LI BR ARY OF THE ;j? UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. OR Received Accessions No. , isyra SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY: SHOWING THE ULTIMATE SOCIAL AND SCIENTIFIC OUTCOME OF ORIGINAL CHRISTIANITY IN ITS CONFLICT WITH SURVIVING ANCIENT HEATHENISM. BY PHILIP C. FEIESE. !> CHICAGO: S. C. GRIGGS & COMPANY, 1890. COPYRIGHT, 1890, BY S. C. GRIGGS AND COMPANY. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE THE SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY, CALLED SEMITIC FROM THE AUTHOR OP ITS GREAT REVIVAL, BEING MAN'S FIRST THOUGHT AS AN ISOLATED PERSON, BEFORE THE INVENTION OF LANGUAGE, AND BEING CONDUCTED BY MEANS OF THE SENSUOUS IDEAS, WAS THE NORMAL, INSTINCTIVE, ORIGI- NAL PHILOSOPHY, _ _ _ _ _ . . 1-35 1. Thought without Language in the Isolated Individual. Philosophy, many systems, begins in childhood with Instinctive Thought, _ .1 2. Instinctive Thought of the unlearned may be Philosophy. The Higher Law, ...._.. 4 3. Revolutions of the Past and of the Future, by Instinctive Thought, _________ 7 4. The means employed by Instinctive Thought are the Sensu- ous Ideas, _________ 8 5. There is but one Philosophy, the Doctrine of the King- dom of God, the Semitic Philosophy, 9 6. Thought before Language in the Isolated Individual, . 12 7. Conservative Analysis : of Consciousness, _ . . _ 12 8. Conservative Analysis : of the action of Man's spirit, _ . 16 9. Conservative Analysis : of Man's body, . - 17 10. The Sensuous Ideas, _..... 20 11. The Imaginative Ideas, ...._._ 20 12. Enumeration of the Modifications of Speculative and Prac- tical Action, ._ 22 13. Feeling, __________ 23 14. Use of the representative Sensuous Ideas, without Lan- guage, 23 ill iv CONTENTS. 15. We know things as they are, ._.__. 30 16. A universal concrete notion, ______ 32 17. It alternates in its analysis with its artificial synthesis, and furnishes the whole domain of Philosophy, . . .33 CHAPTER II. MAN'S ORIGINAL PHILOSOPHY, OR FIRST THOUGHT, WHEN IN CONSCIOUS RELATION TO OTHER SPIRITS, FIRST, WITHOUT LANGUAGE, IN NATURAL SOCIETY, THEN WITH LANGUAGE, IN ARTIFICIAL SOCIETY, WAS AT FIRST IN BOTH CASES NORMAL ; UNTIL ANCIENT ARTIFICIAL SOCIETY, BY THE LAPSE OF MAN'S THOUGHT THROUGH THE ABUSE OF LANGUAGE INTO IDOLATRY AND BY THE REDUCTION OF HIS PRACTICAL ACTION THROUGH IDOLATRY INTO CRIME, BECAME, AS THE UNION OF IDOLATRY AND CRIME, AB- NORMAL, AND WAS CALLED ANCIENT HEATHENISM, _ 35-64 18. Man, still without Language, in conscious relations to other spirits, sees moving, material, outward objects, _ _ 35 19. Organic World, Inorganic World, . _ . . .36 20. One Superior Spirit, 37 21. Practical action, nourishment of the body, _ . _ 38 22. Association with fellow-men for this purpose, _ _ .40 23. Man cooks his food, and thereby observes Artificial as well as Natural Qualities of Matter, _ _ _ _ .41 24. Before treating of the uses of Language in Society, some- thing of the nature of Language is here anticipated, to explain the Sensuous Ideas. Language externalizes the Sensuous Ideas, _ 42 25. Space, Time, Gravitation, . . . . .43 26. Mysteries created by Science, ..____ 44 27. Faith may be acquired without Language, _ _ .45 28. Primitive Natural Society without Language, Artificial Society with Language, ______ 46 29. Natural Society, the Family, associated by the original Social Contract between God and Man, . _ - 46 30. Moral obligation from Man's relations to plant life and animal life, 47 CONTENTS. V 31. In Human Society the moral obligations of Man to Man arise under the original and continuing Social Contract, _ 49 32. The five elementary Social Activities, Society an Integral Whole. Natural Society Undenominational, based on the First Principle, cannot be historically traced in its development by Language into Artificial Society. Nor can the origin of Language be traced in history, _ .50 33. Language, a system of externalized Sensuous Ideas, was probably suggested by Prayer. Superiority of the Sen- suous Ideas, 53 34. Moral Evil arose from Idolatry, and Idolatry, from the abuse of Language, _______ 55 35. The absolute sway of Idolatry over Ancient Society, result- ing in Despotism, Sacerdotalism, Offensive War, and Slavery, 57 CHAPTER III. THE DOCTRINE AND THE PRACTICE OF THE KING- DOM OF GOD, BEING THE REVIVAL BY JESUS OF NORMAL ARTIFICIAL SOCIETY FROM ANCIENT HEATHEN- ISM BY MEANS OF THE REVIVAL OF THE SPECULATIVE SIDE, AND THE CONSEQUENT REVIVAL OF THE PRACTICAL SIDE OF THE ORIGINAL OR SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY, _ 65-98 36. Normal Artificial Society revived in Modern Civilization, or Christianity, from Ancient Heathenism, which was universal, at the birth of Jesus, as Orientalism, or Des- potism with Idolatry, Polytheistic and Monotheistic, the latter among the Jews, ______ 65 37. It was necessary that the Reformer of Polytheistic Idolatry should be a Jew, ________ 68 38. Jesus of Nazareth, as a Jew, began at his home among Jews his reform movement, ______ 70 39. He summed his doctrine in the formula " Kingdom of God," expounded it by oral speech, addressed to the Common People and his Disciples, and left nothing in writing, thus showing his distrust of Written Language, . .70 40. Exposition of the formula " Kingdom of God," and its two terms, "Kingdom "and "God," - 71 VI CONTENTS. 41. Summary of the meaning of this formula. On its specula- tive side, it is the Semitic Philosophy. On its practical side, it is the Organization, or practical Constitution of Normal Artificial Society, ._._.. 76 42. The primary speculative and practical activities of Man are derived from the First Principle. Corresponding to them are the five universal associations, or Integral Organs of Society, _______ 77 43. The Undenominational Association of Jesus with his Dis- ciples was the first typical Christian Community, _ .79 44. Representation was almost the only development of early Christianity, _ _ 82 45. The adoption of Sacerdotalism and Despotism by the Chris- tian Community, about the beginning of the third century, 83 46. The compromise with Constantine, resulting in the Nicene creed of impure Monotheism, _ _ _ _ _ 84 47. The Christian Sacerdotal Machine, and the Christian Mili- tary Machine, or Government, _ _ _ _ _ 86 48. The inward development of Christianity, its popular tradi- tion, _____-_-_- 87 49. The Sacerdotal Order subordinated the popular tradition to their Oriental dogmas, 89 50. After the lapse of sixteen hundred years, it is difficult to assign the motives of those engaged in the movement or Revolution of the Sacerdotal Order. The Inquisition, _ 89 51. The State's complicity with the Inquisition of the Church, 91 52. Oriental maxims of Conquest and of Oppression adopted by the Military Governments of Europe, . _ _ .92 53. The Christian Community inaugurated by Jesus relapsed into modern forms of Ancient Heathenism, _ _ _ 92 54. It also developed into forms of Modern Civilization in the Republic of Letters and Art, and the Republic of In- dustry, _ 92 55. Conflict between the Sacerdotal Order and the State for Mastery, 95 56. There is for Man a controlling and attracting Unity, and a consequent Simplicity in his View of the Universe, one source of Normal Action, one cause of Moral Evil, one Normal Order of Society, the description of which must be the Ideal Social Constitution, _ _ _ . .95 CONTENTS. Vll CHAPTER IV. THE IDEAL WRITTEN SOCIAL CONSTITUTION, BEING A DEVELOPMENT OF THE REVIVED, PREDOMINANTLY SPECU- LATIVE SOCIAL SIDE OF THE SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY, 99-149 57. The Artificial Constitution of the "Kingdom of God," as Normal Society, or Modern Civilization, _ _ .99 58. Article I. The common features of all the Integral Organs of Society, . . _ . . _ . . . 100 59. Article II. The Republic, or Integral Organ, of Letters and Art, 105 60. Article III. The Republic, or Integral Organ, of the Church, _ 109 61. Article IV. The Republic, or Integral Organ, of Industry, 115 62. Article V. The Republic, or Integral Organ, of Public Charity, ......... 125 63. Article VI. The Republic, or Integral Organ, of Govern- ment, with its Four Partial Organs ; namely, its Political Parties, its Regular Legislature, its Body of Executive Officers, and its Legal Profession, _ 128 64. The Government's Political Parties are Honorable Associ- ations of the People, .131 65. The Government's Regular, or Denominational Legislature, 134 66. The Government's Body of Executive Officers, . . 135 67. The Government's Legal Profession, with its Judicial and its Practicing Branches, 139 68. The Government's extraordinary, general or local, Unde- nominational, Representative Convention, for exercising the People's reserved Powers, whether Legislative, Execu- tive, or Judicial, as required by the occasion, _ . 146 CHAPTER V. THE GENERAL SOCIAL REFORMATION, AS THE REVIVED, PREDOMINANTLY PRACTICAL, SOCIAL SlDE OF THE SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY, AND CALLED PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY, OR DEVELOPED MODERN CIVILIZATION, ATTAINABLE BY ALL MONOTHEISTIC RACES AND NATIONS, ... 150-210 Vlll CONTENTS. 69. Semitic Philosophy, an exposition of the Kingdom of God, as a reality, a fact, _______ 150 70. The relation of man's spirit to his body, is used to explain the relation of God to the whole Inorganic world, _ _ 151 71. The Kingdom of God abstractly and concretely regarded, _ 152 72. The action of spirit, being Integral, frames man's body as a conductor of spiritual action, and as an instrument, _ 154 73. Normal association of all men with God, Social Contract, Social Organization, _______ 155 74. General View of the errors and irregularities in each of the Integral Organs that hinder its Normal action, _ _ 156 75. A General Reformation of Society, with Reform of the Reformers, must be effected by a competent knowledge of the First Principle, _______ 159 76. The shortcoming of the Republic of Letters and Art in apprehending and teaching the First Principle, is its entertainment of Oriental false so-called science, _ _ 163 77. The most prominent practical error of the Republic of the Church, is its failure to adopt a Normal Organization, and its consequent control by an Abnormal Ecclesiastical Ring, .168 78. The greatest practical error of the Republic of Industry is its failure to secure, as a whole, a separate and independ- ent Industrial Organization ; a failure resulting in general Industrial Anarchy and War, 175 79. The most serious practical error of the Republic of Charity is likewise its failure to secure a separate and independent Charitable Organization ; a failure that accounts for the want of concentration and of energy in its charitable efforts, 181 80. The practical error of faulty Organization prevails not only in the Republic of Government as a whole ; but also in each of its Partial Organs, and in its extraordinary Un- denominational Governmental Conventions, _ 187 81. In the Political Parties the want of efficient Normal Organ- ization prevails, along with Abnormal, non-representative Rings, _ 188 82. The Governmental Legislature, virtually composed of Com- mittees elected by the Political Parties, fails to carry out the Principle of Home Rule in many countries, _ _ 197 CONTENTS. IX 83. The Body of Executive Officers in the Civil Service, the Military Service, and the Naval Service, should have their appointments dependent on the same kind of exam- ination, respectively, with the same tenure of office, and privilege of promotion, ______ 201 84. The Legal Profession fails to attain its proper degree of influence and of usefulness, owing to its defective Organ- ization, which does not include, as it should, all its mem- bers of all its classes, combined by Representation in National, International, and, in time, Interrace, Associa- tions or Guilds, _ 202 85. The Government's Undenominational Organization, by rep- resentative Conventions, called to exercise the Reserved Sovereign Powers of the People, is defective, owing to the absence in it of a systematic localization; so that it may be called into action in a regular and orderly way, according to the Principle of Home Rule, in large or small Govern- mental districts, according to the sphere in which its action is properly required, 207 CHAPTER VI. CONCLUSION. THE SPECIAL DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY OF REALIZING THE NEEDED GENERAL SOCIAL REFORMATION, AND THEIR REMEDIES; THESE REMEDIES BEING SUMMED IN THE PURSUIT OF THE FlRST PRINCIPLE OF THE SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY, _ _ _ _ _ _ . 211-246 86. The logical effect of a Revival of the Semitic Philosophy, will ultimate in a general Social Reformation, . _ .211 87. Three fundamental difficulties in the way, _ _ _ 212 88. The first difficulty is the prevailing Monotheistic Idolatry, 213 89. The second difficulty is the Abuse of the Productions of the Press, 214 90. The third difficulty is the undue respect paid to our ances- tors and predecessors, in handling their errors, _ .217 91. Untenable Mediaeval notions of the Hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, regarding religious instruction in the Public Schools, . 220 X CONTENTS. 92. Obsolete ancient notions of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, respecting the Temporal Power and the Ecclesiastical Government of that Hierarchy, in opposition to the Civil Representative Democracy of the American People, . 222 93. 'The Industrial War now prevailing, and inaugurated by the erroneous measures and practices of former generations, can be settled by a general Industrial Peace, if those ancient errors are disregarded, _____ 229 94. The measure granting Suffrage to the Negroes in the coun- try of the Whites, is as plain a violation of the Para- mount Interrace Law, which assigns to each Race a separate country, as was the forcible deportation of the Negroes from their native country in Central Africa; and the proper redress for both violations of that Law is to return the Negroes to their native country in Africa by the Whites; by whom the wrong in both cases was com- mitted, 231 95. One-sided views will be replaced by liberal culture and advancing Civilization of all the Races through the steady pursuit of the First Principle of the Semitic Philosophy, 243 INTRODUCTION. Semitic Philosophy is the doctrine of the King- dom of God, as it was first, under circumstances of very great difficulty, briefly proclaimed, and as it is capable of unlimited development. It is a system of principles, of first truths, based on patent facts of the universe, and couched in a brief formula. The fact that its author did not write it down in a book, suggests that he did not regard it as altogether beholden, for its preservation or for its development, to elaborate written forms of human language, or to any rigid verbal methods. The inference, indeed, is clear, that he relied, for the extension and propagation of his doctrine, on something entirely different from words. That there is, and always has been, another, though always much neglected, vehicle of thought, an internal instrument, altogether diverse from spoken or written words, is for every person that reflects a moment upon the process that, when he thinks, takes place within him, a most palpable truth. When he thinks of an object, or group of objects, not present, he sees within him something that represents it; and which, when the object is a physical one, that he has before observed, and when its representation is vivid, he Xll IKTEODUCTION. clearly perceives not to be either a word or a group of words, but an apparently distinct image of it, which, if he were not aware that the object was not present, he could not distinguish from the object itself. Now, the thing that vividly represents in thought an absent object, and that seems its image, may be called its sensuous idea. The nature of the sensuous ideas and their uses deserve attention. They can be proved to be material; to be organic parts of man's body, located, probably, in the brain; constructed like the rest of the body, by man's spirit; and marked with significant signs by forces rayed upon them, through the senses, from out- ward objects. It is they that immediately represent to man's spirit, outward objects, whether absent or present. Even words, oral or written, as outward ideas or representations of objects, are represented by the inward sensuous ideas, before they can be known. The thought carried on by means of sensuous ideas, without words, is instinctive. Sometimes, it is so rapid that its separate steps cannot be remembered, but only its result; and its process is virtually uncon- scious. At other times its steps are deliberate and per- fectly conscious. The advantage of instinctive thought, on account of its vividness and rapidity, over thought conducted by means of words, is manifested by its almost exclusive use in the common affairs of daily life. Its superiority is equally obvious in the con- structions of the highest science, by means of the *n nwT-rT ""^v UNIVERSITY sensuous ideas resulting from careful o experiments. Without impugning the proper advantages of lan- guage for recording and communicating truth, the appropriate adaptation of instinctive thought for inves- tigating, exploring, methodizing, building up, and developing an embryonic system of social doctrine, as was that of the Kingdom of God when first pro- claimed, embracing by implication all liberal culture, and including philosophy, the special sciences, and the practical disciplines of religion, industry, charity and government, is unquestionable. Committed to the keeping of mere language, the doctrine of the Kingdom of God would have come down to us as a dogmatic, illiberal, contracted, dwarfed, and stunted abortion. But faithfully and generously confided, as the "comforter" of mankind, to the instinctive thought of the learned and the unlearned alike, it has been not only preserved, but cherished and developed, by the study of learned scholars, and by the tradition of the unlearned masses of the people; until it has grown from the tenets of a small and despised sect, to become the rule and the ideal, not only of modern civilization, but, also, of that more perfect universal, Interrace society which modern civilization, by proving the increasing capacity of the masses of the people for liberal culture, clearly foreshadows. Combinations of true sensuous ideas revealed in sudden glory, like constellations and galaxies of distant XIV INTRODUCTION. stars, shining forth in the night, and skilfully sug- gested by Jesus, represented truths to the spirit of man which could not in his time be fully interpreted by the heathen words then current, and as then under- stood. For the languages known to the circle in which Jesus personally moved were imperfect and undeveloped; and in that circle little cultivation of those languages prevailed. It would have been neces- sary to invent a body of new technical terms, that is a new and extremely difficult language beyond the easy comprehension of the common people' to express at large and in an intelligible way the newly proclaimed truth of the Kingdom of God. Since that time new meaning has been infused into modern language, which has become reconstructed in new tongues and dialects, and has now in its various modifications, in Christian nations, become a better vehicle of Christian thought. But, if Jesus had attempted to write his doctrine in any of the imperfect languages of his day, it would have been necessarily liable to gross misinterpretation. By not writing his doctrine, he has referred its keep- ing to the sensuous ideas, where it always was, and where, in its original purity and truth, it always will be, found by earnest searchers with the instruments of deliberate instinctive thought. Many of the so-called religious dogmas of the day are linguistic formulations, couched in language that preserves its heathen implications, and which, therefore, INTKODUCTIOtf. XV fails to fully express them in a Christian sense; al- though they were first suggested, perhaps, by deep, far away, indistinctly perceived truth. By treating in the light of instinctive thought, and by means of the sensuous ideas, what we have called the Semitic philosophy as the doctrine of the Kingdom of God, this philosophy can be carried back, before the origin of language, and, therefore, independently of it, to the primeval man, as well as carried forward to that ultimate consummation of perfect universal society, which is the ideal goal of all reform, and in which all merely human language must give place to other purely spiritual modes of intercourse. The lifegiving, energizing, and developing influence of instinctive, or free, thought upon the inward growth and the outward extension of the doctrine of the King- dom of God, can then be contrasted with the deadening obstruction fastened upon its vital functions by the cumbrous load of merely verbal, and arbitrary symbols, creeds, dogmas, canons, and decrees, that in some quar- ters have hindered, and in others have totally stopped its progress, and have turned it backwards towards the errors of ancient heathenism. No form of words can fully express, although it may indicate, a principle, far less a system or doctrine of principles. A principle can only be reached, by means of the sensuous ideas, in free or instinctive thought. Words, like a boat, may conduct us to the continent of truth; but, if we would explore the continent, we XVI INTRODUCTION. must leave the boat behind us, and follow whither our inward guides, the faithful, unerring sensuous ideas, lead. We only go back to our boat when we wish to report our discoveries to those we left behind. P. C. F. BALTIMORE, January 4, 1890. CHAPTER I. THE Semitic Philosophy, so called from the race of the author of its great revival, is the Christian doctrine of the Kingdom of God. It was man's first thought, as an isolated person, before the invention of language, and being conducted by means of the sensuous ideas before its revival, it was the instinctive and normal original philosophy. 1. To avoid any misconception from the name of the Semitic Philosophy, and from its relation to the doc- trine of the Kingdom of God, it seems necessary to make two preliminary remarks. In the first place, it should be said that the Semitic Philosophy, like the doctrine of the Kingdom of God, with which, in its developed sense, it is virtually synonymous, does not propose to enounce the principles of the science of religion only, but of all the sciences, and especially of all social science; deriving all principles from its one universal First Principle. In the second place, it is proper to say, that the Semitic Philos- ophy, while based on instinctive, or free, thought, and departing from some of the verbiage of prevailing systems, and particularly eschewing the trammels of obsolete, ancient, and arbitrary verbal maxims, creeds and dogmas, does not, in putting forth its views with the perfect freedom that belongs to truth, "come to destroy the law;" but "to 2 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. fulfil" in every jot and tittle the Higher Law of God; for with this law must all true philosophy agree. There are many interesting and important systems of philosophy. They all propose, in avoiding the details of the special sciences, while having a tacit reference to them all, to give general views and explanations respecting the nature of man, and both of the material universe, and of the society, in which he is placed. Those systems which recognize God and his true relations to man, include in this society, expressly or by implication, the superior and presiding spirit of the one God. These systems have been composed at different and widely separated periods; some being very ancient, and others quite modern. All have much in common; but while each gives a condensed epitome of the highest cul- ture of the times in which its author wrote, or verbally expounded his doctrine, they are said, upon the whole, in combining ancient wisdom with modern improvements, to exhibit a decided progress. A new system of philosophy, therefore, cannot now be made entirely new, without culpably disregarding the merits of the old. But, if it eliminates from the sys- tems that have preceded it some important error, or adds to these systems some hitherto neglected weighty truths, it may in these respects, without presumptuously contending for the glory of a brilliant creation of genius, make a modest claim to attention on the ground of nov- elty. It is also possible, as will now be attempted, by disregarding the verbiage of prevailing systems, to ascend, by instinctive thought, to the simple philosophy of pri- meval man. SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. Philosophy has been called the science of sciences, the science of knowledge, the science of being, the science of principles, the science of the universal, the study of the cosmos; and, in fact, it is all of these. For it is an inte- gral discipline, and each of its functions involves in its exercise all the rest; while each of these definitions merely brings one of its functions into prominence. Viewed as a seeking after the universal, it begins in childhood; for the child is ever making wider and wider classes of the things surrounding it, and higher and higher generalizations; investigating with curiosity the part of the universe within its reach, and seeking to com- prehend its significance, and to utilize it for realizing its practical schemes. Indeed, the system of the kindergarten, as a method of primary education, is profoundly philosophical in rec- ognizing and developing the surprising fund of thought without language, or the instinctive thought, exhibited by the young child before it has learned the language to express it; yet which is strictly carried on, as will be explained, by means of the sensuous ideas; and which, if expressed in learned language, would well deserve the name of philosophy. For the instinctive thought of the child is constantly reaching after the universal. A lower, but still a remarkable, degree of reasoning, ' without language, is shown by many wild and domestic animals, and by insects, which exhibit instinctive thought in traces of foresight, prudence, mechanical skill, and industrial combination, in their work. But not only in children and animals does instinctive thought take place in the absence of language. It is 4 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. a remarkable fact that the greater part of the reasoning performed by all grown men, learned and unlearned alike, perhaps ninety-nine hundredths of it, is carried on instinctively, without the use of language. This fact, on reflection, is as evident as it is important; plainly dis- closing philosophy at work in a new and unexpected field. 2. Indeed, it cannot be doubted, that . a large por- tion of the instinctive thought, as well of the unlearned masses as of the learned few, is true philosophy, or gen- eral reasoning based upon the highest universal princi- ples. Many instances can be given in which a universal principle announced by some scholar from his study, or by some man of business to his associates, has been taken up by those that heard it, and spread over a nation, over a continent, and over the whole civilized world with some help, indeed, of language and of the press, as well as with some opposition from them but with a speed that no such help can explain. For although the spoken word and the press can circulate the statement or formula of a principle far and wide, with some of the reasoning calcu- lated to enforce its acceptance, experience proves that at first they will find only " a paucity" of hearers and read- ers. A striking formula in which the principle is expressed may be remembered; but it is the afterthought, the instinctive free thought, of the people in silence, in solitude, or at their work, that collects from far and near and applies those arguments and motives from every source, that support the principle and make it a guiding and con- trolling popular force. For instance, a distinguished lawyer once asserted that SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 5 there is "a higher law than the Constitution." The expression, bearing on the questions and discussions that were agitating the people, attracted attention, and seemed almost immediately to command conviction and the support of millions. But before the principle in- volved could be rationally accepted, there was required a comparatively long train of reasoning of reasoning opposed to the hereditary sentiments and maxims of the people, coming down from past generations, and urged by trusted and patriotic men of gigantic intellect as Daniel Webster, who had gained immortal glory by defending the Constitution against another line of attack. The reasoning of the people in their afterthought on this subject was necessarily, in most cases, instinctive. The principle claimed to be the higher law, was the right of personal liberty, which was instinctively or intu- itively seen to be a law of nature, and as such to be a law of God, and was therefore concluded to be para- mount over the Constitution, which is positive law, and as such is made by man a conclusion intuitively and instinctively reached in opposition to the tons of legal reports and legal text-books yearly scattered over the country, to the great mass of the current literature, and probably to the majority of sermons at that time preached. The instinctive nature of the reasoning which impelled the movement of the people in favor of the higher law, will be most clearly apprehended, as well as its force, from the rapidity and universality of its action. If this movement is traced from its defensive position in the comparatively small body of its early adherents, the Abolition party, when they united with their fellow 6 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. citizens, who had then no sympathy with this movement,, in the Northern, the Western and the Border states, to resist the actual revolution and civil war that chiefly aimed to dissolve the union of the United States and to seize a part of its territory, it will be evident that, in the midst of this revolution and civil war, a sudden counter revolution against slavery, and in favor of the higher law, and inaugurated by the Proclamation of Emancipa- tion, swept over the whole country. This counter revolution changed the issues of the war. The General Government reluctantly adopted the views of the Abolitionists as a war measure. For it was evident, that if slavery could be abolished, there would be no longer any motive for dissolving the "Union, or for dividing the common country of the States. Both sides acknowledged that the new issue of the abolition of slavery, in accordance with the higher law, took prece- dence over the first issues of the war, and must be set- tled first. Battles were fought after the new issue was made up; but the decisive battle, the real tug of war, was on the field of reason. The instinctive thought of the people was set to work, and through its electric action the dark cloud of slavery disappeared from the political horizon, and left "not a rack behind." The force of the instinctive thought of the people was demonstrated by the fact that the whole people, the masses as well as the highly educated classes, in the South and in the North, came at once to the same con- clusion, and acquiesced in it without reserve; namely, that slavery, notwithstanding all the positive laws and SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 7 judicial decisions made in favor of it, was illegal as well as immoral, being a violation of the paramount higher law; and that, as it could not be justified, it could not be defended. If it be said that the rapid spread and the ultimate success of the principle of the higher law was due to military force, and to the victory of the supporters of that doctrine on the field of battle, the answer is that force, although it may put down outward opposition and compel outward conformity, cannot produce conviction. The practice of slavery was doubtless, in a great meas- ure, suppressed by military force; but the sincere aban- donment of the doctrine of slavery, and the adoption of the higher law, could not be effected by force, and must have been caused by reasoning; and that reasoning, spreading in so short a time its legitimate logical conclu- sion from a few Abolitionists to the general body of the people, must have been instinctive. 3. Similarly, there have been other revolutions, the French Revolution, the American Revolution, the English Revolution; and before these, the religious revo- lutions called the conversions of the Saxons, Prussians, Russians and some other European nations to Chris- tianity, and the revolutionary spread of Mohamme- danism, in all of which movements force was used to overthrow and suppress ancient practices; while the ultimate, peaceful and virtually unanimous conformity of the masses of the people to the new doctrines can only be explained as the result of instinctive reasoning. So in the Middle Ages, by the same reasoning, and not by learned discussions and treatises, was established in the 8 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. masses the principle of the separate organization of industry, leading to the erection of free cities and to the limitation of the monarchical governments of Europe, by means of organized trade guilds. But instinctive thought is interesting, not only for what it has accomplished in the past, but also for what it is able and will be called on, to do in the future. There are impending movements, peaceful revolutions, practical social reforms, both in primary and in liberal public education, in the general Church, in the organi- zation of industry, in the system of public charity, and in the simplification and organization of the various branches of government, which must be first fully thought out, and then worked out, by the masses of the people; and which are so vast in their scope, and so multitudinous in their details, that they can only be fully thought out instinctively. Formal dogmatic methods would be far too narrow, and far too slow. But, when the fundamental principle of each needed social reform is once clearly stated, then, with whatever aid the common fund of language can afford for consultation and comparison of views, and with occasional light from some learned thinker, the masses of the people will be responsible for carrying the principle out to its full practical realization in a general advance of modern civilization, under the guidance of instinctive reasoning. 4. It is highly important, therefore, to examine the nature of instinctive thought, and for this purpose to consider the means it employs. These may be called the sensuous ideas. SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 9 They enable man, without language, to discover the first of all principles, and under its guidance to carry on instinctively the most important and complicated train of reasoning. Their examination will lead us up to that first principle, from which all the derivative principles of speculative and of practical action can be deduced; and which is the basis of that first covenant of God with man, which is the original and continuing social con- tract, the fundamental unwritten constitution of soci- ety: the principle, therefore, that must underlie all philosophy. That which will appear to be most novel in the system of philosophy now proposed, will be that it pays more attention than other systems to the instinctive action of man, both practical and in thought. 5. There is, in fact, but one philosophy. It is a perfect, unwritten, instinctive, predominantly specula- tive ideal. It is the Knowledge of God, involving all truth and goodness, and written, as the prophet says, on man's heart. It rests on the first implied covenant of God with man, the promised uniformity of the uni- formities of God's action, or of the laws of nature; that uniformity which is the highest law of the king- dom of God, and is the basis of Christianity, of modern civilization; the first principle of all science and of all practice. Many systems of philosophy, and, to represent their peculiar doctrines, respectively, many so-called funda- mental questions, have been proposed. But all the fund- amental questions of true philosophy form one univer- sal, integral, or organic question. The universal and at 10 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. the same time integral or organic question of all philos- ophy is: How is man related to the Kingdom of God, as the rational system of the universe? It involves the problem of rationally conducting man's normal, specu- lative and practical life, whether instinctive or fully con- scious, under the conditions presented by the actual universe. The formula, Kingdom of God, implies, and it has always been regarded as implying a philosophy, which may be expanded into a compact, consistent statement of the highest principles or laws of the spiritual and mate- rial universe, as its fundamental regulative constitution; this being the sum of the laws of nature or of God; all of which may be grasped into the one first principle as the uniformity of the uniformities of God's action. Hence, this formula necessarily implies, on the one hand, a rational, organic, or integral system of thought; which explains, on the other hand, the universe as a rational organism of being, including society as an organic asso- ciation, under the social contract of all men with God. The philosophy of the formula, Kingdom of God, may be called the Semitic Christian philosophy, in dis- tinction from the ancient philosophies of Greece and Rome and of the Orient, and from the modern out- growths of those antiquated roots. It is instinctive as well as implied, and is, therefore, unwritten, being thereby distinguished from all other systems of philos- ophy. All its principles were proclaimed in the one first principle implied in the formula, Kingdom of God; and were then preserved by popular tradition in the language of the common sense and public opinion of modern SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 11 civilization; and were also constantly confirmed, inde- pendently of language, by the mechanism of unspoken instinctive thought, used, as will be explained, by the learned and the unlearned alike. It must, as all philosophy, be a theory both of knowl- edge and of practice, as well as an inquiry into the nature of things. We must enter upon philosophy by the way of thought, and then through thjught we shall learn something of being. Thought and being are intimately connected as cause and effect; and hence they cannot be identical. We know being as the predominant cause of our thought, and our thought as the predominant effect of being on our spirit. We begin to philosophize by investigating the process of conscious thought, because the process of instinctive thought is in general partly unconscious; and it cannot, therefore, be fully inspected at the very time when it takes place; but, like all unconscious action, it can be proved afterwards by circumstantial evidence. In the first place, man's conscious thought performed without language, will be examined in man, both as an isolated individual, and in primitive or natural society, as the associate of God and of his fellow-men, whom that thought makes known to him. Afterwards, the use of language, and the danger of its abuse, in his thought, will be shown. In fact, before language there was thought. For lan- guage is proved, by the vast variety of the languages always found in the world, to be the invention of man ; and thought was evidently necessary to suggest, guide, 1 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. and develop man's action in the formation of language. The greater part of the thought that prevailed before language, was necessarily instinctive ; and it is the un- questionable fact, that instinctive thought, owing to its superior speed and certainty, has remained, after the invention of language, the larger portion of the thought which both the learned and the unlearned now carry on. It will be seen, on investigation, that the same means or instruments that are employed in instinctive thought, are also used in all the conscious thought performed without language. Thought, with its connected practical action, will be examined (I.) in the isolated individual without language; (II.) m man connected with other living beings, plant or animal, human or divine, without language, in natural society; and (III.) in artificial society, with language. 6. I. The investigation of conscious thought in the assumed isolated individual without language, who may represent the primeval man, may be considered as beginning either at the first dawn of consciousness in the life of infancy, or on the awaking of the individual in mature life from sleep. The first steps of the investiga- tion, in both cases, must be virtually the same ; the only difference being that in infancy they succeed each other much more slowly. 7. In both cases consciousness is preceded by a state of unconsciousness more or less complete ; and this state of unconsciousness is proved, in both cases, by cir- cumstantial evidence, that will be mentioned hereafter, to have been one of extremely varied, perfectly accurate, practical instinctive action. SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 13 The awaking of consciousness from unconsciousness, is the concrete beginning of a section of subsequent con- crete conscious life ; and every such beginning necessarily involves every other beginning that has preceded it, and consequently also its absolute beginning, to the concep- tion of which it is the nearest approach that can be made. For it is self-evident that we cannot conceive either the absolute beginning or the absolute ending of anything. But every concrete beginning is also a concrete ending of what went before; and so a concrete ending is a con- crete beginning of something following, not altogether new. Thus there is an alternation, indefinitely repeated, of man's conscious with his unconscious life, producing a probable immortality, that may be compared to the con- servation of energy, in its alternating forms, in the outward world. Solomon said, " There is nothing new under the sun" in the sense of absolutely new; as every effect must have been involved in its cause. We may extend his remark, if he did not, to regions beyond the earth. For the concrete endings of conscious life on earth must, as causes, result in effects as concrete beginnings, if not on the earth, then in the same universe beyond it. Commencing, now, our investigation at the beginning of man's concrete consciousness, and passing by minor details that belong to psychology, the first step of philo- sophy is the conservative analysis of awaking conscious- ness, displaying for our observation its separate parts, while preserving their normal relations and their organic connections. The difference between a conservative and a destructive analysis of an animal organization, is like that between 14 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. vivisection and butchering. Similarly, in all integral or organic wholes, or things composed of integral or ideal parts, each part pervading the whole and the whole each part; as in spiritual organisms, or in the action of spirit, or of the reason, or of the mind ; while a conservative analysis preserves, in the interaction and articulation of the integral or ideal parts, the integrity and the common life of the whole, a destructive analysis deprives them all of healthy life, by attempting to sever the integral or ideal parts from their natural articulations with each other, as if they were independent and irrespective organs or faculties, and by thus taking away the aid which each, in performing its appropriate action, derives from the others. It is a common, if not a universal error, to apply a destructive analysis to the action of man's spirit, or of the mind. Its reason, understanding, sense, judgment, imagination, memory, will, are cut off and disconnected from each other; and these dissevered members are made to go through spasmodic actions, like the galvanized limbs carved oil from the body of a dead animal. But, as no complete life, either of any spiritual or of any ani- mal organism, can take place without the perfect union and co-operation of all its organic parts, a conservative analysis of it, instead of sundering, will carefully preserve intact, and exhibit in full view, all the connections of its parts and their means of reciprocal interaction. The first operation made by such a conservative analysis upon man's awaking consciousness, is to distin- guish from each other its two main elements, the active subject, or the self, or the spirit of man, and the present inert object of the subject's action. SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 15 Continuing the conservative analysis of consciousness, and omitting for the present unnecessary psychological details, we will find that this analysis must pursue a dif- ferent course in regard to each of the two elements into which consciousness is divided. The first of these elements, the subject, or man's spirit, is an indivisible spiritual unit, the distinguishing attribute of which is its life, or action; and it is to its action, as an integral whole, with integral parts, that the analysis must be applied. The other element of consciousness is man's body, an organic material instrument, the distinguishing attribute of which is its passivity and its inertness; so that its con- servative analysis must distinguish the adaptation of its several articulated organic parts to subserve the various modes of the spirit's action. The body is called material or matter to distinguish it from the spirit; because in their qualities, as has been well observed, they are altogether different from each other, and have no attribute in common. The term spirit will be used instead of the terms subject, mind, or soul, or interchangeably with them, when any one of them is employed to express an indivisible spiritual unit, in direct contrast to a material body. The analysis of the body will be naturally preceded by that of the spirit's action, to which the body as its instru- ment is subservient. For the first conscious relation of the spirit to the body, as manifested in conscious action, is that of the agent to its instrument. Another relation between them, originating in the spirit's unconscious life preceding consciousness, will be mentioned hereafter. 16 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 8. In the conservative analysis of the action of man's spirit, to which we now proceed, the first division of this action is into its two fundamental elements of speculative or cognitive, and practical action ; then each of these may be immediate or mediate; or, again, un- conscious or conscious; or, further, real or imaginative. As the action or life of man's spirit is an integral whole, the parts resulting from its conservative analysis must likewise be integral each pervading the whole, and each interpenetrated by the rest. Every cognitive or speculative act of the spirit, whether immediate or mediate, unconscious or conscious, real or imaginative, is aided by some or all of its modes of practical action; and every practical act of the spirit is guided by one or more of its speculative modes. But, while all the elements of the spirit's action, and all their subordinate modes must co-operate in every act, one of its fundamental elements, in one of its various modes, must in every act predominate. Predominately speculative action, therefore, though called simply specu- lative, is partly practical; and predominately practical action is always partly speculative. The qualities of normal and abnormal, or of good and evil, do not belong to the action of the isolated indi- vidual; and they will only come to be noticed when man is considered in society. Owing to the integral nature of the spirit's action, the unconscious mode of its action must sometimes, to some extent, be simultaneous with, and sometimes almost entirely pass into, its conscious mode. Hence, the term instinctive action will be sometimes used in place of the SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 17 term unconscious action, it being understood that the instinctive action of the spirit is predominately uncon- scious, although it often tends to become, and at times partly, and at other times altogether/ does become, conscious. The instinctive action of the spirit, whether specula- tive or practical, is not observed at the time it takes place, because it is for the most part unconscious; but, when it is practical, it is afterwards proved, by competent conscious circumstantial evidence, to have occurred; and when it is speculative, its results indicate the reasoning that led to them. The circumstantial evidence to prove foregone practical instinctive action, is the effects or changes, of which it must have been the cause. The first conscious speculative action of the spirit, after distinguishing the subject from the object, is its intuition of the facts constituting, as effects, the cir- cumstantial evidence of its preceding unconscious or instinctive practical action. These effects are its body. 9. Man's body is notoriously composed of the mate- rial elements surrounding it, and which he consciously, by eating and drinking, and unconsciously, by breathing, places within it, and thereby in immediate relation to his spirit. When he moves his body, which he knows to be an object, and different in every respect from his spirit, and therefore to be matter, he is conscious that its motion is caused by the immediate practical action of his spirit; and, as soon as he learns that there are other spirits besides himself, he infers, by analogy, that every original motion of matter is caused by the immediate practical action of some spirit. Hence, as by every conscious or 18 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. instinctive movement of his body man demonstrates that within it his spirit, by its instinctive, immediate, practical action, can move, and therefore use, matter, he infers that his spirit, which he thus knows to be a sufficient and present agent, does in fact use the matter within his body for building it up and repairing it. If it can be shown that the sensuous ideas within man, representing outward things to man's spirit, are material, and are organic parts of man's body, it will also follow that they, too, are made by the spirit's instinctive, imme- diate, practical action. It may be observed, in passing, that the ideas here mentioned, and afterwards described, are virtually the same things understood, by the same term, by Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Locke, Hume, Berkeley, Descartes, and others; all of whom, while differing from each other as to the nature and proper use of the ideas, saw them as plainly and used them as habitually, as they saw and used the sun. But no philosopher seems to have been always consistent in his views concerning them. Plato was per- haps the most inconsistent. For, besides giving his well known fanciful and utterly absurd philosophical explanation of the ideas an explanation confuted at the time by Aristotle he has left for universal admiration a poetic figure, which foreshadows, although it only dimly foreshadows, the true representative nature of the sen- suous ideas. He describes a cave, and a man within it, facing its back, and watching the shadows flitting there and cast through its mouth, which is behind him, by passing persons and things of the outward world. But we shall see that the sensuous ideas are more than flitting SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 19 shadows; that a pencil of light from without photographs upon them in the brain the shifting scenes, and writes upon the heart the universal laws, of the outward uni- verse; and that man's spirit within his body, like Plato's watcher in his cave, looks not outward for knowledge of the outer world, but scans its faithful messages imprinted on living tablets within him. That the representative sensuous ideas are material, is a self-evident fact. For they are objects, intuitively seen, and known, by the spirit's immediate speculative action, to possess the primary qualities of matter, espe- cially magnitude; and also color, motion, and relative place. That they are organic parts of the body, follows from the facts that they are within the body, and are, so far as is known, inseparable from it, at least for definite periods of time, and certainly contribute, with the rest of the body, to give the spirit, in all its speculative and practical functions, most important aid. Hence, as parts of the body, they must be made, with the rest of it, by the spirit's immediate practical action. The conservative analysis of man's body, the creature, as we have seen, as well as the instrument, of his spirit, will exhibit it as an organism, or a collective instrument composed of many co-operating parts or organs, and per- fectly adapted to serve and facilitate both the speculative and the practical action, unconscious as well as conscious, of man's spirit. For the explanation of all the modes of the spirit's action, a specification of all the organs or integral parts of its collective instrument, the body, would be neces- sary. But all those organs, chiefly internal, that minister 20 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. to the part of life that is common to man and the lower animals, may be left to physiology. For we are only concerned now with man's higher life as a rational being, and with those of his bodily organs that directly serve it. Of these bodily organs it is only necessary to mention here the outward bodily frame and its outward members, with the five outward senses, and the inward appendages of the latter, the brain and sensuous ideas. 10. Among these bodily organs it is only the sensuous ideas that call for any extended remarks. The outward frame of the body, its outward members, and its outward senses, are sufficiently known to contribute both to the speculative and the practical action of the spirit; and the brain has been proved by specialists to be connected, through the nerves, with the outward senses; and to be the seat- of important action communicated through them from the outward world. The particulars concern- ing the uses of these parts of the body need not detain us. The sensuous ideas having been shown to be inti- mately connected with the spirit's unconscious, or, as we shall now call it, instinctive action, as effects which that action practically causes, they will now be exhibited as the means which it speculatively employs. The use of the sensuous ideas to represent outward things, will be explained, somewhat at large, to be independent of language. 11. Besides the representative sensuous ideas described above, and easily proved, like them, to be material, by exhibiting the primary qualities of matter, the spirit, by its combined speculative and practical action, frames and introduces among them what are known as the SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 21 imaginative or fictitious ideas; evidently composed of the same kind of highly plastic matter as the representative ideas, but marked and modeled by the spirit, to serve either as mementos of some broad generalizations or lofty abstractions; or as ideals, schemes, plans, and pro- jects for future realization and execution. The imaginative or fictitious ideas obviously answer, as is well known, a very valuable end both in science and in the fine and useful arts, so that little more need be now said concerning them. It is evident that they do not make their appearance in consciousness until long after the representative sensuous ideas. In the conservative analysis of awaking consciousness, to which we now return, we have advanced to the consid- eration of the representative and the imaginative sensu- ous ideas, viewed as organic parts of the body, and as constructed by the spirit's instinctive, immediate, prac- tical action. Being within the body, and therefore in the immediate presence of the spirit, its immediate spec- ulative action, or intuition, is exerted upon them. This, according to its rapidity, is either instinctive and partly unconscious, or fully and deliberately conscious. In- stinctive speculative action, as we shall presently see, is so very rapid that but few of its steps can be remem- bered. Its results are conscious and are highly import- ant; but the instinctive process, by which they are reached, can only be apprehended and described in general, and without detailing its separate stages. We are first concerned to know what the spirit, in its intuitive conscious thought, observes in the sensuous ideas; and what use, in its several modes of speculative 22 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. and practical action, it makes of them, without lan- guage, and as an isolated individual. 12. It seems proper, however, before describing what the spirit of man observes in the sensuous ideas, and before stating, in general, the use that it makes of them, without language, in its speculative and practical action, as an isolated individual, to enumerate the various mod- ifications, of speculative and practical action; and to observe that in all these modifications, except for the purpose of communicating thought, the use of the sensu- ous ideas without language will suffice. In this way, the true value of language will be noticed and enhanced, by recognizing that its proper sphere of usefulness is to communicate, record, disseminate, and preserve thought; thereby making the use of thought joint, and thus pro- moting associations for joint practical action; while all the processes of individual or original thought, and of individual practical action, can be carried on without language, by means of sensuous ideas alone. Now, while the spirit's speculative action, as a whole, is designated as mind, or intellect, or understanding, or speculative reason, the chief modifications of its indi- vidual, or original speculative action, are called sensa- tion, sense, intuition, presentation, representation, know- ing, thinking, judgment, comparison, classification, generalization, notion, concept, inference, induction, deduction, imagination, memory, and speculative faith; and while the spirit's practical action, as a whole, is called the practical reason, the chief modifications of its original or individual practical action, are named will, desire, intention, purpose, planning, scheming, expec- SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 23 tation, hope, passion, anger, and practical faith. It must always, however, be borne in mind, that, owing to the integral nature of the spirit's action, every exer- cise of its speculative mode of action is combined with some mode of its practical action, and every exercise of its practical action, with some mode of its speculative action. But, in presenting a general view of the spirit's speculative and practical action, as an integral whole, it is not necessary to enter upon a strict discrimination of the multitude of terms used to express its parts. 13. It should also be observed here, that feeling, or emotion, although a highly important incident of action, is not a distinct and independent mode of action, between the speculative and the practical modes; but is a mark or attribute, pleasurable or painful, belonging to various modes of practical and speculative action, serving as an instinctive aesthetic guide for their exercise, though always subordinate to the reason, and to faith. For although instinct is undeveloped reason, it shows its inferiority when it conflicts with reason, which is fully developed instinct, and still more when it conflicts with faith, which is fully developed reason. The main cause of the importance of feeling, as we shall see when we pass from the action of the isolated individual to the action of society, is the fact that the same feeling, in a modified degree, results from fictitious or imaginative action as from real action, and from fictitious or imagin- ative ideas, as from real representative sensuous ideas. For this fact is the basis of all the fine arts. 14. We are now prepared to describe what the spirit observes in the representative sensuous ideas, and to 24 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. explain what use, independent of language, it makes of them in thought. They are commonly called images of outward things, but this is a figurative expression. All that the spirit actually sees in the sensuous ideas, overlooking in respect to them as well as the other inward parts of the body the fact that they are matter, are certain marks, impressions, and signs inscribed upon each of them, and altogether, or nearly altogether, dif- ferent upon each. Only a brief experience is necessary to satisfy the spirit that the inscriptions it observes upon the sensu- ous ideas are significant. As a ship is built with a form adapted to traverse the uneven surface of the sea, to ride and breast its rolling waves, so man's body is con- structed with a form suited to travel over the rough surface of the land, and to navigate over it, amidst a throng of fixed and moving solid objects. Thus, the form of the body points to the existence of an outward world beyond it; and accordingly when the body success- ively approaches different outward objects, comes in con- tact with them, or departs from them, and when the spirit observes corresponding changes in the marks upon its sensuous ideas, it associates these changes with related facts in the outward world. Soon, certain marks upon these ideas are associated with the near presence of certain outward objects. Then, some of these outward objects are further identified, as those actually present, by the senses of touch, of smell, of taste, and of hearing, giving corroborating supplementary marks, when the primary or prominent marks proceed from the sense of SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 25 sight; and by the sense of sight, when the primary or prominent marks proceed from the other senses. The marks upon the sensuous ideas may be explained as impressions made upon them by forces rayed or reflected upon them, in lines or undulations, through the several outward senses, from outward objects. Among such forces, are light, heat, electricity. The representative sensuous ideas, with their marks, may be further regarded not only as loosely indicating the presence of their respective outward objects, but also as exact differentials of them, or as indefinitely small aux- iliary magnitudes, precisely representing them all on the same scale; and thus giving to the process both of con- scious and of instinctive thought the certainty and com- bining power of mathematics. Indeed, the differential and integral calculus of the mathematics may be looked upon simply as an instance of success in imitating, by momentarily arresting, correctly observing, and carefully educing into consciousness, and then into verbal and sym- bolic expression, the fleeting and rapid but certain method of instinctive thought. But, while the differentials of mathematics are all pri- marily quantitative, the sensuous ideas are qualitative as well as quantitative differentials; and they are, therefore, far more efficient instruments of thought than the differ- entials of mathematics. The ground of certainty for all thought carried on by means of the sensuous ideas, is the fact that the ratio of every outward object, in virtually the same relative situa- tion, to its sensuous idea, must be the same; for otherwise the sensuous ideas would be delusive. It follows that the 26 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. ratios of outward objects, in virtually the same relative situations, to each other, must be equal to the intuitively seen and known ratios of their respective sensuous ideas. An equation, therefore, between the ratio of two sensuous ideas, and the ratio of their corresponding outward objects these being in the same relative situations forms a proportion, any three terms of which being known involve and imply the knowledge of the fourth term. Man, knowing the sensuous ideas and also their ratios by intuition, and knowing near outward objects also by a confirmatory bodily sense of touch or taste, can com- pare a near outward object thus known, or an object by inference otherwise known, with an unknown object sim- ilarly circumstanced, by regarding their ratio as equal to the intuitively known ratio of their sensuous ideas; thus constituting an equation of two ratios, or a proportion, of which the three known terms render, by legitimate infer- ence, the before unknown fourth term likewise known. In this way, the knowledge of concrete object after object, of concrete group after group to which they belong, and of fact after fact, in the outward world, is added to the sum of experience; and the growing, intu- itively seen, synthesis of the sensuous ideas, gives assur- ance of a corresponding synthesis of the part of the out- ward world which they represent. Great differences of distance and perspective in out- ward objects, and apparent in their ideas, give the basis for a conscious mathematical calculation, in simple cases, to adjust the true outward relations of those objects, by SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. . 27 comparison with other objects; and for an instinctive calculation in cases of great complication. When the perfection and rapidity of man's instinctive action, without the incumbrance of words and of tools, as evidenced by the construction of his body, by his. immediate combined speculative and practical action, is considered, with the fact that the axioms on which the whole system of mathematics is built are few and self- evident; and with the further fact that even every dumb animal habitually puts these axioms in practice in its simplest acts of locomotion, when steering to avoid ob- jects in its way, or to reach distant objects by circuitous routes, or when measuring the distance it can spring on its prey; the resulting conclusion, to say the least, is prob- able, that the isolated individual man does in fact work out in practice by his instinctive action the very compli- cated and very difficult mathematical problems necessary both to triangulate his course in his daily walks, and to measure and compare the mathematical relations of the outward objects by which he is surrounded. Likewise, between sensuous ideas, viewed as qualitative differentials, there may, by analogy, be qualitative ratios, leading to qualitative proportions and conclusions. For example, by observing the ratios between the sensuous idea of a specimen orange, which I have in my hand, and have smelled, and tasted, and the idea of another object hanging 011 a tree, or held in my other hand; and by noticing whether this ratio is one of equality, simi- larity, or great difference, I can infer the same ratio between the orange in my hand and the other object; and, accordingly, that this other object is, or is not, 28 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. another orange, having or not having, the same, or similar, taste, fragrance, and juiciness. Cognition is an integral process of predominantly speculative action or thought. It involves intuition, comparison, judgment and inference, as its modes and factors, all acting successively, though seemingly at the same time, in one indivisible cognitive act; and it is aided in observation and experiment by practical action, when it needs it. For instance, the sensuous ideas are observed by intuition; their ratios are comparisons; the equations of ratios of the sensuous ideas with ratios of their out- ward objects, forming proportions, are judgments; and the conclusion to the fourth term of a proportion from the other three is inference. Cognition may embrace matters of fact, as spirit, life or action, matter, existence, coexistence, sequence, causa- tion, resemblance, difference; and also modes of being, or qualities. Cognition of the sensuous ideas is imme- diate; all other cognition is mediate, by means of them. To conceive an object is to note and group the main or characteristic qualities in its sensuous ideas, and con- sequently in the object itself. Its concept or notion is the sum of these qualities. A general concept or notion is the sum of the qualities common to a group of sensu- ous ideas, and therefore to the outward objects they rep- resent. A category is a universal concept comprising the quality or qualities common to one of the few largest groups into which all thinkable things have been divided. It is a conception of conceptions. The act of forming general conceptions effects the organization, or incorporation, or collection, of the sen- SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 29 suous ideas in groups by the spirit for the further pro- cesses of its thought. It musters and brings together as a whole those which are particularly or nearly related. These general conceptions, which are also notions, may be only used on a single occasion, or they may, if found convenient, be habitually reformed and used; and when they correspond to natural kinds or familiar classes, there is no difficulty in doing so. Categories, therefore, are not " forms of the under- standing," or particular modes, or predetermined results of the spirit's action; but, like other concepts or notions, of which they are only the most general, they are groups of attributes or qualities variously combined in cognition by different philosophers; and they may evidently be formed by instinctive thought without language, as doubtless they are by many of the unlearned, to serve their daily needs of thinking. Cognition, with its notions, concepts, and categories, embracing objects and groups of objects, with their qual- ities, is then extended to the motions of objects; and is applied in all its forms to matters of fact, all of which have some reference, through time, to motion. When we come to consider the practical action that is involved in, and associated with cognition, or speculative action, we will then learn the true nature of qualities, and find that space and time rank first among them, and are not so-called " forms of sense." We will see, as we may now state, by way of anticipation, that all the puali- ties of matter are results of some spirit's action upon it; that all the so-called qualities of spirit, of its life, are modes of its action; that by its action all original motions 30 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. of matter are caused, and that its actions are indicated by these motions. 15. By means of the sensuous ideas, both in instinct- ive and in conscious thought, we know things as they are in themselves. For, in the first place, the different sensuous ideas from the same sense, and from different senses, confirm each other in the knowledge they respect- ively convey; and this knowledge is further aided by the spirit's practical action, as by handling, weighing, and measuring their respective objects; or by analyzing these, or other specimen objects, into their elements. And then, in the next place, for the same reason that the ratios of outward objects to their respective sensuous ideas must, under the same circumstances, be always the same; and that the sensuous ideas by their ratios, therefore, must convey true knowledge in respect to the ratios of the outward objects themselves, the knowledge of outward objects, in other respects, imparted through the sensuous ideas to man's spirit must be true; that is, it must repre- sent the outward objects as they are in themselves. Otherwise, the forces rayed from outward objects upon the sensuous ideas, and marking them to guide in thought the action of man's spirit, through the bodily organiza- tion or mechanism by which it acts, would only serve as a system of delusion, inconsistent with the rational and benevolent order of the universe. Kant says all knowledge is the product of two factors, the knowing subject, and the external world. He omits the third, the true mediating factor, the sensuous ideas. These, in their concreteness and synthesis, furnish the unity of conception, and the general conceptions. SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 31 Phenomena, or perceptions, or presentations, are not an unconnected manifold in experience; because they are conveyed by the sensuous ideas, and the sensuous ideas represent adjacent parts of the universe until they are distinguished from each other by voluntary abstraction, and then each represents a concrete object, or a definite concrete part of an object, or a concrete group of objects; distinguished, but not separated from the general field, or continuum from which it is abstracted; and phenomena are not more manifold than their sensuous ideas. There are no antinomies in instinctive thought, or in the conscious thought that is exclusively guided by the sensuous ideas. For the intimations that come directly from the outward universe to man's sensuous ideas, serve, when carefully apprehended, only to guide, and not to mislead, his thought. When to an observer the sun appears to rise, although it is in fact the horizon, that is sinking below it, the erroneous appearance is occasioned by the observer's omission to consider his own motion as that of the earth on which he is carried; just as a traveler in a railroad car, or in a boat, seems to see the trees, the houses, and the hills rushing towards him, until he re- members that it is he, with the car or the boat on which he is riding, that is rushing past them. The conscious beginning of knowledge, or the awaking of consciousness, as we have traced it to the time when the spirit, attracted and taught by the changing marks in its sensuous ideas, looks out beyond tl^e body, must early have become self-consciousness, as a universal synthesis of cognition; combining in organic union the self and the not-self, a representative and symbolical notion of the 32 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. universe, a notion exceedingly complicated, and there- fore apparently nebulous and confused; but gradually resolved by the spirit's power of attention into a luminous, harmonious, and rational system; an integral or organic whole, of distinct but reciprocally interacting parts, or facts, constituting together the one universal synthetic fact of the universe. 16. In this developed self-consciousness there is a universal conception, a universal concrete notion, of all the sensuous ideas as a whole, and of the universe repre- sented by them, so far as man knows it. This synthetic notion, or conception of the universe, is the objective continuum, or the presentative continuum, of the psycho- logist. It is a permanent background, as it were, for any particular idea, or group of ideas, to which attention is directed. It is a representation of the field or arena on which every action of man is to be performed. In it man can see all the relations of the things he has done, or is doing, or proposes to do. In it he can see all the present, and in the present, all the past as its cause, and all the future as its effect. In it also are found the parts of man's experience already in original, synthetic, close combination, which Kant strove to find, and only failed to see because he applied a destructive analysis instead of a conservative analysis, to man's original, universal, integral, synthetic notion of the universe. This synthetic notion, representing the one universal fact of a universe framed with all knowledge and truth, reflecting and imparting them to man's intelligent inquiry, may be divided by abstraction, analysis, classi- fication, and generalization of its sensuous ideas into SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 33 many separate systems of sensuous ideas, corresponding to the partial facts which they represent, respectively, of concrete outward things; but it will always, by means of these ideas, collectively considered, be reflected again in its concrete form from its original, and return as a whole for the deliberate investigation of conscious and of instinctive thought. When recalled, it always represents and keeps in view the universe as a rational system, or the " kingdom of God." The conservative analysis of this synthetic notion, when aided by outward, practical action, is, both in action and result, scientific observation, experiment, in a word, experience. 17. The conservative analysis of the original synthetic notion of the universe alternates with the artificial syn- thesis, or construction of its parts in thought. Thus, after the synthetic notion of the universe is analyzed, the sensuous ideas composing it are separately reviewed, marshalled, classified, brought under genera and species by the integral action of the spirit; and by their arrange- ment in this way each class, when consciously or instinct- ively perceived and distinguished, is constituted an in- tuitive, conscious, or instinctive, conception or notion. This forming of conceptions by the arrangement of the sensuous ideas into classes, collective bodies, selected masses, may be regarded as the grouping of them for the convenience of simultaneous general views. This pro- ceeding may also be called Induction, when the group or class thus formed is assumed to contain all the individuals that possess the observed common characteristics of the class or group; while Deduction is the process by which any individual recognized as belonging to any group is 34 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. held to possess all the common characteristics of that group; and by which any group noticed as comprised within a larger group, is held to have all the common characteristics of the larger group. Thus, the one integral and universal synthetic notion, or microcosm, reflected from the one integral fact of the universe by means of the sensuous ideas, and representing as well as expressing all the real, both spiritual and mate- rial, constitutes the whole domain of philosophy. In the interpretation of this notion, by means of the first prin- ciple, all philosophy, and all the physical and all the philosophical sciences, metaphysics, logic, psychology, epistemology, ontolgy, cosmology, ethics, theology, will combine to rationally explain the ultimate nature of the universe; and will leave it better understood, in their joint result, as a rational system. CHAPTER II. "IV /TAN'S original philosophy, or first thought, even -"-- after he came into conscious relations with other spirits, first without language in natural society, then with language in artificial society, was instinctive and normal; so, at first, were both natural and artificial society, until ancient artificial society, by the lapse of man's thought, through the abuse of language, into idolatry, and of his practical action, through idolatry into crime, became abnormal as the union of idolatry with crime, and was called ancient heathenism. 18. So far we have considered the spirit of man as an isolated individual. We are now prepared to regard him as he stands in conscious relations with other spirits. We will see that, when he comes to have these conscious relations, he enters upon a higher and wider sphere of speculative and of practical action; and that his practical action affected by his conscious relations with other spirits greatly extends the scope of his speculative action; while this, in turn, advances his practical action in dignity and importance. Now, looking out from his isolated position, by means of his sensuous ideas, upon the outward world around him, and judging, from the motions caused in his body by the immediate action of his spirit, that all original motion is caused by the immediate action of some spirit, 36 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. he sees numerous material moving objects of many differ- ent forms; he observes that each of these objects of a certain form exhibits a somewhat similar series and sys- tem of motions; some of these objects being stationary and rooted in the soil, and displaying their motions in growing, leafing, flowering and fruiting; while others move about from place to place, some on the land, some in the water, and some in the air; each performing the peculiar system of motions belonging to its kind. And he concludes that each of these objects is moved, like his own body, by an individual spirit dwelling within it. Among these moving objects he notices some with forms like his own, performing similar motions, and these objects he infers to be inhabited by spirits like his own spirit, and to be his fellow-men, his equals. The rest, with their various forms, vegetal and animal, and with their diversified systems of motions, he concludes to be inhabited by spirits inferior to himself. 19. Then, grouping the sensuous ideas of all these moving objects, he forms a universal conception of them as the world endowed with spirit, or with life as the living world; and, when he further observes that each of these objects is possessed of members or organs to facilitate its motions or actions, he views this universal conception as that of the organic world. Afterwards, furnished with the universal conception of the organic world, he groups the rest of his sensuous ideas, representing the rest of the outward material universe, into another universal conception, embracing them as signifying the inorganic world. SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 37 Each of these universal conceptions would be a collec- tive sensuous idea; and it could be used with facility in thought, by means of some smaller group, or single sensuous idea, either belonging to it as a remarkable feature, or framed by the imagination, for the purpose of representing it. Indeed, general ideas may be viewed as the solemn dolls and serious playthings of the mind, the happy work of the imagination, relieving the labor of thought; and, while differing probably from each individual, yet performing the same symbolic office for all of a class. 20. Now, contemplating the inorganic world, by means of its conception, or collective idea, as a whole, man perceives in it, too, a general system of motions or laws, or principles, the so-called laws of nature; and, by the analogy of the other systems of motions which he has observed, he is constrained to assign as the cause of the laws of nature one superior spirit, and to regard them as uniformities of his action. Of this superior spirit, called God, man, by means of his sensuous ideas, has the same kind of knowledge that he has of his own spirit. Man knows his own spirit by his predominantly practical action or work, aided by his speculative action or work; both of which, constituting his actual life, he sees, by means of his sensuous ideas, to be realized together in the forms and motions of outward matter; and he concludes from these, as others may also do, what are the true character and attributes of his spirit. In the same way, man infers the being with certainty, and also, though liable to some deception, the probable attri- butes and the apparent character of the spirit of his 38 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. fellow-man. In the same way also, when relying solely on the sensuous ideas, and not misled by the antinomies of language, and in a case where no deception can be presumed, man proves, by a strictly logical demonstra- tion, the being or life, and the true character of the spirit of God, from the general system of the forms and motions, or laws, of the inorganic world; which must necessarily proceed from t he action of spirit, and, owing to their uniformity and vastness, from a single superior spirit; and which must be necessarily designed to effect the very complicated system of useful, and benevolent, and ennobling ends for man's benefit and education, which they actually accomplish. Man infers the omnipresent action of the superior spirit in all parts of the material universe from the simultaneous presence and action of his own spirit in all parts of his body performing thousands of bodily motions at the same moment. 21. Before proceeding further in the investigation of man's speculative action, we will review, to some extent, his conscious as well as instinctive practical action from its concrete beginning in the outward world. Man's early individual practical life, after his birth into the outward world, is consciously as well as instinctively devoted, in the first place, to the nourishment, shelter, and defense of his body. In these operations he experi- ences sometimes aid, sometimes opposition, from the spirits or lives of plants, of animals, and of his fellow- men, all engaged in caring for their own bodies; while a bountiful supply of materials for their construction is provided for all from the inorganic world by God. SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 39 In fact, it is evident from the analogy of the action of man's spirit in constructing his body, that the spirits of plants and of animals, in regard to their bodies, do the same; and that the bodies of man, of animals, and of plants, are all built up by their respective spirits, out of materials furnished to them for this purpose from the elements of the inorganic world. These elements are manifestly prepared and fitted for this use, through the laws of nature by God, as that superior spirit who is seen to exhibit in the forms and motions of the inorganic world the benevolent character, as well as the power of his action; and who, by allowing for this use unstinted stores of the inorganic matter which he controls, and works up for this application of them, displays in a marked and particular manner his unselfish and dis- interested goodness. There are certain fluid elements, as air and water, that can be directly taken from the common stores of inorganic nature, by all plants, men, and lower animals, by breathing and imbibing them, and are thus util- ized for their bodies; water forming the greater part of their bulk in men and animals, and carbon, a con- stituent of the air, composing a large proportion of the bodies of plants. These fluid elements are so abundant that no opposition is experienced, and consequently no effort or enterprise, in most cases, is required for appro- priating whatever portions of them any individual organism can use. But there are certain mineral elements, equally neces- sary for the construction of the bodies of plants, of man, and of the lower animals; but which only the plants can 40 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. directly take into their bodies from inorganic nature. To obtain these mineral elements for the use of their bodies, herbivorous animals consume the bodies of plants; and carnivorous animals for the same purpose consume the bodies of the herbivorous. Man, with the same end in view, consumes the bodies both of plants and of animals. Plants always yielded up their bodies for man's use, without resistance, for clothing, for weapons, for boats, and for his domestic structures, as well as for his food. Animals, from the beginning, defended themselves against him. Some also assailed him openly, others secretly, by surprise and strategem, thus teaching him self-defense and the arts of offensive war; while others, as the ant, the bee, and the beaver, gave him lessons in co-opera- tion in the industrial arts, lessons of great value in man's early history. 22. Thus, the plant life and the animal life, by which man saw himself environed in the outward world, and the necessity experienced by him to defend his body against hostile attempts, and to seek for the support of his body those indispensable elements that are only to be found in a condition suited for this use in the bodies of plants and animals, led to the exercise of practical labor and in- dustry, with skill, energy and foresight by the individual man, in order to accomplish those ends. Then, the further pursuit of the same ends led him to form con- tracts or agreements to realize them as common social ends by the association, community, or society of man with his fellow-man. Accordingly, in order to more effectually protect himself against carnivorous animals, SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 41 also to hunt and kill, or to capture, collect, and herd animals, and to cultivate plants, useful for food, he was early induced to form associations with his fellow- men beyond the family for mutual advantage in such designs. In this way, human society began to extend beyond the family; and with the extension of society there was produced a vast enlargement of man's speculative views, and of the scope of his practical action. But, before entering upon a discussion of his social relations with his fellow-men, it is proper to notice a circumstance growing out of his relations to plant life and animal life; and which affords a clue to the solution of some mooted questions concerning the elements of his knowl- edge. These questions can be rapidly disposed of. 23. Man is distinguished from all other animals by the fact that he cooks his food. The importance of this fact is, that man by his practical action changes the natural qualities of the material objects he uses as food, and imparts to them new artificial qualities. Now, if man can superinduce qualities on matter, it follows that God can do so. And if no other cause is known, or can be found for the qualities of matter, it follows like- wise that their cause is the action of God. We are free, therefore, to think of matter as being originally pure, without any of what we know as its natural qualities, and to consider it as carefully prepared by God with qualities adapted to man's senses; cooked for him, if you please; or distilled and condensed in Nature's vast alembic, from floating nebulae. 42 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. Quality, therefore, is the adaptation of matter to the apprehension of man's senses, and a fitness of it for man's use. The adaptation and the fitness are not evolved, but are the deliberate results of God's action, which are seen in the laws of nature. 24. Owing to the small size of the sensuous ideas, and the great number of them ever present which the spirit can conveniently contemplate at one time, it can use directly in forming its judgments and inferences its groups of these ideas, instead of the notions, concep- tions, and imaginative symbols it has constructed to represent these groups. In order to explain the sensuous ideas by contrasting them with language, something of the nature of language will be here anticipated, before we come to treat of the uses of language in society. Language, as we shall see, is a contrivance of man to externalize the sensuous ideas, their groups, symbols, notions, and conceptions, in plastic, oral, written, and mimic signs, for the purpose of communicating, record- ing and preserving his thought in society. But, even when most verbose, it is an extremely abbreviated, rude, and imperfect short-hand notation of the immense num- ber of the sensuous ideas, and the groups of them, actually used in original thinking. It vainly seeks, by its abbreviations and condensations, to overtake the marvelous rapidity of instinctive thought. Sometimes, therefore, its terms connote abstractions and complexes that instinctive thought, in the same connection, does not always need to employ; and sometimes they fail to connote important parts of the fact they are designed to denote. SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 43 25. Space, time and gravitation, are among the terms whose definitions, in language, present difficulty. Space is a compound quality of matter, its most general quality, belonging to every particle of it; and it consists of the three simple qualities of length, breadth, and height, the three so-called dimensions. Its universality, as appre- hended by spirit, implies the universality of matter, and of motion in the inorganic world, as all matter known is in motion; and it therefore also implies the universal presence of God's spirit, as the cause of all original motion of the inorganic world. Time is a compound quality of action, and therefore of motion, which is caused by action; and it consists of the simple qualities of present, past and future; rendering action a train, or series, as the co-existence and the sequence of sequences or changes. Every action, whether in thought or in the outward world, produces an effect, a change. The change produced on outward matter is motion. The change produced by the spirit's action in thought on the sensuous ideas, is their analysis and synthesis in trains, corresponding first to the sequences of events in the out- ward world, passing or present; then to their causes or antecedents in the past; these trains being supplemented by links of imaginative ideas, projecting the effects or sequels of the present into the future, and the whole thus produced being qualified as a continuous time line of action, or chain of causes and effects, reaching from the remotest known past, through the present, to the most distant future. The time line of action is meas- ured from a known era by known units of motion, in- volving and representing assumed units of time, the 44 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. yearly orbit of the earth, the monthly orbit of the moon, and the daily revolution of the earth, the latter multi- plied into weeks, and divided into hours, minutes and seconds. Gravitation is the continuing, original, calculated com- bination of forces, constituting the action of the spirit that impelled condensed matter into our system of the universe, and resulting in the known compounded mo- tions of this matter towards the several centers of that system. Space, time, and gravitation may be considered, in- stinctively, without language, in the vast system of the sensuous ideas, in a general view that will give support to the tendency of modern physical science to represent " all physical phenomena as modifications of motion." 26. In the absurd conflict that has hitherto been car- ried on between science and religion, based in a great measure on the antinomies and paralogisms due to the abuse and inefficiency of language, and especially to the term infinite, which has no single or collective represen- tative in the sensuous ideas it has been forgotten that although ignorance still places limits on the advance of science as well as of religion, science, while decrying the alleged ignorant mysteries of religion, has invented for itself, as its boasted prerogative, mysteries still more incredible. For, although the defective terms of language, when relied on as instruments of thought, convey only imper- fect knowledge of Nature and of God, the sensuous ideas, being far more perfect instruments of original thinking, impart to the spirit in instinctive thought,, for SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 45 the reasons already given, correct knowledge of outward material things as they are, and through them, for the same reasons, the true knowledge of God. The mys- teries, therefore, that false science, whether idealism or agnosticism, has contrived by denying the reality of the noumenon or thing in itself, or by admitting its reality and denying all knowledge of it, and by asserting the inscrutable nature of the power, called God, which it con- fesses to stand, although unrevealed, behind the opera- tions of nature are as weak and superstitious as any mystery of religion. Nor do the idealists and agnosti- cists fail to admit, accordingly, that their mysteries, or dogmas, are instinctively rejected by all mankind. The mystery of materialism, or a world without spirit, is virtually identical with the mystery of idealism, or a world without matter; matter and spirit being used interchangeably in these scientific mysteries. If it should be objected to the reality of the sensuous ideas that, although they are plainly visible to the spirit, they are not laid open by the dissecting knife, the answer is, that their matter may be as impalpable as the material ether which is supposed to pervade the universe, and still to be matter. 27. It only remains now to show, before considering man in general society, that in the primitive family he was capable of acquiring without language, by means of his sensuous ideas, the rudiments of that faith which, when developed in society by true 'education, is the highest liberal culture. Faith means the action of man's spirit when energized by divine influence. As the action of man's spirit is both 46 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. speculative and practical, there is a speculative faith and a practical faith. The method of procuring divine in- fluence upon man's spirit is by his study and application of principles, which are the rules or uniformities fol- lowed by God's action in the laws of nature. They are speculative and practical. By the study and application of speculative principles, as those of scientific truth, man is exercised, educated, and disciplined in the manner of God's speculative action, or thought; and his spirit by this communion with God is intellectually energized; as it is even by frequent inter- course with a fellow-man of superior intelligence; and it thus acquires speculative faith. Similarly, by the study and application of practical principles, as those of love and justice, even in the primitive family, man is exer- cised, educated and disciplined in the modes of God's practical action, and his spirit is thereby practically energized; and it thus acquires practical faith. When man entered into society, therefore, before his invention of language, he was, as this invention proves, not meanly endowed. 28. We have now come in the course of our inquiry, to consider man's social life and the mutual relations of that social life and artificial human language. Man's practical and speculative social life, integrally connected, as exhibited, first, without language in primi- tive, or so-called natural society, and then in the arti- ficial society formed by means of language, will therefore next claim our attention. 29. The concrete beginning of all normal human society is the family. Its absolute beginning, like every SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 47 absolute beginning, lies beyond the scope of our investi- gation. The male and female members of the first family or families, if there were more than one family at first, were associated by a practical common covenant made with each member for their common benefit, by the supe- rior spirit, God; and initiated by his promise, symbolized by the rainbow, that the laws of nature, so long as man conforms to them, will continue to act uniformly for the benefit of all men. The acceptance by man of this promise, by habitually making use of the laws of nature, and acting with reference to them, completed the covenant as a contract between God and man, and implied man's assent, and virtually his promise that the laws of nature will be utilized by him in the way God intends them to operate; that is, not only for the indi- vidual benefit of man, but also for the common welfare of all his fellow-men, who are all equally the objects of God's care. This covenant between God and man is the original and continuing social contract. God's promise, man's acceptance of it, and its resulting binding obligation, are all proved, on one side, by the continuance of the uniformity of the laws of nature, and their manifest purpose; and, on the other side, by man's intelligent use of them, and by his social arrangements whose avowed object is the general welfare. 30. Man's earliest intercourse with animal life and plant life tended to develop his normal practical action, his moral nature. In his conduct towards animals, as fellow living beings, although not human, 'yet serviceable to him, he might exhibit the rudiments of morality in 48 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. kindness and gratitude. Animals domesticated for his use claim from him a gentle and forbearing as well as firm treatment, devoid of cruelty and of unnecessary harshness. In opposing formidable Or noxious animals, he learns the duty he owes himself, to defend his rights of person, with prudence and resolution, against violence and oppression. There are also moral considerations in man's conduct toward plants. While their use and consumption as necessary, is allowable, their wanton destruction, or abuse, may be immoral. The removal of forests may render, as it probably has rendered, extensive regions of fertile country comparatively barren, and it may therefore become a public crime. Careless or negli- gent cultivation of plants necessary for human subsist- ence, by those who have undertaken it, is manifestly blameworthy. The obligations of man resulting from his relations to animal life and plant life, impose on him rudimentary moral duties. Some of the obligations of man to out- ward animal life are expressed by the statistics of the extensive interests involved in animal culture and the fisheries; to plant life by the mere terms agriculture, gar- dening, horticulture and floriculture; and to both animal and plant life, by the clothing he wears, representing the vast textile manufactures of wool, cotton, flax and hemp. Now, all these obligations, showing the dependence of his life on outward living things, and awaking in him the theoretical sentiment of thankfulness to them, although he lacks the power to repay their benefits, prepare him for the grateful experience of his indebted- ness to the help of his fellow-men, and for actually SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 49 reciprocating,, by his services, as he has the power to do, their helping practical love. 31. But, it is in human society that the moral obliga- tions of man to man under the original and continuing social contract, which may be simply called the social contract, arise. They demand for their ascertainment the highest speculative action of man, and for their real- ization his purest and most energetic moral practical action. For their discharge requires the fulfillment by him of the social contract, and, for this purpose, its investigation and a review of the laws of nature, which it binds man both to study and to utilize, as well for his fellow-man as for himself. The laws of nature, as we have seen, are the uniform- ities of God's action, as manifested in the motions of the inorganic world. They are called, when appre- hended as conceptions by man's spirit, Principles; and the uniformity of the uniformities of God's action, or the whole interrelated system of his action, as an integral whole of action, may be called, when apprehended by man's spirit as one complex conception, the First or highest Principle, from which all other principles, as its integral parts, may be deduced. The First Principle is the highest principle at once of knowledge and of practice, of the speculative reason and of the practical reason; that is, of the integral action of man's spirit. The laws of nature, and the first principle which includes them all, exhibit not only the variety, and energy, and scope of God's action on inorganic matter, but also both his wisdom or intelligence in guiding that 50 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. action, and his moral character in determining the rela- tions of his action to the spirit of man. The first prin- ciple, therefore, exhibiting the moral character of God for man's imitation, involves the whole moral law. 32. There are five elementary activities, both of in- dividual and of social life, constituting five distinct common or universal social ends; which are, education, religious service, industry, charity, and government. The extreme complexity of society arises from the fact that each individual takes part, in different degrees, in each of these elementary activities. But, as the in- stinctive practical action of man's individual spirit, guided by his instinctive thought, constructed the amazingly complicated and wonderfully perfect organ- ism of his individual body, so the combined instinct- ive practical action of man, associated with his fellow- man by the original universal social contract, which includes in the first principle the moral law, gradually built up, in the lapse of ages, under the guidance of his instinctive thought, by means of his sensuous ideas, the still more complicated instinctive mechanism of the normal universal society of mankind. This society, even in its primary form, must be regarded as an integral whole; each of its individual members being engaged, in different degrees, in each of the five elementary social activities as a common social end. The conservative analysis of the primary universal society, therefore, must be based on these five elementary social activities, and must be purely ideal, exhibiting five integral parts corresponding to them. These integral parts of society are its five Integral Organs, SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 51 each devoted to one of the primary social activities. All these integral organs, therefore, are numerically iden- tical; each as integral interpenetrating all the others. Just as the same body of individuals may constitute at the same time a school, say, of philosophy, a church, an industrial association, a charitable corporation, and a local government; all exercising their different func- tions either successively, or, if at the same time, then by separate representatives for each separate function. This early society being natural, or without language, and its shifting, roving, wandering groups of individuals and families being, respectively, like the atoms and molecules of a fluid body, tended to become unstable, and to have its loosely cohering elements constantly arranged and re-arranged in ever varying combinations. Yet, it must be regarded, from the beginning, as an undenominational association of all the integral organs; each of them being considered as a separate social denomination in theory, while all of them are simul- taneously and indistinguishably active in practice. But in the natural course of the development of society each of its integral organs would be subdivided into partial organs, and these into smaller associations, each devoted to the special care of one of the particular social in- terests, involved in one of the common social ends. The lowest of these subdivisions, in each integral organ, would then require a certain permanency in the association of its members, for mutual support in its practical work; and would establish permanent primary local neighborhoods, and thus gradually localize and solidify society. 52 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. The instinctive organization of society, established by the original and continuing social contract between God and man, is based on the first principle; and, so far as it is the co-operation of all the primary social activities, it is like that principle, which is the co-operation of all principles. It is the undenominational germ of society, an undenominational association, involving all the social activities and interests that tend to the individual and the general welfare of man. Its integral organs will re-appear, further developed by language, in artificial society, as the separately organized, independent, co- ordinate, and numerically identical republics of letters and art, of the church, of industry, of charity, and of government. For natural society, after the invention of language, became artificial society. But the normal development of the original unde- nominational association of natural society, by means of language and of the principle of the division of labor, into normal artificial society, cannot be traced in history. It can only be inferred from the historical development into modern civilization of the undenominational asso- ciation of Jesus and the twelve disciples, by means of the revived principle of representation, as will be seen hereafter. Before Christianity, there were seen in his- torical times, outside of the great heathen monarchies, only single tribes under patriarchs and chiefs in various parts of Asia, Europe and Africa, except twelve tribes occasionally loosely united in Palestine under a judge; and only single cities in Asia Minor, Arabia, Africa, Greece, and Italy, under different kings; the kings in the cities of Greece and Italy, being for a time super- SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 53 seded respectively by separate democracies or aristoc- racies. The great despotic monarchies were consolidated by conquest. But nowhere, before Christianity, could tribes or cities be seen united by representation into larger political communities. Nor can the origin of language, by means of which natural society was converted into artificial society, be historically traced. Something of the nature of language has already been anticipated. We now proceed to its uses in society. 33. Language is a system of sensuous ideas external- ized by means of conventional, oral, graphic, plastic or mimic signs. Prayer, or the communion of man with God in instinctive thought, by means of the sensuous ideas, probably first suggested language. This com- munion was carried on with the sensuous ideas, because God, being omnipresent and omniscient, could know them while they were within man. But instinctive thought could not be communicated by man to his fellow-man by the sensuous ideas alone, for one could not look upon them in another. Hence, appeared the obvious necessity to externalize them, by signs repre- senting them by representing the objects which the ideas represented; and by other conventional signs, indicating the relations and motions of those objects. Language as the body of conventional outward signs of the inward sensuous ideas, by gestures, sculptures, paintings, cries, oral and written words, is perhaps man's most important invention, and it doubtless re- quired many centuries to obtain approximate perfection. But no language can fully represent the innumerable, 54 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. individual, concrete, sensuous ideas. Nor can language successfully compete, either in the speed or the certainty of reaching results, with the sensuous ideas. The superiority of the sensuous ideas compared with mere verbal descriptions, is evinced by the effect of ob- ject lessons, practical experiments, plans and diagrams, in teaching physical and mathematical sciences. A verbal description of a physical object, as a plant, an animal, or a mineral; or a verbal demonstration of a geometrical theorem, as that the square of the hypo- thenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides, would convey a very inferior degree of knowledge compared with the effect either of a specimen of the physical object, or of a diagram representing the steps required to prove the theorem. The sensuous ideas which the names of the physical objects and the statement of the theorem would produce, would probably be either altogether false, or indistinct and confused; while the sensuous ideas result- ing from a view of the specimens and of the diagram, would be clear and distinct. By far the greater part of thought, therefore, con- tinued from the first, as it still continues, to be instinct- ive; and only its final or partial results, and not its intermediate processes, are what language concerning any subject matter was first used, and is still chiefly used, to communicate. Hence language was invented to communicate, but not to supersede, the instinctive thought that is carried on by means of the sensuous ideas. For the social contract imposes the obligation, not only to learn by solitary instinctive thought, but to use, SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 55 in common with others, and for this purpose to com- municate, to teach, the laws of nature, or the first prin- ciple; and the society formed by the social contract requires the frequent communication of a common end or object, as can best be done by language, in order to form the various co-operative associations that constitute society. Language, from the first, therefore, was chiefly useful in furthering agreements, contracts, and associations among men, by expressing through signs intelligible to them all objects proposed for their common assent or pursuit. It was in this way that society, by the employ- ment of language as an artificial means of communicat- ing thought for its development, became artificial. There is no ground for assuming that in the primitive society, before the invention of language, called natural society, the action of man, however limited or imperfect, became abnormal or immoral. The rise of moral evil, and of abnormal social action, must be sought, as will be explained hereafter, in artificial society. The separate beginning, however, of artificial society cannot be exactly defined; because, while language was the means by which artificial society was made, it was artificial society that, by its agreement, established the significance of language. Hence, the concrete beginning of each is the simul- taneous concrete beginning of both. 34. The rise of abnormal action, or of moral evil and intellectual error, may be traced to the abuse of language in artificial society; moral evil being the result of intellectual error, and language, as an imperfect human invention, being suited to communicate either 56 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. truth or falsehood; while the marks imprinted on the sensuous ideas by the forces of nature can only express the truth of facts. Not only antinomies and paralo- gisms, but also all false doctrines spring, not from the sensuous ideas, but from the unskilful manipulation of language. Moral evil results, not from the erroneous teaching of mathematical or of physical science, but from im- parting a false intellectual conception of the character of God. For the man that is taught to know and that does know the true character of God, as the impersona- tion of truth and goodness, power and love, knows also that he is in God's immediate presence; and in that presence his unfeigned reverence and awe, with all that is noble in his nature, are called forth, and he does not dare to think evil, or do evil, even if he could. On the other hand, when man is taught to regard God as an idol, or an immoral monster, he gathers courage from the imagined example of his idol, as its devoted follower and worshipper, to commit all the evil to which his own unbridled passions tempt him. It seems probable, therefore, that moral evil, or the abnormal moral action of individuals in early artificial society, originated in idolatry, or resulted from it; as this did from imperfect and misleading forms of language, misdescribing God's character; breaking up the potent unity of his perfect personality into a weak assemblage of comparatively insignificant, personified, individual, divine powers and attributes, associated with personified and deified human crime; forming a grotesque, abomin- able hierarchy of vile and wicked sun gods, moon v ^0* THP, DIVERSITY; SEMITIC gods, star gods, bird gods, fish gods, beast gods, and snake gods, besides monstrous so-called good and evil spirits. Figures of speech, however innocent they now are, doubtless aided, in ancient times with other forms of language, to establish idolatry. The scene in the garden of Eden, purporting to describe the origin of moral evil, shows both the abuse of language in a statement giving a false character of God as untruthful, and the resulting idolatry of Adam in believing that statement a belief amounting to a departure from the God of Truth, and to the accept- ance, in his stead, of a false idol. For the attribution of immorality to God creates, in his stead, an idol of the imagination. Much time was required to elapse after man's inven- tion of his powerful mechanism of language, before he learned, if he has yet learned, to use it with absolute safety in his highest concerns. Hence it would be well to inquire, whether the greater part of the crime pre- vailing in modern civilization is not due to the wide- spread Oriental doctrines taught there, assigning to God, by an abuse of language adopted from heathenism, a cruel and immoral character. 35. But, however idolatry originated, its absolute and almost universal sway over ancient society, and its trans- formation of that society into the system, called an- cient heathenism, or Orientalism, is undoubted. For the original social contract and its first principle, with the instinctive organization of the primitive universal society, discovered by instinctive thought, were gradually reduced by idolatry and man's consequent abnormal 58 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. practical action, except in the faintest outlines, to utter oblivion and neglect. The transition period of society from the original un- denominational association of primitive normal natural society, through the first stage of normal artificial society, before idolatry set in, to those loose and promiscuous combinations of individuals and families that are found along with idolatry at the beginning of history, and were then subject to the mere customary rule of patri- archs or chiefs, supported by the influence of idolatry, in single independent tribes, preceded all historical records and monuments. Only a myth or tradition of this period has come down to us. This transition period of society is what we may suppose to be meant by the tradition of the Golden Age. Because it was before the introduction of idolatry and of moral evil, it must have been a season of peace, unvexed by war. Its peaceful growth would par- tially develop its integral organs in local neighborhoods; and its localization would render its habitations perma- nent, and free from the disturbance of nomadism. Its masses, not being driven together and concentrated by conquest, or domineered over by military rule, must have been kept together in quietness and order by the delib- erate adoption of positive laws; which, in the absence of any so-called political superior, or despot, must have been enacted in the form of express contracts or agreements; and these, when extending over large territories, must have been negotiated and concluded by authorized agents or representatives of the people, although no trace of such ancient representation has survived. SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 59 But, after some unknown lapse of time succeeding the supposed normal period of artificial society, the begin- ning of history records a very marked degradation of society, shown by nomadic wanderings, occasional con- flicts, and resulting offensive and defensive wars of single tribes, under their respective patriarchs, against each other. Then, the elevation of a successful military leader in these wars as king over a tribe, instead of the patriarch; and the conquering wars of the king subduing and plundering tribe after tribe, and reducing them under his dominion, driving the population of conquered districts in herds, as slaves, to his capital, until he estab- lished, as king of kings, a vast predatory and conquering despotic empire; to be in turn shattered and broken in pieces by a mightier conqueror, is the often repeated out- ward history of the East. The despot superseded the patriarch. The patriarch was both the political ruler and the priest of his tribe; and the despot succeeded to the patri- arch^ authority in both capacities. Thus was established the system of idolatrous despotism, or ancient heathen- ism, otherwise called Orientalism. To complete the picture of ancient heathenism, or Orientalism, its religious and domestic economy must 'be considered. To its outward military despotism must be added the description of its inward sacerdotalism, and the resulting slavery of its people. The patriarch, the king, and the king of kings, were supported in their political rule by the priestly office. The patriarch was his own priest. The king or despot 60 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. employed a company or order of priests, a sacerdotal order for the support of his authority over the people. Institutions must be judged by their own characters, not by the characters of their casual incumbents. There have been in ancient times good patriarchs, good despots, and good priests, as goodness was accounted in their day. Abraham and Melchizedek were model patriarchs, but they did not originate patriarchism, which arose long before their time in idolatrous nations. Marcus Aure- lius, the Eoman despot, ' who lived thousands of years after the reputed author of despotism, Nimrod, was a Stoic philosopher; and although he conscientiously perse- cuted the Christians, he was notoriously endowed with all the Stoic virtues. Early Jewish history reports some good priests, but they disappeared in the glory of the prophets. A good patriarch or despot might allow and proclaim a God of justice and mercy. But a heaven-daring con- queror, making it the occupation of his life to form, and when the occasion offered itself, to execute plans for ravaging and laying waste extensive territories, and visiting with indiscriminate slaughter or slavery their unoffending populations, would not permit himself to be insulted by the worship of a just and merciful God. After the shining example of Nimrod, he allowed his creatures the priests, to proclaim his divinity. He would then through his priests, his sacerdotal order, command the worship of a wrathful, cruel, and unjust idol despot in heaven, to countenance the unjust and cruel despot on the earth. SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 61 He thus systematically debased his fellow-men, by enforcing the unworthy worship of himself, and of an idol like himself, as fellow-gods. For the series of ancient conquerors were a race of men as exceptionally strong in intellect, as they were wicked and unscru- pulous in practice, and they well knew that a God of love, and mercy, and pity for the people, is only suited to a democracy; while the cruel policy of despotism, conquest, and slavery, required the superstitious, super- natural support of a wrathful, unjust and cruel idol. In fact, the sacerdotal order in the despotism of Ori- entalism, or ancient heathenism, did as much to degrade and brutalize men, and fit them to become loyal and submissive subjects of the despots, as did the armies which the despots employed for that purpose. For this order, by its support of the despot's power, earned from him the unlimited privilege of plunder- ing the people by pretended mercenary religious services; and it stimulated the willingness of the people to bribe them for these services, by further debasing them with degrading superstition, first intensified by multiplying and diversifying their idols, and then utilized by assuming an official and confidential relation to these idols; and by asserting the ability to placate their wrath and win their favor, by sacrifice, the universal cere- mony of idolatrous -worship. Nor should it be forgotten that in ancient heathenism, or Orientalism, the same merciless cruelty of the ruling classes to the people, was exercised, when the people were submissive, by those classes towards each other, and their own members, and even by the nearest relatives. 62 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. Thus, it appears that, by the system of ancient heath- enism, the light of humanity was almost extinguished; mankind, with few exceptions, having been degraded into two classes of beasts: beasts of burden, and driving or ruling beasts. For, by this system, when idolatry and abnormal action became predominant, the instinctive germ of social organization, based on the native dignity of man as the image of God, on the original social contract of God with man, and on the first principle, was thor- oughly overthrown, broken up, disintegrated, and super- seded. The order in which the ruin of the integral organs of society took place, after they had been partially and symmetrically developed, according to the five primary individual and social activities, and had been, to some extent, duly localized by local neighborhoods or associa- tions, must have been as follows: first, the functions of the integral organ of the republic of government were usurped by the despot; secondly, the functions of the integral organ of the republic of the church were usurped by the sacerdotal order; thirdly, the integral organ of the republic of industry, as an association of freemen, was crushed by the despot and the sacerdotal order, by means of the universal slavery of the masses of the people; fourthly, by the same means, and the consequent universal misery of the masses of the people, and the isolation of the ruling classes from them, the integral organ of the republic of charity was rendered impossible as a public institution although charity was not entirely obliterated by slavery, there having been at Rome, as is proved by tender inscriptions still to be read in the Catacombs, charitable associations, as for burial, among the unhappy SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 63 slaves; and fifthly, the integral organ, or republic, of letters and art, was restricted, by the same means, either to the sacerdotal order alone, or to it along with the rich, learning having been monopolized by these classes, and no public education in which the poor could share hav- ing been established. Ancient heathenism, or Orientalism, founded on des- potism, idolatry, sacerdotalism, and slavery, was a vir- tually uniform system. Its primitive form, with very little variation of its essential features, dating from "the mighty hunter of men, Mmrod, whose memory, to awe mankind by his pretended divine example, was enthroned by superstition and kingcraft in the brightest constella- tion of the Northern skies, Orion, has been handed down in regular succession, through the despotic and conquer- ing monarchs of Chaldsea, Assyria, Media, India, China, Persia, Parthia, Egypt, Greece, Imperial and Papal Rome for the temporal power of the Pope is despotic to the present Grand Turk, and the Tsar, with his Ori- ental Tartar rule of to-day. The system of ancient heathenism, or Orientalism, grew to be as universal as it was hideous and monoto- nous. Normal artificial society was altogether oblit- erated by it. Only an individual, here and there, remained, upon whose heart was written the law of God, and who led a normal life; testifying to the power of instinctive thought, when duly heeded, in the most unfa- vorable outward circumstances, to sustain man in the intimate communion with God, and to derive from that communion the energy of speculative and practical faith. 64 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. Doubtless, many such individuals, oppressed by sla- very and despotic cruelty, lived in obscurity, and per- ished unknown. But a few others have achieved the brightest fame of history, and have indicated, amidst almost universal despotism and idolatry, the glory of humanity. Such were Pericles, Demosthenes, Socrates and Plato among the Greeks; Abraham, Moses, and the prophets, among the Jews the Gracchi and Cicero among the Romans ; Buddha, and perhaps Confucius, in the East. But the name, in the splendor of which every other name of man must pale, is that of a child, whose birth in a poor and isolated family, in Bethlehem of Judea, is the new era, from which the revived normal artificial society, or the new Golden Age, called modern civilization, is dated. CHAPTER III. rriHE doctrine and the practice of the Kingdom of -*- God, being the revival, by Jesus, of normal artifi- cial society from ancient heathenism, by means of the revival of the speculative side, and the consequent revival of the practical side, of the original or Semitic Philosophy. 36. We will now inquire by what means, and how far, normal artificial society was first revived from ancient heathenism in modern civilization, or Christianity; what is its natural constitution, as revealed by instinctive thought; what steps backward it has taken in reaction towards ancient heathenism ; and what, afterwards, has been the course of its progress and reform, in its symmet- rical normal development. At the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the system of ancient heathenism, or Orientalism, in the despotic and coterminous empires of Rome and of Parthia, virtually covered the whole of the then known world; extend- ing in the Roman Empire from the Atlantic to the Euphrates; in the Parthian, from the Euphrates to the farthest East. The Greeks had gloriously, but vainly, resisted and defeated at Marathon the entrance of Oriental despot- ism into Europe. For afterwards they succumbed to it 65 66 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. under one of themselves, a conqueror who surpassed the conquests, and adopted the despotism, of the kings of the East the Macedonian Alexander, whose empire, in turn, was conquered, and whose despotism was imitated, by the Romans. Thus, despotism and idolatry, as the system of ancient heathenism, or Orientalism, were established throughout the known world, with the exception of the few persons on whose hearts was written the law of God. But the idolatry of the Roman Empire was not all polytheistic. For the great body of the widely dispersed Jews held fast, with wonderful heroic obstinacy, to the doctrine of monotheism, which they received from Abraham. Yet, it cannot be denied that the object worshipped by the majority of them was not that God of justice, mercy, and love proclaimed by their great prophets; but rather the popular ideal of a mighty and ferocious conqueror, whom they expected to batter down in blood and carnage, either in person or by a Messiah, the hosts of Rome and Parthia, and to divide their spoils among his favorites, the Jews. The savage and cruel being whom they imagined and worshipped must be classed among the idols of imag- ination; and their worship, as monotheistic idolatry. The idolatry, therefore, that prevailed, along with despotism, throughout the known world, at the birth of Jesus, was both polytheistic and monotheistic. The monotheistic idolatry of the Jews arose from their degrading the character of the true God of the original pure monotheism of Abraham to the level of the behavior of the cruel chief idols worshipped by the heathen SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 67 nations. It was the monotheism of the Jews that gave them the power of resistance against the ineffable oppressions which they suffered from successive con- querors for thousands of years, and that enabled them to survive all their oppressors; but it was these oppressions that degraded and obscured the spirit of the Jewish peo- ple, and thereby caused the majority of them to lower their estimate of the character of God. Yet, there always remained, mostly in humble circumstances, a few who did not bow the knee to Baal, and among them, occasionally, a great prophet. It should cause no surprise, therefore, that in the general darkness of idolatry and despotism that had over- spread the world, a young Jewish villager, who, at the age of twelve, was carried by his zeal for the knowledge of the true God to the feet of the great teachers of his faith, in the Temple of Jerusalem; and who, by question- ing the travelers that regularly passed his door at Naz- areth with the great caravans from the far East to Tyre, Sidon, and Egypt, had opportunities to know all the forms of idolatry, and to learn the need of the world for enlightenment, should be inspired by the thought that the great Deliverer expected by his people must be a great enlightener; and should recognize in the conscious- ness of his own great power of thought and of expression, a call to assume that providential office for his day. For he saw that an enlightener or reformer of the world, necessarily beginning his reformation by instructing a small circle of pure monotheists, could most easily estab- lish that circle among the Jews, already monotheists, by purifying their monotheism. 68 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. It was, accordingly, the monotheism of the Jews that as a Jew he first purified; so that as in its original purity it was made the foundation of Christianity; and it became, after his death, the vehicle for spreading Christianity, by means of the Jewish synagogues, scattered throughout the Roman Empire. 37. For it was necessary on account of the mono- theism of the Jews, although it was in some respects impure, but prevailing among no other people, that a Jew should become the reformer of the polytheistic idolatry of ancient heathenism. It was necessary for him to begin his reform in his own country, among his own countrymen, and in his own neighborhood, among his neighbors; in order that he might at once in the brief period that his enemies would allow him bring together, instruct, and inaugurate in action, a small association inspired by a pure monotheism, as a type of a new and normal artificial society, a present example of it, and as a germ or nucleus for future development. As the original normal artificial society must have been at first undenominational, and was as such over- thrown by idolatry, it was fitting that the revived normal artificial society should at first also be unde- nominational, and should be founded on the overthrow of idolatry by a pure monotheism; while the development of its social denominations, or separate integral organs, must be left to be called forth by the exigencies and opportunities of the future. The only way to remove error, is to teach the truth. The only way to remove the error of polytheism, with its related despotism, was to teach the truth of mono- SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 69 theism. To do this effectually it was apparent that in order to produce an immediate and lasting effect on the vast heathen world a band of zealous monotheistic teachers, missionaries, or apostles, was required who could be prepared for their mission in a short time. Such a band young Jesus, at thirty years of age, in his humble sphere of life, could only expect to find among the Jews, his countrymen, his neighbors. These were already monotheists, prepared in that aspect to his hand. It only remained for him to select willing and able associates among his humble acquaintances; to purify their monotheism from some common prejudices, regard- ing their expected Messiah, and the true character of God; and to instruct them for their mission in the short time at his disposal. There was every reason why Jesus should seek in his great mission his associates among the Jews. The mono- theism of the Jews had separated them from all the peoples with whom they came in contact, who were all polytheists; and it had thereby made the associations of individuals and families among the Jews more sym- pathetic, more close, mutually more helpful, and more lasting, than among other non-Semitic nations; and thus it preserved the inward cohesion, and consequently the national vitality of the Jewish people; while in the calm , of these domestic associations the idolatrous features of their monotheism would find nothing to call them forth; and the true character of God, revealed by instinctive thought and the sensuous ideas, and preached by the prophets, would at least dimly shine forth, and -so far as it was apprehended would ennoble their intercourse, 70 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. and give strength to their character. Their Mosaic institutions of civil law surpass in humanity any of the ancient heathen codes. 38. In the way thus pointed out, Jesus of Nazareth, as a Jew, began at his home, among Jews, his reform movement. It is recorded of him, in books that are almost universally conceded to be authentic history, that he was born in Bethlehem, of Judea, of poor Jewish parents, his father being a carpenter; that in childhood he was taken to Egypt, and then brought to Nazareth, of Galilee, where he lived until about thirty years of age, when he began a public ministry of teaching, by proclaiming what he called the ' ' Kingdom of God," or the "Kingdom of Heaven"; that he carefully instructed twelve men of the common people, and formed them into an association with himself, to spread his doctrine of the "Kingdom of God," and his association, among the people; and that, after a public career of about three years, preaching his doctrine with unexampled genius, eloquence, prudence, and intrepidity, besides minister- ing charitably to all whom he met afflicted by sickness, he suffered on the cross a heroic martyrdom for the cause he had advocated, saying of his doctrine, in almost his last utterance, that he was "born to bear witness unto the truth." 39. By generously consecrating his young and pure life to the witnessing of the truth, he made that life its best witness, the true interpreter to all noble and sym- pathizing minds, of the formula "Kingdom of God," in which he summed its comprehensive import. SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 71 The most eloquent of men, he distrusted the power of written language to adequately express the doctrine which he taught for all mankind, and for all time. For this reason he left nothing in writing. He committed his doctrine to the perfect instinctive mechanism of the sensuous ideas, aided by the oral tradition of his discourses. He simply addressed oral speech to the common people, to awaken their instinctive thought, and to call their attention to the systematic action and Providential care of God, manifested in the observed order of the universe. From the order of the universe, as the action of God, he drew the character of God, as the perfect ideal of goodness, love and wisdom, for man to imitate. He thus left all questions as to his doctrine to be answered for him by God as the supreme oracle in the temple of the universe. It will be more appropriate here to develop briefly the intrinsic meaning of the formula, Kingdom of God, in which he condensed and symbolized the whole import of what he taught, than to needlessly dwell on the con- vincing collateral testimony and aijthority which his life, as credibly reported, and already universally known, gave to his teaching. 40. The formula, Kingdom of God, may be con- verted into the proposition, The Kingdom is of God. When Jesus proclaimed the formula, Kingdom of God, he asserted as a truth, that the Kingdom is of God. The sensuous ideas of the conception and of the asser- tion are the same. Now, in order to understand the 72 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. teaching of Jesus, the meaning of the two terms, king- dom and God, must be clearly ascertained. The term God meant, in that formula, the God of pure monotheism, as already described; the one superior spirit of power, wisdom, goodness, justice, and love, far exceeding any attainment of man. The term, king- dom, meant concretely, the organization, order,' or sys- tem produced in anything by the action of spirit, and abstractly the power, authority, or guidance of the spirit that produces the organization, order, or system. The term, Kingdom of God, then, meant, concretely, the organization, order, or system, resulting in the material universe from the immediate action or power of God, and in the spiritual universe, and in a particular and primary sense among men, it denoted the normal society effected by God's instruction, discipline, and example, co-operating with the action of man. When the term, Kingdom of God, does not plainly mean the whole material and spiritual universe, it means the organization, the order, the co-operating union, associa- tion, or society of God with mankind. The term, kingdom, connected with the term God, cannot mean anything implied in human government. Such a meaning given to the term kingdom, in this connection, is an abuse of language, involving gross error, and leading to the most disastrous results; to an idolatry tending to thrust back modern civilization into all the evils of ancient heathenism. For the applica- tion of the term king to God in any sense implying functions of command analogous to those of a heathen SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 73 king or despot, or any other human, royal prerogatives, is simply idolatry. Indeed, the conception of government between God and man, is absurd as well as idolatrous. Government inflicts punishment as an evil to make retribution for another evil. God inflicts no evil, and therefore no punishment. He administers discipline as a blessing; in order to lead the offender to repentance and reforma- tion. God is the rule for man to live by, to measure and direct his conduct, not man's ruler. If God should issue a command as a ruler or absolute king, it would be known to whomsoever it might be addressed, from one end of the universe to the other, as the still, small voice; and man could not fail to obey it. But his obedience would be a mere matter of necessity, and it would have, therefore, no moral value in his eyes or in the eyes of God. Man is in the power of God, dependent on his gifts and his guidance. God is at once his loving father, friend, associate, and his skilful employer, teacher, trainer, in the school, in the field, in the workshop, and in the arena of life, and man can only show his gratitude to God, by doing his duty and giving his assistance to his fellow-man, and thereby doing the work of God. For God asks of man no tribute of empty praise, or idle, sentimental love, or vain or costly sacrifice to him, but calls on all to lend a hand and aid him in his work of universal blessing to mankind. The spiritual relation of man to God, is that of a scholar to a teacher, of a free apprentice to a just, 74 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. wise, and good employer, and of a practical helper to God in bestowing his beneficence. The heathen depravation of God's character, by the attribution to him of heathen governmental functions, and of corresponding heathen acts, analogous to those of a human despot, or king, judge, or military leader, was the chief heathen or idolatrous element of the monotheism of the Jews. But the term kingdom, in the formula Kingdom of God, excludes every function of government. It merely designates the organization, order, or system of the material and spiritual universe, and particularly of normal society. This meaning of the term kingdom, in the formula Kingdom of God, will be further elucidated by the signification which Jesus evidently attached to the terms king and kingdom, when applied to himself and to his association with his disciples. For when he was called king before Pilate, he openly admitted the fact; but said that his kingdom was not of this world, meaning that it was not a government at all, as all real kingdoms of this world are, and that it certainly was not a revival of the Kingdom of David, which was unquestionably a real kingdom of this world; and this answer, with the reasons he gave for it, satisfied Pilate, who would not have dared to tolerate any government opposed to Csesar, as a rival kingdom of this world in Judea, and least of all a revival of the famous Kingdom of David. Jesus was directly charged by his accusers before Pilate, with setting up a government as king; but Pilate evidently thought him innocent of the charge, and said so; and yielded to his fears for himself SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 75 in condemning Jesus, and not to his judgment, as he publicly confessed, by symbolically and ostentatiously washing his hands, to remove the guilt of the condemna- tion from his conscience, according to the form of his superstition. Jesus, in fact, never exercised any governmental office, and never performed any governmental act. In the only recorded case of his being sought to act governmentally, he expressly and publicly declined to do so, when called upon to divide a disputed inheritance an act that would have belonged to a king or a judge, as govern- mental functionaries of a human government. The term king, therefore, as used by Jesus in relation to himself, must merely signify that he was the chief, or master of his disciples. The word translated king, in the text in question, denotes a master as the master of a house or of a school; and it has, indeed, many more meanings, from signifying a heathen god or monarch, to a mere term of complimentary or flattering address to any person admitted for the occasion, or feigned, to be a superior. Hence, the kingdom of Jesus, which he expressly said was not like the heathen kingdoms, which were govern- ments, was merely the organization of the association of his disciples, which was an undenominational association, and of which he was the unquestioned head, or chief, or master, but without any governmental function or authority. Nor can it be doubted that the term King- dom of God must have an analogous meaning, denoting only the organization, the order, and the system, of the material universe, and of normal society. 76 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. In confirmation of this view, the passage may be referred to, in which Peter is called, by Jesus, the rock on which his church as the term for it is translated, or, as it may be otherwise called, his community shall be built. The transaction is narrated in the usual figurative style of the time; and it probably means that Peter was then appointed, or foreordained, to succeed Jesus as the future head, or chief, or president of the first Christian community. Afterwards it appeared that he was fol- lowed by James, when the first Christian community set- tled in Jerusalem; and that each of the other Christian communities, as they arose, had a separate head, not called a rock, but a bishop. Now, the bishop, as the head of a separate Christian community, did not, so long as it was undenominational, take the place of an apostle, but a place analogous to that of Jesus; not the place of a mere religious teacher, but the charge of the general interests of the community. But there is no pretense of any political government in any of these chiefs of the early Christian communities for more than a century after the death of Jesus. The term kingdom, then, in the formula Kingdom of God, must evidently be taken, as it is used in other connections, in a figurative sense. As a class, an order, or system of things, as of plants, is called a kingdom, so the Kingdom of God must signify, in a general sense, the system of the universe, and, in a particular sense, the system or organization of normal society, of the society based on the social contract, and in which man is the associate of God. 41. It would be no easy task to state all that is implied in the formula, Kingdom of God. This task will SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 77 not here be attempted. But a brief summary of what it implies may be given. The formula,, Kingdom of God, has been already considered, on its speculative side, as implying the system of Semitic philosophy; and it will now be viewed, on its practical side, as implying the per- fect instinctive conception, or ideal, of the organization, or practical constitution of normal artificial society. Both sides constitute an integral whole, of which each is an integral part; so that its speculative side is only pre- dominantly speculative, and its practical side only pre- dominantly practical. Leaving, therefore, as already sufficiently explained, the speculative side of the Kingdom of God; the mechan- ism of instinctive thought, with the sensuous ideas; the laws of nature as the uniformities of God's action, and their sum as the uniformity of the uniformities of his action, or the first principle; with the moral law, as the moral features of God's action towards man, involved in the first principle; we proceed to the social contract of God with man, as determining, in connection with the primitive individual and social activities of man, the per- fect organization or practical constitution of normal arti- ficial society, or modern civilization. 42. The primary activities of man are derived from the first principle, being copied from the action of God towards man. God instructs man, communes with him, furnishes him with the materials of his food and cloth- ing, aids him in his trials and necessities, and exercises over his conduct a wholesome discipline, designed to lead him to repentance and reformation. In all these par- ticulars, man engages, by the social contract, to imitate, 78 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. towards all his fellow-men, the action of God, by utiliz- ing the laws of nature, which God provides; each man utilizing them both for his individual benefit and for the general welfare of all. Thus, corresponding, respectively, to the five primary individual and social activities of man, which may be called education, religious communion or service, indus- try, public charity, and government there necessarily arise under the social contract, and are instinctively formed, five universal associations, as integral organs of society; in each of which every individual is a member more or less actively engaged, and all of which, practi- cally co-operating together, constitute the organization of normal artificial society. For the original and continuing social contract, as already stated, made and proved by acts, consists, on one side, in the inferred engagement of God to continue the uniform operation of the laws of nature for the common benefit of all men; and on the other side, in the inferred engagement of man, when he accepts the use of the laws of nature, to use them in the way they are obviously intended to be used. It follows, that in every social relation every indi- vidual is bound to make his own interest consistent with the general welfare; and that in every normal association God is virtually a member concerned for directing its common end in harmony with the benefit of the whole community. Man has very important duties to himself to discharge; so has every association, and every com- munity to itself; but these duties, when properly under- stood, must conduce to the well-being of the public. SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 79 The five integral organs of society, or social denom- inations, as they may be called, have each, respectively, one of the primary social activities for its common end; and as every man must to some extent be engaged in all these activities, he must belong to all the integral organs. Hence, every integral organ must embrace all the people, and all the integral organs must be numerically identical, co-ordinate, and independent. Each of the integral organs, therefore, must be a republic, and must be organized by subdivision into appropriate partial organs, or associations. We have seen, that the original primitive or natural society, that preceded artificial society, must have been, at first, undenominational, holding, as a germ, all the social denominations, or integral organs, undeveloped within it; that afterwards these integral organs must have been to some extent developed; although, .as this development took place before the commencement of history, its extent cannot be exactly determined; and that when history begins to throw light upon society all the normal social denominations or integral organs have disappeared, under the influence of idolatry, leav- ing in their place only an abnormal despotic government, and an abnormal sacerdotal church; these two abnormal institutions constituting the system of ancient heathen- ism, or Orientalism. 43. We have seen, also, that Jesus began his reform movement for the overthrow of ancient heathenism, or Orientalism, by establishing, as the first typical Christian community, or germ of the new society of modern civilization, which he inaugurated, an undenom- 80 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. inational association of twelve disciples, with himself at its head. It is from this germ, and by the influence of the formula, Kingdom of God, implying and perpetuating the perfect instinctive conception, or ideal, of the organi- zation of normal artificial society, that the five social denominations, or integral organs, which in their full normal realization must constitute perfect modern civili- zation, or the true Kingdom of God, here and hereafter, have been already to some extent partially developed, after many vicissitudes and obstructions from the unyielding power of ancient heathenism. Passing over the details of the outward history of this development, we will aim to follow its inward genesis. In the first place, it is plain, that with idolatry both sacerdotalism and despotism were removed by Jesus from the type which he instituted of modern society. The removal of sacerdotalism from the new society introduced freedom of thought from the slavish bonds and from the temporal power of superstition, by sepa- rating science from the dominion of false religion. It gave to true religion the enlightenment of true science by making both co-ordinate. It committed the interests of science, with the care of all principles, as included in the first principle, to the predominantly speculative integral organ, the republic of letters and art; while it assigned the service of God, or the preparation of man for worthy communion with him, here and hereafter, in immortal life, as the peculiar charge and duty of religion, to the practical integral organ, or republic, of the Church. SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 81 For this boon to science, as well as to religion, and for the encouragement, among the masses of the unlearned people, as well as among the learned, of original thought, by entrusting the development of the fundamental prin- ciples of science and of religion, involved in the doctrine of the Kingdom of God, to the freedom, the mathematical and logical precision, and the instinctive mechanism of the sensuous ideas when used, with the aid of oral speech and of tradition, in the instinctive thought carried on in silence and seclusion by the common people, Jesus, as the Emancipator both of science and of religion from priestly rule, deserves the highest honors, both as the perpetual chief of the republic of letters and art, and as the founder of the republic of the universal, pure, spiritual, practical, and free catholic church. The effect of removing despotism, or the abnormal centralized state, all absorbed in an abnormal central- ized government, from the new society, was to replace despotism by a normal decentralized state, consisting of three separate and independent integral organs, each charged with one of the primitive social activities, or social common ends. These integral organs are, first, the integral organ, or republic of industry, restored to independence from the despotic interference of the government in all purely industrial concerns. Secondly, the integral organ, or republic of public charity, emanci- pated from the obstruction of government, and needed to purify, liberalize, and harmonize public social inter- course, by aesthetic, literary, and scientific public enter- tainments; to smooth over and overcome by its aid the temptations, difficulties, partial disasters, and disappoint- 82 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. ments, arising from the operations of nature, and the competitions of society; to alleviate misfortunes, and to promote moral reforms. And, thirdly, a decentralized and simplified integral organ, or republic of government,, confined to purely governmental functions, exercised by the people through their representatives, as a civil representative democracy; and aiming chiefly to secure the public defense, to maintain public order, to enact needed governmental positive laws, and to administer justice in the courts. Thus, by the removal of the abnormal systems of des- potism and sacerdotalism, constituting together ancient heathenism, or Orientalism, that had overspread the known world, Jesus brought into play the five integral organs or social denominations that together compose, by their co-operation, the normal organization or consti- tution of modern civilization. But this result, although undoubtedly due to the genius of Jesus, and embraced in his vision and design of the future Kingdom of God on the earth, was not effected at once. 44. In fact, almost the only normal outward develop- ment of the early Christian communities, while they held fast to their pure monotheism, was their system of repre- sentation, according to which they each sent representa- tives to meet in a general council, for the consideration and dispatch of their common concerns. But this system was most important, being the mechanism by which the extremely complicated normal organization of each of the integral organs and of society, as a whole, can be brought into an orderly and practical system; and being the means by which the several Christian communities SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 83 came to be considered together as having the unity or catholicity of one Christendom. It must be borne in mind that, as in the primitive natural society, so also in the type of modern society instituted by Jesus, the integral organ of government, on account of the absence in both of idolatry and moral evil, was only potential; Jesus, the head of modern society, having absolutely refused to perform any gov- ernmental function. Where there is no moral evil to be coerced, government would plainly be superfluous. But the advent and increase of moral evil logically tend to produce the realization of government, and to stimulate the activity of its functions; while, obversely, from the rise and multifariousness of government may be inferred the growth of moral evil. Nor can it be doubted that the augmentation of moral evil, in the absence of polytheism, indicates as its cause the influence of mono- theistic idolatry, or the worship of an imaginary being, with an immoral or cruel and unjust character, instead of the just and loving God. For moral evil is the effect either of polytheistic or of monotheistic idolatry. 45. Now, about the beginning of the third century, a sudden and ominous portent made its appearance in all the Christian communities. As if by common con- sent, they almost simultaneously adopted sacerdotalism and despotism in the place of their primitive constitu- tions. They had evidently determined to fight heathen- ism with its OAvn weapons. The influence of Orientalism, or gnosticism, had prevailed. A revolution was made in Christendom by a ring composed of a banded few, calling themselves the clergy, 84 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. to subvert the growing organic Christian system of civil representative democracy, and to substitute for it the heathen systems of subordination, and of arbitrary usurpa- tion. The clergy claimed to be the privileged few, the superiors of the people, who were called the laity, and were merely their subjects. The clergy formed them- selves into a sacerdotal order, a hierarchy, and their head assumed to be, with their support, an Oriental monarch, a despot, under the name of a bishop, in every Christian community. Outwardly, Christianity had relapsed into ancient heathenism. The revolution of reaction was completed, confirmed, and perpetuated by substituting the awful heathen religious ceremonial of bloody human sacrifice, represented in a mimic show, for the tender memorial service of the last supper instituted by Jesus. Corresponding to this sacrificial ceremonial, typifying the injustice and cruelty of the being to whom it was offered, the sacerdotal order adopted Oriental dogmas and mysteries, concocted in the fertile imagination of the idolatrous East, couched in delusive and unfamiliar forms of speech, but interpreted by the sacerdotal order to sustain its ambitious pretensions. Combinations of bishops in provincial councils, formed inner rings of the sacerdotal order, and a union of all the bishops in a general council, completed the ecclesiastical machine, the head of which became the bishop of Rome. 46. The ecclesiastical machine of Christianity had, after the labor of a century, in the year 325 A. D., undermined the authority of the avowed heathen sacer- dotal system in the Roman Empire; when the heathen SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 85 emperor, Constant ine, who was at once the head of the heathen sacerdotal system as its Pontifex Maximus, and of the military machine of the empire as emperor, con- ceived the practical plan of securing for himself the powerful support of the Christian ecclesiastical machine by a compromise of its impure monotheism with the shaken and effete polytheism of the Roman sacerdotal order. Accordingly, Constantine, with a view to such a compromise, proposed a conference with the Christian ecclesiastical machine, which met him in full force in a general council at Nicea; and over which he presided as the heathen Pontifex Maximus, representing the poly- theistic element of the empire. The result of the con- ference was the adoption of the so-called Nicene creed, one of the conflicting Oriental or gnostic dogmas that had invaded Christianity from the East; and which the shrewd imperial Pontifex Maximus foresaw would easily admit of a sufficiently idolatrous interpretation to satisfy the entire heathen element of the Roman Empire; al- though he was somewhat vexed and disappointed to find that it did not receive the unanimous support of the bishops. Soon followed the irruption of the barbarous and idolatrous masses of the Roman Empire, with their gross superstition, into the Christian church, or the so-called conversion of the Roman Empire; and the Christian ecclesiastical ring was elevated at once to a pitch of opulence, splendor, pomp, luxury, and power, unsur- passed by any sacerdotal order in the most idolatrous ages and populations of the East. 86 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 47. From that time to the present, as logical results of the prevailing impure monotheism of Christianity, the Christian ecclesiastical ring or machine, representing the Oriental sacerdotal order, on one hand, and the Christian military machine, or military government, representing Oriental despotism, on the other hand, have almost everywhere, with occasional prudent relaxations, or necessary exceptions, outwardly dominated the unre- sisting masses of the people, in the larger part of what is called modern civilization. But the final frustration of the ecclesiastical machine's attempt to subdue the state under the church by its claim of temporal power in Europe, has saved the people there from a worse than Mohammedan rule. Of the crimes of the ecclesiastical ring, which is also the model of the military ring, I do not propose here to speak; but of its errors, or rather of its one funda- mental error, its impure monotheism, or monotheistic idolatry, from which all its well-known historical crimes and persecutions have proceeded, it was necessary that something should be said in its proper place. In the criminal rivalry of the church and the state for supre- macy over each other, the state was as guilty as the church. In the Koman Empire the Christian church and state were only partially separated. The emperor arrogated much authority over the church. Theodosius made a law punishing heresy with death. Some judicial authority was granted to the bishops, and they usurped more, thereby intruding on the functions of the state; but not more grossly than the state had trespassed upon the SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 87 functions of the church. In this respect the church and the state of Christianity were equally heathenized. 48. Having shown the outward career of Chris- tianity to have been a sudden, early, and persistent relapse into the system of ancient heathenism, we will now as briefly trace its inward development. Under the surface of society, below the rings and classes that had usurped ecclesiastical and political authority over them, the common people, the descendants and successors of those to whom the gospel of the Kingdom of God was preached by Jesus, have always preserved, with the formula or symbol, Kingdom of God, the tradition of the main points of its development, as orally delivered by Jesus to his disciples. By means of this tradition, they were always, and they are still, fully able, by their instinctive thought, aided by their experience, their sensuous ideas, and their personal communion in prayer with God, to reconstruct, develop, and apply to present circumstances, the doctrine that Jesus taught. For, what Jesus taught was not a figment of the imagination, an invention, a fantastic dream, a fiction, a creation of his unequalled genius; but the truth, com- mitted to him, as he said, by the Father, to be com- municated to all men, the truth of God, and as such suited to the common understanding of all men, and which they can find, where Jesus found it, written for their benefit in the heart, on the face of nature, and proclaimed in God's Providence. It was an idle, as well as a wicked thing, for the Chris- tian hierarchy, or ecclesiastical ring, to pretend to have received the deposit, and to have the exclusive custody 88 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. of the true faith, as they called it, or of the doctrine taught by Jesus. While the people could elect their religious leaders and teachers, these could be held in check, and could be relied upon, to keep alive the pure tradition of the Kingdom of God. But when the clergy separated themselves from the people, and formed them- selves into a self-constituted body of priests, they cut themselves off from the true line of tradition, and their tradition became as worthless, and for the same selfish reason, as the tradition of the Pharisees. The claim of the ecclesiastical ring to be the infallible church is utterly untenable, for the church is the people. The true supernatural revelation is the First Principle, and that is not confided to the ring; but is open to the interpretation of every one who will diligently consider it, and seek its instruction. In view of the fact that the truth of the Kingdom of God is traceable in the First Principle, and is a common possession, which, as to man's ordinary wants, may be utilized by all men, and as to his higher spiritual needs may be enjoyed as a solace by all those who have higher aspirations, the infer- ence is clear, that among the masses of the people, a large proportion of whom were slaves, though of the white race, in the Roman Empire, and as intelligent as most of their masters, there would be, in large volume and measure, an ever renewed tradition of the comforting doctrine of Jesus. Nor is it probable that the Christian sacerdotal order, who were for several centuries chiefly concerned to mingle in the pursuit of wealth among the rich, would attempt to inculcate their peculiar dogmas, SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 89 with the care their teaching required, upon the unprofit- able poor, to the exclusion of that tradition. 49. It is not asserted, that the Christian sacerdotal order altogether ignored the popular tradition of the doctrine of the Kingdom of God; for the tradition was vouched for by martyrdoms of world-wide renown, and was afterwards reduced to writing in documents made imperishable by it, and which in turn sustain the tradi- tion; but that this sacerdotal order made the tradition of the facts and doctrines of the true primitive Chris- tianity entirely subordinate to the dogmas they invented or imported from the East, altogether outside of Chris- tianity, and operating merely to support and magnify the authority and power of the order, as a self -constituted non-representative ruling body, over society. 50. After the lapse of more than sixteen hundred years from the revolution which transformed the simple and unassuming elective bishops, or overseers, of the early Christian communities into Oriental despotic mon- archs, then banded these bishops, with those persons who officially assisted them in the ceremony of religious worship, from presbyters and deacons down to the door- keepers, as a clergy, into a self-constituted, non-repre- sentative Oriental sacerdotal order, or religious ring, and gradually adopted or devised, outside of primitive Chris- tianity, Oriental dogmas, that afterwards grew into a permanent creed or symbol, tending to consolidate and perpetuate that sacerdotal order, it would be difficult now to correctly assign the motives of those engaged in the movement. It may be that the revolution met with no opposition from the masses of those communities, 90 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. composed to a great extent of slaves and of very sim- ple and poor persons not accustomed to take part in public affairs. It may be that the increasing pressure and persecution of the heathen government seemed to make it necessary for the Christian communities, who could no longer hide their meetings in upper chambers, in grave-yards, or other out-of-the-way places, at night, to have leaders analogous to those of their oppressors, and vested with authority to enforce unquestioning obe- dience for the general good, in the sudden and distressing exigencies that frequently occurred. But, whatever were the motives of those concerned in this revolution, a Christian sacerdotal order was then established; Oriental dogmas were then, and shortly afterwards adopted by it, and those dogmas have ever since helped to strengthen that sacerdotal order. That sacerdotal order, the clergy, never burned nor otherwise tortured, in any way, any person for violating the Christian moral law, for not paying his debts, or not supporting his family, or for any fraud or violence against his neighbor. But, if any man, woman or child, whispered, or even formulated in silent thought a doubt concerning any one of the Oriental, or gnostic dogmas, tending to maintain the authority of the clergy, they would set up a court of inquisition, that by the most bar- barous and exquisite tortures and fiendish cunning would extract a confession of the doubt, and condemn the victim to be burned at the stake. Thus, if any person doubted the doctrine of transubstantiation, or of the real pres- ence, or of the trinity, or of the autocracy, or absolute political power of the pope, he was condemned to be SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 91 burned alive, and his property was forfeited to the clergy and the state. The punishment of secret thought, by the Christian sacerdotal order, was a refinement of heathenism that no heathen sacerdotal order had ever imagined. The crim- inality of the condemnations of the Inquisition is aggra- vated by the fact that it blasphemously asserted that they were made for the glory of God, when in fact they were decreed for the support of the sacerdotal order. The crusades against the Waldenses of the Alps, and the Albigenses of southern France, were cruel, wholesale executions by order of the Inquisition. To be just to the clergy, it must be stated that they did not themselves burn their victims; but only ' ' com- manded, and that under the most awful threats, that the fire be lighted, and the victim tied to the stake by others." [Milman, L. C., VII., 437.] 51. The demoralized state of Christendom stepped forward and executed the commands of the Christian sacerdotal order. In England a statute, " de comburendo haeretico," was passed under Henry IV., in 1400. In Continental countries of Europe it is believed that no special statute or law for the purpose was considered necessary, and that the governments simply obeyed the orders of the clergy in burning its victims. The complicity of the governments, or military ma- chines of Europe, as the successors of heathen Oriental despotism, in the abnormal action of the Christian sacer- dotal order, in the matter of burning so-called heretics, is evident. This may be said of the governments of Europe 92 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. in general, Protestant and Eoman Catholic; botli before and since the so-called Protestant Reformation. 52. The military governments of Europe have also adopted the heathen governmental maxims of Oriental- ism the maxims sanctioning offensive war and conquest,, and those permitting the arbitrary rule over the people by a hereditary governing class of kings, emperors and nobles. 53. It may be said, therefore, on the one hand, that the primitive Christian community, inaugurated by Jesus as the Kingdom of God, has outwardly relapsed into modern forms of that ancient heathenism, or of that sacerdotalism and despotism which Jesus had completely excluded from it. For all abnormal action, or moral evil, as already stated, results from idolatry, and may be called heathenism; while normal action is in accordance with the Kingdom of God. And it may be added that the modern, like the ancient forms of heathenism, origi- nate from the same cause: namely, from that mode of idolatry that consists in attributing a false or immoral character to God. 54. But, on the other hand, the primitive Christian community has developed itself in partial accordance with the doctrine of the Kingdom of God, as taught by Jesus, into forms of modern civilization, altogether foreign to ancient heathenism. The Christian church, notwithstanding its sacerdotal- ism, has divided itself into the two inchoate, but dis- tinct, integral organs, formerly combined in the sacer- dotal church: namely, the republic of letters and art, and the republic of the true church. Likewise the SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 93 Christian state, notwithstanding the modified despotism of its military government, has also unfolded itself into the three separate integral organs, which were before compressed into it in the despotic state: namely, the republic of industry, the republic of public charity, and the republic of government. The separation of the inchoate republic of letters and art, from the sacerdotal church, was caused by repeated revivals of letters; first proceeding from the Mohammedan Arabs, who soon after their conquest of degenerate Christian countries, far surpassed the Christians in literature, especially in Spain; then from the culture inspired by the wealth and industrial activity of the free cities; then from the Christian schools and universities, and especially from the study of philosophy and of the newly found civil law taught there; then from Abelard, Arnold of Brescia, and the school men; then from Savonarola, Wy cliff e, Huss; then from the renaissance of the study of the Greek classics on the fall of Constan- tinople; and then from the invention of printing and paper. The sacerdotal church attempted in vain, by the Inquisition and by the crusades against the Albigenses and the Waldenses, to check the advance of learning and of liberal thought, which it correctly supposed would undermine its sacerdotal authority. But the inchoate republic of letters and art defended and saved, as it must ever do, the cause of truth. The separation of the inchoate integral organ or republic of industry from the military or heathen state, is still only partially accomplished. The first step of the 94 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. separation was caused by the remarkable revival of indus- try in the cities, beginning in the old Roman municipal towns of Italy, soon after the completion of the barba- rian conquest of the Western Roman Empire, and extending rapidly to the cities of Spain, France, Flan- ders, Holland, England, Switzerland and Germany. The object pursued by this industrial movement, and accomplished by it in the course of centuries, was to emancipate the industrial classes from the oppression and virtual slavery imposed upon them by the feudal, which had succeeded the Roman government. This revival of industry caused also a partial develop- ment of the integral organ or republic of public charity, by supplying funds for endowing and operating many charitable institutions and associations. The revival of industry further affected the govern- ment, by enabling the cities to obtain their freedom, and secure it by charters, from the feudal government. This tended to somewhat mitigate the heathenism, or despotism, of the government by introducing representa- tion from the now important cities in the legislatures of different European nations as Cordova, France, England, Germany, and Switzerland; and by securing for a time, until grossly abused, the independence of the cities of Italy. But it must not be forgotten, that the most reformed of the European governments, in 1350, in the reign of Edward III., retained enough of its heathen character to retard the organization of the republic of industry, by passing an act of parliament which fixed the rate of the wages of working-men, forbade them to contract SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 95 for higher wages, and punished as crimes combinations among them to defend their rights. 55. While the disintegration of the sacerdotal church and of the despotic or military state was progressing, as above stated, a conflict between them for mastery was carried on with great vigor; the sacerdotal order, on one side, claiming supreme temporal power over the state, and the state, on the other side, claiming authority to rule the church. The sacerdotal order of the western or Roman Catholic church, by various devices, succeeded in obtaining the temporal power it sought, after abandoning the less energetic Greek church to itself, so far as this enterprise was concerned; and during the thirteenth cen- tury the authority of the sacerdotal order of the Eoman Catholic church over the state in western and central Europe became despotic, and was despotically used. After that time, the temporal power of the sacerdotal order gradually declined, and by the so-called Protestant Reformation it was entirely thrown off from the states that adopted Protestantism; while the power of the people in the government gradually increased; results that may be fairly attributed to the rise and partial development of the two modern or revived integral organs, or republics, of letters and art, and of industry. 56. It may be stated, as an inference from all the pre- ceding observations, that there is a controlling and attracting unity, and a corresponding simplicity, pre- siding over and ordering all the manifold variety of being, of thought, and of action, in the universe. By tracing the individual man in his examination of self- consciousness, and in his relations as well to the inor- 96 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. game as to the organic world, to the inferior spirits of plants and animals, to the equal spirits of his fellow-men,, to the one superior spirit, God, to the laws of nature, as the uniformities of God's action, to the uniformity of those uniformities, as the one First Principle of all truth and of all normal practice, and to the one original and continuing social contract of God with man, developed from that principle; we have arrived at the unity of per- fect society, as the Kingdom of God, or the association of God with man, in the one universal society of the races of mankind. Moreover, as there is only one external source of all normal human action, namely, the example of God's moral character manifested in the First Principle, so there is only one internal source of man's abnormal action, or of moral evil, namely his error or ignorance as to the true moral character of God. Leading to man's depart- ure from imitating that character, this error is also a virtual denial of the true God, by falsely attributing to God a character false, cruel, or otherwise immoral. It is the monotheistic idolatry, which is the single cause to which may be assigned all the crime, the secret sin, and the discord prevailing, not only in ancient heathenism, but also in modern civilized society. To this fact the attention of every church should be directed. The conclusion of the whole matter is, that, the fun- damental internal cause of the moral evil and of all crime and ignorance in modern society being a single error, the nature of which can be plainly taught, which can be removed by instruction, and only by instruction, being the original and prime heresy of monotheistic idolatry, into which the sacerdotal Christian church early SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 97 fell; it was to overcome by the truth of God this heresy, inducing and including all the other heresies and crimes of society, that the republic of letters and art, the pre- dominantly speculative integral organ of society, as an investigating and teaching body, entirely independent of the church, co-ordinate with it, and having the peculiar function to seek, and to teach, in the First Principle, the whole range of the principles, as well of truth or science, as of normal practice, or practical morality, has been gradually developed from the original germ of the King- dom of God. Hence, all the practical integral organs, including the church of God, entitled to be called catholic, or universal, when free from heresy and sacer- dotalism, became bound to adopt from the republic of letters and art, and to realize in practice, all their respective practical principles. It follows that, as all the integral organs of society have the same system of laws or principles, derived from the First Principle of the Kingdom of God, by the repub- lic of letters and art, there can be only one normal order of society, constituted by those integral organs and their principles. It follows, also, as the Kingdom of God was proclaimed by Jesus as a fact, involving the system or complex of unalterable laws or principles, which, when viewed together, are called the First Principle, and em- brace all principles; that the one normal order of society constituted by the integral organs of society and their respective principles, must also be a fact within the King- dom of God, and must be detected in the actual society of mankind as its true organization, at work below the surface. 98 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. A conservative analysis, or ideal vivisection of the actual society of mankind, therefore, so far as it approxi- mates to the Kingdom of God, must disclose the true or normal organization of that society; and the description of that organization will furnish the ideal social consti- tution, as a matter, not of theory, or of imagination, but of fact. The next chapter will attempt to sketch the actual ideal social constitution, stripped of the deformities of heathenism still adhering to it, and fitted to regulate the perfect universal society of mankind. CHAPTER IV. Ideal Written Social Constitution, being a -*- development of the revived, predominantly spec- ulative, social side of the Semitic Philosophy. 57. The artificial constitution, humanly expressed, of the Kingdom of God, or of normal society, as mod- ern civilization, and as instinctively conceived, will now be described; it being so much of the unwritten, instinct- ive, rational, ideal, or natural constitution of the King- dom of God, or universal society of the races of man- kind, as may, when universally assented to, and adopted by tacit or express general agreement, be established as such in writing. All future social progress of mankind can be nothing more than..the rational realization of the instinctive con- ception of the Kingdom of God, as outlined by the teaching of Jesus, and based not only on the original and continuing social contract of God with man, and on the first principle of all science, and of all normal practical action, but also on the five elementary and universal, individual and social activities of man : namely, public education, religious service, industry, public charity, and government. The following articles, describing from the instinct- ive conception of the Kingdom of God, as the ideal 100 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. of perfect universal society, its actual organization, as a real though embryonic fact, by giving both the com- mon and the distinctive features of its working integral organs, exhibit the outlines of what must hereafter be more definitely formulated, by general agreement, as the written, universal, social constitution. ARTICLE I. 58. This article will give the common features of all the integral organs of -society, leaving the details dis- tinguishing the organization of each of them, respect- ively, to separate succeeding articles. Universal society is an association of associations, each independent of the rest in all that exclusively concerns it; all formed to promote the five elementary and uni- versal, individual and social, activities of man; associ- ations rising in generality from the primary associations, composed of the inhabitants of the lowest territorial or local subdivisions of each nation, to associations which are national; from these to those which are inter- national in each race; and from these to those which are Interrace among all the races. Each of these associations is five-fold, constituting a separate, though numerically identical, association for realizing, in a separate capacity, each of the five ele- mentary activities. The territory of each nation is parceled out into a number of primary subdivisions, called districts, or neighborhoods, or parishes, of a convenient size to enable the inhabitants of each to assemble in a pri- mary meeting of its association. SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 101 The organization of the association of each primary local district, or neighborhood, must be the meeting of all its members, or of those choosing to be present, convened at stated times, for each of its capacities; and at other times, on due notice; organized according to the general parliamentary law; adopting its resolutions by a majority vote of those present, to bind as a con- tract the whole association; and electing its authorized agents, or representatives. Each higher association than a primary one, is formed for a larger territorial district, and acts by means of representatives assembled from such of the next lower class of associations as occupy together the larger district. Its resolutions bind it as contracts, and appoint and authorize its representatives. Each nation is divided into at least one intermediate class of districts above, the primary; with a co-exten- sive association for each intermediate district, acting by representatives from the lower districts within it, and designed to regulate, according to its several capa- cities, and in respect to each of the several elementary activities, the local concerns of its district, whether a city, town, county or other rural area. If a nation is divided into larger territorial divisions, as states, or provinces, each of these should have a central association, acting by representatives from the next lower associations within it; and the nation should also have a national central association, acting by rep- resentatives from the state or provincial central asso- ciations. 102 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. If a nation is not divided into states or provinces, or other analogous large sections, it will have a central national association acting by representatives from the intermediate associations. The organization of each association higher than the primary is representative, and it is of two kinds, called respectively, undenominational and denomina- tional. Both of these kinds of organization are distin- guished from everything heathen by employing rep- resentation as their means of co-operative action, and they are distinguished from each other by the dif- ferent kinds of representation they use. These two kinds of representation may be called generic and specific. Generic representation is the kind used by the undenominational organization; as, when all the rep- resentatives of an association are charged to advocate its general, undivided or integral interest, without par- tiality for any particular denomination of that interest. Specific representation is the kind used by the denominational organization; as, when some of the representatives of an association are charged, respect- ively, to advocate specifically one particular denomina- tion of its interest, and some, another. There may, in different cases, be relatively different degrees of generic and specific representation, according to the interest represented. All the elementary individual and social activities are practiced by individuals, and by temporary asso- ciations of individuals. But these individuals and temporary associations, as members of universal society, SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 103 are entitled not only to have the protection and encouragement of the whole community, or society, to which they immediately or mediately belong, but also to have the helpful guidance of wise general regu- lations adopted by universal agreement for the equal profit of all; and it is the duty, and should be the object, of normal society to afford this equal protec- tion and guidance by its highest organization. The most general associations of each nation, as well as of the race to which it belongs, are the five inte- gral organs of society; each designed to promote, in all the races, one of the elementary activities, and having in each race a thorough national organization, which receives authority " from below," as distinguished from the despotic, sacerdotal, and feudal systems, which derive their authority "from above." Combining all the local associations having its special activity in charge, in each nation of the race, every integral organ is, in theory and potentially, international and Interrace in its scope. The complete organization of universal society is the co-operation of its integral organs. To effect this co- operation each integral organ, besides its fundamental organization of lower local associations, must have an organization that is superior, or general, and separate from the rest; each integral organ being regarded as an independent republic. The type of the general organization of each integral organ, regarded as an independent republic, is the system of civil representative democracy, partially realized in the general government of the United States of America. 104 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. For the integral organs other than that of govern- ment, however, there will necessarily be some diversities from some of the general governmental forms. The government, in a military point of view, needs a chief executive officer, a head, a leader, a representa- tive of the whole people, and co-ordinate with the legisla- tive and the judicial departments. The other integral organs need 110 chief, or leader, co-ordinate with the legislature. In each of them its highest representative body is its general legislature. The highest executive officers in each of them may be a small board of executive commissioners, elected for a short term of years by the legislature, responsible to it, and appointing their subordinates subject to its confirmation. The general legislature, or the central regulative body, of each integral organ must form the head of an ascend- ing scale of representative assemblies, delegated respect- ively, from its primary, intermediate, state or national local associations; each local association determining by its representatives the affairs relating exclusively to its locality; and leaving to the highest, or general legisla- ture of each integral organ, the formulation of those general regulations, that relate in common to all its members, in the exercise of its particular elementary social activity. Each integral organ may have two general legislatures, one undenominational, the other denominational. The general regulations adopted by the general legis- latures of each of the integral organs, and by their local associations, must, so far as they are positive laws, be SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 105 morally binding, as public contracts, on all the members, respectively, of the integral organs or other associations enacting them; and their enforcement, like that of other contracts, must be sought in the courts of the govern- ment. Hence, a judicial department in any of the integral organs other than the government, would be a superfluous piece of machinery. The constitution of the Kingdom of God, as perfect universal society, being an infinite ideal, open in its integral generality and graded development to the in- stinctive apprehension of all, the description of all its minor details would be as useless at any time as it must always be impossible. Only the main features of the divine plan, as they have been already in part realized, or in the advancing progress of society have come into the near prospect of fulfilment, need be outlined. The organization of the integral organs of society, as the main elements of the Kingdom of God, will now, in succession, be separately treated. ARTICLE II. 59. The Republic, or Integral Organ, of Letters and Art. The elementary activity of this integral organ of society, is public education. Its means are schools, colleges, universities, public lectures, and the press. Its modes of action are investigation and teaching. It acts by individuals worthily assuming to represent it, and by associations. Its highest associations are its two general representative assemblies, or legislatures, one of 106 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. which is undenominational, and the other denomina- tional, in each state or nation; and from which, respect- ively, delegates or conference committees may be sent to some central point to meet similar bodies from the other states or nations of the same race, to form similar international assemblies or legislatures. The subjects of its investigation and teaching are language, all the principles of philosophy, of the special sciences, and of practice, including the fine and the useful arts; all these principles being included in, and derived from, the first principle, or the system of the laws of nature, or of God. It must particularly teach manual training, and the cultivation of a healthy body, and practical morality, with whatever else it may teach. Its general representative undenominational legisla- ture will be composed of representatives, themselves chosen by representatives of its undenominational, local, primary meetings, when assembled in their respective local intermediate districts; these local meetings being convened to act for the general interest of public educa- tion. It will enact such regulations as may be necessary to direct the general affairs of the various institutions of public education it may establish. It will also appoint two boards of Commissioners. One of these boards would be executive, called general Com- missioners of Public Education, whose duty it should be to establish, according to instructions prescribed by that legislature, a complete system of public education, from primary schools to colleges and universities, for teaching SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 107 all the subjects enumerated before, belonging to liberal culture. Acting also under the instructions of that legis- lature, local commissioners of public education, elected by the people of each locality, will have charge of the local schools. Teachers should be appointed, according to general regulations, during good behavior, after favorable exami- nation. The office of commissioner of public education should be honorary, and for a short term, subject to re-election. The other board of commissioners, predominantly critical, though partly executive, would be called the Commissioners of Public Criticism. The republic of let- ters and art being responsible for all seemingly impor- tant publications allowed to pass without its dissent, these commissioners should be men selected for their eminent knowledge, character and skill, and suitably salaried to pass deliberate judgment, for the information of the public, as the authorized decision of the republic of letters and art, on a classified range of the most impor- tant current publications of science, literature, art, and journalism; separating the good from the worthless, how- ever well meant, and reporting their decision to the public in a cheap periodical paper. They should pay particular attention to the inde- pendent, general, or undenominational journals, form- ing the bulk of the reading of the general public, and which should furnish, with all the resources of condensation, precision, and system, a vivid panoramic representation of the present doings for the passing day, with occasional retrospects, of all the social activities. 108 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. All publications should be protected by a general copy- right for a certain specified term, or until condemned or approved by the commissioners of public criticism; and after approval by them a further special copyright should be granted for the usual term by the commis- sioners, by their certificate specifying their approval of such works as they have favorably criticised. The com- missioners should certify the works they have unfavor- ably criticised or condemned. Authors and publishers dissenting from the decisions of the commissioners, would be free to appeal to the public through the courts, by applying for an injunction against reprinting a work improperly condemned by the commissioners. The general undenominational legislature shall provide funds for the payment of salaries and other expenses incident to public education, by a small general assess- ment, to be limited by the Government, and by receiv- ing voluntary contributions. It shall also supervise the investments of voluntary endowments of educational institutions. It shall encourage original investigations, as well as teach their results. A general representative denominational assembly, or legislature, composed of representatives from the various associations formed to promote different branches of public education, whether scientific, artistic, mechanical, moral or religious, may be convened at the instance of the undenominational legislature of the republic of let- ters and art; or upon the call of any of those associa- tions, as the undenominational legislature, by general SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 109 regulations, may direct; and when convened, it shall consider such of the interests or subjects of public edu- cation as may be specified in its call, and it shall report the result of its deliberations to the undenominational legislature, for its action. As the normal action of society is a unity, or integral whole, of action, the harmony of the combined action, or co-operation of all its integral organs; and, similarly, the normal action of each integral organ is also, a unity, or integral whole, of action; so, accordingly, the normal action of the republic of letters and art is an integral unit a consensus of every investigation towards a per- fect system of truth derived from the first principle; and a corresponding consensus of every effort of teaching towards a universal system of liberal public education, by the school, the college, the university, and the press, and equally independent of the church and the gov- ernment. But while independent of both, the republic of letters and art furnishes for the support of both, all liberal cul- ture, the whole system of true principles, and establishes on a firm foundation the true value of the Bible, as the most ancient charter of human liberty, the sacred repos- itory of the rational Truth that makes men free, what- ever else it may contain. AKTICLE III. 60. The Kepublic, or Integral Organ of the Church. The elementary activity of this integral organ of society, the church, is public religious service. This activity serves God by serving man, in leading him into 110 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. communion with God, teaching him the knowledge of God and his true moral and benovolent character. It thus renders to man the highest service. By this acti- vity, therefore, man, voluntarily and gratefully offering himself, and graciously accepted, as God's agent or instrument, does a material part of God's work in bless- ing man. It induces man to think principles as God's specula- tive action, or thought, thereby acquiring some of the energy of God's thought, as speculative faith; and to imitate God in his practical action, or character, thereby gaining some of the energy of God's practical action, as practical faith. It is the immediate communion of man with God in public, without the necessary intervention of any per- son pretending to be an official mediator, but with the aid of all present, sympathizing fellow-men, and espe- cially of ministers chosen by the people, or congrega- tion, to lead in prayer, and teach the knowledge of God's character. This, when followed by subsequent exemplary conduct, is true public religious service. It does service to God, because it helps him to benefit man. The religious experience, called by the Quakers the Inner Light and the Inward Monitor, and some mystic declarations of other sects, may be rationally explained as the true knowledge of God, derived from the First Principle, by means of the sensuous ideas and the opera- tions of instinctive thought, independent of language. The means of effecting communion with God, is prayer; the association with others in pursuit of it, SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. Ill or public religious worship; the aid of the arts; and especially full instruction as to God's character, derived from its manifestation in the principles of nature, in the events of history, and in his common providential dealings with the individual man. Of the arts, in respect to religion, poetry and music, as spiritual, are the chief; to which architecture, sculpture, and paint- ing contribute their aid. The republic of the church consists of all the peo- ple, and it embraces all the religious denominations not heathen in their dogmas or practices. Religious denomi- nations in all their relations to the general church, are somewhat analogous to the political parties of the gov- ernment, in that they are separated from each other by differences of opinion, and that they jointly constitute the whole people, the whole church all uniting in holding the same ultimate principles, notwithstanding their disagreement in matters of indifference. The general undenominational representative assem- bly, or legislature, of the church, for a state or nation, consists of representatives from the undenominational assemblies of its local associations. It regulates, in general, the elementary activity, the religious service, of the church, in essential points. It is analagous to other legislatures, because it is a deliberative body designed for a free expression of opinions, with a view to agreement in some resolution declaratory of the truth, or in some decision in a matter of practice. But it differs materially from other legis- latures in several important particulars. 112 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. First, it has no political power. It cannot, therefore, use governmental modes of coercion to enforce con- formity with its opinions, or to punish disagreement with them. Nor can it, as a Christian body, use any of the well-known so-called spiritual methods of enforcement, which are heathen modes of superstition and idolatry, pretending to engage and enlist the wrath of an idol god to vindicate the heathen dictates of a sacerdotal order. Secondly, the subjects of its deliberation and action are truly spiritual, as distinguished from temporal, and espe- cially from all outward matters of the State, whether industrial or governmental, or even of public charity. It may properly discuss the means by which communion with God in public or in private is effected, with a view to improve them all. But public religion, or the public service of God, is its general subject. Private or indi- vidual religion, indeed, underlies and supports all nor- mal life, as life is one consistent and integral whole, guided by the one First Principle that involves the prin- ciples of private or individual religion, with all other principles. And man, as an individual, can only live a normal life and serve God as he serves man. The ways, therefore, in which man can serve his fellow-man, and thereby exercise his religion as an individual, are very numerous. But the chief outward manifestation of his religion, and the one mainly committed to the charge of the church, is the public service of God, the public exhi- bition and teaching of the true character of God, as the just, wise, and loving Father of mankind; for the public encouragement of man by association, prayer, example, SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 113 and instruction, superinduced upon enlightenment and liberal culture, to commune with him, and follow his example in private as well as in public. Hence, the deliberations of the church in its unde- nominational legislatures, or councils, while aiming at agreement in essential religious truth, must be spiritual, and will charitably recognize freedom of thought and toleration of differing opinions and usages. The councils of the church, therefore, will abstain from formulating any authoritative creed; but will call on all men to find and to follow all the truth of God. They will, to the best of their ability, confute, with charity, all funda- mental error; and will avoid the heathen practice of stigmatizing error as punishable or damnable heresy; but will prescribe for all error, as its only rational and religious human remedy, cogent argument and wise in- struction, leaving all further remedy to the example and discipline of God. When required, an interstate or an international un- denominational legislature, or council of the church, may be formed, by sending representatives from its state or national undenominational legislatures, to meet at some central point. The general undenominational legislature, or council of the church, may appoint Executive Commissioners to bring the resolutions of the council to the general knowl- edge of the people; to promote Sunday schools, as unde- nominational as practicable, in the various churches; and to send efficient and liberal undenominational missions to the heathen world, at home and abroad. 114 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. There may be convened a denominational representa- tive general assembly, or legislature, of the church, as a denominational council, composed of representatives from all the religious denominations, as such, as far as possible, to exhibit and discuss from time to time, in a charitable way, the actual characteristics or differences of all the religious denominations, while carefully noting their points of agreement, and in those points of agree- ment making a joint search for any common elements of ancient heathenism, or monotheistic idolatry, as op- posed to the simple and pure rational Christianity. The union, at least of the Christian religious denomi- nations, in Christian charity, the lowest degree of which is toleration, must precede, and would probably produce, the general reformation of all the monotheistic religious denominations, a movement which would be first of all the extirpation of all the roots of ancient heathenism and monotheistic idolatry; for only after these are removed, will the truth of God have free course and unimpeded growth. The republic, or integral organ, of the church, in its normal action, is unquestionably an integral unity of all its denominations, the one catholic church of the one true God. For all its various religious denomina- tions, normally seeking the knowledge of the true char- acter of God, with a view to its faithful imitation in public religious service and in private life, as their only essential objects; while each questions its own denomi- national peculiarities, resolved to dismiss from its doc- trine and its practice, or ceremonial, every vestige and reminiscence of ancient heathenism; the Roman Catholic, SEMITIC PHILOSOP 1 1 V . 115 the Greek Catholic, and the English Catholic, looking narrowly to what is distinctly Eoman, Greek, and Eng- lish, respectively, in their religious systems; and the other denominations examining closely that which in their doctrine and practice is rather peculiar than essen- tial, must seriously ask themselves whether their denomi- national peculiarities, even if abstractly true in doctrine and formally correct in practice, as understood by them- selves, have not become, by their overestimate and their unnecessary obtrusion, mere unduly magnified accidental departures from true catholicity; but are easily harmo- nized and freed from every mark of monotheistic idolatry, by a return to the simplicity of pure, catholic, original Christianity. ARTICLE IV. 81. The Republic, or Integral Organ, of Industry. The elementary activity of this integral organ of society, is industry, a term the meaning of which ex- pands with the advance of society, and which may be regarded now as comprehending the production, ex- change, transportation, distribution, and the redistribu- tion of natural and artificial values, and as including the regulated partial consumption, or use, and the residuary savings of them. The means by which the elementary activity of industry is carried on, are partly material, and partly spiritual. Its material means are the material gifts of nature, and material capital, both fixed and circulating. Its spiritual means are its spiritual capital, as free labor, skill, science, credit, and the so-called forces of nature, with language and the arts. 116 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. The modes of action, or the operations, of the ele- mentary activity of industry, are extremely various and complicated; but they may be collected, for discussion, into four groups, represented by the action of the four industrial classes, the employers, the working-men, the consumers, and the capitalists. While it is necessary to consider each of these groups separately, it should be observed that they are, in theory, integral parts of one whole of industry; all tending, in practice, with the progress of society, to have identical interests, with diversified advantages, as the same indi- vidual person may belong to all these classes at the same time. For, when industry is properly organized, the working-man will be not only, to a fair extent, a con- sumer, but also, according to his skill and prudence, a capitalist, and thereby potentially, if not actually, an employer. The industrial classes, constituting the whole people, may all be traced to the working-men. Indeed, when it is considered that material capital can only be utilized in the operations of industry by means of spiritual capital, which is entirely within the reach of all work- ing-men by diligence and good conduct; and that the con- trolling elements of spiritual capital, expressed by the term credit, are daily seen to elevate working-men to the class of employers, entrusted with the use of material capital by its owners, and enabled thereby to acquire material capital, in the form of profit; it is manifest that in a normal system of industry, when the government ceases to interfere with it, and the other integral organs co-operate with it, especially the republic of letters and SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 117 art, by furnishing to all a liberal education, and the republic of the church, by stimulating in all the religious and the moral impulses, there will be oifered for every one, according to his skill and perseverance, a free and open career, to pass upward from the lowest to the highest employments of industry. To a careful observer a constant series of changes in the ranks of industry will appear, even now, to take place with spectacular interest; as in a drama, in which an actor enters the first scene as a serving man, and in the crisis of the plot throws off his humble disguise and assumes the character of a distinguished personage; or as in a circus, when a horse gallops around faster and faster, like fleeting fortune, and no rider is seen; but suddenly a person from among the audience, muffled in coarse clothing like a plain working-man, stumbles into the ring, is helped upon the horse, and sways un- steadily in his seat, seeming ready every moment to fall; but at length becomes steady, shows a level head, starts to his feet on the saddle, throws off disguise after dis- guise, appears more and more richly dressed, as if rising in life, until at last he bursts upon the startled and admiring audience in all the glory of spangles and embroidery, a glittering, full-blown capitalist. The alleged conflict of labor and capital is absurd. For labor is spiritual capital, and is daily converted into material capital. After the primary distribution of the productions of industry, wages representing the share of the workingman, the relative consumption by the distributees of their respective shares determines the possession of material capital. Those distributees 118 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. who consume less than they receive, and save the surplus, have this, as material capital, in their hands. The beginnings of material capital are always in the hands of free working-men, who receive wages; as the highest honors of government, of the church, of science and art, may often be traced to the same origin. From small beginnings material capital, increasing sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly, produces by economy and enterprise wonderful results. Working-men bent on accumulation and endowed with energy, prudence, and patience, see and utilize the constantly recurring but rapidly passing opportunities of business, adding success to success, now by inventions, now by investments, and now by prudent and skilful management of affairs It is by the saving of material capital, year after year, that wages are paid; and that the wonderful system of reproduction of industrial values, including material capital, is carried on. For, if the saving of material capital by working-men and employers were to cease, and every man were to consume all that he received in the distribution of industrial products, the material capital already accumulated would soon be exhausted, and the industrial business of the world would stand still. The only general occupations left to mankind would be hunting and war; war for the few wild vines and fruit trees found scattered in the woods, and for the hunt- ing-grounds that would occupy the fields of present cultivation. The division of labor caused by the great variety of industrial occupations, when a free interchange of their productions, by means of money and of commerce, is SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 119 allowed, necessarily conduces, when these occupations are supported by educated intelligence and religion, not only to the present, but also to the ultimate harmony and prosperity of them all; both by encouraging the separate organization of the industrial classes, and by facilitating the saving of material capital. It is evidently proper that all the industrial classes should be carefully organized. Labor is partially organ- ized, and it is desirable that organized labor should be able to meet and to consult with organized capital, organized employers, and organized consumers. For this purpose, it is necessary that the organization of each of the industrial classes should be carried to practical completeness. The organization of labor, or of the class of working- men is defective. It is founded too much on military tac- tics, on compulsion, on the excessive use of self-help, which in a community governed by law should only be resorted to in a case of the last necessity, and on the imagined force of its erroneously supposed superiority of numbers; forgetting that every working-man is also a consumer, and in respect to spiritual capital, if not also to material capital, is likewise a capitalist. It lacks an institution that will enable large bodies of its members to enter, backed by strong financial influence, into busi- ness relations with employers, for well-considered and lasting mutual benefit. Such an institution is the labor bank, in which the labor and the savings of a consider- able number of working-men and working-women, as its members, under suitable regulations, may be pooled; so that the bank, by its officers, may make contracts for 120 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. its labor of different grades, with a guaranty against strikes, taking adequate security, and insuring the pay- ment of wages to its members; while, as a savings bank, on strict business principles, it would loan its funds, by preference, to judicious and liberal employers. The labor banks, if prudently managed, would prob- ably take the place of the present savings banks, and would give the working-men an influential and peace- making standing among capitalists and employers. But the present labor associations, though they may still have a legitimate use, whether they are called trades unions, knights of labor, or otherwise, seem to chiefly confine their attention to the most obvious interests of working-men, in respect to wages and the hours of labor; while they neglect their less obvious, but equally import- ant, interest in the peace and harmony of all the indus- trial classes. Of what advantage, however, are high wages and few hours of labor, when gained by irritating threats and expensive strikes, if thereby a universal, cruel, and vindictive industrial war among the leaders and repre- sentatives of all the industrial classes is kept up; leading to stoppages, disasters, and panics in trade, which fre- quently throw many thousands of working-men and working-women, and in the course of a few years, even millions, out of all employment for months, and out of steady employment for years? In normal society, in which the integral organs are separately organized, there will be a science of industrial economy, showing the organization of industry and its proper modes of action; but because there will be no SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 121 interference of government with industry, there can be no science of political economy. Nothing can be more inconsistent with industrial economy than the plan of some working-men, who, in their rash quarrel with material capital, propose to vest all pro- perty, including all material capital, in the government. For this measure would necessitate the extreme central- ization of the government, with an unavoidably absolute central ruling body, like Plato's supreme council of philosophers; and would, by excluding all competition of capitalists, create a practically despotic monopoly of material capital, under the management of that ruling body, who would be the only employers, and whom all working-men and working- women would be compelled, by the whole power of the government, without resistance or complaint, to serve. Although in normal society there could be no inten- tional interference of the government with industry, the right of the government to raise its revenues, in whole or in part, by duties on imported goods, can not be denied. But the integral organ of industry would have an equal right to insist on there being appended to the tariff of import duties a proviso, that, tf when it shall be made to appear by a consular certificate in the form prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury, or by law, that any articles in the list of imports are produced abroad by labor for which wages are paid equivalent to the wages paid in the United States of America for similar labor, these articles shall only pay a rate of import duty, say, twenty-five per cent, less than the regular rate of import duty charged upon such articles 122 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. in said tariff." Such a proviso, which could be im- proved by a sliding scale of duties, rising with low wages, and falling with high wages, paid abroad on the production of the imported goods, would tend to pro- duce among nations that equalization of fair wages, and reciprocity of beneficial commerce, which are the con- ditions of rational free trade. The undenominational general representative assem- bly, or legislature, of the republic, or integral organ, of industry for a state or nation must consist of repre- sentatives chosen by the intermediate undenominational associations indiscriminately from all the general indus- trial classes. It may enact general industrial regulations, which may be called general industrial positive laws, or public industrial contracts; appoint Executive Industrial Com- missioners, for collecting and distributing useful indus- trial statistics; for awarding limited privileges, by letters patent, to inventors of useful industrial contrivances or combinations; for granting charters to incorporate in- dustrial corporations; for exercising supervision and control over industrial corporations of a public nature, and for receiving and disbursing whatever revenue it may control. There may be, for a state or a nation, a general denominational legislature of industry, consisting of two branches, elected at different times. Its members will be representatives, respectively, of the four fundamental industrial classes. As these classes are integral, and to some extent interpenetrate each other, and the class of consumers actually contains all the other classes, one SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 123 branch of the denominational legislature may be com- posed exclusively of representatives of the consumers, and may be elected by the intermediate local associations convened to act undenominationally for all the classes of industry. The other branch of the denominational legislature of industry may consist of an equal number of repre- sentatives, unless another proportion can be agreed on, for each of the other three industrial classes, working- men, employers, and capitalists, and elected from the respective associations or corporations belonging to them. Perhaps the most practical way to elect separate repre- sentatives for these three classes, would be to let the elections be made by the regularly organized and com- bined associations of each class, respectively, say, by organized labor, by organized capital, and by the organized employers. In this way, there would be assembled in both branches of the general denominational legislature of industry, an adequate number of recognized representa- tives of each fundamental industrial class; and their points of difference and points of agreement would be clearly brought out for rational deliberation by intelli- gent discussion. The general denominational legislature of industry will settle by its resolutions the temporary general differ- ences among the industrial classes; adjust a standard scale of wages and of hours of labor, as a practical basis for private contracts on the subject, while leaving all fair private contracts free; and appoint an advisory board to recommend temporary modifications of this 124 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. scale, when they are required by changes of general economical circumstances. It is probable that the discussions of the two branches of the general denominational industrial legislature, by demonstrating the truth of the principle, that in the long run, and in a large view, the interests of the four industrial classes are identical, would stop the industrial war now raging throughout the civilized world, and establish universal industrial peace. It is not difficult to prove that it is the true interest of the consumer to pay a fair price for a good article; for this price will return to the consumer, who is a working-man, fair wages, and it will leave to the con- sumer, who is an employer, a fair profit; and it will yield to the consumer, who is a capitalist, a fair rate of interest. Again, fair wages, with a due regard to the hours of labor, are plainly the highest that can be paid consistently with the security and maintenance of capital, and it is as clearly the true interest of the working-men, with a view to preserving the source of wages, to receive no more, as it is the true policy of employers and capital- ists, in order to keep up the consuming power of the working-men, from whom a large part of their profits is derived, to pay no less. The republic, or integral organ, of industry, there- fore, in its normal action, is a unity, an integral whole of action; the true permanent interests of all its mem- bers, its consumers, employers, working-men, and capital- ists, in a system of intelligent harmony, and rationally organized industrial peace, being virtually the same. SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 125 ARTICLE V. 62. The Republic, or Integral Organ, of Public Charity. The elementary activity of the republic, or integral organ, of public charity, is the public-spirited helping love of the people. It aims to remedy the deficiency of the action of each of the other four integral organs of society, and also to cure the evils common to them all. Its means, besides its own action, are charitable gifts entrusted to it. Its action, being public, is effected by associations, some of which are local, and others are confined to no locality. Hence, to accomplish its general aims, there have been developed in it five general groups or classes of charitable and benevolent associations. One group of charitable associations supplements the general action of the republic of letters and art, by extending the benefits of education to the decrepit, the idiotic, the deaf and dumb, the blind, the incurably sick, whom the general system of public education does not effectually reach. Another group of charitable associations ekes out the general action of the church by extending the benefits of its religious service to persons to whom the ordinary ministrations of the church do not extend, the sick, the prisoner, the outcast, the dweller in thinly settled neighborhoods, the heathen. Another group of charitable associations aids the deficencies in the ordinary working of the republic of industry; alleviates by generous contributions the calami- ties of bad harvests, of floods, of fires, of disappoint- 126 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. ments to the industrious poor, caused by unforeseen changes of trade, and by new applications of machinery; and seeks to protect working-men, working-women, and working children from excessive hours and unwholesome conditions of labor, and from labor at too early an age; and to preserve for them every week a day, and some- what more, of rest. Another group of charitable associations superadds its action to the government's dealing with crime; aids in deserving cases the defense of the accused, counsels with humanity the condemned, seeks to convert their punishment into means for their reform, and, after the term of their punishment expires, leads them with generous sympathy and needed assistance into honest courses of life. The remaining group of charitable associations re- lieves the infirmities of immorality common, more or less, to all the integral organs, by promoting moral reforms; humanizes, refines, and elevates the modes of intercourse among the individuals and the collective members of society, by providing cheap, aesthetic public entertainments of high art. The undenominational general representative assem- bly, or legislature, of the republic, or integral organ, of public charity, must consist of representatives chosen by the intermediate undenominational associations, con- vened to consider the general interests of public charity. Its duty will be to collect and distribute statistics of public charity; to issue general advisory regulations on the subject, and to appoint a board of Executive Commissioners of Public Charity. SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. 127 The duties of the executive commissioners of public charity would be, to examine and report, from time to time, the condition of all permanent charitable invest- ments; to furnish practicable plans for all extensive charitable enterprises, when required by those having them in charge; and to make, under the direction of the associations engaged in the promotion of moral reforms, and of refined social intercourse, all the neces- sary arrangements for cheap, aesthetic public entertain- ments or amusements, by means of literary lectures, and of displays of high art in theatrical performances, and in other exhibitions, easily accessible to the masses of the people. The denominational general representative assembly, or legislature, of the republic, or integral organ, of public charity, must be composed of representatives, elected as far as possible from all the general groups, orders or classes of charitable associations, and associa- tions specially designed to promote moral reforms. Its duty will be to harmonize by its deliberations the action of the various groups of associations engaged in charitable and reformatory work; and to furnish statis- tics and suggestions for general regulations to the un- denominational legislature of the republic, or integral organ, of public charity. Evidently, there may be an international and an Interrace organization of public charity, as well as of the other integral organs of society. But charity, being as universal, and as ever present, as humanity, need not wait for the formation of inter- national or Interrace charitable associations, in order 128 SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. to extend its help from one nation to another nation of the same or of another race. A national association, therefore, of the white race, in the United States of America, can properly perform an act of Interrace charity by assisting with money and counsel the negro nation sojourning there to emigrate to its natural habitat and providential home in Central Africa. Similarly, acts of Interrace charity, though of a dif- ferent kind, are performed by national associations of the white race in the United States of America to the Indian race now there. In its normal action, the republic, or integral