concluding section of the first part of Mr 
 Lewes' volume. 
 
184 THEISM. 
 
 This radical and distinctive importance of mind must not 
 for a moment be overlooked in the course of our evidence. 
 But mind also presents itself to us in another point of view. 
 In its complex and various manifestations, it furnishes also an 
 illustrative contribution to our argument. It is not only, 
 according to its fundamental theistic meaning, the essential 
 correlate and condition of order everywhere, but is itself, 
 viewed objectively, in its manifold expressions, an illustra- 
 tion of order of the most interesting and impressive kind. 
 Mental phenomena bring their own appropriate testimony 
 to the Divine wisdom, while their specialty, beyond all mere 
 material facts, enables us for the first time to trace in an 
 inductive manner the Divine goodness. 
 
 The field of theistic illustration afforded by mental phe- 
 nomena has not, indeed, been very much frequented by 
 natural theologians. Lord Brougham, in his discourse on 
 Natural Theology, adverted to this neglect, and so far took 
 up the subject in one of the sections of that work. But at 
 the same time he has done little really to rescue it from the 
 neglect of which he complained ; and it may be doubted, from 
 his partial treatment of it, whether he fully understood its 
 character and importance. Dr Chalmers, in his Natural 
 Theology, has dealt more adequately with certain parts of our 
 mental constitution in their theistic interpretation ; but he has 
 left other parts of it, equally significant, wholly untouched. 
 
 The truth is, that there is peculiar difficulty in dealing 
 with mental phenomena for our purpose. They are at once 
 so confluent and subtle in themselves, and so encompassed 
 with debate and uncertainty, arising out of the ceaseless 
 
MENTAL ORDEE. 185 
 
 polemic of philosophy, that the theologian has naturally 
 sought for illustrations of his argument in a less difficult and 
 fluctuating class of phenomena. At the same time, the very 
 character of mental phenomena, in their higher complicacy 
 and refinement, only renders them the more richly fitted to 
 display the Divine perfections, in so far as we can truly seize 
 and represent them. The exquisite varieties of sensation, 
 the marvellous structure of thought, the glorious workings 
 of imagination, the infinite play of emotion, and the profound 
 depths of passion, all speak with the most eloquent utterance 
 of the Divine wisdom and beneficence. 
 
 In the remaining chapters of this section, we endeavour 
 to bring into view some of the theistic meaning, which may 
 be everywhere traced in mental phenomena. The divi- 
 sions which have been commonly made of these phenomena 
 into those of sensation, cognition, and emotion, will succes- 
 sively engage us. We accept these divisions as serving 
 sufficiently to characterise the complexity of our mental life, 
 apart/ from those higher rational elements which afterwards, 
 according to our plan, receive attention by themselves ; and 
 while our treatment, no less than that of the writers of 
 which we have spoken, must be here very inadequate, it may 
 yet include a sufficiently comprehensive survey of the whole 
 field, as it presents itself, in such rich diversities of aspect, 
 for inspection. 
 
186 THEISM. 
 
 II. CHAPTER X. , 
 
 SENSATION DIVINE GOODNESS. 
 
 THE phenomena of sensation form in all cases the lowest 
 range of mental life, while in many of the inferior races this 
 life reaches no farther. There are some, indeed, to whom it 
 may seem strange to speak of mind as expressed in mere 
 sensation. But we have no other name by which to denote 
 that higher element or presence beyond mere organic life, 
 which sense, even in its lowest stages, implies. That which 
 feels is everywhere something more than that which merely 
 lives. Sense is only such in virtue of a sentient subject, 
 which we can only conceive intelligibly, even in the brute 
 creation, as the dim, crude, and frequently unawakened pre- 
 sence of mind. It is necessary, at the same time, that we 
 carefully preserve the distinction of mind, as possessed by 
 man, in its fully-expressed reality of reason. Any doubt on 
 this point would leave our argument, or indeed any theistic 
 argument, in a somewhat hopeless state of confusion and 
 uncertainty. 
 
 With this explanation, a mental presence is to be held as 
 
SENSATION DIVINE GOODNESS. 187 
 
 everywhere manifested in sensation. With every sensitive 
 act there is ever, according to Sir William Hamilton,* a 
 distinct forthputting of mental activity. A certain attitude 
 of attention, blind as it may be, is necessary to constitute 
 such an act ; and hence it happens that, when attention is 
 otherwise wholly absorbed, the mental life otherwise wholly 
 engrossed, we can sustain the most severe bodily injuries 
 without any feeling of pain. 
 
 Sensations admit of an obvious classification in relation to 
 the different organs on which they depend. In man they 
 are commonly reckoned in a five-fold series, as the sensations 
 of taste, smell, touch, hearing, and sight. It is, neverthe- 
 less, now almost universally admitted that this classification 
 is not complete. Dr T. Brown contended for a sixth sense, 
 under the name of the muscular sense, to which he traced 
 various feelings generally ascribed to touch ; and it cannot 
 be doubted that there is a separate range of sensations of 
 which our muscular frame is the appropriate organ. As this 
 frame is tense or relaxed, as it moves rhythmically or con- 
 vulsively (in shuddering, for example), or again, as it is 
 vigorous or exhausted, it gives forth various impressions 
 which enter into the sensory system, and form a large share 
 of our daily sensational experience. In the very same man- 
 ner the different affections flowing from the constant pro- 
 cesses of vegetative life those, for example, arising from a 
 state of healthiness or disease, vigour or debility and other 
 affections still less defined, may very well claim to be ranked 
 as distinct orders of sensations. It cannot be doubted that 
 
 * Vide Appendix to Reid's Works, p. 878. 
 
188 THEISM. 
 
 the feelings connected with such states of the bodily organi- 
 sation, however diffused, make a large portion of the com- 
 mon consciousness, and of the happiness or misery of our 
 common mental existence. It is not necessary for our pur- 
 pose, however, to determine such matters of purely psycho- 
 logical classification. 
 
 Of the five more specially recognised senses, taste and 
 smell are rightly grouped by themselves ; and again, hearing 
 and sight stand in a similar group. Touch stands by itself, 
 as in some respects the most important and necessary of all 
 our senses. 
 
 Taste and smell are intimately allied : they both convey 
 impressions derived from the chemical qualities of bodies, 
 the one in the fluid (substances tasted must be either natu- 
 rally fluid, or must be dissolved by the saliva), the other in 
 the gaseous state. They are chiefly instrumental as subserv- 
 ing the more physical wants of existence ; and smell, from 
 its subservience in this point of view, is well known to 
 reach a much more intense and powerful development in 
 some of the lower animals than in man. 
 
 The senses of sight and hearing are more intellectual in 
 their character and relations than the former. They carry 
 the mind more outward, fixing it more upon the object 
 awakening its regard. The former, as has been often 
 pointed out, is more immediately related to the cognitive, 
 the latter to the emotional powers, a relation which is thus 
 curiously contrasted in a passage quoted by Mr Morell from 
 Erdmann's Psychologische Brief e. " The one/' says Erd- 
 man, " is the clearest, the other is the deepest of the senses. 
 
SENSATION DIVINE GOODNESS. 189 
 
 The same contrast shows itself in the objects by which these 
 organs are severally affected. In the former case the object 
 shows its outward surface, as it exists unmoved in space ; 
 in the latter case it betrays, by means of the tone it gives 
 forth, what exists within and under the surface. It is not 
 the form and colour of an object which tells what it is, but 
 its sound. For that reason the sight of a thing does not 
 penetrate so much to the heart, it only tells us what is its 
 appearance. On the other hand, the tone moves us ; it tells 
 us how the thing or the person stands to the heart itself. 
 On that account we can easily explain the phenomena so 
 often observed, that deafness is hard and distrustful, while 
 blindness is mild and confiding." * 
 
 The sense of touch is peculiar in its range and the diver- 
 sity of its applications. This extent and variety of opera- 
 tion constitute its importance and rank in comparison with 
 the other senses ; for, in point of mere intellectual dignity 
 and refinement, it must certainly be classed below the sense 
 of vision. It is the same characteristic which has led to that 
 subdivision of its functions to which Dr T. Brown led the 
 way, many separating with him the more objective pheno- 
 mena of the sense, through which we are supposed to come 
 to a clear knowledge of the primary qualities of matter 
 extension, solidity, hardness, &c. from the more subjec- 
 tive phenomena, or those of feeling, strictly so called; 
 and others ranging in a further separate class the sensa- 
 tions of temperature, usually considered to form merely a 
 variety of those of touch. 
 
 * Psychology, pp. 113, 114. 
 
 
190 THEISM. 
 
 In the operation of these different senses, the unerring 
 accuracy with which they guide the inferior orders in the 
 selection of fitting nourishment, and their rich and varying, 
 yet so nicely discriminating flow in man, we see the bright 
 manifestations of the same provident wisdom which we have 
 hitherto been tracing. Marvellously complex and beautiful 
 as are the higher organs of hearing and sight, they must yet 
 surely yield in endless intricacy of harmonious adjustment to 
 the crowding sensations to which they minister. If the 
 hand of a transcendent Wisdom be visible in the arrange- 
 ments of the one, must it not be also impressively recog- 
 nised in the yet subtler arrangements of the other ? 
 
 But it is not for the evidence of design, that may beyond 
 doubt be here equally traced, that these phenomena possess 
 a special interest for the Theist. Their peculiar significance 
 consists not in the fact that in them also we see wisdom, 
 but that in them, for the first time, we perceive goodness. 
 In this new reality of creation we have a new testimony to 
 the Creator. With the dawn of sense, we have the kindling 
 of the light of love around the great First Cause. We behold 
 no longer a merely exquisite mechanism, nor even the ela- 
 borately beautiful action of unconscious life, but the yet 
 higher and richer workings of sentient being. In these 
 workings there emerges for the first time the fact of enjoy- 
 ment, and this fact in nature it is which alone enables us 
 inductively to find goodness in God. Apart from this fact, 
 Paley has said, with his wonted brief simplicity, " the attri- 
 bute has no object, the term has no meaning/' It is only 
 the presence of a sentient subject in organism which enables 
 
SENSATION DIVINE GOODNESS. 191 
 
 us to pronounce that the tendency of its design is beneficial. 
 It is only its relation to consciousness which makes any- 
 thing good or evil. 
 
 It becomes, then, for the theistic inference, a most vital 
 and momentous question Is enjoyment really the normal 
 expression of sensation? Is happiness the prevailing re- 
 sponse of consciousness ? Is it, in short, " a happy world, 
 after all ? " What is the testimony which sentient life, in 
 its manifold forms, utters on this great point? The true 
 bearing of the question is to be carefully observed. It is 
 not at all a question implying the non-existence of evil ; on 
 the contrary, it proceeds plainly on the supposition of evil 
 being an undoubted reality. The truth is, that with the 
 fact of pleasure, given in sensation, there emerges so inse- 
 parably the fact of pain the one fact so directly suggests 
 the other that the induction as to the Divine goodness 
 assumes, from the very first, a directly polemical aspect. It 
 becomes a question in a different sense from the truth of the 
 Divine power or wisdom ; and we are so far from wishing 
 to hide from view the obvious difficulty which thus meets 
 us, that we frankly admit it in our very mode of stating the 
 matter. While acknowledging the difficulty, however, we 
 reserve it, according to the well-devised plan of our subject, 
 for separate and special treatment. Pain is present along 
 with pleasure evil along with good ; and it will be our 
 subsequent aim to consider the solution of which this fact is 
 capable. In the mean time, we simply inquire, Is not hap- 
 piness present to such a degree in creation as to lead us to 
 infer in the Creator a disposition to bestow happiness ? Is 
 
192 THEISM. 
 
 not good so apparent in nature as to declare that its Author 
 is good ? Or to place the matter before us in the strictly 
 special form in which it has occurred in this chapter is not 
 the normal action of sense, enjoyment ? 
 
 To the question thus put we can only imagine one 
 answer. When, with a clear mind and heart, we turn to 
 nature, we see happiness expressing itself in endlessly mul- 
 tiplied forms. The play of conscious life is everywhere 
 around us, and it is the play of enjoyment. Every one is 
 familiar with the felicitous passage of Paley, descriptive of 
 this prevailing happiness of sentient existence ; and what- 
 ever shadows may lie in the background obvious objections 
 to which we have already adverted, there cannot well be 
 any dispute as to the truth as well as felicity of the Arch- 
 deacon's picture on the positive side. It cannot be ration- 
 ally doubted that pleasure is the appropriate correlative of 
 sensation everywhere. The natural meaning of feeling, so 
 to speak, is happiness. Feeling is no doubt also liable to 
 be pain ; but and tnis alone is the point of our present 
 argument pain is the exception, pleasure the rule. If a 
 nerve be lacerated, it will unquestionably give forth a 
 sensation of pain ; but the expression of the nervous sys- 
 tem is nevertheless, in all animals, according to its origi- 
 nally constituted working or in other words, when not 
 interfered with pleasure. And this is what we intend by 
 speaking of the normal action of sensation as pleasurable. 
 The constitution of animal life is such that it yields, in har- 
 monious operation, enjoyment. The design, therefore, of 
 that constitution is clearly benevolent, even if it were, in 
 
SENSATION DIVINE GOODNESS. 193 
 
 the actual circumstances of the case, more liable to interfer- 
 ence than it is. In truth, however, it is not only designed 
 to evolve happiness, but so secured in its working that the 
 design is for the most part effectually accomplished. 
 
 Happiness ascends million-voiced to the great Source of 
 Being day by day. It is a living, if often inarticulate speech, 
 diffused through creation, and warming it everywhere with 
 the breath of thanksgiving. It is a song of natural piety 
 which is new every morning, and fails not every evening, 
 although many jars mingle in the wide-toned benedicite. 
 These mar the harmony of the song, but it still goes 
 upwards, a pervading strain of happiness, in testimony of the 
 Love from which it comes, and in which alone it lives. 
 
194 THEISM. 
 
 II CHAPTER XL 
 
 INSTINCT. 
 
 BEFORE passing onward in our inductive psychological sur- 
 vey, we are met by a question of special theistic interest, in 
 regard to the display of mind in certain of the lower animals. 
 We do not here, indeed, propose to meddle with the general 
 question of animal mind, which presents so many apparently 
 insuperable difficulties ; but that peculiar manifestation of 
 intelligence, in many of the lower creation, which has re- 
 ceived the name of " Instinct/' and which has been supposed 
 to bear with a very conclusive effect upon our subject, 
 demands from us a passing notice. 
 
 The cell-making of the bee, and the nest-building of the 
 bird, are familiar examples of instinct. The mental power, 
 displayed by the animal in these operations, appears to be 
 wholly singular. In ordinary cases, mind works only accord- 
 ing to instruction and experience : it is dependent on edu- 
 cation, and increases with exercise. In these and other 
 similar cases it operates, in the language of Paley, " prior 
 to experience, and independent of instruction/' Nor is 
 
INSTINCT. 195 
 
 this all. The definition of Paley broadly as it demar- 
 cates the mode of instinct from that of mind in the ordinary 
 sense is considered by Lord Brougham to fail in expressing 
 the most essential element of distinction between the two ; 
 viz., the conscious intention or foresight which is ever pre- 
 sent in the one case in any effort of higher constructiveness, 
 but which, in many cases of instinct, it seems wholly 
 impossible to conceive present. The bee or the bird, for 
 example, not only works towards the most beautiful results 
 builds the one its cell, and the other its nest with a skill 
 and precision which human effort only approaches at a 
 distance, neither of them having ever seen a cell or a nest 
 before, or having ever previously tried to make one ; but, in 
 many cases, there seems also, as the most wonderful fact of 
 all, the certain absence of any foresight of the end towards 
 which all this animal ingenuity is expended. In the case 
 of the bee, as his lordship has well put it in his dis- 
 cussion with Lord Althorpe, in the first of his dialogues, 
 " I see her doing certain things which are manifestly to pro- 
 duce an effect she can know nothing about for example, 
 making a cell, and furnishing it with carpets and with liquid, 
 fit to hold and to cherish safely a tender grub, and knowing 
 nothing, of course, about grubs, or that any grub is ever to 
 come, or that any such use, perhaps any use at all, is ever to 
 be made of the work she is about. Indeed, I see another 
 insect the solitary wasp bring a given number of small 
 grubs, and deposit them in a hole which she has made over 
 her egg, just grubs enough to maintain the worm that egg 
 will produce when hatched and yet this wasp never saw 
 
196 THEISM. 
 
 an egg produce a worm nor ever saw a worm nay, is to 
 be dead long before the worm can be in existence ; and, 
 moreover, she never has in any way tasted or used these 
 grubs, or used the hole she made, except for the prospective 
 benefit of the unknown worm she is never to see. In all 
 these cases, then, the animal works positively without know- 
 ledge, and in the dark. She also works without designing 
 anything, and yet she works to a certain defined and impor- 
 tant purpose/' * 
 
 It is, of course, impossible to pronounce so decidedly as to 
 the absence of design, on the part of the animal, towards the 
 end for which she is working, as it is to pronounce regarding 
 her want of instruction. We have no means of absolutely 
 determining the relation of the animars consciousness to her 
 work ; whereas it is easy to ascertain, and is beyond all 
 dispute, that she has never learned her art from others. She 
 is as perfect at it at the first as at the last ; and every bee, 
 and every succeeding race of bees, works exactly in the same 
 manner, and with the same exact degree of perfection all 
 which plainly declares the endowment to be of a specific 
 character, distinct from ordinary intelligence. There is, how- 
 ever, as in the cases described, and certain others, the 
 strongest evidence for concluding in the animal ignorance 
 of intention towards the special end for which she works. 
 If we did the same things, we know we should be planning 
 in ignorance. And even those who have endeavoured most 
 earnestly to reduce the operations of instinct to the category 
 of ordinary intelligence, have been found to acknowledge 
 
 * Dialogues on Instinct, pp. 25, 26. 
 
INSTINCT. 197 
 
 such an absence of foresight in the animal in cases where 
 the most refined and difficult end is yet subserved.* 
 
 It has been a favourite attempt, it is true, of certain 
 naturalists to explain such examples of animal skill by the 
 aid of simple sensations. The bee and the bird are supposed 
 to proceed in their work under the guidance of certain cor- 
 poreal feelings, which only reach their gratification in its 
 accomplishment. But, granting this, which is very probable, 
 it seems to go but a little way towards an explanation ; for, 
 while such sensations may account for the animal's impulse 
 toward her work, and even her continuance in it, they can 
 never surely account for her ability to perform it. They may 
 prompt it, but it is inconceivable that they can execute it ; 
 and we find, accordingly, that the very writers who would 
 reduce the whole process to a series of sensations, many of 
 them purely hypothetical, are yet, in the very nature of the 
 case, obliged to call in a "constructive head" and a "stroke of 
 genius " to complete the work. No one, indeed, could desire 
 a better exposure of the futility of all such attempts to account 
 for instinct on the mere ground of sensation, than that which is 
 furnished by the very character of these attempts, as described 
 by the writers in question. The impression which they must 
 make on every mind, which is less eager to support an hypo- 
 thesis than to ascertain the truth, is in the highest degree un- 
 satisfactory. The mystery, as explained, is only tenfold more 
 mysterious, while the explanation itself is incumbered by 
 an amount of hypothesis which renders it wholly valueless.* 
 
 * CHAMBERS'S Papers for the People, No. 182, p. 29. 
 
 f Vide Papers for the People, No 182, pp. 30, 31, which we mention because 
 
198 THEISM. 
 
 The sensational view of instinct has been fully discussed 
 by Lord Brougham in his well-known Dialogues his inter- 
 locutor urging, with great acuteness, all its supposed force 
 of explanation. It is impossible not to feel that it receives 
 a very thorough and candid examination, and that it is 
 rightly pronounced completely wanting at once in its arbi- 
 trariness, and in its failure, even if its arbitrariness were over- 
 looked, to compass the most essential conditions of the pro- 
 blem. His lordship has shown this with great minuteness, 
 and with the most undeniable success in the special case of 
 the bee ; and we cannot do better than refer any of our 
 readers, who would more fully investigate the subject, to his 
 interesting volume. It seems to us, upon the whole, that 
 we are clearly warranted in asserting the operations of 
 instinct to be often unconscious in reference to the end 
 which they specially accomplish. Nay, it seems to be, as 
 Lord Brougham contends, that it is this element of blind 
 instrumentality in the production of a highly-wrought intel- 
 lectual result that we specifically mean by instinct. It is 
 the disproportion and inadequacy of the apparent means to 
 the end which constitutes the marvel, and has so fixed 
 curiosity upon it. 
 
 Let us see, then, what is the bearing of this upon our 
 subject. In such instinctive operations, we have the pre- 
 sence of a very high degree of intelligence. The important 
 question arises, whose intelligence? The whole result of 
 
 of the eminent ability that marks it, entirely inconclusive as we conceive its 
 reasoning to be. 
 
INSTINCT. 199 
 
 our examination of the facts has been to show that it is 
 not, in any common sense, the intelligence of the animal 
 that is here at work. There are some of the facts, as the 
 rare mathematical qualities of the bees' work, which imply 
 a knowledge that man has only attained by the most diffi- 
 cult and gradual mental processes,* and these alone would 
 seem, from the first, to preclude the idea of the directing 
 intelligence being that of the animal. But the strongest 
 evidence against such a supposition consists certainly in the 
 peculiar character of the mental power which here appears ; 
 displaying itself at once in such full and exquisite perfec- 
 tion, and with such unerring success accomplishing ends, of 
 which it is incredible to conceive any prevision in the animal. 
 If we cannot, therefore, accredit the animal itself with either 
 the rare skill or the conscious purpose manifested in the 
 operations before us, are we not carried directly upward 
 to the Divine intelligence working in and through the 
 
 * The hexagonal character of the bees' cell, and the purpose thereby so 
 admirably served of the utmost possible saving of space, are so well known that 
 it is unnecessary to do more than allude to them. This peculiar property of 
 the hexagon was only ascertained by man in the progress of mathematical dis- 
 covery. It is particularly deserving of notice, that certain doubts which had 
 been cast upon the mathematical perfection of the bees' work have been com- 
 pletely dissipated by Lord Brougham, and much new and interesting light thus 
 reflected on its highly intellectual character. From the analysis of a young 
 mathematician of the name of Koenig, a pupil of Bernoulli, a discrepancy of 
 two minutes was supposed to be found between the measurement of Maraldi of 
 the actual angles of the cell, and that of the angles that made the greatest 
 saving of wax. His lordship, however, by solving the problem in another way, 
 found that the bee was right, and the analyst wrong ; and other mathematicians 
 corroborate him in this result. In another respect also, as to the saving of 
 the wax in relation to the dimensions of the cell, which had been disputed by 
 a Berlin academician, he vindicates the bee triumphantly against her critic. 
 
200 THEISM. 
 
 animal? The argument may perhaps be stated more expli- 
 citly thus : "We have here a mental process of a very high 
 order ; we must find a mental agent. Such an agent we 
 do not find in the animal ; it appears, on the contrary, 
 from all evidence, to be a mere blind instrument. We are 
 forced, therefore, to admit a higher agent. This agent can 
 only be the Supreme Intelligence everywhere present in 
 creation. 
 
 The conclusion which is here expressed is well known 
 to be that in which many of the highest and most com- 
 petent minds have rested. It seems to have been that of 
 Newton, if his words, as quoted by Lord Brougham, are not 
 yet entirely explicit.* Pope, in his well-known lines, ) 
 and Addison,! although with less clearness, have expressed 
 the same truth. His lordship, in his second Dialogue, 
 argues it at great length, and with great force, so as to 
 leave a strong impression in its favour on the mind of every 
 candid reader, if he may yet feel some parts of the argument 
 not very lucid or satisfactory. 
 
 The conclusion is an important one for our subject. Even 
 if we do not assign it any exclusive weight, as, according to 
 our whole view, it is not so much exclusive in its character 
 as it has been commonly supposed to be, it yet possesses an 
 
 * Dialogues, pp. 61-62. 
 
 f* " See then the acting and comparing powers, 
 One in their nature, which are two in ours ; 
 And reason raise o'er instinct as you can, 
 In this 'tis God that acts, in that 'tis man." Essay. 
 
 J Spectator, No. 120. 
 
INSTINCT. 
 
 201 
 
 interesting force which claims recognition in our inductive 
 ascent. All nature and all life reveal a present Deity. Their 
 mystery is only intelligible in such a presence. But here, 
 in this special mystery, we appear to see the special pre- 
 sence of Divine agency the immediate operation of the 
 Divine Mind. 
 
202 THEISM. 
 
 II CHAPTEK XII. 
 
 COGNITIVE STEUCTTJEE IN MAN. 
 
 IN entering upon the subject of this chapter, it is perhaps 
 especially necessary for us to disclaim any pretension of 
 treating the subject by itself. Here, as throughout in these 
 chapters, our object is only to exhibit the bearing of the 
 facts with which we deal upon the illustration of the Divine 
 perfections. To a scientific investigation of the facts by 
 themselves it would be wholly absurd in us to pretend. We 
 take them, for the most part, simply as they are presented 
 to us by the labours of others, who have cultivated the 
 respective sciences to which they relate. It is enough for 
 us that they are recognised as facts, although in some cases 
 they may admit of a higher scientific explanation than that 
 which we give of them. Our only concern is to set forth 
 their theistic meaning, neither mistaking, nor, if possible, 
 exaggerating aught. 
 
 In regard to the facts treated of in this and the succeed- 
 ing chapter, we can scarcely hope to be even so far successful. 
 The pregnant interest of the facts, in our point of view, irre- 
 
COGNITIVE STRUCTURE IN MAN. 203 
 
 sistibly prompted a survey of them ; yet their subtlety, and 
 the dire polemic which everywhere encompasses them, render 
 such a mere summary survey as was at all compatible with 
 our purpose peculiarly difficult. This, however, is to be 
 kept in mind, that even where our statement and explana- 
 tion of the fact may not be accepted, the theistic conclusion 
 which we draw will, for the most part, remain untouched. 
 
 There is no fact more difficult than that which meets us 
 on the threshold of the sphere of cognition, and consti- 
 tutes its condition. Perception is, in truth, the eternal 
 problem of philosophy, from the special solution of which 
 systems take their divergent course after an obvious and 
 consistent manner, passing on the one extreme to materi- 
 alism, on the other to idealism. 
 
 Sensation in its lowest forms we formerly found to give, 
 as its essential condition, a sentient self or subjective. Per- 
 ception, in every case, gives not only a self, but also in cor- 
 relation a not-self, an objective. The former draws and 
 contains the field of apprehension within, the latter shuts it 
 out from the sphere of self ; no contrast or distinction being 
 given in the former, distinction and contrast (apprehension of 
 relation) being the characteristic of the latter.* Only in this 
 apprehension, " not merely of a fact, but of relations/' can 
 cognition be properly said to begin. It is no longer simply 
 consciousness, but consciousness expressing itself in an atti- 
 tude of distinction from objective phenomena, the ego 
 realising itself against the non-ego, and thereby becoming 
 a centre of knowledge. 
 
 * Sir W. HAMILTON'S Appendix to Reid's Works, p. 880. 
 
204 THEISM. 
 
 But what more specially makes tlie contents of this 
 fact of perception, or initial moment of cognition ? This is 
 the metaphysical life - question, ceaseless in its stir. The 
 old controversies die away, but from their ashes there 
 spring up only higher and intenser forms of the pro- 
 blem.* Meanwhile, in its secret depths the fact ever- 
 more is born, and goes forth an intelligible presence into 
 the world of reality, however we may explain or give an 
 account of it. 
 
 On any admissible explanation, we have in perception, 
 according to what we have already stated, self and not-self, 
 the ego and non-ego, in clear distinction, and yet in indis- 
 soluble relation. The correlation is in the perceptive act 
 inseparable, while its factors are distinguishable. The one 
 stands face to face with the other, and equally with the 
 other attests itself. The reality in cognition is, therefore, 
 ever twofold subject and object ; and in this twofold 
 reality we have for the first time the full manifestation of 
 mind self-consciousness not merely gazing outward upon 
 the objective world (as in the brute), but realising itself as 
 distinct from and above the world. 
 
 And viewed in reference to our subject, what a marvellous 
 
 * This question has again arisen in the sphere of our British philosophy, under 
 the handling of one of the most finely speculative minds that ever entered this 
 field of high debate. In Professor Ferrier's Institutes of Metaphysic the latest 
 doctrine of psychology, which had gained such general acceptance, has been set 
 aside as not only incomplete, but vicious as a basis of speculation. With Mr 
 Ferrier's special doctrine it would be out of place here to meddle. We have 
 no doubt, however, that the subtlety and depth of metaphysical genius which 
 his work betrays, its rare display of rigorous and consistent reasoning, and 
 the inimitable precision and beauty of its style on almost every page, must 
 secure for it a distinguished place in the history of philosophical discussion. 
 
COGNITIVE STEUCTUEE IN MAN. 205 
 
 reality is this ! With . what fresh emphasis does it enun- 
 ciate the inexhaustible energy of the great creative Source ! 
 What a new and beautiful utterance of Divine wisdom is 
 it ! its very " image" deposited within the conditions of 
 time and space ! What a field of display for the Divine 
 goodness does it open up ! We cannot conceive it doubted 
 that the fact of perception is thus validly pregnant with 
 theistic significance. If, in the various organs of sense, 
 the exquisite complicacy and delicacy of the nervous system, 
 we recognise the clear manifestation of creative design, 
 no less surely must we recognise it in the wonderful men- 
 tal capacity to which these minister. For it is only in 
 the exercise of the mind in perception that all the sensi- 
 tive apparatus finds its highest purpose and fulfilment. All 
 the marvel of its intricate and beautiful mechanism is only, 
 in the last respect, for mind's service. In perception the mind 
 appropriates and adjusts every lower organ and function for 
 its own nobler spiritual uses. Surely, therefore, we must 
 here recognise a farther token of creative presence and skill. 
 The subjective and objective being brought face to face in 
 perception, a continued mental activity is the result. The 
 mind is continually taking in impressions through the 
 avenue of the senses. It is obvious, however, that without 
 some further attribute, this mental activity would have 
 little availed. Incessantly as it was quickened it would 
 have expired the old impressions yielding to new ones 
 ever presenting themselves. Knowledge, in any true sense, 
 would thus have been impossible. Whatever might have 
 been the liveliness or the range of perception, the mind 
 
206 THEISM. 
 
 could never have been truly cognitive without a power of 
 acquisition. 
 
 In the human mind a preservative power seems to emerge 
 consentaneously with the presentative in perception. The 
 mind not only perceives, but retains. This is one of the 
 elements of the complex faculty which philosophers gene- 
 rally have denominated memory, the other element being 
 specifically known as recollection.* There seems, how- 
 ever, good reason for confining the appellation of memory 
 to the simple power of retention, which undoubtedly must 
 be considered an original aptitude of the mind, irresolvable 
 into any other. The power of recalling the preserved 
 impressions seems, on the other hand, rightly held to be 
 only a modified exercise of the suggestive or reproductive 
 faculty, which next falls under our notice. This is well 
 known as the view of Dr Thomas Brown, in the establish- 
 ment of which he considered he had destroyed all the claims 
 of memory to be regarded as an original faculty of mind. 
 But that his subtlety was so far at fault, is evident 
 from the simple fact that, apart from the mind's capacity of 
 retention, of which he takes no account, the suggestive or 
 associative faculty would have no material whereon to 
 operate. 
 
 The best claim of this power of retention to be reckoned 
 an original element of mind is seen in its primary and fun- 
 
 * " This faculty/' says Dugald Stewart, who presents a very clear and 
 thorough analysis of it according to its twofold conception, "implies two 
 things a capacity of retaining knowledge, and a power of recalling it to our 
 thoughts when we have occasion to apply it to use. The word memory is 
 sometimes employed to express the capacity, and sometimes the power. " 
 Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. i. p. 404. 
 
COGNITIVE STEUCTUKE IN MAN. 207 
 
 damental importance. Apart from it, mind might have been 
 a continued, but it would necessarily have been an aimless 
 and futile activity. Consciousness would have been inces- 
 santly born only to expire a mere series of intense bewil- 
 derment. But a simple power of retention was not all that 
 was necessary. It required to be, for the purposes of know- 
 ledge, the very kind of retention which we actually possess ; 
 the power, for example, not only of preserving impressions, 
 but of preserving them beyond the immediate sphere of 
 consciousness storing them away, as it were, within a 
 secret repository, whence they can with more or less facility 
 be drawn by the operation of the suggestive faculty. This 
 is a very important feature of memory which has been too 
 little noticed. It is obviously the condition at once of order 
 and repose among our ideas. Otherwise, with even an incon- 
 ceivably higher range of attention than we now possess, we 
 must have been utterly oppressed by the commingling and 
 hurrying crowd of our perceptions. They would have been 
 ever in presence, so many petitioners, incessantly and with 
 equal eagerness soliciting our regard, and overwhelming us 
 with their anxious suit. Consciousness must have sunk 
 under its intolerable burden. It would have been no longer, 
 indeed, a brief ever- vanishing impulse, but a too vivid agony. 
 The mental energy must have perished under the thronging 
 rush of its recipients, like the maid of Eoman story under 
 the shields of the invaders admitted into her fortress.* 
 What a truly admirable provision, therefore, is this power 
 
 * This comparison, which seemed to us as sufficiently fitting, is not our own, 
 but to whom it belongs we cannot exactly say. It is willingly conceded to any 
 one who puts in a valid claim for it. 
 
208 THEISM. 
 
 of retention ! In describing it, we have necessarily set forth 
 at the same time its useful and beneficent character. 
 
 We cannot pass away from it without noticing shortly its 
 dependence upon attention, and the interesting use and 
 value of this mental capacity which is not yet to be reck- 
 oned, as it has sometimes been, a separate faculty, so much 
 as the mere attitude or energy of the soul in every other 
 faculty. Even in sensation, which most of all might be 
 supposed independent of attention, we found that a distinct 
 act of it was put forth. This mental attitude is, however, 
 especially related to the faculty of retention, conditioning it 
 to such a degree as to be apt even to be confounded with it. 
 This dependence of memory upon attention has been noticed 
 by all our philosophical writers.* Our degree of retention 
 seems, in fact, to be exactly proportioned to our degree of 
 attention. The more intense the attitude of the mind 
 towards any object in the first place, the more fixed the 
 impression retained of it. And thus it is we readily account 
 for the strong and ineradicable impressions made by those 
 objects which have interested the passions and drawn forth 
 the whole soul. 
 
 The importance and value of this mental capacity are 
 abundantly obvious. It may be said to underlie our whole 
 mental being, as the condition of its culture and progress, 
 imparting to it that ever-quickening spur which carries it 
 onwards to new triumphs, and, to a large extent, those vary- 
 ing measures of development which it manifests in different 
 
 * STEWART'S Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. i. p. 106 et seq. ; LOCKE 
 On the Human Understanding, vol. i. chap. x. 
 
COGNITIVE STEUCTURE IN MAN. 209 
 
 individuals. All science is its product ; and life owes to it 
 all its interest and joy. It is, alone, its incessant operation 
 from infancy filling the storehouse of memory with the 
 familiar images of parents and brothers and sisters which 
 binds together family ties, and strengthens all family 
 love.* 
 
 The mind having apprehended in perception and laid up 
 in memory the objects of knowledge, it was obviously neces- 
 sary that it should possess a power of recalling or repro- 
 ducing these objects, in order that its knowledge should be 
 serviceable to it. Stored away irrevocably beyond the sphere 
 of consciousness, they had as well never have been laid up. 
 We have seen how requisite a provision it is that they 
 should lie beyond this sphere, in order to leave the mind at 
 liberty to occupy itself with other objects continuing to 
 solicit it ; but it is clear that if thus for ever laid away, 
 our stores of perception could never have become to us 
 stores of experience, and mere accumulation never have 
 quickened into living knowledge. We have, therefore, the 
 power of recalling our past impressions. This we are 
 enabled to do in virtue of that great principle of our mental 
 constitution familiarly known as the association of ideas, 
 but more correctly expressed as our suggestive or reproduc- 
 tive faculty. There is none of our mental faculties which 
 has in later times engaged more study than this none 
 
 * Although we had the capacity of retaining knowledge, if this capacity were 
 not, as it is, in proportion to attention, one impression would have been as 
 good and effectual as a thousand, and all family union and recognition would 
 thus have been impossible. Any face would have been just as distinguishable, 
 or rather as indistinguishable, to a child, as the faces of its parents. 
 
210 THEISM. 
 
 which has at all times excited more marvel, and prompted 
 more curious inquiry. 
 
 The process of reproduction takes place according to 
 laws which have been variously enumerated and described, 
 and the honour of first generalising which has been 
 sometimes attributed to one or other of our modern philo- 
 sophers to Hobbes, Locke, and Hume. Sir W. Hamilton,* 
 however, has recently claimed this honour for Aristotle, 
 whose generalisation is not only first in time, but also, in 
 his view, the most correct and comprehensive. These laws 
 are generally reckoned at least four in number, viz., 
 the law of similarity, the law of contrast or correlation, 
 the law of co-adjacency (contiguity in time and place), 
 and what Sir William Hamilton has called under protest, 
 the law of preference, meant to include Brown's second- 
 ary laws of suggestion. Under the operation of one or 
 other of these laws our mental activity proceeds, and all 
 our mental experience is accumulated. Through them order 
 is introduced into what would otherwise be the mere chaos 
 of mental succession, and the way, as it were, is cleared for 
 the emergence of those higher activities which carry forward 
 our intellectual development. Each mind receives its pecu- 
 liar tone, and enters upon its peculiar education, under their 
 influence. 
 
 Putting out of view the fourth of these laws, which is ob- 
 viously distinct, and not indeed properly expressive of a prin- 
 ciple of mental succession, but only of a determining acci- 
 
 * Vide Appendix to Keid's Works, Note D. 
 
COGNITIVE STRUCTURE IN MAN. 211 
 
 dent of it,* it seems possible to reduce the other three to one 
 fundamental law or principle, which may be defined as that 
 whereby the mind, in all its efforts, completes a circle of 
 thought in other words, brings a whole into all its repre- 
 sentations. The special laws mentioned seem all capable of 
 being regarded as merely particular modes of the operation 
 of this one great law of integration. If we suppose, as an 
 example of the first, the case of one face, from some point 
 of likeness in it, suggesting another, let us see what is 
 the mental process which takes place. The mind, on 
 apprehending the particular point of resemblance in the 
 face before it, immediately begins to complete the image 
 thereby recalled. It feels that it has got a part of a whole 
 formerly familiar to it, and its immediate aim is to bring 
 into view that whole. In ordinary instances the image 
 completes itself instantaneously, and we are not therefore 
 conscious of any such aim ; but, in some instances, it is only 
 after frequent efforts that it does so (as when we see a face 
 resembling some one that we cannot yet recall), and then 
 we become distinctly conscious of the reproductive operation. 
 The eye, or mouth, or whatever part of the strange face is 
 recognised as familiar, is fixed upon by the mind, and 
 becomes the centre of a representative picture which the 
 mind has no satisfaction till it has completed. In the case 
 of the law of contrast, as when night suggests day, good 
 
 * It expresses the relation not between mental phenomena in themselves, 
 but between the individual mind and any series of such phenomena. It is a 
 determining accident of association, therefore, rather than an inherent prin- 
 ciple or law of it. 
 
212 THEISM. 
 
 evil, a dwarf a giant, the mental process is still more obvi- 
 ously of this integrating character.* For, in fact, the one 
 mental conception here directly involves the other, and is 
 only fully intelligible in relation to it. Each idea is to us 
 only what it is, on account of its opposite. In passing from 
 the one to the other, therefore, the mind is simply completing 
 the complex image, one side of which is always the neces- 
 sary correlate of the other. The same seems to hold equally 
 true of the law of co-adjacency, as when a certain house 
 recalls the friends we met the conversation we had in it ; 
 or when one event recalls another which happened at the 
 same time. In both cases the mental process obviously con- 
 sists in the completion from a fragmentary of a total repre- 
 sentation, previously laid up in the storehouse of memory. 
 
 When the train of association is once started (the inte- 
 grating process once begun), it proceeds throughout in the 
 same way. Every successive representation called up, still 
 surrounds itself with another as part of a further whole. 
 It is often the very slightest bond so slight as to escape, at 
 the moment, detection that unites the successive evolutions 
 of the mental panorama. In one mind, moreover, associa- 
 tion will take place by deeper and more remote, in another, 
 by more common and palpable, analogies. Mental refine- 
 ment is really nothing else than the facile play of associa- 
 tion round the more subtle and recondite characteristics of 
 things their more hidden and beautiful relations. It is 
 
 * Sir W. Hamilton calls this law specially the law of relativity or integration. 
 Vide Appendix to Keid's Works, Note D, p. 911. 
 
COGNITIVE STRUCTURE IN MAN. 213 
 
 simply the exquisite edge imparted by discipline to the 
 reproductive faculty. 
 
 In speaking thus of the process of reproduction as 
 throughout of an integrating character, it may be necessary 
 to guard against our being supposed to say that the mind 
 necessarily impresses a whole upon all the successive train of 
 its ideas. This, on the contrary, we know it frequently does 
 not do, the last link in the train having often no relation to 
 the first as parts of a common whole. Mental succession is 
 not unfrequently, as in reverie, a mere straggling array of 
 scattered images. The integration does not proceed, as it is 
 not necessary that it should, all along its course, but only 
 from step to step. The general train may thus present a 
 very incongruous mixture of ideas, while it has yet, at every 
 step, strictly obeyed the great law of mental development. 
 We may further observe that it is not necessary, as we 
 might be apt to think from a first confused conception of 
 the law, that the facts of a train of association should 
 have previously coexisted in the mind. In some cases 
 they have coexisted, and to this fact of their coexistence 
 is owing their tendency to reproduce one another; but 
 more frequently they have had no such previous alliance in 
 the mind. An object never before perceived may suggest 
 an old familiar object ; while, again, an object frequently 
 perceived, may suggest, in different moments, very different 
 and even quite new trains of thought. Were it not 
 for this characteristic of the principle of association, 
 the field of our knowledge would have been compara- 
 
214 THEISM. 
 
 lively narrow, confined as it must have been to the relations 
 which, from actual observation, we had stored up in our 
 minds. We would never have been able to get out of the 
 past wheel or circle of our thoughts. As it is, the suggestive 
 capacity, continually started by everything around us, is in 
 all active and cultivated minds ever entering on fresh fields 
 of intellectual interest, and acquiring fresh stores of know- 
 ledge. 
 
 Altogether, there is, perhaps, no part of our intellectual 
 condition of which the beneficial use and beauty are more 
 conspicuous. Apart from it, life could have possessed no 
 individual interest ; and the continual flow of consciousness 
 could never have become concentrated and quickened into 
 special cultivation and happiness. In the language of Dr 
 Thomas Brown, " It is the suggesting principle, the reviver 
 of thoughts and feelings which have passed away, that gives 
 value to all our other powers and susceptibilities, intellectual 
 and moral, not, indeed, by producing them, for, though 
 unevolved, they would still, as latent capacities, be a part of 
 the original constitution of our spiritual nature but by 
 rousing them into action, and furnishing them with those 
 accumulating and inexhaustible materials which are to be the 
 elements of future thought, and the objects of future emo- 
 tion. Every talent by which we excel, and every vivid feel- 
 ing which animates us, derive their energy from the sugges- 
 tions of this ever-active principle. We love and hate ; we 
 desire and fear ; we use means for obtaining good and avoid- 
 ing evil, because we remember the objects and occurrences 
 
COGNITIVE STKUCTTJKE IN MAN. 215 
 
 which we have formerly observed, and because the future, in 
 the similarity of the successions which it presents, appears 
 to us only a prolongation of the past. 
 
 " In conferring on us the capacity of these spontaneous 
 suggestions, then, Heaven has much more than doubled our 
 existence ; for without it, and consequently without those 
 faculties and emotions which involve it, existence would 
 scarcely have been desirable. The very importance of the 
 benefits which we derive from it, however, renders us, per- 
 haps, less sensible of its value ; since it is so mingled with 
 all our knowledge, and all our plans of action, that we find 
 it difficult to conceive a state of sentient being of which it is 
 not a part, and to estimate, consequently, at a just amount 
 the advantage which it affords. The future memory of per- 
 ception seems to us almost implied in perception itself ; and 
 to speculate on that strange state of existence which would 
 have been the condition of man if he had been formed with- 
 out the power of remembrance, and capable only of a series 
 of sensations, has at first an appearance almost of absurdity 
 and contradiction, as if we were imagining conditions which 
 were in their nature incompatible. Yet, assuredly, if it 
 were possible for us to consider such a subject a priori, the 
 real cause of wonder would appear to be, not in the absence 
 of the suggestions of memory, as in the case imagined, but 
 in that remembrance of which we have the happy experience. 
 When a feeling of the existence, of which consciousness fur- 
 nishes the only evidence, has passed away so completely that 
 not even the slightest consciousness of it remains, it would 
 
216 THEISM. 
 
 surely, but for that experience, be more natural to suppose 
 that it had perished altogether, than that it should, at the 
 distance of many years, without any renewal of it by the 
 external cause which originally produced it, again start, as 
 it were of itself, into being. To foresee that which has not 
 yet begun to exist, is in itself scarcely more unaccountable 
 than to see as it were before us what has wholly ceased to 
 exist. The present moment is all of which we are conscious, 
 and which can strictly be said to have a real existence, in 
 relation to ourselves. That mode of time which we call the 
 past, and that other mode of time which we call the future, 
 are both equally unexisting. That the knowledge of either 
 should be added to us, so as to form a part of our present 
 consciousness, is a gift of Heaven, most beneficial to us, in- 
 deed, but most mysterious, and equally, or nearly equally, mys- 
 terious, whether the unexisting time of which the knowledge 
 is indulged to us be the future or the past/' * 
 
 Nor is the Divine wisdom and benevolence alone manifest 
 in the simple power bestowed upon us of reproducing our 
 former thoughts and feelings, but especially in the actual 
 mode of their reproduction, according to certain definite laws. 
 This definiteness in the procedure of the suggestive faculty 
 is the sole condition of our being able to apply our experience, 
 and to make continued progress in the pursuit of knowledge. 
 It alone enables us to devise plans of acquisition, and to 
 calculate upon the results of education. Without it, we 
 might have enjoyed, in the power of reproduction, a variety 
 
 * Lectures, tenth edit., p. 217-218. 
 
COGNITIVE STRUCTUEE IN MAN. 217 
 
 of feeling, but it could have been of no use either for our 
 happiness or our cultivation. " He who has given us, in one 
 simple principle, the power of reviving the past, has not 
 made His gift so unavailing. The feelings which this wonder- 
 ful principle preserves and restores, arise, not loosely and 
 confusedly, but according to general laws or tendencies of 
 succession, contrived with the most admirable adaptation to 
 our wants, so as to bring again before us the knowledge 
 formerly acquired by us, at the very time when it is most 
 profitable that it should return. A value is thus given to 
 experience, which otherwise would not be worthy of the 
 name ; and we are enabled to extend it almost at pleasure, 
 so as to profit, not merely by that experience which the 
 events of nature, occurring in conformity with these general 
 laws, must at any rate have afforded to us, but to regulate 
 this very experience itself, to dispose objects and events so 
 that, by tendencies of suggestion on the firmness of which 
 we may put perfect reliance, they shall give us, perhaps at 
 the distance of many years, such lessons as we may wish them 
 to yield, and thus to invent and create, in a great measure, 
 the intellectual and moral history of our future life, as an 
 epic or dramatic writer arranges at his will the continued 
 scenes of his various and magnificent narrative/' * 
 
 In our analysis of the cognitive structure in man we have 
 now reached an important stage. We have marked the great 
 facts of perception, memory, and suggestion, in their respec- 
 tive bearings on our subject. In the first, we have seen the 
 
 * BROWN'S Lectures, tenth edit., p. 218. 
 P 
 
218 THEISM. 
 
 mind presentative or intuitive (the subject standing face to 
 face with the objective reality in perception), in the second, re- 
 tentive, in the third, representative. It is desirable to notice 
 the peculiar advance of the mental capacity in this third 
 stage. It is no longer the immediate facts of nature with 
 which it deals. It is no longer directly conversant with 
 the objective realities everywhere obtruded upon it, but 
 with its own reconstructions of these realities. It is not 
 the thing itself any more which the mind has before it, 
 but an image or representation of it. It has, as it were, 
 freed itself from the presence of the outward world, and 
 begun to construct for itself a new world of ideas. Here, 
 therefore, it enters into a far higher sphere of activity than 
 before. 
 
 From this point of advance the intellectual energy rapidly 
 develops into those various forms which have been sometimes 
 treated as so many separate faculties. In all of them there 
 is simply displayed, in a variety of modes and applica- 
 tions, the power of representation, or of forming ideas. 
 It will only be necessary for us to indicate the two main 
 directions which the mind assumes in these its higher pro- 
 ductive stages. These are, the understanding and the ima- 
 gination. 
 
 The mind having, in the process of reproduction, attained a 
 series of images or ideas of its past objects of perception, imme- 
 diately begins to bring these ideas into relation to one another. 
 This it does in different ways ; by fixing, for example, upon 
 points of resemblance among its ideas, and out of these re- 
 semblances constituting a new general idea, as when, from 
 
COGNITIVE STEUCTUEE IN MAN. 219 
 
 several representations of individual men, we attain to the 
 general idea of man a process well known as generalisation ; 
 or, again, by separating from different objects held in con- 
 templation some specific quality, and making of it a new 
 idea, as when we recognise different objects as white or 
 cold, &c., the common property of whiteness or coldness 
 being constituted into a separate idea a process equally 
 well known as abstraction. The mental act here, it is obvi- 
 ous, is not simply reproductive, but specially productive. 
 In the exercise of association the mind has already left 
 behind the actual objective world, to concern itself with its 
 own ideas, or reconstruction of that world. But these ideas 
 yet directly represent the original realities : the one looks 
 back to the other. Here, however, in the processes of gene- 
 ralisation and abstraction, the mind no longer looks beyond 
 its own forms or notions. Its ideas, from being mere repre- 
 sentations of past objects of perception, become, irrespec- 
 tive of all reference to such objects, fixed mental possessions, 
 which we contemplate by themselves, and by which we 
 carry on trains of reasoning. 
 
 It is necessary to state, however, that an indispensable 
 preliminary to this advance of intelligence is the power of 
 language, a power which even emerges on the lower sphere 
 of simple representation, and is requisite to its development 
 to any extent. Without such a power, the mind might con- 
 struct representations of the objects of its past experience, as 
 is clearly done by the lower animals, but it could not hold 
 them before it freely when separated from experience. It 
 could not freely entertain and make use of its ideas without 
 
220 THEISM. 
 
 a power of embodying them in signs.* And especially it 
 could not, apart from signs, begin that process of comparison 
 among its ideas which constitutes the special function of the 
 understanding. It is only when the mind has, through the 
 aid of language, fixed its representations, and given them, so 
 to speak, a new objectivity within its own realm, that it can 
 deal with them entirely by themselves, and, apart altogether 
 from the outward world, carry on that higher course of 
 activity which we peculiarly denominate thought. 
 
 The parallel range of mental activity, which we have 
 named imagination, is one in which the mind is still more 
 eminently productive. The term imagination, we are aware, 
 is often applied to a lower degree of mental power ; but 
 we think that it is far more appropriately confined to 
 that higher energy which, while dealing directly with 
 sensible images, and so far standing on a lower intellectual 
 platform than the understanding, yet even, in its ordi- 
 nary flights, carries with it often all the special activities 
 of the understanding abstracting and generalising and 
 classifying its appropriate objects, as it weaves them into 
 new forms of interest or beauty.f It is this formative or 
 
 * See MORELL'S Elements of Psychology, p. 183-184, in which the peculiar 
 functions of what he calls the sematic power are exhibited with great clearness, 
 and to which the writer has, in these few paragraphs on the understanding, been 
 considerably indebted. 
 
 f This would seem to imply that the imagination can only be rightly treated 
 after the logical faculty whose special process it presupposes. And this we 
 apprehend to be the truth. Mr Morell, in his recent work admirable in many 
 respects has not, according to our view, sufficiently distinguished imagination. 
 The term is applied by him to two mental processes, the lower of which appears 
 to be simply equivalent to what Stewart called conception, or the power we 
 possess of holding our ideas before us, separated from all immediate reference 
 
COGNITIVE STKUCTUKE IN MAN. 221 
 
 creative element, certainly, which is the constitutive one 
 of imagination in the highest sense. It may not inaptly be 
 considered to be the mental energy in its greatest heat of 
 productivity; not merely, as in argumentation, constructing 
 within the province of the abstract, building up some linked 
 structure of sequential beauty ; but constructing within the 
 province of the possible, and building up some " sunny 
 dome/' outmatching the most subtle combinations of the 
 understanding. It is impossible for any to attend for a 
 moment to the simplest exercise of imagination, as it tran- 
 sacts itself even in those day-dreams which almost all 
 have, without perceiving that the main element of the exer- 
 cise is thus creative. The imaginative process is also an 
 intensely vivid one ; but it is not, as some have thought, its 
 vivacity which pre-eminently distinguishes it from other 
 phases of mental representation. This is merely the gleam 
 which the mental wheel emits in its glowing activity the 
 flash of the intensely-quickened formative process. But it is 
 the formative element itself, and not its attendant light, 
 which constitutes imagination. It is the gift of creation 
 which makes the painter and the poet, the workmen of the 
 
 to place or time ; and the higher (which he calls productive or creative imagina- 
 tion) is with him apparently nothing else than the general process whereby 
 the mind associates its ideas. This confusion of imagination with the 
 general power of association is, it appears to us, quite mistaken. For the 
 process of the recovery of our ideas, transacted under the guide of the laws 
 of association, does not necessarily involve a special creative element. The 
 mind may, in this process, be simply recollective, although, no doubt, it often 
 also is eminently productive. Association may in any case, therefore, readily 
 pass into imagination. Yet in all cases imagination is something specific and 
 superior ; rightly ranking even above the understanding, because carrying up 
 the processes of the latter into all its more characteristic and important exer- 
 cises. 
 
222 THEISM. 
 
 imagination. The vivacity is merely the bright accompani- 
 ment of the gift. 
 
 There is thus a striking alliance, and an equally striking 
 diversity, between the mental powers of ratiocination and 
 imagination. The one gives us science, the other art. The 
 one is the organ of discovery, the other of inventiveness, in 
 the noblest sense. The one deals with notions (concepts), 
 the other with images (pictures), conveyed through the 
 medium of the senses. From the intimate connection of 
 imagination with the senses, making them, as it does, directly 
 tributary in its highest workings whereas the mind, in 
 reasoning, ranges only among its pure ideas the former 
 might be supposed to be the lower faculty. Yet, from the 
 spiritual regions into which imagination can carry its flights, 
 it undoubtedly asserts for itself the loftier place and dignity 
 in the end. It enters into the infinite, which is throughout 
 a forbidden sphere to the understanding ; and, mediating be- 
 tween the appropriate inspirations of spirit and of sense, 
 the minister of both, it only reaches its true glory when 
 clothing the lower intuitions in the celestial garment of the 
 higher. 
 
 In reverting, in conclusion, to their specific bearing on our 
 subject, how powerfully do both these forms of mental energy 
 express the Divine wisdom and benevolence ! how directly 
 do they speak of an infinite source of mental fulness and 
 strength ! That high power of reflective investigation which 
 has constructed the vast and ever-expanding edifice of human 
 science, and searches with so penetrating an insight and so 
 
COGNITIVE STRUCTUEE IN MAN. 223 
 
 powerful a range the heavens and the earth, to make them 
 tributary to its purpose ; and that still more marvellous 
 capacity, a delegated creator within its sphere, which has 
 wrought such exquisite combinations of poetry and of art, 
 accumulating treasures of wisdom and of beauty to our race 
 surely these bespeak a Master Mind, whose image they 
 are, and whose beneficent glory they reflect. 
 
224 THEISM. 
 
 IL CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 EMOTIVE STEUCTUEE IN MAN. 
 
 WE pass finally, in this section of evidence, to a brief consi- 
 deration of the emotive sphere of our nature, which is very 
 rich in results for our purpose. It is its emotional capacity 
 which imparts to human life all its peculiar and ever-fresh- 
 ening interest. It may be possible to conceive a being 
 made capable of intellectual without emotional activity. 
 " We might, perhaps," says Dr Thomas Brown, " have been 
 so constituted with respect to our intellectual states of 
 mind, as to have had all the varieties of these, our remem- 
 brances, judgments, and creations of fancy, without one 
 emotion. But without the emotions which accompany them, 
 of how little value would the mere intellectual functions 
 have been ! It is to our vivid feelings of this class we must 
 look for those tender regards which make our remembrances 
 sacred for that love of truth and glory and mankind, 
 without which, to animate and reward us in our discovery 
 and diffusion of knowledge, the continued exercise of judg- 
 ment would be a fatigue rather than a satisfaction ; and for 
 
EMOTIVE STRUCTURE IN MAN. 225 
 
 all that delightful wonder which we feel, when we contem- 
 plate the admirable creations of fancy, or the still more 
 admirable beauties of their unfading model that model 
 which is ever before us, and the imitation of which, as it 
 has been truly said, is the only imitation that is itself origi- 
 nality. By our other mental functions we are mere specta- 
 tors of the machinery of the universe, living and inanimate; 
 by our emotions we are admirers of nature, lovers of men, 
 adorers of God. The earth, without them, would be only a 
 field of colours, inhabited by beings who may contribute, 
 indeed, more permanently to our means of physical comfort 
 than any one of the inanimate forms which we behold ; but 
 who, beyond the moment in which they are capable of 
 affecting us with pain or pleasure, would be only like the 
 other forms and colours which would meet us wherever we 
 turned our weary and restless eye ; and God himself, the 
 source of all good, and the object of all worship, would be 
 only the Being by whom the world was made/' * 
 
 The truth is, that while it may be possible for us to 
 imagine intellectual life apart from emotional, we cannot 
 imagine any development of the one without the other ; for 
 the advancement of knowledge and of civilisation, if the 
 direct product of our intellectual, is no less truly the indi- 
 rect product of our emotional nature, the one being called 
 into activity all along its course only by the other. All the 
 progressive springs of humanity take their rise in our emo- 
 tional being. In virtue of it alone do we own the spur of a 
 happiness which is never satisfied, and of a glory which is 
 
 * BROWN'S Lectures, tenth edit., p. 339. 
 
226 THEISM. 
 
 still distant. In the very fact, therefore, of our combined 
 emotive and cognitive activity, we are bound to recognise 
 the wisdom and goodness of the Creator. How blank and 
 unbeneficent would life have been as a mere round of pas- 
 sionless intellectuality ! Where would have been all that 
 now makes its charm, and renders it, amid the gathering 
 darkness of death, still dear ? Where would have been all the 
 most exquisite products of literature and of art, without pas- 
 sion to portray or interest to kindle ? And we must surely, 
 then, acknowledge the beneficence of the Hand which has 
 clothed life with all those soft and tender attributes that 
 garment of ever-varying emotion which makes it truly life. 
 Here, indeed, we shall find the most abundant traces of the 
 Divine goodness. 
 
 We do not attempt any systematic analysis, far less any ex- 
 haustive classification, of the emotions. Here, as everywhere, 
 our purpose only requires, and our space can only afford, a 
 general glance at the phenomena which crowd upon us. 
 
 Among the lowest and most universal group of emotions 
 seem to be those which serve to guard, and, so to speak, 
 intrench life, of which Alarm on the negative side, and 
 Anger* on the positive, may be considered the generic 
 expressions. [ Throughout the whole course of animal 
 
 * We are sensible that these very names already suggest an inference unfavour- 
 able to the benevolence of the Creator. But here, as before, we must ask a post- 
 ponement of judgment as to the hostile suggestions which everywhere neces- 
 sarily arise with the very first statement of the evidence for the Divine goodness. 
 
 f See Dr M' Vicar's ingenious and highly philosophical Inquiry into ffiiman 
 Nature, which the writer has very advantageously consulted on this part of his 
 subject. 
 
EMOTIVE STRUCTUEE IN MAN. 227 
 
 life these emotions are found deeply implanted. In the 
 feeblest animal forms, alarm is seen manifesting itself on 
 the approach or the contact of any unknown object. And 
 as we rise in the scale of being to man himself, the motive 
 becomes, indeed, less obtrusive in its modes of operation, 
 more refined and disguised in its character, but not less 
 really present and powerful. It lives a silent yet watchful 
 sentinel in every human bosom, conservative not only of 
 life, but of all that gives beauty and dignity and happiness 
 to life. How vividly, for example, does it reign in the 
 mother for the care of her offspring ; in the householder for 
 the care of his goods ; in the citizen for the care of the com- 
 monwealth ; in the maiden for the care of her virtue ! It is 
 everywhere the guardian of life and its treasures. When- 
 ever life becomes intensified, fraught as with a deeper wealth 
 and fulness of possession, there alarm, however undemon- 
 strative, stands a more vigilant guardian. And did it not 
 do so were the soul not readily fluttered and put up when 
 destruction threatened what an invaded and desecrated 
 thing would life soon become ! 
 
 The continuation of alarm not merely the first move- 
 ment or flutter of the soul, but the prolonged emphasis 
 of the emotion becomes fear, apprehension, inciting to 
 escape from danger. The object of alarm, if not removed, 
 has a constant tendency thus to pass into an object of fear. 
 Terror, which sometimes stands for the generic emotion, 
 seems certainly more correctly regarded as its highest excess, 
 betokening the comparative feebleness of the subject of it. 
 
228 THEISM. 
 
 The danger is so imminent and threatening that the mere 
 guardian impulse loses itself in that species of convulsive 
 agitation which we specially denominate terror. Panic, 
 again, is contagious alarm. The simple emotion has a ten- 
 dency to propagate itself from heart to heart, and as it 
 propagates, it kindles into intenser forms, till it becomes 
 that general and helpless movement of fear which we call 
 panic. 
 
 Along with this class of emotions may be reckoned another 
 class, different in character, yet also allied, as revealing some- 
 thing of the same cautionary character. Of this class, sur- 
 prise and wonder may stand as specimens. These emotions 
 we experience on the presentation of some new, striking, or 
 unexpected object. We pause and are arrested, but do not, 
 as in alarm, feel any impulse to retreat. Where the exciting 
 cause is not novelty, or unexpectedness, but something great, 
 unknown, and but dimly suggested, wonder becomes awe. 
 These emotions are not, like the preceding, directly conser- 
 vative, but they involve a conservative element ; and it is 
 remarkable that they all readily pass over into alarm, or some 
 of its directly associate feelings. They all tend to drive the 
 soul backward within itself; while yet, by a strange paradox, 
 often marking (as all true and comprehensive observers 
 know) the deepest facts of nature, they also tend to draw it 
 forth and detain it before the exciting object. It is this 
 balance of movement, the oscillation of backwards and for- 
 wards, of retreat and advance, which makes the pause so 
 characteristic of these emotions. 
 
 The great generic emotion of anger is perhaps even more 
 
EMOTIVE STRUCTURE IN MAN. 229 
 
 actively conservative in its character than alarm ; for it is 
 positive, while the latter is only negative. It furnishes 
 weapons of defence, while the other only instigates to flight. 
 Dr Thomas Brown has described it very finely and eloquently 
 under this point of view. So obviously is it the view under 
 which it falls to be considered, that all which he says regard- 
 ing it is little more than a representation of the beneficial 
 ends which it thus subserves. " There is a principle in our 
 mind/' he says, " which is to us like a constant protector 
 which may slumber, indeed, but which slumbers only at 
 seasons when its vigilance would be useless which awakes, 
 therefore, at the first appearance of unjust intention, and 
 which becomes more watchful and more vigorous in propor- 
 tion to the violence of the attack which it has to dread. 
 What should we think of the providence of Nature, if, when 
 aggression was threatened against the weak and unarmed at 
 a distance from the aid of others, there were instantly and 
 uniformly, by the intervention of some wonder-working 
 power, to rush into the hand of the defenceless a sword, or 
 other weapon of defence ? And yet this would be but a 
 feeble assistance, if compared with that which we receive 
 from those simple emotions which Heaven has caused to rush, 
 as it were, into our mind for repelling every attack. What 
 would be a sword in the trembling hand of the infirm, of the 
 aged, of him whose pusillanimous spirit shrinks at the very 
 appearance, not of danger merely, but even of the arms by 
 the use of which danger might be averted, and to whom, 
 consequently, the very sword, which he scarcely knew how 
 to grasp, would be an additional cause of terror, not an 
 
230 THEISM. 
 
 instrument of defence and safety ? The instant anger which 
 arises does more than many such weapons. It gives the 
 spirit which knows how to make a weapon of everything, 
 or which, of itself, does without a weapon what even a 
 thunderbolt would be powerless to do in the shuddering 
 grasp of the coward. When anger arises, fear is gone ; 
 there is no coward, for all are brave. Even bodily infirmity 
 seems to yield to it, like the very infirmities of the mind. 
 The old are, for the moment, young again ; the weakest 
 vigorous." * 
 
 Resentment is the deepened and prolonged form of anger ; 
 and where the simple emotion might be impotent for the 
 defence of invaded rights, this becomes a formidable guar- 
 dian of them. Those who might brave the temporary heat 
 of anger, would yet shrink from the sustained energy of 
 resentment. 
 
 Indignation, in the twofold import which it seems to bear, 
 is simply a modification of anger. As an individual emotion, 
 it may be defined to be anger restraining itself from a sense 
 of the un worthiness of the object exciting it as when we 
 feel indignant at some affront offered us a kind of mag- 
 nanimous anger. But it seems to be most characteristically 
 a social emotion anger propagating itself in the social body, 
 at the sight or the recital of some great wrong done. In 
 such a case the common heart is stirred, and drawn forth in 
 an attitude of resistance. The injury committed kindles a 
 widespread feeling, which gathers strength as it passes from 
 heart to heart, and finally flames forth in a glow of indig- 
 
 * BROWN'S Lectures, tenth edit., pp. 419, 420. 
 
EMOTIVE STKUCTUEE IN MAN. 231 
 
 nant opposition, before which the sternest injustice must 
 tremble, and which is undoubtedly one of the strongest safe- 
 guards of social virtue and happiness. At the same time, as 
 Dr Brown has acutely pointed out, there is an admirably 
 benevolent provision in the working of this emotion, where- 
 by it is prevented becoming that inconvenient and excessive 
 sentiment passing over into acts of injustice, perhaps worse 
 than those against which it was directed which it would be 
 otherwise ever apt to become. It is only by some very fla- 
 grant wrong that it is powerfully excited, and, for the most 
 part, it tends speedily to expend itself. Were it different 
 were members of the same community not only disposed 
 to share in feelings of anger for each other's wrongs, but 
 to experience such feelings with the same readiness, and 
 in the same proportion, as the special sufferer, the conse- 
 quences would be utterly destructive. There would then 
 be no check to individual anger, which, propagating itself 
 with an ever-kindling force, would swell to a mischievous 
 and overbearing height. Indignation would no longer be 
 a privilege, but an intolerable burden. " The zeal of the 
 knight of La Mancha, who had many giants to vanquish, 
 and many captive princesses to free, might leave him still 
 some moments of peace ; but if all the wrongs of all the 
 injured were to be felt by us as our own, with the same 
 ardent resentment and eagerness of revenge, our knight- 
 errantry would be far more oppressive ; and though we 
 might kill a few moral giants, and free a few princesses, so 
 many more would still remain, unslain and unfreed, that we 
 should have little satisfaction even in our few successes. 
 
232 THEISM. 
 
 How admirably provident, then, is the Author of our nature, 
 not merely in the emotions with the susceptibility of which 
 He has endowed us, but in the very proportioning of these 
 emotions so as to produce the greatest good at the least 
 expense even of momentary suffering." * 
 
 In ascending among the higher emotions, which no longer 
 merely tend to conserve life, but to develop and advance it, 
 we reach a region where the unceasing confluence of the 
 phenomena seems almost to defy attempts at analysis and 
 grouping. The simplest which present themselves are, per- 
 haps, those of which the element of complacency or satisfac- 
 tion may stand as the type. This element of emotion might 
 have taken' first rank in our enumeration, both on account 
 of its comprehensiveness, and its being so directly suited 
 to our purpose. It abounds in the lower animals, displaying 
 itself in frequent playfulness and pervading happiness. In 
 man, its range is very diversified, from the mere rude content- 
 ment which is half corporeal, to the cheerfulness which sheds 
 a daily sunshine on the heart, the gladness which claps its 
 hands, the delight which flashes with a quick and outburst- 
 ing warmth, the most exalted joy, and the most spiritual 
 rapture. It may be called the normal expression of the 
 emotional power. It marks the tone which in health and 
 security this power gives forth -just as pleasurableness, in 
 the same case, is the proper expression of sensation. The 
 natural condition of the one and of the other, when no inva- 
 sion has taken place of the life which they manifest, is a 
 feeling of enjoyment. This, as already observed, is a fact of 
 
 * BROWN'S Lectures, tenth edit., p. 421. 
 
EMOTIVE STRUCTURE IN MAN. 233 
 
 the highest significance for our subject, speaking, in the 
 most convincing language, of the goodness of the Creator of 
 a life so fraught with happiness. 
 
 It is true that here, as along the whole line of sensibility, 
 there is an opposite side a shadow tracing the brightness. 
 There is a parallel group of emotions of an antagonistic 
 character, at least as varied in their range as those of which 
 we have been speaking from the tempered vein of sadness, 
 and the quick acuteness of regret, to the dark brooding of 
 melancholy, the vehement flow of sorrow, the bitterness of 
 anguish, and the agony of remorse. But not to speak of 
 the strange element of enjoyment which often lies concealed 
 in some of these painful emotions, nor yet, just now, of their 
 disciplinary virtue, often converting them into the highest 
 good we merely point here to the fact of their being, as 
 on their very front they so obviously bear to be, invaders 
 of the natural life of emotion. They emerge as elements 
 of disorder and conflict, interfering with the free flow of 
 emotional activity, and so present themselves, from the first, 
 as difficulties requiring a higher calculus for solution than 
 that which their own nature simply affords. This is un- 
 doubtedly the meaning which such phenomena of suffering 
 bear to all who most thoughtfully contemplate human 
 existence. They are recognised as out of the course of the 
 Divine order, as seeming contradictions to it, but not, by 
 any means, as per se destroying that order, and making it a 
 nullity. They are recognised as anomalies needing explana- 
 tion (further than what they contain in themselves), but not 
 as absolute contrarieties entitled to negative the good, with 
 
 Q 
 
 
234 THEISM. 
 
 which they appear at variance. To all who have gone 
 beyond the mere surface of speculation, the good is felt, 
 under whatever appearances to the contrary, to be the 
 Divine order, of which the evil is an invasion.* The paral- 
 lel existence of evil is not entitled to set aside the good, but 
 only to arrest us in our full conclusions regarding it. It 
 does not destroy our theodicy, it only leaves it imperfect. 
 The Divine meaning of nature, on the very lowest view, 
 is not altogether doubtful and contradictory, but only 
 incomplete. 
 
 There is an important class of emotions which relate them- 
 selves by an intelligible process to those now considered. 
 Conscious complacency, or the simple emotion turned back 
 upon itself in contemplation what we commonly call self- 
 complacency would seem to be their common basis. Such 
 emotions as gladness, joy, rapture, are eminently distin- 
 guished for their unconscious character. They are all self- 
 forgetting. The emotive capacity in them overflows round 
 some other object ; and the moment the overflow ceases, and 
 returns upon itself, the pleasurable feeling so far disappears. 
 Happiness shrinks from self-contemplation; and we may 
 thus see the rationale of the reaction that often takes place 
 in pleasurable emotion of an excessive kind. The tide of 
 feeling having passed far out, exhausting itself in the effort, 
 is naturally liable to retreat upon itself to a corresponding 
 extent. In the purely antagonistic emotions, as will be 
 
 * The bearing of this thought which goes to the very root of Theism, and 
 the logically consistent denial of which involves, as it may chance, Atheism or 
 Pantheism will be more fully considered in the sequel. So much seemed here 
 inevitably suggested by the nature of the phenomena under consideration. 
 
EMOTIVE STKUCTUEE IN MAN. 235 
 
 seen on the least reflection, self is all predominant and 
 obtrusive. The emotive capacity, instead of passing forth 
 towards another, is concentrated within ; and it is this feel- 
 ing of self-concentration which in melancholy, and especially 
 in remorse, constitutes the characteristic misery of these 
 emotions. In the class of emotions to which we now pass, 
 the element of self appears also obtrusive, but not in the 
 same way. It is not in them necessarily or characteristi- 
 cally associated with pain ; on the contrary, the common 
 ground of all of them would seem to be a reflex feeling of 
 pleasure. Yet they have, it is remarkable, in their reflex cha- 
 racter, a constant tendency to pass over to a painful excess. 
 
 Of this class of emotions, pride is one of the most dis- 
 tinguishing. In its most general form, it seems to be 
 simply self taking the measure of its own claims alongside 
 those of others. It always implies this element of com- 
 parison. When the comparison is made with fairness, we 
 recognise the propriety of the feeling as in the common 
 expression, a proper pride. Where, again, the comparison is 
 grossly mistaken and over-estimated by self in its own 
 favour, the feeling assumes that excessive form, in which it 
 becomes so odious to others, and often such a source of 
 misery to its subject. Vanity seems again to be the simple 
 pampering of self-complacency self dwelling on its own 
 image till it can scarcely find interest or beauty in any other. 
 
 Directly converse to such emotions are those of humility 
 and modesty. The former may be defined to be the simple 
 opposite of pride : the retirement of self from the assertion 
 even of rightful claims which it might prefer before others. 
 
 
236 THEISM. 
 
 It, too, seems always to involve an element of comparison ; 
 and, in a similar manner to pride, it may so greatly and 
 obviously mistake the comparison as to become disagreeably 
 excessive. The only case in which it can never do so, is in 
 reference to the Supreme Being, before whom the most 
 extreme retirement of self is not only appropriate, but 
 demanded. And hence we recognise the primary import- 
 ance of this emotion in religion. Modesty is also, may we 
 not say, a species of self-denial self shrinking from the 
 acknowledgment of claims of which it is yet dimly con- 
 scious. It is self-repressive, peculiarly; and yet self does 
 not, as in humility, retire out of sight. It is this curious 
 balance of emotion, in which self is negatived, and yet, with 
 a vaguely conscious justice, stands forward (the internal 
 conflict betraying itself in the suffusion of the face with 
 blushes), which gives to modesty that special charm which 
 all recognise in it. 
 
 The large and diversified group of emotions of which 
 tenderness is the most diffused element, and love the most 
 expressive type, may next engage attention. They operate 
 over human life with a vast influence, and invest it with its 
 most solemn and beautiful interest. They are all of a social 
 character, binding the race into families, and pervading it 
 from rank to rank with reciprocal relations of the most 
 happy and beneficent kind. 
 
 There is no range of emotion more enlarged or more 
 minutely subdivided than this of tenderness, not to speak of 
 the antagonistic range of emotions which here also lies 
 alongside. All the affections are based on it, from the mere 
 
EMOTIVE STKUCTUKE IN MAN. 237 
 
 fondness of infancy to the exquisite passionateness of sexual 
 and parental regard. It embraces equally the tranquil interest 
 of friendship and the lofty zeal of patriotism. It is the chord 
 which vibrates in the warm-heartedness of the host, the 
 geniality of the old schoolfellow, and the kindness of neigh- 
 bourhood. Compassion and sympathy are among its most 
 influential manifestations, springing from a fountain of good 
 in the social bosom, and spreading around them, as they flow, 
 unnumbered blessings. Respect, esteem, veneration, blend- 
 ing as they do to a greater or less degree merely intellectual 
 elements, may all be traced back to it ; and finally, worship 
 is best expressed by the name of love, in which at once 
 the emotion culminates, and of which throughout it tes- 
 tifies. This form of moral feeling is the flower of the emo- 
 tive capacity. It is the richest and worthiest outgoing of 
 man's spiritual activity, the course of which is everywhere 
 and always more continually beneficent, and which, in this its 
 inexhaustibleness, or rather ever-accumulating force of good, 
 contains the pledge of its own peculiar immortality. In its 
 more special meaning it has been supposed * to imply not 
 merely the going forth of good towards an object, but the 
 meeting of good in that object, the term benevolence being 
 used to express the love of that which in itself does not con- 
 tain any love-worthiness. There is only, as it were, room 
 for love after benevolence has accomplished its end, in bring- 
 ing the object into a state of wellbeing or love-worthiness. 
 There is something in this distinction, and yet we question 
 the propriety of so fixing down or confining the name of love. 
 
 * DR M' VICAR'S Inquiry, p. 127. 
 
238 THEISM. 
 
 The distinction seems to us to be not between one species or 
 shade of affection and another, but rather between a complete 
 and incomplete enjoyment or fruition of the same affection. 
 Love may certainly, in the purest and loftiest sense, go 
 forth towards wretchedness, but it cannot, so to speak, 
 complete itself towards it by embracing it till the wretched- 
 ness is turned away. So far, however, we apprehend, is 
 love from being postponed till this result, that it is the very 
 energy and activity of the love concentrated on the object 
 which accomplish the result. 
 
 The pleasure which attends the exercise of the benevolent 
 affections has been rightly considered a special proof of the 
 Divine goodness. The mere existence of these affections 
 sufficiently shows that goodness. The mere presence of 
 love in human life, pervading and beautifying it in so 
 many forms, attests the presence of love in the great 
 Source of that life. But the fact of our not only having 
 such emotions implanted in us, but of our deriving 
 from their exercise such pure delight, while the gratifica- 
 tion of the opposite evil emotions is accompanied with 
 pain, is a fact of peculiar significance. For what is its 
 language? Does it not say with clearest force that the 
 good alone is divine ? "We are so constituted, that in impart- 
 ing happiness through the channel of any one of the bene- 
 volent emotions, we ourselves experience happiness ; while, 
 on the contrary, through the indulgence of envy or hatred, 
 or any other of the malevolent emotions, we ourselves suffer 
 in imparting suffering. So radically is the good fixed in our 
 natures that its violation thus avenges itself. Putting out 
 
EMOTIVE STKUCTURE IN MAN. 239 
 
 of question, then, in the mean time, how such evil affec- 
 tions emerge in human nature looking only at its actual 
 constitution it seems impossible to imagine how it could 
 have borne stronger testimony to the Divine goodness ; for 
 it not only expresses the good, but delights in it. The good 
 is not only, notwithstanding all that may be said to the 
 contrary, the most prominent fact in human nature, but it 
 thus approves itself to be the only normal action of human 
 nature. Our delight in welldoing says, as powerfully as it 
 is possible to say it, that man was made to be good and to do 
 good ; or, in other words, that the Author of his being is good. 
 The partial happiness that lies in the indulgence of evil affec- 
 tions, expressed in the word gratification, equally used with 
 reference to them, does not at all militate against this conclu- 
 sion, for this is simply an accidental result of their accom- 
 plished activity. They and all our mental activities cannot 
 express themselves successfully without a certain measure of 
 enjoyment ; but such is the essential destructiveness of the 
 evil that its very gratification is in the end its most perfect 
 misery. Its continued successes, affording a minimum of 
 enjoyment all along its course as in the case of the drunkard, 
 or the continued gratification of hatred or cruelty become 
 its accumulating curse. Nature thus everywhere bears her 
 testimony against the evil, stamping it with her reprobation 
 amid whatever apparent triumph uttering her voice against 
 it, however it may exalt itself and so declaring, in the most 
 emphatic and unceasing language, that the good alone is 
 divine ; or, in other words, that God is good, and alone 
 loveth good. 
 
240 THEISM. 
 
 The foregoing ranges of emotional activity are found for 
 the most part represented throughout the sphere of animal 
 existence, while yet only reaching their highest expression in 
 man. "We now approach a class of emotions which there is 
 reason to think are peculiar to the human mind a class which, 
 for our general purpose, may be sufficiently designated as the 
 emotions of taste including our sentiments of harmony, 
 beauty, sublimity, and their opposites. We can only here 
 indicate the fact of these emotions, and their bearing on our 
 subject ; their analysis, it is well known, involving some of 
 the most keenly-contested problems in psychological science. 
 It is sufficient, in our point of view, to observe their high 
 use in man's constitution. They are, and have ever been, 
 recognised among its most delightful springs of elevated 
 progress. They minister purely to mental gratification and 
 culture, and have no lower function in reference to our mere 
 animal nature, a fact which sufficiently accounts for their 
 being confined to man. This feature of the emotions of 
 taste has been pointed out with his accustomed acuteness 
 by Dr Thomas Brown, and the appropriate theological 
 inference so well expressed by him that we gladly avail 
 ourselves of his language.* " In no part of our nature/' he 
 
 * Apart from the appropriate beauty of Dr Brown's language, we have not 
 hesitated, on another account, to avail ourselves of it to the extent we have done 
 in this chapter. It is peculiarly satisfactory to present the conclusions for 
 which we naturally seek in the words of one to whom they came by force of 
 their own clearness and strength, while engaged in the mere analysis of the 
 phenomena, without any view to their theological meaning. It has seemed an 
 advantage that it should be thus clearly seen that we are not led to impose a 
 meaning on the phenomena which they do not in themselves naturally and 
 irresistibly suggest. 
 
EMOTIVE STRUCTURE IN MAN. 241 
 
 says, " is the pure benevolence of Heaven more strikingly 
 conspicuous than in our susceptibility of the emotions of this 
 class. The pleasure which they afford is a pleasure that has 
 no immediate connection with the means of preservation of 
 our animal existence ; and which shows, therefore, though 
 all other proof were absent, that the Deity who superadded 
 these means of delight must have had some other object in 
 view in forming us as we are, than the mere continuance of 
 a race of beings who were to save the earth from becoming 
 a wilderness. In consequence of these emotions, which have 
 made all nature ' beauty to our eye, and music to our ear/ it 
 is scarcely possible for us to look around without feeling 
 either some happiness or some consolation. Sensual plea- 
 sures soon pall even upon the profligate, who seeks them in 
 vain in the means which were accustomed to produce them, 
 weary almost to disgust of the very pleasures which he 
 seeks, and yet astonished that he does not find them. The 
 labours of severer intellect, if long continued, exhaust the 
 energy which they employ, and we cease for a time to be 
 capable of thinking accurately, from the very intentness and 
 accuracy of our thought. The pleasures of taste, however, 
 by their variety of easy delight, are safe from the languor 
 which attends any monotonous or severe occupation ; and 
 instead of palling on the mind, they produce in it, with the 
 very delight which is present, a quicker sensibility to future 
 pleasure. Enjoyment springs from enjoyment ; and if we 
 have not some deep wretchedness within, it is scarcely pos- 
 sible for us, with the delightful resources which nature and 
 
242 THEISM. 
 
 art present to us, not to be happy as often as we will to be 
 happy/' * 
 
 There is a further large group of emotive powers, whose 
 special significance in human life will by no means allow us 
 to pass them by. They are distinguished from those pre- 
 viously reviewed by a special character of activity and com- 
 plexity. The mind no longer simply feels, but desires. A 
 special energy has arisen in the bosom, of some simple men- 
 tal experience, which goes forth, often with great force, in 
 search of its object. The desires, therefore, in the emotional 
 sphere, are parallel to the appetites in the sensational. In 
 both, the attitude of the mind is no longer merely that of 
 feeling, but of wishing. 
 
 Desire is almost endlessly diversified, according to its 
 objects, which it were in vain to try to enumerate. Dr 
 Brown has summed up the more general and important 
 forms of desire in a tenfold series. But if it were neces- 
 sary for us to attempt such an analysis, it would be 
 easy to reduce them to a broader and more general basis. 
 We are inclined to think, indeed, that, according to a right 
 interpretation of the first of Dr Brown's series, all the others 
 might be considered simply modifications of it viz. the 
 desire of life. If we understand life to mean the sum not 
 only of physical but of mental existence a sense in which 
 we may say it is parallel with happiness (everywhere, as we 
 have seen, its proper correlate) all our desires will be 
 found to be only various forms of the desire of life, or, in 
 other words, of pleasurable activity. Desire only responds 
 
 * BROWN'S Lectures, pp. 393, 394. 
 
EMOTIVE STRUCTURE IN MAN. 243 
 
 to pleasure in some shape or another. Whatever may be 
 the object, it is only as it is seen to be pleasurable that it is 
 desired. The desire of life, therefore, in our sense, may be 
 made to include every other mode of desire. 
 
 Dr Brown, indeed, seems to think that there may be a 
 desire of life of simple existence apart from any consi- 
 deration of pleasure ; * but it appears to us that he has here 
 confounded, with what alone can be properly called the 
 desire of life, the simple movement of self-preservation. 
 This latter, however, has no title to stand as an emotion 
 it is a mere blind ineradicable instinct. It is so truly 
 ineradicable, and almost physical in its character, that it may 
 be found asserting itself even in the hour of self-destruction. 
 The desire of life, on the contrary, is a special mental feel- 
 ing, entertained and cherished with various degrees of 
 force, and capable, in certain cases, of being altogether 
 overpowered and destroyed. And what are our desires 
 of pleasure and of action (the second and third of Dr 
 Brown's series), but the desire of intenser forms of life? 
 And our desire of knowledge, what is it but simply the 
 desire of life in a more exalted and interesting character 
 than hitherto experienced ? And so of power, which is only 
 the equation of knowledge ; and equally of property, which 
 is but another name for power. And again, what is the 
 desire of society but the desire of life intensified in a 
 different direction viz. from contact with other life ? As 
 life is essentially active, so is it essentially circulatory 
 only reaching its full being in mingling and sharing 
 
 * Lectures, p. 438. 
 
244 THEISM. 
 
 with other life. The desire of life, therefore, involves the 
 desire of social contact and circulation. And in a being of 
 intelligence and morality like man, we cannot imagine this 
 desire of contact with other life of sharing and mingling 
 in it without the desire of also approving himself to it. 
 Hearts meeting (which is just moral life in circulation) 
 cannot but seek to commend themselves to each other ; and 
 what is this but the desire of the affection and esteem of 
 others ? And in this way we have run over nearly the whole 
 of Dr Brown's series.* 
 
 But desire is not only thus comprehensive as an emotion 
 in relation to its objects ; it presents itself, moreover, in 
 various important modifications such as hope, expectation, 
 confidence, and ambition. Hope is one of the most pervad- 
 ing, as it is one of the most delightful, of all our emotions. 
 It is also one of the most thoroughly educative of them all, 
 ever keeping the soul in an attitude of forwardness ever 
 embellishing with bright visions the dim future, and quick- 
 ening it in their pursuit. It is hope alone which sustains 
 and upholds us amid the actual difficulties of life. Desire 
 alone would have been comparatively inadequate for such 
 a purpose, as it relates the soul to its object merely in 
 an attitude of liking it says merely that the object is 
 good ; whereas hope represents the object not only as 
 good, but as within reach not only as likeable, but also as 
 attainable. Hope is, therefore, not only " desire intensified " 
 
 * It is needless to say that we do not claim for this analysis any scientific 
 worth. It may seem, indeed, that in making the desire of life, as pleasurable 
 activity, the type of our various desires, we are merely saying that desire, in 
 all its forms, is desire. 
 
EMOTIVE STRUCTUKE IN MAN. 245 
 
 (this will not give in its full character the complex emotion), 
 but desire with a new element of strength in it, which 
 enables the soul to go forth towards its object, not only 
 with additional eagerness, but already, as it were, in pro- 
 spect to lay hold of it. When we hope for an object, we 
 always, indeed, desire it intensely ; but we have also already 
 a deeper interest in it a more personal relation to it, so to 
 speak than any mere desire can give. In expectation, 
 again, we have a still firmer and more secure relation to 
 the object, and confidence is the height of expectation. 
 Ambition, on the other hand, would seem to be the mere 
 over -growth of desire, carrying the mind forward to- 
 wards its object with an energy which no obstacles can 
 turn aside. 
 
 Curiosity is a special form of the desire of knowledge so 
 important as to deserve separate mention. It is undoubt- 
 edly one of the most provident and benevolent principles of 
 our mental constitution. It is the harbinger of intelli- 
 gence in the infant breast ; and, nursed by continually new 
 incitements, it becomes the ever- strengthening spring of 
 mental progress. It may be truly said to be inexhaustible 
 in its workings, pausing merely to collect itself for a fresh 
 advance, and what especially serves to reveal the benevo- 
 lence of the hand which implanted it evolving ever, as 
 it operates, fresh pleasure. " Can anything," says Lord 
 Brougham, " be more perfectly contrived as an instrument 
 of instruction, and an instrument precisely adapted to the 
 want of knowledge, by being more powerful in proportion 
 to the ignorance in which we are ? Hence it is the great 
 
246 THEISM. 
 
 means by which above all, in early infancy, we are taught 
 everything most necessary for our physical as well as moral 
 existence. In riper years it smoothes the way for farther 
 acquirements to most men ; to some, in whom it is strongest, 
 it opens the paths of science ; but in all, without any excep- 
 tion, it prevails at the beginning of life so powerfully as to 
 make them learn the faculties of their own bodies, and the 
 general properties of those around them an amount of 
 knowledge which, for its extent and its practical usefulness, 
 very far exceeds, though the most ignorant possess it, what- 
 ever additions the greatest philosophers are enabled to build 
 upon it in the longest course of the most successful investi- 
 gations." * 
 
 The phenomena of desire, generally, are among the most 
 characteristically benevolent in their intention of any in the 
 human constitution. Apart from them, it may be possible 
 to conceive human life prolonged through the force of the 
 mere instinct of preservation, emotionally defended on all 
 sides as it is ; but, without desire, how stupid and aimless a 
 thing would life have been ! The greatest intellectual capa- 
 city would have been a mere slumbering potentiality a 
 mere vague dream, or rather nightmare, of power, from 
 which there could have been no awakening. But, as it is, 
 desire, expressing itself with the first movement of life, and 
 strengthening with its growth, becomes the great educator of 
 all our other activities. Under its quickening operation it 
 is that the helpless child is trained to various degrees of 
 manly or womanly culture and excellence from the skilful 
 
 * Discourse on Natural Theology, pp. 55, 56. 
 
EMOTIVE STRUCTURE IN MAN. 247 
 
 craftsman to the lofty poet or philosopher from the gentle 
 doer of good deeds at home to the arduous and untiring 
 philanthropist. It is thus truly the unslackening spring of 
 human progress, relaxing not even in the hour of death ; 
 but, amid the withdrawal of all the objects of present 
 desire, carrying the soul forward in hope and triumph to 
 other and higher regions of mental and moral development.* 
 
 * " They desire a better country, that is, an heavenly." Heb. xi. 16. 
 
SECTION III. 
 
 MORAL INTUITIVE EVIDENCE. 
 
III CHAPTEE I. 
 
 MOEAL INTUITIVE EVIDENCE. 
 
 THE theistic evidence universally runs back into a region of 
 First Truths or Principles. It rests only on a definite spir- 
 itual philosophy, as we have seen in the outset. It remains 
 to be further seen how it only attains to its highest force and 
 significance in the same region. An attentive examination 
 of certain features of our spiritual life will be found to yield 
 a set of theistic elements of a peculiarly direct and impor- 
 tant kind, which are necessary to complete our evidence, and 
 to carry upwards the conceptions of power, wisdom, and 
 goodness, already unfolded, into the full conception of God. 
 
 We deem it unnecessary to enter into any question as 
 to the separate force and value of this department of evi- 
 dence. All such questions are, according to our view, quite 
 irrelevant. For the genuine apprehension of the theistic evi- 
 dence is not that of a series of separate and independent 
 proofs, but that of a great scheme of argument presenting 
 itself under a variety of aspects. All special instances of 
 design derive their conclusive force from certain principles ; 
 
252 THEISM. 
 
 and these principles again must be seen in practical manifes- 
 tation, in order to bring before us a lively and clear impres- 
 sion of the Divine existence and attributes. 
 
 In assigning a distinctive name to this section, we do not 
 mean, therefore, to detach it from our inductive scheme of 
 evidence. We mean simply to point out the distinctive 
 range of inquiry before us, which is sufficiently marked off 
 from that in which we have been engaged. We are no 
 longer merely to be concerned with facts from which we 
 are warranted to infer Divine wisdom and goodness, but 
 with facts which, in a peculiar sense, reveal to us God, 
 which bring God before us intuitively, rather than in the 
 ordinary inductive way. We enter among those prime 
 elements of our spiritual constitution which are the appro- 
 priate organs of the theistic conception. This conception, 
 in its radical form of cause, took its rise in this region, and 
 here no less is it found to complete itself. 
 
 This may serve to explain the views of some of our 
 highest thinkers as to the supposed conclusive force of the 
 moral, in comparison with all other evidence for the being 
 of a God. Kant, after submitting to a destructive criticism 
 all the other modes of theistic evidence, as separately appre- 
 hended in his day, made the existence of God a postulate of 
 our moral being ; and Sir W. Hamilton has expressly said 
 that " the only valid arguments for the existence of a God, 
 and for the immortality of the human soul, rest on the 
 ground of man's moral nature/' * Now, in so far as such 
 views merely imply that to the region of moral conscious- 
 
 * Philosophical Discussions, p. 595. 
 
MORAL INTUITIVE EVIDENCE. 253 
 
 ness must be traced the foundation of the theistic argument, 
 and its peculiar seat, we are prepared to coincide with 
 them. But we cannot assent to any view which would 
 limit the evidence to this region. It finds here its pecu- 
 liar home ; but it by no means stops here. Springing from 
 the depths of our moral consciousness, it is taken up by 
 the intellectual common sense ; and the special argument 
 from design is neither more nor less than the application 
 which is thus made of the primary theistic principle. It 
 becomes us not to forget the origin of the principle through 
 which alone the idea of design is tenable but it becomes 
 us also to acknowledge the appropriate value and the clear 
 and impressive bearing of this idea, as applied to the 
 display of the Divine attributes. The theistic evidence is 
 only seen in its full strength when it is thus recognised in 
 its full comprehensiveness. 
 
 
254 THEISM. 
 
 III CHAPTER II. 
 
 FEEEDOM DIVINE PEESONALITY. 
 
 THE fact which demands our consideration in this chapter is 
 of the utmost importance, not only in respect of the theistic 
 meaning which still remains to be drawn from it, but as 
 constituting, moreover, the real foundation of our whole evi- 
 dence. For already, in our preliminary chapters, its reality 
 was presupposed, and the weight of our initiative conclusion 
 made to rest upon it. It is, therefore, eminently the theistic 
 fact round which, as their rational nucleus, all the others 
 gather. 
 
 The exact character of the fact is to be carefully kept in 
 view. It is of this sort : Is man's rational being essentially 
 distinct from nature ? Does it constitute a source of acti- 
 vity, in a sense altogether unique and contradistinguished 
 from any other movements we perceive in nature? While the 
 latter, through all its range, is a mere series of sequences, of 
 arrangements, and re-arrangements, in the same unbroken 
 flow, is there in man something wholly different, which 
 cannot be resolved into any mere play of sequences, but 
 
FEEEDOM DIVINE PERSONALITY. 255 
 
 constitutes a source of power ? Is there, in short, a soul in 
 man ? This seems to us the last and simplest reduction of 
 the question. According to the affirmative view of this 
 question, mind, in its full meaning, is not only something 
 specifically different in its manifestations from matter, but 
 something in its root and character essentially contradistin- 
 guished from matter. In the various forms, indeed, in which 
 it expresses itself, or becomes phenomenal, it obeys the same 
 law of sequences which obtains among all other phenomena ; 
 but in its spring and source it wholly evades this merely 
 natural law, and refuses to be bound by it. It is only in 
 this apprehension of mind that we found that fact of effi- 
 ciency with which we set out, and without which our argu- 
 ment has no rational basis whereon to rest. 
 
 This fact of a free rational activity, or soul in man, is 
 implied in every form of spiritual philosophy, and appears 
 to constitute the essential basis of all theology. It has, how- 
 ever, beyond doubt, been greatly obscured by certain views 
 which have long held sway, both in philosophy and in theo- 
 logy. These views have been all the more powerful that 
 they express so far an undoubted truth, and have been sup- 
 posed to bear with a peculiar effect upon the confirmation of 
 certain Christian doctrines. In so far as they can be held 
 consistently with our fundamental position and we cannot 
 imagine any Christian necessitarian denying that position 
 we have, of course, no controversy with such views. It must 
 at the same time be observed, and deserves to be carefully 
 considered in such a discussion as the present, that whatever 
 consistency there may be between a true doctrine of neces- 
 
256 THEISM. 
 
 sity, and that assertion of a free rational activity in man 
 which is the basis of our argument, and however that doc- 
 trine may be authorised by great names, it is yet in no sense 
 a Christian doctrine ; and that those truths of Scripture, in 
 whose defence it has been supposed to be triumphantly 
 wielded, are wholly independent of any logical strength 
 thence derived, as they had, in fact, assumed their place in 
 the great scheme of Protestant belief long before any of 
 those formal enunciations of the doctrine of necessity, to 
 which so much weight has been attributed. 
 
 The best way of clearing up the bearing of such views 
 upon our position will be by a brief re-statement and exa- 
 mination of it. We shall approach it from facts formerly 
 reached. Already, in the mere presence of sentient and even 
 organic life, we found, in some sense, a centre of action. 
 Every such existence develops itself from within. But this 
 development is, in such cases, bound to an immutable neces- 
 sity of nature. It is throughout physically conditioned. 
 The evolution of self is, on this lower platform of life, a mere 
 determination of natural causes. The question before us is 
 one which concerns the character of this self-evolution in 
 man. Is it in him nothing more than it is in the lower 
 animals the mere play of nature, " the mere result of 
 physical succession;" or is it something wholly peculiar, and, 
 if not independent of nature, yet by no means subject to it ? 
 Do we find, in short, within us not merely a power of ac- 
 tion, under the impulse of physical causes, but a power of 
 action which owns no law ab extra, but is what we call free? 
 That we have some such power of free action, not merely a 
 
FEEEDOM DIVINE PERSONALITY. 257 
 
 feeling of self, which would seem to be the condition of all 
 mental existence, but a feeling of what has been called self- 
 determination or choice, cannot admit of dispute. Every 
 one must allow that he has such a power of doing what he 
 will. All language and all social practice imply so much. 
 
 But this, it is said, is little to the point : for while it is 
 admitted that man seems to act freely nay, that, in a cer- 
 tain sense, he does so act it is nevertheless true that his 
 action always follows the strongest motive, just as effect 
 follows cause. Inasmuch as he cannot act without motive, 
 the motive felt by him to be the strongest at the time, and 
 under which he does act, is the cause of his action. His 
 rational activity analysed is found to be everywhere encom- 
 passed by a subtle atmosphere of motives strictly and rigor- 
 ously conditioning it. All the particular facts of his mental 
 life are thus only links in a great chain of necessity, although 
 he may not feel them to be so. The law of cause and effect 
 obtains among them, and binds them all, no less surely than 
 it is found to regulate and control all other facts. In these 
 views there is an amount of truth which none now dispute, 
 however they may object to the language in which it is 
 sometimes expressed. It is undeniable that man's intellec- 
 tual and moral being, in all its most subtle and complex 
 manifestations, shows the same order that we everywhere dis- 
 cover in nature. It was our special aim, in previous chapters, 
 to expose, in some degree, this order. If this, therefore, be 
 all that is anywhere meant by the doctrine of necessity, that 
 doctrine must be held as expressive of an important truth. 
 But something far more than this is maintained by most 
 
258 THEISM. 
 
 necessitarians, and seems to be logically implied in the doc- 
 trine. They mean not only to assert that man's rational 
 activity displays itself under the same law of cause and effect 
 as the course of nature does, but that there is really nothing 
 more in it than this display. Volition goes forth under 
 motive ; motive, again, is dependent on organisation, or at 
 least on some external cause ; and this is all. The whole 
 question plainly lies in this higher region. What constitutes 
 motive ? What is the spring of the order which is univer- 
 sally admitted to obtain among the facts of man's spiritual 
 being, no less than among all other facts ? Is that spring 
 in nature, and bound to its immutable sequences ? or is it 
 deep in the central being of the man himself, and essentially 
 separated from nature ? The materialistic necessitarian holds 
 as his cardinal principle the former of these views. He 
 knows nothing beyond the mere series of phenomena which 
 collectively he may call Mind. Any spiritual unit or soul 
 beneath the multiplicity, and therein expressing itself, while 
 yet essentially distinguished from it, has no place in his sys- 
 tem ; and quite consistently so. The theological necessitarian 
 of course shrinks from this conclusion, but his language has 
 not unfrequently been such as to bear it out. Carrying up 
 with an iron hand the phenomenal law of cause and effect 
 into the region of spiritual life, he may have seemed to gain 
 a temporary triumph over an adversary ; but he has done so 
 too often at the risk of total peril to his faith, and to the 
 very ground and condition of all religion. 
 
 The true advocate of liberty, on the other hand, simply 
 maintains that in the last resource the mind or soul is 
 
FKEEDOM DIVINE PEKSONALITY. 259 
 
 unconditioned by any natural cause. The self-conscious 
 reason, or ego, is incompressible by the law of phenomena. 
 It only is, and lives in opposition to that law. The spring of 
 the soul's activity is ever within the soul. It displays itself, 
 no doubt, serially, in regular obedience to the strongest 
 motive ; but the strength of the motive comes from within, 
 from the soul's own preference ; otherwise it would be truly 
 no motive, but would for ever remain a mere inducement 
 or solicitation presenting itself to the mind. It is always 
 the mind's own act that changes a mere inducement into a 
 motive, and leads to action. According to the well-known 
 pithy saying of Coleridge, " it is not the motive makes the 
 man, but the man the motive/' 
 
 The liberty thus defined, it may deserve to be remarked, 
 is entirely different from the old imagination of a liberty of 
 indifference. This latter represented the mind, as it were, 
 in equilibria, till it put forth the power of choice among 
 the motives bearing upon it. It placed the soul, as it were, 
 on one side, and motives on the other, and pretended to give 
 an explanation of the mode of action between the two. The 
 true theory of liberty makes no such pretensions ; it knows 
 nothing of the soul save as active. An abstract potentiality, 
 which of its own sovereignty keeps itself apart from motives, 
 or yields to them at pleasure, is in no respect recognised by 
 it. It simply contends, that in every case of actual human 
 conduct the motive power is from within the soul itself, and 
 not in any respect physically conditioned. It simply says 
 that man is free to act, but it does not pretend for a moment 
 to explain the mode of his freedom. This it so little does 
 
260 THEISM. 
 
 that it acknowledges the fact of human freedom to be in its 
 very character inexplicable. 
 
 This character of mystery of irresolvability, under the 
 great inductive law of cause and effect comprises, in 
 truth, all that can be argumentatively said against the 
 doctrine of liberty. The fact will not come within the 
 conditions of our logical faculty, and must therefore be 
 repelled. But this is a thoroughly vicious mode of argu- 
 ment : for, by the very supposition, the fact transcends 
 these conditions ; and to reject it on this account is simply 
 to beg the whole question. If this fact be at all, it is pri- 
 mary and constitutive, and therefore not to be reasoned to, 
 but from. It stands at the head of our rational nature as 
 its source. And as such a source as the inherent activity 
 whence all our mental modes are born the fountain whence 
 they flow the me, of which they are the varied manifesta- 
 tions it defies the application of that inductive law under 
 which they arise, and for the very reason that it is what it 
 is not any one of these modes, but the root of them ail- 
 not any of the manifold sides of consciousness, but the 
 unity in which all its sides centre. In this view it is not 
 only not wonderful that we cannot understand freedom, but 
 the fact is such in its very idea that it is impossible we ever 
 can understand it, transcending as it necessarily does that 
 logical power of which it is the condition. Thus appre- 
 hended in its primitive distinction, it leaves us no alternative 
 but to abide by it in its necessary incomprehensibility. It is 
 there we are bound to recognise it. But we have no claim 
 to comprehend it, for (as logicians) we do not contain it it 
 contains us. Whatever we are in our mental and practical 
 
FEEEDOM DIVINE PERSONALITY. 261 
 
 character is just the expression of this mysterious person- 
 ality, to which all our activity leads back, and from which it 
 all flows. 
 
 It is as the irresistible testimony of consciousness that 
 this fact forces acceptance. It attests its reality within us, 
 and we cannot get quit of it under whatever ingenuity of 
 explanation. On this ground the advocate of liberty has an 
 advantage which is wholly indisputable; for that we feel 
 ourselves to be free, none can truly deny. This feeling our 
 deepest and most ineradicable consciousness the doctrine of 
 necessity cannot accept as a fact ; or, if it does, we have no 
 dispute with it ; only we do not see how it can consistently 
 maintain itself if it does. For the feeling cannot represent 
 a reality, and yet man's spiritual, no less than his material 
 being, be held as naturally determined. In such a case the 
 feeling can only be an illusion, and man a bondman, wholly 
 a creature of nature, howsoever he may seem every moment 
 to create a circle of free activity around him. But if con- 
 sciousness be thus held false, man is cast adrift on an ocean 
 of utter uncertainty. Truth becomes for him a mere dream, 
 if the voice within him be held incompetent to give it valid 
 utterance. 
 
 The deliverance of consciousness is, on the contrary, held 
 by the advocate of freedom to be at once decisive and ulti- 
 mate on the point. It is not, in his view, any mere dim 
 experience which disappears under analysis, but a truth 
 which makes itself good under whatever logical assaults. 
 The alternative is simply one of fact. The human conscious- 
 ness either tells the truth absolutely, unheeding how it may 
 clash with some other truth in the dim-lighted chamber of 
 
262 THEISM. 
 
 the logical understanding, or it must be admitted to be 
 false. No saving clauses of ingenious explanation will avail. 
 Man is either free really, or he is not free. There is in him 
 a centre of action wholly peculiar, a naturally undeter- 
 mined source of activity, otherwise his deepest experience 
 belies itself, and his moral nature is a devout imagination. 
 There is nothing but the recognition of such a free agency 
 in man, however mysterious and unaccountable, that can 
 preserve to him faith in himself, or the perilous dignity of 
 responsibility among the creatures of earth. If he has not in 
 a true sense such a power of action springing from within 
 his own spiritual being, his consciousness deceives him, and 
 he is and can be nothing else than a mere irresponsible link 
 in the chain of phenomena. 
 
 As the only rational means of escape from such a eonclu- 
 sjon, consciousness must be held in its attestation of freedom 
 to express a reality, to declare a truth, admitting of no 
 exception, however ingeniously represented. Man must be 
 recognised as free in a sense quite peculiar, separating him 
 from all other earthly creatures. While owning, in the 
 actual course of his thought and volition, the great pheno- 
 menal law of cause and effect, there must be admitted to be 
 in him at the same time a mysterious centre of personality 
 nothing else than the soul, which withdraws itself from this 
 law, and asserts itself against it. 
 
 What, then, is the bearing of this fact on our subject? 
 As we previously said, it is the most vital for our purpose in 
 our whole range of inquiry; but just corresponding with its 
 peculiar depth and importance is the difficulty of fully seiz- 
 ing and expressing its significance. We have already seen 
 
FREEDOM DIVINE PERSONALITY. 263 
 
 in what respect it lies at the root of our inductive evidence 
 as the source of our idea of cause. The strange relation of 
 affinity and yet conflict which thus emerges between the 
 principles of personality and causality were an interesting 
 subject of consideration, but cannot occupy us here.* We 
 have at present simply to do with the direct import of the 
 fact of personality in the enlargement of our theistic evidence. 
 In tracing back our mental life, we have this fact as the last 
 word for reason. The Me asserts itself as an inscrutable 
 reality, beyond which we cannot go in the way of natural 
 explanation. It refuses obstinately to be related to any 
 higher fact, as a natural sequence. But have we not thus 
 reached a startling conclusion ? If the human ego be thus as 
 it so clearly pronounces itself to be, a cause in the highest and 
 indeed only true sense viz. a naturally undetermined source 
 of activity is it not thereby, in its very character, its own 
 author ? If undetermined, is it not necessarily independent ? 
 So far is this from being the case, that we here approach 
 the very peculiarity of the theistic meaning which this 
 prime fact yields us ; for, in the very act of expressing 
 itself, it is found to be its essential characteristic, at the 
 same time, to express Another. It only realises itself in 
 Another. The more we sink back into the depths of con- 
 sciousness, and the more vivid force and reality with which 
 we seize our personal being, as something unconditioned by 
 nature, and rising above it, the more directly and immediately 
 do we at the same time apprehend ourselves as relative 
 and dependent. The more we become self-conscious, the 
 more do we feel, at the same time, that the ground of 
 
 * See Note at the end of the chapter. 
 
264 THEISM. 
 
 our existence is not in ourselves, but in Another and a 
 Higher. Our personality, in asserting itself to be distinct 
 from nature, yet with equal force asserts itself to be derived, 
 or, in other language, to take its rise in a Principle above 
 nature. The human self, in a word, irresistibly suggests a 
 divine Self; the limited cause, an absolutely original and 
 unlimited Cause. 
 
 It is true that we thus, in the last analysis, bring into 
 special prominence the logical incomprehensibility which 
 meets us in the testimony of consciousness. We realise 
 ourselves as free, and yet dependent. Nay, in our very 
 freedom we at the same time find our dependency. The 
 more we sink into ourselves, the more do we feel ourselves 
 to rest on a Higher. Just as we accept the testimony of 
 consciousness in giving us liberty the soul's efficiency for 
 its own acts so do we accept its testimony in giving a 
 relation to this efficiency in the All-efficient. Let it be 
 that we cannot construe to ourselves this relation intelli- 
 gibly cannot compass it in thought this is no valid 
 ground for rejecting either term of it. We can only do so 
 by trampling upon consciousness, and exposing ourselves 
 to the whole peril of scepticism. The facts must be 
 accepted as given, however impossible it may be for us to 
 join them logically together; and for this obvious reason, 
 which, if it does not give satisfaction, ought yet to give 
 resignation, that our mere capacity of thought cannot, in 
 the nature of the case, be the measure of truth here nor 
 anywhere. Great master in its own sphere (in the evolu- 
 tion and determination of all the forms of science), it must 
 yet be content to be the minister of reality. 
 
FKEEDOM DIVINE PEKSONALITY. 265 
 
 It is requisite to observe the full import of our conclusion. 
 Our own personality not only gives another personality, 
 but another which is at the same time absolute. It is, in 
 fact, the special rational intuition of the absolute in the 
 relative the infinite in the finite which carries us beyond 
 the Self within, to a Self without and above us. How 
 vital, in a theistic sense, this intuition is, must therefore be 
 obvious. But it is not our aim at present to insist upon 
 the reality of the infinite which thus dawns upon us. This 
 reality will afterwards engage us separately. We would 
 now rather simply fix attention on the fact of Divine per- 
 sonality, so vividly brought before us. 
 
 Of all the facts of Theism this may be said to be the most 
 fundamental, as it is that in which all the others inhere, and 
 find their life. It is a fact which already we had virtually 
 found in the theistic conclusion which we established in our 
 first section. For an intelligent First Cause, according to 
 our mode of reaching and authenticating the idea, could only 
 be a living Personality. This great truth of the Divine 
 Personality, however, comes before us here with intuitive 
 brightness. It reveals itself as the clear reflection the 
 dbglanz, as the Germans expressively term it of our own 
 personality. * The Thou of our prayers rises in solemn 
 reality against our own most hidden self-consciousness. Our 
 
 * Those who are familiar with the elaborate treatise of Dr Julius Muller 
 on the Christian Doctrine of Sin, may recognise a similarity between the pro- 
 cess of theistic reasoning in this chapter, and that contained in the second 
 chapter of the first book of that treatise, p. 79, vol. i et seq. The writer gratefully 
 acknowledges his obligations to Dr Muller here and elsewhere. It will be seen, 
 at the same time, that his own course of argument, in the present case, is suffi- 
 ciently distinctive. 
 
 S 
 
266 THEISM. 
 
 deepest life centres in Another, in whom alone " we live, 
 and move, and have our being/' In comparison with every 
 other apprehension of God this apprehension of Him is 
 immediate and decisive. We rejoice to trace Him also in 
 nature; we gladden to greet His presence in every bursting 
 flower, in every curious organism, in the heavens and in 
 the earth. But while we only search in nature, we search 
 as with veiled gaze, " if haply we might feel after Him, and 
 find Him/' It is only in the depths of self-reflection within 
 its most secret chambers that we become conscious of His 
 immediate presence, and know that He is " not far from 
 every one of us." 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 There is a relation of the whole subject arising out of this chapter, 
 which can scarcely fail to suggest itself to the speculative reader, and 
 which may claim from us a passing notice, in case it should be sup- 
 posed that we have overlooked it. The basis of our preliminary rea- 
 soning, it will be remembered, was the rational necessity that com- 
 pelled us to find a cause at the head of nature. We cannot conceive 
 a mere endless series of relative phenomena. We must have a cause 
 or origin of the series ; or, in other words, according to our whole 
 view, an efficient Agent or Mind. Yet it is certainly true, as we 
 have freely admitted in this chapter, that we cannot compass in 
 thought, or conceive, in this lower sense, such an efficient agent. 
 The argument seems to run up into a contradiction or antagonism 
 of inconceivabilities. And if we confine ourselves to the sphere of 
 mere thought or logical comprehension, there seems to be no escape 
 from the contradiction. We are bandied about from one horn of the 
 logical dilemma to another, in a hopeless state of confusion and per- 
 plexity. Let the speculative reader, who desires to see the contra- 
 diction which thus arises fully exposed, and in its bearing, too, on 
 the subject of this chapter, consult Sir W. Hamilton's Discussions, 
 Appendix, p. 591 et seq. 
 
FREEDOM DIVINE PEESONALITY. 267 
 
 Sir William's mode of escape from the difficulty we cannot accept. 
 The principle of causality he considers to be the mere issue of our 
 intellectual impotency to conceive anything save as related in time. 
 The principle of personality or liberty is with him equally the fruit 
 of a similar impotency to conceive an infinite series of relations. 
 Both, therefore, being mere impotencies of human thought, their 
 mutual contradiction does not necessarily imply the falsehood of 
 either. 
 
 The seeming contradiction vanishes with us in a different, and, as 
 we think, more satisfactory way. Causality and personality have, 
 in our view, one and the same root, which, from the first, is found in 
 a sphere beyond logic. So far from being the mere issue of opposing 
 negations, as Sir William Hamilton makes them, both principles 
 take their rise in the most living reality of existence, the ego. That 
 every effect must have a cause, means simply that everything im- 
 plies as its source a living agent or mind ; and this living agent 
 or mind is simply a personality. We cannot conceive things save 
 as the production of such a mind. Our reason demands such a mind. 
 The inconceivability here is a complete rational inconceivability. 
 There is no escape from it. And if it be also true that we cannot 
 logically conceive, comprehend, or contain in thought such a mind, 
 yet there is every difference between this and the inconceivability 
 in the former case. This is merely negative, springing out of the 
 necessary limitations of human thought. The former is not only 
 negative, but issues out of a positive demand of reason on the other 
 side. It would be more correct, in fact, to restrict the use of the 
 term inconceivable to the former case : for although we cannot think, 
 or construe to ourselves logically, an efficient cause or mind, such a 
 cause is so far from being inconceivable to reason that reason expressly 
 demands and affirms it. The reality of such a higher power of rea- 
 son, which inseparably blends with faith, and is the organ of the 
 unconditioned and insensible (see subsequent chapter), is implied in 
 our whole course of reasoning. The truths revealed in this higher 
 reason are not, properly speaking, inconceivable : they are only 
 incomprehensible. The intellect cannot compass them ; and this is 
 of their very nature, because they are what they are primary and 
 not derivative. 
 
268 THEISM. 
 
 III CHAPTEE III. 
 
 CONSCIENCE DIVINE RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 As freedom is the fundamental condition of our moral being, 
 so conscience is its guide and regulator. The soul, while 
 self-acting, is at the same time spiritually controlled. It is 
 then, indeed, most itself, most truly free, when most fully 
 informed and controlled by conscience. 
 
 As in the case of every other element of man's spiri- 
 tual being, the special character of conscience has been 
 greatly disputed. Philosophy has found here even a 
 favourite field of struggle. Among all our most earnest 
 thinkers, however, there may be said to be at length 
 something like unanimity in regarding conscience as a 
 primitive and distinct fact or faculty. The attempts 
 which have been made to resolve it into some simpler 
 element of our mental constitution have merely served 
 to prove the intimate alliance between conscience and our 
 other mental powers, and their necessary influence upon 
 its education and development. But in no case have 
 they sufficed fully to explain its origin. The most skilful 
 
CONSCIENCE DIVINE EIGHTEOUSNESS. 269 
 
 analysis of the association of ideas, or of our common intel- 
 lectual judgments, into both of which it has been sought to 
 be explained, still leaves a residuary element unaccounted 
 for, which, whatever name we give to it, is nothing else than 
 the germ which expands into the full moral reality which we 
 mean by conscience. 
 
 In its most general application it may be defined as that 
 element of our being by which we become conscious of duty. 
 It introduces man into a set of relations bearing to him the 
 peculiar character of obligation, which, however little he may 
 be able to analyse it, is felt by him in the strongest manner. 
 Viewed as a mental power, its chief peculiarity accordingly 
 consists in the position which it thus assumes amongst our 
 other powers. It not only perceives, but commands ; not 
 only points the way, but orders to walk in it. 
 
 Since the profound and luminous expositions of Butler, in 
 his Sermons on Human Nature, the attention of moralists 
 has been prominently fixed on this authoritative aspect of 
 conscience. Its special function has been recognised as that 
 of a guide and governor. It is impossible, as Butler has 
 pointed out, to dissociate from it the notion of direction and 
 superintendency. " This is a constituent part of the idea 
 that is, of the faculty itself ; and to preside and govern, from 
 the very economy and constitution of man, belongs to it." 
 " This faculty/' he adds, " was placed within us to be our 
 proper governor ; to direct and regulate all under principles, 
 passions, and motives of action. This is its right and 
 office. Thus sacred is its authority. And how often soever 
 men violate and rebelliously refuse to submit to it, for sup- 
 
270 THEISM. 
 
 posed interest which they cannot otherwise obtain, or for the 
 sake of passion which they cannot otherwise gratify, this 
 makes no alteration as to the natural right and office of con- 
 science/' Even when its judgments are set aside, or trampled 
 under foot, by the perverse force of the will, conscience, 
 as Butler here truly indicates, does not, rightly speaking, 
 lose its authority. It holds the transgressor in its grasp, 
 and can bring him trembling before its judgment-seat, even 
 when he would seem to have broken loose from all its 
 restraints, and completely overborne its power. It asserts 
 its sovereignty with a fearful reality, even although its sceptre 
 has been broken, and its throne desecrated. Aloft itself, 
 even among the ruins of its kingdom, it arraigns the stoutest 
 rebel, and often holds in cowering bondage the most reckless 
 criminal. " Had it strength, as it has right ; had it power, 
 as it has manifest authority, it would," in Butler's expressive 
 language, " absolutely govern the world/' 
 
 It is especially this supreme and legislative aspect of con- 
 science which gives it significance for the natural theo- 
 logian. As a simple fact of creation it yields, undoubtedly, 
 like every other fact, its appropriate testimony to the Creator; 
 but here, in its authoritative import, is rightly recognised a 
 peculiar and important element of theistic evidence. For 
 the question immediately arises, whence this authority of 
 conscience ? Does not the very fact of a law within us 
 directly testify to a Lawgiver without and above us ? Does 
 not the one fact, in its very nature, involve the other ? The 
 argument seems irresistible. The sense of government in 
 
CONSCIENCE DIVINE KIGHTEOUSNESS. 271 
 
 every heart can only proceed from a living governor, who 
 placed it there. The moral power within us, therefore, 
 gives, as its immediate inference, a Divine Power above us. 
 Every one will recognise in our statement a form of the 
 theistic argument which, expounded by the zealous eloquence 
 of Dr Chalmers, has passed into familiar currency in our 
 natural theology. " The felt presence of a judge within the 
 breast/' he says, " powerfully and immediately suggests the 
 notion of a Supreme Judge and Sovereign who placed it there. 
 Upon this question the mind does not stop short at mere ab- 
 straction, but, passing at once from the abstract to the con- 
 crete, from the law of the heart it makes the rapid inference of 
 a Lawgiver. The sense of a governing principle within, begets 
 in all men the sentiment of a living Governor without and 
 above them, and it does so with all the speed of an instan- 
 taneous feeling; yet it is not an impression it is an inference 
 notwithstanding, and as much so as any inference from that 
 which is seen to that which is unseen. There is, in the 
 first instance, cognisance taken of a fact, if not by the out- 
 ward eye, yet, as good, by the eye of consciousness, which 
 has been termed the faculty of internal observation. And 
 the consequent belief of a God, instead of being an instinctive 
 sense of the Divinity, is the fruit of an inference grounded 
 on that fact. There is instant transition made, from the 
 sense of a monitor within to the faith of a living Sovereign 
 above ; and this argument, described by all, but with such 
 speed as almost to warrant the expression of its being felt 
 by all, may be regarded, notwithstanding the force and fer- 
 
272 THEISM. 
 
 tility of other considerations, as the great prop of natural 
 religion among men/' * 
 
 It is a question of little moment for the substantial con- 
 clusion involved which is good in either case whether 
 the act by which it is reached be considered, with Dr 
 Chalmers, really inductive, or rather intuitive. This ob- 
 viously depends upon the further question as to what 
 are regarded to be the special constituents of conscience. 
 If we recognise it, with Butler, according to the view 
 already set forth, to be itself a delegated power, and 
 not merely the perception or revelation of a power, we 
 obviously leave room for an inductive step or inference. 
 We have in this view, as the immediate fact of conscious- 
 ness, a sense of authority which, as we cannot conceive it 
 to be self-constituted, we necessarily refer to a supreme or 
 divine Source. But if, according to the more simple view, 
 and what would seem to be the direct import of the name 
 conscience, we consider it as not in any way containing in 
 itself the power with which it rules us, but as directly reveal- 
 ing to us that power in another, then we leave no room for 
 induction. We have, in the very fact of conscience, the intui- 
 tion of the Divine will, just as we have in the fact of self- 
 existence the intuition of the Divine existence. As we 
 cannot realise our own being without at the same time 
 realising another and a higher Being, so we cannot become 
 conscious of duty, without at the same time realising 
 another and a higher Will. The moral law is to us 
 nothing more than the revelation of this higher or divine 
 
 * Natural Theology, vol. i. p. 331-332. 
 
CONSCIENCE DIVINE RIGHTEOUSNESS. 273 
 
 Will in the soul. We do not, therefore, need to rise from it 
 to God, for it is already the voice of God within us. We 
 are carried out of ourselves, so to speak, in the simple reality 
 of conscience. The authority which, in conscience, speaks to 
 us is not merely something from which we may infer a 
 divine Power, but is already the direct expression of that 
 power. 
 
 This, upon reflection, we feel convinced, is the more just 
 and penetrating view of the subject. Preserving all the 
 truth of Butler's view, in even a higher form than he pre- 
 sented it, it gives, in a psychological respect, a more discri- 
 minating and consistent interpretation of conscience, than 
 when it is regarded as in itself both a perceptive and im- 
 perative faculty. Viewed simply as the organ of a higher 
 power, its psychological dignity is at once vindicated, and its 
 possible abuse readily understood. For let the organ be 
 untrained or neglected, and its intuition will be dim and ob- 
 scure, or even absolutely perverted. But let it be appropri- 
 ately disciplined, and its intuition will rise into clearness 
 and truth. We do not see, in any case, how conscience can 
 ever be adequately explained, without bringing into pro- 
 minence the theological meaning which it so essentially ex- 
 presses. Apart from God it would be an inexplicable riddle : 
 held as revealing God, it becomes beautifully intelligible. It 
 is the light within whereby we perceive at once the Hand 
 that guides us, and, although more dimly, the destination 
 that awaits us. 
 
 We have not yet, however, exhausted the theistic signifi- 
 cance of conscience. It is not merely to the fact of a divine 
 
274 THEISM. 
 
 Power that it testifies, but eminently to the character of that 
 power. The moral law, which it reveals, is not simply the 
 expression of a supreme Will, but of a Will which is essenti- 
 ally good and righteous. It is this, in truth, which gives all 
 its force to conscience. It is by the good alone that it 
 governs. It is the law of goodness which asserts itself 
 in the human heart, under whatever violation, and holds 
 itself a sovereign, even when its kingdom has been invaded 
 and laid waste. To this idea of a Good above man, claiming 
 his obedience, we alone owe the very conception of duty. It 
 is this which gives all its peculiar sacredness and beauty to 
 human life. Apart from it man would merely be as the 
 brutes around him, with no nobleness of piety in his heart, 
 and no long-suffering love mingling its purifying fires in his 
 lot. In conscience, therefore, we must recognise a peculiar 
 testimony to the divine goodness. As the organ of duty, it 
 is in fact specifically the revelation of the Supreme Good. It 
 brings man not only into converse with Goodness, but relates 
 him to it, as the power which binds him in his daily life, and 
 would guide him to daily happiness. 
 
 But the divine Goodness, to which conscience testifies, is 
 at the same time divine Righteousness. This is a further very 
 significant and wholly peculiar element of theistic evidence 
 disclosed in conscience. The Supreme Good interprets itself 
 here as the Supreme Right. This idea of Right is one which, 
 hitherto, we could not possibly have encountered; for it only 
 finds an application in the region of free moral life, where 
 it emerges correlatively with duty. It is the idea in which 
 alone duty finds its complement, and so becomes the sacred 
 
CONSCIENCE DIVINE EIGHTEOUSNESS. 275 
 
 bond which holds our moral being in harmony. The element 
 or attribute of righteousness is one, therefore, which a com- 
 prehensive natural theology must ever recognise in the Divine 
 Being. The broad and earnest mind of Dr Chalmers did, 
 perhaps, especial service in making this clear and prominent. 
 And it has since become more and more a matter of convic- 
 tion that Theism is not only bound to take up this element, 
 but that it furnishes, to some extent, the key to the profound 
 mysteries which lie around the special attribute of divine 
 goodness. For in order to perceive a benevolent meaning 
 in much that would otherwise seem opposed to benevolence, 
 we have only to see that goodness completes itself in right- 
 eousness, and can never validly come short of it. The concep- 
 tion of goodness becomes thus not only exalted, but discrimi- 
 nated. Whereas, in the lower regions of sentient and intel- 
 lectual life, the former attribute is apparent merely as a dis- 
 position to bestow happiness here, in the light of the further 
 conception into which it rises, it appears before us as some- 
 thing which may, in the highest sense, assert itself, not cer- 
 tainly irrespective of happiness, yet apart from its immediate 
 bestowal yea, even in the bestowal of partial and temporary 
 unhappiness. For, as the good is at the same time ever the 
 right, as love only sustains itself in holiness, so it becomes 
 conceivable that, where the right has been invaded, and the 
 holy desecrated, goodness may express itself most distinctive- 
 ly in suffering or punishment. This bearing of the subject 
 we now merely indicate, as it will afterwards come before us 
 for special consideration. 
 
 In the mean time we fix attention upon the fact of Kighte- 
 
276 THEISM. 
 
 ousness, as it has come before us at this upward point in 
 the course of our theistic evidence. It is among the last 
 facts which meet us in the evolution of the idea of God, 
 which is the appropriate task of Natural Theology ; but in 
 another sense it is undoubtedly among the reasoned primary 
 springs of Theism. For there is no deeper or more univer- 
 sal source of the divine consciousness in every heart. It is, 
 above all, as a righteous power that God is spontaneously 
 known in the common mind. It is the ineradicable testimony 
 of conscience which, above all, preserves the sense of Divinity 
 in the world, amid the corruptions of passion or the delusions 
 of intellectual self-conceit. It asserts a divine Presence with 
 a cogency which no sophistry can parry, and no argument 
 gainsay. And while man retains within him this impressive 
 monitor, the belief in God can never cease, even although 
 the manifold adaptations of matter and of mind should fail 
 to arrest his wonder, and engage his study. 
 
REASON INFINITY. 277 
 
 III CHAPTER IV. 
 
 EEASON INFINITY. 
 
 (1 PRIORI ARGUMENT.) 
 
 MIND begins in faith, in holding for true the objective, pre- 
 sented to it in sensible perception. Thus intuitive in its 
 lowest energy, it is equally so in its highest. If, looking 
 outward, it has no further explanation to render of the 
 reality of the visible world than that it is present in apprehen- 
 sion, and therefore must be conceived as existent ; so, looking 
 upward from the sphere of finite reality, it perceives a higher 
 world of truth, which equally makes itself good in appre- 
 hension. 
 
 Such a higher power of intuition, by which we apprehend 
 realities beyond the region of the sensible, is one which is 
 admitted by every school of philosophy, save that which, 
 from the extremely unphilosophical assumption lying at 
 its basis, is bound to ignore everything beyond the sen- 
 sible.* At the same time, there have been endless disputes 
 as to the special name and character of this transcendant 
 
 * Even empiricism may be said to give us, under the form of generalisa- 
 tions, a mimicry of the truths which it yet denies. 
 
278 THEISM. 
 
 intuition. For our purpose it matters not at all how it may 
 be specially designated, or even understood, so that its 
 reality is confessed ; whether, for example, it be identified 
 more with the intellectual or moral side of our being. 
 According to the only genuine conception of the human 
 mind, this is indeed a very irrelevant question, as there are 
 none of the sides of mental activity which can be strictly 
 demarcated from the others, all blending as they do end- 
 lessly into one another. Whether, therefore, this loftiest 
 energy of the soul which relates it to a sphere of uncondi- 
 tioned objectivity, as the lower intuitional power relates it 
 to the sphere of the conditioned be conceived of as intel- 
 ligence in the highest sense (the NoCs), or as faith, it is for 
 us of no consequence. As forming the highest expression 
 of our mental activity, it seems eminently to deserve 
 the special name of reason, which has often been applied 
 to it.* 
 
 The infinite is the peculiar object of this higher intuition. 
 
 * This employment of the term reason, to denote the special faculty of the 
 supersensible or unconditioned, is very old, although it may be true, accord- 
 ing to Sir W. Hamilton (Ed. Reid, note A, p. 769), that it has only been gene- 
 rally used in this sense since the time of Kant. Its justification seems to be 
 simply this, that the highest energy or expression of the human mind may 
 very well receive pre-eminently the name which is characteristic of its general 
 nature. Certainly, if the name is to be appropriated to any special power or 
 faculty, it ought to be appropriated to this highest and most aspiring faculty, 
 which brings us into communion with the spiritual and the infinite. If such 
 an interpretation of reason were kept steadily in view, the supposed conflicts 
 between it and faith, which have been so long the bane and opprobrium of 
 Theology, would speedily disappear. For thus they would be clearly seen to 
 form a unity of power, in which the whole soul, intellectually and practically, 
 goes forth towards the truth. In our older and best theology this is the view 
 under which reason is presented. Vide HOOKER'S Eccles. /W&,book i. chap, 
 vii. et seq. 
 
EEASON INFINITY. 279 
 
 It is the revelation of reason as the finite is the revelation 
 of sense. There is no reality, apprehended under a diver- 
 sity of forms, which holds a more living possession of the 
 human mind. The various notions of substance, space, dura- 
 tion, which constitute the necessary truths logically presup- 
 posed in all phenomena of sense and reflection, and which 
 reappear in all metaphysic as its essential data, are merely 
 different modes under which the infinite makes itself known. 
 The very variety of these, its expressions, and the obstinacy 
 with which, under whatever denial, they cling to the mind, 
 only serve to display the richness of the generic truth in 
 which they all inhere, and of which they are merely mani- 
 festations. 
 
 The mode in which we have approached this subject 
 seems to dissipate many of the controversies which have 
 incumbered it. It serves to show the reality of the infinite 
 as an element or constituent of human knowledge, without 
 in any degree aiming to bring the infinite as an idea within 
 our reach. So far as we try to seize or compass it in 
 thought or, in other words, hold it before us as an idea it 
 can, in the nature of the case, only present itself as a nega- 
 tion. It evades us in the very attempt to contain or com- 
 prehend it. But while the infinite is thus incomprehensible 
 as a subject of thought, it is directly apprehensible as a 
 reality of reason. Negative as an idea, it is positive as a 
 fact. While we cannot think it, yet we cannot want it. 
 It reveals itself as an implicate of all our more special men- 
 tal conceptions, and it may therefore be said to guarantee 
 itself in the very hold which it thus keeps of the soul, under 
 
280 THEISM. 
 
 all the baffling attempts of the understanding to compass it. 
 And this is admitted by Sir W. Hamilton, in language 
 than which we could desire nothing more plain as a confes- 
 sion of all that we really contend for. " We are thus taught/' 
 he says, " the salutary lesson that the capacity of thought is 
 not to be constituted into the measure of existence, and are 
 warned from recognising the domain of our knowledge as 
 necessarily coextensive with the horizon of our faith. And 
 by a wonderful revelation we are thus, in the very con- 
 sciousness of our inability to conceive aught above the rela- 
 tive and finite, inspired with a belief in the existence of 
 something unconditioned beyond the sphere of all compre- 
 hensible reality/' * 
 
 In the same point of view we see the fallacy of the 
 Kantian doctrine of the infinite. Admitting it as a regu- 
 lating idea of human knowledge, Kant yet denied to it any 
 objective validity. The idea, according to him, might be 
 necessary to us, and yet not represent a reality. And so it 
 might, were the ideal or notional the mode in which the 
 infinite is alone present to us. But this is so far from being 
 the case, that the idea, as present in the understanding, 
 is only the dim reflection of the fact present in reason. 
 The infinite comes to us intuitively, and not notionally ; 
 and in this the very mode of its apprehension affirms its 
 reality. The soul looks upward, and the light of the infinite 
 dawns upon it. It presents itself as an objective presence 
 a self-revealing vision and is not wrought out as a mere 
 ideal projection from our mental restlessness. It is felt to 
 
 * Philosophical Discussions, p. 15. 
 
EEASON INFINITY. 281 
 
 be a reality containing and conditioning the soul, which, 
 with all its power, it cannot think away ; and this it could 
 not be, were it a mere self-created form of the soul. The 
 declaration of consciousness here, no less than in sensible 
 perception, gives, as its indisputable contents, subject and 
 object, in immediate and inseparable relation. In the one 
 case as in the other, the mind " gazes upon its object with an 
 immediacy which suffers no error or doubt to intervene, and 
 gives in this way a guarantee for its legitimacy which it is 
 impossible to resist/' It is now, in fact, admitted on all 
 hands, that Kant's denial of objectivity to the ideas of pure 
 reason, and his virtual readmission of their reality as postu- 
 lates of the practical reason, is the most inconsequent and 
 feeble portion of his whole philosophy and on the special 
 ground, already so often stated by us, that we cannot 
 legitimately disjoin the intellectual and the moral the 
 pure and the practical and hold their deliverances asunder. 
 Certainly we cannot leave out of that highest spiritual 
 faculty we call reason, the element of faith, without de- 
 stroying its essential character, and making it merely a 
 higher form of the logical understanding. It is of the 
 very essence of reason regarded by us as the apex of 
 the soul's activity its consummate energy, to be at once 
 pure and practical, cognitive and moral. We have, in the 
 last case, no higher name for knowledge everywhere than 
 belief. And this belief, as Sir W. Hamilton says, is mis- 
 taken by Kant when recognised as " a mere spiritual crav- 
 ing." It is rather " an immediate manifestation to intelli- 
 gence not as a postulate, but as a datum not as an 
 
 T 
 
 
282 THEISM. 
 
 interest in certain truths, but as the fact, the principle, the 
 warrant of their cognition and reality." * 
 
 No one has dwelt more fully upon the function of reason, 
 and its use and value in natural theology, than M. Cousin. 
 But while others have erred in undervaluing it, he has erred 
 in unduly magnifying it, or rather in losing sight of the 
 human in the Divine reality. It is not with him, in any 
 distinctive sense, a human power through which we merely 
 apprehend God as the one ultimate and absolute Substance 
 and Cause ; but it is, even in its human appearance, a sort 
 of divinity " not, indeed, the absolute God, but His mani- 
 festation in spirit and in truth not the Being of beings, 
 but the God of the human race/' -f- 
 
 The characteristic error of Cousin seems to consist in a 
 too extreme recoil from the subjectivity of Kant. Looking 
 at the great constitutive idea of the infinite, in the various 
 phases in which it is found to underlie all our mental opera- 
 tions as, for example, the universal in space, the eternal in 
 time Kant concluded that these were the mere forms or 
 categories which the mind, the ego cogitative, imposes upon 
 itself. He thus denuded them of objectivity, and thereby, 
 as we have seen, contradicted the testimony of conscious- 
 ness in reason, which embraces not only a subject, but an 
 object which declares the soul not only to be conversant 
 with such notions, as regulative forms of its own activity, 
 but to be directly and primarily conversant with the reality 
 
 * Ed. Reid, Note A, p. 793. 
 
 f Fragmens Philosophises, preface de la premiere edit., p. 36-37. Paris : 
 1849. 
 
EEASON INFINITY. 283 
 
 in which they all inhere. Looking at these same notions, 
 Cousin, on the other hand, is not content to accept them as 
 intuitively made known to the human reason, but he insists 
 upon them as realities apart from the human ego, and, 
 indeed, any ego whatever. They were only the forms of the 
 human ego with Kant : the ego has nothing to do with 
 them, says Cousin ; for reason, which expresses or contains 
 them, is impersonal.* But this is to talk in a language 
 which is to us wholly unintelligible ; for we can have no 
 conception of reason which is unrelated to personality. 
 Apart from the latter element it is a mere abstraction, 
 equally unmeaning with the materialistic abstraction of law, 
 and equally calculated to play the same pantheistic or 
 atheistic part of exalting itself in the place of God. The 
 contents of reason are, no doubt, realities altogether apart 
 from the human ego ; but how they can be known or 
 manifested to us, save as apprehended by that ego, seems a 
 puzzle of peculiar hopelessness. The fact appears to be, 
 that personality, or the ego, is understood by M. Cousin as 
 something subordinate and inferior, with the action of which 
 it is degrading to associate reason; and here again he is 
 found somewhat strangely meeting the views of the mate- 
 rialistic school most opposed to him. 
 
 Our position is equally opposed to both these extremes. 
 The infinite is apprehended by us as a reality in the strong- 
 est manner, but then the evidence of this reality is directly 
 found in the intuitive apprehension of the ego. It is re- 
 
 * Fragmens PhilosopJiiqv.es, preface de la premiere edit., vol. iv. p. 21. See 
 also preface de la deuxieme edit., p. 56. 
 
284 THEISM. 
 
 vealed in the rational consciousness, and in its revelation 
 sufficiently attests its existence. Our reason relates us to 
 the infinite, and lifts us into communion with it. It is thus 
 to us the ever-sufficient evidence of the Divine reality ; but 
 it is itself only a feeble and broken shadow of that reality. 
 It looks forth into the invisible, and finds there its living 
 Author; yet it is deeply conscious of its own weakness, while 
 conscious of its affinity with the Divine Presence which 
 there meets it, and from which it comes. 
 , This infinite Presence in space and in time is the com- 
 plement of man's spiritual being at all points. It asserts 
 its power in the human mind in manifold ways, that can 
 only be accounted for by its truth. Apart from its shadow 
 in the intellect, science could not exist : knowledge would 
 be a mere perplexed and confused accumulation. This, how- 
 ever, brings a unity into all our mental operations. Reason 
 descries an infinite meaning everywhere, and science is the 
 creation of such a gift. Apart from this reality in the heart 
 life would be vanity. The higher glory of eternity could not 
 encompass and strengthen it. It is only the truth of the 
 Infinite that gives significance to speculation or persever- 
 ance to well-doing. 
 
 In natural theology this predicate of the Infinite is at once 
 the most consummate and comprehensive that rewards our 
 inquiry, without which every induction must come short of 
 the proof of a Divine Existence. It gives, as its essential 
 contents, not only all those special attributes of eternity, 
 omnipotence, omniscience, of which it is simply the generic 
 
REASON INFINITY. 285 
 
 expression ; but, moreover, the unity of these attributes, 
 in which the idea of God alone completes itself. For unity 
 is plainly a logical condition of infinity; and, manifold as 
 are the indications of unity in nature, it may be doubted 
 whether these could give us more than a unity of Divine 
 purpose, whereas our conclusion requires a unity of Divine 
 Essence. It attains to its full meaning only in the admission 
 of one " all-powerful, wise, and good Being, by whom every- 
 thing exists." 
 
 The special question of the validity of the a priori argu- 
 ment for the being of a God here comes before us directly ; 
 and although our relation to it can scarcely fail to have made 
 itself intelligible to the philosophical reader, it may yet 
 deserve from us a special consideration. 
 
 The pretension of the a priori argument is the logical 
 evolution or demonstration of the truth of the Divine exist- 
 ence from some element or datum admitted to be indisputable. 
 In order strictly to maintain its character, this element ought 
 to be one ineradicably given in our modes of thought an 
 intellectual point of which we cannot get rid, but which we 
 continue to think in the very attempt to think away. Such 
 is our notion of infinity ; and all a priori reasoning for the 
 being of a God will be found to rest on some phase or other 
 of this notion. It errs not in its appeal to such fundamental 
 necessities of human thought, but in its attempt to construct 
 out of them a logical demonstration of the Divine Existence. 
 We will confine ourselves, for the sake of illustration, to 
 
286 THEISM. 
 
 what is commonly known as the Cartesian* argument. 
 The argument of Dr Clarke, in so far as it is a priori, lies 
 open to the same criticism. This argument, however, as 
 already observed in the Introduction, is not strictly a priori, 
 setting out as it does from an express fact of observation or 
 of sensible experience. The remarkable argument of Mr 
 Gillespie,^ which, as a specimen of a priori speculation, cer- 
 tainly claims to be ranked along with anything in British 
 philosophical literature, comes still more directly within the 
 scope of our objection. 
 
 We select our statement of the Cartesian argument from 
 the replies to the Objections to the Meditations, \ where it is 
 found in a form the most rigidly demonstrative, and which 
 may very well stand as the type of all possible a priori 
 argumentation on the subject. The following is the pro- 
 position to be proved, and the mode of demonstration: 
 
 * The name of Des Cartes has been especially associated with the a priori 
 argument, and to him must undoubtedly be allowed the merit of having 
 launched it, as a pregnant problem, into the current of modern speculation. 
 The argument, however, in all that it essentially imports, is as old as the first 
 dawn of scholasticism, of which it is so genuine a product. The germ of it is 
 to be found in the writings of the great father of the Scholastic Philosophy 
 (Augustine, 2d chap. De Lib. A rbit. ) and in the writings of Anselm and Aquinas. 
 In those of the former it is even set forth in a strictly formal and scientific 
 manner, which the student may consult as presented in Hagenbach's History 
 of Doctrines, vol. i. p. 443 et seq. m 
 
 It is a somewhat curious fact to find Des Cartes, who so emphatically stands 
 at the head of our modern free inquiry, the patriarch of that speculative spirit 
 which has born such strange fruits of intellectual daring, and who himself 
 manifests in his Meditations a tone of such intense originality, reverting to a 
 familiar doctrine of the expiring scholasticism as one of the most fundamental 
 principles of the new philosophical certitude which he aimed to establish. 
 
 f The Necessary Existence of Deity. By WILLIAM GILLESPIE. Edin. 1836. 
 
 J Objections aux Meditations, p. 460-461 ; CEuvres de Des Cartes. Par COUSIN. 
 Vol. i. Paris : 1824. 
 
KEASON INFINITY. 287 
 
 Proposition. " The existence of God is known from the 
 consideration 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 this 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 in 
 the concept of God/' 
 
 " Hence it may with truth be said that necessary existence 
 is in God, or that God exists." 
 
 This argument, be it observed, sets out from the con- 
 ception of God, and infers, simply on the ground of this 
 conception, the fact of His existence. More particularly, it 
 infers this fact, because necessary existence is an essential 
 element of the conception of God ; that is to say, our concep- 
 tion of God, as the all-perfect or the infinite, includes this 
 special phase of the infinite, necessary existence ; and there- 
 fore God exists. The character of the conception is made 
 the proof of the fact. This seems to us a fair explica- 
 tion of the argument. We do not now dwell upon the 
 paralogism which it may be said to involve in starting 
 from the conception of God, which is yet the very thing to 
 be found. We would only fix attention upon the inference 
 by which it passes from the concept to the reality from 
 the idea to the fact. Instead of uniting the soul to objec- 
 tivity by the very character of its affirmation in reason, the 
 Cartesian sets out with the subjective and reasons to the 
 objective. The infinite real is with him a logical inference 
 from the infinite ideal (apprehended separately) the con- 
 
288 THEISM. 
 
 crete from the abstract. A purely intellectual necessity 
 is regarded as demonstrative of an actual existence. Ac- 
 cording to our representation, on the other hand, the infinite 
 is not apprehended as in the mind at all apart from reality, 
 but as a revelation of reality from the first as, in short, 
 not logically but intuitively given, j The postulate of rea- 
 son is a reality, and the logical necessity of the Cartesian 
 is the mere reflection in the understanding of this encom- 
 passing reality, which stands face to face with us in reason. 
 In the one case, the infinite is apprehended as a fact in the 
 truthful mirror of intuition ; in the other case, the mind is 
 merely busy with a set of abstract ideas, which are nothing 
 else than the shadow (reflection) in thought or logical form 
 of the intuitive fact. 
 
 If, with the Cartesian, we take our stand among these 
 abstract ideas, we believe that we can never, by any process 
 of proof, reach the conclusion at which he aims. The infinite 
 ideal can never logically yield the infinite real. Kant's famous 
 criticism of the Cartesian argument has, we think, established 
 so much beyond all dispute. He has shown, with an acuteness 
 and power of reasoning which it is impossible to resist, that 
 this argument, in passing from the abstract to the concrete, 
 confounds a logical with a real predicate, or, in other words, 
 stealthily translates a mere relation of thought into a fact 
 of existence, which it does not and cannot contain. The fol- 
 lowing illustration, used by Des Cartes, will make this 
 clear. The quotation is from his statement in the Prin- 
 ciples of the same argument which we have already given 
 in the more precise form in which it is found in his 
 
KEASON INFINITY. 289 
 
 answers to Objections : " Just as because, for example, 
 the equality of its three angles to two right angles is 
 necessarily comprised in the idea of a 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/' 
 
 It is impossible not to see at once that there is a plain 
 fallacy here. The idea of a triangle includes the equality of 
 its three angles to two right angles ; therefore the three 
 angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles. This is 
 simply to affirm an identical proposition that proposition 
 being the invariability of the intellectual conception ex- 
 pressed by a triangle. The idea of an all-perfect Being- 
 includes necessary existence ; therefore this all -perfect 
 Being exists. This, on the contrary, is not simply to affirm, 
 as in the former case, an identical proposition, which would 
 have been only to this effect, that necessary existence is an 
 essential constituent of the idea of an all-perfect Being, but, 
 tacitly and illegitimately, to pass from the relation of an in- 
 tellectual conception to the reality of the thing conceived ; 
 whereas the only reality that can be given, as in the parallel 
 case of the triangle, is the reality of the relations of the 
 intellectual conception. 
 
 Kant pursues his argument in the following manner, 
 which may perhaps serve to set it more thoroughly before 
 the reader: "If I do away with the predicate in an iden- 
 tical judgment, and I retain the subject that is to say, do 
 
290 THEISM. 
 
 away with the equality of the three angles to two right 
 angles, and yet retain the triangle, or do away with necessary 
 existence, and yet retain the idea of an all-perfect Being a 
 contradiction arises. But if I annul the subject together 
 with the predicate, then there arises no contradiction, for 
 there is no more anything which could be contradicted. To 
 assume a triangle, and yet to do away with the three angles 
 of the same, is contradictory ; but to do away with the 
 triangle together with its three angles is no contradiction. 
 It is just the same with the conception of an absolutely 
 necessary being. If you do away with the existence of this, 
 you thus do away with the thing itself, together with all its 
 predicates (in which case there can be no contradiction). 
 . . . God is omnipotent ; this is a necessary judgment. 
 The omnipotence cannot be done away with if you suppose 
 a Divinity that is, an infinite Being, with the conception of 
 which the fact is identical. But if you say, God is not, 
 neither the omnipotency, nor any other of His predicates, is 
 then given ; because they are all annihilated together with 
 the subject, and in this thought there is not manifested the 
 least contradiction/' * 
 
 The Kantian criticism must, we think, be fairly allowed 
 to be destructive of the Cartesian demonstration. However 
 a mere abstract idea may indicate a corresponding reality 
 
 * Kritik der reinen Vernunft, p. 458 ; Kant's Werke. Leipzig : 1838. The 
 matter is perhaps best of all cleared up by Kant's well-known distinction of 
 analytic and synthetic judgments. The equality of three angles of a triangle 
 to two right angles is what he called an analytic judgment ; that is to say, a 
 simple writing out of the conception already given in a triangle. The predi- 
 cate B is already in the subject A. Again, existence, as a necessary element 
 of the conception, God, is in a similar manner an analytic judgment a simple 
 
EEASON INFINITY. 291 
 
 (must in fact do so), it can never, if we merely hold thereby, 
 constitute a valid proof of it. We can never logically pass 
 from the one to the other. Just as in perception, if we 
 endeavour to separate the contents therein given, and hold 
 merely with the ideal factor the me we can never argu- 
 mentatively find the not-me. We can never get out of the 
 subjective circle. But let us only acknowledge the intuitive 
 character of the apprehensive act in either case in reason 
 as in sense and we have already as indisputable matter of 
 fact the me and the not-me, the subject and object. The 
 infinite, no longer regarded as a mere subjective reflection in 
 the understanding a mere logical necessity but as intuitive- 
 ly given in reason, needs and admits of no further proof of 
 reality than its being thus given. It is there a living Pre- 
 sence, in which alone the finite soul at once apprehends 
 itself and the ultimate and absolute Being whence it is. So 
 far from depending on demonstration, it is, in this view, a 
 fact anterior to all demonstration, and even the very condi- 
 tion of that logical thought, which in vain seeks to reach it. 
 And in thus abandoning all claim to demonstration, the 
 evidence for the being of a God, so far from being weakened, 
 is indeed strengthened. For in all our knowledge there is, 
 and can be, no higher warrant for reality than the grasp of 
 intuition. What the soul thus holds by immediate presen- 
 
 writing out of the conception for which God already stands. The predicate B 
 (existence as a conception) is already in the subject A. But to predicate exis- 
 tence as a fact of the subject A, is to pass out of the sphere of the conception 
 altogether, and, however true in itself, can never be given in the mere concep- 
 tion. The judgment, in this case, is no longer analytic, but synthetic ; that 
 is to say, something is affirmed, which the mere explication of the conception 
 does not yield. 
 
292 THEISM. 
 
 tation, is, and must be, its most living possession the 
 source of all its own elaborated notions, and in comparison 
 with which these are verily as shadows. And thus, too, it 
 deserves to be added, the great truth of the existence of God 
 is only preserved as a truth of religion, encompassed with a 
 radiance of evidence which only the wilfully blind can fail 
 to see, yet not mathematically demonstrated, that they who 
 devoutly seek the light may have gladness and reward in 
 its discovery. 
 
SECTION IV. 
 
 DIFFICULTIES REGARDING THE DIVINE 
 WISDOM AND GOODNESS. 
 
IV. CHAPTER I. 
 
 STATEMENT OF DIFFICULTIES, ETC. 
 
 WE have already noticed certain " difficulties " that directly 
 meet us in unfolding the theistic argument. In carrying up 
 our varied trains of induction from the wide province of 
 nature, we encounter facts, which not only, on the first view, 
 do not contribute to our argument, but seem to stand in 
 obvious contradiction to it. 
 
 These facts do not meet us in the outset, but only as we 
 advance. So long as we confine our range of induction to 
 material phenomena, to the combinations of inorganic matter, 
 or even of the lower forms of organic existence, there is 
 nothing that can be said to interrupt the harmonious flow 
 of the theistic evidence. All is order, unbroken by check or 
 flaw. There is no room for the conception of imperfection 
 or evil. 
 
 We trace certainly, within the domain of matter, the 
 signs of what we are apt to call disorder. The planetary sys- 
 stem, in some of its features, seems to present indications of 
 disturbance. The frame of the earth has apparently, in past 
 
296 THEISM. 
 
 times, been rent and broken up by mighty throes. And 
 there are instances even now of such material convulsions ; 
 as when the lightning desolates, or the volcano pours its 
 fiery doom over surrounding towns and villages, or the earth- 
 quake engulfs them with sudden terror. But it is only to 
 us, or because we contemplate these things in the light of 
 life, that such phenomena assume for a moment the appear- 
 ance of disorder. In themselves apprehended simply in re- 
 gard either to their causes or their material results such a 
 term has no application to them ; for they are merely appro- 
 priate issues in the great plan of physical development, where- 
 by the constant growth of its order and beauty is maintained. 
 
 When, however, we pass beyond material arrangements 
 to those of life in its higher forms, we find phenomena which 
 in themselves appear dark and contradictory. Pain emerges 
 as a parallel fact with pleasure in sensation ; death as a 
 parallel fact with life throughout all its range. The facts of 
 pain and death are peculiar in this respect, that they appear 
 to contradict and nullify the very order amid which they 
 occur : they are evil amid the good. It is this conception 
 of evil which, in the mere domain of matter, has obviously 
 no place which constitutes, in its manifold forms, the grand 
 difficulty of the Natural Theologian. 
 
 In the sphere of animal life, evil is present in such apparent 
 contradictions as we have now mentioned, and especially in the 
 direct provision made for the event of these in the existence 
 of animals of prey. The joy and life of certain animals are 
 the agony and death of others. This arrangement of nature 
 seems to present itself as a mal-arrangement. 
 
STATEMENT OF DIFFICULTIES. 297 
 
 In the sphere of human life, evil is especially present 
 not only in the lower physical forms of pain and death, but, 
 moreover, in all the forms of sorrow which disturb and vex 
 the human heart, the multiplied social evils of our race, and, 
 above all, in the fact of sin, which at once intensifies, and 
 in a manner comprehends, every other phase of human evil. 
 
 These phenomena, therefore, claim our special examina- 
 tion, in reference to the theistic argument. They seem to 
 bear with a show of opposing force against it, at least against 
 its full conclusiveness. Their reality appears to affect par- 
 ticularly the truth of the Divine wisdom and goodness. 
 With these attributes, and eminently with the latter, the 
 fact of evil comes in conflict. It is, we formerly saw, in 
 immediate opposition to the good in sensation that the evil 
 first emerges ; but evil, being also in its very conception 
 disorder, is no less truly opposed to wisdom than to 
 goodness. 
 
 It now remains for us, therefore, to obviate the difficulties 
 thence arising to our argument. The attributes of Divine 
 wisdom and goodness, while suffering under the partial 
 shadow of such points of darkness, may yet be found, from 
 a thorough review of the whole subject and field of evidence 
 before us, to come forth into even a purer and more glorious 
 lustre than if there had been no shadow to dissipate no 
 evil to alleviate. 
 
298 THEISM. 
 
 IV. CHAPTEE II. 
 
 GENEEAL CONSIDEEATIONS. 
 
 BEFOKE entering on the special examination of the difficul- 
 ties before us, it may help to clear our way, and throw some 
 light around it, to draw attention to certain general consi- 
 derations bearing on the subject. 
 
 The first of these arises from the fact, already more than 
 once insisted upon, that phenomena of evil are truly of an 
 exceptional character : they come before us as exceptions to 
 general order and prevailing good. While, therefore, they 
 appear formidable difficulties when viewed by themselves, it 
 is not yet by themselves, but as mere spots of darkness in an 
 otherwise fair and bright picture, that they can fairly claim 
 to be regarded. Let them be considered, in the fullest sense, 
 obstacles in the way of the complete theistic inference ano- 
 malies demanding explanation; they have yet no claim to set 
 aside that inference, in virtue of their mere existence. An 
 indefinite array of facts bears witness to the Divine wisdom 
 and goodness with an accumulating force of evidence which 
 is irresistible. This evidence is entitled to hold good its 
 
GENEEAL CONSIDERATIONS. 299 
 
 place for what it is worth, notwithstanding that there is a 
 certain amount of what appears counter-evidence. Let both 
 go into court, and be judged according to their respective 
 value ; but it were surely a strange injustice that the mere 
 presence of certain phenomena appearing to form negative 
 evidence should be held, per se, to dispose of the whole array 
 of positive evidence. It were a strange injustice to deny that 
 any valid inference of corresponding qualities in an artist can 
 be founded on the general excellence, the harmonious skill, 
 displayed by his work, because it may contain what may 
 seem to us imperfections. And yet this is really the injustice 
 which has been perpetrated, as with a show of superior acute- 
 ness,* against the inductive argument for the Divine wisdom 
 
 * " If the celebrated argument of design is to hold good as evidence in favour, 
 it must hold equally good as evidence against the wisdom and beneficence of the 
 Creator; a startling proposition, and one, we believe, never made before, but one 
 from which logic has no escape. When you point to the perfection of organisations 
 as evidence of wisdom, and to their manifold enjoyments as evidence of goodness, 
 you force the reflective mind to think of the imperfections and the misery so 
 abundantly displayed. When you take your relative good for the absolute good, 
 you must equally accept your relative evil for the absolute evil. Now this is 
 shocking ; the mind refuses to accept such a conception, and would be plunged 
 in despair, did it not learn that Wisdom, Goodness, Evil, are but relative terms, 
 and pertain to our human finite conditions, not to the Infinite. Yet, if men 
 will persist in measuring the Infinite according to their finite standard, they 
 must do so in the one case as in the other. Theologians usually escape 
 from the dilemma by saying, when any case of manifest evil is propounded, 
 ' God's ways are inscrutable ; ' and they are right. But if inscrutable in one 
 direction, inscrutable in all. We do not understand evil, nor do we under- 
 stand good ; the finite cannot understand the Infinite." Leader, No. 116, 
 July 12, 1852. 
 
 We present this as a specimen of our most recent antitheistic logic. 
 The passage, as it proceeds, is not without an air of speciousness, which is 
 yet, as it appears to us, only derived from a perversion of the assumption 
 against which it is directed. It is not true, for example, that the Theo- 
 logian takes the relative good which he finds in natm-e as equivalent to 
 absolute good. So far is this from being the case, that the whole question 
 
300 THEISM. 
 
 and beneficence. It has been urged, for example, that the 
 apparent imperfections of nature as much warrant a nega- 
 tive, as its order a positive, conclusion in reference to the 
 Divine wisdom. This is imagined to be a peculiar hit of 
 logic, which confpletely demolishes the theistic induction ! 
 Yet surely it is impossible to conceive a graver perversion of 
 logic. For even admitting the fact of such imperfections 
 in nature as are supposed, which may be entirely disputed, 
 all that logic can demand is, that such phenomena shall not 
 be rejected, and held as of no account in the theistic evidence. 
 In fairness, they must receive a hearing before the conclusion 
 is pronounced. The presumptions of an opposite character 
 which they involve must be weighed ; but that certain 
 apparent anomalies here and there, which, the more they are 
 
 as to the theistic significance of evil only occurs from the admission that 
 the good in nature is relative. Were it absolute, or assumed to be absolute, 
 there would and could be no such question. The fact is, that the argument of 
 design, according to its only right interpretation, and as abundantly evident 
 from the whole course of our previous evidence, does not deal with the absolute 
 in any sense at all. Its sole aim is to verify the theistic idea, as revealed 
 in nature. It does not, therefore, affect to reach, far less to understand, the 
 Infinite. It does profess, however, to determine comprehensively according to 
 their full character the theistic contents given in nature ; and its conclusion 
 certainly is that wisdom and goodness are among their number. Looking 
 with an open glance upon creation, the Theologian has the evidence of wis- 
 dom and goodness forced upon him, and by the laws of his rational consti- 
 tution he cannot fail to carry up these attributes of creation to the Creator. 
 But if you do this, says the sceptic, you are equally bound to carry up to the 
 same source the opposite attributes of " imperfection and misery so abundantly 
 displayed" in creation. Yes, bound to carry them up in the shape of negative 
 presumptions but this is all. And this is really what the Theologian does, and 
 these negative presumptions are just the difficulties with which he has to deal. 
 The force of these difficulties may be such as to leave the conclusion of abso- 
 lute goodness uncertain on the mere sphere of nature, this conclusion being 
 only perfected in the rational intuition of the Infinite ; but it cannot surely be 
 maintained to be such as to leave the fact of goodness in the Deity, even on 
 this sphere, in any degree uncertain. 
 
GENEEAL CONSIDERATIONS. 301 
 
 examined, the less they are seen to be anomalies, must be 
 allowed to set aside the otherwise uniform testimony of 
 nature, is too absurdly illogical a pretension to deserve 
 even the notice we have given it. 
 
 Even so as to those more serious aspects of misery which 
 exist in human life. The very utmost that can be demanded 
 is, that they be recognised as difficulties in the way of the 
 complete theistic inference. It is certainly puzzling that the 
 works of a good Being should be in any respect marred by 
 unhappiness. Yet the partial unhappiness cannot for a 
 moment be entitled to set aside the prevailing happiness. On 
 any fair principle of evidence, we must admit the good for 
 what it truly is the rule of nature ; and the evil for what it 
 no less truly is only the exception. In this, as it appears to 
 us, the whole question at this stage is summed up, and we 
 willingly leave the sceptic on either horn of the dilemma he 
 may choose ; namely, either to deny that happiness is the 
 rule of creation (a denial from which his philosophic insou- 
 ciance would especially shrink), or to admit pro tanto the 
 validity of the inference founded upon the rule, and to join 
 us in the search of whatever explanation the exceptions may 
 admit of. 
 
 And this leads us to the only other preliminary considera- 
 tion which seems to demand attention. In reviewing the 
 phenomena of creation, we are to bear in mind that we only 
 see part of a great plan in progress. We cannot, in the 
 nature of the case, see more. But if we could see the whole 
 plan in its extended development, many things that now 
 seem to us exceptional and contradictory might lose this 
 
302 THEISM. 
 
 character altogether, and even expand into special means of 
 advance in the ever-enlarging display of the Divine benefi- 
 cence. The mystery which everywhere encompasses our finite 
 sphere of observation, may only conceal from us the wisdom 
 and the goodness that are really present in many phenomena 
 where we cannot even trace them. The limitation of our 
 faculties is thus recognised as in some manner explanatory 
 of the difficulties that meet us in regard to our subject; and 
 it is quite validly so held in a general sense. It has been 
 urged, indeed, in the same hostile spirit of reasoning, 
 already noticed, that if the limitation of our faculties is to 
 be called into account so far, it must be admitted much 
 farther. It ought truly to deter us from pronouncing 
 any theistic judgment at all as to creation an assertion 
 which is really tantamount to saying that we ought to reject 
 a fact because we are not able to perceive all the relations of 
 that fact. We are not to admit that God is good, because 
 we cannot understand the whole nature and bearing of His 
 goodness. "We are to refuse to believe what we see and know, 
 because there are certain things we do not see and cannot 
 know. The finite cannot understand the infinite ; therefore 
 it must pause in mere dumb perplexity, and not say any- 
 thing, nor believe anything. Reason instinctively recoils from 
 such an assertion. It at once rejects such a mere syllogistic 
 cavil. With a higher and truer logic, it accepts the good, 
 although it may not comprehend all its modes of operation. 
 Looking out from the veil which covers its limited vision, 
 it perceives and acknowledges the lustre of beneficence all 
 around it, and it only pauses where shadows seem to cover 
 
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 303 
 
 that lustre. We do not deny the light of the sun because 
 shadows here and there intercept that light : nay, there are 
 spots, we know, in the very solar brightness itself ; but this 
 does not prevent us day by day, as we pass into its presence, 
 confessing the lustre of beauty and happiness that it sheds 
 about our path. 
 
 We rightly allow, therefore, the theistic inference on its 
 positive side, while we pause before those negative facts that 
 force themselves upon us. We validly pause in the one case, 
 and not in the other, on the broad ground that, in the 
 one case, the immediate conclusion is correspondent to 
 our rational instincts, and in the other it is repellent to 
 those instincts. Truly speaking, it is only in the latter 
 case that the region of ignorance and mystery begins. It is 
 only the evil that is utterly unintelligible. It is only in 
 reference to the evil that the limitation of our faculties is 
 displayed in absolute helplessness. Rightly, therefore, on 
 every principle of reason, we call in this limitation of our 
 faculties as demanding a suspense of judgment in regard to 
 the evil, and not in regard to the good. In the one case 
 reason is satisfied : it rests in the good, as sympathetic with 
 it, and intelligible to it. From the evil, on the contrary, it 
 retreats, as utterly perplexing ; and we say, in such a case, 
 with a justice which commends itself to every heart, that if 
 we knew more if our faculties were more competent we 
 might understand what is now so dark. If our vision were 
 enlarged, we might perceive that what seems so anomalous 
 and evil is not really so. For we are but the creatures of a 
 day ; and those darkened characters which our feeble sight 
 
304 THEISM. 
 
 cannot read, may yet, to a higher sight, be luminous with 
 Divine light. The mystery which we cannot explain, may 
 disappear on a wider horizon of knowledge. Could we see 
 the end from the beginning, it may be best as it is, after all. 
 The complications which now yield us no meaning, or one 
 at which we only gaze with awe, may expand into issues of 
 beneficence that will gladden the angels, when the great 
 scheme is complete, and the glory of final victory is poured 
 backwards through all its darkened perplexities and most 
 deeply-lying shadows. 
 
PHYSICAL PAIN AND DEATH. 305 
 
 IV. CHAPTER III. 
 
 SPECIAL EXAMINATION OF DIFFICULTIES PHYSICAL PAIN 
 AND DEATH. 
 
 WE have already seen what are the first difficulties which 
 meet us in the course of our theistic induction. In the region 
 of sentient existence, which brings us into the presence of 
 Divine Goodness, we meet, in immediate connection with 
 the phenomena of pleasure, the phenomena of pain ; and 
 death we find ceaselessly alternating with life. In examin- 
 ing these difficulties, we shall regard them in their widest 
 manifestation throughout the sphere of animal being. Any 
 special reference that they may have to man will be suffi- 
 ciently considered under those higher forms of evil that 
 peculiarly belong to him. 
 
 The first thing to be said of physical pain is what we have 
 already urged.* The issue of the sensitive frame, according 
 to its regular and harmonious action, is pleasure. In health 
 and vigour or, in other words, when not interfered with it 
 gives forth pleasure. There is no part of the system whose 
 
 See p. 191-193. 
 
306 THEISM. 
 
 direct appointed action is pain. Pain, in short, is not the 
 production of the sentient organism in the same sense as 
 pleasure is. It is something which attacks the organism, 
 or is superinduced upon it ; not something which springs 
 directly and necessarily out of it. It is the exception 
 pleasure is the rule. 
 
 This is a truly important consideration, which no amount 
 of ingenious sophistry can altogether turn aside. Its import- 
 ance may be recognised from the reflection, that if the sen- 
 sitive organism had been quite differently constituted, so 
 that its natural evolution, its very growth and ordinary 
 action, had been painful, and pleasure been merely its acci- 
 dent, as pain now is we do not see, in such a case, how 
 the Divine wisdom and benevolence could have been vin- 
 dicated. Imperfection and malevolence would then cer- 
 tainly have appeared the more appropriate inference from 
 nature. Or even had the relation of the two facts, although 
 not exactly inverted, been altered, so that pain asserted 
 itself to be as much a fact in sensitive life as pleasure to 
 arise as immediately out of its constitution the theistic 
 inference would have been thereby so obscured as to have 
 become powerless for conviction or consolation. The fact 
 that, according to undeniable design, and equally undeniable 
 reality, pleasure is the normal expression of sensation, while 
 pain is merely its liability, is, therefore, of the greatest 
 significance for our subject, and on no account to be lost 
 sight of. 
 
 But, it will be said, could not this liability have been 
 averted ? Could not God have so constituted the sensitive 
 
PHYSICAL PAIN AND DEATH. 307 
 
 organism that it should never have issued in pain that its 
 free harmonious action should not only have been pleasure, 
 but that it should never have been interfered with ? Might 
 not the sensitive instrument have been so constructed that 
 it should not only send forth, as it does, the music of happi- 
 ness, but that the discord of pain should never have pro- 
 ceeded from it ? Would not the power, wisdom, and good- 
 ness of God have been thus unimpeachably conspicuous ? 
 Now, of course, it is undeniable that, if God had so willed, 
 there would have been no pain in the world ; but we are by 
 no means so sure of the conclusion implied in this. A very 
 different conclusion, indeed, seems quite as likely. For is it 
 not the very same condition on which pain is contingent that 
 yields pleasure in so much abundance ? Is it not the very 
 same nervous susceptibility which gives forth, as its normal 
 play, the sense of enjoyment that gives forth, as its abnor- 
 mal play, the sense of pain ? Is it not the very same 
 medium which overflows with gladness that may be even 
 invaded to madness ? Supposing the organism had been 
 made incapable of pain, how do we know that it would 
 have retained its capacity of pleasure ? Supposing it had 
 been so constituted as not to have absolutely excluded 
 the force of disease, how do we know that it could have 
 owned the spring or felt the joy of health? We put the 
 question thus, because we really do not know, and can- 
 not know. We may, perhaps, imagine the possibility of 
 a susceptibility to pleasure, without a corresponding sus- 
 ceptibility to pain ; but, so far as we can see, they are inse- 
 parable. A wholly different constitution, placed in wholly 
 
308 THEISM. 
 
 different circumstances, might have possessed the one with- 
 out the other. But this is an utterly idle question for us 
 to entertain ; for, after all (for aught we can tell), such a 
 constitution, in such circumstances, might not have been 
 nearly so good as the present. We cannot say it would. 
 Kespecting a matter altogether beyond the sphere of our 
 knowledge, we have no means of reaching a conclusion. 
 Every such conjecture, therefore, is entirely out of place. 
 Looking at the fact of things, the only conclusion we can 
 form on the subject is, that susceptibility to pleasure and 
 susceptibility to pain are correlative and proportional. The 
 more highly refined and exalted the organism, and the more 
 exquisite its issues of pleasure, the more exquisite also is its 
 liability to suffering. Yet, as we formerly saw, and as is 
 highly significant in the actual arrangements of creation, 
 the higher and more richly susceptible the organisms, the 
 more carefully defended are they. The more life becomes 
 intensified in nobler creations, the more carefully is its freight 
 of happiness secured against spoliation, if, when it is spoiled, 
 there be a more utter and painful waste. 
 
 Upon the whole, then, it seems that physical pain, 
 while a mere liability of the nervous tissue, whose regu- 
 lar and healthful action is pleasure, is yet apparently an 
 inherent liability of the same, so that, without the con- 
 tingency of pain, we could not have had the fact of 
 pleasure ; and, apart from this fact, we would have been 
 without the inference of the Divine goodness ; for this infer- 
 ence only rests on the presence of happiness in the creation 
 as its foundation. It is only within the sphere of sensitive 
 
PHYSICAL PAIN AND DEATH. 309 
 
 enjoyment that the light of creative love dawns upon us ; 
 and if it be within this sphere also that a slight darkness 
 first tinges our inductive horizon, it is yet surely better to 
 have the light with the faint darkness than no light at all. 
 
 We may further advert, even in this lower sphere, to the 
 strange relation of affinity between pleasure and pain. So 
 inlaid is the former in the sensitive organism as its appro- 
 priate condition, that while that organism cannot resist the 
 contact of the latter, it yet often turns it into a mean of 
 higher pleasure. The temporary suffering is transmuted 
 into a sweeter joy. There is, in truth, a general character 
 of balance and alternation in the sensitive frame. Its life is 
 a continual fluctuation ; and if the nervous chords were never 
 painfully affected, we do not know how they might lose in 
 tone and freshness. Or, if this be saying too much, it is 
 yet undeniable that sensitive enjoyment is dependent upon 
 an interchange of affection more and less pleasurable a suc- 
 cession of more easy and less easy experiences ; and, under 
 this capacity of reaction, even the invading pain, as we 
 have said, becomes the means of higher pleasure ; and the 
 Divine wisdom and goodness are beheld asserting themselves 
 by the very presence of apparent disorder and evil. 
 
 The fact of death, in the general animal kingdom, will be 
 found still more readily than that of pain to yield a consistent 
 theistic interpretation. As the goodness of God is only mani- 
 fest in the display of happy sentient existence, it is obvious 
 that this goodness will be more manifest the more it is be- 
 held communicating life and happiness. The more multiplied 
 and diversified sentient being, the more abundant the evi- 
 
310 THEISM. 
 
 dence of Divine beneficence. Every fresh life, every new 
 birth of breathing and beautiful organisation, is a renewed 
 testimony to the Divine fulness and love. 
 
 It is clear, then, that if there had been no such thing as 
 death in the animal creation, this enjoyment could only have 
 been imparted within a comparatively very limited extent. 
 Animal fecundity must have been restrained within compara- 
 tively infinitesimal bounds, and animal life consequently 
 have been deficient in the copiousness, variety, and beauty 
 of happiness which it now exhibits. There could have been 
 in such a case no succession of races, no giving place of 
 inferior to higher and more complex organisms, and there- 
 fore no such extended display of Divine wisdom as geology 
 reveals. Numerous creatures, who have lived their brief day 
 of joy, could never have been. In the absence, then, of the 
 apparent exception to the Divine wisdom and goodness, we 
 could not have had the same abundant manifestations of these 
 attributes, which seems very much tantamount to a satisfac- 
 tory proof that the apparent is not a real exception. That 
 which seems at first to form an obstacle in the way of the 
 theistic inference, is found to issue in a wider and more 
 extended basis for it. As we look at the mere fact of death 
 by itself, it seems for a moment as if there were a flaw in 
 the all-wise and beneficent arrangements of the world ; but, 
 as we look a little more steadily, we see how, in the animal 
 as in the vegetable kingdom, life springs from death ; how 
 the extinction of one generation, or it may be race, is the 
 rise of others, with equal and perhaps more exalted powers 
 of enjoyment. Death, in this simply organic view, is so far 
 
PHYSICAL PAIN AND DEATH. 311 
 
 from approving itself an irregularity, or in any true sense 
 an evil, that it is the obvious condition of organic growth 
 and progress altogether. It is the simple mode by which 
 life continues and advances through its endless phases, 
 taking to itself from every apparent pause a richer strength, 
 and rising from every apparent fall into finer and nobler 
 forms. The Divine wisdom, therefore, may be said to be 
 illustrated instead of obscured by its contemplation, and the 
 Divine beneficence to shine with a fuller and brighter light 
 in its presence. 
 
 If we add to these considerations the fact that throughout 
 the brute creation death is, in whatever form, a destiny 
 towards which it blindly tends, and which, for the most 
 part, overtakes it with a swift decision, which gives but a 
 minimum of pain, we will have still greater reason to rest 
 in such a conclusion. Even in the article of death, the brute 
 does not know that it is dying, or at least has no contem- 
 plative realisation of the fact, which is what gives all its 
 bitterness to death in man's special case. The life which 
 has sported itself in joyful hours, or days, or years, expires 
 in the brief pang of a moment. Here, as everywhere, the 
 measure of pain is found to be strictly economised, while 
 the measure of life and its enjoyments is poured forth with 
 a profuse hand. 
 
 Similar considerations serve to obviate the special diffi- 
 culty which has been felt to arise from the system of prey 
 in the animal creation. If that system had not existed, it is 
 plain that an immense restraint comparatively must have 
 been laid on animal fecundity and enjoyment. If some ani- 
 
312 THEISM. 
 
 mals had not been destined to live on others, many animals 
 could never have lived at all. Merely vegetable produce 
 could not have sustained animal life in anything like its 
 present fulness and diversity. A change in this one respect 
 would have implied a change in the whole existing relations 
 of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, which we have no 
 reason to suppose would have been a better arrangement, 
 while even such a change could not have obviated the 
 destruction of certain animals by others. For the very 
 movements of the larger animals carry with them death to 
 insect myriads. The ox crushes them with its feet as it 
 pastures, and in many forms devours them within the folds 
 of the green leaf. While there is something, therefore, in 
 the system of prey, in certain of its manifestations, regarded 
 by themselves, which seems to shock our sense of the Divine 
 goodness, when we enlarge our view we perceive that these 
 manifestations are only to some extent special modes of a 
 general law of destruction, which in other forms we do not 
 feel to be harsh and repellent; and that, even if they repelled 
 us more than they do, they are yet the condition of that 
 extended and overflowing presence of life which we every- 
 where behold. The question, indeed, essentially comes to 
 be of this kind, whether the display of goodness would have 
 been less affected by the comparatively limited presence of 
 life, than by the special amount of pain involved in the sys- 
 tem of prey ? The question is one that may be fairly left to 
 the settlement which nature has given of it. 
 
 And all this receives confirmation from special features 
 in the system of prey which it is well not to overlook ; from 
 
SPECIAL EXAMINATION OF DIFFICULTIES. 313 
 
 the fact, for example, that the predatory animal kills before 
 it devours, and especially from the fact that it commonly 
 seizes by instinct on the most vital part, where death is 
 most suddenly and easily inflicted. 
 
 We may then fairly conclude, upon the whole, that the cir- 
 cumstance of organic extinction does not in any degree affect 
 the inference of the Divine wisdom and goodness. It is rather 
 a means towards their further and grander display. There 
 is, as it were, a partial hiding of the Divine character in the 
 shadow of death thrown upon the picture, but it is only for 
 the purpose of opening up behind the partial shadow a more 
 extended and brighter display of that character, a more 
 abundant and richer manifestation of it. 
 
314 THEISM. 
 
 IV. CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SPECIAL EXAMINATION CONTINUED SOEEOW. 
 
 IT is, however, in the sphere of human life that evil appears 
 in its most marked and difficult forms. It is only here, 
 indeed, that evil, in the peculiar and emphatic sense in which 
 we commonly use the term, is found at all. It is here that 
 it assumes at once a malignity which defies palliation, and a 
 darkness which is still profound when we have thrown upon 
 it the clearest light which nature or even revelation supplies. 
 This mystery of evil in humanity from the first assumes 
 all its special hatefulness and darkness from the element 
 of moral corruption which mingles in it, and which, in 
 all its forms, it more or less indicates. If it were not 
 this moral element, there would remain nothing peculiar, 
 save its dignity, in human evil. It is the presence of a 
 deeper shadow lying within the varied shades which chequer 
 human life, that alone gives to them all their special mourn- 
 fulness, and constitutes that master-problem before which 
 speculation retires baffled, and the heart stands in awe. It 
 is important now to bring this into view, because, while we 
 
SPECIAL EXAMINATION SOKROW. 315 
 
 trust to be able to show various considerations tending to 
 mitigate the common ills of our race, and even to transmute 
 them into good, we would yet have it to be seen, from the 
 outset, that these ills deriving as they do their worst hue 
 from that deeper evil which lies behind at the same time 
 find in it their highest explanation. The fact of sin, if it inten- 
 sifies the picture of human suffering, at the same time serves 
 to account for it. The lesser, and, as it were, accessory evils, 
 become intelligible in the greater. While striving to carry 
 the light of special explanation along with us, it is, accord- 
 ingly, of some consequence to see that, in this darker diffi- 
 culty of sin, all the lower difficulties finally merge. To it 
 they are easily pushed back. In this grand enigma all other 
 enigmas of human life gather up and concentrate themselves. 
 If the problem, therefore, acquires only a more inexplicable 
 character in the end, it is yet reduced to a single point, from 
 the very intensity of whose mystery a clearer explanation 
 falls upon its lower levels. 
 
 Under what is commonly meant by sorrow in the widest 
 sense, we may sum up the different expressions of human evil. 
 How pervading a presence sorrow is, it is needless to say. 
 There is no heart which it has not touched, there is no life 
 which it has not darkened. In one form or another it is all 
 around us, and its shadow traces all earthly joy. Its pre- 
 sence is not only to be measured by its outward manifesta- 
 tion ; it lies deep in the soul of many whose brow may yet 
 be clear. It cuts into many a heart which gives no sign of 
 bleeding. Of a certain great man,* who has written many 
 
 * Goethe. 
 
316 THEISM. 
 
 fine things about sorrow, it is said that, when he lost his 
 son, no one could read in his face any sign of peculiar 
 emotion ; but it was observed that he " worked harder than 
 ever." In this way he sought to stay the bursting fountain 
 of bereaved feeling; and so free and commanding, and, it may 
 be added withal, so cold a nature, no doubt succeeded in his 
 attempt. Yet there are also those who, though they never 
 any more show it, mourn inwardly with a keenness only the 
 more intense that it lacerates in secret. There are those 
 who bear their sorrow, a secret presence of unrest only the 
 more bitter that it finds no expression, and seeks no sym- 
 pathy. It lurks behind many a smile, and covers itself over 
 with frequent brightness. 
 
 Now it is certainly at first a very perplexing question why 
 it should be so why human life should be thus largely 
 traced and embittered by sorrow. This life is no doubt also 
 full of joy, more full of joy, we must hold, after all, than 
 sorrow. And upon this fact of enjoyment, in the emotional 
 as in the lower sensational sphere a fact so diffused and 
 pervading as to be from its very nature less susceptible of 
 analysis and exhibition than the contrary fact we based 
 our theistic inference. Yet it must be admitted that we 
 have here, in this widespread reality of sorrow, a peculiar 
 difficulty in the way of that inference. 
 
 This difficulty we might to some extent obviate, on the 
 same grounds as those set forth in the previous chapter. It 
 is the same emotional susceptibility which renders us at 
 once capable of joy and of sorrow. The same source of 
 feeling in the breasts of parents, which finds such gratifica- 
 
SPECIAL EXAMINATION SOKKOW. 317 
 
 tion in the health and prosperity of their children, over- 
 flows with such bitterness for their suffering or death ; the 
 same capacity which makes success, or honour, or fame, so 
 pleasurable, makes also misfortune, contempt, or disgrace so 
 grievous. If we wanted the capacity of sorrow, we do not 
 know that we could have the capacity of joy. But certainly, 
 this subjective contingency of pain and pleasure, of sorrow 
 and joy, does not explain in either case the actual amount 
 of the evil or negative element. We are led, therefore, 
 to seek for some higher means of explanation as to the 
 prevalence of suffering in human life. The following consi- 
 derations may serve to throw some measure of light upon 
 the subject. 
 
 Man comes into the world a being of mixed passions and 
 affections. The infant that smiles so placidly on its mother's 
 breast contains in it, with the capacity of indefinite spiritual 
 improvement, the seeds of selfish development, which would 
 grow, if unhindered, into all inordinate forms of lust and 
 unhappiness. Human life, therefore, needs to be beset with 
 agencies fitted to check the one and to stimulate the other. 
 And of all these agencies, suffering is undoubtedly one of the 
 most effectual, one of the most powerful for the promotion 
 of moral culture. It is true that men may suffer much, and 
 yet be little bettered nay, that suffering, in its baser and 
 more ordinary forms, may tend to nurture a soul in wicked- 
 ness rather than in goodness ; but it is nevertheless a 
 truth of the most undeniable and manifest character, that 
 sorrow, in all its higher forms, is a Divine discipline of the 
 most precious and signally beneficial kind. It brings the 
 
318 THEISM. 
 
 soul into contact with ennobling influences from a higher 
 region of spiritual life than surrounds it here. It awakens 
 in it more directly than anything else the consciousness of 
 the infinite, and calls forth in it more energetically than 
 anything else that quick sympathy with the lofty and the 
 pure, and that ardent aspiration after the good, which are 
 the most constant and unfailing springs of happiness on 
 earth. The weeping of the night is thus turned into the 
 joy of the morning. The soul that may have lain under the 
 deepest shadow, rises to stronger and more beautiful altitudes 
 of virtue. Heaven has been about it in its sorrow, and it 
 comes forth brighter from its converse with darkness, and 
 better and happier from its dwelling in the "house of 
 mourning/' Faith guides it henceforth with a firmer step, 
 and Hope cheers it by a steadier light, and Love sustains it 
 with a more enduring fervour. Patience only grows in the 
 valley of suffering, and humility is only purified by the fire 
 of trial.* 
 
 Nor does sorrow only lift the soul into a higher region 
 of spiritual excellence for its own strengthening and im- 
 provement, but it arouses as nothing else does its activities 
 for the good of others. It not only opens up heaven to us, 
 but it sheds a new interest upon earth, and a glory falls 
 from under its veil on the lowliest lot of man. All life 
 becomes sacred to it all men are brethren to its purged 
 
 * The sorrow spoken of is, of course, in its highest sense, that spiritual exal- 
 tation of passion which is of the character of religion. Sorrow, apart from 
 any element of religion, is rather a bankruptcy of the passion than any true 
 phase of it what we call despair. Of this kind is that " sorrow of the world 
 that worketh death." 
 
SPECIAL EXAMINATION SORKOW. 319 
 
 and softened vision. It is the rich fountain that feeds in us 
 the well of sympathy. It is the strong passion that kindles 
 in us the holy rage of philanthropy. Nature assumes a 
 lovelier aspect, and is luminous with a diviner meaning, to the 
 gaze of sorrow. It is strange as it may be the mirror in 
 which man sees most deeply into truth and beauty in all their 
 relations ; so that whatever may be the perplexity of its pre- 
 sence in human life, regarded from a mere intellectual point of 
 view, it is practically so great and comprehensive an agency 
 of good, operating withal so subtly and silently in numerous 
 hearts, that humanity has cause to bless its presence and 
 be grateful for its work. The man who knows not its 
 consecrating power is a loser in far more respects than he 
 can possibly be a gainer. He may be free from its painful 
 lessons, but he misses therewith the wisdom and the well- 
 being that only comes from such lessons. 
 
 " He that lacks time to mourn, lacks time to mend : 
 Eternity mourns that. 'Tis an ill cure 
 For life's worst ills to have no time to feel them. 
 Where sorrow 's held intrusive, and turned out, 
 There wisdom will not enter, nor true power, 
 Nor aught that dignifies humanity." * 
 
 The value of sorrow, as a beneficial element of spiritual 
 discipline in human life, it is interesting to remark, has 
 received very special and emphatic recognition in our 
 modern literature. The comprehensive types of ethical 
 truth which Christianity first revealed would now seem to 
 be passing into freer literary currency, and asserting a 
 more pervading power. The worth and beauty of earnest- 
 
 * TAYLOR'S Philip van Artevelde. 
 
320 THEISM. 
 
 ness, sympathy, and patience the scorn of the false, and the 
 love of the honest and brave the many forms of manly and 
 womanly excellence which only spring in their full vigour 
 from "the divine depths of sorrow" meet us everywhere in 
 the ideal pictures of the novelist and the impassioned strain 
 of the poet. Looking on life with a nobler or at least more 
 comprehensive spiritual insight than heretofore, literature 
 does homage to the blessed function of sorrow ; and while it 
 gathers to itself the strength which comes from it, labours 
 with a rare devotion to remedy all its baser sources, and to 
 stanch its most bleeding wounds. 
 
 We are of course aware, in all that we have been saying, 
 that the mere notion of such a disciplinary or remedial 
 function as is exercised by suffering, suggests a ready answer 
 to the course of argument we have rested on it. Why was 
 man, it may be asked, so constituted as to need all this dis- 
 cipline ? Is not this the real point with which the theistic 
 argument requires to deal the fact of man being found so 
 morally imperfect as to need so largely as he does the hard 
 and bitter education of sorrow? This obviously points in the 
 last relation to that deeper aspect of our subject that awaits 
 us ; yet a few remarks seem here to deserve attention. 
 
 All spiritual life, in its very conception, implies an educa- 
 tion or discipline. Virtue only realises its meaning in trial. 
 It is no doubt true that we can conceive a discipline merely 
 from one degree of good to another that we can conceive 
 spiritual life flourishing in its most exalted forms without 
 any background of evil whereon to reflect its excellence ; 
 yet it must be also admitted that in the very fact of trial 
 
SPECIAL EXAMINATION SORROW. 321 
 
 there lies the possibility of failure of a sinking below the 
 good, as well as a rising to higher measures of it. In the 
 simple fact of moral action there lies the contingency of 
 wrong action, and of all that moral imperfection that 
 actually exists in the world. 
 
 Nay, it is not to be denied (to take a further view of the 
 subject, which must yet be very cautiously ventured on) 
 that even the realisation of the evil the possibility of failure 
 become a fact bears in it something of good of which we 
 cannot otherwise very well conceive. The very presence of 
 moral evil calls forth peculiar phases of virtue a richer and 
 more various fulness of moral excellence. We are far from 
 saying that this serves in the remotest degree to explain the 
 evil. No view could be further from our whole mode of 
 thought than this, which strikes its root deep in an abyss of 
 pantheism. We are not now dealing with the final explana- 
 tion of the fact, only pointing out that it is not utterly 
 unassociated with good. Good even seems to spring from 
 it. The virtue which is a victory over evil, a hard-earned 
 triumph against foes that have lain in wait for it all along 
 its path, seems a nobler thing than the virtue which has 
 never been so proved. From the very bitterness of the cul- 
 ture springs the precious ripeness of the fruit. This does 
 not certainly explain the evil, but it is at once significant 
 and cheering to find that its presence thus calls forth a more 
 enduring and exalted good. 
 
322 THEISM. 
 
 IV. CHAPTER V. 
 
 SPECIAL EXAMINATION CONTINUED SOCIAL EVILS. 
 
 THE survey of human life, in its social aspects in its aggre- 
 gate character of communities and nations presents perhaps 
 more to perplex the contemplative mind than any other 
 view of it. The disorders which meet us in such a survey 
 are so numerous, and many of them of such appalling magni- 
 tude, that even the most devout have been sometimes led to 
 ask themselves whether, after all, human history can be con- 
 sidered as a development of Divine wisdom and goodness. 
 The evils of oppression, of miserable poverty, of social degra- 
 dation in all its shapes, so cover with their dark shadows the 
 historical picture, that the epical and beneficent lights of it 
 seem often entirely obscured. And even at this better and 
 brighter stage of the world's progress, and in such a land as 
 our own, where the higher social influences may be supposed 
 working as actively at least as anywhere else, how much is 
 there to sadden and bewilder the view ! To any man in whom 
 the faculties of heart and soul are full, who has a mind to see, 
 and a bosom to be touched with the miseries around him, 
 
SPECIAL EXAMINATION SOCIAL EVILS. 323 
 
 and upon whom has come even some dim sense of the infi- 
 nite capacities and issues of all human life, it is certainly a 
 most mournful and perplexing contemplation, that, with ad- 
 vancing civilisation, and such vast and ever-strengthening 
 resources of science and art and wealth, there should remain 
 so black and fearful a foil to the brightness, that by the 
 side of all this glittering increase there should harbour 
 such dreadful sickening masses of human deterioration 
 and suffering. 
 
 Sad as are the social evils which thus force themselves 
 upon us, whether in the view of the past or the present, a 
 few considerations will perhaps serve so far as our subject 
 is concerned to obviate the difficulties that may be felt to 
 arise from them. 
 
 And first of all, we must not overlook the conviction 
 which, shaken as it may be in certain moods, never fails to 
 return to the contemplative mind, that, under whatever 
 appearances to the contrary, the collective life of mankind in 
 history yet asserts itself to be " an immutable moral order, 
 constituted by Divine wisdom/'* The assurance "that there 
 is an eternal order in the government of the world, to which 
 all might and power are to become, and do become, subser- 
 vient ; that truth, justice, wisdom, and moderation, are sure 
 to triumph ") this assurance, which is apt to falter while 
 the gaze dwells on the mere imperfections of the picture, 
 comes back with a clear force on its more intelligent survey. 
 Divine wisdom and goodness are recognised as governing the 
 world, and as drawing forth from all its disorders and mise- 
 
 * BUNSEN'S Hippolytus and His Age (Aphorisms), ii. 3. f Ibid., p. 5. 
 
324 THEISM. 
 
 ries, hopeless as they may sometimes seem, mighty and har- 
 monious issues of happiness. This is not a conclusion merely 
 imported from Christian teaching, and held as a matter of 
 faith, however Christianity may have shed illumination on 
 it ; but it is really a conclusion, upon the whole, vindi- 
 cating itself upon the facts of the case, and becoming more 
 clear as these facts develop themselves to the historical 
 student. 
 
 But not only does the theistic inference thus assert itself 
 even in the face of the difficulties that beset it ; these difficul- 
 ties are found on examination somewhat to clear away. It is 
 felt especially, and from the very lowest point of view, that the 
 worst of the social evils from which man has suffered in the 
 past, or still suffers, are not in any sense to be regarded as a 
 part of the Divine constitution of the world, but really in- 
 fringements thereof, taking their rise in the invasion of that 
 constitution by man's impious selfishness. The misrule, and 
 the servile and unhappy bondage of mind and body, of which 
 so many are the victims, are felt to arise, not from the Divine 
 appointment, but from the direct violation and contempt of 
 it. This view, if it does not liberate us from the problem, 
 yet throws it back here also upon that last aspect of it, 
 whose consideration awaits us. The question comes to be 
 one not regarding the consequent evils, fearful as they may 
 be, but regarding the primary evil in which they originate 
 regarding, in short, the fact or possibility of man's selfishness 
 opposing itself to the Divine order. Here, as elsewhere, this 
 becomes the ultimate and comprehensive difficulty into which 
 the others run up, and in which they find their explanation. 
 
SPECIAL EXAMINATION SOCIAL EVILS. 325 
 
 It is further to be remembered, that many of the pheno- 
 mena of social life, which, in their aggravated form, must be 
 regarded as evils, are merely the negative side of that general 
 condition upon which the whole advance, and even the very 
 existence, of civilisation depend. The inequality of social 
 advantage, and the consequently partial distribution of mate- 
 rial and intellectual good, even to the extreme disproportion 
 we observe in such a country as our own, are unquestionably, 
 in their spring, the mere results of that inequality of endow- 
 ment, without which we cannot conceive human improve- 
 ment to proceed at all. Not that we would be supposed to 
 imply that any national life is to be considered as furnishing 
 an example of the necessary, or, in other words, divinely 
 constituted relations of poverty and wealth. Par from it. 
 It were, we apprehend, a poor faith that did not cherish 
 some higher solution of the social problem than has yet been 
 anywhere exemplified. The existing extremes of social 
 wretchedness and social grandeur are certainly not the ap- 
 pointments of Divine order, but the disarrangements of 
 human selfishness. And it is only such a faith that could 
 sustain the philanthropist in his labour of earnestness, or his 
 hopes of a higher future of national well-being. Yet that a 
 certain inequality of social condition, directly springing from 
 inequality of personal endowment, is the law of human pro- 
 gress, and therefore the appointment of Divine wisdom, is 
 not to be doubted ; and while we contemplate the serious evils 
 that have taken indirectly their rise in this, we are equally 
 bound to regard the general advancement, the vastly increas- 
 ing social well-being, that, upon the whole, have flowed from 
 
326 THEISM. 
 
 it. Social equality which, as the presumed security against 
 oppression and poverty, and all the characteristic ills of civil- 
 isation, has been the lauded dream of political enthusiasts 
 is not only no part of the Divine constitution of the world, 
 but we have no reason to suppose that it would fulfil the 
 ends of " political justice" and happiness that have been attri- 
 buted to it ; we have every reason, indeed, to believe the 
 contrary.* 
 
 Here, therefore, it will be seen that the question comes to 
 be really one as to the wisdom and goodness shown in the 
 general plan of such a world as ours at all, a world whose 
 essential character is that of development. For inequality 
 would seem to be the condition of development ; while, again, 
 the evils we speak of are obviously contingent upon this 
 inequality. And in this point of view, so far as we are cap- 
 able in any degree of rising to it, it will perhaps be admitted 
 that progress, with all its attendant evils, is yet a better and 
 nobler thing than anything else we can well imagine.^ 
 
 * All this bearing of our subject, upon which we touch very incidentally, is 
 discussed with fulness, and at the same time admirable clearness and calmness, 
 in Archbishop Sunnier* s Treatise, which received one of the prizes when the 
 subject was previously prescribed in 1814 (vol. ii. pp. 40, 118). Here, as through- 
 out, objections which peculiarly deserved attention then, no longer need any 
 special treatment. 
 
 f* It might no doubt be asked, Could we not have had the advantage of de- 
 velopment without the disadvantage ? To which we can only reply, that it 
 was no doubt possible that human history might have been a development of 
 good throughout ; had man not sinned, we have reason to believe it would have 
 been so ; yet, in the mere fact of moral development, evil is contingent, and, 
 consistently with the nature of that development, could not have been abso- 
 lutely excluded. Here, equally as in the individual, the possibility of disorder 
 lies in the very character of the life to be trained and developed. And here, 
 therefore, again we see, as everywhere in this region, that the question is 
 thrown back upon this ultimate mystery. 
 
SPECIAL EXAMINATION SOCIAL EVILS. 327 
 
 And while we are thus, by enlarging our view, enabled to 
 see in many of the phenomena of social evil merely the con- 
 tingent results of that general plan of progress, by which the 
 world is upon the whole advancing in wisdom and hap- 
 piness, it is still further to be considered, that beneath the 
 aggregate darkness of some of these phenomena there is 
 often found much individual happiness. True also, we are 
 apt, from familiarity with such phenomena, to underrate the 
 fearful amount of actual suffering which they represent. Yet, 
 upon the whole, the balance lies on the other side. There is 
 such a powerfully elastic spring of happiness in the human 
 heart, that its presence, even in intense forms, is not to be 
 denied under the darkest oppression and the most utter 
 poverty. Even among those who live under systems of the 
 cruelest and most godless injustice, there may be found circu- 
 lating the free flow of exalted and joyous sentiment. In the 
 miserable cabin of many a poor African there may be heard the 
 voice of melody ; and pure affection and simple piety may 
 gladden many an otherwise dark and comfortless home. The 
 soul may be emancipated while the body is enslaved, and 
 sunshine may cheer the heart while ungrateful toil wearies 
 the bones. Happiness, the sweetest and least interrupted on 
 earth, may certainly belong to the lot of righteous poverty; 
 and even in circumstances the least favourable, it is consola- 
 tory to reflect that happiness is not bound by the impious 
 devices of tyrannic power that it can find a nest for itself 
 even where industrial misrule or lawless despotism may have 
 laboured most zealously to extinguish it. 
 
 And, finally, the light of a higher explanation is beheld 
 
328 THEISM. 
 
 breaking upon us from the future, as, with the growth of 
 human improvement, the " increasing purpose " of Benefi- 
 cence becomes more manifestly stamped on all the civil rela- 
 tions of the world, and " a purer order and diviner laws " 
 are even now beginning to bind into a nobler life its multi- 
 plied combinations. As the invasions of human ^Jfishness 
 are driven back before the progress of Christian enlighten- 
 ment, the Divine plan of infinite wisdom and goodness will 
 be seen more visibly revealed in history, and more obviously 
 expressed in society. 
 
SPECIAL EXAMINATION SIN. 329 
 
 IV. CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 SPECIAL EXAMINATION CONTINUED SIN. 
 
 THE considerations presented in the foregoing chapters serve, 
 we apprehend, somewhat to obviate special difficulties regard- 
 ing the wisdom and goodness of God. The various forms 
 of evil which meet us as apparently formidable obstacles in 
 the way of the theistic inference, are found, on examination, to 
 be at least by no means so formidable as at first they appear. 
 At the very worst, they do not exhibit themselves as unmixed 
 evils. They bear, every one of them, some compensatory 
 significance of an important kind. On the general platform 
 of animal life, and in reference to the most comprehensive 
 phenomena of evil which there occur, this compensatory 
 character is so prominent, and enters so directly into the in- 
 tended constitution of things, that it seems greatly to remove 
 the element of difficulty which superficially is felt to exist. 
 Pain, while it shows itself to be contingently related to 
 pleasure in the very nature of the sensitive organism to be 
 a liability springing out of the very fact of the good appears 
 reduced to its minimum throughout the lower brute crea- 
 
 Y 
 
330 THEISM. 
 
 tion ; while organic extinction is seen to be a mere transi- 
 tion to higher and more abundant modes of life, in the wide 
 and ever-expanding diversity of which the wisdom and good- 
 ness of the Deity are ever more truly and conspicuously 
 displayed. 
 
 The same compensatory character, whereby a higher good 
 is still developed from the partial evil, is found to mark 
 the difficulties which occur in the sphere of human life, 
 although manifestly it is no longer, in this sphere, so 
 adequate for explanation. Here, while suffering is no less 
 clearly seen to serve purposes of good, there is yet very 
 clearly left a residuum of difficulty unexplained. The bene- 
 ficent use of sorrow is indeed apparent, and thoroughly satis- 
 factory as to its existence, proceeding on the fact that disci- 
 pline is needed to purify and exalt human life ; but the ques- 
 tion at once presses itself, Why this disciplinary necessity? 
 what explanation does it admit of ? 
 
 We readily admit, therefore, that while, by the light of 
 enlarged and impartial inquiry, we are enabled to see good 
 everywhere in the evil, and so far to obviate the difficulties 
 which arise from the latter regarding the Divine wisdom 
 and goodness, we do not, by such considerations, remove the 
 difficulties. The darkness clears away a little as we gaze 
 steadily into it, and make ourselves familiar with it, but it 
 is still there. The light has penetrated, but not dispersed 
 it. It is somewhat broken up and driven back, but it 
 only concentrates itself more deeply in an aspect of more in- 
 tense enigma on the further point to which it has retreated. 
 
 Following this plan, however, of carrying up the different 
 
SPECIAL EXAMINATION SIN. 331 
 
 forms of evil which meet us in human life to their true 
 source, we are enabled to see clearly the final amount of 
 difficulty with which the theistic argument has to deal. If 
 we fail to give an adequate explanation of the lower evils, 
 it is only because they imply a further element of moral evil 
 which arrests us. Bringing fully into view this difficulty, 
 and holding it in all its inexplicable magnitude before us, 
 it serves, in its very intensity, to cast a full meaning on the 
 dependent perplexities. In this comprehending evil of sin, 
 all the lower phenomena of evil in human life find their 
 satisfactory explanation. 
 
 This higher view of the subject is one from which our 
 older theistic literature has, for the most part, shrunk. It 
 has aimed to bring out the compensatory significance of all 
 suffering, and to show how largely good is everywhere sub- 
 served by evil ; but the explanatory meaning which suffering 
 everywhere assumes in the view of sin, has not been clearly 
 apprehended by it. Sin has apparently been regarded as 
 something beyond the sphere of its observation : and, holding 
 this fact out of sight, it is not to be wondered at that an air 
 of unsatisfactoriness should attach to its best endeavours* 
 to resolve those phenomena of suffering of which we have 
 been speaking. 
 
 On the other hand, by bringing into view the fact of sin, if 
 the problem in the end be only deepened, it is yet simplified. 
 The mind is left to rest on a single point of darkness, whose 
 apprehension leaves all the different phenomena of human 
 suffering at least fully intelligible. For when we consider 
 
 * See PALEY'S Nat. TheoL, chap. xxvi. BKOWN'S Lectures, lect. 94. 
 
332 THEISM. 
 
 the fact of sin, it no longer remains wonderful that there 
 should be suffering. The true marvel would have been, if, 
 with the presence of sin, there had not been suffering. For 
 a moral instinct of the most direct and irresistible character 
 assures us that the latter is everywhere the inevitable con- 
 sequence of the former that the two are bound together, 
 and essentially coexistent, in the nature of the case. Be- 
 cause man is a sinner, he is a sufferer. It is sin that smites 
 him with pain, and wounds him with sorrow. It is sin 
 which darkens life for him, and embitters death. When we 
 seize, therefore, this fact of sin, the mystery of suffering 
 disappears within it. 
 
 Especially is this the case when we apprehend the fact of 
 sin in clear connection with that complete doctrine of Theism 
 as to the Divine goodness which formerly opened up to us 
 in the course of our argument. In the law of conscience we 
 found that the good interprets itself as the right. The moral 
 good which commands us in conscience is righteousness. The 
 one idea only sustains itself in the other, and finds its 
 complement in it. The attribute of Divine goodness be- 
 comes, accordingly, in relation to moral life, also Divine 
 righteousness. The two conceptions are essentially inse- 
 parable. If we regard sin, then, in this higher theistic 
 light, we will at once see that suffering is its necessary mark 
 of punishment. Asserting itself in opposition to the law 
 of conscience, it thereby directly opposes itself to the 
 righteous will of God, of which that law is the expression, 
 and so provokes His punishment. Existing only as a 
 rebellious infraction of Divine will, it necessarily calls forth 
 
SPECIAL EXAMINATION SIN. 333 
 
 the Divine wrath. In its very character, wherever it occurs 
 in the universe of God, sin accordingly is, and must be, 
 marked by His displeasure. It must bear the brand of 
 suffering. It must have its doom written on it. And in 
 this point of view, so far is suffering from constituting a 
 valid objection to the Divine goodness, that it is truly a 
 manifestation of that goodness. Rightly viewed, the Divine 
 punishment of sin is merely another side of the Divine 
 goodness. Tor inasmuch as goodness only completes itself 
 in righteousness, were sin or unrighteousness not visited 
 with punitive suffering, the Divine goodness could not be 
 the reality which conscience demands. It might remain a 
 vague and beautiful dream of the imagination ; but a good- 
 ness which in any respect came short of righteousness 
 would, in the very nature of the case, prove a vanishing 
 shadow a mere fiction, on which the heart could never 
 rest. Let the one idea be lost sight of, and the other will 
 altogether fail to legitimatise itself, or keep its ground. A 
 goodness which does not rest on justice, and embrace it, 
 would, in the highest meaning of the attribute, be no good- 
 ness our own moral conscience being judge and would 
 leave, therefore, no real foundation for that happiness in 
 whose behalf it is sometimes emptied of this essential 
 element. In all this view, therefore, the Divine goodness 
 is seen not only to be consistent with, but to be expressly 
 called forth in human suffering as the punishment of sin. 
 
 But when we contemplate sin, in its own essential 
 character, as most truly misery, this becomes still further 
 evident. Any other conception we can form of misery is 
 
334 THEISM. 
 
 poor and trifling in comparison with that which is summed 
 up in the fact of sin itself. The temporary evil of suffering 
 is, therefore, most truly good, when viewed as the chasten- 
 ing of sin, to deliver us from its power. Its bitterness is 
 a direct agency of Divine beneficence, to save us from a 
 darker and more hopeless bitterness. Had sin not thus 
 borne the reprobation of suffering, and man's sinful progress 
 experienced no check from it, the Divine goodness would un- 
 doubtedly have been left in far greater obscurity than it is. 
 
 But what of sin itself? What theistic explanation does 
 it admit of ? Has not our whole previous train of reasoning 
 been merely a fencing with the outer or accessory difficul- 
 ties of the subject, while the great difficulty lies here ? We 
 are certainly far from concealing that in the comprehensive 
 fact of sin is contained the chief mystery with which we 
 have to deal. We have, on the contrary, all along implied 
 this. It has been our aim simply to show, in reference to 
 human life, how all the difficulties attending the theistic 
 inference run up into this point, and here find their ultimate 
 force. And if, at length, in approaching this point, we find 
 that the light of explanation fails us, or, in other words, find 
 that we cannot at all resolve sin in our process of theistic 
 induction, it may at the same time appear that this arises 
 from its very nature, which is such as compels us to cast 
 it out of the theistic argument, and per se liberates that 
 argument from its injurious burden, mysterious and irre- 
 solvable as it may for ever remain. It may be seen 
 that, while this mystery defies all solution, it separates 
 itself by its character from all direct relation to the 
 
SPECIAL EXAMINATION SIN. 335 
 
 Divine agency. Profound as is the difficulty it involves, 
 it is a difficulty, when rightly understood, not immediately 
 regarding the Divine character (about which its own 
 testimony leaves no doubt), but regarding its human 
 possibility. 
 
 Sin, as we have already assumed, is in its essential concep- 
 tion the revolt of the human self against the Divine. Whereas 
 the good consists for us in the harmony of the Divine and 
 the human will, the evil consists essentially in the insurrec- 
 tion of the latter against the former. The soul passes out 
 of the sphere of Divine conformity, and asserts itself in an 
 attitude of opposition to God and to goodness. This is the 
 most radical principle of moral evil. It is this element of 
 rebellious self-will against the Divine law that we specially 
 mean by sin. It expresses itself in many forms, and assumes 
 many characters ; but in this element of rebellious self-will 
 they all take their rise. This is the perverted essence which 
 pervades all. 
 
 Such being the true character of sin, it must be obvious, 
 in its very definition, that we cannot bring it into induc- 
 tive relation with the course of our evidence ; or, in other 
 words, that we cannot find any argumentative solution of 
 it. For how can we intelligibly relate that to God, whose 
 very essence consists in opposition to Him ? How can we 
 explain that which in itself, in its very conception, presents 
 the uttermost contradiction ? In order that anything may 
 be capable of explanation, it must exhibit some ground of 
 reason ; but here all is unreason. That any creature should 
 revolt against its Creator can only present itself as the most 
 
336 THEISM. 
 
 awful and unfathomable folly. Sin, therefore, baffles all 
 explanation. Every attempt that has been made to throw 
 any light upon it, or to resolve it inductively, has ended, in 
 the very nature of the case, in denying it.* All that we 
 can say or know is, that the possibility of sin lies in the 
 fact of human freedom. Man being made free to choose 
 good or evil, the choice of the latter was possible but 
 further all is darkness ; and if we insist for a moment in 
 carrying our logical explanations up into this region, we 
 only plunge into deeper and more hopeless darkness. 
 
 But in this very confession of the utter unintelligibility 
 of sin, is not our argument relieved from its difficulty? 
 We cannot give any theistic explanation of it. But why ? 
 Because, in its very essence, it is anti-theistic. It is in 
 God's creation, but it is there as a blot upon it in direct vio- 
 lation of the Divine order which otherwise prevails. In its 
 nature it wholly separates itself from God, and is, therefore, 
 whatever we may make of it, not entitled to reflect injuriously 
 on the Divine character. A true perception of sin leaves it, in- 
 deed, an insoluble difficulty, but is so far from allowing its 
 darkness to rest on the Divine wisdom and goodness, that it 
 is only against the truth of these attributes that its heinous- 
 ness comes fully into view. It is only its opposition to 
 Divine wisdom and love that makes sin what it is. And 
 to this itself bears witness in its own innermost darkness. In 
 the very act of stamping its atheistic impress upon the soul, 
 it belies its own act ; and in its deepest abandonment pro- 
 
 * See note at the end of the chapter, where the attempts of this kind most 
 deserving attention are briefly reviewed. 
 
SPECIAL EXAMINATION SIN. 337 
 
 claims the reality of the Divine goodness with which it 
 strives. The rebellious self-will which opposes itself to 
 God, yet trembles before Him. It trembles because of its 
 own unquenchable witness to the truth of those perfections 
 which it practically denies. So long as conscience is not 
 utterly extinguished, there arises from the very heart of 
 depravity this irrepressible testimony. This it is, in fact, 
 which asserting itself against the most persistent godless- 
 ness gives to that godlessness all its direst unrest and 
 misery. The sense of guilt, in its worst agony, is nothing 
 save the consciousness of hostility to Divine wisdom and 
 goodness. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 Various theories have professed to expound what is called the 
 origin of evil. The most comprehensive and impartial account of 
 these theories that we know of is to be found in the second book of 
 Dr Julius Mliller's treatise on the Christian doctrine of sin. On a 
 careful examination, one and all of them will be found to explain sin 
 by virtually denying it in its true character. Dr Mtiller has reck- 
 oned them as four, under the several names of the theories of Dual- 
 ism, of Contrast, of Sense, and of Metaphysical Imperfection. The 
 only two of them that can be said to possess any special interest, or 
 to deserve any special notice, are those of Contrast and of Metaphy- 
 sical Imperfection. The former derives certain pretensions from its 
 analogy to that compensatory mode of argument which we have 
 pursued in previous chapters. It is, in truth, nothing else than this 
 argument reduced to the palpable contradictoriness that lies in it 
 when pushed to extremity. The latter claims attention from the 
 influential names that have promulgated it, and the manner in which 
 it has been associated with Christian literature. Both, besides, have 
 this special claim upon our notice, that while neither of them can 
 be said any longer to possess vitality as speculative theories, they 
 yet truly live and find utterance in many of our current modes of 
 literary and theological culture. 
 
338 THEISM. 
 
 In this view we present here a summary of Dr Miiller's exposi- 
 tion of them, which has in some part elsewhere appeared, but which, 
 in relation to the subject of the foregoing chapter, may be interesting 
 to a certain class of readers. It will certainly serve to set forth more 
 clearly the conclusion of that chapter as to the absolute unintelligibi- 
 lity of the evil, and the consequent futility of all attempts to explain it. 
 
 The theory of Contrast may be thus stated : Evil, like darkness 
 or cold, is an indispensable element of alternation in human life. 
 All individual reality is only the product of opposite forces working 
 together. Pure light were in itself perfectly colourless identical, 
 in fact, with darkness : it is only the blending of the various shades 
 of both which gives us actual light. The plant, were it a single 
 power, would not grow : it is only the co-operation of opposite 
 powers which promotes its development. So in man, individuality 
 character is only the product of the opposing ethical moments of 
 good and evil. Perfect purity, without flaw, without struggle, would 
 be a mere empty and useless abstraction. All life and energy only 
 arise from the mutual conflict of the positive and negative. In 
 nature we have attraction and repulsion positive and negative 
 electricity ; in ordinary life, pain and pleasure, rest and activity, 
 health and sickness. Take away any of these relative moments, the 
 other would disappear with it. Take away repulsion, there would 
 be no more attraction. Let pain disappear, so would pleasure. 
 Rest is no more rest if it does not spring from activity ; and the joy 
 of health is only known through sickness. Why should it be diffe- 
 rent in the sphere of morals ] Here, too, there must be a polarity. 
 Good can only be in contradistinction to the evil. It is only from 
 their interaction that the moral life derives any character and energy. 
 How utterly devoid of interest how stale, flat, and unprofitable 
 were our life, were sin entirely to disappear ! Where would be all 
 that now in history or romance gives a charm to it 1 Where would 
 be the passions that now lend to poetry all its power, and to the arts 
 all their witchery ? 
 
 The relation of this to our previous compensatory mode of argu- 
 ment will be apparent. Whereas, however, that mode of argument 
 is simply made use of by us to show the good which still attends the 
 evil, and seems even to rise out of it reduced, as it is here, to a 
 logical explanation of moral evil, it secures its object only by de- 
 stroying the fact to be explained. So far as we have urged the argu- 
 ment, it amounts to this, that the evil is everywhere contingently 
 
SPECIAL EXAMINATION SIN. 339 
 
 related to the good, and appears in its mere capacity to be so con- 
 nected with it, that we do not know that we could have had the one, 
 and the other been absolutely excluded. But the present theory 
 not only finds good in the evil, but it makes moral evil an absolute 
 condition of moral goodness. In this view it is not, and cannot be 
 any longer evil. It enters no longer as a spring of disorder, but 
 as a necessary integral into the development of human life. In 
 fact, the good in contrast to the evil is no longer good, but rather 
 evil, and the evil good ; for it is only the quickening impulse of the 
 former gives the latter vitality and strength. Without this the good 
 were no reality, but a mere slumbering torpid potentiality. It lies 
 in the last logical results of this theory, therefore, to enthrone the 
 evil as the first principle. It does not depend upon the good, but 
 the good, so far as it is possessed of any living power, depends upon 
 it ; or, at any rate, the concrete reality in which they unite is some- 
 thing in which the properly distinctive characters of the two concep- 
 tions disappear. 
 
 But this theory moreover rests on a special misstatement of the 
 fact in question. It is by no means true that the good, as such, 
 needs the reaction of the evil to attain energy and consistency. No 
 doubt there are, as we have seen, forms of good which we can only 
 imagine in contrast to evil, nay, there would seem to be, as we 
 formerly expressed it, a richer power of good in the end from the 
 very presence of the evil but this is something wholly different 
 from recognising, according to the present theory, the good to be 
 absolutely dependent upon the evil, and only to be possessed of 
 activity from co-operation with it. Life and activity are, on the 
 contrary, essential elements of the good in itself. As a creaturely 
 product, it is certainly dependent for its development on the coaction 
 of relative forces, both bodily and mental ; but its relation to the 
 evil is still only, even when it derives strength from the relation, 
 one of conflict. It is the very warfare with the evil, and repulsion 
 of it, that imparts strength and higher glory to the good. Every 
 corrupting association of the evil with the good is, therefore, still so 
 far evil, and not good. 
 
 The second theory to which we have referred is that which traces 
 moral evil to the Metaphysical Imperfection of human nature. This 
 is especially known as the theory of Leibnitz in his T/ieodicee, 
 although it really dates from Augustine, and had even, in our 
 own literature, received an elaborate exposition some years before 
 
340 THEISM. 
 
 the appearance of the Theodicee, in the well-known work of Bishop 
 King. According to this theory, evil is considered to be a mere 
 privation ; to be in morals, in short, what cold and darkness are in 
 physics a pure negation. It is only the perfect or absolute that is 
 positive : all imperfection proceeding from limitation is of a priva- 
 tive or negative character. But God alone is perfect. The creature 
 in his very nature is limited. This limitation shows itself in man, 
 in the presence of error beside truth in his understanding of pain 
 beside pleasure in his senses. Is it wonderful, then, that in his will 
 this limitation should also manifest itself in the presence of evil 
 beside the good ? According to this view, evil takes its rise, not 
 in an efficient cause (causa efficient), but only in a causa deficieiis. 
 God gives the creature his qualities only in so far as they are real 
 and positive ; the deficiency does not spring from His will, but from 
 the nature of the thing. God is willing to bestow every perfection 
 in the fullest possible degree, but the receptivity of the creature in 
 its very conception is limited. This limited receptivity has its ulti- 
 mate ground in the Divine understanding, the region of eternal 
 truth the forms or ideas of the possible the sole thing which God 
 has not made, as He is not the author of His own understanding. In 
 this way Leibnitz conceives that he obviates the reference of the 
 evil to God. Every positive faculty of man is to be traced back to 
 God ; but the evil, as a mere privation, cannot be so traced. What 
 is good cometh from the strength of God what is evil, from the 
 torpor of the creature.* 
 
 It has been shown by Dr Miiller that this theory admits in some 
 degree of two interpretations. It may be understood as either deriv- 
 ing sin necessarily out of the original imperfection of the creature, or 
 as only placing the possibility of sin in this imperfection. While 
 some of Leibnitz's expressions would seem to favour the latter inter- 
 pretation, there can yet be little doubt, we think, that it was in the 
 former sense he himself meant it to be understood, as in this sense 
 alone can it be said to have any title to be considered a theory of the 
 origin of evil. It was his whole object "to justify the ways of God 
 to man," and the secret of this justification he undoubtedly believed 
 himself to have found in the conception of evil as necessarily inhe- 
 rent in the limitations of the creature. Evil is a direct and inevit- 
 able consequence of these limitations une suite des limitations pre- 
 
 * Tkeodicte, part i. 20-33. 
 
SPECIAL EXAMINATION SIN. 341 
 
 cedentes, qui sont originairement dans sa creature so that in creating 
 the world at all, God (so to speak) could not help the admixture of 
 evil in it ; inasmuch as it could not be absolutely perfect, it could 
 not be free from evil. But the evil is the least that could have been. 
 The world is the " best of all possible worlds ! " 
 
 This theory of metaphysical imperfection has been among theolo- 
 gians the most favourite mode of explaining the origin of evil. It 
 took its rise in the case of Augustine, there can be no doubt, from 
 the necessity felt by him of opposing to the Dualistic conception of 
 the Manicheans some solution of the great problem in consistency 
 with the Divine unity and perfections. And it has maintained its 
 place in theology, as seeming to furnish, upon the whole, the solution 
 of this problem most reconcilable with these perfections. Among 
 our latest writers on Natural Theology, Dr Chalmers expounds it with 
 zest, and puts it forward as hypothetically valuable in meeting the 
 cavils of scepticism, although manifesting considerable reluctance to 
 accept it as satisfactory. There are perhaps few more signal examples 
 of the perverting influence of theoretic arbitrariness on theological 
 literature than that which is presented by this theory. 
 
 A little examination of it will serve to show this. And first of all, 
 the conception which it presents of sin is in direct contradiction to 
 the moral consciousness. Sin is not the ens privatum which this 
 theory holds it to be ; it is, on the contrary, of an essentially positive 
 character. It bears no analogy to any of the other limitations or 
 imperfections which attach to our nature ; these are merely the 
 appropriate accidents or conditions of our finite being. But it is, on 
 the other hand, of the very essence of sin that it reveals itself from 
 the first as an element of disorder and opposition within us. If re- 
 garded as inherent in the necessaiy imperfection of our being, we 
 are then reduced to the strange conclusion, that out of the very limi- 
 tations which go to constitute the conception of the creature there 
 arises a limitation which contradicts this conception. But further, 
 in making sin, as this theory does, the necessary result of the imper- 
 fections of our nature, it thereby, no less than all other theories, 
 really destroys it. For sin being necessary, it is no longer morally 
 blamable. If it spring out of the essential limitations of our being, 
 it is no longer a fault, but only a misfortune. In this point of view, 
 too, this theory wholly fails in its attempts to turn aside the reference 
 of sin to God. Granting that this creaturely limitation is the proxi- 
 mate cause, yet this creaturely limitation is only such as the appoint- 
 
342 THEISM. 
 
 ment of God. There is only a causa deficiens in so far as called into 
 existence by the causa efficiens. Leibnitz's distinction of understand- 
 ing and will in the Deity does not really avail to obviate this con- 
 clusion, unless the distinction is to be seized in an absolutely dual- 
 istic sense. 
 
 And if necessary in its origin, sin, according to this theory, must 
 be no less eternal in its duration ; inasmuch as the creature can 
 never be absolutely perfect, sin can never wholly disappear. It can 
 still only be a vanishing minimum, as the creature approximates to 
 the perfection of the Creator ; and this is an idea which would seem 
 even to have entered into the mind of Leibnitz, in his famous repre- 
 sentation of the human spirit as an asymptote of the Diyine. Could 
 we conceive the still vanishing limit entirely away, man would be 
 no longer man, but God. It is clear, then, that this theory, pushed 
 to its fair logical results, only escapes Pantheism by making sin 
 eternal. Man only ceases to be a sinner by becoming God. Most 
 singular and instructive coincidence with the latest outrages of Ger- 
 man speculation, and the favourite representations of the most seduc- 
 tive school of infidel literature, both in our own country and America ! 
 So striking is this coincidence, that in many of the expressions of 
 Emerson, Leibnitz and even sometimes Augustine might be supposed 
 to speak. From quite opposite impulses, but under the same rage 
 for theorising, the modern transcendentalist has reproduced their 
 idea of the evil being simply a deficiency of the good ; only he has 
 apprehended, which they did not, this idea in its strict logical conse- 
 quence as cutting up by the root the consciousness of guilt, and, in 
 making sin a necessity, annihilating it as a moral fact. 
 
 It is this strangely instructive result which enables us to see in 
 the clearest light the fundamental vice of Leibnitz's theory, and, in 
 fact, of all the theories on our subject. This vice consists in the appli- 
 cation of purely logical or inductive conceptions to moral truth, while 
 this truth in its very nature transcends the grasp of logic. It makes 
 itself good in the inner spiritual consciousness, but it cannot be in- 
 ductively seized and accounted for. The attempt so to seize it 
 necessarily terminates in misapprehending it. It is obvious, for ex- 
 ample, that it is such a perverting misapprehension which underlies 
 the whole scope of the present theory. For if it does not confound 
 metaphysical with moral defect, it yet makes the one an inevitable 
 consequence of the other. A relation is thus implied which is wholly 
 inapplicable, between mere perfection of being and perfection of moral 
 
SPECIAL EXAMINATION SIN. 343 
 
 life. In the former respect, God alone is or can be perfect ; in the 
 latter there may be, so far as we know, any variety of relative per- 
 fection. Sinlessness has no connection with mere mass of being, but 
 exists entirely in the harmonious proportion between being and the 
 moral laws under which it exists. And in like manner, sin has, and 
 can have, no connection with mere metaphysical limitation or defect 
 of being, but exists entirely in the discordance between it and its 
 proper moral conditions. The two conceptions of good as mere being, 
 and good as moral harmony, are totally and essentially distinct, and 
 nothing but the most hopeless and irretrievable error can arise from 
 their confusion. In the one case it is substance with which we deal, 
 more or less ; in the other it is will, right or wrong. No circle of 
 thought can ever unite these conceptions, which are absolutely dis- 
 tinguished. We do not say, indeed, that the metaphysical definitions 
 of being and non-being, affirmative and negative, possession and want, 
 have no relation to the investigation of sin ; but only that they are 
 totally misapplied when made to express its real and essential prin- 
 ciple. And so long as philosophy or theology remains fast bound in 
 such logical abstractions, neither can have any true apprehension of 
 its character, and in attempting to define it can only mistake it. We 
 must rise into a quite different region, and bring into view that 
 mysterious personality, which at once so directly relates man to the 
 Fountain of all life, and yet contains within it the capacity of 
 furthest alienation from Him, before we can reach any genuine per- 
 ceptions of sin, and apprehend its essential contents. And when we 
 have done this, we will not fail to apprehend, at the same time, how 
 futile must be all attempts to explain the origin of sin, from the very 
 character of the subject in which it takes its rise. All that we can 
 know is, that the possibility of sin lies in the fact of personality ; in 
 other words, in the fact of human freedom. And as this fact is 
 wholly inexplicable, so is equally the sin which has sprung from it. 
 As Coleridge has said, with that profound moral insight which so 
 often marks his scattered observations, and renders them so valuable 
 to the Christian student, " It is a mystery, that is a fact, which we 
 see but cannot explain ; and the doctrine (he means of original sin), 
 a truth which we apprehend, but can neither comprehend nor com- 
 municate. And such, by the quality of the subject (namely, a re- 
 sponsible will), it must be, if it be a truth at all." * 
 
 * Aids to Reflection, vol. i. p. 730. Pickering. 1848. 
 
344 THEISM. 
 
 IV. CHAPTER VII. 
 
 COJSTSIDEEATIONS, ETC. DEEIVED FEOM " WEITTEN 
 EEVELATION." 
 
 IN the preceding chapters we have carried out our treatment 
 of difficulties regarding the wisdom and goodness of God in 
 so far as we are enabled to do by the light of nature. 
 These difficulties, we have seen, in their most formid- 
 able aspect, concentrate in moral evil ; which, on the 
 other hand, refuses to be related inductively to the great 
 Source of being, but asserts itself as the mysterious product 
 of the human free-will. In its very nature, sin utterly sepa- 
 rates itself from God, while yet bearing in its dark rebellion 
 an unequivocal testimony to the Divine existence and 
 character. Whatever may be its mystery and difficulty, 
 therefore, it seems undoubted that the fact of moral evil is 
 not entitled to affect injuriously the theistic inference. 
 
 This conclusion appears to us so far satisfactory. As to 
 the final difficulty of the origin of evil, it has been our ex- 
 press aim to show that it admits in its nature of no solution. 
 It presents an impenetrable mystery ; only the hopeless 
 
CONSIDERATIONS FEOM REVELATION. 345 
 
 darkness which here at length meets us, cannot be allowed 
 to rest legitimately on the Divine character. According 
 even to the testimony of sin itself, that character stands out 
 in clear brightness against it. 
 
 In case, however, that any doubt should still surround 
 this conclusion, we are finally led by the terms of our sub- 
 ject into the region of special Divine revelation. We do 
 not suppose that it is meant that we should enter into any 
 special proof of the Divine authority of this revelation. All 
 that seems to us to be appropriately implied in the terms of 
 the Essay is, that we should take a glance at this higher 
 region of revelation before we close. Having sought in the 
 lower region of natural inductive inquiry for all the light 
 within our reach, we are invited finally to cast our gaze to 
 that brighter light which professes to shine upon us directly 
 from God Himself. The very strength and clearness of the 
 lustre which the Christian revelation sheds around the 
 Divine character, may at the same time go far, apart from 
 any formal proof, to vindicate its Divine authority. 
 
 Taking up, then, our argument at the point at which we 
 left it, we had reached the conclusion that sin, from its very 
 nature, could not only have no productive relation to God, 
 but was directly opposed to Him. At this point, the gospel 
 meets us in the most significant manner. It declares in its 
 very conception God's hatred of sin, and opposition to it. 
 It affirms that it was for the very purpose of destroying sin 
 that He sent His Son Jesus Christ into the world. We are 
 no longer left to infer from a process of reasoning regarding 
 
 z 
 
346 THEISM. 
 
 the Divine character, as revealed in the depths of our own 
 conscience, that God is opposed to sin, but in the mission and 
 death of the Lord Jesus He Himself makes this specially 
 known to us with the most solemn effect. All our Lord did 
 and suffered bore the same meaning of Divine hatred against 
 sin. All expressed with an imperishable force that God is 
 " of purer eyes than to behold evil/' and cannot " look on 
 iniquity." 
 
 Thus carrying on our argument from the negative point 
 at which we left it, we see with what decisive clearness the 
 gospel interprets the indications of nature, and shows that 
 the burden and injury of sin, however inscrutable, are 
 directly rejected by God. Ascending slowly towards this 
 conclusion from the attentive scrutiny of our moral con- 
 sciousness, we are met by a direct utterance from God Him- 
 self, which places our conclusion beyond all hesitation, and 
 enables us to rest in it with an impregnable security. 
 
 But this negative testimony bears us but a little way into 
 the full light which the Gospel sheds upon the Divine 
 character. In this indirect manner it serves to vindicate 
 that character from the application of the objection founded 
 on the existence of moral evil ; but in what a positive glory 
 of wisdom and beneficence does it further place it ! If its 
 utterance, on the one hand, is that God is righteous, and 
 hateth sin ; its utterance, on the other, is that " God is light, 
 and in Him is no darkness at all ; " * and, moreover, and 
 emphatically, that " God is love/'f " In this was manifested 
 
 * 1 John, i. 5. t Ibid., iv. 8. 
 
CONSIDERATIONS FKOM REVELATION. 347 
 
 the love of God towards us, because that God sent His only 
 begotten Son into the world, that we might live through 
 Him. Herein is love ; not that we loved God, but that He 
 loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our 
 sins/' * " For God so loved the world that He gave His 
 only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him might 
 not perish, but have everlasting life.'" ( 
 
 Such is the full lustre of meaning which the revelation of 
 the Lord Jesus sheds upon the dim hints of nature. If, 
 after all their study of the latter, there be minds that return 
 uncertain whether the Power that speaks to them in its 
 varied changes, and is present in its varied aspects, be a 
 beneficent Power, here, as it were, the heavens open, and a 
 voice is heard whose utterance is a gospel of love. What- 
 ever doubts may remain to the merely natural view, what- 
 ever difficulties may impede the promptings of the heart, 
 are for ever dissipated by the clear and strong truth not only 
 announced in words, but expressed in action, not only de- 
 clared by the mouth of an apostle, but exemplified by the 
 mission and death of His own Son, that God is love. 
 " Scarcely for a righteous man will one die : yet peradven- 
 ture for a good man some would even dare to die. But God 
 commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet 
 sinners, Christ died for us/' J 
 
 Sin, we see, so far from being entitled to darken to us in 
 any degree the character of God, is the very fact which serves 
 to bring out, in its greatest fulness and depth of brightness, 
 
 * 1 John, iv. 8, 9, 10. f John, iii. 16. Romans, v. 7, 8. 
 
348 THEISM. 
 
 the. beneficence of that character. It is against this dark 
 shadow that its lustre comes forth with the most glorious 
 clearness. Had there been no sin, it is true that its difficulty 
 would not have perplexed us. Yet it is to the very pre- 
 sence of sin we owe the surpassing manifestation of Divine 
 goodness in the gospel. We see the Divine love here as we 
 could not otherwise have seen it, stronger than sin or death, 
 triumphing over the very enmity assailing it, and out of the 
 very darkest difficulty in the moral universe bringing forth 
 the most significant tribute to the wisdom and beneficence 
 of the Divine government. 
 
 It is especially in the perfect harmony of Divine righteous- 
 ness and love, as displayed in the gospel, in the spectacle 
 which it exhibits of God hating sin, and yet loving the 
 sinner, that its testimony is so emphatic, and that we are 
 enabled to dwell with such satisfaction on that testimony. 
 We have already seen how inalienably intertwined are the 
 attributes of goodness and righteousness how the former 
 only sustains itself in the latter, and, apart from it, would 
 wholly fail to preserve its own peculiar life and virtue ; but 
 while our highest conception o those attributes shows them 
 indeed to be one and indivisible, yet it must be admitted 
 that they present themselves in the mirror of actual life fre- 
 quently broken and dissevered. We see the traces of each, 
 on the one hand, in happiness on the other, in punishment ; 
 but we fail often to see their harmony ; we are unable to 
 join in a living synthesis the scattered intimations of nature; 
 we cannot bring into consistency its disjointed speech. But 
 
CONSIDEKATIONS FKOM KEVELATION. 349 
 
 in the revelation of the Lord Jesus, the fragmentary hints of 
 nature receive a consistent and satisfactory interpretation. 
 Goodness and righteousness are beheld in the sacrifice of 
 the Cross as nowhere else. Here " mercy and truth have 
 met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each 
 other/' * Here the strength of love and " the beauty of 
 holiness " are mingled in a centre of Divine perfection, upon 
 which the human heart can repose for ever with the firmest 
 faith and liveliest hope. 
 
 * Psalm Ixxxv. 10. 
 
350 THEISM. 
 
 IV. CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE DIVINE MAN INCAENATE WISDOM AND LOVE. 
 
 WITH the last chapter the argument, as apprehended by us, 
 might appropriately have closed ; it seems so superfluous to 
 argue on the foundation of the gospel revelation for the 
 wisdom and goodness of God that revelation being only 
 conceivable as in the highest degree an expression of both. 
 Yet it may be well simply to glance at some of the special 
 features of Divine excellence thus declared to us. The 
 teaching and character of the Lord Jesus, and the adaptation 
 of the gospel to the spiritual elevation and consolation of 
 the human race, seem to present, in this view, the most 
 prominent points for notice. 
 
 It is not now denied by any, even by those who repudiate 
 the Divine authority of Christianity, that we have in the 
 teaching and character of Christ a rare exhibition of wisdom 
 and goodness. It is acknowledged that He who, eighteen 
 hundred years ago, arose a Prophet among a feeble and dis- 
 tracted people, sunk in social and religious debasement, 
 taught a purer and more exalted morality, and lived a life 
 
THE DIVINE MAN. 351 
 
 of more beautiful beneficence, than the history of the world 
 elsewhere presents. While such a phenomenon, in all the 
 circumstances, must appear somewhat inexplicable to those 
 who do not recognise in it anything specially Divine, to 
 the Christian it appears clearly intelligible and significant, 
 He recognises in the man Christ Jesus the incarnation of 
 Divine wisdom and love. He beholds in him the Word 
 made flesh, who " dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, 
 the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace 
 and truth/' 
 
 When we consider the special point in our argument 
 at which we have arrived, we recognise the direct bearing 
 upon it of this manifestation of Divine wisdom in Christ. 
 With order everywhere pervading the physical world with 
 nature's harmonies all around there reigned confusion alone 
 in the life of man. There were in him the promptings of a 
 noble life, which at the best remained unsatisfied, and which 
 too frequently were soon utterly crushed under the dominion 
 of his lower propensities and tendencies. There was govern- 
 ment everywhere, but here misrule. Morality seemed rather 
 a varying fiction than a sovereign reality. Giving all honour 
 to the aspiring aims of heathen wisdom, it will not be main- 
 tained that any ancient moralist succeeded in discovering a 
 perfect polity for this sphere of misrule. In the Porch and 
 in the Academy there had, no doubt, been taught some pure 
 and elevated lessons, and certain hints of a Divine morality 
 had there been reached, which, as we read them now, seem an- 
 ticipations of a loftier truth ; but in none of the classic schools 
 do we find a moral doctrine at once adequate and consistent. 
 
352 THEISM. 
 
 This is only to be found in the revelation of Jesus Christ. 
 It is only in His character that we perceive a perfect example 
 of moral order, and in His doctrine that we acknowledge a 
 perfect rule of moral polity. He alone fully understood what 
 was in man, and what he needed to raise him above the 
 mere earthly life so natural to him, into the nobler spiritual 
 life of truth and duty. Stoicism on the one hand, and Pla- 
 tonism on the other, and, later than either, Eclecticism, as 
 represented by the devout and meditative Plutarch, had 
 discerned, with sufficiently clear vision, certain aspects of 
 man's spiritual being; but they altogether failed in that 
 comprehensive conception of it which is expressed in the 
 teaching of Christ. They failed to seize the twofold character 
 of moral greatness and yet natural degradation which man 
 everywhere presents, and which is at once so clearly mir- 
 rored and so comprehensively addressed in Christianity. This 
 profound rnqral insight and completely adequate power of 
 moral instruction are nowhere else exhibited. Seeing as 
 man never saw into the secrets of the human heart, the 
 Lord Jesus " spake as never man spake/' His simple utter- 
 ances breathed a wisdom of which the sagacity of Socrates 
 and the genius of Plato had only caught far-off and imperfect 
 glimpses. He taught man, as neither of them had done, to 
 know himself; He touched with a master hand the secrets of 
 his moral being, revealing their discord, and providing the 
 key to their higher and purer harmony. He brought back, in 
 short, into the sphere of moral misrule, moral order; so that 
 the Theist beholds in Him a perfect expression of Divine 
 wisdom. The difficulties which may result from the broken 
 
THE DIVINE MAN. 353 
 
 and defaced manifestations of this wisdom in the general 
 picture of humanity have here no place ; for here is the 
 representation, at once in life and in doctrine, of moral 
 perfection. In the man Jesus Christ all the disorders of 
 humanity disappear, and the Divine and human are seen in 
 complete and most beautiful union. Here we have the 
 "possibility of the human race made real;" and in the lustre 
 of this perfect revelation of moral excellence the Divine 
 wisdom shines forth with conspicuous fulness. Nay, here 
 to the Christian Theist is the Divine wisdom, "its express 
 image and the brightness of its glory/' 
 
 And here is certainly not less conspicuous the revelation 
 of the Divine goodness. The life and the death of Christ 
 presents, in truth, the most exalted picture of love that we 
 can conceive. The more we contemplate them, the more 
 does the impression of Divine beneficence rise upon us. 
 He went about continually doing good. He dwelt among 
 men as a brother, sharing their joys, and alleviating with 
 an inexhaustible fulness of compassion their sorrows. He 
 lived only to communicate happiness, and to shed around Him 
 blessing. His ear was ever open to the cry of the wretched, 
 and His hand ever ready to help the helpless. No aspect 
 of human suffering repelled His sympathy no magnitude of 
 moral baseness checked the flow of His pity. He healed 
 the broken-hearted, and set at liberty the bruised spirit. 
 He made the blind to see, the lame to walk, the deaf to 
 hear : the sick man heard His voice, and his sickness was 
 cured ; the dead heard it, and rose to life again. The spirit 
 of beneficence animated Him with so Divine a strength that 
 
354 THEISM. 
 
 it triumphed over every obstacle of hatred and persecution 
 which surrounded Him, and flowed forth in currents of kind- 
 ness towards His most obstinate and bitter enemies. His 
 love sought and accepted no reward save its own exalted 
 exercise. Persecution could not prevent it indignity could 
 not repel it contumely could not ruffle it death could not 
 quench it. What a depth of Divine compassion breathes in 
 His lament, " Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I 
 have gathered thy children together as a hen gathereth her 
 chickens under her wings, but ye would not ! " What a 
 fervour of infinite mercy is expressed in His prayer, "Father, 
 forgive them they know not what they do/' 
 
 The whole life of the Saviour is truly a life of love. We 
 cannot regard any feature of it that does not bear the 
 impress of beneficent devotion ; and as we evermore medi- 
 tate on its Divine beauty, we still see some finer traits of 
 tenderness in it, and a more ennobling stamp of grace. 
 
 But it is in the sufferings and death of Christ that the 
 picture of Divine love appears most marvellous and trans- 
 cendent. Here we behold Him wrestling not only with 
 others' misery and overcoming it, but moreover with the 
 dark burden of His own inexplicable agony, and triumphing 
 under all. As we contemplate the lonely and shadowed 
 figure of Gethsemane's garden, bowed beneath a load of 
 suffering which tongue shall never tell, and as we raise our 
 eyes to the bleeding victim on the cross, we feel that there 
 is a light of inexpressible love shining on us from amid 
 all that darkness, as it burns with a radiant glow in the 
 bosom of the sufferer. The presence of a love stronger 
 than death alone sustains under all that mysterious passion. 
 
THE DIVINE MAN. 355 
 
 There is here, our hearts tell us, a love which " passeth 
 knowledge/' There have, indeed, been others who have 
 loved unto death who have counted not their own lives 
 dear, for some noble principle or glorious cause yet there 
 is something in the love of Christ which at once sets it 
 above the loftiest example, or even the loftiest ideal of merely 
 human affection. It is a love solitary in its depth and 
 grandeur, reaching far beyond our conception in the height 
 to which it rises above moral sympathy, and triumphs over 
 moral enmity. Our minds cannot understand, but our hearts 
 acknowledge a love which fed upon the very neglect, and 
 took strength from the very contempt, which it encountered ; 
 a love which unworthiness only quickened, and hostility 
 only fanned which only glowed with the brighter and 
 more ardent lustre the more it was crushed and bruised 
 which, from the bloody sweat of Gethsemane's garden, and 
 the darker agonies of Calvary's cross, only gathered fresh 
 vigour and mastery, till it brought forth battle unto victory, 
 and, ascending to that eternal Bosom whence it emanated, 
 " led captivity captive," and " gave gifts to men." 
 
 It is surely impossible to contemplate such a love with- 
 out feeling that the great heart of God whence it came is 
 love ; and whatever difficulties may beset the burdened 
 human heart, there is here a presence of love unstained, to 
 which it can ever joyfully turn. There is here a radiance 
 of beneficence which shines only the more intense from the 
 dark background of sin and sorrow which reflects it. There 
 issues here, from the very shadowing of the Divine charac- 
 ter, a richer brightness, and from the hiding of its strength 
 only a more glorious fulness. 
 
356 THEISM. 
 
 IV. CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE GOSPEL A DIVINE POWEK OF MOEAL ELEVATION AND 
 CONSOLATION. 
 
 How directly the Gospel manifests the wisdom and goodness 
 of God has been already apparent. It is throughout ex- 
 pressly and most impressively a revelation of both. It is 
 not merely, however, on its own profession, as it were, but 
 moreover in its practical effects, that we are enabled to 
 appeal to it so confidently in this respect. It not merely 
 tells us that God is love, but it exhibits the fact in its 
 widely beneficent influence. 
 
 It is, indeed, impossible to conceive how the Divine wis- 
 dom and goodness could have been demonstrated, in the 
 special circumstances which tend to obscure them, more 
 effectually than by such a discovery as the gospel. The 
 great difficulty, we have seen, upon which inquiry can 
 throw no light before which the highest efforts of human 
 wisdom are powerless is the existence of moral evil. In 
 such a conjuncture the gospel meets us, not only telling us 
 of Divine wisdom and goodness, but proving itself to be the 
 
PURIFYING AGENCY OF THE GOSPEL. 357 
 
 revelation of both in its effectual dealing with sin. It lays 
 hold of this fact as no philosophy has ever done, revealing 
 at once its true character and the means of deliverance from 
 it. It presents, for the first time, the full reality of the evil, 
 and the full power of redemption from it. 
 
 This redemptive power of the gospel presents a twofold 
 aspect of pardon and of sanctification. Human life, in its deep 
 disorder, needed not only a new power of virtue, but a free gift 
 of reconciliation. Before the soul can rise in holy love to God, 
 the curse of estrangement from Him must be removed, and this 
 is only accomplished by the sacrifice of the Cross. The living 
 and thankful surrender of the human to the Divine will 
 (whereby sin is evermore subdued, and virtue evermore ad- 
 vanced), only rests on the great fact of Christ's propitiatory 
 sacrifice. It is this which alone renders Christian virtue pos- 
 sible, and gives it all its meaning. It was such a sacrifice as 
 this for which all heathenism cried out, but which all human 
 effort could not make. It was the want of such a sacrifice that 
 left heathenism so powerless. The human heart can only 
 rest on the eternal foundation of an accomplished atonement, 
 whereby God is beheld " reconciling the world unto Him- 
 self/' and " not imputing unto man his trespasses." Here 
 alone it finds a power of Divine peace and restoration. The 
 blessing of pardon comes to it in Jesus Christ with an 
 unspeakable force of healing. Its wounds are medicated, its 
 terrors allayed, its burden of transgression removed ; and, 
 rejoicing in the grace of the Divine presence, it catches the 
 sunlight of Divine purity as it falls on it in clear effulgence. 
 The gift of reconciliation and the power of moral renova- 
 
358 THEISM. 
 
 tion are inseparably conjoined in the gospel. It meets 
 man's necessity of mediation with an offended God in order 
 that it may destroy within him the dominion of sin, and re- 
 constitute and advance the kingdom of moral order. Hea- 
 thenism could do neither. It could neither abate the terrors 
 of guilt, nor give strength in the struggle with evil. But the 
 gospel, by one and the same power, accomplishes both. 
 The act of grace only completes itself in the work of holi- 
 ness, which inseparably takes its rise in the former, and 
 grows therefrom, as the fair tree from its happy springing 
 in the prepared soil. The seeds of a new moral wellbeing 
 are already quickened in the first contact of the soul with 
 the Divine favour, and ready to develop into all forms of 
 moral loveliness. All springs from, and all depends upon, 
 the Divine power revealed by the gospel. Such a power 
 alone enables man successfully to resist temptation and 
 overcome evil. It alone secures him the mastery over all 
 that is base and disorderly within him. It alone strengthens 
 him for daily duty, and when the enticements of sin prove 
 strongest, and the sense of responsibility sleeps, guards him 
 from the snare of earthly passion, and guides him in the 
 way of heavenly aspiration. Other agencies may so far help 
 to improve his social condition, and even to refine and 
 elevate his moral affections ; but they cannot any of them, 
 as this does, touch with renewing power the secret springs 
 of his being, and advance him into a higher sphere of spiri- 
 tual purity. They cannot any of them, as this does, raise 
 him above the world of sense, and bring him near to the 
 God of holiness. " Tor whatsoever is born of God over- 
 
CONSOLATIONS OF THE GOSPEL. 359 
 
 cometk the world ; and this is the victory that overcometh 
 the world, even our faith/' 
 
 Further, the gospel is an effectual source of consolation 
 to man. In a previous chapter we have spoken of the 
 beneficent use of sorrow, and of the virtuous strength and 
 beauty which its presence often achieves in human life. It 
 now becomes us to observe that the Divine element which 
 is thus in sorrow, only rises to its genuine measure and 
 reality in the gospel. Here alone does it become truly 
 tempered into patience, and deepened into experience, and 
 exalted into hope. Here alone does earthly grief become 
 transmuted into heavenly fervour, and tears change into 
 rapture. Here only does the sorrowing soul rise into 
 spiritual strength, and a rare and self-denying devotion, 
 where the light of Heaven illuminates its darkness ; and in 
 the brightness thus reflected from a higher sphere, " the 
 sufferings of this present time are felt not worthy to be 
 compared with the glory to be revealed." 
 
 This consoling revelation of futurity is among the most 
 divinely beneficent features of the gospel. Previously, there 
 may have been a dim sense of man's immortality, and of 
 the preparatory character of this life in relation to a higher. 
 There were some, we know, who could write with pathetic 
 beauty of the nobler life upon which the soul would enter 
 beyond the grave ; but the clear reality of a future life was 
 alone disclosed in the revelation of the Lord Jesus. He 
 alone " abolished death, and brought life and immortality to 
 light through the gospel/' It is only through His blessed 
 teaching that the faith of immortality has become the living 
 
360 THEISM. 
 
 possession of the human mind and heart. He alone has 
 shed an eternal brightness around the darkness of the pre- 
 sent, and made all who believe in Him to feel with an 
 unquenchable conviction that they shall never die. " I am 
 the Kesurrection and the Life : he that believeth in me, 
 though he were dead, yet shall he live ; and whosoever 
 liveth and believeth in me shall never die." 
 
 In what a light of Divine meaning does this revelation of 
 immortality set the brief period of earthly life ! What a 
 source of consoling strength is it to the weary human heart 
 in its struggles with sin and sorrow ! It comes as a beam 
 piercing the darkness from a higher region of wisdom and 
 love, of truth and justice, touching what were otherwise 
 dim and strange with a radiance of heavenly significance, 
 and the " otherwise unmeaning ciphers of time changing to 
 orders of untold value/' It is this faith of eternal life 
 which now in so many homes lightens privation, and in so 
 many hearts keeps off despair ; which brings peace to the 
 troubled, and resignation to the mourner, and takes even 
 the gloom of fear from the night of death, as it opens up the 
 heaven beyond. 
 
 The meaning which the gospel has thus shed on life and 
 death and futurity, giving man to see their true relation, 
 serves, perhaps more than anything else, to reconcile the 
 difficulties of time, and " to justify the ways of God to 
 man/' For it opens up a boundless prospect of being, in the 
 light of which the perplexities of this earthly scene, if they 
 do not disappear, yet become significant of divine results 
 
CONSOLATIONS OF THE GOSPEL. 361 
 
 of the most exalted and beneficent character. Whatever 
 there may be here that passes his comprehension, or even 
 sometimes wearies his heart, the Christian, carrying as he 
 does the peace of God within him, while the glory of 
 immortality shines before him, is enabled to thank God and 
 take courage. 
 
 2 A 
 
362 THEISM. 
 
 IV. CHAPTER X. 
 
 LIMITED KECEPTION OF THE GOSPEL MILLENNIAL PEOSPECT. 
 
 THEEE is an obvious objection, we are well aware, that may 
 be taken to the foregoing representation. If the gospel be 
 such a power of moral elevation and consolation to man if 
 it can so effectually restore the ruin wrought within him by 
 sin, and thus manifests practically that perfect wisdom and 
 goodness of which it speaks why, it may be asked, has its 
 influence hitherto been so limited ? Why does it prevail 
 within so narrow a compass, and, even where it does prevail, 
 why is its beneficent power so obstructed and inadequate ? 
 A further difficulty would seem to emerge upon us from the 
 very heart of the evangelical revelation of Divine wisdom and 
 mercy. 
 
 That this, however, is only a new form of the old difficulty 
 of sin of the fact of moral evil at all is evident on a 
 little reflection. For the undoubted reason why the gospel 
 is, at this day, so slightly influential, is, that it is opposed by 
 man's unbelief and selfishness. Men will not come unto 
 Christ that they may have life. That sin which Christ lived 
 and died to destroy, which His Spirit in the church every- 
 where is now working to destroy, opposes itself with 
 
LIMITED RECEPTION OF THE GOSPEL. 363 
 
 hardened hostility to the truth, and where it cannot alto- 
 gether oppose, degrades and corrupts it. 
 
 But could not God overcome this hostility ? Is it not the 
 special representation of the gospel that it is only everywhere 
 overcome by His direct agency ? And why is not that agency 
 so powerfully and universally exerted, as to bring all under 
 its benign and happy sway ? In such depths of dark and 
 almost irreverent questioning we lose our footing, and are 
 perhaps better silent in hopeful trust than loud in curious 
 reply. Having acknowledged to the full extent the awful 
 mystery of sin, we might rest our answer on this mystery. 
 Wholly inscrutable, there is nothing about it more inscrut- 
 able than its continued power of resistance to the gospel 
 than its opposition to the truth bearing upon it at every 
 point, and summoning it to surrender. A few words of ex- 
 planation, however, suggest themselves. 
 
 It is no doubt true that it is only through special Divine 
 agency that the gospel everywhere makes progress, and that 
 it is possible for us to conceive such a forth -putting of this 
 agency as might speedily bring the whole world under its 
 sway ; yet it is no less, and in the very nature of the case, 
 true, that this agency everywhere only works in co-operation 
 with the free agency of man. It is a persuasive power, 
 eliciting and strengthening man's spirit, but in no case 
 forcibly overbearing it even for its most holy purposes. " The 
 whole course of history, as well as the express teaching of 
 revelation, prove that God has ever dealt with man, not by 
 the strength of an irresistible power crushing all that is 
 contrary to it, but by.the moral strength of those Divine 
 influences by which He seeks to draw every inferior will into 
 
364 THEISM. 
 
 true harmony with His own perfect will. And no doubt 
 this is so, because, consistently with the blessed perfection of 
 God, it could not be otherwise ; because He is most glori- 
 fied in being served by a world of created beings, who 
 are endued with the mysterious power of willing good or 
 evil, and who, through His grace and goodness, have been 
 each one brought into true harmony with Him/'* It is not 
 difficult to see, indeed, that the idea of a forcible and com- 
 pulsory advance of the gospel is not for a moment tenable 
 even as a supposition. For in the very statement of this 
 idea there is already implied the annihilation of the moral 
 quality in man, which alone constitutes the gospel so great 
 a blessing to him, or even makes him possibly a subject of 
 it. Unless man were truly possessed of a will, the gospel 
 would lose all meaning, as man would lose all distinction 
 from the objects of nature around him. In such a case, 
 it has been well said, " There could be really no true 
 living being in the world except God. For to have a 
 will is in truth to live. What are all things without this 
 but mere machines, which must do the order of the one 
 Will which acts through them ? What are they but mere 
 shadowy figures of being cast forth from the one Being ? If 
 we do not believe that there are separate wills, with this 
 awful power of resisting the one Will, we must either make 
 the perfectly good God the direct cause of evil, or we must 
 admit a second first cause from whom that evil springs/' ) 
 
 Here, therefore, we come back to the final mystery of crea- 
 tion, the fact of human freedom. In this fact is contained 
 at once man's glory and the possibility of his fearful revolt 
 
 * Sermons by the Bishop of Oxford, p. 95 : 1849. t Ibid., pp. 95, 96. 
 
LIMITED EECEPTION OF THE GOSPEL. 365 
 
 and shame. It is this alone which at once makes him a 
 subject of Divine grace, and enables him to oppose that 
 grace. Forcibly to destroy the capability of opposition, 
 would be to destroy the very character of his being, and to 
 leave him incapable of good any more than of evil. It is the 
 awful peril of freedom, that while man may rise into union 
 with God, and become a partaker of the Divine nature, he 
 may no less harden himself against God, and fall away 
 from Him into an ever deeper revolt and abandonment of 
 selfishness. 
 
 While, therefore, it is truly saddening and perplexing that 
 the benign influence of the gospel has hitherto been confined 
 within such narrow limits, it must be kept in view that this 
 restraint of the gospel springs from man's sinful opposition, 
 and not from any deficiency of wisdom or love in the Divine 
 will. This, we apprehend, will not be denied by any Theist. 
 Whatever be the more special views entertained in connec- 
 tion with this point, every Christian Theologian must admit 
 that the perfection of the Divine character is not implicated 
 in the restrained influence of the gospel. And this is all 
 that is sufficient for our purpose to hold. Here, as hitherto, 
 the mystery lies before us, impenetrably shrouded in its very 
 nature, but reflecting its darkness directly, not on the Divine 
 character, but on the mysterious fact of human freedom. 
 
 Let us observe, at the same time, before passing finally 
 from the subject, that there is disclosed to us in the future 
 the prospect of a universal reign of holiness. The kingdom 
 of Divine order, we are assured, shall yet prevail throughout 
 the whole moral, as now throughout the whole physical world. 
 To this gloriously beneficent end, human progress is now, amid 
 
366 THEISM. 
 
 whatever perplexities, everywhere tending. There may be 
 much to cloud this prospect ; there may even seem, in certain 
 aspects of social life, and of literary and speculative culture 
 in our day, to be rather a recession than an advance of the 
 " gospel of the kingdom/' Yet it is amid such very crises 
 that Christianity is found pre-eminently to approve itself 
 the power of God and the wisdom of God for the world's 
 salvation. It puts forth its greatest strength in seasons of 
 the utmost spiritual darkness. When there seems to be only 
 the disturbance of conflicting opinions, there is silently pre- 
 paring beneath the embryotic confusion a fresh life, destined 
 to rise into nobler and fairer forms of wisdom and beneficence 
 than any that have gone before. And this will certainly be 
 the issue of present as of former conflicts. The Truth of 
 God, purified by the very assaults which seem to threaten 
 it, will go forth with a new strength, " conquering and to 
 conquer/' 
 
 And this- it will continue to do, till its purifying spirit 
 penetrate every relation, and beautify every aspect of human 
 life, till it stamp its bright and gladdening impress on every 
 feature alike of individual and social culture, and throughout 
 the moral universe there reign at once the most perfect order 
 and the purest love. As we believe in God, we believe in 
 the advent of this better time, "when all the kingdoms of the 
 earth shall become the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ;" 
 when unhappiness shall be no more, because sin shall be no 
 more, and, amid the activities of unmingled beneficence, the 
 world shall forget its past conflicts, and rejoice in an ever- 
 lasting peace. 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 IT now only remains to conclude our subject, by deducing 
 " from the whole the inferences most necessary for, and use- 
 ful to, mankind/' It appears to us that we will best do this 
 by briefly pointing out the essential connection of Theism 
 both with a true worship and a true morality. There are 
 no inferences which can possibly be more necessary and useful 
 than these, and both seem to spring directly out of the whole 
 course of our thought and reasoning in the present Essay. 
 
 Theism, in its full and consistent interpretation, as set 
 forth in these pages, is the doctrine of one almighty, wise, 
 and loving Will. Personality is the central and most 
 essential element of the doctrine. It is only this fact, ex- 
 pressed in our deepest consciousness, that contains for us at 
 once the beginning and the completion of the theistic argu- 
 ment. Around this the whole doctrine gathers in its mani- 
 fold significance and interest. From the same fact springs 
 all its distinctive character of difficulty. For the final view 
 unfolded by it is that of one creative Will in relation to 
 created wills, which, while proclaiming their immediate de- 
 pendence upon the former "from whom, and by whom, 
 
370 THEISM. 
 
 and through whom, are all things" yet really possess a 
 life of their own, which may oppose itself to the supreme 
 Source of life. In this antinomy Theism finds at once all 
 its meaning and all its mystery. Herein is the one compre- 
 hending problem of creation ; and yet herein, as it has been 
 the whole aim of our argument to show, is the only key to 
 an explanation of creation, which does not contradict equally 
 the demands of reason and the promptings of conscience. 
 
 In this doctrine of a personal God, to whom man holds a 
 free personal relation, there is, we now assert, the only basis 
 for a real and intelligent worship. A divine Being, in 
 whom man lives, and yet from whose life he is, in a true 
 sense, separate, is, and can be, alone an object of pious inte- 
 rest and devotion. Only towards such a Being can there be 
 any impulse of solemn conviction of reverent feeling. Let 
 the fundamental theistic conception of will disappear, and 
 there is no more any living Spirit to receive, or any living 
 spirits to render worship. Substitute for this conception 
 either the materialistic notion of law, or the pantheistic 
 dream of a vast nature-life, and piety becomes a nonentity. 
 For where there is no self-sacrifice, there can be no spiritual 
 offering. There may be organic unity, but there cannot be 
 moral harmony. In seeking to preserve the idea of life in 
 contrast to what it calls " mechanical conceptions " of the 
 Deity, our modern unbelief really empties life of all its 
 noblest essence. It finds its highest expression in mere 
 nature-growth, whereas this growth is only the dim shadow 
 and type of the true life of the soul. It is only, as it were, the 
 rippling play mirroring afar off the true depths of life, self- 
 
CONCLUSION. 371 
 
 centred in God and in man, made in God's image. This 
 element of self, as something wholly distinct and peculiar in 
 creation, alone enables us to reach the genuine meaning of 
 life ; and in the interchange between the finite and the In- 
 finite self, the free happy offering up of the one into the all- 
 embracing bosom of the other, we have alone the realisation 
 of worship. 
 
 There may, indeed, be much beautiful talk of the worship 
 of Nature, of the homage rendered by the whole round of 
 impersonal existence as it fulfils with a grand uniformity 
 the behests of its divine Author ; but the face of nature, we 
 know, as it thus fulfils its course, is turned to God with no 
 smile of intelligent recognition, or of holy meaning. There 
 is no free conscious response in its ever-circulating move- 
 ments to the great Being from whom cometh all its change 
 and beauty. It is the very glory of man, on the other 
 hand, that in all he does he knows and wills what he is 
 doing. And it is only in this element of intelligent and 
 spontaneous action, of living and hearty surrender, that 
 worship becomes a reality. It is only in the conception of 
 a finite will yielding itself in free and loving obedience to 
 the infinite Will, that piety finds its essential meaning. A 
 theistic faith, therefore, alone recognises the condition of 
 true worship. Pantheism in its very conception destroys 
 it, and leaves man, whatever may be its pretensions, with 
 no higher life than that of nature. Whether materialistic 
 or ideal, it equally takes away from man any reality 
 of existence distinct from the general existence of the uni- 
 verse. He is merely, in his whole being, a phase of the 
 
372 THEISM. 
 
 world-life its highest point of development in the one 
 case, its self-creating centre in the other. In either case 
 there is and can be nothing higher than himself. The wor- 
 ship of humanity is, therefore, not only logically but 
 avowedly the only possible worship to the Pantheist, posi- 
 tive or speculative. 
 
 M. Comte expressly propounds such a worship as the 
 appropriate terminus of Positivism. Humanity, as the 
 collective life of human beings, is in his system the fare 
 supreme the only one we can know, therefore the only one 
 we can worship.* Hegelianism, in the later representa- 
 tions to which it has been consistently reduced by the 
 " Young Germany " school, bears the same import, and utters 
 the same language. We have, therefore, in these systems, 
 something avowed as the only possible worship, which in 
 its very conception contradicts the essential meaning of 
 worship. Instead of self-prostration, we have self-exalta- 
 tion instead of self-sacrifice, self -idolatry. Worship 
 becomes a phantasy, or, still worse, a profanity. 
 
 In the more vulgar forms of materialistic unbelief all 
 reality of worship is still more expressly destroyed. Secu- 
 larism is the most recent form in which such unbelief has 
 put itself forward in this country; and its most positive 
 and distinguishing feature, it is instructive to notice, is the 
 abnegation of all worship. Man, it is declared, has nothing 
 to do with any life beyond the present visible one which is 
 before him daily. Any hopes or fears for the future do not 
 concern him. Every possible basis of religion is thus 
 
 * COMTE'S Philosophy of the Sciences, pp. 341, 342. By G, H. LEWES. 
 
CONCLUSION. 373 
 
 uprooted. Impiety, in such a system, becomes a creed, and 
 animalism its constant and infallible tendency. 
 
 It will be found, indeed, no less clear that morality only 
 finds a valid basis in a theistic doctrine. It is only in such 
 a personal relation between man and God as Theism implies 
 that responsibility emerges, and the very conception of duty 
 arises. Supposing man to have not merely the ground of 
 his being in Deity, but to be actually, as Pantheism teaches, 
 a part of Deity, so that the natural flow of his life is merely 
 a phase or transitional expression of the All-life, it is plain 
 that, in such a view, the very possibility of right and 
 wrong vanishes. If man, in all the modes of his being, be 
 nothing else than an expression of the divine Life which 
 lives through all, there cannot be for him any morality. 
 One species of action must be as good to him, because as 
 divine to him, as another. And this is a conclusion from 
 which modern Pantheism has not shrunk. In the figured 
 speech of one, all whose writings are more or less pantheistic 
 sermons, we are told " that the Divine effort is never relaxed; 
 the carrion in the sun will convert itself into grass and 
 flowers; and man, though in brothels or jails, or on gibbets, 
 is on his way to all that is true and good." * We have 
 here a genuine expression of Pantheism, which, notwith- 
 standing its lofty prate of spiritualism, is still always, in the 
 necessity of the case, falling back into the slough of sensu- 
 alism, to which there is nothing higher than mere nature- 
 life. Man is to it necessarily nothing else than " nature's 
 noblest production/' He is a more complex and beautiful 
 
 * EMERSON'S Representative Men, p. 68. 
 
374 THEISM. 
 
 outgrowth than the grass and the flowers, but this is all. 
 There is no further spring of being in him than in them, and 
 morality is therefore in its idea a mere figment. He is 
 subject to no higher law than that by which nature works. 
 And there is nothing, therefore, that can be false or wrong 
 in his life, nor any more, indeed anything, that can be 
 right. Such terms can have no meaning in such a system. 
 Truth can only be a dream to it, and love an accident, finely 
 as it may discourse of the imperishableness of both.* 
 
 It is not to be denied, indeed, that Pantheism is often 
 pure and lofty in its moral language. In minds of exalted 
 bias and refined culture the mere life of nature is conceived 
 of as something noble and elevating ; and the writer from 
 whom we have already quoted, betrays sufficiently in all his 
 works his sense of such a life, in which the higher tendencies 
 of humanity are supposed to receive exercise and satisfac- 
 tion. But, lofty as may be the moral tone in which Panthe- 
 ism sometimes speaks, it bears in its bosom no moral 
 strength or vitality, and cannot do so. It may tell man to 
 be a hero, but it has no voice of encouragement, of warning, 
 or of help to him. It may bid him live purely as reason 
 dictates ; but man, in his common life, is not governed by 
 the clearness of his intellect, but by the rectitude of his 
 affections and will. Pantheistic intellectualism has accord- 
 ingly shown itself to be the coldest and least potent creed 
 that has ever sought to sway man. Some minds there 
 may always be, as in the old Eoman world, that can find 
 in it a degree of moral nurture, but to the common mind 
 
 * EMERSON'S Representative Men, p. 69. 
 
CONCLUSION. 375 
 
 and heart it is destitute of all moral meaning and power ; 
 nay, to them its sternest stoicism interprets itself by clear 
 logical consequence as moral indifferentism, which readily 
 passes over into any species of immorality, and theoretically 
 legitimatises it. The only genuine moral elements of per- 
 sonality and conscience find no place in it, and in the denial 
 of these we have in the end the sure destruction of all moral 
 life and happiness. 
 
 It is only a doctrine which preserves these elements in 
 their full integrity that furnishes a consistent basis for man's 
 religious and moral culture. As spiritual life only takes its 
 rise in them, so it can only flourish where they are clearly 
 acknowledged. The more deeply our whole being is studied, 
 the more, we feel assured, will freedom and conscience, and, 
 in a word, reason, as forming the comprehensive spiritual 
 element in man, be acknowledged as realities, and Theism 
 hence be found the ennobling complement of all human 
 study, no less than the direct expressiojg.,.QlPJLvine Revelation. 
 
 THE END. 
 
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH. 
 
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