BR 100 .M46 1886 Mendenhall, J. W. Plato and Paul 1844-1892. \/ PLATO AND PAUL; OR, Philosophy and Christianity. AN BXANIINATION TWO FUNDAMENTAL FORCES OF COSMIC AND HUMAN HISTORY. WITH THEIR CONTENTS, METHODS, FUNCTIONS, RELATIONS, AND RESULTS COMPARED. J. W.iiENDENHALL. PH. D., D. D.. Author of "Echoes from Palestine," Etc. •Plato is philosophy, and philosophy, Plato." — R. W. Emerson. •Christianity is the philosophy of the people." — Victor Cousin. ndvra doKC/id^ETE- to kuTmv mTExere." — THE Apostle Paul. CINCINNATI: CRANSTON & STOWE NEW YORK : HUNT >VND BA.TON. COPYRIOHT BV CRA.NSTON & STOWE, 1886. IFntrobuction to fll^cmolial IEmUou, DR. MENDENHALL has been iu heaven two years. We would not have him back ; but sometimes we ahnost expect to see him coming as of yore, and to hear his thrilling, throbbing sentences again. Now that we know how frail he was, we wonder that he was spared so long, and marvel that he accomplished so much. His great soul shook the light framework of the body that housed it. He generated the light he worked by. Power he had abundantly, but the combustion which supplied it was that of his body. The zeal of the Lord's house consumed him. To meet him socially was to be drawn to him as by a magnet. To hear him preach was to be awed by the sublimity of his thought, and charmed by the grace and purity of his diction. To read after him was to behold his soul in the multiple mirrors which reflected its radiant powers. He knew his strength. Jonah was not his model. The Nineveh call resounded within him, and he fell his length toward the city's portals. Archimedes wanted a fulcrum. So did he. When the Church believed he had a lever, she furnished it. Men who scorn- fully asked, "What can this boaster do?" found out, when the rout of the Philistines spread from the valley even unto the gates of Ekron. In the best sense he was a "higher critic " himself. "The de- fense of Christianity on the sole ground of its impiration" he said, " however justifiable in theology, is not resorted to here [in his Plato and Paul], since the doctrine of inspiration itself is undergoing a change of meaning and a modification of expression in Christian cir- cles that forbid its employment as a philosophical instrument in the sup- port of the highest truth. Dogmatic inspiration, or that inspiration which theology maintains, has now all it can do to maintain itself; philosophical inspiration, or that inspiration which is inherent in truth aiid logically afiirms itself, is potent in the strengthening of one's faith in such truth," This does not mean that he relinquished his faith in inspiration, but that the content of the term was not yet de- termined ; and that the Christian believer and the believing philoso- pher had something in common. But, wild with its own successes. Higher Criticism, not content with cutting down idolatrous groves and destroying idolatrous altars. II INTRODUCTION TO MEMORIAL EDITION. seemed bent on profaning the temple itself. It was then and there that, fresh from tending his few Ohio Sheep, the stripling with his sling laid low the giant terror of our Israel, the Goliath of Destructive Criticism. That was the time to battle, not to compromise ; to conquer, not to make treaties. Some misunderstood him. Eliab was so much older, and had been to war so much longer, that he reckoned little worth the bear and the lion episodes, and even counted the throw that killed Goliath a chance shot. But David had just come to his kingdom, and was preparing to quadrate I'aith with philosophy, and zeal with highest learning, when he was called away, leaving that most important part of his unfinished work to be done by his successor on the Review throne. He died misjudged, because misunderstood. His plan was perfect, but his building incomplete. Even now those of our ripest scholars who were almost in revolt against what seemed his ignorant dogmatism, have come to cherish a kindlier judgment. By and by, understanding the kingly lineage of his letters, they will, with loving sadness, say: " He came to his own, and his own received him not." Whilst we live who knew him, he will need no memorial. Mem- ory lifts a starry dome in our hearts. But we would have our chil- dren and strangers learn the greatness of his soul, and come under the spell of his genius. Ilhiminated window in holy fane, mural tablet in classic hall, high- builded mausoleum in sacred shades, — these are local and inadequate. His books are his noblest monuments. In these, though he be dead, yet he speaketh. They are his reincarnation. As the phonograph gives tone, inflection, word, and thought, when he who spoke has passed away, so, as we turn the pages of Meudenhall's "Plato and Paul," the book reveals to us all the myriad qualities of his noblest self— student, devotee, doubter, believer, philosopher and saint, man and master. This is his true memorial, his worthiest monument. It is with this thought that Cranston & Curts have prepared a limited memorial edition of this royal octavo volume, with its 777 pages, a mine of Christian learning. They rightly conjecture that, not only in the North Ohio Conference, whence he sprang, but throughout Ohio and the Church, there will be many who would de- light to lay such a volume, fitly bound and inscribed, on the library table, that, as often as they see it, they may think of him, and when they read it, commune with his princely spirit. r>AVID H. MOORE, D. D. Cincinnati, Ohio. March, IK'M. INTRODUCTION. PHILOSOPHY is Speculation ; Christianity is Truth. So far forth as the subject-matter of the one is related to, or is identical with, the subject-matter of the other, the range of the one is equal to the range of the other. The realm of speculation is in the philosophic sense illimitable because the realm of truth is without bounds. Spec- ulation concerns itself with truth, not as knowing it, but as seeking it, and as being ready to investigate it when found, or when it is assumed that it has been found. Both are engaged with the same problems, employing different and sometimes opposite methods in the attempt to solve them, but anticipating in their final rehearsal a vindication of the same truths, or the same forms of truth. Philosophy, self-guided and self-reliant, speculates with enthusias- tic purpose on the accepted or assumed verities of Christianity. Without knowledge, or waiving the use of Revelation as a source of knowledge, it can do nothing but speculate. It can assume nothing, it must prove every thing ; it knows nothing, it must inquire as it goes along. It not infrequently happens that, dazed by the magni- tude of its tasks, or discouraged by reason of the incompleteness of its discoveries, philosophy merely drifts along the routes of inquiry, marking the distances traveled by the mile-posts of its successive leaders, seemingly unconscious of the fact that the ages have waited for a settlement of the highest problems, and that it should promote a settlement or abandon its position as guide to truth. It often lags in its self-burdened efforts, and sometimes despairs of reaching the goal. From this uncertain and paralyzing condition, however, it usually recovers, apparently inspired with a conviction of duty it can not shake off, and proceeds with patient steps to the development of issues closely akin to those that have their life and power in the bosom of Christianity. In the nature of the case philosophy is under restraint in the prosecution of its endeavors, but there is no help for it so long as its fundamental idea is in opposition to the idea of Revelation. 4 INTRODUCTION. Dealing with data, whose explanation is impossible without the recog- nition of the supernatural as the initial force of all things, it aims to establish the all-sufficiency of things themselves, which, however ab- surd in appearance, engages its loftiest efforts, and constitutes a con- cept of modern philosophic thought. The beginning of speculation is a simple interrogation ; its intermediate stage is an anxious and complex inquiry, looking to final results ; its end is sometimes doubt, sometimes knowledge, sometimes faith, sometimes the theistic notion. Whatever the outcome or emergence philosophy is a wanderer in the wilderness of thought, piloting itself by its own compass, anxious all the while for rescue, but uncertain all the time as to the issfte. On the other hand, Christianity, designating the supernatural as its starting-point, and accepting revelation as the constituent idea of religion, descends to the natural realm, with an explanation of its phenomena by the laws of the higher realm, thereby reversing the method of inquiry adopted by philosophy, and illuminates all truth by its self-enkindled light, to the satisfaction of the reason, and the com- fort of the doubting and perplexed inquirer. The immediate effect of Revelation is knowledge, which philosophy, unaided and rejecting the auxiliaries of religion, fails to impart. The extent and limitations of metaphysical research are defined, not so much by the principles it seeks to maintain, which are iden- tical with the ultimate facts of religion, as by the methods of investi- gation it voluntarily and in the end necessarily adopts. Empirical, or absolutely logical methods, adequate enough in the pursuit of sci- entific facts, are lamentably inadequate to the ascertainment of truth in the higher realms of thought ; but other methods are unknown to the philosopher, or if known are by the terms of his purpose un- available. He undertakes to pronounce the reason of things, or ex- plain them by themselves, than which in the lower realm no higher pursuit is possible or more profitable ; but as he attempts to reason concerning the reason of things he suddenly discovers his instrument de- fective and insufficient. The instrument is by no means valueless, but it is imperfect, and serves him only in primary investigation. Reason is the ratio of truths or things, and the discovery of reason is the discovery of the 'hidden ratio of truths, or the exposition of truth in its relation to the source of final truth. The discovery of reason, bound up in things, or secreted in the highest truth, is the INTRODUCTION. 5 key to the universe, which philosophy is persistently striving to find. That its seeking has been in vain it were injudicious to assert; but that it has been successful no one acquainted with its history of failure will claim. No disparagement of philosophical labor, no ridicule of scientific discoveries, no misrepresentations of materialistic thinkers, but a justifiable depreciation of philosophical results in the field of ultimate inquiry and the evident embarrassments of all classes of speculatists in the realm of higher thought, will be exhibited in this treatise. The limitations of philosophic inquiries, and the weaknesses of philosophic methods for the determination of final, that is, absolute, truth, as contrasted with the defensible and transparent methods of Christianity and the adequacy of its truths to the accomplishment of the divine ideals respecting man and the universe, constitute the pri- mary and pregnant thought of this volume. In comparing the two methods and the results obtained by their use, the radical contents, both of philosophy and Christianity, as sys- tems of truth, must not only be submitted, but they must be analyzed and tested by the methods themselves, and as thoroughly as the pur- poses of the investigation require. A superficial reference to these systems would not enable the reader to discover the failure of the one or the success of the other, and, what is more important, it would not enable him to understand the reason of failure in the one in- stance or the reason of success in the other. Hence, a full schedule of the systems themselves, both as to what each is in itself, and what they contain in common, we have undertaken to furnish, and trust the result will be satisfactory to the students of speculative forms. Beginning with Brucker, the father of historians of philosophy, and wandering among the nations and following the footsteps of the thinkers in search of answers to fundamental questions, we have sought to ascertain the original ideas of philosophic leaders, and al- ways to compare their judgments and indoctrinations with the en- grossed revelations of the Sacred Teacher, in the belief that the superiority of the latter wil] be clearly manifest. The extent to which this has been done the reader must determine for himself. Evidently enfeebled as philosophy is by its necessary and consti- tutional methods, it may surprise the reader to be informed that the author's aim is in part to establish that Christianity may be amply justified by the philosophical method, and that its philosophical basis 6 INTRODUCTION. is as impregnable as the more common historical basis on which it supposedly and safely rests.- It is altogether probable, therefore, that it will be inferred that if the philosophical method is insufficient for philosophical purposes, it must also be inadequate in the hands of the Christian investigator for his purposes. Such a conclusion must not be hastily drawn. Christianity has its Theological argument — an argument strong, robust, granitic ; its argument from Experience, the more decisive because in form the more philosophical ; its argument from History, a running fire burning up the wild guesses of material- ism in its path, and illuminating the heavens as it spreads over the earth, its latest work the best because the most destructive and the most complete. While the Theological, the Experiential, and the Historical arguments are involved one in another, and constitute an all-sufficient defense of religious truth, the Philosophical Argument for Christianity is as important as these, and as unanswerable, because Christianity is true philosophy, or the philosophy of truth in a religious form ; and, to meet the demands of the present day, this argument is emphasized in this volume more than any other, being rendered in such form as to make Christianity appear quite as much a philoso- phy as a religion, or that the two are inseparable in Christianity. On this basis — the scientific comiplexion of the highest religion — we hold that Christianity may successfully assail the naive materialism and popular agnosticism of the times. Th.e conflict now raging is not so much a conflict between Christianity and another phase of religion, as it is a conflict between Christianity and some form of philosophy. Even in India and in pagan lands generally a contest of religions is rarely witnessed, but a contest of primordial religious truth with a current philosophic idea is constantly going on. In appearance the contest is exclusively religious, but at bottom it is the striving of religious truth with philosophic error. In Christian lands little or no attention has been given to. the philosophical character of Chtis- tianity, its defense being largely historical or in form theological; hence, the philosophic thinker, finding his method abjured, has been led to conclude against the philosophical value of religion, and has pronounced it a superstition. To acquaint him with the primordial ideas of religion, vindicating them from the philosophical stand- point, and to re-impress the image of truth upon the mind of man, the mistakes of materialism, and the insufficiency and frigidity of a INTRODUCTION. 7 godless philosophy, and the deep, pervasive, and unquenchable spirit of Christianity, with the authority of its truths, and the sufficiency of its revelations, must be fully and comprehensively shown, and this is attempted in the volume here presented. In theological treatises a distinction is observed between mathe- matical certainty and moral certainty, or evidence of a mathematical cast or force and evidence moral in its content and conditional in its power of persuasion, and this distinction is applied in the enforce- ment of religious truth, not only to the discredit of the Christian stand-point, but also to the weakening of the supports of faith in such truth. That the distinction itself is correct must be ad- mitted, for evidence differs in its degree of certainty, the positive and demonstrative being properly styled "mathematical," and the probable or conjectural, but undemonstrative, being called "moral." Moralj evidence may be as convincing to the unprejudiced intel- lect as the mathematical, and the truth supported by it may be as trans- parent as an axiom, but many minds, unaccustomed to the balancing of probabilities or the weighing of evidence in other than the scales of exact mathematical dimensions, hesitate to receive for truth that which the theologian offers, because he urges in its behalf only a moral argument, and that in an apologetic form and without data to confirm it. It is time to consider if a mistake has not been made in advancing Christianity as probably, but not positively, true, in con- ceding that its truths are not demonstrations, and can not be demon- strated, in granting that its evidences are not mathematical in spirit or form, and can not assume a more precise and satisfactory charac- ter, and in insisting that it must be received from a moral conviction of its verity, and alone on moral grounds of its absolute sufficiency and truthfulness. The mistake appears all the greater when it is re- membered that the theologian is willing to concede that physical science and philosophic truth appeal with mathematical force to hu- man judgment, and encircle themselves with evidences indisputable and of universal authority. In his view it is enough if Christianity, inasmuch as it is a system of moral truth, is urged as a moral cer- tainty, and accepted on moral evidence, however uncertain the cer- tainty and unsatisfactory the evidence. To be sure, he will not accept physical truth on moral grounds, or subscribe to a system of philo- sophic thought, because moral arguments alone support it ; he can not 8 INTRODUCTION. be persuaded to accept gravitation, or chemical affinity on moral evi- dence; but he accepts monotheism, incarnation, atonement, regen- eration, resurrection, and the doctrines of heaven and hell on grounds of moral certainty, as if incapable of a mathematical demon- stration. The philosopher, seeing the theologian repudiate moral evidence as applied to physical facts, and mathematical evidence as applied to moral facts, translates the certainties of religion into un- certainties, regarding his own stand-point as preferable because posi- tive and assuring. In this way theology unwittingly surrenders the argument that belongs to it, loses its hold upon the intellectual truth-seeker, and in- validates nearly all that it has gained in its conflict with error. Verily, we are inclined to reverse the order of tJw argument. Philosophy is the uncertain, because only morally certain, if at all certain, system of truth ; Christiantity is the mathematically certain form of the highest truth, the GEOMETRICAL PROOF OF ETERNAL RATIOS. Spiuoza ventured to af- firm that theological truth can be proved from a mathematical stand- point, but this canon was in the interest of pantheism. We subsidize the thought in the interest of Christianity, declaring that, as a sys- tem of truth, it is susceptible of mathematical demonstration ; that is, that its truths may be as authentically and as satisfactorily vindi- cated as any truth in geology, chemistry, geometry, astronomy, biology, or psychology, and by precisely those methods which science regards inalienable and conclusive. The old way was to enforce the Gos- pel by the exercise of authority — not the authority of truth, but the authority of force. In those days the fagot, the dungeon, the thumb- screw, and the sword were fashioned into arguments that seldom ap- pealed in vain. Behold, there is a more excellent way, and that is, to present Christianity in its wholeness, and as inherently, and, there- fore, philosophically, true. The defense of Christianity on the sole ground of its inspiration, however justifiable in theology, is not resorted to here, since the doc- trine of inspiration itself is undergoing a change of meaning and a modification of expression in Christian circles that forbid its employ- ment as a philosophical instrument in the support of the highest truth. Dogmatic Inspiration, or that inspiration which Theology maintains, has now all it can do to maintain itself, while Philosoph- ical Inspiration, or that inspiration which is inherent in Truth and INTRODUCTION. 9 logically affirms itself, is potent in the strengthening of one's faith in such truth. The integrity of truth is not determined by its so-called inspiration, for truth is truth, inspired or uninspired. Christianity as truth, not as inspired but as philosophical truth, is the object of our inquiry. Conceding only a conditional value to the dogmatic doc- trine of inspiration, at the same time it must be affirmed that in an unquestionable sense Christianity is an inspiration, and by so much as it is an inspiration its truth must be larger than that truth whose source is natural or uninspired. Inspired truth, however, is not 7nore reliable than uninspired — that is, philosophical truth. An algebraic equation is as complete and reliable as the doctrine of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, but it is all-important to show that the doctrine of the incarnation is as authoritative and self-luminous as the algebraic equation. This can not be done on the ground of its alleged inspira- tion, because that is a matter of faith, but it can be done on the ground of its philosophical inherency and perfection, because such perfection is a matter of demonstration. Inspiration itself is philo- sophical, quite as philosophical as incarnation, atonement, or any other Biblical truth, and so far as it is considered at all in these pages, it is considered in its philosophical value and aspects. As a theological dogma it has provoked criticism ; as a philosophical doc- trine it will stand any test applied to it. Thus Christianity is pre- sented rather as the philosophy than the inspiration of truth. Plato and Paul are the exponents of the two antagonistic systems of thought, and of the two methods of demonstration. Each stands first in his relation to his system, the one to philosophy, the other to Christianity. From the one we trace the stream of philosophic in- quiry through its tortuous course along the ages, developing as it goes into cataracts, lakes, and oceans, to its present bubbling currents in materialism, evolution, and agnosticism, at last losing sight of Plato in the mysterious depths of metaphysical seas, and hearing only the tumultuous roar of many waters. Than Plato no one better represents the philosophic spirit in man. From the other we trace the historic march of truth from the first morning's dawn, through the intervening periods of progress and opposition, noting its administration in all lands and among all peoples, recount- ing its long and patient struggles with ignorant and embittered foes, and observing its quaint and unfortunate embarrassments with sin- 10 INTRODUCTION. cere and undisciplined friends, tarrying often to point out its internal deficiencies and external advantages, acknowledging meanwhile its evident defeats and positive successes, and finally prefiguring the joy with which it surveys the Past and the calmness with which it omnis- ciently contemplates the Future. Paul introduces Christianity in its completeness, but soon disappears in the richer history of Christian- ity itself. Holding fast to the conviction that religion will demonstrate its superiority to metaphysics, and on grounds occupied by the latter, and anticipating the final triumph of Christianity in our growing world, both through philosophic and religious methods of activity, this volume is sent forth on an independent errand, and as an aid to the consummation. J. W. MENDENHALL. Delaware, Ohio, April 15, 1886. CONTKNTS CHAPTER I. PAGE. PLATO, . . 15 CHAPTER II. THE CORNER-STONES OF PHILOSOPHY, 70 CHAPTER III. THE PROVINCE OF PHILOSOPHY, 108 CHAPTER IV. NATURE, OR AN EXEGESIS OF IMATTER, 128 CHAPTER V. THE DANCE OF THE ATOMS, 143 CHAPTER VI. THE GROUND OF LIFE, 155 CHAPTER VH. MAN, OR ANTHROPOLOGY, 168 CHAPTER VIH. MIND AN INTEGER, 189 CHAPTER IX. THE AREA OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, : .... 210 12 CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. PAGE. THE LAW OF CAUSALITY, OR EFFICIENT CAUSE 234 CHAPTER XI. • THE CONTENT OF FORCE, 247 CHAPTER XII. THE FIRST CAUSE, 255 CHAPTER XIII. THE FINAL CAUSE, 286 CHAPTER XIV. THE BREAK-DOWN OF PHILOSOPHY, . . CHAPTER XV. THE RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY TO CHRISTIANITY, .... 328 CHAPTER XVI. THE RELIGIOUS CONCEPT, 343 CHAPTER XVII. THE APOSTLE PAUL, 355 CHAPTER XVIII. THE PROVINCE OF CHRISTIANITY, 408 CHAPTER XIX. THE TWO CHRISTIANITIES, 425 CHAPTER XX. PHILOSOPHICAL GERMS IN CHRISTIANITY, 438 CONTENTS. 13 CHAPTER XXI. PAGE. CHRISTIANITY THE KEY TO THE PHENOMENAL WORLD, . 456 CHAPTER XXn. THE THEODICY OF CHRISTIANITY, 478 CHAPTER XXIII. THE IDEAL SOCIETY, OR THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO SOCIETY, 493 CHAPTER XXIV. THE PERFECTION OF MAN THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIANITY, . 519 CHAPTER XXV. THE FRUITS OF CHRISTIANITY, 535 CHAPTER XXVI. THE NEW IN CHRISTIANITY, 557 CHAPTER XXVn. THE ESCHATOLOGY OF CHRISTIANITY, 577 CHAPTER XXVIII. THE DYNAMICS OF CHRISTIANITY, 619 CHAPTER XXIX. THE MAGNETISM OF CHRISTIANITY, 636 CHAPTER XXX. THE PSEUDODOX IN CHRISTIANITY, 652 14 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXI. PAGE. THE DIAGNOSTIC OF CHRISTIANITY, OR EXPERIENCE THE PHILOSOPHIC TEST OF RELIGION, 670 CHAPTER XXXII. COMMON GROUNDS OF PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY, . 687 CHAPTER XXXni. THE PROSPECTUS OF THE FUTURE OF CHRISTIANITY, ... 707 CHAPTER XXXIV. CHRISTIANITY A PHILOSOPHIC AND RELIGIOUS FINALITY, 725 CHAPTER XXXV. PRESENT TASKS OF CHRISTIANITY, 741 Philosophy and Christianity. CHAPTER I. MYTHOLOGY ascribes to Plato a human and divine parentage; human, in that Perictione, a lady of culture and relative of Solon, was his mother; divine, in that the god Apollo was his father. The story of his birth is very like that recorded of the birth of One greater than Plato in the first chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew. Does philosophy begin with an incarnation? Must Plato be re- garded as a divine man? Was the greatest philosopher, like the greatest religionist, a divine teacher, manifesting a divine idea to the world? The background of Christianity is incarnation, inspiration; the sole figure is Christ. The background of philosophy — does it glow with inspiration ? Does it flash an incarnate figure on our vision ? Is the one altogether the product of inspiration, and the other wholly the product of human reason? or does the latter share somewhat the munificent equipment and impelling force of the former? Is phi- losophy an inert, phlegmatic, uninspired mass of crudities, and are its representatives equally impassive and impenetrable? Is there no inspiration outside of the Bible ? Aristotle asserts that God governs all things on earth in proportion to their sympathy with the heavenly bodies. Inspiration in its final form is the measure of human sympathy with God, or human sympathy with things divine, intelligent, beautiful, good, and true, is the measure of the inspiring force received. By this rule there is more than one kind of inspira- tion, which, differentiating itself in many forms, is actualized in the strifes, industries, aspirations, and activities of men, and gives tone and direction to human history. The lowest inspiration is physical, exhibited in Jael, Samson, and David, as they overcome men or beasts; in Joshua, Cyrus, and Nehemiah, resisting national foes; in the world's armies, battling for human liberty ; and in earth's grim toilers, awakening the secret hope of deliverance and victory. The (15) 16 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. pioneer, the sailor, the mechanic, the victim of circumstance, possessed at times by a strange spirit, suddenly accomplishes that which is not possible in his ordinary sphere, and illustrates endurance, integrity, and the power of performance that puts to shame the routine of existence. Usually the unexpected achievauces in human life are ascribed to patriotism, bravery, stoicism, love of fame; rather are they the result of heroic latencies divinely incited to activity. In like manner there is an intellectual inspiration, of which Wilberforce, Webster, Newton, Franklin, Angelo, Stevenson, and Stanley ai'e good examples. Inventions, discoveries, the products of genius, literature, oratory, art, and music are instances of the results of an intellectual afflatus, not always native to the human mind. Intellectual triumphs we are prone to attribute to native genius; but God is in the world governing its history, marking out its lines of progress, endowing and calling men to loftiest endeavor and highest service. Hence, it is true to say, God is in the genius of the world ; he is in music, art, poetry, and literature ; he is in every invention, every discovery ;• he is the presiding Spirit, the informing Noh^ of the universe. These inspirations, physical and intellectual, are not the highest, because they are not redemptive, and they, therefore, are not re- ligious in their content or purpose. Even wicked men are moved physically and intellectually, that is, to physical deeds of grandeur and intellectual achievements of permanent value, by the divine Spirit ; but such inspiration is for temporal ends, and is not religiously redemptive. A spiritual inspiration, begetting reformation, repent- ance, regeneration, raising up reformers, martyrs, ministers. Chris- tians— this is the highest, this is redemptive. Christianity, so far forth as it is a revelation of truth, is the product of the spiritual inspiration of the writers of the sacred books. Conceding inspiration to philosophy, the word must be used in a very guarded, or qualified, sense. The inspiration of Socrates, Plato, Descartes, and Locke can only be of an intellectual type, of a kind like that which attaches to art, music, oratory, invention, and dis- covery. God was in Angelo, Beethoven, Irving, and Shakespeare as much as in Anaxagoras, Parmeuides, and Plato. The fruits of an intellectual inspiration are visible in the intellectual realm of life; they can be only approximately or relatively spiritual. Philosophic truth, it may be said, is in its content similar to re- ligious truth; the philosophic purpose also is a religious purpose; hence philosophy, unlike art, music, poetry, and invention, is related to religion. The inspiration of the one is like that of the inspiration of the other ; Plato is on a level with Paul. The relation of philo- BIOGRAPHICAL FACTS. 17 Sophie ideas to revealed truths, because similar in contents, may be acknowledged without involving the admission of the spiritual inspira- tion of both. All truth, scientific, physical, aesthetic, artistic, poetic, is related to revealed truth, is to some extent an illustration, or fore- shadowing of it, and has back of it the restraining or stimulating in- fluence of inspiration. Philosophic truth supposedly sustains only a closer relation because it deals specifically with the same problems of religion, Seneca, Confucius, Socrates, and Plato stand out more like theologians than Angelo, Charlemagne, Palissy, and Bacon, because they deal with the truths that had expansion in Moses, Christ, and Paul. Handling the same truths, they appear like similar teachers; but the point of divergence is in the source and method of teaching. Inspiration relates not alone to the nature of truth to be taught, but to the method by which the truth is communicated. In general, the method of philosophy is rationalistic ; the method of religion is super- naturalistic. One is the product of the human mind, the other the product of the divine Spirit. Greek philosophy was the rational ad- umbration of Christianity, reflecting incarnation, atonement, resurrec- tion, eternal judgment, prayer, and the rites of worship. It was a reflection, not a revelation ; it was a prototype, not a fulfillment. Plato can not be enrolled among the prophets or apostles ; philosophy is not revelation, as it is not inspiration. Like some distant towering peak, Plato rises from the obscurity of the past, dim by reason of the distance, yet evidently visible by reason of his greatness. He is more than the figure-head of his age, more than a teacher of phi- losophy. He is the representative of the culture of his times, of the aristocratic sense of the higher classes, of the best philosophical ele- ments possible among a people given to inquiry ; he stands for gov- ernment, for social ideas, for ethical education, for religious teaching. In him whatever is good in his age reaches high-water mark ; educa- tion, the governmental idea, the philosophic purpose, ascends to a height beyond which, among the Greeks, it never went. In some things even our modern life has not superseded Plato. The outward history or the biographical facts of Plato may be briefly given. Of leaders in religion or philosophy, the biography is often obscure or the data incomplete. Like Elijah they come, and like him they go, mysterious heralds of Providence, giving little ac- count of themselves to history, save as they report truth, unfurl an idea, or reveal law. Several biographies of Plato, of which Zenocrates's was the best, but which has disappeared, have been written ; but the details as given are contradictory, or written evidently in a spirit of unfairness or without reference to the truth. As to his birth, it is agreed that it occurred about the time of the death of Pericles, 18 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. Grote fixing it at B. C. 427. Athens was then in its glory as respects art, architecture, literature, and general culture. Pericles had beau- tified it with the products of art, expending his wealth in its orna- mentation ; orators, rhetoricians, grammarians, mathematicians, poets, dramatists, and philosophers made the city their home or rendezvous; academies, the sites of which are still known, flourished ; the govern- ment was aristocratic and tyrannical ; the military spirit was intense, and the people were ambitious for all the glory that success in arms could give them. To be born then was a privilege ; it brought oppor- tunity ; it almost conferred honor. Plato's parents were Athenians. Born on the island of J^gina, he was reared amid Athenian culture, inheriting the polish, improving the advantages, and sharing the lite- rary spirit of the city, returning to it in later life more than he had received in the fruits of a philosophic spirit and the products of vast literary labor. The reports of his genius, of the alighting of bees on his lips, his aptitude to learning, his versatile talents, his delight in athletic sports, his fondness for music, his love of poetry, his prefer- ence for political affairs, and finally, his taste for philosophy, are doubtless authentic, showing how broad his intellectual basis, how great 'his possibilities, how high his aspirations, and indicating the achievements of his future. First named Aristocles, his parents soon substituted Plato, a word signifying "broad," but whether it meant broad-browed, or broad-shouldered, or a broad style, the critics have not settled. If Plato stood for the broad thinker, the broad observer, the broad scholar, the broad man, it will aptly represent the philosopher of whom we are now writing, who was indeed the broadest of men in the qualities of mind, insight, and love of truth. In moral character he was comparatively blameless, for no blem- ishes, no vices, are reported against him. This can not be said of the Cynics, Sophists, or Stoics of his time. He was of a melancholy dispo- sition, perhaps the outgrowth of a pensive habit of mind. Lewes charges him with a want of amiability. If he means the coldness of greatness, perhaps he is correct ; but if he means that Plato was a misanthrope, he does him injustice. Gifted with an aristocratic sense, accustomed to refinement, disgusted with political affairs, he retired to the academy, where, undisturbed by politics or the multitude, he solaced himself with those investigations of truth which place him above his times and give him rank among the thinkers of all ages. Of his childhood life little is known, save that in its intellectual graspings it was prophetic of the life that grew out of it. He is introduced to the world at the age of twenty years, when, exhibiting an eagerness for knowledge and an investigating spirit, he became the pupil of Socrates, an arrangement that proved advantageous to both master PLA TO'S SOCIAL E EL A TIONS. ^ 19 and disciple. Socrates was the conversing philosopher of Athens — a thinker on ethical subjects, roaming about, talking and disputing with individuals as he might meet them ; a man who never wrote a book or a line, but whose method of reasoning, and whose conversations embodying his principles, have been transmitted to us by Plato; a man who never addressed a public assembly save when on trial for his life, but whose auditor was the single individual ; a man who never traveled, so given was he to reflection rather than observation. Quaint in dress, ugly in face, his nose having been broken when he was nine years old, and going about pretending to know nothing, but inquiring of every body what he knew, how he knew, and testing his answers by the most skillful dialectical analysis, he be- came a well-known figure in the literary and social circles of Athens. Young men were amused at his appearance and enjoyed his irony, while the elders dreaded or respected him, as he had taught them or overwhelmed them with his satire. Instinctively, young Plato comprehended the motive of Socrates, and, inquiring for his method of reasoning, soon discerned its ade- quacy, and began himself to apply it to the great questions which philosophy superinduced. Socrates bequeathed to Plato more than the dialectical spirit ; he awakened in him a philosophic conception of the universe which, in its developed form, eclipsed the conceptions of Socrates. Logical, he became philosophical ; logical in method, philosophical in subject. Socrates's dream of the swan was fulfilled in Plato. A swan flies from the altar in the academy, alighting on ' Socrates's breast ; then, spreading its wings, it flies toward heaven, enticing by its voice gods and men. Plato appearing in his presence,/ Socrates pronounced him the swan of the dream. Thus an unbroken and profitable friendship was the result of the mutual faith of tutor and pupil, the latter true to the former even unto death, and advancing his philosophic teachings by still broader inquiries and deeper answers. Plato and Socrates, says Emerson, were a "double star," certainly a fine putting of their relations. This relationship continued for eight years, when Socrates drank the hemlock, and Plato was left alone, ripening into the independent philosopher, and standing for truth as if it were all his own. Plato never married. Like Adam Smith, Swedenborg, Macaulay, Washington Irving, and Humboldt, he lived without knowing any thing of the conjugal relation. His appreciation of woman was not remarkable; he advocated the "community" idea with earnestness, supporting it by exclusive philosophical considerations. This makes against him — if not against him, then against his philosophy. He was not wanting in genuine patriotism ; he enlisted in the military 20 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. service of his country in the time of her danger ; in peace he sought to serve the state by devotion to public interests. He was a patriot as well as philosopher. Political rather than military affairs he pre- ferred; and, when the Thirty Tyrants came into power, Plato, through the courtesy of one of them, who was his cousin, obtained a civil position, which enabled him to study the science of government, the necessity of reforms, and the relation of laws to civil progress and individual happiness. This fitted him for a philosophic contem- plation of government, which found expression afterward in two volumes, entitled the Republic and the Laws. Plato was a tyrant himself, the result of his surroundings, education, and position. Thoroughly opposed to democracy, he welcomed the change to tyranny, advocating severe governmental discipline ; he also advo- cated caste, and secluded himself from the crowd as beneath him. Naturally, he became obnoxious to the people, sometimes because he was the friend of Socrates, sometimes because of his aristocracy, sometimes because of his socialism, sometimes because of his politics. During his early years he was in and out of Athens, as public feeling was hostile or friendly to him. Unlike Socrates, he became a traveler, driven abroad by the hos- tilities he himself had invoked ; but it proved to be providential, as it broadened him still more, and prepared him, as he was not pre- pared when Socrates vanished, for the vindication of the philosophic pursuit. He visited Megara, absorbing mathematics and philosophy ; he saw Italy, and drafted its sunshine into his meditations ; he jour- neyed into Egypt, plucking religious ideas from temples and priests ; it is said he visited Palestine, and extended his travels eastward as far as Persia, taking knowledge of religion, history, art, science, and philosophy. Nearly ten years were given to travel. He returned to Athens at forty years of age with mind richly stored, intellectual im- pulses quickened, personal hostilities extinct, and with disciples from many lands ready to receive instruction. Having studied mathe- matics, poetry, music, grammar, logic, religions, and philosophies; having been a soldier, a politician, and a civil officer; having been a traveler, a reformer, a statesman; he settles down, thus equipped and experienced, into his life-work, founding an academy, and mak- ing his name imperishable by the imperishable truths he communicates to men. For forty years he teaches in this academy, dying, as some assert, at the advanced age of eighty-one years, with pen in hand and writing. The academy building was located one mile north of the city, on a level spot just beyond a ridge which now separates the modern city from the country. Over the doorway was the^ inscrip- tion, " Let none but geometricians enter here." This is the dialectical A SYSTEMLESS PHILOSOPHY. 21 spirit in a mathematical form, and the key to Plato's mind. All that remains of the ancient academy are a few marble pillars, which our own eyes looked upon a few years since. A modern house oc- cupies the grounds, but the family within is without the spirit of Plato. Not far away is the famous, well-worn path of the Peripatetics. Here Plato builded better than he knew. In the atmosphere of the academy let us study its founder, his teachings, and the far-reaching effects of what he taught. As an academician must Plato be esti- mated ; all else is preliminary, preparatory. Plato, the philosopher ! Plato, the coefficient of universal thought ! Such he is ; as such he must be contemplated, namely, as an indi- vidual philosopher and the representative of all philosophy. As Emerson says, "he is the arrival of accuracy and intelligence," speaking with that self-command which profound insight inspires. He follows his inner light sufficiently to be original. Little is found in outside philosophies not found in him ; he is philosophy, as Christ is Christianity. At the very threshold of this study a question presents itself for settlement which Plato himself ought to have disposed of, but he did not, leaving to his admirers and the students of his works a per- plexing and never-ceasing mystery. The ability, genius, and educa- tion of Plato are conceded ; that he founded an academy and taught philosophy are accepted as facts ; that his literary labors were im- mense is established by the works attributed to him ; but it is not yet determined just what Plato believed and taught respecting the great problems of philosophy. It is not clear that Plato, while he founded a school of philosophy, instituted a system of philosophy, or that Platonism definitely means any philosophic truth. This implies mysticism in thought, ambiguity in teaching, poetic drifting?, imagina- tive musings, and unsettled opinions, the value of which is uncertain and obscure. Emerson, a competent and an admiring critic, declares that Plato is without system, and that no one can define Platonism. The same may be said of Aristotle, also. Of modern philosophy this certainly is true. It lacks system ; it abounds in contradictions ; it is a house divided against itself. This, then, would appear to be the beginning of high-toned, reverential philosophy— a systemless system of thought ; a miscellany of discussions, without regard to order, con- sistency, or harmony. Schleiermacher is not alone in affirming a philosophic scheme in Plato, but when he attempts to point it out it is more of the German's scheme than the Athenian's. Grote assails the idea of scheme ; the majority of students reject the German con- ception of a system in Plato. A kindred difficulty arises with every attempt to classify his writ- 22 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. ings, which furnish few traces of a chronological order, or an order of thought. Not even Aristophanes was able to arrange the books of Plato in a satisfactory manner. Some critics assume that the Phcedrus was the earliest written dialogue and the Laws the latest, basing the conclusion on internal evidence ; but the maturity or im- maturity of thought in these dialogues will not assist in determining the historical order of their composition, inasmuch as both exhibit the mature and the immature intellect of the philosopher. One reader will refer the Laws to an early period in Plato's life ; another sees the signs of superannuation in the book. Many German critics are of the opinion that Plato wrote all of his books before he estab- lished the academy, but this is a wild conjecture, for it leaves him nothing to do in the academy but repeat what he had written. At times Plato is thoroughly dialectical in method and subject, as in the Sophist and Statesman, teaching the art of reasoning or thinking ; at another ethical subjects, as in the Meno, engross his attention ; at an- other cosmogony and physical themes, as in the Thmmis, are supreme. Hence, it is natural to divide his philosophy into dialectics, ethics, and physics. But this is not comprehensive enough, as all readers agree. Schleiermacher, insisting upon an inner connection among the dialogues, divides them according to their subject-matter into three classes : 1. Elementary Dialogues, embracing the Apology, Crito, Phsedrus, Parmenides, Protagoras, Ion, Lysis, Hippias Minor, Laches, Euthyphron, and Charmides; 2. Progressive Dialogues, embracing the Cratylus, Theeetetus, Menon, Gorgias, Sophistes, Politicus, Euthy- demus, Philebus, Phaedo, the Symposium, the first Alcibiades, Menex- enus, and the Hippias Major ; 3. Constructive Dialogues, embracing the Timseus, the Republic, the Critias, the Laws, and the thirteen Epistles. Henry Davis, a modern translator of Plato, arranges the books into three classes, according to their relation to the period the philos- opher spent in travel : 1. About thirteen books w^ere written before he traveled ; 2. About ten books were written on his return to Athens ; 3. The others were written in advanced life. Thrasyllus simplified the subject by dividing the treatises into two classes: 1. Inquisitory; 2. Expository. Some writers style some of the books dramatic, others narrative, others mixed ; but Diogenes Laertius says this is a theatrical rather than a philosophical division. Laertius speaks oi his dialogues as logical, ethical, political, "mid- wife description," tentative, and demonstrative. From the analysis of Plato's writings, as made by both ancient and modern writers, the difficulty of interpreting them as expressive of a single thought or of but few ideas, and of building out of them a THE DIALOGISTIC STYLE. 23 philosophic system, becomes apparent. Had he left a system, complete in outline or in parts, the historians of philosophy had found it long before now. The failure to find the system raises the suspicion that he did not intend to suggest any ; but our conjecture must rest upon something more than our own failure in investigation. Perhaps an explanation of this unfortunate omission of Plato lies along the path we are traveling. In his seventh Epistle he expresses an aversion to writing as a means of communicating or preserving philosophy, declaring that there never shall be a treatise of Plato ; and in the Phcedms he explains at great length his contempt for the written argument, or what we would call a printed book. He says a published argument, like a paint- ing, will be criticised without any power to answer back ; it must be sub- ject to ridicule and injury without the means of defense or explanation. Hence he undoubtedly opposed the publication of his philosophy in the sense of committing it to the world. This has given rise to the opinion which Tennemaun adopts, that his real philosophy was esoteric, or confined to the academy, and that it is impossible to conjecture the whole of it. If, however, he meant not his philosophy for the public, he did mean it for his disciples, one of whom — Aristotle — makes so many allusions to the printed works which pass for Plato's that it is impos- sible not to believe that they are the products of his academic teach- ing. We scarcely believe that Plato's philosophy was esoteric, but if it was, he formulated it in his books, which, without doubt, have come down to us. He may have held to speculations which do not appear in the books. Aristotle admits as much ; but they were not fundamental. To the books we must, therefore, look for his philos- ophy ; we shall not, perhaps, find a system of philosophy, but philo- sophic truth, more or less, accurately expressed, is in them. The books, as Plato's readers know, are written in the form of dialogues, in which Plato hides himself under the names of the dis- putants ; so that it is not always easy to detect his own opinion, or whether he expresses any at all or not. The impersonal form of dis- course which Plato adopts, besides relieving him of personal responsi- bility, accounts for the difficulty of interpreting him. In this imper- sonal way Plato is an esoteric philosopher. The chief interlocutor in these dialogues is Socrates, who at times appears to be Plato's master, and at other times it is evident that he is an imaginary person, leav- ing us in doubt whether Plato is reporting Socrates's opinion or ex- pressing his own. Is Plato Socrates's correspondent or an original author ? If he hides himself in his dialogues, does he hide his teaching? Some there are who assert that Plato is dogmatic, but this is incapable 24 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. of proof, for the affirmations of Plato are in the form of inferences, sometimes expressed, but often implied. Borrowing the dialogistic style from Socrates, he wrote the thirty-six works attributed to him in this form, save the Apology, which is a single discourse. He ques- tions the Eleatic stranger, the Athenian poet, or Alcibiades or Theo- dorus or Meuo ; he reasons by interrogation ; he is an inquirer after truth ; he seeks ; he is painfully anxious for knowledge. He assumes the duty of a midwife, ready to deliver the new-born thought of the pregnant mind; he stands ready to nurse the infant into life and form. He enounces little ; he does not demonstrate, like Aristotle ; it is not demonstration that Plato wants ; it is discovery. This may be phil- osophic, but it is misleading and evasive, showing that the philoso- pher, feeling his way, is not certain of the ground under his feet. On great problems, therefore, he is often obscure ; mysteries are mys- teries still ; doctrines are unexplained ; as in the Euthyphron, he leaves holiness undefined, and often he contradicts himself, as his discussion of fortitude in the Laches does not harmonize with allusions to it in the Reptiblic. Either because of incertitude and ambiguity, or be- cause of direct espousal of error, both Christians and pagans have alternately claimed Plato, and it is confessed that at times it is diffi- cult to assign him his true place. With obscurities and ambiguities attaching to Plato, Schwegler insists "that the Platonic philosophy is essentially a development;" that viewed in reference to the influence which at different stages controlled in its expression, it might be divided iyto three periods, viz. : the Socratic, the Heraclitic-Eleatic, and the Pythagorean ; or viewed with reference to its substance, it might be divided into the antisophistic-ethic, the dialectic or mediating, and the systematic or constructive periods. The development proposed by Schwegler is open to the objection that lies against all suggested schemes; it is artificial, not natural, exhibiting a mixed and not an orderly or pro- gressive arrangement. The Socratic element in Plato's philosophy belongs to all its periods of development, and the Pythagorean influ- ence was felt even before the establishment of the academy. In truth, Plato had entered upon the philosophical inheritance, appro- priating such teachings from the masters as commended themselves to his judgment, and rejecting those inconsistent with his preferences, before his return to Athens from his extensive travels in other lands. His acquisitions from the philosophers were made prior to the endow- ment of the academy. The itinerant period of Plato's life represents his accumulation of philosophic material ; the academy represents his use of the material or his own personal philosophic development. During the forty years of academic teaching, the influence of Socrates, He- THE DIALECTICAL METHOD. 25 raclitus, the Eleatics, and Pythagoras was simultaneously effective, and can not be divided into periods. Equally unsatisfactory is Schwegler's second classification of the contents of Plato's philosophy. In the beginning the dialectic spirit is manifest in Plato, and he never parts with it. It permeates his ethics, and aids in systematic apprehension of the truth. It occupies no subordinate place; Plato stands as the dialectician, rigidly employ- ing the analvtic method in the search for truth. If there is any de- velopment in Plato, it is a dialectical development, which, however, is witliout historical inherence ; it can not be traced ; it is without beginning ; it is without stages ; it is without a specific end. Others have ventured to suggest that Plato's work was critical and not creative; that he had in view the refutation of error, and not the establishment of truth. In such dialogues as the So2yhist and the Gor- gias it is apparent that the motive of Plato is the annihilation of sophis- tical methods, and the extinction of sophistical conclusions, which passed for philosophic truths. In these, however, it must be noted that the conflict in Plato's mind is the conflict of method rather than the conflict of truth and error. The Socratic method is pitched against the Sophistic method ; the latter succumbs. The result is the overthrow of method, not the establishment of truth. Without doubt such encounters have led students to estimate Plato as a critical jDhilosopher, a refuter of error ; but the basis of the estimate is insufficient, for he was rather a refuter of method. In other dialogues, however, as in the Phcedo, he appears as the creative philosopher, establishing the truth, or at least pointing to it with the finger of faith. He confutes ignorant opinion ; he analyzes scientific notions; he reaches out after the beau- tiful, as in the Phaxlrm, and declares for science, as in the Thecetetus. Still, one feels, as he reads him, that Plato is a groper, a seeker, a devout inquirer, but not altogether a revealer. He is a pathfinder, but not a truth-finder. Plato abounds in investigations, thinkings, inquirings, but falls short of positive revelation. He stood on the threshold of truth, as Eusebius observes, but the temple-door did not swing open at his touch. This is the secret of his systemless philos- ophy. Affirmations, not interrogations ; results, not inquiries ; truths, not refuted errors, constitute the elements of a system. Results, he cautiously declared ; his whole system is an interrogation point. Not a system-maker, Plato nevertheless was a thinker, an original thinker, heralding thoughts or throwing out signs of truths that were new to his generation, whose value the retreating centuries have not impaired. Borrowing from other philosophers, he went beyond them in the use of their own theories, applying logic with a dexterous hand to the tearing down of the false and the building of the true, as he 26 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. understood it. In his theologic conceptions of the universe, in his representation of the divine being, in his ethical data, he surpassed his contemporaries, and trenched on a true Biblical revelation. In some particulars he so harmonizes with the Old Testament, as in allu- sions to the deluge, that his familiarity with it must almost be ac- cepted ; and yet he never alludes to Moses or the Jewish cosmogony. No, Plato was not inspired ; but these high intellectual Teachings indicate original power, original thought, which gives him the right to be heard. Lewes is emphatic in the belief that Plato's philosophy consists wholly in its method, not in its results, not in its relation to truth ; that he sacrificed all subjects to method ; that method of thinking, or the true process of thought, is the only valuable product of Plato's labors. This is a too confined interpretation, for, rigidly dialectical as is Plato, he had in view more than the establishment of the art of reasoning. If not, he is little more than a rhetorician ; but he is a theologian, a psychologist, an ethical teacher, a cosmogonist, a scien- tist. Surely he sacrificed not all these problems to the art of rheto- ric or a style of logic. Method was the instrument, not the end, of investigation. Plato was an investigator, not a mere method-maker. His method must not be depreciated. Essentially Socratic, he improved it, but it was left to Aristotle to perfect it, showing that Plato gave more attention to the subjects of investigation than to the method of investigation. Socrates initiated a new style of thinking, which led to far-reaching results in his day. He was the first to in- sist on definitions, and then, as Aristotle reports, he introduced induc- tive or analogical reasoning, which gave order to thought. Definition and Induction constitute the Socratic system. Plato finding it inad- equate added Analysis or Classification, or " Seeing the One in the Many." Aristotle added Demonstration, or the Syllogism. Defini- tion, Induction, Analysis, and Demonstration constitute a perfect method of thinking or reasoning. Evidently Plato's method, an im- provement on Socrates, was behind that of Aristotle ; it lacked com- pleteness. A faulty method of reasoning and an unknown system of philosophy we discover in Plato, but this does not compel a with- drawal of admiration for his dialectical atte'mpts, or of faith in the trend of his philosophy. Lewes also depreciates Plato by asserting that he introduced no new elements into the philosophy of his age, making him a tinker of other men's ideas. Why not call him a compiler, a plagiarist, a his- torian, any thing but a philosopher ? Lewes is an extremist, an icon^ oclast, an antagonist of philosophy, purposing to undermine the whole by dethroning Plato. Plato did introduce analysis into the philo- sophical method of reasoning ; he did originate the theory of ideas in PLATO'S THEOLOGY. 27 explanation of the creation of the universe ; his theory of being was entirely foreign to the conceptions of his day ; his psychology, So- cratic in spirit, was a development, a reduction to scientific form, of what his master taught ; his theology bears the marks of intellectual bravery; and his ethics, bating the self-evident frailties in it, was superior to his age. These different departments of his philosophy we shall now undertake to examine, without reference to any classification proposed by other writers. The order we here follow grows out of a careful reading of all the works attributed to Plato, the spurious as well as the genuine, and the inferences drawn are based on the verified texts of the various editions and translations of Plato. Pre-eminently attractive in Plato is what properly may be styled his theology. He is not a dogmatic theologian, nor a dogmatist in any sense ; but he discusses theological problems, aiding the theologians, and serving his own purpose as well. He is more conservative than radical, except in the application of certain principles to certain ends, as explanatory of fundamental facts and teachings. In this de- partment the dogmatism, if any, is concealed; it is not offensive. Without a thought of becoming a theologian, like Homer he has set forth a theology or opinions relative to the formation of the world, the existence of God, and the character of man, which, organized into an orderly system, would relieve Plato somewhat of the charge of iudefi- niteness and obscurity. He has something to say on ontology, cos- mology, and psychology, which, whether re-said by others or not, is worth hearing. The fundamental truth of philosophy, as of the- ology, is God. Philosophy searches, religion reveals. Plato posits the divine existence as the essential of the universe, differing from those who posit the divine existence as essential to philosophy, and proving that he was more anxious to find the truth than to establish a method of finding it. Not philosophy, but philosophic truth, Plato sought. Hence no system, hence adumbrations of truth. As to the substance of his teaching, he is a theologian ; as to the method of teaching, he is a philosopher. There are two revelations of God — the one written, the other unwritten ; the latter only was open to the searching gaze of Plato. The written revelation is the subject of interpretation ; it contains truths, the explanation of which rests with the theologian. Dealing in truths furnished, he is not a discoverer of truth ; he is only an interpreter. The unwritten reve- lation of God is nature, or the physical universe, from whose forms of matter and systems of operating forces flash the suggestions of in- finite power and wisdom, the keys to the nature of the absolute God. The theologian of nature is more than an interpreter ; he is a discov- 28 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. erer of truth hidden in the shell of the universe. Nature is a product ; the producer must be found. Thus the task of the theologian merges into that of the philosopher, and Plato, double-winged, was both the- ologian and philosopher. Seems not his task greater than that of Paul, who only interpreted revealed truth, and was aided in inter- pretation by inspiration? Plato was a Columbus seeking a new con- tinent ; Paul stood still and the continent came to him, and then he described it. Plato was a seeker, Paul a finder. Influenced, as we have seen, by the Eleatics and Pythagoreans, there came an hour in his mental journeyings when, saying farewell to his guides, he piloted himself into the regions of the unknown, returning with the evidences of a new discovery. This was brave, but it was imperative, the measure of success attending Plato demonstrating not merely his greatness, but the possibility of the human mind evolving the highest truth without the aid of inspiration. The theology of Plato, in its fragmentary form, scattered through his various works, resembles the theology of the Bible. The Bible writers were not system-makers ; they were truth-tellers, writing without order, and with no thought of unity ; they were unconscious of theological harmonies, and never framed a creed. Plato precipitates thoughts in the same disorderly, systemless way, trusting to the skill of others to classify, formulate, and build them into a system. But this carelessness of method is not a sign of inspiration ; it is a sign that method is not the chief ambition of Plato. However, many of his dialogues are devoted to the elucidation of special subjects, as the Second Alcibiades to prayer, the Charmides to temperance, the Phcedo to the immortality of the soul, the Euthyphron to holiness, the Banquet to love, the Thecdetvs to science, the Meno to virtue, and the Parmenides to idealities. In the treatment of any single subject, he is sure to make observations on other subjects quite as valuable as those that pertain to the subject under discussion ; hence, every dialogue emits more than a single ray of light. The theism of Plato is not always on the surface, but sometimes is vague and indefinite, reaching back into or beginning with the mysterious conception of being as the ground of all that is or appears. Here is the influence of the Eleatics on Plato. He distinguished be- tween the being and the non-being, avoiding the mistake of Zeno by recognizing the reality of non-being, or the phenomenal world. In the Sophist he clearly defines the separation between entity and non-entity, asserting that entity is the "one", and that existences are to be regarded as powers. This hint modern philosophy has appropri- ated in its definition of being as "activity." In the Cratylm Plato af- firms that some things have a "certain firm existence of their own," MONOTHEISTIC TEACHINGS. 29 attributing to them the distinguishing mark of power, stability, eternity. Groping forward, but declaring a little more with each step, he enounces the doctrine of "the one" in its fullness, establish- ing it with consummate dialectical skill in the Pannenides, a dialogue surpassing all others in metaphysical subtlety and intrinsic develop- ment of a single idea. Plato is not particular as to "the many," but holds to " the one," averring an " essence existing itself by itself," and pronouncing it "infinite." Accidents of time do not belong to it; it does not participate in "the many," but in being; it is being. If being, it always was, it always will be; hence, Plato defines "the one" to be that which "was, is, and will be," language like unto John's in his praise of the Almighty. "If one is not," says Plato summarily, "nothing is." Thus the philosopher, establishing the idea of being as separate from non-being, prepares the way for the final assertion of God as the centralization of being, or the essence of "the one." Being, undefined, vague, infinite, is the foundation-stone upon which rises faith in a personal God. Being is not one thing and God another; God is being, being is God. In a compromising spirit the philosopher conceded the existence of gods, thus ministering to the polytheistic faith of the people, and sustaining the old religion. He speaks of the gods and their quarrel- some dispositions in the Euthyphron, but more especially in the Laws, where he eulogizes them, encouraging festivals in their honor and the oiFering of prayers and sacrifices in the temples. He even attributes to them creative powers, and assigns them a share in the government of the World. Man is the creation of one of these subordinate gods. Two explanations of this mythological corruption of his theism may be given: 1. Such mythology was prevalent in his day; he must recog- nize it. 2. He may have believed in the gods. The latter supposi- tion we reject, for the philosophers were not, as a class, believers in the accepted religion, and Plato in the Republic traces faith in the gods " to tradition" alone. One of the accusations against Socrates was that he denied the gods, and Plato must have shared the opinion of his mas- ter, but through fear of popular tumult he spoke reverently of the popular faith, always counseling obedience and holiness. Out of mythology he quickly arose into the clearer faith of the existence of a personal God, the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of the universe, affirming it repeatedly, sometimes inquiringly, but rarely doubtfully. Monotheism is a Platonic doctrine, asserted dimly in the Philebu,s, where Plato refers to the "really existing," and to the science of the Eternal; but openly in the Republic, where God's good- ness and God's reality are the subjects of thought ; clearly in the first Alcibiades, where the Deity is spoken of as a guide ; discriminatingly 30 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. in the Thecetetus, where God's attributes are proclaimed ; personally in the Minos, where Zeus converses with men ; and positively in the Laws, where God is declared as "having the beginning, the end, and middle of all things." In addition to these fragmentary proofs of the monotheism of Plato, we find a comprehensive theistic conception, especially in the Republic, the Timmis, and the Laivs, forever reliev- ing him of the suspicion of inconsistency and of a wavering faith in God. In the Laivs he insists that the Deity is "worthy of blessed attention," and, resisting the dictum of Protagoras that "man is the measure of all things," he enounces that the Deity is the measure of all things, a sublime doctrine, elevating and true. To measure the universe from the divine standpoint, to measure man from God, not God from man, is a very high conception, first promulgated by Plato. In the Repiiblic God is represented as good, the author of good, and not the author of evil ; his immutability is also fairly taught ; and as in the Timceus, here also he declares retribution for the wicked and reward for the virtuous, both administered by the justice-loving God. Between appearance and reality he draws a definite distinction, re- garding the phenomenal world as an appearance and God as the great reality. In the Cratylm he avows that Zeus is rightly named, since he is the cause of the living. Judged by themselves, these Platonic or monotheistic representa- tions of God, incomplete as they are, but unaccompanied with tradi- tion or superstition, are more satisfactory than the uninspired theologies of the East, and justify the theistic hypothesis from the rationalistic base. Incomplete, they show the necessity of revelation ; they pre- pare the way for revelation ; they help to comprehend revelation, St. Augustine said, "Plato made me know the true God." Plato declared God ; Christ revealed him. Plato assures us that God exists; Christ showeth us the Father. Plato believes; Christ knows. Phi- losophy is faith ; Christianity is truth. Closely associated with the monotheistic conception of God is Plato's cosmological account of the universe, which, excepting the Mosaic revelation of world-building, is superior to any thing ever framed by theology or philosophy. His theology and cosmogony are inseparable, as they involve each other ; an understanding of one requires an understanding of the other. Plato, in the Timceus, says : "Let us declare on what account the framing Artificer settled the formation of this universe." He also says: "Let us consider respecting it whether it always existed, having no beginning, or was generated, beginning from some certain commencement. It is generated : for this universe is palpable and has a body." Here is the recognition of a difference between the maker and the thing DOCTRINE OF CAUSATION AFFIRMED. 31 made, a discrimination between subject and object, or mind and mat- ter ; hence Plato is not a pantheist, or an Eleatic. Spinoza did not borrow his doctrine of one substance from Plato. There are two sub- stances, which a wise philosophy will recognize. Plato's starting-point is the difference between, and not the identity of, being and non- being. This starting-point, fundamental to a correct theological or philosophical representation, both of God and the universe, Plato consistently maintains in all his works, as if, whether in doubt re- specting other things, he entertained no doubt jespecting this truth. In the Parmenides he di-aws the line between the two substances when he affirms, "all is said when 'the one' and 'the others' are said." "The one," and "the others" — between them there is nothing in common. In like manner the Eleatic guest in the Sophist reports ad- versely the opinion of the multitude that "nature generates from some self-acting fortuitous cause, and without a generating intellect," signifying the impossibility of a self-producing universe; and in the Laws he condemns materialism as a " stupid opinion." Plato charac- terizes creation in the Banquet as "a thing of extensive meaning," but the meaning is not fully interpreted in this dialogue ; we find it elsewhere, as in the Philebus, where he discusses the presence of mind in nature, " arranging things and governing throughout," and in the Thecetetus,. where he insists that no one must be allowed to say " that any thing exists" or " is produced of itself" Here, as elsewhere, the doctriue of causation, or a created universe, he accepts and maintains as a first principle, without which a true cosmogony is impossible. In' the Philebus he defines the " limitless," and " the limit," representing God and the universe by these singularly ex- pressive words, and insisting that the "limit" is the product of the "limitless." Plato's idea of the universe was a growth, not a suddenly devel- oped conception, as he himself tells in the Phmdo. It seems that, attracted by the theory of Anaxagoras, which attributed the cause of things to intelligence, he became dissatisfied with it, owing to its superficial application of intelligence in the creation of worlds, and its explanation or "final cause" of things, and he rejected it; or, rather, advanced bevond it. Real, self-operating cause, Plato sought; and this, he afiirmed, the senses could not grasp or apprehend ; only the soul may know the "limitless," the "producing," the "regulat- ing" cause. Likewise in the Laws he insists on searching for the cause, as not at all impious but in the direction of intelligence ; and in his sixth Epistle he teaches that the "cause" may be "clearly known." Most emphatically he shows in the Hippias Major that " the produced is one thing, and the producer is another;" while in 32 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. the Phcedrus he teaches that ' ' every thing that is created must neces- sarily be created from a begiuniDg," but the beginning force or creator is ""uncreate ; " that is, the initial moving force, or mover, is without beginning, or eternal. Summarizing these teachings from Plato, it is easy to see that he accepts the difference bekveen being and non-heing; that he holds to the idea of causality, as afterward expanded by Aristotle into efficient and final caiises, as the underlying doctrine of cosmology, and implying rad- ical discriminatioiis betiveen God and tJie universe; that he embraces tlie thought tlmt tliere ivas a time wJien the universe teas not, and it, therefore, had a beginning; that he discourages the theory of a self -originating uni- verse; and that he declares that the originating mind or cause may he hioivn. This is an upheaval of ideas, and goes far toward the vindication of philosophic inquiry ; whatever is charged against modern philos- ophy, Plato can not be charged in his cosmological starting-point with puerility, intellectual weakness, or materialistic tendency. Gladly granting the above, Plato seems uncertain at a very vital point in the unwritten history of creation, which no one since his time has adequately settled. The co-eternity of matter is foreshad- owed in the discussions in the Theoetetxis, and really declared in the Timcexis; but the co-eternity of the universe he rejects. Matter he regards in its original condition as something rude, unformed, law- less, roaming aimlessly in space when it is arrested and organized into the universe. Given the four elements, earth, air, fire, and water, God built the worlds, according to the Timceus, using fire and earth at first, but adding air and water afterward ; fire made it visible, earth gave it solidity, air and water "are indispensable to keep the solid bodies in due proportion to one another," and secure unity. He is obscure, however, as to the origin of the elements, really does not account for them. Prior to the formation of the universe, " three distinct things existed, being, place, and generation," or God, space, and the generating process, or the idea of world-building. The actual generation of the universe was the product of the mutual motion of the elements, a mechanical sifting and combination under divine di- rection— a sentiment that suggests the dance of the atoms, or the modern theory of world-building. Singularly, too, these elements were convertible, air into fire, and earth into water, a view suggest- ing the modern doctrine of the conservation of forces. Reading this from Plato, we can indorse Emerson's eulogy: "Great havoc makes he among our originalities." His mathematical conception of the universe ; his idea that the proportion of original elements remained ever the same; his thought that ideas and numbers governed in AN ORGANIZED UNIVERSE. 33 world-building, have not been eclipsed by any modern discovery or teaching. In cosmology Plato stands at the head. We characterize, however, the obscurity or failure to account for the elements, and for original matter, as a weakness. What original matter was, or how much there was, Plato does not intimate; but, avowing this doctrine, he furnishes support to the atomists and ma- terialists of our day, who, going farther than he would allow, assert the all-sufficient potency of matter for its own organization and de- velopment. If original matter were uncreated, the Creator turns out to be an organizer merely ; but this is fatal both to theology and a divine cosmogony, since original matter may have had the inherent tendency to organization, which would displace the reign of a crea- tive intellect in the universe. Countenance is given to the doctrine of organization, as a substitute for creation, in the Statesman, where the Deity is represented as changing "the heavens unto the present figure," endowing the heavenly bodies with circular motion; in the Laivs, where he speaks of a "well-arranged universe;" and in the Phcedo, where the philosopher indulges in a lengthy description of the earth and its assignment in the heavens. God an organizer! The universe an organization ! This is Platonism, yet not essentially in- consistent even with the doctrine of causation, or the doctrine of one substance, for Plato conceded no power, no life, no originating prin- ciple, in unformed matter. However, he made almost a redeeming use of the doctrine of the co-eternity of matter in that he aflSrmed that in it was embedded the antagonistic principle of evil, now operating in the universe. In the Banquet he explains the presence of the two principles, the ra- tional and the irrational, which, without doubt, he borrowed from the poets and Empedocles, and interprets organization as a triumph over the antagonistic principle. Organization was a reduction of an- tagonism to order, form, beauty, energy ; it was a resurrection from death to life, it was the impartation of "good" to matter, which appeai-s quite fully in the Oratyhis. Somewhat contradictory of the doctrine of the co-eternity of mat- ter is the Heraclitic doctrine of the " becoming," or the flux of nature, which Plato accepted, as may be seen in the discussions in the Cratylus, where the universe is spoken of as "marching," and as having in it the spirit of going, which is the organ of nature's motions. He fully believed in the reality of the phenomenal world, confuting the doc- trine of Protagoras in the Thecetetns, that " nothing ever is but always becoming." This is the doctrine of Heraclitus, but Plato went not so far. Persistently opposed to the idea of permanency in nature, he nevertheless held to its reality, which saved him from Eleaticism ; and, 3 34 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. distinguishing between the two realities, the finite and the infinite, he saved himself from pantheism. The effect of motion on nature he discusses as "removal" and "change," the former signifying a going from one place to another, and the latter a transformation of quality, as sweet into bitter ; the former is the substitute of place, the latter the substitute of quality. But he classifies motion producing these effects as original and subsidiary ; original motion is self-motion, the highest, belonging to soul, to God ; subsidiary motion is derived mo- tion, or dependent power. In the Laws he enumerates ten kinds of motions, as follows: "1. Revolution around a center; 2. Locomotion from place to place ; 3. Condensation ; 4. Rarefaction ; 5. Increase ; 6. Decrease ; 7. Generation ; 8. Destruction ; 9. Change pr(xluced in another by another; 10. Change produced by a- thing itself, both in itself and in another." The tenth motion is the motion of the soul; it is the motion of God, the power manifest in the universe. Through self-existent motion the universe was begotten ; the motion of God was communicated to unformed and motionless matter, which, as it yielded to the communicating impulse, emerged into systems of worlds, such as now occupy the heavens ; and they are as real as he is real. Call it ' ' becoming ; " it is the reality of becoming. The core of Plato's cosmogonal conception, however, has not been revealed; it remains for consideration. In his analytic observations of nature Plato always proceeded from the inner to the outer ; from the subjective to the objective ; from himself to God ; from himself to the universe. Mind, thought, idea, constituted the chief corner- stone in every superstructure. In some way thought entered into the construction of the universe ; God first thought the universe before he made it. It existed in God in the intellectual sense before it stood forth as a completed physical fact. The idea of the world pre- ceded its execution. God is a being of ideas ; the divine mind is . pregnant with ideas ; it is anidea. Divine ideas are contingent, rela- tive, or unchangeable and necessary. Ideas of truth, goodness, beauty are eternal, governing divine movements in their loftiest man- ifestations. According to preconceived, necessary ideas, which served as patterns or rules, God made all things, impregnating unformed matter with them, and so giving shape and comeliness to the universe. Nature is the receptacle of the divine ideas ; nature is the concreted idea ; nature is an idea, the idea of God. The universe is a congre- gation of ideas in visible forms ; it is little else than God going out of himself and crystallizing in the universe. An admirable conception of the universe is this, but marked by weaknesses which show the marvelous struggles of the great thinker in his search for the truth. One of the objections to this theory of SYSTEM OF IDEAS. 35 ideas is its ambiguity, for it is not certain whether Plato held that these ideas were abstract merely, or that they had a separate, indi- vidual existence. Were they real existences which the divine mind appropriated, and according to which he formed the universe, or were they the products of the divine intelligence, native to it as the idea of causation is native to the human mind? Cousin, in defending Plato, insists that he did not assume for ideas an independent exist- ence ; but Aristotle assailed him on the ground that he did maintain the independent vitality of the idea, and annihilated the Platonic system by clearly showing that while the idea had a subjective, it had not an objective, existence. Aristotle ridicules them as " immortalized things of sense ;" but in so doing he leaves room for the play of ' ' ideas " in the universe. But did even Aristotle assail the Platonic idea by the strongest argument ? The argument was effective, but it was not comprehensive of the idea itself. Aristotle's idea is correct, but he admits the existence of Plato's idea by making it subjective instead of objective. Plato located it without, giving it independence ; Aristotle located it within, making it dependent on the originating mind. In this way only did Aristotle annihilate the Platonic system of ideas ; he did not annihilate the ideas. The value of the ideas is a separate question ; the system goes, the ideas remain. But the ideas are not vital, sovereign existences ; they remain as abstract patterns and guides. An abstract idea has no being, no life, no form. Malebranche says ideas are little beings not to be despised, but this can not be allowed ; otherwise the Pla- tonic system must be accepted. An idea is as lifeless or beingless as a grain of sand. It derives its existence only from the being that originates it. Aristotle did not assail the idea itself; but it is assail- able on the ground that possibly Plato, in advocating its existence, also intended to signify that it had being. He leaves us in doubt as to the origin of the ideas, whether they are eternal or derivative ; whether they governed God as vitally eternalizing forces or God gov- erned them. Plato likewise involves the subject in mystery by the manner in which he presents it. In creation he conceives that the idea "participated" in matter, as a vital force, as the inspiration of matter, instead of the model of material forms. The fact is, Plato's ideas are of three kinds : (a) subjective, or the divine idea in the mind of God ; (6) objective, or independent ideas, either as ab- stract or as having being ; (c) material, i. e. , the participating idea. The last introduces a troublesome element in the classification, for it is difficult to separate the notion of a participating idea from a pantheistic conception of the universe, which Plato himself repudiates. The Platonic idea has another signification which involves it in 36 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. trouble. The philosopher, drawing a distinction between the univer- sal and the particular, conceived that the universal is general, invis- ible, abstract, and the particular is individual, visible, and concrete, and that the particular is modeled after the universal. Pointing to a table, he speaks of it as the " particular," back of which is the uni- versal, table or general idea of tables. So horse is particular, but back of horses there is a universal horse. This distinction is a phil- osophical hallucination, for there is no such thing as a universal table, or a universal tree, or a universal horse. Such universals do not exist ; they do not exist as ideas even. The idea of a table can not be universal in any rational sense. It is particular if it exist both in the divine mind and in its actual form. This is the weakness of rationalism, that it abstracts the particular reason of the human mind, converting it into an independent reality, segregated from all mind, human and divine, and making it the universal reason. There is no such reason. This is the weakness of Schopenhauer's idealistic notion of God, that he is impersonal, universal will. There is no such will. Will, reason, thought, idea can not be impersonal, uni- versal, abstract ; they all imply personality or mind. Plato's idea points to mind ; Plato himself delivered it from all relation, and endowed it with independence, which is absurdity. These are some of the weaknesses of the Platonic system of ideas, but the great Platonic idea that God built the universe according to a preconceived pattern is not only beautiful, but also imperishable ; theology can not improve it, philosophy should be content with it. This is Platonic idealism. From his cosmogony we pass to the consideration of Plato's psy- chology, a department of study abounding in discoveries, teachings, and suppositions as wonderful and instructive as any to be found in the philosopher's writings. At the same time he equally abounds in errors, fragments of thought, and great misconceptions in the treat- ment of some of the psychological problems which he investigated and discussed. His psychology, as a whole, marks the rising and falling of intellectual apprehension, the fluctuation of the dialectical force of Plato. Beginning with the question, What is man ? Plato answers it with extreme caution, considering his physical origin first, and his spir- itual character and intellectual framework afterward. Usually free from the mythological spirit, he rehearses the tales of the ancients re- specting an early race of gods and heroes on the earth, from which descended the human race to which we belong. The early race, according to the Statesman, was " earth-born, and not begotten from each other ;" the people lived a spontaneous life, guarded by the IMAGINATIVE PHYSIOLOGY. 37 Deity, nature offering to them her fruits without toil, and a spirit of sedition was absent from them. It was a golden period, not des- tined to continue, for revolution is the order of progress on the earth. The generations died ; nature itself became cold and unproductive, and an uninhabited planet was the result. In due time the Deity is moved to re-people the abandoned world, which is easily done by res- urrections, transmigrations, or creations ; and after many revolutions of this kind, man as we know hira appeared, the lord of creation. These old tales Plato abandons in the Banquet for another, which recites that at one time there were three kinds of hi>man beings on the earth — man, woman, and a man-woman, a being partaking of the character of both. At length Jupiter devised a plan for the forma- tion of a race which should consist of two sexes, the third disappear- ing. The surgical process by which this was accomplished Plato relates in its disgusting details, showing at once the need of a true account of man's creation. In the Philebus reference is made to the superiority of the ancestors of the present race, a fiction in which the Greek mind was wont to indulge. Respecting the present man, Plato, in the Protagoras, recalls the fable of his creation by the gods, who fashioned the race within the earth, "composing them of earth and fire," and " commanded Prome- theus and Epimetheus to adorn them, and to distribute to each such faculties as were proper for them ;" Prometheus, stealing " the artifi- cial wisdom of Vulcan and Minerva," confers it upon the mortal race, and man is thus equipped for an earth-life. Fables in Plato : is it any wonder that, as in the Phcedrns, he should inquire whether man is a beast, " with more folds and more furious than Typhon," or " a more mild and simple animal, naturally partaking of a certain divine and modest condition ?" An expounder of the degeneracy of the races, a believer in the greatness of ances- tors, he yet afiirms a god-like origin of the present man. But gods, not God, created him. As to the physical body of man, Plato writes elaborately, showing, however, little knowledge of its construction, or the uses of its prom- inent organs. He is not much of a physiologist. He discourses on pathology, describes fevers, and their antidote, and even reveals the fact of the circulation of the blood ; but, after reading the Timceus, the physician will prefer modern medical science to its suggestions. Of the liver Plato knows nothing more than that it is the seat of the mortal part of the soul ! The bile is .a " vicious secretion." Of the difference between veins and arteries, of the relation of the lungs and viscera, he has no true conception, and of the formation of bones and flesh he is only approximately satisfactory. 88 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. Of the soul, which is " glued" to the body, he is specific ; specific as to its origin, its character, its possibilities, its immortality, its des- tiny ; he is a theologian, a psychologist, a great teacher. The duty of self-knowledge he emphasizes and explains in the Charmides, and in other dialogues he insists on the s'tudy of the soul as the only con- dition of progress from depravity to purity, and as a preparation for the highest immortality. The first or initial doctrine in Plato's psychology is the pre-existence of the soul, supported and enforced by reasonings the most plausible, and by arguments singularly eflfective and difficult to overthrow iu the absence of Scripture truth, which some, however, have afiSrmed does not absolutely determine the question of the origin of souls. Adam's soul was the breath of God which pre-existed, but it pre-existed as breath, not as a soul. The breathing into Adam's nostrils was the creation of the soul ; and if a creation, its pre-existence is im- peached. Modern theology rejects the doctrine of pre-existence, and wisely. To Plato's arguments, however. In the Phcedo the philosopher dem- onstrates that knowledge is reminiscence ; an act of memory is the recalling of knowledge in a previous state ; the memory is a waxen tablet, containing eternal impressions ; what modern psychology styles "innate ideas" is proof of previous knowledge ; the soul knows some things on its own account, and by itself, which is evidence of its pre- existent state. These arguments are expanded in the Thecetetus, and repeated in the Phoedrus and the Meno ; in the former, rejecting the theory of sense-knowledge, he interprets soul-knowledge as reminis- cence, and reminiscence is the sign of pre-existence ; in the latter he insists on the purity of soul-knowledge, and a like interpretation is irresistible. He even goes further, and describes the process of soul-knowledge, or the acquisition of beauty and truth, as the swell- ing of the wings of the soul; " the whole boils and throbs violently" in the eagerness to recall " the most blessed of all mysteries," a knowl- edge of the truth it lost by union with the body. The error of this psychology is the confounding of reminiscence and the intuitional facte of consciousness, which, instead of supporting the doctrine of pre-existence, supports the doctrine of immortality, pointing forward instead of backward. Aristotle opposed the doctrine of reminiscence. The soul, Plato divides, iu the JRepublie, into three parts ; viz. , the rational, the concupiscent, and the irascible. The rational or reasoning part, which is immortal, he locates in the head ; the concupiscent or affectional part, and the irascible or passionate part, both of which are mortal, he locates in the heart and liver. Aristotle located the mortal part in the heart only. Repugnant as is this MORAL CHARACTER OF THE SOUL. 39 division to our Christian sense, and self-contradictory in its contents as it is, for it is subversive of the idea of the unity of the soul, Plato nevertheless holds to the doctrine of immortality for the intellectual part of the soul. The intellect is immortal ; the intellect, therefore, alone pre-existed, if the doctrine of pre-existence be true. The af- fectional and passionate elements of the soul must be the products of the bodily organization, or, at the least, the results of the intellectual and physical union, either of which being true, the modern theory of life as the product of organization has some justification. It has a foothold in Plato. The soul is either immortal or mortal, not both ; if immortal, then it is not the product of the bodily organization ; if mortal, it may be the result of organized matter, as is the eye. More of the immortality of the soul a little later ; just now let us listen to Plato concerning its nature. " What it is" — see the PhcB- drus — "would in every way require a divine and lengthened exposi- tion to tell, but what it is like, a human and a shorter one." From this he proceeds to liken it "to the combined power of a pair of winged steeds and a charioteer," describing its activities by the con- duct of the steeds, and its government by the wisdom of the charioteer. Sometimes the steeds are of noble extraction — then the soul is virtu- ous, good; sometimes they are of the "opposite extraction," and drag the soul down to the earth. In this metaphorical way Plato repre- sents the moral character of the soul, confessing that it has suffered loss by union with the body, which loads it with corruptions, and clips its wings so that it falls to the ground. In the Laws he affirms that the soul is "most divine;" that it is a leader in the heavens; that it has received some of the properties of the gods; that it is "altogether superior to the body ;" and that it is the " oldest" of all things, and " rules over all bodies." Magnificent conjectures, equal to revelations, are these. Conceding greatness to the soul, and affirming its godlike character, Plato preaches depravity as emphatically as John Calvin or Paul. In the Cratylus the body is spoken of as the sepulcher of the soul, and the "mark" of the soul. The soul makes its mark with the body. It is in the Repnblic, however, that he dilates upon the "four de- pravities," dividing the soul into mortal and immortal, and assigning to the mortal part the lusts, affections, appetites, and angers of human nature. Its degradation is affirmed as the result of the union of body and intellect. Plato declares his conviction that very many men are " profoundly wicked," and in representing ours as an iron race, he means that it is a fallen race ; fallen from the golden period ; fallen from purity ; fallen from knowledge. In the Laws he affirms that, "of all evils, the greatest is implanted in the souls of a major part 40 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. of mankind," and pitifully exclaims that, while each one is anxious for a pardon, no one devises a plan for avoiding evil. The soul of a slave, he asserts, is unhealthy, and the soul of a woman is more vi- cious than that of a man. Speaking of the pains of the soul, he enumerates in the Philebus "auger, fear, desire, lamentation, love, emulation, envy, and all other such passions;" and argues in the Me7io that virtue must be communicated, if at all, by a certain " divine fate," or the favor of the deity. Depravity implies something more than positive impulses to evil; it implies what is more serious, what Plato is constantly teaching and in manifold ways striving to impress upon his disciples, and that is, that the soul is ignorant of itself. Ignorance is the greatest depravity. Of this ignorance he speaks in the Laws thus: "Almost all men appear to have been nearly ignorant of what the soul happens to be, and what power it possesses Avith respect to other things belonging to it, and its generation besides — how that it is amongst the first of sub- stances and before all, and that more than any thing else it rules over the change and altered arrangement of bodies." Elsewhere he re- peats the sentiment wheh he says that, whether man is a "plaything of the gods" or the result of a " serious act," we can not tell. In these statements concerning the soul, especially the references to depravity, we recognize familiar truth ; not the truth in a Scrip- tural form, but the truth to which all men bear witness. Plato wrote from observation, experience, history, reflection— sources of knowledge always to be respected. Re^jectiug the mythology woven with the study of the origin of the soul, it must be allowed that he has repre- sented its character as a whole in a masterful manner ; and, rejecting his three-fold classification of soul, it is granted that it almost accu- rately represents the manifestations of soul life. He was ever on the border of truth ; in these instances he well-nigh expressed experi- mental facts. Remembering that, according to Plato, the intellect alone is immor- tal, it will be profitable to note his explanations of intellect, or the mental processes, and the limits he assigns to intellectual inquiry ; for he considers all these questions, furnishing in his conclusions many psychological hints which modern philosophy might appropriate to its advantage. The ancients compared intellect to water, because it is "sober;" but Plato in the Philebus observes that, "mind is either the same thing as truth, or of all things the most like to it." No material thing resembles or suggests the nature of mind. It is truth, or, as in the Cratylus, it is power, unmixed power, which is a better definition than the other, in that it is not so abstract, nor so inde- finable. Mind is power, or as again in the Philehis, it " is a relation SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE. 41 to cause, and is nearly of that genus;" that is, mind is cause or catisal power, an exact definition, a true conception of its opera- tions ; mind an unmixed, independent, originating, truth-inspiring, causal POWER. This is Plato's starting-point, from which he advances to the study of the sources of knowledge, or how it is obtained ; and here he is explicit, counteracting the empiricism of his day by defending the mind against all attacks, by exhibiting its power to know some things on its own account, by examining the theory of sensuous knowledge, and by insisting on the superior value of moral and philosophical truth. Whence is knowledge ? From within, or from without, or from both within and without? There is room here for extremes — the extreme of empiricism, the extreme of subjective idealism, or Eleaticism. In its answers philosophy has vibrated to the one or the other, whereas a true psychology will recognize the double source of knowledge, a mixed or empirico-idealistic source pf seusations appropri- ated by and intermingled with the facts of consciousness, thus giving employment in the acquisition of knowledge to both senses and intel- lect. Plato avoided the extreme of empiricism; he did not entirely avoid the extreme of idealism. He was an idealist ; he was a ration- alist; his psychology was a reaction from the Sophists, who insisted that man could not know any thing, and from the floating sensualism of the materialists. He defined the mind, explained and vindicated its processes, justified its deductions, and announced its empire to be the universe of being. He enthroned mind, and dethroned the senses, making them subordinate and tributary to intellect. He relates in the PhoidrHS the temple tale that " the first prophetic words issued from an oak," and remarks that men in the ancient days, in their simplicity, listened to an oak and a stone, "if only they spoke the truth ;" but, evidently, this is an ironical swording of empiricism. Knowledge is not in the oak or stone. In the same dialogue Plato also considers the fable that traces the sciences to the revelations of the gods, but this is unsatisfactory. If knowledge springs neither from nature nor the gods, what is its source? Let it be conceded that the senses are avenues of communication between the outer world of matter and the inner world of mind ; what of sense-knowledge? What is its character? What its value? In the Philebus Plato represents the sciences as rushing into the mind through the senses, and in the Theoetetus, that they possess it, or the science- possessed mind is like an "aviary of birds." But the crowding of the mind with the sciences is not true knowledge; it is not ample knowledge; it is not satisfying knowledge. All such knowledge Plato underrated and in a sense rejected, compelled so to do by the 42 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. lofty view he entertained of mind. The mind is not sense-bound ; it is not dependent on the senses. Sight and hearing, he affirms in the Phcedo, do not convey truth to men, and "if these bodily senses are neither accurate nor clear, much less can the others be so, for they are all inferior to these." Again, he writes that the soul, "when it employs the body to examine any thing, is drawn by the body to things that never continue the same, and wanders, and is confused, and reels as if intoxicated through coming into contact with things of this kind." In the Thecetetus he defines the senses as instruments of the mind, but imperfect; and again, in the Fhcedo, characterizes them as "full of deception," and cautions against a great reliance upon them. Gorgias having taught, in vindication of sense-knowl- edge, that the qualities of things might be perceived by the senses, Plato annihilates the position in the Meno, and in the Thecetetus he shows that sight and science are by no means the same. Without referring further, it is clear that Plato uprooted empiric cism, and prepared the way for a very radical but rational psychology. His primary question- in the Thecetetus is, what is it to Jcnowf Is it to "have" science? This he repudiates, as also many other things which the parties in the dialogue submit as answers. Unfortunately, the dialogue closes without a satisfactory settlement of the question ; but fortunately, in the Cratylus, he defines thought as the " looking- into and agitating a begetting," or a bringing forth of ideas and truths, and that the "soul marches along with things;" and here he defines man as "contemplating what he sees." In the Philebus the soul's act in the acquisition of knowledge is represented as the writing of a speech ; the soul produces speeches within itself From these fragments we learn that Plato's idea of man is that he is a contem- plator, a reflector, a thinker ; a begetter of thoughts ; an inquirer, a marcher; a speech-maker. Knowledge is not science, but thought. Knowledge is acquired, not through the senses, but by the mind. Easily and consistently Plato passes from the nature of knowledge to the power of mind itself, asserting, as in the Theceteifiis, that the soul in thinking discourses with itself ; that it beholds things by itself; and, as in the Phcedrus, that it is nourished by and thrives upon the truth. Truth, not nature, is the food of the soul. The soul can shut itself up with truth, or be content with its own facts, not re- garding the outer world at all. He asserts in the Phcedo that if one should " approach a subject by means of the mental faculties, neither employing the sight in conjunction with the reflective faculty, nor in- troducing any other sense together with reasoning," but, " using pure reflection by itself" in the search of pure essence, he "will arrive, if any one can, at the knowledge of that which is." Expanding this LIMITS OF KNOWLEDGE. 43 proposition, he concludes that " if we are ever to know any thing purely, we must be separated from the body, and contemplate the things themselves by the mere soul." Surely this is a revelation of soul-power which empirical psychology has not understood, and against which it has virtually arrayed itself by the emphasis with which it defends the theory of sensuous knowledge. According to Plato, the bodily senses are hindrances to pure knowledge ; according to the empiricists, knowledge is impossible without their aid — they are the only sources or avenues of knowledge. Between the two, the differ- ence is that between the highest idealism and the grossest ma- terialism • as between the Platonic conception of mind, and the associationalist's conception, one must accept the former, since it dignifies the soul, gives it independence, and foreshadows its im- n^rtality. Announcing the independent, truth-acquiring propensity of the soul, Plato foresees certain limits to human knowledge, arising out of the combination of soul and body, which suffocates aspiration and blockades advance. Self-stimulating as the mind is, it gropes amid outward things, seeing and knowing them at first only superficially, and grows slowly into correct apprehension of phenomena. He illus- trates in the Thecetetns the gradual process of mind-opening by the fact that one sees letters without knowing their meaning, and hears the language of a barbarian without understanding it ; he sees and hears without knowing; sense-perception, sense-knowledge, must be followed by mind-perception and mind-knowledge. As if relating a dream, Plato then teaches that the first elements can not be explained by reason ; that an element can not be defined ; but things com- pounded of them may be explained and understood. He illustrates by the following example : the word Socrates is composed of syllables, and the syllables of elements, or sounds ; so, a syllable, is composed of s and o ; but s is a consonant, a sound, and can not be defined. Compounds, therefore, we may understand ; elements are indefinable. Applying this to nature, or the universe, it is clear that it may be understood only in its component relations ; as a product of elemental principles, forces, or facts, it may be analyzed ; but the original ele- ments, named, pointed out, discovered, yet elude significant interpre- tation. In the Statesman it is shown that the soul, suflTering thus respecting the elements, fluctuates sometimes respecting all things, even the " comminglings," or the combinations of the elements, and that it arrives only at a small portion of truth. Catching up the Heraclitic idea of "the "becoming," he applies it in the Cratylus to our knowledge of beauty, saying it is always " secretly going away," that even " while we are speaking about it, it becomes immediately 44 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. something else ; " so that it can not be known by any one. This is a leaning toward the Eleatic principle of the "one," which, however, Plato guarded aguiust by asserting the reality of the "manifold," a knowledge of which is limited to compounds. Coni'essing the limitations of knowledge, how ju§t the rebuke he administers in the Euihydemus to Dionysiodorus, who held that if one knew any thing he knew all things ! Man is not all-ignorant, nor all-knowing ; he knows some things ; the soul knows truth when it sees it ; it knows the outer world ; but it knows not completely in this present state. The subject of limitation is renewed in the Seventh Ejyistle, in the discussion of the steps to progressive knowledge, Plato stating the first requisite to be the name of a thing ; second, its definition ; third, its resemblance ; fourth, its science ; but, proceeding in this order in the analysis of a truth, or a thing, the philosopher adds that it is of uncer- tain value. For there is no fixed name for any thing, as a round thing might be called straight ; there is nothing in a name as men use names; and " the same assertion is true of a definition." Human knowledge is a speculation. From this extreme concession or morbid surrender, Plato rebounds both in the Philebits and the Banquet, carrying us back to the heights of soul-knowledge, to knowledge of the abstract, of being, of essence, and showing that his compromises of the powers of mind were inci- dental only. In the Philebus he declares the substance of good to consist of beauty, symmetry, and truth, the "bounds of the intelli- gible," a knowledge of which it is in the power of mind to obtain. It must hunt for them ; it may find them. In a most elegant man- ner he speaks in the Banquet of the process of knowledge as an "ascending," a march by one's self, going "from the beauty of bodies (to the beauty of soul, and from the beauty of soul) to that of pur- suits; from the beauty of pursuits to that of doctrines; until he arrives at length from the beauty of doctrines (generally) to that single one relating to nothing else than beauty in the abstract (and he knows at last what is the beautiful itself)." The steps, please observe: body, soul, pursuit, doctrine, the abstract. This is an intellectual ascension, which modern psychology would do well to embrace. Nor is this all. Plato defines logos in the Theoetetxis to be the science of the difference ; that is, it implies the elimination from a thing of all qualities common to other things, and the discovery of that particular quality, element, function, or prerogative which, remaining, separates it from all other things, and distinguishes it as an inde- pendent and individual object. This process of elimination, separa- tion, winnowing, or whatever it may be called, is the province of HUMAN DEPRAVITY. 45 dialectics, in which Plato was a master, and which he demonstrated to be possible in the study of truth. This is the summit of Plato's psychology — a knowledge of the ab- stract, a knowledge of the logos of truth, of all things ; a knowledge of soul; self-knowledge, truth-knowledge. Heights, these; beyond them, only the heights of the eternal. With the psychological conception of man the purely ethical branch of Plato's philosophy is closely related. Ethics he could not avoid ; .philosophy can not avoid it. In this department it demonstrates its utility to the race, or exposes its insufficiency, in either case deter- mining the value of philosophy as a practical pursuit. In its theo- logical bearings, it may be speculative ; in its psychological revelations, it may be abstract and concrete; in its ethics, it is concrete. Plato's Reptihlic is a miniature of ethical principles, both as they respect the State and the individual, while his Laws are the details of practical, social, moral, and civil life. However, the ethical beliefs, sanctions, and discriminations of Plato are reflected, like his psychol- ogy, in all his dialogues, sometimes as mere hints, then as open declarations; sometimes in dialectical form, then as prescriptive state- ments; but always sufficiently transparent and sufficiently positive, though not always essentially sound. To his theory of the origin of evil we take exception on philosophic, historic, and religious grounds. it is philosophically erroneous, historically contradictory, religiously absurd. Of evil, as the antagonistic principle in the universe, located in inert matter, we have already spoken, but we recall it in this connection. To this remote origin Plato traces it. That man is a partaker of vice, degraded, contaminated, Plato un- equivocally asserts ; that he is not good by nature, he teaches in the Meno; that he is ignorant of virtue, he shows both in the Laches and the Meno, and proves in the latter that it can neither be taught nor acquired as science; that the soul is burdened with baseness and in- justice, he declares and establishes in the Gorgias, and re-affirms its ignorance and diseases in the Sophist; that evil is a deep disease is manifest in the Lysis ; that the major part of mankind are wrecks, and that, in comparison with the gods, every man is vile, that passion is inherent and man the most savage of animals, Plato confesses in the Laws. Let this testimony to "total depravity" be sufficient. His condemnation of evil is explicit, strong, wrathful. In the Crito it is declared that it is not right to do evil ; in the Gorgias, that " to act unjustly is the greatest of evils," that intemperance is disor- der, that it is dreadful to be discordant with "myself," that an "in- satiable and intemperate " life is reprehensible ; in the Minos, that in- toxication must be forbidden ; in the Banquet, that drunkenness is a 46 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. crime, and ' ' shame for bad acts " is the glory of a man ; in the Laws, that to live without justice is not good, that intoxication is not of a " trifling nature," and man drunk is again a child, and that idleness, slander, theft, murder, profane oaths, and human sacrifices are crimes in the sight of gods and men. Equally strong is he in his encouragements and persuasions to seek the good and avoid the evil. Man, as in the CVifo, should not be anxious about living, but about living well; an unjust person or an unhealthy soul, as in the Gorgias, is miserable ; good is the end of all actions ; the depraved soul should be restrained ; he is happy who has no vice in his soul ; as in the Protagoras, the soul needs training and healing ; justice " bears the nearest possible resemblance to holiness," therefore practice it ; the safety of life consists in the right choice of pleasure and pain ; as in the Cratyhts, the soul that moves badly, or in a ** restrained and sliackled manner," is depraved, it needs freedom ; as in the Philebiis, pleasure is not the chief good, nor even intellect, but the mixed life of intellect and pleasure ; as in the Charmides, " tem- perance is the practice of things good ;" as in the Menexenus, "knowl- edge separated from justice appears to be knavery ;" as in the Minos, "right is a royal law," it has science in it; as in the Second Epistle, evil must be removed if the soul meet with truth ; as in the Ninth Epistle, " each is not born for himself alone," but must recog- nize the claims of country, parents, and friends ; as in the Laws, children should reverence parents, making images to their memory, and old men should not do shameless things before children ; and crystallizes the whole in these: virtue is the basis of all honor; " truth is the leader of every good." What lofty instructions here ! Recognizing the depravity of soul, condemning evil, and postulat- ing the necessity of virtue, what remedy does Plato oflTer for depravity? What is the impulsive ethical force of his philosophy? Let us not expect too much from one piloting himself in a new region. He leads ; let us follow. He recognizes the difficulty, wrestling with it in no uncertain, but, as we shall find, in an insuflEicient manner. In the Protagoras he points out the difficulty of becoming a good man, " square as to his hands and feet and mind, fashioned without fault;" but in the Banquet he exhorts to obtain the good, and in the Eidhyde- mus he exclaims with the vehemence of a seeker, "Let him destroy me, and, if he will, boil me, or do whatever else he pleases tvith me, if he does but render me a good man." Could spiritual yearning go farther? The acquisition of good, according to Plato, is conditional upon self-knowledge and a knowledge of good, both of which may be ob- tained by the pursuit of both in a philosophical manner. This is the kernel of the ethical theory of Plato. In the First Alcibiades he in- V^'SOUND ETHICAL PRINCIPLES. 47 sists that we must know ourselves before we can make ourselves bet- ter, illustrating it in this way, that if one does not know what a finger- ring is, he can not make better finger-rings. Self-knowledge is the primary condition of improvement ; this results in the exposure of the concujoiscent soul, and all the depravMes of the irascible nature. No one will dispute Plato at this point ; but when, as in the Protagoras, he undertakes to show that "no man errs willingly," and, as in the Banquet, that all men desire good to be jireseiit, we suspend judgment a moment to inquire what he means. He reveals the depravity of the soul, but are we to understand that it is an involuntary depravity f If so, he is in perfect accord with the Biblical representation of man's original corruption; but he departs from it if he means that evil, as a manifested product in the life, is equally involuntary. The inner man may be involuntarily depraved, the outer man is voluntarily depraved. Nature is involuntary in its contents; conduct is wholly voluntary. Plato is not discerning at this point, or. he is too lenient in the interpretation of wrong in man's history. Self-knowledge leads to the discovery of the voluntary as well as the involuntary in human history, and one can not be ignored any more than the other. Strong as the involuntary principle of evil is, the world suffers more from voluntary evils, or the free exercise of the involuntary principle. Crime is the voluntary manifestation of the involuntary principle; sin is the voluntary disturbance of God's order in the universe. The involuntary excites sympathy ; tl^e voluntary, approval or condemna- tion, as it embraces right or wrong. The one is authoritative ; the other is within control, and may be directed or suppressed. Plato's sentiment is an apology for evil, internal and external ; it is, there- fore, ethically unsound. The knowledge of good precedes the acquisition of good. This Platonic condition we accept. What is the good? What are its es- sentials, its signs, its functions ? With these questions Plato struggles in the Philebus, announcing that beauty, symmetry, and truth prevail in the form of good ; in the Laches, teaching that fortitude is related to the good ; in the Laivs, showing the difference between divine and human good, mentioning as elements of the latter the four virtues, prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice. As if not quite satisfied with these attempts at definition, he adds in the Laws that the perfect- man is the reflective man, or reason is a quality of goodness, and that the good man governs himself, or is capable of self-control ; in his Seventh Epistle he advises Dionysius to be in accord with himself, as if self-harmony were the content of goodness ; and in the Charmides he discusses the problem of "living scientifically," which he finally resolves into a knowledge of the science of good and evil. 48 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. The sum of these fragments is that good is a complex content, consisting of truth, symmetry, beauty, prudence, temperance, forti- tude, justice, reason, harmony, and scientific order ; a catalogue of noble virtues, possessing which, the soul will not be " barren nor un- fruitful" in the things that make for righteousness and peace. How may they be secured? How may the good be obtained? This is the crucial question of theology, of philosophy, of Plato, who fancies that he has prescribejj a sufficient remedy for evil, and sug- gested a way for the attainment of good. His answer is three-fold, theological, religious, and philosophical, the merits of which will be seen when the answer is fully given. The theological answer relates to the infallibility of conscience as a guide into all truth, Plato, es- pecially in the First Alcibiades, referring to it as a sufiicient monitor and helper. The "dsemon" of Socrates has furnished a topic for many an essay and discussion, some writers finding it difficult to reconcile it with the conscience ; but it seems to us very difficult to reconcile it with any thing else, unless we identify it with the Holy Spirit, which we are not prepared to do. The power of conscience, as a prompting influence in morals, as an inspiration tOAvard the right, we fully grant ; but the world needs something more than a con- science. It needs truth, which will enable the conscience properly to act, for it is an indisputed fact that the unenlightened conscience, if it does not reprove, does not always restrain from wrong-doing, especially if such wrong-doing is sanctioned by religious teaching. The con- science may be guided or become a guide, in proportion to its knowl- edge of right and wrong. In itself, it is without such knowledge ; it needs truth, therefore. The Bible represents the need of the Holy Spirit as a reprover, a teacher, a guide, a comforter, inasmuch as man's conscience will not always reprove, or teach, or guide. Accord- ing to the Bible, man can not guide himself into the truth ; he needs truth, and he needs God to guide him into the truth. Of the "daemon" of Socrates and Plato, we do not find that it was an illuminator, or guide into truth, but a restraining influence in conduct, checking the disposition to evil, the purpose to do wrong. In the Theages Plato clearly distinguishes between the conscience as a re- straining and inciting power, affirming that it "dissuades and does not suffer me to do" wrong, "but it never at any time incites me" to do right. Evidently, then, the inciting power, the guiding influ- ence to truth, is not in the conscience. Plato's theological answer is incomplete. The religiom ansioer relates to the utility of prayer as an agency in the world's moral elevation. Plato is a believer in prayer; he prays to the gods; he recommends sacrifices and festivals in their ED UCA TION PLA TO'S REM ED Y. 49 honor ; but he records no answers to his prayers. This has been over- looked by the students of Plato ; its announcement is now made for the first time. At the close of the Phcedrus, Socrates is made to offer the following beautiful prayer: " O, beloved Pan, and all ye other gods of this place, grant me to become beautiful in the inner man, and that whatever outward things I have may be at peace with those within." What a prayer! Was it genuine, or a mere concession to the polytheism of the country ? A genuine heart-yearning for good Plato possessed, but he trusted neither to the restraining conscience nor unanswered prayer for its acquisition. The great remedy for evil, the chief agency in the acquisition of good, is education ; this is Plato's philosophical answer, it is the answer of modern philosophy. Both in the Meno and the Sophist he teaches the value of correct opinion, and that confutation is the greatest of purifications. Both in the Protagoras and the Lysis he enforces the duty of education. In the Rivals he shows that to be ignorant of one's self is to be of unsound mind. He labors in the Laws espe- cially to prove that ignorance is the cause of crime, which leads him to recommend education as a preventive ; but the disease is not fairly stated, hence the remedy is inadequate. The principle that vice is a mental disease is erroneous in fact, and in contradiction of the natu- ral depravity which the philosopher attributes to the mortal part of the soul. Vice is a spiritual disease, to be overcome by a spiritual remedy ; but Plato did not diagnose correctly ; hence did not pre- scribe accurately or sufficiently. A disease may be determined by its remedy, and the remedy required may be indicated by the disease. Consumption requires complicated treatment ; a pin-scratch scarcely any notice. If the evil taint is interpreted as a misfortune or weak- ness that may easily be overcome ; if its deadly spirit is not recog- nized ; if it is pronounced, on the one hand, a superficial blemish, or, on the other, an ineradicable bent, the philosophical remedies for it will be educational, social, legislative, philanthropic, but neither spirit- ual nor divine. If, as Theodore Parker held, sin is but the tripping of a child, a blunder, a mistake, an unfortunate step, then, indeed, its bad effects are within personal control. From Plato to Parker, through all the various evolutions of transcendentalism, there has been no adequate interpretation of the evil principle, no solution of the evil germ, either as to its origin or character, and no discovery of a satis- factory antidote. All along the line the failure has been complete. Plato's remedy — education — is the best that philosophy has ever sug- gested, the best outside of a divine religion. Let it be known as Plato's patent-right remedy for evil ; it is not original with Herbert Spencer, therefore, or with modern thought. 4 50 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. The potency of culture, the civilizing influence of education, the intellectual improvement that man has made within twenty centuries, justifies the establishment of schools, colleges, the press, the publica- tion of books, and all the efforts now making to emancipate the race from the thralldom of ignorance. Education is a universal necessity, but it is not an adequate remedy for sin. Even Athens, with its superior culture, decayed ; and Greece, with philosophers in all its cities, declined in morals, because there was no impelling force behind philosophic teaching. Valuable as is culture, it is wanting in the moral power to deliver from evil, especially to eradicate it from the nature. The education prescribed by Plato was not of a character to in- spire a love of the beautiful, or to incline the soul to righteousness. He speaks often of a " liberal education," but the curriculum em- braced gymnastics, equestrian skill, as in the Laches, dancing, music, arithmetic, and astronomy, as in the Laws. He mourns over the " slave-like cut of hair " in the souls of men, talks freely of popular education among the Persians, as in the First Alcibiades, but, while suggesting philosophy to the few as the cure for their evils, he orders the above, both for boys and girls, as a sufficient preparation for life, and an adequate security against depravity. In the Republic he pre- scribes four virtues for the ideal man; viz., wisdom, temperance, fortitude, and justice, the strong pillars of human character; but these are the products of individual endeavor, the results of phil- osophic study, of a persevering purpose, and of the observance of a rigid asceticism. The weakness of the educational method, consisting in part in a superficial estimate of evil, is evident in this, that it at- tributes the power of moral change or moral elevation wholly to the individual. He regenerates himself by the force of education ; the sources and agencies of moral change are within himself This Plato taught ; this modern philosophy teaches ; and it all grows out of the theory of evil as a superficial hindrance to the development of char- acter, to be removed by self-effort, by the educational process. Of some evils Plato has a deep abhorrence, as drunkenness, glut- tony, unchaste pleasures, and laziness ; and for this reason he excludes the poets from his Republic, especially Homer, whose falsehoods, fables, and immoralities, as given in the Iliad, he exposes with a merciless hand, insisting that the literature of the poets excites the predisposi- tion to evil, and is contaminating in every respect. At the same time, evil-hater as he was, he permits the governors in his Republic to lie under given circumstances ; and in his Laws a person is per- mitted to steal pears, apples, and pomegranates, if he does it "se- cretly," that is, if not caught at it. Such are some of the inconsist- POSITIVE RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS. 51 encies in Plato's educational method, involving a hatred of some evils, but a superficial estimate of evil, as the ruining force in the world. In this connection it is all-important to inquire what relation he assigns to religion in his ethical economy. Has religion, as a princi- ple, as an office, or prerogative, any recognition in Plato ? The term " religion " embraces a multiple of ideas, more or less fundamental, which appear in crude or developed forms in religious structures and insti- tutions, being prominent in permanent religions and obscure in the transient. Plato's religious conceptions, lifted out of their polytheis- tic environment, have a fundamental value, and are the organic ideas, so far as they go, of the best religions, if not of the divine. The paganism of Plato is not ultra ; rather is it the accidental glam- our of the popular faith. Respecting the existence of God, having already spoken of his belief, it is enough now to recall the fact that he is a monotheist; but Plato's monotheism included a broad, circumstantial view of a divine government, manifesting itself in the providential, and, there- fore, minutely careful, supervision of this world. This feature of a di- vinely governing influence in human affairs Plato develops in the Laivs, discussing the origin of the prevailing doubt respecting it, and conclu- sively establishing that the small no less than the great affairs in this world are under divine supervision. Wonderfully inspiring is the thought that God has a particular plan for each individual, and that, however small the plan, it stretches "its view to the whole," is re- lated to a universal plan ; and equally faith -inspiring is the thought that God has a plan for the ultimate triumph of virtue. Virtue will gain the victory in the universe. This is evangelical philoso- phy; its failure is in not pointing out the "plan." Just here, how- ever, the religion and ethics of Plato unite. Believing in God, worship, sacrifices, temples, prayers, Plato does not hesitate to enjoin religious duties, consistently recognizing the spontaneous activities of the religious nature of man in these direc- tions. In the Repnhlic he says temples should be erected to the Del- phian Apollo, and sacrifices should be offered to the gods who know, see, and hear all things ; but this is suggested in a faint-hearted way, as if some recognition must be made to the popular religion. In the Lmvs, however, Plato is undisguisedly an advocate of the polytheistic institutions, denouncing impiety, sacrilege, and atheism, and pre- scribing punishments therefor. No. one, he affirms, should be ele- vated to the position of guardian of the laws who denies the existence of the gods. As to prayers, he continually orders them in the Laws; in the Eighth Epistle he says "it is meet to begin from the gods in every 52 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. thing ;" in the Philebus he speaks of the presence of a favoring deity, and intimates the helpfulness of prayer in study ; and the Second Al- cibiades is a dialogue almost wholly devoted to the consideration of the utility of prayer. Carefulness in prayer, a study of what the gods are likely to grant, he assumes, will restrain the praying spirit, and prevent the utterance of intemperate requests, while a study of the prayers of the Lacedsemonians will show that the gods prefer a " good-omened address" to a multitude of meaningless sacrifices. The dialogue leaves the impression that prayer is, on the whole, of doubt- ful value. Is the doctrine of spiritual influence recognized by Plato ? Not frequently, nor even thoroughly, and yet somewhat beautifully, caus- ing us to suspect that Plato does not record all his experiences, or express definitely all his convictions respecting the communicating in- fluence of God's spirit. In the Apology Socrates is made to say that the Deity called him to philosophize, a call analogous to that which every evangelical minister claims as having been extended to him ; and in the Phcedrus he confesses that he is " moved by some divine influence " which envelops even the place where he is sitting, and makes it divine. This means wonderful illumination, attributed by Plato to a divine source. Discoursing on the prophetic art, he pro- nounces it a divine madness, and as to its result he says that which comes from God is nobler than that which proceeds from men. In respect to spiritual living, Plato teaches in the Second Alcibiades that the mist must be removed by the divine being from the soul, as Minerva removed it from the eyes of Diomede, that he might see gods and men ; and in the Laws he strictly enjoins that one must live after the manner of the gods, saying that similarity to the deity is pleasing in his sight. Depravity must be cured ; this he urges in the Laws. He intimates the existence of a cure, without describing it, in the Charmides, as an incantation which restores body and soul to health and purity ; but, alas ! where or what is the incantation ? Shall we turn to the Eidhyphron and listen to Plato as he discourses on holiness? What is holiness? asks the interlocutor. This is a fundamental question ; Plato's answer is not fundamental, for he does not know. Definitions, many and bordering on a true conception of holiness, are given, but each is unsatisfactory, because incomplete, and lacking a divine element or force. Holiness is the prosecution of injustice; "that which is pleasing to the gods is holy;" "that which the gods love is holy ;" holiness is a part of justice ; it is a knowledge of sacrifice and praying. Such are the humdrum defini- tions in the dialogue, but all are finally abandoned by Plato himself, without a settlement of the question. What is holiness ? In the Phi- IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 53 lebus he brings forward the subject of purity, and really expands it satisfactorily in the guise of an illustration. The purity of white, says Plato, is that " in which there is no portion of any other color." Admirable, but he fails in the application ; indeed, he makes no ap- plication. ' Holiness is that in which there is no portion of any thing unlike it, but Plato does not say this ; he did not grasp it ; he had not experienced it. His holiness was abstract, not concrete— localized, if at all, in matter, not in men. The religion of Plato included more than sacrifices, prayers, faith, temples, and conformity to a god-like life. In some respects he may be viewed as a doctrinal teacher, or expounder of certain eschatolog- ical truths, fundamental to all religions, mythological as well as the truly historical and real. These truths Plato does not shun ; he seeks them, uses them as the instrument of persuasion to a holy life, draw- ing arguments from heaven and hell to impress men to follow the deity. The question of the future life was then as vital, as absorb- ino-, as it is now. Belief in it was universal. The thought of the immortality of the soul, vaguely accepted, exerted a potent influence on the conduct, and often subdued men into respect for righteousness. Plato was the first to elaborate the doctrine, to establish it by unan- swerable proof, succeeding better than our own Emerson, who reduces it to a hope, or a belief in it to a guess. Of the spirituality of the soul, we have suflSciently spoken ; of the proofs of its immortality, we may now rehearse those of Plato, premising that, studying them in their fullness, they appear incontro- vertible. Gleaning the dialogues, we hear him say in the Banquet that men "have a yearning for immortality;" in the Philebus, that the soul is full of expectations, making speeches to itself of the fu- ture ; in the Republic, that evil can not destroy the soul as disease the body, but that it is immortal; in the Phmdo, that "there are two species of things, the one visible, the other invisible ;" the invisible always continues the same, but "the visible never the same;" and the soul being invisible, must always be the same, and therefore im- mortal. Again, in the Banquet, that while the body is " being per- petually altered," and even manners, morals, opinions, and sciences change, the soul abideth forever ; in the First Aleibiades, that as the user of tools and the tools are difl^erent, so soul and body are differ- ent; in the Phcedrus, declaring "every soul is immortal;" in the Pho'do again, that pre-existence, which he taught, is the proof of im- mortality, and that future punishment, being necessary, could not be experienced without future existence; and also that there are two kinds of things, the one compounded, the other simple. The com- pounded may be dissolved, but the simple is indissoluble ; the soul. 54 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. being an uncompounded unit, is necessarily immortal. Again, that the soul can not admit the " contrary of life," which is death ; and in the Grito, that Socrates dreamed that a beautiful woman ap- proached him and said, ' ' Three days hence you will reach fertile Phthia," and Socrates's almost last words, "Catch me, if you can." These are the merest fragments from Plato, but sufficient in their amplified form to justify faith in immortality. With the faith of Plato there was mingled some doubt, which is another weakness of a purely philosophic religion. In the Plmdo the parties to the dialogue appear dissatisfied with Socrates's argument for immortality, from the fact that the soul has pre-existed, and Socrates does not remove the doubt. Again, the analogy between a weaver's garments and the weaver existing long after they have perished, and the soul existing long after the body has rotted, Socrates himself ac^ knowledges inconclusive ; and yet Plato is decidedly committed to the doctrine of immortality. The tenth book of his Laws carries one far tOAvard a convincing and intelligent faith in the docti-ine. Without such a doctrine there is no room for any eschatology ; one falls with the other, it is the other. Plato introduces the subject of future rewards and punishments in the Pluedo by saying, ' ' I entertain a good hope that something awaits those who die, and that, as was said long since, it will be far better for the good than the evil." On future rewards he is not altogether definite, saying he hopes "to go amongst good men, though I would not positively assert it ; that, however, I shall go amongst gods, who are perfectly good masters, be assured I can positively assert this, if I can any thing of the kind." Concerning future retributions, he is decisive ; he writes like a divine judge, holding them over the guilty as the penalty of crime, and threatening them for inferiority, base- ness, ignorance, and stupidity. Plato borrows the doctrine of trans- migration from Pythagoras, and incorporates it with his eschatology. He speaks of Hades and the invisible world, but has a preference for transmigration ; and in the Phcedo he writes of transmigrated souls loving impurity while in the flesh, wandering like shadow}'^ phantoms "amongst monuments and tombs," and others, who had given them- selves to "gluttony and drinking," are spoken of as " clothed in the form of asses and brutes." Both in the Phfedrus and Thecetetus the doctrine of transmigration is clearly announced, somewhat in detail, as a soul passes into the life of a beast, a man passes into a man again, or into the nature of woman ; and in any event, whatever the extremely wicked soul's lot is, in beast or man, it remains with wings cut off for ten thousand years, and can have no hope of improvement until the expiration of that period. Others, less wicked and with SPIRIT UA LISM-P URGA TOR Y. 55 more aspiration, may escape the imprisonment at the end of three thou- sand or even one thousand years. In the Laws he insists that the wicked after death "shall come back hither to suffer punishment according to nature " goino- into animals or men, as they were beastly and depraved. Accepting transmigration as a form of retribution, Plato logically veered toward a most pernicious doctrine, which, considerably modified or expanded in these days, passes by the name of spiritualism. He did not formulate Spiritualism, but its germ is in Transmigration, and in more than one instance Plato relates spiritualistic phenomena. In the Second Epistle he declares that the dead perceive what is going on here, and in the Seventh Epistle he teaches that the unjust after death rove upon the earth and get into animals and persons. In the Eighth Epistle he speaks the speech of the departed Dion, as if in- spired by him to speak it ; and the dialogue entitled Menexenm is virtually a proclamation of Spiritualism. The seed of the modern de- lusion is in the Platonic system. In addition to transmigration Plato refers to the judgment of the departed, especially in the Gorgias, before Minos, Rhadamanthus, and jEacus, who sentence the good to the " isles of the blessed," and the wicked to Tartarus ; and in the Phcedo he relates the old fable of the four rivers on the earth, among them the River Styx, and alludes to lakes and Tartarus as the abode of the incurably wicked. Of those whose wickedness is curable deliverance from Tartarus may be ex- pected. This is the purgatory of Plato, the seed of the Catholic doc- trine, and the germ of the " second-probation " idea mooted in certain quarters in these days. Transmigration and Tartarus — these are the sign-words of the eschatology of Plato. In view of the future Plato exhorts in the Gorgias to holy living while on the earth with an emphasis, a persuasion, an enthusiasm equal to any thing the pulpit ever uttered, and not less earnest is he in the Phcedo in urging an immediate care of the soul. The doctrine that the future life will be determined by the life here is also an- nounced in the Republic. Plato was a great preacher, an exhorter to righteousness, as necessary to a happy future. To what a banquet of religious ideas Plato invites us ! Provi- dence, sacrifices, prayers, worships, holiness, spiritual influence, im- mortality— there is inspiration in these, the trend thereof is upward ; transmigration, spiritualism, purgatory, second probation, Tartarus — these are the attenuated extremes of philosophical dreaming, a mix- ture of fable, superstition, and invention, to be banished both from religion and philosophy. The ethical system of Plato, in its -concep- tions, provisions, and suggestions, is a combination of truth and error ; the religious system is akin to it. 66 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. Plato's socialism, or the governmental idea, is as distinct and well articulated as his psychology and religion, and as it is referred to oftener than either, it deserves more than a passing notice. Full credit has not been given to all his teachings on a subject of such vast importance ; he has been censured because misunderstood, and not condemned sufficiently when understood. This department of his philosophy, unlike all others, is eminently practical; it is a reduction of the abstract to the concrete, or an application of principles to common life ; it is the framework of a new system of sociology. He rises high enough to say in the First Alcibiades that States possessing virtue do not need walls, ships, and docks, a senti- ment almost parallel with that more ancient one, that "righteous- ness exalte th a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people." Sim- ilar is his utterance in the Laws, that virtue should be the end of law ; and emphatic is his opposition to foreign war, and that more deadly internal contagion — sedition. Order, harmony, obedience to law, philosophical truth, education, and virtue he considers essential to good government, subordinating every thing to their attainment. Such is his notion of the importance of the State that he exalts it above individual right, regulating human liberty, personal aims and ambitions, and all things belonging to the individual, in the interest of the government, submerging individualism in the governmental purpose. He says in the Laws, " Neither yourselves are your own property, nor this substance of yours," but yourselves, substance and families belong to the State. Paul echoes Plato's sentiment so far as to say, " Ye are not your own," but he differs in placing the owner's life of man not in the State, but in God. God owns every man ; the State owns nobody. This is the difference between them, a difference that will strikingly manifest itself in the elucidation of socialistic phil- osophy and Christianity, for it is the key-note of both. Plato's Republic is interpreted as an ideal State, in contrast with the then existing government of Athens, which the philosopher con- ceived to be corrupt, and which he thoroughly hated. Discovering the weaknesses of popular government, whether as a tyranny or de- mocracy, he assigned himself the task of framing a government which should embody the best political conceptions, and be a model to the nations after him. The Republic was accordingly written, ostensibly as an ideal conception, but as a covert rebuke of the prevailing city government. Later in life the Laws appeared, as a supplemental de- velopment of the Re-public. The Republic is ideal ; the Laws are concrete, practical. The one deals in moral principles ; the other in legal forms and penalties. The one is the constitution ; the other the statute-book. To these we must look for principles, laws, POLITICAL GOVERNMENT. 57 and expositions of the governmental idea, which in Plato is a singu- lar conglomeration of ethical virtues and social aberrations, a mix- ture of health and disease in the body politic. Of first importance is the form of political government. He enumerates in the Statesman three definite polities — monarchy, aris- tocracy, and democracy — out of which, bisecting, he produces six ; but, whatever the bisected form, he leans in his preferences toward monarchy " as the best of the six polities." The same preference is expressed in his Fifth Epistle, in which he says: "There is a voice from each form of polity, as it were from certain animals, one from a democracy, another from an oligarchy, and another again from a monarchy. Veiy many persons assert that they understand these voices ; but except a few, they are very far from understanding them." The "voice" of the monarchy is pleasant in his ears. " There are," he says in the Laws, " two mothers of polities," from which all others are produced, monarchy and democracy ; but he criticises the extreme form of each, adding that a mixture of both forms is preferable. Notwithstanding this advocacy of a milder mon- archy than appears in the Statesman and Republic, certain it is his leanings were toward a high-toned government, either as an aris- tocracy or monarchy ; for it was his repudiation of democracy in Athens, and the indorsement of the reign of the Tyrants, that made him unpopular and compelled his exile. It is in the Republic that, quoting an old fable, he intimates that in the forming of men the Deity mixed gold with some, fitting them for governors : silver with others, intending them to be soldiers ; iron and brass with others, designing them to be craftsmen and husband- men. This is a square affiirmation of the natural inequality of men, on which is predicated the righteousness of caste, which Plato empha- sized with earnestness, and introduced into the ideal State. The higher and the lower must be recognized in humanity ; society must be organized, not on the unities or resemblances even, but on the differences in men. Inequality in a sense is admitted, but in Plato's sense it is the essence of inextinguishable social dissonance, the fixing of permanent barriers or walls of partition, that ought to be broken down. In the Menexenus, relaxing the caste spix'it, Plato espouses the thought of equality in a masterly manner, aflSrming that all are born as brethren, having "one mother," and that they are "neither the slaves nor the lords of each other." But he was in a tender mood while writing this humane sentiment, for he was thinking of the dead, and the shadow of the sepulcher was upon him. The grave always hal- lows the doctrine of equality. He is in another mood while fram- ing laws. 58 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. Holding to caste, it is not surprising that he excludes diseased men from his ideal State ; he insists that they ought to die. Chris- tianity would introduce the physician, the nurse, the hospital, the asylum, but none of these auxiliaries to human comfort are wanted in his republic. Herodicus he censures for propping himself with drugs, lengthening out his life, and procuring a lingering death. Healthy men, who die of extreme old age, are wanted in his repub- lic. This offends the sympathetic spirit in man, paralyzes philan- thropy, suppresses aspiration, and strikes at a majority of man- kind. The doctrine is as odious as it is un fraternal, and pernicious as it is unkind. Neither aristocracy nor caste is the worst feature in the socialism of Plato ; neither constitutes the esprit de corps of socialism. Both, however, are preparatory steps to it. Plato locates the ideal republic outside of Athens, in a beautiful country, with a single city at its center, the whole being walled, and safe from attack, both from without and within. The number of families within the walls must not exceed five thou- sand and forty, all of whom shall be loyal to the governmental pur- pose, and in sympathy with ideal ends. In view of death and immigration, the exact number of families may be difficult to pre- serve, but it must be attempted at all hazards, as Plato considers a small republic more likely to fulfill its mission than a large one. In this protected city certain governmental conditions, primary to all governments, must be observed ; as the conditions of suffrage, the tenure of office-holding, the number of offices, the duties of officers, which Plato enumerates with appropriate circumstantiality. As the subject of foreign relations can not be ignored, since other nations exist, and some are contiguous, Plato establishes laws relating to naturalization, and the surceasing of citizenship, and enacts free trade in extenso by forbidding the payment of duty on imports and exports; that is, no revenue whatever shall be obtained from international trade. Touching internal social relations, the core of the socialistic spirit, he advocates compulsory marriage for the sake of the immortality of the race, a not inconsequential consideration ; but in the ideal society marriage is abandoned for the good of the State. What is called free-loveism in these days supersedes the sacred idea of marriage ; home is blotted out; parental and filial relations are unknown; children are foundlings, handed over to the care of the State ; and the family perishes. Plato quotes the communism of birds and ani- mals, as chaste and safe, in defense of the idea as applied to human society, and insists that it will result in the procreation of a higher- generation of men and women. PLATO ESTIMATED. 59 The advocacy of the communism of property naturally follows. The assignment of land to the individual is by the government, for the sake of the government ; title to land is not acquired ; shares in profits are forbidden; each lives, labors, sutlers, and dies for the whole. Abnegation of proprietary rights is the imperative condition of mutual support and general prosperity. Without further elucida- tion, this is Plato's social idealism. Among its best elements, it in- cludes order, education, virtue ; on the other side are state-ownership, monarchy, caste, free trade, community of women, and community of property. Both elements can not co-exist; education and caste are antagonistic, virtue and extinct homes do not abide together. The socialism of Plato means the dismemberment of society ; the ideal State means the degradation of man. In Athens his governmental ideas were never enforced ; in Sicily he undertook a reformation of the government, but failed. Having considered Plato's philosophy in its details, it remains to consider his relation to philosophy in general, or to estimate Plato's place in history and his services to mankind. What is permanent in Plato and what transient, what superior or imperishable, and what inferior or evanescent, whether he was born for his age or all ages ; this is an inquiry that can not be omitted. Without controversy, he was abundant in labor, and lived to propagate ideas that are funda- mental, and which have entered into the philosophies and religions of the world. To understand these ideas, it is not absolutely neces- sary to understand the times in which he lived, or the philosophies that prevailed, or the religions that held sway over the common mind, for they are not the product of his age, but belong to all ages. Other ideas, not fundamental or universal, take their coloring from his age, and belong to it. To understand these the age must be understood. That is to say, what is accidental, inferior, evanescent, in Plato, is the result of the influence of the age on Plato ; what is permanent and im- perishable is outside of that influence. In many respects he stood out from his age, because he stood against it and condemned it. Asa man, he had his weaknesses; he lacked the fortitude w^ith which he clothes the ideal man ; he authorized the worship of the gods without having a personal faith in them ; he was aristocratic in instinct ; he hated democracy ; he retired from public affairs, and virtually abjured his citizenship. His philosophy is burdened with weaknesses, plain and palpable ; its effects in some directions have been injurious, undermining the order of society ; its virtues are of definite value, and worthy of re- nown. To specify the varied results of Plato's career, we shall con- sider, first, Plato as a wiiter; second, Plato as a philosopher; third, 60 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. Plato as a moral teacher; fourth, Plato as a socialist; fifth, Plato as a forerunner of Christianity ; sixth, the need of Christianity demon- strated by the Platonic system. As a writer, composer, and thinker, Plato had not an equal among his contemporaries, and it is doubtful if, since his day, any one has ap- peared who has excelled him in the art of composition. Both in the art of thinking and the art of expression he certainly is a model. For intensity of thought, subtlety of apprehension, sublimity of in- quiry, persistence in analysis, accuracy of dialectical statement, and elegance in representation, he is both superior and inspiring. It is not the dialogue form of discourse which he preferred that is com- mended, but the style itself, which is clear, definite, logical, illustra- tive, and conclusive. He wrote in Attic Greek, the language of Pericles and Demosthenes, itself a pure and finished language, a ve- hicle for sublime thoughts and inquiries. He was an earnest inquirer for truth, definitely expressing what he desired to know, if he failed in finding the knowledge itself. He asked questions — he was some- times slow to affirm until the foundations of an answer had been well laid in investigation and comparison. He does not write, therefore, in a positive and affirmative way, but as if searching for a path for his feet ; walking along, at times, as if his lantern had gone out, as it had. Besides the perspicuity, the elegance, and the logical strength of his compositions, there is a personal tone in every dialogue that wins the sympathy of the reader. He does not write as if building a system of truth for others, but as if in eager search for the truth for himself. He is not a revealer, he is a seeker, and writes accord- ingly. Understanding Plato's purpose, it is easy to understand his style. Lewes, always underrating Plato, pronounces him a " very diflS- cult and somewhat repulsive writer ; " and Jowett, so far as the Timceus is concerned, reiterates the criticism. To Plato, as a writer, the criticism does not apply ; it is crudely unjust. A paragraph now and then, as in the Phmdrm or Euthydemus, may be open to such objection, but what writer has not produced objectionable paragraphs? Shakespeare is not exempt from such criticism. Not Plato's paragraphs, but Plato's works, must aflTord the basis for critical judgment; and on that basis the critics must be silent. Lewes likewise insinuates that Plato is indefinite, confirming his report by the statement of Cicero that he leaves many questions undetermined. No one disputes that many discussions in Plato are inconclusive, that he does not an- SAver serious inquiries, as that concerning holiness ; but Plato failed on such subjects because he did not know the truth. He is incon- clusive, but not indefinite. He seeks, but, as Schleiermacher points PLATO THE WRITER. 61 out, does not arrive at truth. When Diogenes Laertius reports that Plato is uuiutelligible to the ignorant, the statement can not be con- tradicted; but Kepler's astronomical researches, Bacon's scientific data, and Kant's rational criticisms, are even more unintelligible to the ignorant than Plato's cosmogony or ethics. It may be truly charged against Plato that he is an inconsistent writer, contradicting in one dialogue what he affirms in another, thereby confusing and unsettling the mind of the reader. The fol- lowing are examples : in the 3Ieno he holds that virtue can not be taught, but in the Clitopho he expresses an opposite opinion ; in the Phcedo he proves the doctrine of reminiscence, but in the Statesman he speaks of ancestors who "had no recollection of former events," a virtual denial of pre-existence ; again, in the Statesman he both ad- vises and condemns written statutes and customs, leaving it undeter- mined which is better for the State ; in the TimcBus he vindicates the freedom of the will, while in the Hippias Minor he appears like a fatalist. These, however, are examples of inconsistency in thinking, not contradictions in writing ; they are not blemishes of composition. The same answer may be made with respect to the charge that there is a want of method in Plato's literary work ; even if true, it does not apply to style of expression or composition ; if true, it ap- plies to Plato's conception of his work, not to its execution. Plato's literary thought is one thing, the literary execution is another. Moreover, as want of method, or absence of system, has been charged against his philosophy, it is possible that the critic has transferred the objection to the literary work of Plato; but whatever objection is made to his philosophy, or to his literary plans and methods, it does not apply to Plato as a writer. Singularly enough, Plato condemned writing, but only in a philo- sophical sense, saying that it is the "grave of thought," which Talleyrand metamorphosed into the form that language is employed by men for the purpose of concealing their ideas. Practically, Plato believed in writing ; he wrote — and died with pen in hand. We next estimate Plato as a philosopher. Compared with the philosophers of his own time, or from the time of Thales to that of Christ, there was none greater. None dealt with so many problems, and none elaborated more fully or saw so deeply into divine mysteries. Of the ancient philosophies, we must accept Plato's as superior to all others, whether we consider his theology, which was in advance of others ; or his cosmogony, which was clearer than any ; or his ethics, which, however defective, partook of the spirit of the times, and had been better had the public religion been different. In these particulars Plato, like Saul of old, is head and shoulders above the academicians. 62 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. However, it is not so much with reference to the comparative value of his teachings in that day, as it is with reference to their value compared with modern philosophy, that his philosophy is now considered. Is Plato of any value now, or has he been superseded by philosophers who, in the light of discovery and Christianity, see farther and deeper into divine mysteries ? The death-knell of nearly all the old philosophies Christianity sounded, as soon as it was preached, and they were rolled up as a scroll, and laid away. Plato's for the time went the way of all the rest. Epicurus and Zeno — the philosophy of the porch — superseded that of the academy, showing that the rationalism of Plato had not changed the public faith, or rooted itself in civil affairs. Mythology reigned in Athens when Paul visited the city, and the Epicurean philosophy was in the ascendant. The Stoics Paul mentions ; of Plato he says nothing. Neoplatouism was the attempt to unite Christianity and Platonism, or Christ and Plato, but it failed. Until the sixteenth century of our era Plato is unknown as an intellectual force, his philosophy is without influence, idealism has perished. With the revival of letters, he rallies from the grave, and asks again to be heard, and is heard. Whatever is good in Plato, as well as Avhatever is evil, whether idealism or agnosticism, rationalism or materialism, theology or ethical science, is re-echoed in the circles of modern thinkers, modified, abbreviated, or amplified, as the thinkers prefer, but retaining the spirit of the old academy. Sometimes the Platonism in modern philosophy assumes a disguised appearance, but it is there, the core of modern philosophic thought, in one form or another. Nothing new has been announced by the peripatetics of the nineteenth century. Take idealism as the highest type of philosophy. Neither Hegel nor Kant, nor any philosopher of modern times, has improved on Plato, either in beauty or originality of idea, or clearness an^ fitness of expression. To be sure, the ideal- ism of Plato is not without blemish, but with all its weaknesses, it car- ries unaided human thought up to the heights of belief in a personal God, which is suflficient atonement for its mistakes. Of modern ideal- ism, not so much can be said in itsiavor. Leibnitz is not as rational an idealist as Plato. Plato gives us a lofty idea of God. Kant tells us that, by the theoretical reason alone, God's existence can not be demonstrated ; Plato annuls the Kantian presumption by demonstrat- ing the existence of God. Plato may not have apprehended the two reasons as Kant discriminates them, but he saw the way to God through the total reason of the soul, and proclaimed him. In him the idea of God as a being of goodness, holiness, and immortality is expanded into beautiful proportions, proving that a rational philoso- ORIGINAL DISCOVERIES. 63 pher may go farther than to conclude that there is a divine being ; he may declare his attributes. The Eleatics pronounced in favor of being, but it was left to Plato to distinguish between unchangeable being and changeable phenomena or non-being. Separating the two, Plato assigned to each a specific character ; the study of being leading him to the thought of the divine attributes, of providence, of govern- ment, and of the spiritual sphere; the study of non-being leading to the investigation of natural principles, and the relation of God and the universe. From the thought of God, Plato passed to an in- quiry respecting the soul, which he distinguished from the body, pro- nouncing it both spiritual and immortal. Plato was the first philosopher to demonstrate the immortality of the soxd, as he was the first to demonstrate the existence of a personal God, or the Creator of the universe. As respects the Platonic cosmogony, what modern philosopher has excelled it? Some there are who, like Comte, have denied the evi- dence of design or final cause in nature, but Plato reduces the whole subject to this form: motion implies a mover; and all modern expres- sions, such as design implies a designer, and contrivance a contriver, are built upon the Platonic apothegm. Not half as mysterious as Heraclitus, with his theory of flux, which he illuminates and accepts, nor half as confusing as the moderns, with their theories of bioplasm and atomic revolutions, he reduces the primitive elements to four: earth, air, fire, and water, with which the Creator builds the uni- verse. The moderns talk of the convertibility of one thing into another, as heat into light and light into heat, a theory that Plato announced in the Tiynceus with as much clearness as it is now declared. The theory of evolution Plato anticipates in the Laws, and Sweden- borg found "contraries" and "similars," or the theory of corespond- ence, in the same volumes. In these particulars Plato is the original philosopher, the discoverer of first cosmological principles, which the moderns have appropriated and wrested to their destruction. Aristotle assailed the political opinions of Plato ; his ethical system we assail as thoroughly weak and inadequate; but his philosophical conceptions of God and the universe are almost invulnerable; as speculations, they are apparently divine. As I'espects philosophy itself, Plato divided it into dialectics, metaphysics, and ethics, a division com- prehending all the subjects which should engage the philosopher's attention. He was the first to make such a classification ; it is not clear that it has been improved by any subsequent attempt. It assigned special tasks and definite limits to the philosophical pursuit, having illustra- tion in Plato himself 64 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. Prior to Plato, philosophy was without a language of its own; but it needs a language as much as chemistry or physiology, and he was the first to suggest a form of sound words, to which the ages have contributed their stock, and a philosophical language is the re- sult. In the Cratylus he discusses the propriety of names, answering that common question, what is in a name? He shows that the name must be the sign of the idea, that the name should have value, and that great truths must have proper expression. In this respect he is both a nominalist and a realist, believing in realities and in names suited to them. He is not a nominalist in the sense that there is nothing in a name, but that it represents value, or truth, or fact, in this way showing the importance of a philosophical language and laying the foundations for such a language. As a psychologist he was the first to announce the spirit of iden- tity and contradiction as a law of thought, than which a more im- portant discovery he did not make ; he also distinguished between sensation and perception, sensation and cognition, sensation and vo- lition, regarding sensation as an external preliminary to internal intellectual movement, but not as absolutely essential ; he distinguished, likewise, between analysis and synthesis as modes of investigation, employing both himself, but evidently preferring the former ; he dis- tinguished between the universal and the particular, the contingent and the necessary, applying these especially in cosmological and theo- logical discussions. The elder Mill was captivated by these classifica- tions, and Bacon was aided in scientific pursuit by observing them. He is a rational, in opposition to the empirical, psychologist. In this sense he is a rationalist: he believes in the dominion of the reason; he reasons, but the idea is the product of the reason. Hence, he is an ideologist. Psychology is the mother of ideology. Coleridge was inspired by the idealities of Plato, and Hegel became fanatical over them. From Plato, psychology, rationalism, and idealism emerged, as the necessary products of his system. Plato was a sincere investigator of truth. Sometimes spoken of as an "ironical philosopher," since he employed irony in the refutation of an error, one of his chief characteristics was the intense sincerity of his purpose to find the truth. With Plato, sophistry in reasoning ended. He brought the Sophists to a stand-still ; more, he annihilated the brood. He compelled seriousness in investigation, and made truth the object of investigation. He gave aim to philosophy. Earnest, sensitive to knowledge, acutely anxious for truth himself, he stimulated others to inquiry ; he excited thought, and then directed it into proper channels. Sincerity and stimulation are among the effects of Plato's teaching. DATA OF ETHICS. 65 The philosophical Plato, whether studied as a theologian or cos- mologist, as a classifier of philosophy, as an originator of philo- sophical language, as a psychologist, or as a sincere and stimulating investigator, is reproducing himself in the philosophies of modern times, affecting the speculative spirit, and stimulating inquiry more than all the ancients combined. In him is the root of philosophical truth. Along with the truths he announced, half-truths and errors also made an appearauce, and these also are bearing fruit in the speculative systems of the thinkers. Thus both the weakness and the strength of Plato have shared the immortality which properly be- longs to truth alone. Next, his influence as an ethical teacher must be considered. His data of ethics are clearly insufiicient for a system of ethics. He advocates the principles of justice, denounces the poets for their falsehoods, and forbids drunkenness in his republic ; but, notwithstand- ing the high ethical aim of some of his teachings, he holds to views that in their very nature prevent the attainment of good, and so the whole system falls to the ground. In a spirit of self-flattery, he con- cedes to man a voluntary love of good and a natural abhorrence of evil, and appoints education as the remedy for the world's evil. The unfitness of the remedy grows out of an ignorance of the disease. The disease is spiritual ; the remedy must be spiritual also, but Plato's is intellectual. It is as if a remedy for defective hearing were pre- scribed for defective eyes. Plato regarded vice as an intellectual aberration, and ignorance as the great disease, for the cure of which intellectual development is sufficient. Without discussing this further, and yet insisting that in any sys- tem of ethics the remedy must be proportioned to the disease, we are warranted in saying that Plato's voice is still heard in the modern systems of philosophic ethics. The remedy for evil is edtication. Herbert Spencer has not advanced beyond Plato in his ethical teaching. Spencer is in favor of scientific, in opposition to super- naturalistic, morality ; he advocates a rational, not a religious, basis, for ethics. Plato's scheme failed, and Spencer's is the stupendous failure of the nineteenth century. As a social teacher, or a socialist, Plato stands in a condemnatory attitude, having given birth to theories and proclaimed ideas which are re-appearing in the socialism, nihilism, and communism that now threaten the existence of public order, if not of society itself. All the dangerous social doctrines impregnating and agitating modern society are the echoes of the Platonic system, which, however, was ideal and never put into practice. One would scarcely believe that a philosopher like Plato would be found on the side of what is evi- 5 66 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. dently corrupting, disintegrating, and abhorrent ; but it is so. In the Republic he is the open advocate of a community of women, guarded by certain restrictions and established for ideal or philosophic ends. To these ends we call special attention. He holds that the guardians or rulers in his ref)ublic are the best men in it ; physically they are without a blemish, having subjected themselves to hygienic discipline; intellectually, they are scholars, statesmen, philosophers, and represent the highest manhood. It is equally ira2:)ortant that certain women, well-endowed and handsome, shall pass through the same preparatory experiences and discipline, becoming healthy, in- tellectual, and the fit associates for the best men. These two best classes he would throw together promiscuously for the procreation of the bed children in the republic, securing a generation of noblest men and women, but at the expense of conjugal and filial relations. He would permit marriage between the upper classes, but not as a necessity, and, when a marriage has been celebrated, the children of such parents are not to know their parents, nor the parents the children. It is a community organized for the State, in which person- ality is undefined and relationship obscured. Now, the end may appear good, but the means are too expensive. It is the end that controls in the breeding of sporting dogs, birds, and horses, just as Plato cites ; and he would establish society upon a similar — that is, an animal — basis. The following facts we quote against it : 1. In Europe royal families have confined marriages within their limits, or if the high contracting parties go outside, and a morganatic marriage is established, it is held in disrepute, and the royal descend- ant suffers disinheritance and social penalty. What has been the consequence ? Are the children of kings any better than others ? Lunacy and imbecility, the dreadful fruits of violated consanguinity and intemperance and crime, make up a not inconsiderable portion of the history of royal families, overthrowing the royal principle of Plato, which, carried out in its details as he has prescribed, is only another name for free-loveism. 2. As a matter of fact, the best men and women may be found outside the royal lines. Reformers, poets, philosophers, physicians, theologians, and statesmen, eminent and useful, have emerged from poverty, obscurity, and degradation. Often the jewel is found in a pig-sty. God lifts one from the dunghill to the throne. In the round-about way of marriage between lower and higher classes the world's gradual elevation will be secured ; if at times the blood of the best is vitiated by this method, the blood of the base is purified. Al- ready the signs of a race-improvement are visible ; it is a historic fact that the man of the nineteenth century is in advance of the man of PLATONIC SOCIALISM. 67 the first century. Ours is not a race of prize-fighters or Olympic run- ners, but in longevity, beauty of form, health, physical skill, and all the essentials of physical nobleness, the race is far in advance of what it was in Plato's time ; and this improvement and prophecy of still larger development is the result of evolution, through the intermin- gling and wedding of all classes, rather than their separation. Plato's plan must result in the fixed division of the race into upper and lower classes, the best and the worst, with no hope of advance for the latter, but rather a continuous decline, while the providential, historically working plan is resulting in the perceptible elevation of the whole race. Plato was legislating for the few ; God has his eye upon all. Besides the unwisdom of Plato's plan — a plan that must fail in itself — what mischief has it wrought in modern society ! With the revival of interest in Plato all his theories, socialistic as well as phil- osophical, were reannounced and found supporters, to the discredit of the age in which they lived. The laxity of the marriage bond in civilized states ; the reign of the doctrine of ' ' Platonic affinity " in higher circles ; the relation of spiritualism and free-loveism in this country ; the multiplication of divorces and the assaults upon the home — are directly or indirectly the offspring of the Platonic philosophy. It strikes, therefore, at the foundations of society ; it impairs faith in the most sacred relations, and turns the family into a nest of harlots ; it abrogates the social tie, and converts government into anarchy. Besides these direful re- sults, it is the parent of those socialistic theories which are endan- gering social order and mocking civil law throughout the world. Carried out to its full extent, socialism will subvert human society. It is not believed that Plato contemplated such far-reaching and rev- olutionary catastrophes, but they logically follow his teachings, and are already actualized in organized attempts against society. A com- munity of goods, or communism, nihilism, socialism, and a community of women, or abrogation of the family idea, Plato advocated with not a little conviction and enthusiasm ; but in all fairness it must be ad- mitted that he estimated the theories he advocated as purely philo- sophical, and never attempted to organize a society with these theories as a basis. The modern socialist is not a philosopher, but the admin- istrator of the philosophical idea, which reduces him to a destruction- ist, who goes forth with dynamite or the dagger to execute the plan and reorganize society. Socialism as a philosophical idea is absurd, and, put into practical operation, it is ruinous to both the family and the state. As the exponent of the idea, Plato must be condemned. The task is not unpleasant to estimate Plato in his relations to Christianity ; that is, to ask and attempt to answer the question. 68 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. What were his services to religion, and did he to any degree prepare the way for the introduction of Christianity to the East ? Too much must not be allowed to philosophy in general or to Plato in particu- lar ; but, on the other hand, the preliminary work of each should be recognized, and the points of union and departure, or resemblance and dissimilarity, between philosophy and Christianity should be de- clared. The advent of the divine religion was preceded by a long- continued series of preparation — religious, philosophical, moral, and political preparations — without which its appearance would have been attended with withering resistances and retrograding revolutions. An example of precedent steps to the sway of the Gospel India furnishe;^ in her long history. First, Brahminism looms large, spreading all over the land, and ruling with exclusive authority ; then Buddhism protests and stalks like a reformer from the mountains to the sea ; then Mohammedanism penetrates the two colossal creeds, dividing again the thinking of the people ; then Christianity shoots a solitary ray across the religious horizon, and India wonders and pauses ; then the English occupation involves the old faiths in restraint ; then the universities of India beget in thousands of young men a doubt of the old religion ; then Rationalism invades the land, and superstition trembles ; then Protestantism plants churches, and echoes Calvary in the ears of the millions ; then Chunder Sen preaches Christ, and mysticism takes the place of tradition ; and at last India opens her gates to the dawn of the Gospel day. A slow process, involving cen- turies of time and the burdens of ages, but it illustrates the prepara- tion needed for the admission and appreciation of Gospel truth. In like manner philosophy, in its manifold phases, had something to do in preparing the public mind for the new religion ; it was related to the religious idea, and portended its development. Paganism, cor- rupt and insufficient, was a religious idea, and as such demonsti-ated the necessity of another religion, in which the idea might have com- plete development. Philosophy, weak, anxious, and helpless, made the same demonstration ; it was the prophecy of religion. If Plato's voice is still ringing in the socialism of modern times ; if his ethical system has been reproduced in Herbert Spencer ; if his rationalism reappears in modern idealism — surely the whole philosophy of Plato must have had a potent influence in his day in preparing the people for a religion higher than his philosophy, and infinitely better than paganism. The specific work of philosophy as a service to or preparation for Christianity may be indicated as follows : 1. The undermining of faith in mythology was the sign of the reign of reason in religion. The fable withered under the exegetical SERVICES OF PHILOSOPHY. 69 analysis of the academy. The gods of Plato are the gods of tradition, not the gods of the reason. Plato says he had a "searching spirit" which prompted him to inquire into the reasonableness of the popular religion, which he secretly rejected. Philosophy broke with mythol- ogy— this was a step toward religious freedom and the annihilation of error. 2. The monotheism of Plato was an antecedent sign of the mono- theism of Christianity. The origin of philosophic monotheism is to many a mystery, inasmuch as theology has insisted that the theistic hypothesis can not be a product of the reason, but must be a matter of revelation. Richard Watson holds that the ground of revelation is the inability of the human intellect to discover God in his charac- ter and relations ; but the theological basis is no longer tenable. The facts are against it. The power of the reason in concluding for the existence of God, and in apprehending him in part, is exemplified in the monotheism of Plato ; either this must be allowed or Plato was inspired. To make known the will, purposes, and plans of God, a _ revelation is .a necessity. Plato announces the existence of God, as- sociating certain necessary attributes as belonging to him ; but he does not unfold divine plans, though he hints their existence. These plans the Scriptures unfold ; to a Scriptural revelation Plato un- doubtedly pointed. 3. Respecting man, Plato taught his immortality and the doctrine of responsibility, which involved the two-fold idea of future rewards and retributions. Obscure and even repulsive as is his eschatology, it has its value as a prefigureraent of the clearer and more rational eschatology of the New Testament. The eschatological idea of Plato is the antecedent sign of the eschatological details of Christianity. 4. The incompleteness of the Platonic system, the essential emas- culation of philosophy, was an indirect demonstration of the necessity of religious truth as a substitute for speculation ; in this respect it ren- dered unintended service to Christianity, and prepared the public mind to receive it. Had Plato taught all that Christ taught, or anticipated every truth of the Gospel, what need of the Master? It was because his pen lagged, his reason faltered, his eye grew dim, and error appeared like truth, that the divine teacher must appear and reveal the truth. Plato was the morning-star ; Christ the noonday sun. Plato was the forerunner of Christ ; philosophy was the preparation for Christian- ity. With its defects it had virtues : with its falsehoods, celestial truths ; with its aberrations, it was a steady, rational blaze ; with its puerilities, it had enduring substance; walking with the staff of reason, it climbed the stairway to the stars. Christianity, beginning with the stars, ascended to the eternal throne. / 70 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. The total impression that Plato makes is that of an appointed inquirer for truth, a searcher of the deep things of God. In all the wander- ings, questionings, and conclusions of Plato, embracing all tlie prob- lems of being and non-being, with their innumerable relations, he exhibits the humble, patient, and teachable spirit of a ti-uth-seeker. Nowhere does he assume to be a final teacher; at no time does he offer his philosophy as the panacea for the world's angry ills ; never does he pronounce the limit reached. Beyond the philosopher, be- yond the rationalism, the idealism, the ethical system, the eschatology of the academician, must the world go ; and upon another system of thought, even the truth, as it is in Jesus, must the heart of man lean for comfort in sorrow, knowledge in ignorance, light in darkness. CHAPTER II. THE CORNER-STONES OE FHIIiOSOPHY. EMPEDOCLES, a disciple of Pythagoras, and an apologist of the doctrine of transmigration, delighted in declainug that, before becoming a man, he had been a boy, a girl, a bird, a fish, and a shrub, and that he had a complete remembrance of all his pre- existent experiences. Viewed in its historical stages and connections, philosophy furnishes a transparent illustration of the Pythagorean doctrine, for it has passed through many transformations, and is undergoing at the present time a many-phased development. In its vibrations between empiricism and idealism, materialism and theism, it presents a variety of forms and beliefs, theories and interpretations, without, however, conducting to well-settled conclusions, or to the decision of questions in which the race has been, is, and ever will be permanently interested. Now and then a philosophical suggestion, as the idealism of Hegel, has risen like an island out of the sea of thought around it and attracted atten- tion; while other ideas, like islands in the Pacific Ocean, have, from internal weaknesses, disappeared from sight. Belonging to these ex- tinct philosophies, however, there were truths, discovered by the patient inquiry of genius, that were transferred to later and more vital economies, the perpetuity of which will be determined by the excess of truth over error they contain. For twenty-five centuries, this coming and going of philosophical ideas, this rising, and falling A DAY-BREAKING EPOCH. 71 of philosophical systems, this questioning and answering, only to be repeated by succeeding generations, has been a marked fact in human progress, and a proof of the instability of finite, and, consequently, imperfect thought. To trace the births and deaths of philosophies, to ascend the heights and sink into the depths of the mysteries of speculative research, we deem necessary, since a knowledge of the attempts of philosophy will prepare us to understand both the approximate truth in it and the causes of its decline, to comprehend both its purpose and the failure of its realization. The task before us is not small, for in order to understand one system we must have a knowledge of all, and to comprehend the whole we must analyze its several parts. Like all things in human history, philosophy had its birthday, its birthplace; it had an individual character, and also a prophetic des- tiny. To Judea belongs the supreme honor of introducing, framing, and postulating a permanent religion ; from Rome emerge in perma- nent form the principles of jurisprudence ; the first alphabetic language acknowledges its paternity in the Phoenician mind ; but none of these gave to the world the first system of philosophy. We say system, for long before a systematic philosophy appeared, there were in existence adumbrations of doctrines and ideas, the germs of philosophical thought, just as before the Christian religion was developed there were relig- ious ideas in the world, and as before Roman law was enacted there were laws in human society, and as before a Phoenician alphabet was constructed there were spoken languages among men. Our search is not for adumbrations or germs, but systems, the formulated expression of consecutive inquiry, with definitely uttered beliefs, and integral and tangible results. In the south of Europe is a small country, with sides indented by gulfs and bays, with its southern shore washed by a sea, with its in- terior partly punctuated by mountain peaks and partly flattened into plains, a country of classical renown and historic fame. To the student Greece is known as the birthplace of philosophy. Twenty-five hundred years ago, amid the roar of the echoing sea, and, perhaps, as an indigenous product of sea, sky, air, rock, mountain, and plain, the first genuine philosophic system was declared, from which, not in a regular, synthetic series, have all future systems sprung, but which was the beginning of all that followed. However far beyond the crude, insufficient, and materialistic inquiry of that period the world may have gone, and whatever were the originating influences of the philosophic impulse, certain it is that, going back six cen- turies before Christ among the Hellenes, we reach a day-hreaking epoch in the history of the race. Original questions were then asked in a 72 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY, sincere philosophic form, and original answers were returned in an equally sincere philosophic manner. Hellenic philosophy was orig- inal philosophy, the birth-form of the philosophic idea, the visible setting up of an interrogation point on the highway of thought, the first exclamation of philosophic formalism. Brucker's attempt to find a primitive philosophic people before the Deluge is a failure. The Grecian mind is the exponent of philosophic inquiry. In our inspection or analysis of these actual philosophies, the study of which can not fail to evoke special interest, we shall not find sys- tems essentially complete, or in all cases exactly rational, for in its experimental or rudimentary stages, philosophy assumed singular and even grotesque forms, often declaring for axiomatic doctrines state- ments that afterward were abandoned. Nor were the Hellenic sys- tems of philosophy, however distinct enough in their enunciations, related to one another by. sympathetic bonds ; that is, one was not necessarily the forerunner of another. They were not genealogical systems like father and son, the disciple sometimes projecting a phi- losophy from the standjioint of the teacher, as Parmenides developed the Eleaticism of Zenophanes, but sometimes it happened that the disciple rejected the system of his master, as Aristotle was charged with repudiating Platonism. The pre-Socratic schools did not follow in regular order, but several rose simultaneously, the dividing line often being indistinct. A walk from Thales to Aristotle, or from Zeno's porch to Plato's academy is not the making of perpendicular steps up a mountain side, getting nearer the summit with every step, but rather like a winding trail around the slope, now evidently mak- ing a forward movement, then descending toward the bottom again ; now rising into the clear atmosphere that plays about great heights, then sinking into the shadows of cave-like crevices or dull forests; now seeing the philosopher on a run toward the top, then turning and gliding downward toward the abysses. Simplicity characterizes the earliest betrayal of the philosophic spirit. There are no profound generalizations, no laborious gathering of facts from which inductive results issue ; the philosophy is simple, based on one idea, or fact, or principle, instead of being an aggregation or combination of ideas and principles, distinguishing itself very markedly in this respect from the complex systems of Kant, Hegel, and Hamilton. However, complexity in philosophy is not a bad sign — it is the sign of an advance, that the shell is broken, and flight has commenced. The naive simplicities, the one-idea systems of the Ionic philosophers, are a mark of childhood, a beginning, a promise of something to come. The first philosophic inquiries were grounded in an attentive ob- SIMPLE PHILOSOPHIC INQUIRIES. 73 servation of the facts and forms of nature, or the activities, conditions, envelopments, and developments of the physical world. The external was the range of observation ; the objective, therefore, constituted the limitation of speculative analysis. Without doubt, climate, geograph- ical environment, nature in form and force, subtly afieots a people, tinging their civilization, influencing customs, institutions, literature, o-overnment, and religion. Buckle carries this to an extreme when he intimates that nature dictates the essentials of civilization, and that governments and religions are the products of physical suggestion and have no independent source. Evidently, however, the climatic or physical influence was felt more in earlier times than it is now in all the spheres of life ; man was in greater bondage to the elements, to the laws and changes of the physical world, than he is now. Not yet entirely free from natural influence, it is patent that, as he rises in the scale of intelligence, he subordinates nature to his will, and thinks independently of her presence. Theories, philosophies, and religions, grounded solely in the phenomena of nature, or the result of physical dictation, must be wanting in intellectual independence and spiritual tone. Logically, the first thinking of man would con- cern external things ; his problems would be physical problems ; his- torically, we find the first thinking was external, the first problems were physical. Philosophy is first exterual, afterward internal ; first material or physical, second intellectual or metaphysical. Materialism is the first product of philosophic thought, to be superseded by some- thing different as the reflective faculties are opened and employed, and philosophic inquiry becomes subjective or internal. Materialism is infantile, the sign of childhood philosophy, a beginning ; internal thought is robust, the sign of intellectual emancipation, the forerun- ner of the culmination of philosophic inquiry. This distinction is true, as applied to modern as well as ancient philosophy. Modern materialism may be labeled childish quite as appropriately as Ionic philosophy, for the former has advanced in its logical conclusion not one cubit beyond the latter. The naturalness of Ionic materialism, arising from climatic environ- ment and the tendency of inquiry into external facts, is clearly demon- strated. We can not expect from the Grecian mind, in its incipient strugglings with original problems, any thing except raw materialism, a philosophy with a physical basis, a thinking grounded in empiri- cism, with corresponding implied negations of higher theological truth. Original philosophy is a climatic, geographical, sea-born, sky-infected, mountain-tinged, speculative hypothesis ; a philosophy, not the result of comparison, analysis, reason, but of the sight of the eyes, taking its color from the hues of the external world. An external, not an 74 PHIL OSOPH Y AND CHRIS TIANIT Y. internal philosophy, it is ; a sense-philosophy, not a reason-philosophy ; a material, not an intellectual, philosophy. If we pronounce it the lowest grade of thought, a rudiment, it is because it begins in earthi. ness and settles in the supposed realities of natural phenomena. In order easily to comprehend the course of philosophy, and to avoid burdening the mind with a too minute classification of its varied forms, or indulging in manifold divisions and subdivisions, it may be divided into epochs or cycles, as follows: I. The Ancient or Hellenic Epoch, beginning with Thales, and ending with the new academy. While some of the early philosophers were not born in Greece, among the number Thales himself, it is be- lieved the generic title of the epoch will be received as sufficiently accurate and inclusive of all the sects and schools that arose in Europe and the islands in the vicinity of Greece prior to the Christian era. During this epoch philosophy appeared in the phases of materialism, idealism, empiricism, and skepticism, four marked and decisive devel- opments that have their counterparts in the modern systems of spec- ulative thought. Justifiably, and according to custom, we exclude from considerax tiou the mythologies and religions of the Roman Empire and the Eastern World, since in no true sense were they philosophies. Ram Chandra Bose, of India, will challenge this statement, but Hindu metaphysics are without recognition. Not even Grecian mythology is accorded a place in the history of Grecian philosophy. The Hindu religions, with their philosophical adumbrations, may be properly an- alyzed and studied as religions; so mythologies, as such, may be investigated and estimated. Philosophy, pure and distinct, neither mythology nor religion, interMoven with philosophy, is the object of this chapter. For other reasons we exclude from historical consideration the uprising of Roman philosophy, which was legitimate enough in its sphere, and exercised a powerful eifect on the public mind, under- mining the public religion and aiding the introduction of Christianity into the empire. The Romans were borrowers; the poets, dramatic writers, historians, mathematicians, scientists, rhetoricians, sculptors and philosophers, were indebted to 4he Greeks for models, ideas, plans, plots, systems— every thing in the literary sense. No original philosophy emerges from Roman history. What we find is a duplication of Grecian thought, with little variation and no advanced suggestions. Lucretius, like Epicurus, denied immortality, and was a pantheist in his conception of nature. Even Cicero was in doubt as to the immortality of the soul, and regarded God as the soul of the world. A devout admirer of Plato, he should have THE IONIC SECT. 75 accepted immortality and God as fundamental truths. Seneca is noted as the ethical Roman philosopher, but is not in advance of Socx'ates. Epictetus honored the conscience and taught the virtue of suicide; but this was not an improvement ou Zeno, the Stoic. M. Aurelius Antoninus insisted on the purity of the conscience ; Max- imus Tyrius inclined to Platonism ; Galen was an Empiricist, attribut- ing knowledge to experience. In none of the Eoman philosophers is there an original philosoj^hic suggestion beyond what grew out of the Grecian systems. Separate recognition of their labors is, therefore, unnecessary. II. The Interregnum, or Middle Epoch, a period of philosophic quietism, disturbed only by the appearance of Neo-Platonism, and still later by the suicidal theories of Scholasticism. III. The Modern Epoch, embracing Europpan, English, and American endeavors in the fields of inquiry. As has been intimated, the Ionic sect of philosophers, headed by Thales, was the first to grapple with the problem of causality, applying the principle to nature in the belief that it .was either self- caused or that one element or force of nature was the primal cause of all that exists. It is scarcely in point to introduce the theology of the Ionics who, believing in a self-centered, personal, eternal, infinite and absolute God, the father of all things, undertook to solve nature by nature, as one would explain history by history, or poetry by poetry, Avithout robbing the Deity of any attribute or excellence. On being asked for a definition of God, Thales answered, "That which* has neither beginning nor end;" in other words, he is the eternal, uncaused cause. Recognizing a divine principle if not a divine personalty, the "wise men" were not intentionally atheistic, though their systems are sentimentally atheistic. What they at bottom proposed to discover without complicating their systems or beliefs, and without involving divine power in the creative realm, was a causal principle of life, purely objective and material, in the physical world itself; a self-creating, self-propagating and self-sus- taining power in, not outside of, nature. Committing themselves, ah initio, to this theory, they were confined in their searchings to physical origins, above which they did not think it important to go until a new sect contested the integrity of their theories and demanded another basis of investigation. Thales, born B. C. 640, appears as the founder of the Ionic sect, and as such must be accepted as the first accredited philosopher in human history. Reported by Diogenes Laertius, he was "the first to converse about natural philosophy," or the philosophy of nature, inquiring into its origin. A great traveler, having visited Egypt, 76 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. Phoenicia, Crete, and many other countries, observing forms of governments and systems of religion, he was prepared to formulate u philosophical belief which, being new and original and supported by his great learning, was received with favor by the multitudes, and made a channel for itself among those whose education was almost as liberal as his own. What was the first genuine philosophic, oracular utterance? Nothing more, nothing less than that water is in some way the principal of life in the natural world, the acting substitutional cause of all existence or phenomena. It is the -prima materia, to use a phrase of Lewes, of all things. In this we see the naturalness of the philosophy of Thales ; it is climatic, maritime, the outbirth of the surrounding sea of gulfs, bays, rivers, mists, and rains. By what processes this dogmatic conclusion was reached, and with what boldness it was proclaimed as the explanation of the mystery of the universe, it is not important to inquire. Perhaps the philosopher discovered what no observer will deny, that moisture is essential to, or an accompani- ment of, physical existence ; that without it man, animal, plant, and leaf would perish ; and then Thales concluded that, as it is a condition of life, it must therefore be the principle of life. The inner weakness of the philosophy is in the want of discrimination between condition and cause, between principles of life and the necessary supports of life, a failure that is made by Spencer as well as Thales. It is the philosophy of material conditions, not of causal principles; it is a loater-born, not a rational, philosophic conjecture. It is liquid in antithesis to dirt philosophy, but kindred to it. Equally materialistic, equally earth-born, a mere diversion from the original solution of Thales, and perhaps an inhalation of it, was the subsequent hypothesis of Anaximenes, who, in the calm of sincerity, proclaimed air to be the life-giving source of all things. This conclusion was deduced from the relation of the air to life. That which is essential to life must be the principle of life. So reasoned, if they reasoned at all, the ancestors of philosophy. Thales's is a sea-philosophy; Anaximenes's is a wind-philosophy; each was founded on observation, and a knowledge of some of the conditions of life ; each was defective at the same point and in the same mannei-, namely : it attributed to matter an omnipotent, originating energy, the property of creative force, the original element of production. The Ionics were led to cosmogonies ; they interpreted the world by physiological principles, just as Buckle and Draper in our day interpret civilization ; but neither the universe nor civilization yields to the interpretation. Natural philosophy alone is an insufficient explanation of either. One century after Thales, Pythagoras, the PYTHAGORAS— ZENOPHANES. 77 founder of the Italic sect, the forerunner of a new era, the cham- pion of a new philosophy, appeared. Like Thales he was an extensive traveler ; he was also devoted to the mathematical sciences especially arithmetic and geometry ; moreover, he was an ardent lover of music. Music and mathematics enter into his mystical philosophy. He held that the universe is the product of the harmonious co-operation of forces and factors, the harmony which he conceived to exist being expressed by the word number, which has confused those who have not inquired into its origin. Lewes asserts that Auaximander, who held to the abstract rather than the concrete, influenced Pythagoras; we believe he was as original as any Grecian philosopher, and a product of all his predecessors. He held to a mathematico-musical theory ; mathematical in that proportion is strictly observed in the physical plan of the universe; musical in that concord, not antagonism, is the result. It differs from mate- rialism in that it attributes no creative energy eithei' to the mathe- matical or musical principle, but that both principles were observed in the building of the world ; it suggests a plan of creation, with the Planner back of it, and is anti-materialistic. From this period or division in philosophy the real struggle for supremacy in speculative thought begins, and continues down the ages, assuming a variety of forms, and precipitating schools, systems, and sects, without number for investigation and analysis. Henceforth, philosophy is neither Thalic, i. e, wholly and intrinsically materialistic or physiological, nor Pythagorean, i. e., mystical, musical, mathematical, but a complex, self-clasking, dissolving, and surviving system or systems, bordering at times on correct interpretations, and desperate at all times in its purpose to approach the truth. Back from materialism, or nature, as if driven from it by a su- pernatural whirlwind of revelation, the Eleatics stood in defense of the one-sided thought that there is only one reality, which is being, and that it is the ground of all not-being; that the not-being is the phenomenal, without positive existence ; that it is an appearance only, and must be referred to being. It is not clear that Zenophanes, the founder of this sect, meant by "being" the one true God, al- though he said, "all is one," and " God is the one." He certainly believed in one God, in opposition to the popular polytheism, which owed its origin to the theological poets. Homer and Hesiod, but he was more interested in philosophy than in theology, and concerned him- self more with principles than personalities. The principle of being, and the non-existence of not-being, or the phenomenal world, char- acterized his thinking, and gave form to his philosophic utter- ances. This was an extreme reaction from the early materialism, and 78 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. a midway departure from Pythagoreauism, which could not be main- tained, since a denial of the existence of the physical world was sure to subject the philosophical systems built upon the denial to great wrenching, and the philosophers themselves to personal embarrass- ment. Yet was the new philosophy preferred to any thing that pre- ceded it, and had it succeeded in reconciling itself to the not-being, or interpreting it in harmony with being, it had not so soon or readily dissolved, or lost its grip on the Grecian mind. Under Parmeuides Eleaticism reached its highest development ; and under Zeno it began to decline. As exhibiting the tendency to mutation in philosophical study, we now consider another phase of materialism in the theory of Heraclitus, which, akin to the theories of the physiologists, did not appear until Pythagoreanism and Eleaticism had expressed themselves. It is a swing of the pendulum back to the starting-point. His fun- damental principle was that of the becoming, the not-being, the phe- nomenal, which had been rejected by the Eleatics. "All is and is not," said the philosopher; " for though in truth it does come into being, yet it forthwith ceases to be." Nature is a fiux, ever in mo- tion, ever changing, like a river, and hence never the same. Zeno denied motion ; Heraclitus rejected the theory of rest or inertia. The principle of nature is fire, self-enkindled and self-extinguished. Na- ture is always becoming but never is. From its ceaseless flow, nature is responsible to itself, and has within itself an acting or eflficient cause in fire. From this epoch of inquiry the philosophic struggle is simplified, being reduced to Eleaticism — alias idealism — on the one hand, and Heraclitic formalism, or realism, on the other; it comprehends the relation of the being and the not-being, and the possibility of their unity, or a common ground of interpretation. Whatever revolutions svbsequently occur in ancient philosophy are the resultant of the conflict of these tivo higher principles of speculative knowledge. This is the divid- ing line, the battle-field of philosophy, viz. : the determination of the existence of being and non-being, and their relations, a modern as well as an ancient question, for Kant, Hamilton, Cousin, Comte, and others, have found the problem quite as perplexingly mysterious as did Parmenides and Heraclitus. Philosophy, fastening its prongs in the becoming, i. e., the phe- nomenal, and returning to materialism, gravitated to a lower depth than at any previous time under the direction of Democritus (who had imbibed some atheistic conceptions from Leucippus), who sought to eliminate the causal principle from existence and the universe. Like other philosophers, he traveled extensively, laughing at every THE ATOMIC THEORY. 79 thing, as Heraclitus had wept over every thing, denying the evidence of the senses, and resolving historic events and natural phenomena into chance or accident. He gave prominence to what is known as the atomic theory, namely, that in ages past there were original atoms which by their own affinities were drawn toward one another, and by combinations, various and singular, the earth and every thing on it appeared. The atomic theory, though ancient, has tinctured the philosophy of the moderns, exhibiting itself in the motion-theory of Hobbes, and not remotely in the nerve-source of mental action, as advocated by Bain and Spencer. The philosophy entirely dispenses with an external power, or supervising intelligent force or principle ; it banishes God from the universe, a result that the positivism of Comte announces with unhesitating constancy. This sepulchral philosophy came from one who lived in a tomb, proving that the philosophies of the ancients were suggested by, or took their form and color from their surroundings. Thales saw the sea, and lo ! water is the first cause ; Anaximenes breathed the air, and it is the principle of life ; Heraclitus lived in a mountain, and the principle of the becoming, the solid, the phenomenal, is announced ; De- mocritus inhabited a tomb, and the pJiilosophy of death emanated and was accepted. This last was Thalism degenerated into atheism ; it was a state philosophy in shrouds, decorated with flowers that bloom only in snows. To a greater depth philosophic thinking could not descend ; indeed, its next movement must be upward, away from tombs, out into the world, up above the mountain, beyond air, cloud, sea, sky. Eleaticism ventured into the highest regions, but unfortu- nately it had but one wing ; its flight was therefore circular, ill-bal- anced, one-sided, and it fell. Then, by a very natural process, it returned to original materialism, sinking deeper than ever in the darkness of its contemplations, until it was evident that it must have a resurrection in'to a better form, or perish in the tomb whence it came. Afflicted, as it were, with a self-remorse which included a repent- ance of all past materialism and atheism, and weighed down with a consciousness of failure, it threw off" its load, and announced a new career for itself. This came in the form of the philosophy of Anaxag- oras, who, perceiving marks of design in nature, concluded that it was not self-originative, but that it had a governing and order-arrang- ing vouc or mind, without which, whether it was personal or not, the universe was impossible. He was not an Eleatic in that he believed both in the being and the non-being, and associated them together, not in the act of creation but in the act of arrangement, or method- izing nature. The nous in philosophy, whether it was divine, or had personation in being, or, only represented an unconscious intellectual 80 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. process and order, was so far in advance of the materialism of Thales, the number-theory of Pythagoras, the being of Zenophanes, the be- coming of Heraclitus, and the chance theory of Democritus, that it was the sign of day in Greece. Before him no one had discovered the teleological principle in nature, nor did he himself carry it, as Paley did centuries afterward, to its logical termination of establishing the existence of a Designer. Believing in God, he did not employ the philosophy of the nous in the vindication of a theistic faith, but turned it over to his successors. Still, considering the fluctuations of philosophic thought in two centuries, the flowing and ebbing of inquiry, the development and retrogression of speculative truth from Thales to Anaxagoras, it is gratifying that it progressed even so far as from water to nou», from matter to mind, as the controlling principle and informing power, substance, and cause, in the universe. This is the result of the first period, commonly called pre-Socratic, of Grecian philosophy, which, concerning itself chiefly with nature, and yet with ultimate facts and principles, advanced, through mutations many and serious, to a final assertion in Anaxagoras. Beginning in cosmological conceptions, vi- brating to unsafe forms of idealism, and then sinking into the abysses of atheism, it rises, glorified in the principle, if not personality, of mind— this is progress, not regular, methodical progress, but in its final form an advance. And this unsettling and settling, this series of downward and upward step-taking, occurs within two centuries, pre- paring the Grecian mind for a rapid and a still higher flight into regions whose boundaries are not space and time, and in which philosophy may find the sole center, the infinite substance, the first cause — God. But the first period did not close with Anaxagoras. Between him and those who introduced a more decisive ethical and dialectical form of thought appeared the Sophists, a class of men renowned for their learning, but not exactly philosophic in their genius or attainments ; wise, shrewd, intellectual, apparently discursive, but superficial, after all, in the treatment of the grave problems of life. Protagoras held that " man is the measure of all things," a doctrine that Plato anni- hilated ; Gorgias, an Eleatic in principle, talked of nature as the non- existent ; Hippias and Prodicus, men of wonderful mathematical and grammatical attainments, defended their master with singular plausi- bility, but were always defeated by Plato. The Sophists mark a period in the speculative thought of Greece. They influenced the culture and contributed to the learning of the age, preparing it for the subtle and transparent polemics of the Socratic philosophers who soon appeared. Learned as they were, they yet de- nied the truths of physical science or natur^ philosophy, supporting THE SOCBATIC SYSTEM. 81 the denials with evasive and sophistical arguments, which enhanced their reputation for dialectical skill and wisdom. But the imputa- tions they cast upon science precipitated a period in which the affirma- tions of science had a hearing. The second period of Hellenic philosophy signalized its advent by an immediate break with the first, making use only of its facts, but ignoring its conclusions. Cousin, setting aside the first period, assigns to Socrates the position of founder of ancient philosophy. Back of him he finds no genuine philosophic discernment, no philosophic guidance, through the mysteries of thought. He dates ancient phil- osophy with the birth of Socrates. In this he forgets the history of philosophy, which can not be thus ignored. However, the Socratic spirit is the only genuine philosophic spirit in the ancient world ; from it alone has come the highest philosophic form. Natural philosophy preceded Socrates ; he investigated it, affirmed its truth, and then went beyond ; he introduced moral philosophy, finally eschewing astronomy, geometry, and the whole brood of sci- ences, as sufficient for man, preferring a philosophy that had for its base moral truth, rather than physical fact. The first period was essentially physical, materialistic, atheistic ; the second period was eth- ical, sentimental, intellectual. Neither the laws of nature nor the or- igin of nature — not the facts, forms, or methods of nature — did Socrates seek to know, but moral ideas, moral principles, which may be applied to civil government, the family institution, and human society. Hith- erto there had been no application of philosophy to society, the fam- ily, the State, partly because it was in its infancy, but more especially because it was barren of ethical principles. Without moral ideas it could suggest nothing to rulers, legislators, parents, or the individual. This weakness of the pre-Socratic schools Socrates discovered ; and, abjuring the old scientific philosophies, he invested inquiry with a new and practical interest, going about bareheaded and barefooted in the streets of Athens, and teaching in the shops and market-places the highest moral duties, and man's relation to his fellow-man. The materialists spoke of nature ; Socrates spoke of man. Cosmogony characterizes the one; psychology the other. The personality of man, the immortality of the soul, human responsibility, the duties of reciprocity, the love of justice, the practice of virtue, outward, if not inward, holiness, constituted the tenets of the Socratic system, so far forth as he was the author of a system. This implies self-knowledge, a knowledge of mind, a knowledge of God, all of which he taught by the dialectic method of question and answer, impressing moral truth in its wholeness upon the conscience of his age, and lifting it out of the slough of materialism. 82 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. According to Diogenes Laertius, Socrates would say there is only- one good — namely, knowledge ; and only one evil — namely, ignorance. Socrates laid the foundations; Plato built the superstructure. Eth- ical was Plato ; theological also. The pre-Socratics studied nature ; Socrates, man ; Plato, man and God. Progressive stages, these, but the highest development is in Plato, as he not only includes nature and man, but comprehends to a degree the divine character and the method of divine working. Platonism, whether a system or frag- mentary ideas is intended, is the summit of ancient philosophy ; all other philosophies, however related to it, are beneath it, being less comprehensive and less divine. Aristotle, the pupil of Plato, and teacher of Alexander, founded the Lyceum, or peripatetic school of philosophers, which accepted the Platonic theory of ideas in outline, but obtained them differently, and made a different use of them. With Plato human ideas had their source in the mind's free activity ; with Aristotle they are the product of sensations. With the one their origin is inward ; with the other, their origin is outward. Plato advocated innate ideas; Aristotle, empirical or sensational ideas. Plato began with ideas and proceeded to facts, as their symbols or exponents, deducting and constructing systems or principles, while Aristotle gathered the facts and then inferred the principles. By this method of investigation Aristotle finally devel- oped the method of inductive reasoning, which established his fame forever. A trained mind will reason inductively ; long before Aris- totle induction was an intellectual habit, but he formulated it into a system, declaring its laws and giving form and direction to intellectual pursuits. This was the dialectical fruit of his study. In the physical department of philosophy he was quite as rigid as, and perhaps more penetrating than, Plato, for he reduced the universe to four primary principles, viz.: matter, form, efficient cause, and end. Ethically, he was not as discursive or as rational as Plato, though he regarded man as a " political animal," and taught that the institutions of the family, society, and government should be maintained upon the basis of righteousness and in the interest of the race. It would not be unprofitable to contrast these three philosophers of the second period of ancient philosophy ; they resembled and dif- fered from one another, and were actuated by one purpose, weaker in Socrates, stronger in Plato, to ascertain the unascertained answers to ultimate inquiry. Socrates was the street and conversational philos- opher ; Plato the academic and dialogue philosopher ; Aristotle the prose- writing and voluminous philosopher. In the measure of their influence Socrates and Plato were chiefly Hellenic or national, being inspired with a love of country, while Aristotle was cosmopolitan or universal, SOCRA TES—PLA TO— A RIS TO TLE. 83 regarding mankind as of more consequence than the Grecians alone. Socrates taught for his age ; Plato for his country ; Aristotle for the world. Socrates was the ethico-practical philosopher, the persuasive moralist ; Plato was the idealist, not such as Parmenides, whose ideal- ism, excluding the phenomenal, defeated itself, but such as compre- hended being and not-being in their correlations and ultimate and hidden sources ; Aristotle was the empirical philosopher, seeking solutions by an entirely different method. Plato and Aristotle, bent on one achievement, so differed in method of procedure, representation of thought, and style of expres- sion that the opinion prevailed that Aristotle was an antagonist of the Platonic system. Plato was a poetically expressing philosopher ; Aristotle, discarding and even condemning poetic dress, introduced passionless prose to his readers. Plato indulged in imaginative flights, soaring toward the sun, while Aristotle preferred to burrow toward the center of the earth. Both were sincere, both contributed to the cultivation of the philosophic spirit. Like the first, the second period of Grecian philosophy ends better than it began, though its commencement constitutes the bright- est epoch in Grecian speculative endeavor, none of the succeeding philosophers rivaling in genius, research, philosophic acumen and illumination this triad of teachers — Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. In truth, ancient philosophy had in these representatives its culmination of greatness, for they gave to the world independently, and yet in a sense connectedly, systems of logic, physics, natural theology, juris- prudence, and individual morality, that succeeding ages have not improved, and which may be studied to-day with no little advantage by students of humanity and worshipers of God. As from the first to the second period of Grecian culture was an ascending movement, so from the second to the third is a descending movement, in respect both to the character and ability of the philo- sophic teachers, and to the vitality and duration of the systems they inaugurated. Stoicism, the first system of the post- Aristotelian epoch, had for its founder Zeno, who was an empirical psychologist, teach- ing the doctrine, inherited from Aristotle, that knowledge is derived from the senses, and so contradicting the idea-philosophy of'Platonism. The Stoics had the reputation of being great scholars and ingenious reasoners ; but, theologically, they taught that matter was pre-exist- ent, and God merely organized it into worlds; and, ethically, they dictated no higher code than that of mature. They had ideas of what constituted the supreme good ; they believed in virtue in general, were insensible to pain, and applauded heroism, or courage in bearing evil, as the highest duty of man. Zeno committed suicide. 84 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. Thus Stoicism was a degeneracy, compared dialectically, ethically, and theologically, with Platonism. Nor was Epicureanism, a simultaneous philosophy, originated by Epicurus, any better ; rather has it fewer commendable features. It is said by Rollin that the Epicureans were the only natural philos- ophers of Greece ; that they pursued science methodically, and sought to ascertain the facts of nature and systematize them ; but the his- torian's statement is too sweeping. The science of Epicurus is atomic and atheistic. To be sure, he avowed faith in God, but denied that he exercised any paternal care over men, or had any interest in the affairs of this world — a theological view no better than atheism itself. He revived the atomic theory of the universe, elaborated by Democ- ritus, and dispensed with a Creator. Accepting the sensational philosophy of the Stoics as a correct theory of knowledge, he went beyond them in the declaration that men see things as they are, the senses in no case deceiving or mis- representing. For instance, the moon, he said, is no larger than it seems, and every thing is as it seems to us. Ethically, while Cleanthus, speaking for the Stoics, had said, "Pleasure is not an end of nature," Epicurus announced that pleas- ure is the supreme good, and made it the measure of human activity and morality. He denied the immortality of man, and rejected the doctrine of responsibility. Theologically, philosophically, ethically, Epicureanism descended to the lowest depths. Its value has not been demonstrated. In what the supreme good consisted, whether in virtue, as the Stoics chanted, or in pleasure, as the Epicureans declared, was not only the line of difference between the two sects, but it also became the in- quiry, and, therefore, the actual spirit of the post-Aristotleian philos- ophy. Other questions, such as man's nature, and his relation to the infinite and the phenomenal, received occasional attention, but the absorbing theme was not the ultimate of things, nor the ground of existence, but how to make existence comfortable and happy. Hence, one reads. of the pleasure-seeking, the luxury-loving spirit, and the voluptuousness of the Epicureans. Epicurean philosophy was the philosophy of pleasure, amusement, jollification, eating and drinking, and proposed to introduce an era of good feeling, fellow- ship, and hospitality among men. This being the end of philosophy, it was fitting to paint the scene of a barbecue at the entrance of its temple, and make it the symbol of its purpose. From Plato to Epi- curus is a stepping out of the study into the dining-room, a going from the writing-desk to the table, an exchange of books for vegeta- bles and meats. This is a supreme and fatal degeneracy. DECADENCE OF OLD SYSTEMS. 85 Nor is it surprising that, with Stoicism on the one hand, and Epi- cureanism on the other, mongrel systems of philosophy, some based on doubt, others without any discoverable basis, should arise, and that the Athenian mind, once united on Plato, should now be di- vided and shivered into fragments. The ancient academy is no longer in the ascendant, but Pyrrho steps forth, announcing as a leading principle of philosophy the necessity of indifference to all things, to all philosophies, theories, governments, and religions. Not being certain of any thing, he neither affirmed nor denied ; he held to no opinion, considering it probably, as Plato phrases it, a "sacred disease." This is skepticism reduced to a science. Pyrrhonism passed for a philosophy. Skepticism, or the denial of certainty in knowledge, was the or- ganic doctrine of the new academy, under the leadership of Arcesilaus and his successors. The third period of Greek philosophy, beginning with sensuous experience as the capital doctrine or central fact of both Stoicism and Epicureanism, descends into a denial of sense-knowl- edge, then of all knowledge, and, finally, of all truth. Having traced original philosophic inquiry through its three stages of development, we find the salient doctrine, or esprit de corps, of each to be: 1. That of the first period, materialism; 2. That of the second, idealism; 3. That of the third, empiricism, ending in radical skepticism. From this bird's-eye view of the ancient struggle, the rise and fall of philosophy, it is seen that modern philosophy has not only com- bated the questions that disturbed the Hellenic mind, but also has essayed their solutid^i from the same standpoints of materialism, idealism, and empiricism, and therefore has made essentially very little progress. What followed the Hellenic forms of philosophic thought? In other words, what were the results of that fermenting period of inquiry and speculation? What systems, if any, were carried over into the Christian era, and embodied themselves in the civilization, literature, and moral progress of mankind ? Or did any survive the wreck of the general break-up of Grecian life? To one who has hoped for permanent things from that original period, the fact of the decadence of nearly every school of thouglit and every system of philosophy is painful, and he looks over the weary waste of the great struggle with a mournful interest and a deep sympathy of regret. Save the better part of Platonism and the dialectics of Aristotle, very little of absolute worth has been transmitted from that pre-Christian epoch to our day. Intensely acute as was the Grecian mind, it must also be said that it failed to perpetuate the philosophic spirit in the race ; its own philos- 86 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. ophy died without immediate succession or issue. It had no heirs and left its estate in the tomb. Cousin writes that the Socratic spirit survived for ten centuries, but it then disappeared in the mysticism of Neoplatonism. For nearly sixteen centuries the philosophic impulse was quiet; no great questions, save those of religion and sectarian forms, agitated the public mind ; wars were numerous, dividing history into eras ; the people sank into darkness, and an inter- regnum, so to speak, prevailed in the philosophic realm from Christ to Bacon. Of this interregnum, or middle epoch, we shall now speak. To us it seems a misfortune that during the rise of the Church the intel- lectual giants of Southern Europe, seizing the philosophic truths of Plato and Aristotle, did not appropriate them to the service of religion ; but the world seemed shut up as in a cave, the people were like fishes without eyes ; and so the long roll of centuries })usse(l be- fore the philosophic spirit returned. However, let us not be uuder- stood as implying that no attempts were made anywhere or by any one for the revival of interest in the themes formerly discussed by the Greek academicians ; there were inquiries, but they were sporadic ; speculations, but without majesty ; and an occasional philosophy, but it ended in mysticism^ or religious eccentricity. Neoplatonism, or Alexandrian mysticism, arising in the third century through the dialectical theology of Plotinus, was an attempt to revive Platonism. or to uuite Greek philosophy and Christianity ; but it either added or subtracted so much from both that the result was a mystical religion and an iudefiuable philosophy. It proposed visions and miracles on the one side, and abstraction and Platonic platitude on the other. It espoused inspiration as a possible experi- ence; extra mental illumination, spiritual ecstasy, and absorption for the time into the life of the Deity, constituted one of its doctrinal points ; it was somewhat of a religion and somewhat of a philosophy, but exclusively neither. Cousin affirms that it was the final assertion of Greek philosophy, in which form it expired, Justinian closing the schools of philosophy in Athens, A. D. 529; but it is not evident which produced it, Chris- tianity or Platonism. In our judgment, Greek philosophy terminated, not in mysticism, but in skepticism, as we have shown. It expired, not by contact with religion, but by descending into nothingness. For three hundred years Neoplatonism swayed the East, but array- ing itself against Christianity, it at last decayed and perished. Centuries now pass without mental quickenijig, or illumination of the grave Hellenic problems; no one asks questions, no answers are framed. Finally the sluggish mind of man is stirred, not to any THE INTERREGNUM. 87 great depth, but it is stirred. Scotus Erigena, standing on the edge of the ninth century and looking backward, perceived the merit of Neoplatonism, and, appropriating it, he sought to combine it with Christianity and present to the world both a new religion and a new philosophy. But Christianity, true to its inner life, refused to enter into any combination, and especially to suffer Neoplatoni- zation. Whatever religious kinship there was between them, the one was stiff in death, while the other was the vital force of mankind ; hence, no partnership, no union, doctrinal or otherwise, was contracted. Nearly two centuries pass, and Auselm is born, A. D. 1035. A new era is at once apparent. Philosophical palpitations characterize the three succeeding centuries. Scholasticism, inaugurated by Anselm, is perpetuated by such rare minds as Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, John of Salisbury, Roger Bacon, and others, exciting enthusiasm in the Church, and reviving the philosophic spirit in society. It was a type of Christian philosophy, not a Platonic religion. Hitherto the Church had been engrossed with theology, the refutation of errors, the settlement of doctrines, but the time was fully ripe for the con- sideration of analytic thought. Intense as were the schoolmen, they erred in the following manner: John of Salisbury, discarding specu- lative thought, raised the standard of utility as the measure of all things; Thomas Aquinas, most learned and devout, exalted the understanding above the moral sense; Duns Scotus, a profound reasoner, exalted the will as the instrument of character, and all affirmed the explanation of divine truth by rational and even dog- matic processes. The unity of faith and knowledge, or the scientific apprehension of supernatural mysteries, was the backbone idea of scholasticism ; but it was not strong enough to support either philoso- phy or religion. Its persistence was its destruction. It developed into nominalism, or the application of names, denying realities and realism, or the affirmation of objective realities. With William of Occam, the latest and strongest schoolman who espoused nominalism in its most radical form, scholasticism ceased to exist as an indepen- dent or systematic philosophy. Thus ended the interregnum. As great movements in nature, such as earthquakes and revolu- tions or reformations in history, are frequently preceded by outward and anticipatory signs, so the modern epoch of philosophy, fruitful in philosophic experiments, was preceded by signs of preparation, and was at length precipitated by an exhibition of the scientific spirit. Usually, the religious spirit has preceded philosophic speculation, and has often followed it, either in mysticism or some other form ; modern 88 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. philosophy was introduced by the scientific spirit, which has pervaded, and even dictated, the philosophic course, materializing, corrupting, and undermining it. Scholasticism extinct, a love of letters revived, America was discovered, and a new interest in the natural sciences was generated ; but the intellectual activity of the period revived also a genuine philosophic purpose. Francis Bacon, born A. D. 1561, reported himself as the apostle of a new era by submitting new methods of reasoning and inciting a spirit of investigation such as had never been felt by man. Partaking of the scientific spirit of Roger Bacon, the schoolman, he plunged into the work of original discovery, adopting as guiding principles the following: 1. Abandonment of the past in so far as to reject its influence; he declined to be prejudiced by ancient teachings, or enter upon investigation with preconceived views. 2. He affirmed that knowledge is the result of experience. 3. He reinstated the inductive method of reasoning which had been handed down from Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, but which had been obscured and ignored by the schoolmen. An intellectual quickening was the result ; love of knowledge and a scientific eagerness dominated the public mind. In a much less degree, but with a similar purpose, Jacob Boehme was arousing the German mind from a scientific and philosophic lethargy, preparing it for an upheaval, a revolution, indeed ; yea, more, for that patient study of the greatest problems in philosophy which has distinguished that country down to this day. Let it not be supposed, however, from their relation to modern thought, that either Bacon or Boehme was the founder of modern philosophy. Lord Verulam, it is true, was the instrumental inspirer of the intellectual life of modern times, on which account it is almost like robbing him of a well-earned glory to assign the beginning of the philosophic epoch to a later period, and to name another thinker as its founder. Yet Bacon was not a philosopher; he was a scientist, an investigator of physical facts, formulating no philosophic system, and leaving none to the g^ierations following. Like Magellan, who, beholding the broad Pacific, did not venture to navigate it. Bacon may have cast his eye over the philosophic sea, but he did not sail on its waters; he clung to earth, its facts, realities, laws, and forces. Fifty years later, Descartes, a Frenchman, assumed a philosophic attitude and indulged in philosophic utterances which history justly acknowledges as the beginning of modern speculative thought, the tracing of which through its manifold stages of development, its ob- scurities and transparencies, its orthodoxies and heterodoxies, its ma- terialism and idealism, must now engage our attention. Admitting DUALISM OF DESCARTES. 89 that other classifications are possible, we propose to consider modern philosophy under the following general heads, without subdivisions : 1. Dualism ; 2. Spiuozism ; 3. Emj)iricism ; 4. Common-sense Truism ; 5. Idealism ; 6. Emotionalism ; 7. Pessimism ; 8. Positivism ; 9. Rationalism; 10. Evolution; 11. Ideal Kealism ; 12. Theologic Dog- matism ; 13. Christian Philosophy. With this outline before us, and remembering what is beyond it, we exclaim with the poet, only chauging the view to philosophy — " But these attained, we tremble to survey The growing labors of the lengthened way ; The increasing prospect tires our wandei'ing eyes, Hills i)eep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise." Descartes, imbibing the Baconian spirit of indifference to the past, intensified it to absolute doubt of all teaching, a phase of Pyrrhonism justified by the solemn and sublime purpose that dictated it. The starting-point of investigation is cloiiht. Accept nothing, not for skep- tical ends, but for truth's sake. Yet was this rather an incidental than an essential principle. It was not the end, only the beginning of philosophy ; it was not the result of, but an inducement to, inquiry. Beginning thus, Descartes faithfully and laboriously took up the great problems of philosophy; viz., matter, mind, knowledge, and God, wrestling with the difficulties that inhered in the problems themselves, and declaring certain principles to be fundamental to their solution. The famous philosophic apothegm, "Cogito, ergo mm," he originated, and insisted upon its sufficiency and authority in the discussion of the problem of existence. From the power to think, from thinking as a distinct act, he inferred existence. He did not see that, reversing the proposition, the truth he meant to convey would have been declared in a statelier and more logical form. Thought is proof of existence, says Descartes ; existence is proof of thought, say we. He believed in both ; he believed in matter and being, distin- guishing them as follows: the essence of matter is extension, the essence of mind is thought. The Cartesian definitions and discrimina- tions, subjected to keen analysis, required modification before they could be -accepted ; but the destructive weakness of the system was the in- terpretation of the relation, or rather non-relation, of the two sub- stances, as he designated mind and matter. They exist without the possibility of interaction or mutual influence ; the mind does not in- fluence the body, the body afl?ects not the mind. This is dualism, the corner-stone of modern philosophy, the first product of the mod- ern philosophic spii'it. Himself undisturbed by the dualistic conclusion, the pupils and successors of Descartes, recognizing that mediation between the two 90 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. distinct, non-interacting substances was a necessity, undertook to affect it. Geulinex and Malebranche, especially, espying the incon- sistency of dualism, were greatly exercised to bring about a recon- ciliation, and at last affirmed that the interacting union of mind and matter is possible with God. Vulnerable as is the Cartesian philosophy from its dualism, it is clear in its enunciation of the difference between thought and matter, or being and not-being; but, striking the difference, it did not solve the problem of existence, it really added difficulties to the solution. Spinoza appeared A, D. 1632, a man destined to exert a potential influence in philosophy, but who did not succeed even as well as Des- cartes, in the settlement of the problem of being. He agreed with Descartes in interpreting God as the infinite substance, with this difference : Descartes interpreted God to be a personal being ; Spinoza pronounced God to be the universe. Spinozism is pantheism, or as Jacobi said, it is fatalism and atheism. The belief in one infinite sub- stance, as the source of all things, is Christian in form, but its inter- pretation is the essence of atheism. Of this one substance Spinoza affirmed' that mind and matter are mere accidents ; that is, they are not the properties but the emanations of the one substance, as according to the nebular hypothesis, the worlds are the emanations of one central orb. The dualism of Descartes was thus swallowed up in the monism of Spinoza, which was unsatisfactory in the extreme. Dualism was not a solution ; hence, it was unsatisfactory. Spinozism was a solution ; but it was even more unsatisfactory than dualism, for it contained the worst elements, namely, pantheism, atheism, and fatalism; while dualism recognized mind and matter as essentially distinct, and God as infinite mind, as absolute personality. In the hands of Spinoza philosophy came to a standstill, if it did not retrograde into a barbarism. The year that gave Spinoza to the world also witnessed the birth of John Locke, who early appeared as an investigator and original thinker. Descartes incited him to thought ; Spinoza, being contem- poraneous, did not affect him. His mission was to consider the mind, its original constitution, the laAvs of thought, and the sources of knowledge, and, devoting himself most carefully to these inquiries, he embodied the results in his famous essay on the "Human Under- standing." As a starting-point Mr. Locke held, contrary to Plato, that there are no innate ideas, that the mind at birth is a void, a blank space, a tabula rasa, containing nothing, originating nothing. It is a receiver of impressions and ideas, not an originator of thought. It derives aU it knows from without; it hioios nothing of itself. Sen- sation is the source of knowledge. Subsequently driven by unan- EMPIRICISM OF LOCKE. 91 swerable criticism into a philosophic relenting, he added reflection, as a means of knowledge, but the materials for reflection he insisted sensation or experience furnished, so that he drifted into an empirical, realistic, and materialistic philosophy. Respecting being, his sensationalism logically compelled a denial of all knowledge of the divine substance, or the character of God. How different this from the dualism of Descartes and the monism of Spinoza! Descartes interprets mind and matter in their differ- entiation ; Spinoza, in their pantheistic unity ; Locke estimates mind as a substance without quality, subordinated in its activities to foreign influence, i. e., to external impression. Descartes denies all interaction ; S])iuoza merges interaction into unity of action; Locke denies to mind independent action, but allows it an externally forced activity. Both dualism and monism are perplexingly mysterious ; sensationalism is a transparent dogmatism. While Locke's theory of mind has been exploded, and although Morell characterizes his philosophy as ephemeral, it is indisputable that it has had a marked influence on the philosophic thought of two centuries. Not upon dualism or Spinozism, but upon Locke's empiricism, philosophic systems have been reared which exist to-day, contaminating speculative thought and reducing all inquiry to the level of materialism. Hume, taking up Locke's theory, fashioned a skeptical philosophy whose influence has been pernicious to the last degree. If sensation is the source of knowl- edge, then knowledge is mere impression, it is not a mental reality; and, reasoning after the manner of Berkeley, who denied reality to matter, he virtually denied reality to mind. This was the outcome of the philosophy of Locke, a skepticism that was followed in due time and inevitably by all the consequences natural to it, as looseness in morals, a decline of the doctrine of human responsibility, and an abandon- ment of religious belief and rules. The greatest mischief, as the logical result of empiricism, occurred in France, expressing itself in a variety of theories, but all ended in the maelstrom of naked materialism. For instance, Condillac, denying that the sources of knowledge are sensation and reflection, reduced them to one and became the founder of the school of sen- sualism ; Helvetius became the apostle of altruism ; Diderot disposed by logical processes of morality and God; La Mettrie overthrew faith in the immortality of the soul ; and so philosophy, instead of lifting man up to the knowledge of the one substance which had been proclaimed by Descartes and eveii pantheistically represented by Spinoza, degenerated into a skepticism that well-nigh ruined a nation and threatened the submergence of the Christian faith in its downfall. This realism, eventuating in skeptical disaster, could not long 92 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. prevail. It was a negativism; the mind requires affirmation. Reaction was inevitable. Empiricism, or Locke's theory of knowledge, was formidably- antagonized by Reid, a Scottish philosopher, who, adopting the psychological method, not only counteracted the dangerous tendencies of sensationalism, but prepared the way for the idealism that followed. Locke, having declared that the "mind knows not things immediately, but by the intervention of the ideas it has of them," Reid proceeded to show the contrary, namely, that our perceptions are not depend- ent upon intermediate ideas, but are immediate. This he established by the facts of consciousness, or the common sense of the race, which in his judgment Aveighed more than the most brilliant abstraction. The term "common sense" has, therefore, been applied to his philosophy, as embracing intuitions, beliefs, spontaneous convictions, the universal judgments of men. Whether the philosophy itself is sound or not, it was a step in the right direction, since it negatived empiricism. It was also Socratic in spirit in that it rested on a psychological birthright to authority. Dugald Stewart, possibly more learned than Reid, amplified and classified the philosophy of "common sense," but really originated no independent philosophy. Brown antagonized Reid, and Abercrombie was more of a critic of all philosophic ideas than a philosopher. Reid stands at the head of Scottish philosophers, with weaknesses that later schools have detected. He did not quite annihilate empiricism. Another period was at hand; it had dawned with the dawning of sensationalism in the idealism of Leibnitz, but did not attain meridian strength until Kant, Fitche, Schelling, and Hegel had applied their master forces to its development. Over against the empiricism of Locke, Hume, and others, idealism appeared, con- testing the right of dominion in the realm of philosophy. As in the past, so now, the contests in philosophy have been chiefly between these two schools, empiricism and idealism, which will continue until a higher philosophy appears which shall supersede both. It is conceded that on the whole, Germany, beginning with Leib- nitz, furnishes for more than one century the leading philosophic minds of the world. Heine says the English control the sea, the French the land, the Germans the air ; hence, metaphysics and moral philosophy in Germany. Leibnitz was born A. D. 1646, fourteen years later than Locke and Spinoza, and, detecting the vulnerability of monism, he at once assailed it. He held to the individuality of mind, a vague conception of the personality of God, and tlie separate substance of matter. Pantheism he rejected as violative of faith in the immortality of the soul. MONADISM— IDEALISM. 93 His cosmological views separated him still more from Spinoza, and placed him upon the pedestal of an independent thinker. His cosmology was a monadology, the theory of monads applied to the interpretation of the universe. Such was the apparent resemblance between the atomic theory of Democritus and the monadology of Leibnitz that the latter was compelled to frame a definition of the monad, or endow it with properties and functions which did not in- here in original atoms. Accordingly, each monad is distinguished by its individuality, independence, and unlikeness to every other monad : the atoms of Democritus were uniform in size, form, func- tion, and appearance. This is a broad distinction, but not so broad as that which, allowing the atom to be potentially active, conferred on the monad the properties of soul, making it a self-subsistent, nor- mal substance and an intelligent, acting reality. The monad is a soul. While this monadic idealism is not free from objection, it ac- complished much toward the cancellation of Spinozism. It, therefore, had a mission. Monadism resisted, if it did not overthrow, monism. Monadism, however, is not the height of idealism. George Berkeley, an Irish philosopher, reveling in the transcendentalism of his own genius, became infatuated with the idea that he was to reveal a new principle in philosophy, and, by a singular dialectic process, plunged the theorists into the wildest antagonisms, and imperiled some well-established conclusions of philosophy. By a course of reasoning plausible, apposite, and captivating, he arrived at the con- clusion that the natural or phenomenal world does not exist, that it is an illusion, a mere appearance — a doctrine not new, since the Eleatics, especially Parmenides, and the Sophists, had rejected the existence of matter — but the argument was new, and the world was agitated. The other half of his principle, that mind alone exists, led to the exaltation of man's character, and the glorification of the eternal Spirit ; but, as a principle, it is as defective as that, of the Eleatics, and could not be sustained. Hume, employing Berkeley's argument, soon demonstrated the non-existence of mind, a conclusion more dangex'ous than, but as logical as, that of the non-existence of matter. To such irrational conclusions did philosophical speculation conduct the speculators. Evidently, idealism had not reached its culmination, and waited for a truer exponent and defender. In the appearance of Kant idealism had a protagonist of pro- found wisdom, a thinker of acute understanding, and a framer of an original philosophical view of existence, and its various problems. Hume's conclusion aroused the philosophical spirit in him. He began to question the power of reason ; he examined it as one would an instrument, and sought to ascertain its re- 94 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. lation to the problems of Hume, Berkeley, and Descartes. What is the range or content of the reason ? What are the limita- tions, if any, to rational conception? Fundamentally, Kant held that the world can not be known, since space and time intervene ; what he calls the " thiug-in-itself," i. e., the substance or reality of things, we can not know, but only phenomena and their relations. This principle of necessary limited knowledge, though fundamental to the Kantian creed, and its greatest weakness, for it virtually abandons the chief end of philosophy, namely, the search for the noimienon, is not permitted, with evident inconsistency, to interfere with the successful attempt of the practical reason to demonstrate one ultimate cause, and all other truths of theology or philosophy. Reason has two hemispheres, or cerebral functions ; the one he calls Pure or Theoretical Reason, which, subtle, penetrating, and exceed- ingly sensitive to the presence of thought, is yet unable to establish the immortality of the soul, the moral freedom of man, or the exist- ence of God. In his "Critique of Pure Reason," his greatest work, after showing that pure reason deals with three ideas, or the greatest in philosophy; viz., the psychological, the cosmological, and the theological, he confesses that the ideas are unsustained by Pure Reason ; that is, that while the contents of Pure Reason are these ideas, it will not vindicate them, because it abounds in antinomies and paralogisms, and the ideas themselves have, therefore, not a constitu- tional authority, but only a regulative force. This is not going over to Locke's denial of innate ideas, but it is in that direction, from which, however, Kant himself recoiled. His real estimate of these ideas is seen in the demonstrating power of the Practical Reason, which vin- dicates them beyond successful assault from any quarter. The Pure Reason is the "nay" of Kant; the Practical reason the "yea" and "amen." By the one the indemonstrableness of the greatest truths is apparent; by the other their demonstration is self-evident, clear, and convincing. A close examination, however, of the two reasons, does not satisfy us that they exist, or, existing, that a philosophy can possibly be maintained upon both. The universal consciousness of the race furnishes no testimony in proof of their existence, nor is it possible in psychological classification to assign definite functions to two kinds of reason. If two reasons, why not two memories, two imaginations, two wills, two consciences ? Besides, admitting the two reasons, the Pure ought to be the stronger, unfallen, unbiased reason, while the Practical f)ught to be the fallen, imperfect, and, therefore, unsafe and inconclusive reason. But Kant insists that the Pure, or stronger reason, is the infirm, unhealthy, self-contradicting reason, unable to vindicate its own ideas, while the fallen, Practical reason is KANT—JACOBL 95 able to demonstrate the highest truth. This is the essence of anti- nomy itself. Far preferable is Cousin's division of the reason into intuitional or spontaneous, and reflective or voluntary, the value of which for theological or philosophical purposes he defines clearly and satisfactorily. By the spontaneous reason God is immediately and universally recognized, since it is absolute reason which is in harmony with God. Spontaneous reason is theistic, concluding reason. It is reliable because intuitional. Reflective reason is somewhat uncertain. Guilty of bad and unwarrantable distinctions as he was, Kant was not one-sided, as was Berkeley ; nor skeptical, as was Hume ; nor monadic, as was Leibnitz ; nor dualistic, as was Descartes ; nor pan- theistic, as was Spinoza ; but his subjective idealism was orthodoxically rational in its intent, looking toward the infinite with the eye of a quickened, rational judgment, and inspired rational research with the promise of reward. Great was the immediate influence of the Kantian philosophy ; it is great still, though its positions are undergoing mod- ification, and a gradual change of base in inquiry is apparent. Not long after Kant, philosophy assumed a new phase, not in con- tradiction of Kant, but in advance of it — a kind of tangent from the circle of thought in which the thinkers had moved, bringing them to a pause, if nothing more. Jacobi heralded a new revelation, and claimed that he had found the true path to ultimate knowledge, sup- porting the claim with learning, and dialectic, not to say metaphysi- cal, plausibility ; and, had he not weakened his conclusions by self-confessions, he possibly had pioneered philosophy through the wilderness of doubt and darkness into the broad sunlight ^f truth. Taking up Spinozism, he showed that it was the result of a demon- strative philosophical attempt ; that is, it necessarily followed from certain accepted data, or the categories of reason, though in its es- sence it was atheistic and fatalistic. Considering the theoretical reason of Kant, he showed that it must sustain, or at least can not contradict, the three ideas which constitute the estate of a prime philosophy. Rising from this stand-point, he pointed out that the supersensible can be known only by supersensible means, not by the reason alone, but by the principle of faith, or feeling, a "direct ap- prehension, without proof, of the True, the supersensuous, the Eternal." Thus "faith-philosophy," or emotionalism, had its intro- duction, but Jacobi was ridiculed, as preaching theology in disguise, and he admitted, from what motive is not clear, that while his heart embraced his conclusions, his head or reason condemned them. Nevertheless, Emotionalism anchored itself in the deep sea of speculative thought, stirring up the waters of inquiry, and even in- trenching on the distant, rock-rooted shores of the holiest truth. It 96 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. could not be ignored. It was not annihilated. It still exists. Schleiermacher, aroused and embracing its fundamental conceptions, relieved it of its theological aspects, and endowed it with a more legitimate or acceptable philosophic form. Charging the Reason with incapacity to discover ultimate truth, he declared it could be known only through the consciousness, or the intuition of feeling. This knowing, truth-searching consciousness has two sides, viz. : there is in man a "God-consciousness," from which a feeling of dependence on the Infinite arises, and there is a Christian consciousness, which inspires communion with God through Jesus Christ. Out of the former arises the thought of dependence, which implies its correla- tive— a being independent, or upon whom man depends. Hence, from the spiritual feeling, rather than the reason, springs the onto- logical conception — long searched for and believed in — of God. Mansel, discovering in man a sense of moral, obligation to the in- dependent being, conclusively establishes the existence of such a being, carrying the faith-philosophy over in still clearer form to the support of the theistic conception. However, contrary to Schleier- macher, he does not see in the sense of dependence a conscioxisness of the Absolute, but only an implication of the infinite. The distinction is clear, but the result is the same. But this philosophy, exciting amusement on the one hand, and deep seriousness on the other, has not fully satisfied even Christian thinkers, as it seems to rely too exclusively upon the uncertain and perturbed emotions of consciousness. The contents of consciousness are prolgptic of ultimate truth, but while philosophy will accept ra- tional intuitions, it is slow to accept the conclusions of feeling, or to be guided by the various indexes of consciousness. Evidently want- ing in some particulars, there may be hidden in this new philosophy the leaven that will leaven the Avhole lump, ignoring the Kantian basis, it has perhaps perpetrated a suicidal act, but there may be in it a guiding principle which, in other hands, will be developed and purified. Meanwhile, idealism, temporarily eclipsed, or rather suspending its aggressive purpose, soon reappears in a form kindred to, but different from, the Kantian idea. As in Nevada there are streams which, running for miles, suddenly sink out of sight and then reap- pear, so idealism, sinking for a brief time into obscurity, again presents itself in the utterances of Fitche, Schelling, and Hegel, changing its complexion, but retaining its spirit, with each thinker. Fitche is the exponent of a strict subjective idealism, which, de- fined, has exclusive respect to the ego as the only substance. Between the ego-in-itself and the object-in-itself we must choose ; one must be SCEELLING— HEGEL. 97 rejected. He cast his vote in favor of the ego. Yet there is a non- ego which he regarded as the limitation or hindrance of the ego, so that the non-ego is a part of, or the umbration of, the ego. The Ego, therefore, is all in all. Pu later years he interpreted the ego as God, which, including the non-ego, savored of Spiuozism, or a mild and unintended form of pantheism. Hence, subjective idealism was in peril ;• it needed correction, purification. Schelling, born thirteen years after Fitche, passed through many mental vicissitudes, being captivated at first with Fitche and becom- ing an idealist, but, charmed by other theories, he drifted from one to another, until he developed a form of philosophy known as ob- jective idealism, the contrary of Fitche's. He began by recognizing the same absolute in nature as in mind: "Nature is visible mind, and mind is invisible nature ; " but this species of subjective idealism did not satisfy him. ' From this point his struggles multiply and his driftings commence. He is anxious to formulate the absolute, and, vibrating between subject and object, or the ego and the non-ego, he concludes that the Absolute is neither subject nor object, but the root of both. However, the spell of this objective idealism was soon broken, and, imbibing Spinozism, he rejected both subjective and objective idealism, announcing as a philosophic dictum the indifference of the real and the ideal, and the reason as the only Absolute. With this conclusion this restless thinker is soon dissatisfied, and drifts into the latitude of Neo-Platonism, discarding nature and all finite things, and looking to the Absolute as the only Real. Being and not the "becoming" (a touch of pure Eleaticism) absorbs his thought and receives his homage. Even this high-toned conception brings him no comfort, nor had philosophy the power to comfort him. In all its various stages philosophy had given to Schelling only an idea of God, not God himself He yearned for a knowledge of the absolute, and, driven by intellectual impulses and instructive entreaties, he went on, trying, testing, accepting, and rejecting philosophies, one after an- other, until in despair of soul he turns from philosophy to Johannean Christianity, which reveals to him the everlasting God, and he is satisfied. In passing, we note that this is the cure for all speculation. Idealism again appears, attaining an absolute and final character in Hegel who affirms the existence of the Absolute, but the Absolute is every thing. In his logic he discusses the doctrine of being, the doctrine of essence, and the doctrine of notion, positing that being is, per se, the one, but the one is the manifold ; that is, there are no distinctions between thought and being, subject and object; all are one and the one is all. "The Absolute is, with him, not the infinite substance, as with Spinoza ; nor the infinite subject, as with Fitche ; 7 98 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. nor the infinite mind, as with Schelling ; it is a perpetual process, an eternal thinking, without beginning and without end." This God is the unity of all things, the finite and the infinite, the natural and the supernatural, the temporal and the eternal, involving |he stu- pendous paralogism of the identity of Being and Nothing ; a pan- theism illogical for Hegel's law of logic is the identity of contraries or contradictions, while from Aristotle to our day the law of contradiction has been considered unassailable ; a pantheism more intense than any Grecian form of it ; a pantheism absurd, anti- Christian, unphilosophic, atheistic. While Hegel threw up a mountain range at the front, defending his position with force, his philosophy, or the philosophy of idealism, as he had generalized it, was bound to decline, and with it idealism in an absolute form. If idealism were constructively a disguised pantheism, or if its final determinations were the overthrow of the Kantian postulates of reason, in either case it must be abandoned ; and Hegel did much to aggravate both of these possible accusations. Absolute idealism, therefore, rose and fell with Hegel. From the decline of Hegelianism philosophy degenerates from its lofty purpose to find the ultimate cause and contents itself with becoming largely a negativism ; there is a general breaking up ; there is no uniformity of method in investigation ; unity of purpose in pursuit is visibly absent. Schopenhauer is the first representative of the universal decline, for, espousing subjective idealism, and accepting Fitche's interpretation of the absolute, he reduces the subject to a state of passivity, and so transfigures idealism into realism. He retains the " thing-in-itself," not with Kant's explanations, but asserts that it is the will, a blind, necessary force, moving and regulating all existence. The world is both real and ideal; the Will is the real world; the idgal is that which each person represents to himself. "The world is my repre- sentation and I am only when I represent," says this teacher. Here is idealistic-realism, or realistic-idealism, of a beautiful type, but which is singularly defective in its physical, not to say psychological elements, for it not only denies objectivity to the world, as such, but it locates the subject in the object, a poetic confusion of distinct con- ceptions rather than positive truth. Yet Schopenhauer admits the existence of the natural world, as the product of will, which actualizes itself, (a), in the organic world; (b), in the vegetable kingdom; (c), in animals. Its highest object-form is the human brain. Contending that Will is the thing-in-itself, the moving, universal force, he like- wise contends for the contradiction that physical causation is identical with matter, and causality itself is the law of sufficient reason. This transfer of causation from the will to the substance or matter, pre- PESSIMISM— POSITIVISM. 99 pares the way for the ethical representation of the world, or the outcome of Schopenhauer's hard realism. Logically, and emotionally, he is a pessimist ; without belief in a personal God, attributing so-called providential government to an impersonal and necessary will, he muses in despair over existence, sees in history only the worst regulating principles, discovers nothing alleviating or redemptive in natural agencies, and mingles his meditations with the Buddhists, accepting the doctrine of nirvana, as the only final relief from a con- scious life. His philosophy, so Schwegler writes, is a "union of the transcendentalism of Kant and Fitche, the empiricism of Locke, the pantheism of Spinoza and Schelling, the idealism of Plato, and the pessimism of the Buddhists " — a conglomeration truly, with little of originality or independence of j)hilosophical assertion. Pessimism is the first step downward from absolute idealism. , Its very recent advocate is Hartmann, of Germany, who departed from Schopenhauer in the enlargement of philosophic distinctions, and the clearness of philosophic definitions. Hartmann says Schopen- hauer's Will can only be an efticient cause ; there must also be a final cause, which implies an act of the reason. The Will is an efiicient but not final cause ; Reason is a final but not efficient cause ; therefore, the two, Will and Reason, constitute the substance and ground of all being. But the acting Reason is a mechanically acting, and there- fore, unconscious reason ; hence, the Absolute is the union of uncon- scious intelligence and the will in unconscious force. With Schopenhauer, God is blind, impersonal will ; with Hartmann, God is the unconscious force of reason and will ; hence, the world is badly constructed, and man is the victim of a hopeless government. • How different this from Platonism ! How differen. from Descartes, Leibnitz, Kant, Jacobi, Fitche, Schelling, and Hegel ! Comte introduces another retrograding phase of philosophy, called Positivism, whose logical termination is atheism. He achieved notoriety in suggesting that the mind in its natural development passes through three successive stages, as follows: 1. The theological, or fictitious ; 2. The metaphysical, or abstract ; 3. The positive, or scientific. Asserting that the mind unfolded in this order, it followed that it outgrew the theological or religious, and the metaphysical or philosophical, and attained in its higher development a positive or scientific state. Psychologists, however, immediately rejected this discrimination, it having been established that the mind grows in the reverse order, attaining to a normal theological condition last. Athe- istic as is the spirit of positivism, Comte admitted the necessity of religion, and actually prepared a creed and ordinances, but the pur- pose was ethical, not religious in the highest sense. Can philosophy 100 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. go lower than pessimism and positivism? Reactions usually follow extremes. Comte has been overthrown ; Hartmaun is without fol- lowers; yet in these days of modern inquiry, it can not be said that philosophy is recovering an idealistic tone; or that it is solving the problem of the ultimate. Along with the materialistic and self-contradictory philosophic ideas of the early part of the nineteenth century there appeared an eclectic spirit which, prudently surveying the field, ventured to sug- gest a new basis for philosophic investigation. Rejecting materialism, it also parted company with theology, as such, and made psychology or the reason the starting-point of philosophic endeavor, a hopeful sign of progress as well as a barrier to the atheism of the period. This is Rationalism, or Eclecticism, V. Cousin, an able, eloquent, sincere investigator of the great problems of life, being its exponent. In insisting on the reason, or subjective experience, as the foundation of all investigation, he coincides with Socrates, who was the first to introduce the subjective method in philosophic pursuits ; in insisting on the infallibility or inspiration of the spontaneous reason we find a ground for fatal criticism, since even the spontaneous reason of man is supposed to be affected somewhat by his inherited degeneracy. Rationalism assigns to the reason hyper-functional powers. The objec- tion of Dr. B. F. Cocker that Cousin does not rely upon revealed truth, or the Scriptures, is not well taken, since philosophy under- takes to pilot itself without the aid of religion to the shores of the eternal. Guided by revealed religion, philosophy will have no trouble, but in that event the strength or weakness of philosophy, as such, will not be manifest. Rationalism, without its extremes, occupies a right footing, being preferable to idealism, and certainly is superior to the foggy atmos- phere of pessimism or positivism. The starting-point of materialism is nature ; of theology, God ; of rationalism, man. In historic order we have reached the so-called Associational school of psychologists, who, sensitive to the charge of atheism and quick to repel it, have advanced explanatory theories of the mind and its action which logically justify the unenviable accusation of materialism. The psychological principle of the ^school is that the laws of thought, which we distinguish by specific names, are reducible to one universal law, namely, association, without which the mind is inert and productionless. To John Stuart Mill and Alexander Bain, the one dead, the other living, the doctrine is indebted for advocates. Mr. Mill inherited the doctrine of utilitarianism through his father from Jeremy Bentham ; he was also most profoundly influ- enced by Dr. David Hartley, whose physiological explanation of THE ASSOCIATIONAL SCHOOL. 101 mental action deprived the mind of intuitional and original character. It is well known that the elder Mill very early determined to mold the son according to his philosophical theories, to give him no religious education, to foster in him no reverential sentiments, to make him just what he desired ; the son, therefore, was a singular character, a machine-made man ; and it is no wonder that his philosophy is faulty, inadequate, materialistic, and inherited, i. e., borrowed rather than orig^al. In his published works J. S. Mill holds that knowledge is the product of sensation ; heuce, phenomena alone are knowable ; being is unknowable. Thus far he had traveled along the familiar track of philosophy from the days of Aristotle, but he took a step in advance in his proclamation of causation as an example of succession in natiire ; that is, that there is no necessary connection between cause and effect, but only a sequence. This was destructive of all jEtiology, threw mystery over all the operations of nature, blotted out accepted conclusions of philosophy, and inaugurated the drift period in speculative thought. Foundations were shaken ; anchorage was impossible ; the ultimate could no longer be reached a jiosterioriy or by the frequented steps of causation. In keeping with this physical theory, he taught that the mind is a "series of feelings," or an association of emotions, without causal con- nection. Eliminating causation from the natural world, it was easy to eliminate it from mental activity, which conclusion became the essence of associationalism. The step to evolution, or the last type of modern philosophy, is a short one. Herbert Spencer is its sponsor. If one's education has any thing to do with one's philosophy, then in the fact that Spencer's education was largely confined to physical studies we find an explana- tion of the mechanical hypothesis of creation he finally adopted and has to the present hour emphasized. Respecting the universe, he holds that it is the product of evolutionary forces; respecting God, he holds that he is ignoscible, unthinkable ; respecting the human mind, he is an associationalist, teaching that consciousness is a nervous sensation and thought a product of organization. He distinguishes between the nature of mind, Avhich is unknowable, and the phenom- ena of mind, which are knowable, affirming that there is a science, but not a philosophy, of mind. The process of evolution is expressed as the "redistribution of matter and motion," by which mental states are produced and succeed one another. The nervous structure is double-faced, being objective and subjective ; objective activity is un- knowable ; subjective experience, consisting of conscious or phenom- enal states, is recognized, and, therefore, knowable. Intellectual activity is refined nervousness. 102 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. Following this reduction of mental phenomena to nervous states, Mr. Spencer had little difficulty in pronouncing the limitations of human knowledge. Conceptions he divides into three classes, viz.: 1. Complete; 2. Symbolic; 3. Pseud-ideas. On the complete and symbolic conceptions, inasmuch as they are knowable, positive science may securely rest; but such ideas as God, immortality, or re- ligions, or necessary moral truths, inasmuch as they are unknowable, are denominated pseud-ideas, to be entertained as speculations oi- ab- stractions only. In these conclusions Spencer draws the curtains of midnight around us, and turns the earth away from the sun. To ig- nore necessary truths, as does Mr. Spencer, is as if one carrying a lighted lamp should forget about it and let it fall, occasioning an ex- plosion and consuming his person. To this it may be replied that Mr. Spencer's lamp is not lit, and there is no danger if he let it fall. Perhaps this is the trouble. Necessary, religious truths ought to flame in and around heart and intellect ; then the notion of pseud- ideas would be extinguished in the brilliant blaze of truth. The ob- server will discover that Spencer, forgetting necessary truth, confines himself to his conceptiom of truths in general ; but a genuine philos- ophy deals with the former and ignores the latter, or considers them as incidental forms. The philosophy of Herbert Spencer is sensational, negative ; phenomenal, not ultra-phenomenal ; dealing with appear- ances, not causes ; with matter, not mind ; with physical activity, not a personal God. Ethically, the philosophy is defective in contents and pernicious in effect, for if intellectual manifestation can be reduced to nervous action, moral emotions, convictions, aspirations, and sentiments may be considered a display of the nervous sensibilities. And so we find it. The ethics of Spencer is the sum of physiological, psychological, and sociological influences ; that is, the result of the suggestions of nature, the convenience and expediency of communities, the com- parison of wants, the study of the issues of virtue and vice. Ethical teaching is not grounded in philosophical, religious, or ultimate truth ; there is no immutable standard of right and wrong ; so said Epicurus ; so said Aristotle ; so echoes Spencer. In the language of Spencer, conduct is the adjustment of the inner relations of life to the outer relations, i. e., the world. Conduct is a struggle toward this adjust- ment ; if one succeed in realizing the adjustment, he has perfected his conduct ; otherwise, he is a wreck. Success, then, or survival, is the standard of right. This is the ethical side of the physical theory of mind, the essence of the philosophy of Spencer, the latest expres- sion of the character of man. To omit all reference to American philosophers would be unjust CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 103 to them as a class, and render this survey incomplete. Really there is no American philosophy, j^er se, but the "Concord School" still exists, representing a form of Hegelianism, a phase of pantheism, and the nobler edition of Emersonianism. Perhaps the philosophy taught by the school should be characterized as ideal realism, a mix- ture of the high and low, carrying both sides of the great problems, and emphasizing to-day what seems to be in the ascendant, but at liberty to change to-morrow. In this we do it no injustice. Happily, we may now speak of a philosophy of an entirely differ- ent character from any of the preceding, the chief objection to it be- ing its theologic trend, or whether it is philosophic at all in its method and spirit. We refer to theological dogmatism, whose purpose is the vindication of the very problems which have exercised a control- ling influence on speculative thought, and whose solutions have not yet been wrought out in the name of philosophy. James Arminius and John Calvin properly represent the theologic school of dog- matics, who, assuming the Scriptures to be inspired of God, demon- strate by both a priori and a posteriori methods the existence of God, and interpret both nature and man as an easy task. The aid of rev- elation is not considered indispensable to philosophy ; but the day will dawn when philosophy will be warranted in appropriating all the aids at hand, religiorf being one of them. If dogmatic theology be re- jected as a philosophical conception, then surely there is room for a school of Christian philosophers, just as there has been room for atheistic and pessimistic philosophers ; that is, the philosopher may be justified in establishing theistic conclusions without peril to his repu- tation. To this the world is fast coming. Emerging from the philo- sophical Avrecks is, what the ages have waited for, but which is, as yet, undeveloped, namely, a Christian philosophy, or the j^hilosophy of being from the Christian standpoint. Lotze, of Germany, and Bowne and McCosh, of the United States, may be taken as the representa- tives of the religious element in philosophy, without which there is no true philosophy. Philosophy, without the pilotage of religion, runs into pessimism, atheism, materialism ; with it, there is trans- parency, because there is revelation. But, as this phase of philos- ophy will hereafter receive attention, we do no more at present than mention it. We have traveled a long distance from Thales to Lotze, having gone over mountains, crossed the seas, wandered through wildernesses of thought, tarried in schools and academies, looked up into the sky, down into the soul, and beyond all things, for the face of God. Philosophy is a weary and weird traveler, ever journeying on foot, provided only with scrip, crackers, and staff; a beggar, asking of 104 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. every thing, but receiving doubtful answers and unsatisfactory aid. During this long period of twenty-five hundred years, philosophy has not found the ultimate ; the problem of beiiig is still unsolved ; and though at times, as in Plato, it has gone up to Pisgah's heights, from which the Holy Land of thought was seen, it has, as in Mill, drifted toward the North Pole, and, as in Spencer, gone down to the center of the earth. In Plato, an eagle ; in Mill, a bear ; in Spencer, a mole. In these twenty-five centuries there have been progress as well as decline, approximate solutions, lacking only the full tide of inspira- tion to make them entirely correct, and give them complete and au- thoritative validity, as well as self-acknowledged or universally per- ceived failures. It can not, therefore, be said that the progress, whatever its character and extent, has been direct and methodical, or that it can be easily traced from system to system, or school to school, for it has receded and flowed like the tides, rising and falling with no uniformity, and under no visible law of development. Vico taught that history repeated itself, or that life revolved in a circle; Goethe taught that the world moved in spirals ; Hegel taught that the history of philosophy is a "united process," a gradual unfolding of principles, a constant advancement toward the truth. Reviewing the historic struggles of philosophy, one is almost ready to aflirm that it is a repeating process, a circle of ideas ; or, if progressive, that its method is spiral ; but that its progress has been regular, each system an improvement on the preceding, each age nearer the truth than a former age, seems inconsistent with the facts. Progress is the law of nature, language, science, music, mind; as Cocker says, "the present, both in nature and history and civilization, is, so to speak, the aggre- gate and sura total of the past;" but philosophy has not followed the law of evolution, either in its general course or in its outcome, for idealism is superior to materialism, and Plato is a safer philosopher than Herbert Spencer. There has been no steady, uniform progress in philosophical discovery, nor even a gradual advancement toward a knowledge of the absolute and everlasting God. The line of progress, if we allow it at all, is a zigzag line, exceedingly irregular and un- satisfactory. Putting the eye on the historical order of philosophic development, we often see two or more systems opposed in their fundamental conceptions, as the "fire" philosophy of Heraclitus and the atomic theory of Democritus in ancient times, and the pantheism of Spinoza and the empiricism of Locke in modern times, arise almost simultaneously, the one not quenching the other, but modified by a future teacher and discoverer. The historical order is illogical ; the logical order is unhistorical. One system does not grow out of another. Each springs up like Jonah's gourd in the darkness, and ANCIENT SYSTEMS. 105 withers away because of its inner and excessive weaknesses, abomina- tions, and inaptitudes. By this we do not mean that there is no connection whatever among the various schools or systems of thought, for this would be to overlook the confessed relation of Socrates and Plato, Locke and Hume, Spencer and Hamilton, Fitche and Schelling, Schopenhauer and Hartmaun, Hartley and Mill. But, adopting Mill's interpreta- tion of causation, we say the connection of philosophical systems is not causal, but formal and accidental; the history thereof is the his- tory of succession, not of necessary relation. That this interpretation of the historic order of philosophy is correct, we place in columnar array the names of the principal philosophers of the ancient period, designating their systems, and the time of their birth, or the period when they flourished — a schedule of the entire history. Philosophers. Period or Birth. Philosophy. Thales, B. C. 640-550, . Materialism, or the Physical Principle. Anaximander, . B. C. 610. . . . Anaxinienes, . . B. C. 529-480, . " « u Heraclitus, . . . B. C. 503-420, . " a u Pythagoras, . . B. C. 605, . . . Mathematical Principle. Zenophanes, . . Parmenides, . . B. C. 616-516, . B. C. 536, . . . Idealism, or the Intelligent Principle. Zeno, B. C. 500, . . . '< li « Anaxagoras, . . B. C. 500-428, . Mental Principle. Leucippus, . . . B. C. 500-400, . Atomic Principle. Democritus, . . B. C. 460-357, . Empedocles, . . B. C. 440, . . . Eclecticism. Protagoras, . . . B. C. 440, . . . Nescience. Gorgias, .... B. C. 427, . . . Idealism. Socrates B. C. 469-399, . " Plato, B. C. 430-347, . " Aristotle,. . . . B. C. 384, . . . Sensationalism. Epicurus, . . . B. C. 342-270, . Epicureanism. Zeno, B. C. 340, . . . Stoicism. Arcesilaus, . . . B. C. 316-241, . Skepticism. The above is Grecian philosophy in outline, a zigzag line, truly, its systems unconnected, and its last state worse than the first. Beginning Avith a materialistic assumption, which changes its form and phraseology, but not its spirit, with every succeeding teacher, it rises to an incipient or anticipatory idealism in Pythagoras, attains to a one-sided or absolute idealism in the Eleatics, especially in Par- menides, assumes philosophic dignity in the nous or mental principle of Anaxagoras, and then, with melted wings, sinks down into the atomic theory, or another phase of materialism, of Democritus — the 106 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. atheism and chance-philosophy of Greece. Materialism, idealism, atheism, are the successive but irregular steps thus far of the early- philosophy. Springing back like the released bow, it betakes itself again to idealism, reaching its profoundest culmination in Socrates and Plato, Socrates being the flower and Plato the fruit of a dialectical system that has never been surpassed. This is the summit, the highest water-mark of ancient philosophy, from which it descends first in Aristotle to empiricism, then in Zeuo to spiritualistic pantheism, and in Epicurus to the logical termination of the mechanical hypothesis — atheism. From this is but a single step to skepticism, which the New Academy, in Arcesilaus, maintained. In these successive movements of the ancient systems it is impos- sible to discover an inner connection, or a periodic progress, or any type of evolution. Reactions, reformations, upheavals, disguises, inter- rogations, summits, abysses — these belong to the philosophic period of four hundred years, but an orderly or even final progress is not visible. Passing through the interregnum, which furnished little genuine philosophy, we arrive at the modern period ; a period full of inquiry, persevering in its research, teeming with results in systems without number, and opening new paths for the feet of future travelers. Its history may be tabulated about as follows : Philosophers. Birth. Philosophy. Bacon, » A. D. 1561, .... Science. Boehme, A. D. 1575, . Mysticism. Descartes, - A. D. 1596, . Dualism. Spinoza, . . A. D. 1632, . Pantheism. Locke, . . . A. D. 1632, . Sensationalism. Leibnitz, . . A. D. 1646, . Idealism. Berkeley, . . A. D. 1685, . Reid, . . . A. D. 1710, . Common Sense. Hume, . . . A. D. 1711, . Skepticism. Kant, . . . A. D. 1724, . Idealism. Jacobi, . . . A: D. 1743, . Faith-philosophy. Stewart, . . A. D. 1753, . Common Sense. Fitche,. . . A. D. 1762, . Subjective Idealism. Schelling, . A. T>. 1775, . Objective " Herbart, . . A. D. 1776, . Sensationalism. Hegel,. . . A. D. 1770, . Absolute Idealism. Brown, . . . A. D. 1778, . Representationism. Hamilton, . A. D. 1788, . Nescience. Schopenhauei *, . A. D. 1788, . Pessimism. Corate, . . . A. D. 1798, . Positivism. J. S. Mill, . A. D. 1806, . Associationalism. Spencer, . . A. D. 1820, . Evolution. Hartmann, . A. D. 1842, . Pessimism. Lotze, . . . A. D. 1817, . Monotheism. MODERN SYSTEMS. 107 One has only to glance at this historic representation of modern philosophy to be able to decide whether it has regularly progressed or declined, and what its last state is compared with the first. Begin- ning with Bacon, it dealt chiefly with the facts and problems of natu- ral science, together with a review of the methods of reasoning, or dialectics. Bacon was a scientist, a pioneer, paving the way for philosophy, and really summoned it to its rightful tasks. Following him it appeared according to the above schedule. In Descartes it lost or did not find the idea of unity ; in Spinoza it lost God ; in Locke it declared for an empty mind ; over Leibnitz the idealistic spirit broods, and monadology is the result ; in Berkeley a form of Eleaticism reappears ; in Hume the mind is without recognition. Ee- actions follow, and Kant strikes for idealism. There is a rising again ; the wings begin to grow. Jacobi declares for faith in God ; Fitche, Schelliug, and Hegel wheel into the direct line of idealism, ascending higher than their predecessors, but compelled to halt if not beat a retreat. Idealism broke its bow by over-straining. Idealism lost caste, being followed rapidly by the pessimism of Schopenhauer, the positivism of Comte, the associationalism of Mill, and the evolution of Spencer, checked only a trifle by the intermediate systems of Hamilton, Stewart, and Reid. Spanning the period from the idealism of Descartes to the evolu- tion of Spencer, and recollecting the manifold forms of pantheism, sensationalism, skepticism, idealism, pessimism, and atheism, which it has assumed, we can not concede a regular order in philosophic his- tory, nor is progress noticeable, save in the general results of research and the study of mind. Modern philosophy ends as did ancient philosophy, with sensationalism, a physical conception of the universe, and an atheistic sentiment respecting its Maker. In these results modern has repeated the story of ancient philosophy, only varying the form. The old philosophy was the archetype of the new, the ancient of the modern ; there is little new in the new. Eleaticism was the forerunner of Idealism ; Pythagoras was the Descartes of his age ; Parmenides repeats himself in Spinoza ; Zeno is transformed in Hegel. This is not progress. But the end is not yet. Such words as pessimism, atheism, evo- lution, ring in our ears, disturbing our slumber with nightmare, and filling life's activity with anxiety and fear ; but the new words, soul, God, immortality, heaven, taken up by Lotze, have gone out into all the world to inspire the sons of men. Are they deceptions, or are they real? We shall see. 108 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY, CHAPTER III. THE PROVINCE OK PHILOSOPHY. IN the Loggia of Raphael, in the Vatican at Rome, are four pic- tures, which the visitor is sure to observe with considerable inter- est, both because the artist produced them at the early age of twenty- five years, and also because they represent the departments of theology, poetry, philosophy, and justice. One has no difficulty in fiuding "philosophy," which rises as a vaulted hall, with outside marble steps, on which sits lazy Diogenes, clothed in a single garment ; in the hall Plato and Aristotle are conversing, Plato pointing u-pward, and Aristotle pointing forward. Raphael's conception of the historic career of philosophy, and, equally, of its prophetic mission, is per- haps as correct as any that has had expression, either iu art, or history, or philosophy. Diogenes represents the slow, plodding thinker, careless of this world, being occupied with thoughts that the multitude do not understand, or in which they have invested but a little interest ; Plato represents its highest aspirations ; Aristotle, its spirit of progress. Has philosophy a mission ? Is there a field for the philosopher ? Lewes insists that its mission has been fulfilled, and its reign in thought, research, and history, is over. Acknowledging that it ini- tiated positive science, he declares that positive science has supplanted it, and that philosophy must disappear. Reviewing the past, he sees that the one has made no progress in the study of its problems, while the other is revealing facts and the laws that govern the material universe. For effete, worn-out philosophical speculations, he substi- tutes the facts of positive science, declaring its empire established. Prejudging the subject in this way, he undertakes to write a history of philosophy, making good use of the facts as he finds them, and turning them against the citadel itself. Mr. Lewes, however, is not supreme authority, notwithstanding the positive discrimination he makes between philosophy and science, and his evident preference for the latter. When he writes that philosophy initiated science, he forgets that Thales was a natural philosopher, i e., a scientist before he became a speculatist. Physics preceded metaphysics. So in modei-n times Bacon, the scientist, pre- ceded Descartes, the philosopher. Science has given birth to philosophy, not philosophy to science. The declaration that there RELATIONS OF SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 109 has been no progress in speculation and that "philosophy moves in the same endless circle," is more than an assumption ; it is a perver- sion of fact. Mind, matter, and God are better understood to-day because of philosophical inquiry ; better understood negatively, perhaps, than affirmatively, but it is Platonic to consider all sides of a subject before announcing a conclusion. The final conclusions of philosophy have not been reached ; the partial conclusions heralded are in some respects unsatisfactory, disturbing and incomplete. The declaration that philosophy is neglected and abandoned is about as true as would be the assertion that science, poetry, art, and religion are neglected. England rarely produces a philosophical mind ; Germany is still able to furnish a philosophical thinker. The scientific spirit is always productive of the philosophic spirit ; and this inquiring age must produce scientists and philosophers. The facts of science are the materials of the philosopher. Philosophy is impossible without science. The universe is the shadow of an infinite thought, to be de- ciphered by the slow process of philosophic inquiry. Understanding the universe the infinite thinker is understood. This is the process of thought ; hence, Cousin is correct in affirming that philosophy is last in the order of thought, overturning the assertion of Lewes that it was historically first. Inasmuch as philosophy is last, it has a future, waiting for science to do its duty as an investigator of facts and laws, and it can not go forward until science has pre- pared the way for it. Its future, therefore, is a contingency ; it fol- lows science. Mr. Lewes again contends that philosophy is engaged in a search after the impossible! Essences, causes can never be known. This is the dictum of modern science ; but is it not presumptive in a scientist to declare that causes are unknowable because science can not and does not undertake to demonstrate them? It is the old spirit of scientific antagonism to higher knowledge, a settlement of the limitations of human inquiry by the ij^se dixit of a class whose business it is not to go beyond phenomena, who can not by their methods ascertain causes. In his statement that philosophy proceeds altogether from a priori premises, he asserts what can not be maintained, for all methods are open to philosophy. Schlegel, having a scheme of his own to defend, pronounces the philosophy of the schools unintelligible, and advises an abandonment of the " fine-spun webs of dialectics " for a more practical philosophy of life. The objection is not well taken, for, with few exceptions, such as the ab- stract ideas of Anaximander and the monadology of Leibnitz, the stu- dent has no difficulty in separating one system from another, or in detail- 110 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. ing the tenets of the philosophers from the Ionic school to Emerson. Besides, such an objection, if fatal in its content, will dispense with much that passes for science, which in these days utters unintelligible theories without number, and is always incomplete in its data and uncertain in its conclusions. That the history of philosophy abounds in systems inharmonious and contradictory, no one will deny ; but science, transitional, progressive, ever finding new facts, ever discovering new laws, must be open to the same objection. The severest charge against philosophy is that in its aberrations it resembles science, building up and tearing down, enlightening to-day but confusing to-morrow, and so leaving the world in perplexity, mystery, and misery. Science furnishes the example, and philosophy imitates it. Antisthenes, the Cynic, in eulogy of philosophy boasted that it had enabled him to live with himself, which is the very highest end of life. The Cynic compromised the force of his statement by leading an impure and worthless life, but tn proportion as it contributes to right principles it lays the foundation for right living. Schelling observed that the end of philosophy is to make an in- telligence out of nature, or a nature out of intelligence ; succeeding in doing either, and especially in doing both, it will justify its place in history. At all events, the relation of philosophical pursuits to the practical life of man and the world's intelligence is intimate enough to secure them a place in the curriculum of the world's studies and activities. Some Christian thinkers have innocently espoused the belief that inspired truth is all-sufficient in itself, and that what is not revealed can not be known, and, therefore, philosophical inquiry touching the unrevealed is forbidden by the terms of revelation itself. Philosophy aspires not to the character of a revelation ; but, like theology, it does venture its explanations of what is revealed. It deals with revelations, cosmological, psychological, spiritual, and written revela- tions, attempting to harmonize them in the unity of thought and being, in all of which it goes no farther than the revelations themselves. Its purpose is to understand revelation. It does not reveal, only as explanation is revelation. This brings us definitely to consider what is philosophy in its generic spirit and function, without a knowledge of which it will be impossible to decide if there is any room for it. Dividing and sub- dividing after the manner of Plato, we should say philosophy is not dialectic; or mathematics ; or psychology; or metaphysic ; or science; or religion ; not these taken singly or wholly, but embracing a not inconsiderable part of all. Aristotle called metaphysic "first phi- losophy," and physics " second philosophy." The " second philosophy" THE PSYCHOLOGICAL METHOD. Ill we relegate to the physicists. Prof. Bowne assigns to psychology the task of explaining the genesis of ideas, reserving to philosophy the duty of explaining the grounds of belief. It is not clear that the distinction is valid or that the tasks of psychology and philosophy are sufficiently apportioned ; for philosophy deals with origins ; the origin of ideas, not the ideas themselves; the origin of beliefs, not beliefs alone. Psychology is an assistant to, not a usurper of, philosophy. The invalidity of the distinction, or the separateness of the tasks Prof. Bowne assigns to these departments • will appear if the philo- sophical method of investigation be considered. Two methods obtain in philosophy, viz. : the psychological and the empirical. Aristotle, Locke, Condillac, Hume, and the associationalists, adojDting the em- pirical method, constitute that class of philosophers known as mate, rialists; while Socrates, Plato, Kant, Cousin, Fitche, and Hegel, adopting the psychological method, are known as idealists, rationalists, or metaphysiciaus. In recent years both methods have been adopted by the same philosopher, creating a school of empirical psychologists, represented by Alexander Bain ; but it is the spirit of empiricism overshadowing psychology, and not harmonizing with it. Its pur- pose is the destruction of psychology. Prof Bowne seems opposed to the empirico-psychological method, as preliminary to, or an aid in, metaphysical inquiry ; but while the opposition to both methods joined together is not the same as opposition to either method taken by itself, he impresses the reader that the psychological method is in- sufficient in itself for metaphysics. Cousin, however, has demon- strated the insufficiency of the empirical method, and exalted the other. Both methods, therefore, are deprived of application in philosophy. But if psychology is justified in undertaking one of the tasks of philosophy, the psychological method may be properly appropriated by philosophy, without damage to the former, and with some advantage to the latter. The tasks and methods of psychology border closely on those of philosophy ; but, beyond those of the former, the latter must finally go if it work out an independent mission. A point of separation must finally be reached. In like manner, philosophy is not dialectic, but dialectical; nor is it science, but scientific; nor religion, but religious. Its methods are those of religion, science, psychology, and dialectics; it searches the truth, now by a 'priori, and then by a posteriori methods; like science, it may employ the empirical method ; like psychology, the rational ; like theology, the theistic ; that is, it may start from nature, mind, or God, or from the known or the unknown ; it has no method of its own, as distinguished from these. Hence, its alliance with all things. 112 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. Kindred to science and religion in method, its aims are specific, being above the one and alongside those of the other. Without a difference of aim, it is without a reason for being. The justification of philoso- phy is that it has in hand a problem which the scientist does not admit into his realm, and which the theologian can not solve without his aid. The specific task of philosophy, therefore, remains to be stated. Schwegler says, to philosophize is to reflect, but the subject of reflection should be included. Socrates insisted on the value of definitions, and was skillful himself in separating the accidental from the essential elements of things. To define philosophy is the first duty. A variety of definitions the philosophers have made, each an approximate statement of the trend of philosophical discovery. To say that it is the "science of wholes," or the science of the absolute, is not a bad definition, save that it reduces philosophy to a science, which, however, ought to insure its favorable reception among the scientists ; to say that it is an inquiry into realities, or a search for causes, or a feeling after being, is an improved representation of its purpose. Schlegel defines philosophy to be the " science of conscious- ness alone," which leads into the rationalism of Cousin. Plato states that the "end of philosophy is the intuition of unity," an abstract definition, which, thoroughly analyzed, Avill be found to contain the true idea of philosophy ; but its occult meaning renders it unsatis- factory as a definition. The definition in this case must be defined. According to Epicurus, philosophy is an activity related to human happiness. The definition is practical, not philosophical. According to Diogenes Laertius, Pythagoras was the "first person who invented the term philosophy, and who called himself a philosopher." Dissat- isfied with the name loisdom, which had been applied to scientific and metaphysical pursuits, he originated the word philosophy to express the love of xdsdom, or a state of mind that delighted in philosophic speculation. The word, as thus used, is faulty in that it does not signify the kind of wisdom to be loved or pursued ; it may include a love of lower or higher truth ; if the former, it would be science ; if the latter, philosophy. As a word for the pursuit of the highest truth, it is wanting in explicitness ; still, as it has been baptized by so worthy a thinker as Pythagoras, it should retain its place in specu- lation, and signify the pursuit of the highest truth. What is the highest truth? This must be settled before the duty of pursuit can be enforced. The aim of philosophy has been to get back to first principles, without exactly knowing what they are, and without knowing the shortest route to their discovery. The struggle of every thinker since the days of Plato, the mental travail of every investigator, metaphysical and scientific, has been to penetrate PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY. 113 through the visible into the invisible. The universal faith that the limit of knowledge has not been reached stimulates every seeker to press on, in the hope that he may be able to open a new door into the infinite mysteries, and declare the last secret solved. The effort to reach original principles, powers, or personalities, to give them name, describe their form, analyze their nature, is stupendous in itself, and, when sincerely made, is heroic and deserving of applause. No easy task, it is confessed, is his who in this day takes up a prob- lem still unsolved, and which modern science has the effrontery to declare insoluble. True philosophy, embracing the fundamentals in the dark, sets its face pastward, depthward, and bidding good-bye to the visible, plunges into the invisible as the diver into the Arabian Sea, and is lost in the splendors of its own explorations. That there are first principles, or highest truths, must be con- ceded, for not only is philosophy impossible without such concession, but also the universe can neither be explained nor maintained with- out them. The idea of substratum, source, foundation, can not be repudiated without danger to whatever is ; belief in originals is not more the imperative of consciousness than the imperative of science. The existent has been produced by another existent, or it produced itself; from this alternative there is no escape. Self-existence, or caused existence — this is the final form of the philosophical problem, A cedar receiving collateral support from air, sunshine, moisture, is yet dependent upon soil, and can not flourish without it. An im- perfect scheme will content itself with an examination of the collat- eral supports or adjuncts of life, but a genuine philosophy seeks the basal elements, without which the collateral elements would be power- less. Neither the drapery of existence, nor the flourishing and mag- nificent material forms about us, nor the visible realities Avhich attract the eye, are the only or chief objects of philosophic inquiry ; but back of all these, back of all that is, are the sources, the images, the originating and manifesting forces. The uncovering of the founda- tions, the exposing of the olden mysteries, the compelling the First to answer the Second — this is the first, the last, interrogation of genuine philosophy. Plato more clearly than before declares the purpose of philosophy to be, "that it may ascend as far as the un- conditioned, and, having grasped this, may then lay hold of the principles next adjacent to it, and so go down to the end, termi- nating in forms." The unconditioned; the conditioned — these philos- ophy must interrogate and examine, and then report the results. If it be thought that the realm of philosophy is enlarged by this epitome of its purpose beyond the possibility of a thorough survey of all it contains or proposes, and that to restrict it to the sensible or phe- 114 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. nomeual will be iu keeping with the spirit of the age, we reply that we have neither assigned arbitrary boundaries to it, nor broken down old and existing limitations of former philosophic purposes. Philoso- phy itself, not the writer, establishes its own boundaries, expunges all horizons from the mental vision, and points to the illimitable as the theater of the mind's free activity, as the field of the inquiring spirit of man. In the days of Athenian splendor, its chief purpose was an exploration of the illimitable ; but nineteenth century philoso- phy has arrogantly erected barriers around the philosophic spirit, muttering, as to oceanic tides, "thus far and no farther." Beyond the sensible, the phenomenal, the explainable, the modern investigator proposes not even to attempt to go, and balustrades thought with rock and ocean and sky and nerves and molecules. In respect to boundaries, modern thought contrasts with the phi- losophy of Plato's day. The latter grasped the conception of the genesis of things, but could not actualize it in a philosophic form ; the former repudiates the idea of genesis in self-subsisting, original creative spirit, to which both consciousness and religion, both nature and history, most surely point. The Hellenic spirit was a pioneer ; the modern spirit is an heir to all the revelations of the history of humanity and the developments of religion. One preceded inquiry ; the other follows it. One fore-glimpsed the unknown God ; the other refuses recognition of the known God. One, beginning at the bottom, ascended for a moment the perilous heights of vision, only to fall back into darkness again ; the other, born near the summits, descends into abysses of doubt and shadow, reversing the order of the acade- micians. The one soared from the earth; the other has fallen from the heavens. Plato is the one ; Lucifer is the other. As to its realm, philosophy is quite independent of the philosopher, just as botany is quite independent of the botanist. His task is to explore the province as he finds it ; he can not construct boundaries, and define the frontier of his inquiry, for the field is the infinite. If he is narrow in conception it is because he has gone to the tops of the mountains, or planted himself in the stars, the outer courts of the invisible. What he must do is to approach the invisible Center of all things, inquiring for his steps in the fields of creation, and rising beyond all into the very presence of the power that made all. To that Center he must go, and from it he must start in his quest of truth. Neither ancient nor modern philosophy fixed their point of departure from the great Center — the one jjecause it could not, the other because it would not — nor has the objective point of the latter been the discovery of primary truth, or the foundation of existence. A strange perversion of philosophy, indeed, which neither starts from PURPOSE OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 115 nor returns to the first, the outlying, eternal Cause of all things! Yet to this philosophy must come if it retain its name and place in the esteem of mankind. The philosophic pursuit implies a specific purpose. Its general purpose must be absorbed by the special. Broadly speaking, the successive systems of philosophic inquiry, which both ancient and modern times have produced, may be interpreted as so many attempts of the human mind to unravel eternal mysteries, to explore incom- prehensible realities, and definitely to fix the limits of human knowl- edge. In a narrower sense, it appears as if philosophy has had, for its animating principle, the determination of the infinite, and a study of the exact relations of the infinite and the finite, together with the cognate questions they suggest. While seeking to examine the foun- dations of the universe, it covets also a knowledge of remotest being, or the ultimate facts of existence. This is tearing away the veil that separates the natural from the supernatural, and discovering the in- visible— a high undertaking, but not impious. From the days of Thales until now, philosophy has been characterized by a purpose to ascertain the unknown, exhibiting in its pursuit no trifling or chaotic spirit, but an intellectual zeal in harmony with the high end that in- spired it. Ancient philosophy sought only in darkness. Unaided and alone, it sallied forth in quest of truth, but failed to find it. Again, Plato says: "The problem of philosophy is, for all that exists conditionally, to find a ground unconditioned and absolute." Involved in this search of the unconditioned is a knowledge of the conditioned, implying a wide range of intellectual research, and a de- vout comprehension of the universe in all its manifold relations. Plato understood the problem, therefore. Among the Ionic philos- ophers the inquiry was of a similar nature, a seeking of the original cause of things ; but, locating the cause in the things themselves, they sunk into materialism. From Homer's theology of the gods as the originators of the universe, they turned with dissatisfaction, and, in a reactionary mood, attributed to the physical elements, fire, air, and water, certain creative powers and impulses, ending in their de- personification, thus exchanging mythological beings for visible forces, as the first causes of phenomena. Whether in this there was an ad- vance many may hesitate to allow ; but it was the death-knell of mythology as a philosophical or religious explanation of the physical universe, and rendered in this respect excellent service to the cause of truth. In this vibration from Platonic idealism to Ionic material- ism, the extremes of ancient philosophic research are manifest ; but modern philosophy swings between the same extremes, seemingly un- able to go beyond them. 116 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. Looking to conclusions alone, ancient philosophy asserts the un- conditioned, modern philosophy the conditioned ; in its highest mood the former was theistic, in its lowest mood the latter is atheistic. Between the theistic and the atheistic conception of the universe ; between a supernaturally-eaused and a self-originating universe, philosophy must at last decide, for the truth is in one or the other. To creation's picture there is a background, which is reflected in light and shadow upon the picture itself. The Causer is not in the fore- ground, but in the background, blushiug over his works, and suffus- ing them with the hues of his unseen face. To reveal the unseen Causer is the manifest duty of philosophy. It must fearlessly tread along the boundaries of creation, touching the edges of the infinite, and grasping the hand of the eternal ; this is its province, or it has nothing to do. Plainly is it seen that its functional career is above that of science. Pure science concerns itself with facts, laws, methods ; philosophy with causes and ends. Science is fact-seeking; philosophy, principle-seeking. The one deals with experience ; the other, with thought. Science embraces physiology, psychology, astronomy, chem- istry, botany, zoology ; philosophy inquires for the originating prin- ciple of all things. The province of the one is the visible ; that of the other, the invisible. Science may conclude that the First Cause is undiscoverable ; philosophy must discover such cause. In this assignment of specific business to philosophy, it will be observed that it trenches upon the sphere of theology, with this dif- ference, however: theology is the concretion of divine truths, as found in verbal revelations ; philosophy is the concretion of similar truths, as found in physical revelations. Between science and re- ligion it is the bridge. To science, the Causer is unknowable ; to philosophy, hioivable; to religion, known. Is it the prerogative of philosophy to doubt, and that of religion to believe? Pyrrho introduced the spirit of doubt in ancient philos- ophy, which was rather a contamination than an inspiration. His followers were called skeptics, and " ephetics," i. e., men who sus- pended judgment and never reached a conclusion. The spirit of doubt dominated at the introduction of modern philosophy, Bacon refusing to accept scientific data until he had investigated them, and Descartes refusing all philosophical principles until he had demon- strated them. Hume created the aphorism, "To doubt is the sum of knowledge." Hence, philosophy is branded as the doubter ; but it is a seeker, also. It doubts in order to seek. Doubt is the stim- ulus of investigation. Montaigne's skepticism was intended to be the inspiration of inquiry. The inspiring doubt of Bacon and Descartes has given place to the dead doubt of Spencer, Bain, and the whole THE INFINITE INCOGNIZABLE. 117 brood of empiricists and materialists. Under this load philosophy staggers. Jacobi, a "faith-philosopher," held that Spinozism, or a pantheistic conception of the universe, must be the issue of pure philosophizing; but it is clear that the result may be neither atheism nor pantheism, but theism. In examining the philosophical contests of the last three centuries, however, we must confess that philosophy has been unsuc- cessful in its attemps to vindicate the existence of an original Causer ; and, instead of rising to the religious height of the known, it has fallen down to the scientific level of the unknowable, and declares the Causer not only unknowable but unthinkable. Is the ultimate incognizable by philosophy? Its own melancholy answer, echoing through history, is that it can not decipher the all- mystery, it can not measure the infinite, its plumb-line is too short for the depths of being. Accepting this account of itself, it furnishes a strong argument for the necessity of a supernatural revelation of God, for if it is not in the power of the human mind to conceive of the original Causer, and announce him in his attributes, if man can not predetermine the existence of a Creator, either ignorance or revela- tion of a Creator must ensue. Relying upon itself, philosophy gravi- tates to ignorance, proclaiming the idea of a first cause speculative and beyond demonstration. From the declaration of an unknown and unknowable God, the step is a short one to the declaration that mind and matter are beyond the pale of knowledge. Such step it has already taken, in that it has declared that phenomena only may be known. It is a question, however, if it requires more mind to know things than phenomena, to know substance than qualities, to , know being than attributes, for there are no qualities without sub- stance, and no attributes without being. The 'problem of Plato tJie nineteenth centunj unhesitatingly declares can not be solved. In its latest aspects, philosophy seems incapable of any thing except to pull down the temple of truth on its own head. Making the unproven assumption that God, mind, and matter are unknowable, it has de- generated into a series of ignorant platitudes, as the apology for its imbecility, and wrestles no longer with the inquiry of the ancients. INIodern philosophy is the philosophy of ignorance, intellectual agnosti- cism, nineteenth century charlatanry. The hint of Shakespeare that matter presents a " false seeming," or it is not what it seems to be, has been converted into the dictum of philosophy, and all things, not excepting the first cause, have been clothed with masks. Kant, thundering opinions that have shaken more than one system from its pedestal, originated the philosophic aphorism that the " thing- in-itself," which is objective, can not be known, but only phenomena 118 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. and their relations may be known. Implying a noumenon, an objective somewhat, it is phenomenon only we can know ; it is the noumenon, however, we are most anxious to know. To limit knowledge to phe- nomena is to limit inquiry to superficial ends, and to paralyze the spirit of pursuit, for it is the somewhat, and not the manifestations thereof, the mind seeks to understand. The " thing-in-itself," how- ever, is only a captious phrase, or, as Prof. Bowne pronounces it, one of the " insanities of idealism." As if with a purpose to exceed Kant in absurd philosophizing, Reid announces that, not only are phenomena alone known, but also that they are known incompletely, and, of necessity, superficially. TJpham joins the philosophers in the general view of the incompetency of the human mind to penetrate the nature or understand the sub- stance of matter, for he says, "we are altogether ignorant of the sub- jective or real essence of matter ; our knowledge embraces merely its qualities or properties, and nothing more." Here the delusion of separateness between properties and substance, or belonging and be- ing, has outspoken representation. Herbert Spencer voices in clearest tones the creed of modern philosophy in the statement that hiowledge is relational, not absolute. Agreeing with predecessors and contemporaries that phenomena only are knowable, he imposes limitation on the knowledge of phenomena by reducing it to a cognition of relations. The real in matter and spirit is absolutely unknowable. This is modern philosophy — the philosophy of cultivated self-com- placent, self-atoning ignorance. The effort of three thousand years to open a pathway for the human mind toward the infinite results in the paralyzing conviction that fore-glimpses of God, except through meager manifestations, and these expressive only of relations, are im- possible. Forever closed to man's best gaze is the infinite. The ascertainment by any philosophical process, or a demonstration of the existence of a First Cause and an acquaintance with his attributes, is declared null and void by the moderns. To mankind, the colossal ultimate must be, if not a myth, a stupendous, unthinkable, unex- plainable mystery, to be forgotten as an empty abstraction, to be eliminated from human history, and no longer to constitute a force in religion. To this conclusion does the "guarded or qualified material- ism" of modern thinkers lead. To reverse this conclusion is the specific business of philosophy. The problem of ontology is its first problem, Avhich, once solved, pre- pares the way for the solution of all other problems. To refuse to grapple with the problem of the unconditioned is a sign of cowardice or imbecility ; to go forward is neither irreverence nor presumption. Just what the philosophic inquirer may finally discover by a persistent CONCEPTIONS OF THE UNCONDITIONED. 119 search after the infinite, whether he will find God or merely find proofs of God, it is too soon to determine ; no one can afiirm in ad- vance of discovery what will be discovered. It is a plunge into the unknown, with a faith that it will be less unknown, though not com- pletely known, after the plunge than before. "The oflSce of philos- ophy," says Mansel, "is not to give us a knowledge of the absolute nature of God, but to teach us to know ourselves and the limits of our faculties." This is a specific limitation ,of philosophic research into humanity, forbidding the higher inquiry into ontology. The " oflSce of philosophy" is to find out what it can both concerning God and man, and to restrict it to one is a very incomplete view of what ought to be done. It is a surrender of the question before a begin- ning has been made. A knowledge of God will lead to a knowledge of man ; a knowledge of man will be helpful to a knowledge of God ; they are reciprocal, not antagonistic. Moreover, the outside universe, or the conditioned world, is a testimony to the infinite ; what the tes- timony is, to what extent we can read 't and understand it, and whether a conception of the infinite based on natural revelations, the oldest in point of time, Avill be sufficient, or at least helpful, in a final conception of the infinite, must in its place and time have due consideration. The final conception of the unconditioned is, therefore, complex, partaking of a certain apriorism, or sense of the infinite, which is the product of the infinite itself, the testimony of human consciousness, and the testimony of the physical universe, a trinity of proofs result- ing in a unity of notion, or the abstract idea of an infinite and un- conditioned personality. Surely such glimmerings of the infinite the philosophic spirit may observe, and, observing, it may decide some things respecting the infinite. To know the infinite is to know God. Mansel, discriminating entirely too finely, says, "men may believe in an absolute and infinite without in any proper sense believing in God ;" but such a belief in an absolute is a pure abstraction. The idea of the infinite is the idea of God. It may be an incomplete idea, a superstitious idea, but it is a species of theism inseparable from the idea itself. When the thought seizes the notion of an absolute, it expands into a theistic conception, either by virtue of the idea itself or the tendency of the mind to go in that direction. A close analysis of the genesis of the idea of the infinite will bring to light the fact that the idea itself, lodged in mind, is self-expansive. It is not exactly the "God-consciousness" of Schleiermacher, but an a priori unfolding of the idea-divine in the mind, independently of mental process or rational deduction. This apriorism, or primaiy output of the infinite by its own spirit, is the legitimate demonstration of the existence of 120 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. the infinite, which philosophy is bound to regard. "The manifesta- tion of the Spirit is ^iven to every man to profit withal," says Paul. He is in the world, and always has been. He was in Socrates ; he is in the heathen. The universal search is for the infinite spirit, which, if found at all, must first be found, not in man, nor in nature, but outside of both, as inherent, complete, absolute, and as only the more maturely reflected by both. This a priori conception of God is extra- transcendental, but it i^ required by the philosophic spirit. God in man is one mode of manifestation; God in nature is another; but God manifest in spirit is the highest manifestation. To deal with the highest is the first duty. The spirit of the infinite is abroad and may be found. What the infinite is becomes a secondary question in phi- losophy, not unimportant, however; perhaps, in practical life, it is more important even than the first. It is enough, however, that philosophy may detect the infinite spirit, since the infinite is a self-acting, self-manifesting spirit. In- accessible he is in his own region, but not without manifestation in our sphere. The condition of spirit is activity; activity implies manifestation ; manifestation may be by direct methods, or indirect, that is, through the forms of consciousness, or the forms of matter. Of the scintillations of the infinite in human consciousness, or the reflection of God in man, the proofs are not wanting, they are not obscure. This reflection of the infinite we denominate a maturer re- flection than that of pure spirit, since it is within our reach, and susceptible of a partial analysis. The aprioristic proof of God is a sensible revelation of his spirit ; but it is not a full revelation of his character. This is the next demand. The testimony of the human consciousness to the existence of the infinite, is at the least assuring, and as to the character of God it speaks to some purpose. The origin of consciousness is not now in dispute ; its revelations alone concerns us. In the depths of human consciousness Cousin clearly foresaw the signs of the infinite, tracing them in those intuitional forms which constitute the frame-work of rational psychology. Reason, like the magnet, points in one direction only ; unerringly does it in- dicate the infinite. By reason, Cousin means the universal, untaught, primary race-consciousness of God which no degradation can smother and no ignorance annihilate. Descartes projecting the psychological method had an apt follower in Cousin, who emphasized the method beyond its author in the proof of the existence of God. The sub- stratum of thought is the infinite ; the foundations of conscious exist- ence are laid in the absolute. " In him we live ;" in us he lives also. The contents of the consciousness, or of reason may be embraced in at least three terms, which understood in their relations, may be A RELATED INFINITE. 121 finally reduced to a single term. Without education, without development, the deeply laid reason of man concedes, recognizes, and in its spontaneities operates with, the correlated ideas of the infinite and the finite, unity and multiplicity, causation and its consequence ; with the inevitable relation of one to the other ; and any apparent after- acquirement of these ideas is but the expansion of ideas original with the human consciousness. The condition of consciousness is the con- stant but unstudied recognition of finite and infinite, from which may be predicted the existence of both. A dependent pair of ideas is suggestive of the independent existence of the objective forms they represent. So the intuitional thought of finite and infinite is a proclamation of the existence of both in objective forms and relations. This much the consciousness affirms if it affirm any thing. How it affirms any thing is not involved in the investigation ; that it affirms the in- finite what is called the race-consciousness will allow. And in affirming the infinite, it immediately affirms it in relation which is a step toward the solution of character. Pure, unrelated spirit, manifesting itself by pressure only, may not be analyzed ; but pure related spirit, active and manifested in action, i. e., in relation, the mind may the more clearly discern, and to a degree comprehend. Hence, a related infinite is preferable to an unrelated infinite. An tmrelated infinite does not exist; it is an abstraction, and philosophy is unphiloscphical in so far as it confines itself to the unconditioned. The related infinite is a true philosophical infinite, which the rational spirit in man at once recognizes and worships. True, this is an an- thropomorphic infinite, an infinite constructed by the consciousness; this is the trend of intuitionalism, but it can not be avoided. Socrates drifted into anthropomorphism ; all rational, psychological, intuitional philosophy is carried over into a recognition of such an infinite. The only question is, is the infinite predicated by the reason, the true infinite? To this we reply that as there can not be two infinites, any infinite predicated on a ground that can account for itself must be the true infinite. A false infinite is never pred- icated by any thing. A true infinite only is foreshadowed, dimly it may be, but not uncertainly. Hence, an anthropomoi'phic infinite is as reliable as a spirit or a priori infinite, or any other manifested or unmanifested infinite. Prof. Bowne seriously questions the force of intuitionalism, so-called, in the realm of ontology. Styling innate ideas the "raw rudiments of consciousness," he makes vigorous war upon them in order to relieve intuitionalism from some of its absurd- ities ; but it is evident that in avoiding one extreme he has swung over to its opposite. In answering Mill's allusion to the innate ideas of children, he scorns the thought of making a babe a pope in 122 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. philosopliy ; but he at length accords to the " latencies" of conscious- ness which develop in the reflective mind the value of convictions respecting the infinite. The spontaneous consciousness is insignificant in its determination of the absolute; the reflective consciousness is voiceful of the infinite. In outcome, what is the difference between raw intuitionalism and the developed reason ? And if the developed reason intimates the infinite, the spontaneous reason must contain the intimation, just as the acorn contains the tree. The pope in phi- losophy is either a babe or a man ; in either case it is consciousness. Bowne is, therefore, an intuitionalist, vindicating the infinite from himself, an irresistible argument, put either in the old way, or the new. Mansel, examining the conditions of human consciousness, finds in it no absolutely clear adumbration of the infinite ; on the contrary, he sees in its conditions the contradictions of attributes which are allowed to belong to the infinite. This is a gun which in its recoil destroys the man that fires it. In an act of consciousness, one object is distinguished from another which implies limitation ; but limitation can not belong to the absolute. Again, consciousness implies relation between sub- ject and object ; but the absolute is unrelated. Again, consciousness implies succession and duration in time, or the finite ; but the infinite is not finite. Lastly, consciousness implies personality ; but person- ality implies limitation and relation ; hence, it can not represent the infinite. The weakness of this representation is two- fold : 1. Its implications of consciousness; 2. Its assumptions of the infinite. Initial or "raw" consciousness has but a single term, the infinite. From the single term emerges another term, the finite, and from both another, or re- lation. Relations, succession, limitations, are the products of the single term. The only idea in -the consciousness is God. All others are subordinate or correlated. Mansel, selecting the subordinate ideas of the consciousness, proceeds to demolish the structure of rational theology, thus aflfbrding aid and comfort to materialism. His assumptions respecting the infinite are even more glaring than his weak analysis of consciousness. To deny personality to the infinite is to leave us Hartmann's uncoiiscious deity, or no deity at all. To assert that the absolute is unrelated, is to assert what a finite mind can not know. To assert that the infinite is without any limitation whatever is equally a matter beyond human knowledge. Evidently, Hansel's infinite is not anthropomorphic ; it is not a rational, conscious, personal being. But this is drifting. God's found- ations are in man as man's foundation is in the dust ; a psychological in- finite is the demand of the reason, as a physiological finite is the demand A SUPRA-RATIONAL INFINITE. 123 of the senses. To deny to reason the power to apprehend the infinite from its own processes of thought, to deny to consciousness the power to index the absolute is to leave God without a witness of himself in his greatest work, and will require a theology on a basis entirely foreign to human instincts and human life. Such a theology the human race has not as yet demanded. Mansel asserts that "we have no immediate intuitions of the di- vine attributes, even as phenomena ; " but this is straining the case beyond warrant. No intuitioualist claims that through the conscious- ness alone a knowledge of the divine attributes, taken singly, is possible ; all that he claims is a satisfactory assurance of the existence of an absolute being, whose attributes are vaguely inferred by subse- quent acts of the reflective reason. In the subsequent work of attri- bute-building there may be mistakes, but in the original conception of the Absolute there is no mistake. Discovery of the infinite pre- cedes description. Theology, revelation, psychology, may be nec- essary to the latter; apriorism and consciousness are necessary to the former. Sir William Hamilton,' pi'ior to Mansel, going over the same ground, characterized the anthropomorphic infinite as a mere abstrac- tion, and rejected its identity with the true infinite. Breaking loose from rational testimony, he constructs an infinite, unconditioned, un- related, unknowable, unthinkable. His conclusion is logical. To posit a rational infinite, or an unthinkable infinite, or no infinite at all, is the only alternative. An irrational infinite is inconceivable; a supra-rational infinite is possible, but it is unthinkable, because above reason. Hamilton, unrestrained in imagination, exalts the unthink- able infinite, and Mansel echoes the baneful philosophy. In these flights to supra-rationalism the ordinary methods of rea- soning have been abandoned, and necessarily so. The psychological method, so instrumental in the hands of Cousin, is opposed to supra- rationalism ; the empirical method, in the hands of the associational- ists, only leads to an irrational infinite, or no infinite at all ; the theological method conducts to a rational infinite ; but the supra- rational method leads to a supra-rational infinite, in which man can have no practical or permanent interest. The answer to supra-rationalism is the consciousness itself, the contents of which, having been analyzed, need not be repeated. The remaining item in our conception of the infinite is the testi- mony of the physical universe, which not only encourages belief in the divine existence, but also reflects somewhat of the divine charac- ter, two points necessary to a comprehensive understanding of the in- finite. The fact of God is of primary importance. Does the natural 124 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. world re-declare him with the emphasis that attends the declaration of the human consciousness? Clearly, the answer turns upon the meaning philosophy gives to the natural world. If, as Mill suggested, the outer world is only a projection of subjective elements, an argu- ment from it is of the nature of that drawn from the consciousness, and is a reinforcement. If, as Berkeley insisted, matter does not exist, no argument is possible from that quarter. If, as Fitche held, the non-ego is a limitation of the ego, or a part of the ego, then in- deed a divine argument emerges, but at the expense of the idea of absolute and independent personality. If, as Descartes taught, the subject and object, or mind and matter, are entirely distinct, Avith no impulse to interaction, then it is possible to frame an argument from each which shall join in the general conclusion. If the implicit teaching of materialists that the universe is eternal be correct, then the question of an infinite God is open for discussion. If the im- plicit faith of humanity that the objective is the result of creation be well-founded, then an argument for a Creator is irresistible. From these and other standpoints nature may be viewed in its re- lation to the problem of the infinite, adding its testimony to the com- mon faith, or bewildering, and possibly overthrowing it. All idealistic views aside, the conflict in the testimony springs from the empirical conception of the universe as infinite or eternal, in contrast with the rational conception that it is finite, and, therefore, a product of the infinite. Between these reason must decide. Revelation apart, the reason must spell the infinite in the characters of the finite ; or, de- nying the finite, accept the pantheistic conception of the unity of God and the universe — a conception which, failing to distinguish one from the other, virtually destroys both. The "eternity of matter" is in conflict with the eternity of God. In an apologetic spirit, Leib- nitz leaned toward the materialistic assumption of an eternal universe, yet so as not to compromise the idea of the absolute infinity of God. This he did by distinguishing between a relative infinity, as applied to the universe, and an absolute infinity, as applied to God ; but the thought of two kinds of infinity is not rational. If a relative infinity is less than infinite, it is not infinity at all ; if equal to it, it is divine. One or other it is. Some there are who say space is infinite and time eternal, meaning a relative infinity as applied to one, and a relative eternity as applied to the other ; but the language is used in an ac- commodated sense to express incomputable vastness, and practically limitless duration. The philosopher, however, rarely speaks in an accommodated sense. His business is with absolute truth, which will not admit an easy, or elastic phi-aseology. A relative infinity is suggestive of a relative infinite, from which the mind recoils. The PRIMARY QUESTIONS. 125 suspicion that the universe is in any sense infinite or eternal is a compromise of the basal idea of the infinity and eternity of God. Hamilton struggled with the alternative of an infinite non-com- mencement or an absolute commencement of the universe, deciding that it is impossible to conceive of either, and yet that he must believe in the latter. This is only one of a number of paralogisms for which that philosopher is so eminently noted. If both are incon- ceivable, then the universe is inconceivable ; but, as the universe is conceivable, an absolute commencement is conceivable, since an in- finite non-commencement is in itself absurd. But absolute commence- ment is the logical basis of the common faith in a Creator. Thus, from the alternative of Hamilton emerges a theistic conclusion as satisfactory as theology would require; and though he phrases the unconditioned and absolute as inconceivable, he yet demands faith in it, as he finally does in a finite universe. This is the testimony of the universe: it is finite, it reflects the infinite; it had a beginning, it reflects the eternal; it is conditioned, it reflects the unconditioned. Beyond such testimony we need not go. As to its revelations of the infinite God, in his character, government, and purposes, this is not the place for a free estimate ; in subsequent pages the divine character will be exhibited, as it is revealed. The primary question of philosojihy relates to the possibility of a knowledge of the existence of God by the reason. Evidently, such knowledge may be attained in this way. Employing a priori con- victions, the sentiments of the consciousness, and the testimony of the universe, the reason is able to satisfy itself as to the existence of a divine being; and this justifies the philosophic attempt at in- vestigation. Philosophy has a mission, since God is cognizable by the reason. The philosopher's occupation is not ended ; it is but begun. Nor is the problem of the infinite the only problem of philosophy. Man is a stupendous mystery, and asks for self-explanation. God interpreted, the interpretation of man must follow ; hence, God and man are one in the solution. Still, secondary as man is, he is war- ranted in making an independent self-examination, in order the more completely to understand God in his relations to man. A knowledge of being ; a knowledge of soul ; a knowledge of relations ; enter into the final conception of man. The history of humanity is as impera- tive as the history o^ the idea of God, for the human idea is as patent in civilization and history as the divine. Ignoring not the higher, it is incumbent on the philosopher carefully to inquire into the lower, and beginning with God to terminate in man, or begin- ning with man to terminate in God, linking the two into unity. The necessity for a searching self-examination or a studv of the 126 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. contents of human history, grows chiefly out of recent philosophic interpretations of man, both as respects his physical origin and physical character. The old question, "What is man?" is as philosophical as it is Scriptural, to be answered philosophically as well as Scripturally. Evolutionists like Hackel and Silencer pronounce man's appearance to be the result of the animal development in the world; and psycholo- gists like Alexander Bain, abrogating the essential diiference between matter and spirit, declare mental action to be the result of physical orgauization, and the mind, therefore, to be a refined form of matter. The common faith respecting man's creation and the immortality of the soul is iu direct conflict with evolution as expressed or formulated and with psychology as perverted in the interest of materialism. The conflict is fundamental. It involves character, destiny; involving character, it involves God ; involving destiny, it involves the highest self-iuterest. Hence, philosophy in its secondary work becomes phys- iological and psychological, as in its first work it is eminently theolog- ical. Nor can it suspend its task until, sinking lower, and yet rationally, it undertakes to estimate the visible or phenomenal world, interpreting it in its essence and in its relations to being. A lower task, but parallel in one sense with tlie higher, for the solution of the non-ego will materially aid in the understanding of the ego, as the solution of the ego will certainly result in a comprehension of the non-ego. In a previous paragraph it is hinted that philosophy tends sometimes to pantheism, or Spiuozism, or Eleaticism, or subjective idealism, either to an amalgamation of the finite and infinite, or a total denial of the finite, all of which is subversive of true knowl- edge. As in the case of man, the universe must have a separate and independent treatment, or confusion will follow in the human understanding respecting things that otherwise might be partially understood. Conceding separate treatment, which is conceding separate reality to nature, we confront certain philosophic theories respecting our knowledge of nature that destroys the value not only of separate treatment but also of any treatment at all of nature. For example : Hamilton precipitates his doctrine of the relatvoity of hioxvledge, con- fining inquiry to mere relations, or phenomena in their relations, and forbidding any scrutiny back of forms or qualities. This is a block- ade to intelligent inquiry, comi)elling it to cease at the very point where it is anxious to press for answer. Superior to Hamilton in defining the limitations of knowledge, Kant declares the phenome- nal alone knowable, shrouding the " thing-in-itself," or essence of matter, with the blackness of mystery, and inculpating the intellect with an inability to penetrate beyond the visible. This is in conflict THE PROVINCE OF PHILOSOPHY. 127 with the Christian conception of nature and with a true theory of knowledge, both of which will be stated and enforced at the proper time. In its interpretation of the universe philosophy descends into geology for facts, and roams over psychology for principles. Thus is it a scientific seeker, or philosophy with a scientific spirit. Philosophy in its search for the unconditioned is strictly theologi- cal ; in its study of man it is semi-scientific ; in its estimate of the universe it is wholly scientific. It embraces all knowledge, outside of Revela- tion, and is itself a continual revelation of truth, combining the study of God, mind, and matter, as neither theology nor science, if corn- fined to their specific tasks, can do. What is the province of philosophy? Is it to dwell in caves, lit up by the feeble torchlights of the senses ? or is it to seek the trans- figured heights of truth, and, discovering the long-lost and long- sought knowledge, pilot the race through the avenues of darkness to the jeweled throne of God ? The province of philosophy, as apprehended by philosophers themselves, as sketched in these pages, is the discovery or declara- tion of the uncaused personality in the universe, as the cause of all actuality, of the phenomenal world. This is its first duty. Per- sonality, not law ; being, not manifestation ; substance, not qualities ; God, not atomic principles ; it must seek to understand and proclaim. Philosophy must not discrown God. The province of philosophy is to understand man chiefly as a mind-being. Psychology and physiology, if twins, are not Siamese twins ; they are not a unit ; they cling not together ; they perish not together. The distinction between mind and matter must be clearly drawn, and man must be ennobled, not degraded, by self-knowledge. Philosophy must not discrown man. The province of philosophy is to comprehend the universe. This it is essaying to do, but its failure is manifest. Philosophy must be emancipated from the fiction that the universe is a self-creating, self- preserving, self-executing mechanism. Nor in the emancipation will it swing to a pantheistic conception of the universe, an equally dan- gerous fiction, as it confuses personality with universality. Philoso- phy, linking the phenomenal to its chariot, as the conquering Roman generals did their prisoners, may ride around the world amid the plaudits of the multitudes ; but, clinging like Stephen to the divine throne, it may ascend amid a mob of stones into the presence of God. The initial fact of philosophy is — Nature. The intermediate term of philosophy is — Man. The ultimate word of philosophy is — God. 128 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. CHAPTER IV. NATURE ; OR AN E^CEGESIS OK IVIATTER. SO absorbed with rational inquiry and moral speculation was Socrates that he formed no acquaintance with nature ; he never addressed her in any form, and she never impressed him, notwith- standing her beauty and power. From the trees, the rocks, the fields, he learned nothing, but drifted into an idealistic conception of things that extinguished all interest in them. How far the absence of cor- dial sympathy with the physical world is a disqualification for philo- sophic insight into its contents may not be pointed out, but if one would exhaustively contemplate phenomenal appearances and ac- tivities, one must be en rappoH with the phenomenal spirit, or the essence of things. Sir Walter Scott loved the trees; Cromwell was at home in the fields ; Audubon drew the birds to his hand ; Hugh Miller traced in the rocks the hand-marks of an unseen power ; and David shouted, " The heavens declare the glory of God." Rousseau was a worshiper of the material universe, and Hiickel proposes the religion of nature as a substitute for Christianity. The philosophic indifference of Socrates and the philosophic devotion of Hiickel are extremes to be avoided, for nature, as the arcanum of truth, should be studied, probed, questioned, and yet not be regarded as supreme, since both philosophy and religion agree that its existence is a muta- tion, and its final fate a dissolution. Nature is possessed of charms that poets have embalmed in verse ; laws that scientists have framed in words ; relationships that naturalists have reduced to systems ; in- teractions, homologies and adaptations that have excited the admira- tion of observers ; moral hints and suggestions that theologians have eagerly turned to account ; evidences of superintending power that atheists have not overthrown ; and exhibitions of divine wisdom that should thrill alike the inquirer and believer. Wide is the field of nature ; hidden are some of its forces ; oc- cult is its ultimate purpose ; problematical is its destiny ; and difficult is the task of searching and finding the spirit that dwells in it. Such a task philosophy imposes, such a task the philosopher must assume. That diflSculties lie before the investigator of nature is self-evident ; that a satisfactory conclusion touching all points involved in the in- vestigation should not be expected in our present state of knowledge concerning matter, all must agree. INTERPRETA TIONS OF NA TURE. 1 29 To be comprehensive, one's study of nature should embrace three points of view: viz., the common representation, the philosophic in- terpretation, and the religious conception, each being distinct in itself but taken together affording a progressive and complete idea of the physical universe. By the common representation is meant the uneducated, universal view of the race which, gross in some particulars, and superstitious in others, has in it certain traditional elements of truth upon which the race has acted with singular uniformity from the beginning. The practical sagacity of mankind, never rising to the height of a critical or close observation, and never going behind what it sees, hears, and touches, has led to the discovery of specific facts and principles in the economy of nature which have been applied to agriculture, nav- igation, architecture, and the general sphere of man's civil and social life, to his advantage and development. In other words, nature has been made tributary to the race's history and happiness. The appropriation of nature's laws, facts, and forms in man's history has been superficial since man himself has been slow to inquire, discover, adapt, and employ the resources of nature. However, out of the crude and artless utilization of nature in the civilization of the world have issued a knowledge of nature, and a purpose to find out more than is now known. To interpret nature according to a religious creed, or in the re- ligious spirit, is the specific enterprise of those charged with the defense and propagation of Christian doctrine ; but philosophy itself can not proceed by entirely ignoring the Biblical exegesis, or even the crude conceptions of the unlettered multitude. The philosophic interpretation will appear to better advatage as its relations to the common and the Christian couceptions are conceded ; but for the purposes of this chapter it may be considered apart from both. As a preparation for a philosophic understanding of nature, we oblige ourselves to consider it in its wholeness, and not in its parts, only as they shall serve to illustrate the fundamental principles at issue. The law of analysis binds us to a descent from the universal to the particular, or, holding us to the universal conception of na- ture, permits its application to the individualizations of that concep- tion in the concrete forms of matter. As painting may be studied in its abstract principles, and no particular product of an artist be under inspection ; as music and oratory may be historically contemplated without regard to particular compositions — so nature may be viewed in its entirety without a minute analysis of any particular form of it. The topaz is not the open door into the mineral kingdom ; the gera- nium is not the sponsor for the vegetable world; the mastodon, the 9 130 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. lynx, the eagle, or the horse represents not the animal kingdom ; that is, the part is not the key to the whole, but the v/hole is the key to all the parts. From the height of the whole the interactions, the relations, and the individuality of the parts may be detected, ex- pressed, and understood. From this view it is easy to see that what will explain one world will explain the universe, and what will interpret the earth will in- terpret all that is upon it. What will account for the ocean will account for every drop in it. If we can not account for the whole, we can not account for the parts. The whole includes the parts. Out of the reduction of many views to one, and from this gaze in the beginning at the universal instead of the particular, arises the sus- picion that nature is one, and is to be philosophically interpreted from the standpoint of unity. The conclusion of a unity in nature is not new to the religious mind, for it is a Biblical doctrine, but philosophy has slowly advanced toward it, and is now compelled to embrace it. Plato was on the right track when he said, "The end of all philoso- phy is the intuition of unity," but his was a unity of cause rather than a unity of effect — a unity of the infinite intelligence rather than a unity of the manifested universe. Both conceptions — the unity of God and the unity of nature — are legitimate philosoj^hic deductions, with only the latter of which we are at present concerned. Worshipers of the idea of the unity of nature are not confined to theologians ; the most eminent scientists and philosophers bow down before it, as they are affected by the religious spirit, or as pure science compels its acknowledgment, or as they discover that it ap- parently contributes to the support of their particular hypothesis. Whatever the motive, the unity of nature is now accepted by all classes of thinkers as a demonstrated fact. Hackel is very loud in its praise, but with evident purpose to rob nature of a teleological au- thorship, and to honor it as a self-made product. Humboldt was firmly persuaded that " one indissoluble chain of affinity binds together all nature." Sir W. R. Grove refers the causation of all " material affections," such as light, heat, electricity, magnetism, and motion to "one omnipresent influence;" while Hume admits that "one design prevails throughout the whole " universe, and that all things in it are " evidently of a piece." Linnffius urged that the animal world sprang from a single pair, and that the spirit of oneness is in nature. Her- mann Lotze intimates that the essence of " things" is unity; hence the essence of nature is the spirit of unity that pervades it. Without qualifying the opinions of the scientists and philosophers, or attempting to separate the true from the false, it is clear that the conviction that nature is, in an extraordinary sense, a unit, is univer- SIMPLICITY OF MATTER. 131 sal. Materialists, evolutionists, associationalists, psychologists, physiol- ogists, naturalists, have at last surrendered to the Biblical conception of the unity of the universe. The scientific dogma of unity may be expressed in phrases different from the form of the Biblical dogma, but the two agree in one. The basis of the former is scientific dem- onstration ; the basis of the latter is revealed truth. In what the unity consists — whether of substance, form, origin, use, or destiny — is a primary question ; but it is gratifying that the scientific dogma and the Biblical representation are almost identical on all these points. Whatever difference exists is incidental. Respecting the substance of matter, it has been demonstrated that the same gross constituents enter the composition of all planetary bodies, and that matter is, so far as determined, the same everywhere. By means of the spectroscope it has been ascertained that the sun and the earth are composed of the same materials, from which it is in- ferred that the planetary bodies constitute a brotherhood, bearing the same image, made in the same way, and appointed to the same des- tiny. The unity of substance is therefore the first declaration of the scientific dogma establishing the unity of the authorship of the phys- ical universe. Quite as expository of the scientific dogma is the admitted fact of the simplicity of matter, by which is meant that nature is a com- pound reducible in the last analysis to a few essential elements. The chemist is bold enough to announce that at the most there are not more than seventy elements that compose the earth, but of these only thirteen are prominent, or used freely in the forms and combinations of nature. Of the thirteen elements, only three or four, namely, oxygen, carbon, silicon, and nitrogen, are universally active, and of these oxygen constitutes about one-half. Professor Huxley reduces every material substance to water, ammonia, and carbonic acid, but this is a complex reduction, susceptible to a more minute subdivision. Oxygen is the great world-builder — a single element. Back of oxygen, however, it may finally be possible to go, for as a simple element, it may be ascertained to be compound ; and so of all other so-called simple elements. Under a more incisive and penetrating analy- sis, the simple may appear compound and the compound simple, until, going back to the final limit, all matter may be reduced to one ele- ment, of which the others are but diversified manifestations. In the immature stages of Physics voltaic electricity, thermo-electricity, and animal electricity were designated as different hinds of electricity, but electricity is a unit divisible into these diflferent forms. So the sev- enty elements may be the metamorphosis of one element. Indeed, Dr. Prout, attributing a certain numerical value to chemical substances, 132 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. which he called the atomic weight of the substance, found in nearly- all cases that it was an exact multiple of the atomic weight of hydro- gen, and was disposed, therefore, to regard hydrogen as unity, or tJie stariing-point of the material universe. To be sure, oxygen or carbon, or any other element, might be taken as the unit of weight, but in such a case it would be arbitrary, whereas hydrogen appears like naJture^ own unit, and chemists generally now recognize it as the standard of atomic measurement. This system of weights or values has been assailed, but it is remarkable that it has not been overthrown. With slight variations in the system to meet certain exceptions, it may be used to prove that all substances are but multiples or mani- festations of primary substances, or a single original element, leading back to a unit never before dreamed of in philosophy. Thales traced all things to water ; but modern chemistry traces the atomic unit to hydrogen. If the worlds are but multiples of the atomic unit, how simple the whole universe, and what a demonstration of its unity ! The diversity of nature-forms in no sense stands in the way of, or qualifies the objective oneness of, world-life, for, given the single ele- ment, it is possible to explain all nature from it. An endless num- ber of forms do not perplex any more than a limited number. Three thousand stars do not introduce any more new problems than a single orb ; the explanation of one is the explanation of all. We are not, then, at the mercy of diversity ; it has its explanation. Vast is the animal kingdom, including more than twenty thousand species, and yet the whole is comprehended in the usual zoological system, which divides them into Vertebi-ata, Articulata, Mollusca, and Kadiata, four great divisions, suggestive of the four elements which prominently appear in the inorganic world ; and, as the four elements have been reduced to an atomic unit, so the four zoological branches may be reduced to a single beginning. This is, indeed, the theory of " descent," a contribution to the doctrine of the world's unity, but warped in the -support of a materialistic hypothesis of the world's origin and development. Scientists have been troubled not a little over the subject of species, Linnseus insisting that the animal kingdom originated from a single pair, while nearly all the later scientists have consented to a limited number of fixed types or original species in the beginning. Even granting that the theory of Linnseus is unacceptable, the doctrine of fixed types is sufficiently efficient in its support of the doctrine of unity. Moreover, from the homological principle which seems to pervade the animal kingdom, a singularly striking proof of the scientific dogma of unity may be obtained. Zoologists agree that there is a correspondence, not, perhaps, complete, but sufficiently close to be FALSE IDEAS OF NATURE. 133 observable, among the vertebrates in the general construction of their organs and the arrangement of their parts, pointing to a general plan in their history and development. For instance, the hands and feet of a man, the paAvs of a lion, the feet of a horse, and the fins of a whale, are homologous, demonstrating a common idea, and really es- tablishing an animalic relationship. The parallelism is by no means incidental ; its prominence in nature materialists employ as the proof of the unity of the world, or that one general idea pervades the one kingdom. Accepting the scientific discovery of the homological principle, it furnishes irresistible proof of the philosophic and theistic notion of a world-wide unity, centering in a common divine authorship. In like manner the vegetable world may be divided and subdi- vided, and, under the homological principle, reduced to a single plan, and possibly to a single element. The inorganic world likewise sub- mits to a similar reduction, pointing unmistakably to one plan and to one source. Evidently, science is pushing back toward the fewest ele- ments in the process of world-building, and is priding itself on the discov- ery of the law of atomic unity in nature, grounding all its forms into multiples of a unit, invested with the capabilities of a manifold life. Philosophy may readily embrace the doctrine of unity when so thoroughly supported by facts; yet, if Hilckel's view of nature be sustained, namely, that it is a physico-chemical process, without a personal author, and that it is a history of false suggestions, then de- ductions are unreliable ; but, on the whole, science gravitates to the view of the unity of nature in the sense explained. Hiickel applies the word " cenogeny " to nature, meaning by it a " history of falsifi- cations," as if nature were untrue to itself or its own laws ; but this is in the interest of the grossest materialism. The scientific presenta- tion of the hypothesis of unity is not always what a philosopher may approve, and the philosophic elaboration of a scientific fact may be repugnant to a true or theistic conception of unity ; nevertheless, the idea of unity is congenial to science, philosophy, and religion. Planck undertakes to solve the unity of nature by a principle of " inner concentration," which is impulsive enough to reach out in all directions, producing in its activity the great and the small, and man as well as the insect. Just what the principle is, beyond its ideal character, it is a little difficult to gather, but, rationalizing it into a practical force, he attributes to it more than it actually possesses. St. George Mivart hints of an innate force, or internal powers, but his is a scientific utterance, while Planck's is a metaphysical illusion that really accounts for nothing. Its break-down is in its application to man, who, instead of being the product of an inner impulse of nature, is verily the image of a power outside of nature. The attempt 134 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. of Planck, however inconclusive and unsatisfactory, is yet in harmony with the general idea; it presupposes that idea, and undertakes its solution. That mystical religious teacher, Swedeuborg, was charmed with the scientific idea of unity, but went entirely beyond the limits of science for an explanation, and so his theory has suffered the usual fate of such adventures. Reduced to an aphoristic form, "nature is always self-similar." This is another phrase for the homology of na- ture extended to plants as well as animals. In the botanical realm the plant proceeds from leaf to leaf, ascending to something higher, but always carrying the mark of the lower ; it is a process of repetition as the condition of enlargement. The great is the repetition of the small. In the animal kingdom the same law has constant illustra- tion, as in vertebrates, beginning with the spine, hands, feet, and spines multiply, and at last man emerges. Man is a spine ! Nature is an ascending scale of unities and homologies, or a series of repeti- tions and enlargements, working along a line of anticipations of some- thing higher, a foreshadowing of evolution, mystically, rather than scientifically, presented. Concentrating his thought upon the doctrine of unity, Swedenborg surmised that each unity, so to speak, is a compound of unities, the simple is the sign of the complex, as the unity of the heart is made up of the unities of small hearts, and the unity of the eye consists of the unities of small eyes. A rational scientific order proceeds from the complex to the simple, but Swedenborg's mystical order ascends from the simple to the complex, rising from the finite to the infinite ; but it is confusing, because it is not transparent. Besides, its scientific accuracy may well be doubted. The eye is not a com- bination of eyes ; the hand is not a combination of hands ; a leaf is not a combination of leaves.- At least the scientific proof is wanting. Notwithstanding the mystical idea of Swedenborg is mythical, and the theory of unity within unities is untenable, he held to the primary thought of wholeness in nature that pointed to a single governmental administration, having all power and all wisdom, and therefore suf- ficient for all things. Ge^ethe speculated with rare philosophical ingenuity on nature, discerning in it a unity based on the correlation of its parts, and sug- gesting the latter-day doctrine of the correlation of forces. Emerson's statement that "he has said the best things about nature that ever were said," we can not accept . fully, for he has denied some of the most patent scientific principles or facts, as the prismatic colors. Concerning unity, the leaf, in his judgment, is the key to the botanical kingdom, and the spine to the vertebrates; that is, the leaf is the / SCIENTIFIC CONCLUSIONS. 135 unit in the one kingdom, and the spine the unit in the other. He affirms that the plant is a transformed leaf, and that the leaf may be converted into any organ of the plant, and any organ of a plant may be converted into a leaf. As clearly does he declare that the head is the spine transformed, and it would follow that the head might be converted into spines, or a spine into any organ of the head. This theory of " transformation" implies an involved relationship that bor- ders closely on the chemical idea of correlation, as motion is a form of heat, and heat a form of motion. It is a question if Goethe's idea, rescued from a scientific form, will not appear more speculative than practical or real, and if he did not borrow a little hallucination from Swedenborg. Even if the doctrine of correlation of forces has an in- disputable basis in fact, it may not be true as applied to the organs of plants, or the forms of matter, that is, the products of these forces. The homology of organs does not imply the convertibility of organs into one another. A leaf may be the figure of a tree in the mind's eye, but it is not clear that the tree is a transformed leaf. Goethe looked at nature, not in its wholeness, but in its parts, and proceeded in his theorizing from the particular to the universal, a mistaken order, resulting in a mistaken interpretation of nature. Like all other theo- ries, however, it confirms the doctrine of unity in nature, which is the chief point under consideration. Humboldt, prying into the deep secrets of the Avorld as if they must throw ofl^ their disguises in his presence, imbibed as a founda- tion-idea of his cosmical beliefs the conception of a world-wide unity, which was the inspiration of all his discoveries and the root of all his labors. In him the conviction was profound that throughout nature one plan prevails by which order and development can be explained, and which had behind it the principle of an efficient and final causation. Swedenborg is mystical ; Goethe, speculative ; Hum- boldt is rigidly scientific, and therefore the most accurate and "the most conclusive. ^ The option of the student is that, while accepting unity as a scientific and philosophic doctrine, he may choose the materialistic solution of the doctrine as enunciated by Hiickel, the mystical as avowed by Swedenborg, the correlative as proclaimed by Goethe, or the scientific as clearly presented by Humboldt. The trend of science, speculation, and philosophy ig tmyard the doctrine of "unity VILIL^^"^?- Excej,it the most deformed and irrational pessimisms, all science, all philosophy, all religions, _all materialisms, unite in pro- cMndng the regnancy of an absolute monisUc ^yinciph in the realm of nature. On any other hypothesis science "is impossible, and along this line of accepted doctrine there is the possibility of reconciliation 136 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. between systems hitherto roughly antagonistic and productive of dis- cord in circles that ought to agree. The first right view of nature, then, is that which so many divergent systems of thinking combine in maintaining, namely, the unity of the physical world. Agreeing to the doctrine of unity, the problem of the origin of nature, which now introduces itself, is somewhat simplified, for, if there are two or more kinds of matter, one origin might be insuffi- cient to account for them. As it is, in the solution of the origin of an atom of matter, or the discovery of a physiological or initial unit, lies the solution of the universe, and, conversely, the solution of the universe involves the solution of all that it contains. In its search after solutions the reason is confined to one of three theories, all of which have been ably expounded, but only one of which can be entertained as true. (a). The theory of the pre-existence Qf matter which the Stoics espoused and which does not require personal agency to account for it. Personal agency may be necessary to the organization of matter into forms, but by this theory divine intervention in the institution of matter is eliminated. Seneca taught that God organized matter, but did not create it. Anaxagoros said * ' all things had been pro- duced at the same time, and then intellect had come and arranged them all in order." Intellect is an organizer, but not a creator. (6). The theory that matter created itself. This is absurd, but recent scientistsTiave held that the world organized itself Avithout divine agency. Even Kant conceded that while God created matter and endowed it with laws, the universe developed without his personal supervision. Seneca and Kant occupy opposite grounds. Cicero\ conclusively disposes of the theory of a self-made universe by re- marking that it is as sensible to suppose the Iliad was written by shaking letters in a bag as to suppose that the universe made itself.^ (c). The theorv of the divine creatiojL-oLjnatter, This solves every difficulty and in itself is the most rational conception of the origin of the universe. Given an intelligent Creator, and the end is reached, the dilemma is solved. Middle ground is impossible here. Between a self-made and a created universe there is no room even for thought. By its very constitution the mind demands not only a cause for every thing, but the cause must be sufficient to produce the effect. The Greeks fancied that every tree had its Dryad, which inspired it with life and died with the tree. The Dryad is repre- sented as a cause, but it is not a sufficient cause. The mind refuses to be satisfied with inadequate causes, even though they are causes and come to us in stately forms and are dressed in philosophic beauty. The cause must not only be a cause, but it must be adequate. Atom- UNSATISFACTORY THEORIES. 137 ism is inadequate, for the atomist is unable to account for the atom. Atomism explains nothing; the most that it does is to remove the problem so far back that the mind loses sight of it, but vagueness is not solution. In the present stage of scientific research mystery im- pends over all problems, but it is incumbent on the scientist to avoid absurdities, contradictions, and false shows, and either suspend judg- ment until all the facts are obtained, or provisionally accept that theory which contains the fewest antinomies, and is freest from inter- nal difficulties. Reference to the mechanicaJLlIiaory of the world is unsatisfactory, for it deals with a developing world, or one in process of organic structure from pre-existing substances and by virtue of pre-existing forces and laws, and goes not back to primary or original sources. Reaching secondary causes it labels them primary, but the deception is apparent. Even should it contract the universe into a single atom, with a potentiality equal to the production of the universe, it is in- cumbent that it show where and how the first atom originated and whence it derived its sovereign vitality. What Avas the first throb of power that resulted in a potential atom, an atom that had a world or system of worlds rolled up in its invisible boundaries? Mechanical philosophy stares wildly as it searches for the beginning of the atomic movement. Musa3us, an Athenian, taught that "all things originated in one thing and when dissolved returned to the same thing ; " but the one thing, as source of all things, he does not name or describe, and had he described it, its origin had still been a problem. Simplification of a problem is desirable, but it is not equivalent to a solution. Germs, physiological units, protoplasm, atoms, cells, eggs, — these do not contain the whole truth, the omitted portion being more important than what is declared. Atomism, monism, mechanism, words these that vindi- cate the doctrine of unity, but the origin of unity, the origin of atoms, cells, eggs, still remains unanswered. The nebular hypothesis if true may explain the origin of planets but not the origin of matter ; that is, mechanical theories may be useful in determining the origin of the forms of matter without giving the least hint of the origin of matter. Bet\veen substance and form, or the spirit and body of matter, the difference is as great aFnEEaf between memory and the brain. Once insure the existence of formless matter and its subsequent formal assertion follows. In' this connection Kant perpetrates the following: "Give me matter, and I wiirexplaiu Lire formation of a world ; but give me matter only, and I can not explain the formation of a caterpillar." Form-' less matter is the prophecy of formal matter only because a Former 138 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. exists and superintends the form. First the Former, second formless matter, third formal matter ; these steps are philosophical because necessary and rational. Spinoza accords to matter three potencies, gravity, light, and organization, but these are the potencies of law, for the ' organizing process is quite as much a legal procedure as the reign of gravity in nature. In no sense are these self-endowed potencies, but on the contrary, they are the expression of an intelligent supervision of the nature-world, by which it is perpetuated and con- trolled. Organization, or form, is the manner in which substance chooses to express itself; it is the way in which substance behaves. Original or formless matter, the "world-stuff," may have been inde- pendent of government ; if so, its only law was inertia ; it existed with scarcely a property ; it was potential, not actual ; but in process of time the organizing spirit being imparted to it, it took permanent shape through the avenues of gravitation, chemical affinity, crystal- lization, and by means of the entire catalogue of nature's laws. By this change from the formless to the formal, matter advanced to a state of becoming something and is distinguished from being by being styled the becoming, or the non-being. It is not being, but it seems to strive after being, and comes as near to it as one substance can be like another. It has reality, but its visible reality consists in its forms ; its hidden reality is the spirit that dwells in it. Both the form and the spirit we shall now consider. / The ^-ivn^jg nf mn^^^*^'^ ^''^ not the accidental results of the attrition /of unguided forces, but the careful expression of geometrical ideas, evincing a plan in the history and development of nature. Nature^ is geometigtjCja^SJLaliized. Not a single physical form can be pointed out that is not the embodiment of a geometrical principle or figure. The circle and the ellipse are embodied in the orbits of the spheres, and in the spheres themselves ; and angles of every name are illus- trated in crystals, ores, and the physiological construction of animals and plants. Music, painting, sculpture can be reduced to a mathe- matical process. Number is the ideal of the universe. Pythagoras dis- cerned the ideal plan, but did not elaborate it perfectly. Agreeing to a plan and then ascertaining what it is, it'goes far toward confirm- ing the theistic conception of the origin of the world, for a plan that involves geometric law is implicit with divine intelligence and points directly to a supervising Creator. So closely related is the subject of form to that of substance, that the passage from one to the other is not difficult ; and as form can not be explained without substance, the latter must receive careful attention. The interpretations of nature, or those theoretical read- ings of the spirit of nature which obtain in philosophy, compel the IDEALISM A FANATICISM. 139 conclusion that a solution of matter except by the theistic suggestion is improbable. To reach the theistic suggestion, however, certain logi- cal steps must be taken, beginning with the objective or formal realities of matter, and proceeding until the subjective side or inner light of nature is discerned. Every one sees the world differently ; but this is not because the world is absolutely different to every individual, but because every iu^iduaLk_dififixaiit. Epicurus tauj^it that the world is actually what it appears to be ; an absurd idea, for to no two persons does it appear the same. Yet it is the same world, and it is the actual, not the appearing, world, that the mind seeks to understand. Be- neath its appearance is the substantial, manipulating spirit that gives its form ; this unseen power, this invisible substance, the mind desires to know. Schopenhauer considered the world as his representation, or the product of his idea, a not uninteresting conception, however far from absolute truth it is. It is not one's idea of the world, but rather the absolute world, that philosophy must deal with and reveal. Not appearances, not representations, not ideas, not forms, but substance, absolute spirit, internal reality, philosophy must find and declare. The idealistic intgrpretation of nature is not without friends in these modern days, as it was not wanting in advocates in the palmy days of Greece. Its danger lies in its tendency to fanaticism, for it is idealism that raises the question, doesmattcr_rea]ly_£:dsi? With this extreme we have no sympathy. ^JNature'lsa sublime reality, whose polarity or opposite is spirit. Non-be_in^js_jis_real jis^ b^ the phenomenal as patent as the substantial. Bishop Berkeley de- veloped idealism into a philosophic fanaticism, which received a philosophic thrashing at the hands of Hume. Purified of the fanatical tendency, and restrained by the realistic spirit, idealism, as a logical system, tends to the denial of the exist- ence of matter, and is therefore repugnant to the common sense of mankind. However, philosophy does not, and perhaps ought not to, ask the opinion of the majority concerning its teachings ; for its pur- pose is truth, which the majority may at first be inclined to reject. /The^apology for the fanatical content of idealism is in the plausible I statement that the only reality is being, and that nature is becoming, I but never is, and so is an illusion. To this transcendental interpre- tation, which reduces the visible to nothingness, Emerson commits himself, justifying it quite as much on Christian as on philosophic grounds ; for he insists that Christianity, by its denunciation of the world, by its declaration that it is perishable, and that it will finally perish, suggests an idealism identical with that of philosophy. But the idealism of Christianity does not deny the existence of matter ; 140 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. it puts upon it the bau of perishability, and declares that, as com- pared with truth, spirit, knowledge, redemption, the world is valueless, is notliing. Christian idealism is productive of contempt for matter as such, because immortal things are in the foreground of the soul, and bel(Hig to it as its rightful inheritance. The old view of Heraclitus, that nature is involved in a process of flux or constant change, Plato accepted ; and, as a philosophic principle, it certainly is not wanting for demonstration. Seneca says no man bathes in the same river twice. Nature is a miracle of mu- tation— ever changing, yet ever remaining. The instability of_natU£&\ is not an instability of geometric ideals, for these are fixed ; nor an \ instability of inherent laws, for these abide, but an instability of phenomena; the details, the products, the forms, perish, revive, and perish again. An inquiry into nature will be incomplete, therefore, that does not probe for stable elements, for fixed principles ; it is the fixed, and not the fluxing, that really constitutes nature. An ex- planation of nature is not in a revelation of a flux in nature, but of something which, producing the flux, remains itself unfluxed, un- changeable. Oersted, a Danish philosopher, was convinced that the world has a soul, but this is more fictitious than real, unless it be conceded that by soul is meant the law by which nature exists ; for our final analysis of nature conducts to the belief that it is impregnated by a legal spirit* which is the essence of its reality. There is something in na- ture which the eye can not see. It is the soul of law. To the eye of man nature is full of facts ; to the mind of man nature is full of laws ; nature is law hijxectdion. Prof. Morris~hords that the life of nature is the life of spirit, which may be accepted with the qualification that the spirit-life mani- fests itself through law, otherwise he must affirm that nature is spirit, abolishing the primal distinctions between matter and spirit, or verg- ing on the idealistic denial of the existence of matter. In the very highest sense it is true to say that God is in nature, and that its life is the life of God ; but in a critical or philosophic sense it is equally true to affirm that nature is the product of the laws of God, and so reducing nature to law. Horace Bushnell defines nature to be that "created realm of being or substance which has an acting, a going on, or process from within itself, under and by its own laws." Nature is an "acting from within itself," or a process of law, as we prefer to phrase it. Herbart reduces the essence of a thing to a " simple quality ; " but, as he can not designate the quality, his theory is a bundle of words. DEFINITIONS OF MATTER. 141 John Stuart Mill defines matter to be a " permanent possibility of sensations," but this is uo definition at all. Matter a possibility ! Matter is a certainty, a reality, whose existence is in no sense depend- ent on human consciousness, or its relation to sensation. Herbert Spencer is equally airy in his definition, which is as fol- lows: "Our conception of matter reduced to its simplest shape is that of co-existent positions that offer resistance." Matter a position ! This only states where matter is, not what it is. The familiar definition of Alexander Bain, that matter is a "double-faced somewhat, having a spiritual and a physical side," is readily recalled in this connection. Without dissecting his applica- tion of the definition, but using it in our own way, we confess that it represents the truth respecting matter, whose physical side is its form, together with its properties, and whose spiritual side is the law, the life of its activity or existence. Hermann Lotze, sweeping away the mists, settles down to the conclusion that a Tliiug is law ; the essence of matter is not a simple quality, as Herbart holds, nor an aggregation of qualities, nor is it a "possibility" or "position," but it is the spirit of law, or tlie law of its .activity or existence. Nature is the form of law ; law is in nature. He says: "Laws never exist outside, between, beside, or above the things that are to obey them." "Law or truth is," with which Plato agrees when he defines law to be the discovery of that ivhich is. Law is the great reality, the ruling spirit, the life of the world. Prof Bowne, seeing that activity is involved in the nature of things, and going behind the scenes of the phenomenal world, am- plifies the law of activity into the law of being, which means that law accounts for reality, or phenomena. In the law by which a thing exists is the secret of existence. A thing may therefore be de- fined, not by properties or its form, but by the law by which it is produced. Plato taught that ideas "participated" in the formal appearance of matter, which philosophy has either perverted or innocently mis- understood ; for, stripped of its mystical guise, the meaning is that law, which is a divine idea, not alone became incorporated with mat- ter, but instruraentally originated it. \Vitbiuit law mnlt£j:i§Jm]30S- sible. Law originated and participated in matter, and abides there. It is the onlx thing that does abide. Forms perish, but the geometric ideals, which_are the signs of geometric law, abide forever. Forms, appeamnces, possibilities, properties, positions, all are lost sight of in the radical idea of law, as the essence of things, as the spirit of the life of nature, as the revealed secret of the universe. Going back to the source of things, the explanation of material 142 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. phenomena, as respects their origin, development, history, and des- tiny, is not so difficult a task as has been imagined. Creation may be interpreted as the outgoing of law. By " crea- ^tion" is meant not alone the physical universe, which is properly the result of creative energy, but the act or process of creation itself. If at one time the universe was involved in an atom, it is rational to conceive of the atom as constituted in its prophetic fullness by law. Just what was the first act of Deity when he resolved upon creation is not known, but it is quite conceivable that motion or action itself was the first sensation of the divine being. As motion is convertible into heat, light, electricity, so the first motion of the Deity contained potentially the life of the universe. It is possible that the first divine act resulted in non-living matter, for the historic order of the phe- nomenal world, according to science, is from the non-living to the living, and this is also according to the Mosaic cosmogony. Matter first, life afterwards. The non-living first, that the Deity might be- hold his crude work ; the living next, that he might glorify himself in it. If motion were the first act of the Deity, it was also the first law, or tlie law of activity, by which all things finally appeared. This leads out into the broader arena of the universe as a created product, or the result of a Being whose first law is motion, and whose condition is activity. The universe was created according to law. This means method or order in the process of creation. What that order was, geology attempts in part to explain, while Moses gives it in full; it was a scientific order, a progress from the non-living toward the living, a methodical development of physical history. It is clear, therefore, that the highest as well as the lowest types of existence, the crudest as well as the most finished forms of matter, are the re- sults of the law of motion, which, distributed throughout the limitless field of being, and applied by infinite wisdom, produced trees, crys- tals, birds, fishes, worlds, men. Every thing — matter, mind, soul — came into existence by virtue of a legal, that is, an orderly and methodical, process, since law is life, and life is the spirit of law. * Our conclusions respecting nature are as follows : 1st. Nature is the embodiment of the principle of unity ; it is a unit in its physical substance, whether the substance is hydrogen, pro- toplasm, bioplasm, or any undetermined substance. The differ- ences in matter are largely the differences of form, for all things may finally be reduced to the same thing. The correlation of substances is a standing proof of the unity of substance. Nature is one, not two. This demonstrates the singleness of its authorship, and points to one Supreme Being, the maker of all things. THE ATOMIC MOVEMENT. 143 2d. Respecting its origin, nature is proof of the necessity of a Cre- ator ; the theistic conception is fundamental to an explanation of the existence of nature. No materialistic theory can account for an atom ; God is a necessity. 3d. The substance, the spirit, of matter, is the law by which it exists. Nature is law in form ; nature can not exist without law, but the law may exist without nature. Hence nature may perish and the law remain. The substance, the spirit, is immortal ; the form or nature is mortal. As law is immortal, so God, from whom it came, is immortal. The unity, the form, the substance of nature join in an affidavit to the necessity of the theistic conception as alone adequate to the existence of a phenomenal world. CHAPTER V. THE DANCE OE THE ATOMS. IN the year 1599 Sir John Davies published a poem entitled " Nosee Te ipsum," in which he describes the original movements of matter under the figure of a dance. All space is at the disposal of the dancers ; plants, animals, men, stars, and angels engage in the mazy scene, the movements being alternately gentle and violent, quiet and demonstrative, graceful and awkward, solemn and gay, as the parties are absorbed with the business-like amusement before them. Going back of these, the poet fancies that he sees the elements, fire, air, water, and earth, engaged in a revolving motion, now embracing, then separating, now combining, then each standing apart, and so proceeding until a world of order and beauty is the result. John Dryden likewise embalms in verse the idea of the world's creation by atomic movement, as follows f " From harmony, from heav'nly harmony, This universal frame began, •When Nature underneath a heap Of jarring atoms lay, And could not heave her head. The tuneful voice was heard from high, Arise, ye more than dead ! Then cold and hot and moist and dry. In order to their stations leap. And Musick's pow'r obey. 144 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. From harmony, from heav'nly harmony, This universal frame began ; From harmony to harmony, Througli all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in man." These are poetic representations of a great philosophic thought — the theory of the origin of the worlds in atomic substances or forces. It therefore deserves special consideration. A comprehensive study of original or atomic movement includes, 1. The existence of the atom ; 2. The character of the atom ; 3. Its capacity for motion ; 4. The genesis of its impulse to motion ; 5. Its selection of form ; 6. Its development and history. If it can be scientifically settled beyond doubt that the worlds were originally atoms, or that the original forms of matter from which worlds have issued were atoms, the mystery of the dance is consider- ably simplified. It is, however, at this point that the trouble begins. The hypothesis of the atom is a good " working hypothesis" for the materialist, and, for that matter, for the theologian also, but the data for such hypothesis are not the most assuring. The assertion that the universe is the product of evolution from star-dust, or atomic centers, is easily made, and such words as " protoplasm," "germs," " units," "ultimates," and "atoms" may be used with a confidence that wiU inspire respect ; but the assertion of atomic origin is not equivalent to the demonstration. " The genesis of an atom," says Spencer, " is no easier to conceive than the genesis of a planet." Perhaps it should not make against the theory that no one ever saw an atomj for the greatest forces are invisible ; nor should it be charged in derision that atoms do not now exist, for existing worlds have taken the place of atoms. It should not be forgotten, also, that if the existence of original atoms be established, our reverence for the Creator must be intensified, for if he built the worlds, so magnificent in structure and equipment, from beginnings so marvelously small and unpromis- ing, he is a most wonderful being, quite as marvelous in his doings as the most devout Christian ever supposed him to be. Religion can apostrophize the atom, since it magnifies the Creator, a result the materialistic atomist did not foresee, or he had been slow in adopt- ing i^- , , . . It is not sufficient to inspire faith in.the theory to know that it is both ancient and modern ; to be told that "Democritus expounded it with great enthusiasm, and Epicurus indorsed it as if it were a con- viction of his own ; or to be reminded that Leibnitz reduced original matter to monads, every one of which was potentially a mirror of the universe. But when such a metaphysician as Lotze insists that the INQUIRIES CONCERNING ATOMS. 145 real world of nature should be considered " under the form of an in- finite number of discrete centers of activity," we are compelled to treat the atomic theory with the highest respect. He discusses in his " Metaphysic" the " antithesis between atomism and the theory of a continuous extension in space," and because he can not accept the latter he proceeds to vindicate the former. "The sharp edge of a knife, when placed beneath a microscope, appears to be notched like a saw, and the surface, which feels quite smooth, becomes a region of mountains," is his illustrative argument against " continuous ex- tension ;" but it is not clear that atomism is the polar extremity of such extension. Mountain peaks, apparently standing apart, may be joined at the base; "discrete" forms maybe lost in underlying unity. Atomic separations may be consistent with a basal continuous extension. This involves relation, correlation, interaction, and the system of inter-dependence in the universe, into which it is not neces- sary to go. For us, it is not so important to know who subscribes to the atomic theory as it is to know on what basis the theory rests. We are not disposed to assail it on the ground of prejudice, for we have no preju- dice to serve ; we can believe in the atomic idea with as much en- thusiasm as any student of truth, and without any fear of danger to the Biblical exegesis, so soon as the proof, or even the probability, of the existence of atoms is furnished. At present, however, the atomic idea is a conjecture, the proof indefinite and imaginary, and faith in it must_be.jit„£ur„ option. It does not suit our purpose to deny theTKeory ; on the contrary, anxious that it may be fully under- stood and thoroughly investigated, we proceed to inspect its contents and listen to its explanation of the evolution of the worlds. A mystery confronts the inquirer before he takes the first step. It is not proclaim ed^ith sufl^icient clearness by the advocates of the theory just what the original atoms were, that is, Avhether they were solids, liquids, or vapors, or whether they had fixed forms or were formless, or where they came from, or whether they were eternal or made themselves. Some of these questions have been overlooked in the eagerness to trace worlds to revolving points, inscrutable in their origin, and potential in their contents, adaptations, and prophecies. The settlement of some of them, however, is necessary to the existence of the theory. Belief in atoms presupposes a knowledge of their origin, content, purpose, power, relation, form, or acting principle. Touching some of these things, the atomist can not be wholly in the dark ; hence, the duty of revealing what he knows. Democritus was somewhat specific in his description of atoms, conjecturing that they were infinite in number, assumed mathematical figures, were divisible, 10 146 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. and propelled by an inherent law of motion. Epicurus, an enthusi- astic supporter of the theory, gave particular attention to the forms of atoms, describing them as square, spherical, and triangular, and that these forms were unchangeable. He also maintained that, by combination, secondary forms were produced, but that the original or primordial atoms were indestructible and entered into all things. Without controversy, it is conceded that an original atom must have been physical or natural in character or essence ; that is, it was in no sense supernatural, for, had it been supernatural, the product or development had been a supernatural world. Inasmuch as the universe is the resultant of the atomic movement, the atom could not have differed in character from the universe. The fig-tree does not produce thistles ; the atom produced a world after its kind. This is logically, genetically consistent, and science takes no exception. Natural atoms may be divided into two kinds: atoms of ether, and atoms of solid matter. Over the latter the law of gravitation exer- cises its influence ; the former are independent of it. But this division introduces a vexing problem, for the law of motion affecting a solid can not affect a vapor ; hence, two laws of motion are required. Again, if the atom was the prophecy of the "becoming," then it was potentially the becoming. As the acorn contains potentially the oak, so the atom contains potentially the universe. Evolution is in proportion to involution. The miner gets out of the mountain only what is in it. To allow that one small planet like ours was once an atom is to concede a great deal ; but the theory requires that all the solar systems, the nebulie unresolved, the whole firmament, the astro- nomic heavens, were at one time nomadic atoms, wanderers in the spatial sea. The magnitude of the universe is not quoted as an em- barrassment to the theory, for the theory is tenable if based on the theistic conception, the very thing, however, which the materialist is anxious to overthrow. The fact that the world was built at all, that it exists, is as great a wonder as any process by which it came into existence. Any process of world-building will excite reverence in the thoughtful mind. A striking peculiarity of the atom is its tendency to motion or capacity for development. Without such capacity, the universe had not appeared. All forms, both of organic and inorganic matter, are the results of the internal disposition of the atom to develop- ment. In speaking of the capacities of the atom, we should speak cautiously, since very little has been demonstrated ; but, speaking speculatively, we may be bold in statement and even heroic in theoretical suggestion. Granting that the atomic theory is possibly ' tenable, one is compelled to allow that the atom shall have certain ENDOWMENTS OF THE ATOM. 147 attributes and functions, without which its task can not be performed. Granting it one function, another must be conceded, and still another, until it is sufficiently endowed to project worlds from its center. Its chief characteristic is the power_fl|l-iiaQtk)n. Scientists agree that motion is a principle in the universe, and not a few suspect that it is the essence of things, or, as it has been demonstrated that heat may be converted into motion and motion into heat, the conclusion that all things are but the expression or types of motion has been advocated with a logical plausibility. If motion is a universal prin- ciple, primarily it must have belonged to the atom ; but how the atom came in possession of the impulse is yet an undecided question. Was\ the atom a center of motion, with independent power of self-motion?] or was it an inert thing, incapable of motion until acted upon by/ some external force ? This is the dilemma of philosophy. To admit to the atoni the j^acity_for motion exxjlains nothing. "WTtlTTETs' embarrassment in view, many scientific thinkers intimate that the atom had an inherent power of movement. Lotze, no less than Hartmann, representing the opposite poles of philosophic thought, substantially agree in conferring upon the atom the function of ele- mentary force ; but Lotze accepts the theistic conception, and so is consistent. He does not regard atoms as the final elements of matter, but looks upon them as complex data, behind which science can not go, but from which a divine creative act may be inferred. The materialistic atomist has no solution for his difficulty except scientific superstition. Epicurus, atheistic in theology, advocated the theory of spontaneous motion in atoms, explaining their nature and activities by a purely materialistic hypothesis. In his judgment, the atom is an eternal substance and has always been in motion. In itself it is nervous, restless, eager, aspiring, and will not lie still. He attributes weight to it, which presupposes external influence, or the doctrine of the mutual relation of atoms. Its incipient movement is in a straight line, but suddenly and of its own accord it may deviate in any direc- tion, going diagonally, turning around, rising up, or falling down. Independent of all control, it may act soberly or wildly, it may be- have itself or appear as if intoxicated, it may walk alone or waltz through space with kindred atoms; it gives no account of itself, ex- cept as it pleases. This is a pretty fair biography of the atom, but it is necessarily incomplete. Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus, the ancient fathers of the atomic theory, not always clear in conception or conclusive in state- ment, do not differ respecting the endowments of the atom which qualify it for independent activity and the power to produce cos- 148 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. mical systems. Leucippus, attributing an infinite standing to atoms, conceived that, under the natural principle of like attracting like, similar atoms approached one another, combined their interests, and grew into the mammoth proportions of the stars. By "ceaseless reper- cussion," the atoms in the progress of their development assumed all the "possibilities of forms," which took the names of mountains, oceans, trees, birds, animals, and men. Even man is traced to the atom! Clearly enough, the old philosophers were not afraid of the consequences of their theories. Atomism and atheism joined their interests, and materialism was triumphant. To such a conclusion an auti-theistic atomic theory necessarily leads, for the atom is dependent or independent, derived or primary. Its status once settled, and a conclusion is inevitable. The genesis of atomic motion is the conundrum of the atomists. The spoutaneity_^o_f atoimc motwnjjbe^materify^ resort to the delusion of the eternity of matter. Spontaneous motion, however, is as mythological as spontaneous generation. Motion is implicit with antecedence. It goes back, ever pointing to a single source. Motion implies a mover — so taught Plato ; and his account of creation in the Timwus, through atomic movements, is superior to the modern materialistic conception, because it involves the presence of an organizing and directing mind. Motion implies antecedent preparation, begetting, touching, imparting, or it is self-begotten. Without pressing this distinction far enough to verge on the necessity of a personal being as the author of all motion, we observe that mo- tion, as now understood and explained, is the result of law, and is in no instance spoken of as spontaneous. IVIotion is the product of a system of laws, the chief of which is gravitation, and without which motion would be impossible. The revolutions of the solar system are not attributed to any spontaneous force in matter, but rather to the influence of the law of attraction, and every other motion is explained by reference to the same general influence. Is gravitation the law of atomic movement? Sir^ Isaac Newton denies that the "force of gravity" resides in the atom, leaving it a forceless, motionless thing, and dependent upon an outside power for animation and movement. He was emphatic in the rejection of the idea that gravity is " innate, inherent, and essential to matter." laxada^Jikewise pronounced the dynamical theory absurd. McCosh repudiates the idea of self-acting matter. Either this conclusiorTraust be accepted, or the dynamical theory of matter, the theory of inherent force, or feelf-moving matter. Few theists subscribe to the latter, for it is full of danger; it points to pantheism. The old atomic theory of Democritus is too materialistic for Anglo-Saxon or modern theologians; but theistic ORIGIN OF ATOMIC MOTION. 149 metaphysicians are found supporting both Sir Isaac Newton in his denial of inherent force, and the dynamical theory, or the theory of innate power. As yet, there is no standard by which to determine whether one's view is orthodox or not, for if he accept the theistic government of the world, he can accept any philosophic theory of matter. • As there is no motion known to science that is not due to attrac- tion, it is consistent to affirm that the atom was governed in its initial movements by the law of gravitation, which had its source, not in the atom, but in the supervising and endowing will of God. This cer- tainly is the genesis of motion in the atom. In itself, the atom had no power of motion; that is, it did not originate motion. Unless moyed, it remained motionless. Inertia was, therefore, the primal condition of the original atom. Nevertheless, the atoms dance — what music thrills them into motion? What voice do they hear and obey? What impulse over- comes the inertia of the atom? Heraclitus held that all nature is in a perpetual flux, forever but silently changing, its constituents pass- ing away to be replaced by similar constituents ; perpetual change is the order of phenomena. The law of change however, does not ex- plain the origin of the dance. GeofFroy Saint Hilaire refers all forms of matter to certain " elective affinities of the organic elements," but this is a rhetorical statement, not a philosophic explanation. Whence the organic elements? Whence the affinities? The affinities of matter are the attractive forces of matter, expressed by the generic word — gravitation. If atoms exist, and are endowed with " elective affinities," by which they are drawn together and combine in an aggregation of worlds, dispute ends; but to assume such en- dowment and then build up the theory on the assumption is a strange way of getting at the truth. Spencer, compelled to account for these things, suggests the natural instability of the homogeneous as the fundamental cause, but it is a superficial explanation ; it explains nothing. Suppose the homogeneous were unstable, what caused the instability ? Were the atoms of uniform size, function, and power, or were they of diverse sizes, and did they possess various and dissimilar functions, and were there jealousies and rivalries among the atoms, producing discord of feeling, instability of friendships, and actual hostility, resulting in wars and aggressions? The doctrine of instability implies general commotion, and commotion is proof of motion ; but Spencer conducts us no nearer the beginning than Hilaire. Granting that motion is implicit with the law of gravitation, it must be understood that it includes a variety of laws, without which 150 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. atomic movement can not be explained. Inertia is the primal state of the atom ; motion is communicated ; attraction begins here ; re- pulsion is felt there; equilibrium or neutrality is maintained yonder; and so in the general movement centripetal and centrifugal influences become clearly manifest. As these are more or less positive, adhe- sion, cohesion, chemical attraction, crystallization, condensation, com- bustion, reaction, interaction, and specific forms follo^Y. To explain* all these by the dynamical theory is quite impossible; to explain them as variations of the initial law of motion is not absurd, provided the law of motion is accounted for. If one is undertaking to explain atomic movement, one is bound to explain the first movement as well as the last ; in fact, if one will explain the first movement, one can be excused from explaining any thing else. The atomic theory is burdened with this unanswered and unanswerable disadvantage that, whatever the explanation of the movement, whether "elective affin- ity," " instability," " inherent force," or any thiu^ else, it fails to ac- count for the "affinity," " instability," " inherent force," or any thing else that it uses as an explanation. Its explanation always re- quires another explanation which it can not give. The theory is proof of the limitations of human thought, and shows that matter, movement, and law must have an outside explanation, or a theistic source. The difficulty is not ended. Granting the power of motion to the atom, according to the theory, it is perplexing to understand the variety of forms matter has assumed, or to explain its transmuta- bleness. If the atom has the power of motion, has it the power of choice in its development, or is the development an accident ? Darwin does not explain the introduction of forms, but this explanation the theory must make, or it is valueless. The original atoms were of uniform size, functions, and aims, or they were not; if they were alike in every particular, if they believed alike, so to speak, and danced in the same way and to the same music, it is difficult to ac- count for diflTerentiation in result ; if they differed, who or what made them to differ? If like produce like, then uniform atoms should produce uniform results, but the "becoming" is a panorama of infinite variety. It is necessary therefore to allow difference, con- trariety, and a menagerie of functions to atoms. But how account for conti-ariety of purpose in atoms ? What es- tablished the difference of aims? Did they hold a convention, and agree on separate idiosyncrasies, or did they inherit from a common parent a multitude of diverse qualifications for their future history ? Uniformity of aim in atoms is inconsistent with variety of result ; contrariety of aim is indicative of wisdom, a supervising agency, FORMS OF ATOMS. 151 which means more than the materialistic atomist can understand. No knowledge of the universe is at all possible that does not account for difference of aim in nature. Verily, as Herschel suggests, the atom, with its power, functions, aims, and forms, begins to look like a manufactured article. The form of the original atom is still undetermined. If a solid, its physical shape might be conjectured ; if a liquid or vapor, it was without form. Plato in the Timaeus represents the original elements as shapeless, and from the shapeless the shaped universe proceeded, but the result is explained by the participation of divine ideas with matter in its progress toward forms. Moses writes that the earth was without form, but was shaped by a Shaper ; so""the atom may have Been~formless',"But too^'Iofm in the hands of a Former, From the theistic standpoint the forming process is one of ease and account- ability; from the standpoint of the atomist it is in vain that we seek for the power of form, unless it is insisted, like motion, to be inherent; but if the one is absurd, so is the other. Whence, then, the propensity to form in matter? The relation of motion to form is conspicuous ; that is, without motion, form is impos- sible. With a predisposition to form, an atom must be stirred, moved, excited, and whirled before it will reveal its preference for a partic- ular form. Why the final preference? Why the circular form? Why the octahedral ? Why the triangular ? Why all the simple and com- pound forms of matter? Atoms might have danced themselves into a few simple forms, and these by combination have solidified into com- plex forms, but so soon as the dance was over, each atom, if it had any respect for itself, would seek to preserve its identity, and a re- turn to original simplicity had been unavoidable. It is time to consider whether the original atom was a simple, unorganized substance, or a concrete receptacle ot co-ordinate powers and substantial elements. The validity of the atomic theory, as well as the present question of the origin of forms, is involved in this inquiry. Spencer intimates that germs are homogeneous, or simple substances, without signs of organization ; but Mr. Tyndall suspects that the most simple is complex, that the microscopically small is mysteriously large, and that it is impossible to "grapple with the ultimate struc- tural energies of nature." Spencer proposes simplicity, unity, as an underlying fact ; Tyndall proposes complexity. The two may fight it out, but observers of the spectacle have something to say while it is going on. If Mr. Tyndall is correct, the atom is a complex sub- stance, which Lotze really implies ; but whence the complexity ? If Spencer is correct the atom is a simple substance, but whence the simple content ? The problem is not reduced by Spencer, it is not 152 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. magnified by Tyndall ; it is as great, it is the same problem whether a germ is simple or complex, for the problem is, not how much is in the atom, but is there any thing in it? Tell how the atom came to be loaded at all, and the size of the load will then receive consider- ation ; and until the origin of content is settled the origin of form can not be settled. The permanency of natural forms also provokes inquiry, compell- ing the atomist to explain or retreat. With divergence of form there is stability and a basis of classification. Mathematics is grounded in the construction of the universe. Not only architectural ideas of order and proportion obtain in nature, but mathematical princi- ples are easily traced in the organic and inorganic realms. Geometry is the mathematical spirit of matter. Creation proceeded by its rules. The Duke of Argyll emphasizes the belief that creation was by law, as evinced in its order, in its fixed types, in its gradations, in its adaptations ; but he might have added that the specific law of crea- tion, however manifold the types, orders, adaptations, and adjust- ments, is mathematical. Plato lays the universe in triangles. Pythagoras projected his philosophy of number as the secret of the universe, the interpretation being that mathematical proportion, order, and forms constituted the principles and archetypes of the divine mind in the development of the astronomic worlds. Astron- omy is the crystallization of geometry. Min^alogy is geometry as a fine art. Chemistry is geometry on wheels. As geometrical principles are decisive and fixed, so are the forms of matter"T5~wlrich they have illustration. Hence no new mathemat- ical forms have been discovered ; the concrete owes its concreteness to the limitations of applied mathematics. Spheres, angles, squares, cubes, polyhedi-ons, and their cognate forms, constitute the essential manifestations of matter ; while straight lines and curved, with their variations, are the tape-lines by which to measure the forms. We insist upon the permanency of matter-forms, but in so doing the atom may be interrogated for a history of the facts. Left to itself, would it seek any particular form ? Would it especially settle down to one form ? In the mad dance in space, aroused by inequal- ities of endowments, would not the atoms assume a thousand different attitudes, and take as many forms as there were groups or individ- uals ? What would restrict the selection of form ? Wg^uld not each palpitating atom, through slioer jealousy, adopt a form for itself, as the old families of Europe. had each its coat-of-arms ? Evidently the atom, however inclined to independence, felt its limitation, and stepped into the dance under command of a very embarrassing re- striction, compelled to adopt a form it neither invented nor possibly THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ATOM. 153 preferred ; yet it obeyed. Itself formless, yet endowed with a pro- pensity to form, it found it must regard certain principles which lim- ited its products to a few visible manifestations. Doubtless, as the dance proceeded, the atomic world groaned under the restriction of geometrical ideals, but there was no way to avoid them. These ideals, these geometrical restrictions, the materialistic atomist can not explain ; they point to divine wisdom, and are proof of the necessity of a divine personality in creation. The future history of the atom, or its development from the atomic condition to a world-state, it belongs to us to read. Whatever makes against the theory itself we waive, for materialistic science is inclined to accept it. Let us concede to the atom an unquestioned reality, endowed with capacities unmeasured, if not infinite ; let it contain potentially the universe ; let there dwell in it the power of self-motion ; let the propensity to form be ever one of its animating impulses or thoughts ; thus dowered, it starts upon its course. Two questions arise : What is its actual development ? What becomes of it? Look ! — a universe greets us. Fi-om the atom to the universe is an immense, a magnificent, development, proving that the universe was potentially in the atom, if it prove any thing, and that under no circumstances could it have developed into any thing but the universe. This restriction, in its development, overthrows the suspicion of the element of chance, or even of self-guidance, in its history ; it estab- lishes the presence of supervising mind. The universe is not an accident, but the orderly progress of atomic movement, and the result of the concurrent and forefixed agreement among the atoms, which safeguards the divine factor in creation. Noj^, if tlie po.teutiality..at the_universejTside^ or in a single'atom. If in a single atom, why other atoms at all? If in a single atom, does every other atom contain potentially a uni- verse ? If so, why are there not other universes ? On the supposi- tion that a single atom is the germ of the universe, atoms disappear, and the atomic theory is the theory of an atom ; on the supposition that the universe is the development of an indefinite number of atoms in various combinations and relations, the incompetency of any single atom to produce the universe is foreshadowed. But so soon as the imperfection of a single atom is discovered, suspicion is raised against all atoms, whatever their number or relations. Ifjevery atom is deficient, or insufficient to produce the universe, it is difficult to understand how any number of atoms can produce it. Deficiency added to deficiency a thousand times does not give value to the other side of the equation. Zero multiplied a million times by zero is 154 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. zero. Deficiencies multiplied by as many times as there are atoms will not equal potentiality. In this view the atomic individuals are potentially inadequate to the universe. To assert that the universe is the result of a combination of atoms is not to add a new meaning to the theory. A combination of atoms is not essentially a new production. New forms may appear by com- bination, but not new constituents of matter ; but it is new constitu- ents that are required to help the infirmities of the original atoms. In this view a new atomic theory is required. If it is alleged that imperfect atoms are competent to evolve an imperfect universe, and, in order to justify the atomic theory, it be added that the universe is imperfect, we take issue at once, for, in- stead of evolving an imperfect universe, the imperfect atom could not evolve any universe at all. An inadequate atom will not satisfy the demands of any atomic theory. Thus, fVom whatever view the atom is considered as an original, independent, self-existing, self-endowed source of power, it turns out to be a lamentable failure. To give it the required efficiency ; to en- dow it with the heritage of omnipotence ; to clothe it with selective affinities ; to stimulate it with an infinite energy, and to circumscribe it with restrictions that prevent it fVom becoming the sole Infinite, supplemental agencies, forces, or personalities are required. The atom needed for the theorist probably never existed, and it is certain that the atom described by the atomist is only the atom of his imagina- tion. In the development of the universe the atom, therefore, be- comes extinct. To conclude: The atomic theory of the universe is philosophically incompetent to account for it. It satisfies no inquiry respecting the genesis of things. Phenomena can not be explained by phenomena. An atom is a phenomenon requiring explanation. The atomic theory, eliminating the influence of a governing mind, is self-destructive, since it involves the absurdity of self-originat- ing functions and powers in matter without mind. Given a Creator of atoms, and the atomic theory is tenable. In that case the Creator may have to be explained, which involves other questions, but, what is all-important to the student of genesis, the atom is explained, and a cosmological basis satisfactorily settled. /^ The dance of the atoms, as the materialist describes it, is the dance / of darkness and death ; as the theist would gladly describe it, it is the I movement of God over the face of the deeps. THEORIES OF LIFE. 155 CHAPTER VI. THE GROUND OK LIKK. ** 'T^HE word Life still wanders through science without a defini- X nition," says Henry Drummond. The failure to define is not the result of scientific indifference to the subject, for it has been thor- oughly investigated by the thinkers of all the schools, but it is rather the result of a pronounced mystery that envelops it. Scarcely a solu- tion or provisional hypothesis presented is satisfactory from the inner sanctuary of things ; not a theory has been urged that has not been modified or overthrown ; and it is confessed that, from the philosoph- ical standpoint alone, the mystery is quite as profound as ever. The principal theories of life, as announced by biologists, natural- ists, physiologists, and scientists in general, may be designated as follows: 1. Spontaneous Generation; 2. "Omne Vivum ex Ovo;" 3. Pangenesis ; 4. Development ; 5. The Physical Basis ; 6. Biogenesis ; 7. Creation. The theory of spontaneous generation is a short cut to results without adequate causes ; but at one time it was supported by distin- guished scientists, and in lieu of something more specific or satisfac- tory, received general though hesitating assent. It was apparently demonstrated by such learned experimenters as Prof Wyman, Dr. Bastian, and Prof H. J. Clark, that the reproduction of infusoria by spontaneous generation had taken place, and even Dr. McCosh con- sidered the announcement not entirely void of truth. Without de- tailing the experiments adduced in suppci't of the theory, it is suffi- cient to notify the reader that amoebas, bacteriums, vibrios, and monads were said to be produced from liquids heated to such a degree that all infusorial life originally in them was destroyed, and that, of their own accord, or by spontaneous activity, many of these re- appeared. The experiments were repeated by others who doubted the results, and Prof. Wyman's conclusions were disputed ; and, while material- istic science would gladly accept spontaneous generation if it could be established, it has been rejected by Huxley, Tyndall, Darwin, Dallinger, Prof Tait, and M. Pasteur. As a theory of the orjgm^Qf. life, it is now virtually defunct. ' S^cientists have also come to the conclusion that the old formula, "Omne Vivum ex Ovo," is not exactly true, for, while the egg plays 156 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. an important part in the life of the world, certain it is that life is produced without the egg, and so often that it is a question whether the egg condition is not an exception rather than the rule. Anemones and hydras, insects and fishes, originate by budding and self-division, processes entirely independent of parental generation or the egg con- dition. Allowing, however, that in vertebrates in particular the egg is a necessity to life, one might ask, whence the egg? To accept the egg theory is not to solve the genesis of life. Mr. Darwin is the exponent of the theory of jjangenesis, which has been completely shattered by Mivart and Prof. Delphino. He held that each organism consists of an incalculable number of organic atoms, which had the power of reproduction. These atoms he called " gemmules," in order to be original in the creation of a term, but the idea he borrowed from Democritus, amplifying it and adapting it to the emergencies of modern science. As a single theory of life, pangenesis has less in it than spontaneous generation, and has been abandoned. The larger, more comprehensive theory of life is that known as the theory of development, first skeletonized by Lamarck, then clothed by the anonymous author of "The Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," and finally adopted as the child of Darwin. As its chief expounder and promoter, it bears the name of Darwin, but it must be understood that it did not originate with him. In explanation of the theory we quote him: "I believe that all animals have descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number. Probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed." It is at once seen that this really accounts not at all for life, but only for its development. It does not go back to the source, but contents itself with the method of its successive manifestations. Keeping in mind that the development theory per se only proposes to trace the laws or forms of manifested life, it is not so objectionable, even though it may be found erroneous in that particular ; but when it is strained to account for life itself, alleging that it too is the product of development, unbelievers in the theory may at least ask for the proof of it. Accepting, if one must, the theory as an explanation of cosmical growth, he is at liberty to reject it, until the proof is furnished, as an explanation of life itself. Closely related to this theory is that more pronounced hypothesis of Mr. Huxley, which he designates as the "Physical Basis of Life." If all life is the product of protoplasm, or protopiasm"Ts "life, as the terms of his theory require us to believe, then matter itself not only had the "potency and promise of life," but is the fulfillment of life; PRO TOPLASM-BA THYBl US— BIOPLASM. 157 it is life. All substances, Huxley is fond of asserting, consist of car- bonic acid, water, and ammonia ; or, to speak more correctly in a chemical way, of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. All living organisms, whether animals or plants, in their chemical sub- stance may be reduced to these four elements, but in none of these taken singly is the principle of life. How, then, can they produce it when combined? When combined " under certain conditions," he says, the result is protoplasm, which "exhibits the phenomena of life." This word ' 'j^rotoplasm " is borrowed from the Germans, Max Schultze especially having used it, and Huxley sees in it the " life- stuft*" of the world. How far it accounts for life, or whether it is life, is the question. Its deficiencies are many, and the admissions of Huxley are quite fatal to the theory. He does not distinguish between living protoplasm and dead protoplasm, but if there is any difference at all between life and death it must apply to animate or vital protoplasm and that which is not vital. In that li.xing,..proto- plasm. is productive, and dead protoplasm is not productive, a differ- ence appears that can not be eradicated ; but Huxley fails to recognize it. He is compelled by his theory to state exactly what protoplasm is, inasmuch as it is a physical substance, or the vital property of the world. Finding it, he should describe it. It is at this point that he breaks down, confessing that protoplasm is a product of the vegetable world whose chief property i^ contractility ; but in tracing it to the vegetable kingdom he suiTenders the issue, for, instead of pointing out a vital, originating substance, he has qnly„ indicated a j9roc?uc<, which implies an antecedent originating cause. This, therefore, de- stroys the protoplastic theory of life. Equally fallacious are the theories that substitute bathybius for protoplasm, for it utterly fails to bridge the distance between the or- ganic and inorganic worlds. Strauss, pressing the question, whether the living can be evolved from the non-living, was at first embar- rassed for the want of an answer, but like Hiickel finally accepted bathybius as the connecting link between them. What is bathybius f "A sheet of living matter," says Huxley, "enveloping the whole earth beneath the seas." As no one has seen this "living matter," St. George Mivart pronounces it a "sea-mare's nest." Bioplasm is the latest substitute for protoplasm. It is a shapeless, structureless substance, with power to convert matter into life. A bioplast is a sensitive, ger.erating substance, of a higher order and with more specific functions than at first were assigned to protoplasm. Protoplasm lost caste because a certain kind of vegetable dullness surrounded it ; but the bioplasts are a society of beings, commissioned to build worlds, with all they contain. The superior djgnity of the 158 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. bioplastic to the protoplastic theory is very apparent; but the one is as objectionable as the other, and even more so, for protoplasm can be traced- to the vegetable world, but the bioplasts are independent creatures that are above revealing their origin. SfiW..came the^bio; plasts? is a crucial question; for, until answered, the source of life is still a mystery. ■ In the same line is the attempt to explain life by the doctrine of the conservation and correlation of forces, which reduces it to a physical force, like light, heat, motion, and electricity. The process of reduction is simple. It is agreed that heat, light, and motion are convertible terms, one being changed into another with perfect ease ; and it is affirmed that at no distant day life will be added to the series of convertible terms, so that it will be but another word for motion, or light, or heat. The discovery of its physical character is thus anticipated and prematurely declared. That this conception is only in its rudimentary or theoretical stages ought to restrain its advocates from a too hasty announcement of the far-off conclusion, but science is not given to modest and imperfect statements. To this thoroughly materialistic conception there is a stronger ob- jection than that it is rudimentary. If life is a purely physical force, in correlation with other physical forces, it ought to be easy for the chemist to produce it. That he has not produced it; that he has not changed the inorganic into the organic, or the non- living into the living, is more than a proof of a present incapac- ity which may be finally succeeded by an ability to do it; it is a proof that life is not a physical resultant, and in no sense a physical substance. While the scientist may disorganize living matter, so that it be- comes non-living matter, he can not reorganize the latter so that it becomes the former. The analysis of living matter is within his power ; the synthesis of living matter he has not accomplished. He may analyze water; he may synthesize water ; but he can not produce a living frog, or bee, or fly. This is the more perplexing because science teaches that of the seventy elementary substances, only four are involved in the substance of living matter. Why can not the scientist so combine them that life in some of its stages will appear ? The task, stated in terms, does not appear difiicult. Given four simple elements, out of an infinite variety of possible combinations, surely that combination which results in what is called life will be found. One might think so, but the key to the combination is still undiscovered. The stupendous fact is that, according to his theory, with all the materials of life at hand, with every physical element, primary and secondary, at his disposal, he is unable to produce the RELATION OF LIFE AND ORGANIZATION. 159 first pulsation of life ; and this failure must be taken as the evidence of the supreme folly of his conception and the supreme inadequacy of the theory. In passing let it be noted that in the inorganic world one substance never becomes another. Sapphire never turns into silver, and clay never turns into sandstone. If inorganic substances never inter- change, surely the inorganic never turns into the organic. Materialism may dream of the future discovery of the physical basis of life, but it comports with the dignity of manhood to reject such dreams in the presence of truths that solve the mystery in a more consistent and elevating way. Ancient philosophy, more excusable than modern, since its dis- coveries were fewer, drifted into a materialism respecting life that has reappeared in these days, although in a new form. It was held that life is a form of matter, but of a higher kind than ordinary matter ; but this did not relieve the subject of embarrassment, for matter is matter, whatever its form. It was also taught that life is in some mysterious way the product of the bodily organism containing it ; in other words, that life is a result rather than a cause. This theory some of the moderns have adopted, expressing it thus: there is no life without organization ; the organization of matter is implicit with life ; organization being effected by self-acting forces, life is a phe- nomenal result. For this one-sided conclusion materialists are con- tending with unusual violence, forgetting or failing to see that possibly the truth is the very reverse of the conclusion, namely, that life pre- cedes organization, and is the only explanation of the organic world. In the azoic period of the earth's history, electricity, heat, and grav- itation were probably in operation, governed by the same laws under which they now act ; matter assumed mathematical forms just as it does now ; suns may have blazed in the firmament, as they do now ; but matter was unorganized ; that is, the vital principle was absent, and the earth was dead. It had form, but organization relates to a principle of life. At this point we see the difference between living and non living matter; the latter is unorganized, the former organized. A stone is unorganized, a bee is organized. Did the bee organize itself into life, or did the life of the bee proceed to incarnate itself in an or- ganized form ? Organization signifies life ; life is the sign of organiza- tion ; but it is the extreme of philosophical dullness to proclaim that organization resulted in life. Verily, there is little diff'erence between the ancient and modern schools of philosophy in their teachings re- specting the origin of life, and so neither is satisfactory. Epicurus and Hiickel, Democritus and Huxley, different in their methods of research, and also in their forms of expression, are not far apart in 160 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. their conclusions ; all are materialists, in spite of any sentimental re- cantation of materialism, with which some of them, Huxley especially, are credited. The theory of Biogenesis, or that life springs from life, is one of the recent concessions of Tyndall, and Huxley, apparently abandon- ing the protoplastic theory, coincides with this latest proposition. Biogenesis means that the non-living can not produce the living, but that the living has a life-source. This is the vitalistic theory of life which promises to crowd out all materialistic views from biology. At one time Professor Tyndall declared that the laws which produce the crystal will also produce the entire vegetable and animal world. Materialists generally reject this bold assumption. A crystal and a lion are two things, the vitalistic principle being as conspicuously absent from the one as it is present in the other. Vitalis7n and materialism can not co-exist as explanations of life. The latter deals with the non-living as the source of life ; the former forever with the living ; the latter must bridge the distance between the non-living and the living, a feat not yet accomplished ; the latter has no bridges to build, but needs to travel upward to one life-giving source of all things. Plato in the Phcedo discusses the origin of life in death and the origin of death in life, representing the one as contrary to the other, and each reproducing the other, from which materialism probably took its cue ; but Plato here teaches the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead rather than a materialistic origin of life. Resurrection and biogenesis are different ideas ; the one looking forward to the revival of life, the other looking backward to the beginning of life. It is the beginning of life that now concerns us. The vitalistic philosophy points in the right direction, but it is de- ficient in its final utterance. It does not entirely lift the veil. It still leaves the question of origin unsettled. Another theory is de- manded, and without circumlocution we announce the theory of^ Creatiouism as absolutely sufficient in its contents to account for all the mysteiy, magnitude, and magnificence of life, whether of animals, plants, or man. Without a positive creation of the vitalistic princi- ple, and its introduction into the physical universe by a supervising intelligence, it is impossible to account for any thing, or get beyond a chain of secondary causes. Given a creating power, and mystery ceases ; given a living God, and universal life is solved. Professor Agassiz was a creationist from the necessity of the case. The insuf- ficiency of all other explanations compelled him to seek refuge in the sufficient power and wisdom of Almighty God. Agreed on this, men may differ concerning the vital development of the world, and not imperil the foundations of faith, or retard the progress of human ILLOGICAL DEFINITIONS OF LIFE. 161 history. Agreed that all life sprang froni the one great life, and confusion in philosophy disappears. Agreed here, almost any the- ory hitherto propounded as an explanation of historical develop- ment might be sustained ; spontaneous generation is possible with a living God to order it; pangenesis, or any atomic theory, is pos- sible with a living God to endow the atoms with life; even the pro- toplastic basis might be approved if God is allowed to impart to it its life-giving property ; and materialism, vitalized by the divine spirit, and put under divine control, might be radiant with uni- versal truth. Such are the philosophic theories respecting the origin of life. Until one advances to the biogenetic and creational conceptions of the universe, he flounders in misshapen definitions and complex but in- complete explanations. Outside of this region of dullness and darkness, or inside the realm of religious investigation, one would expect to meet with clearer statements, and more satisfactory conclusions. In this expectation one will not be for the most part disappointed ; but occasionally an erroneous view is taken, or a compromising explana- tion given, even when the highest religion is guiding the investigator into the truth. Dr. Noah Porter translates life into soul, but this is objectionable, since it will apply only to the spiritual nature of man. Vegetable life is not soul -life. Dr. Wythe defines life ' ' as the sum of the activities resulting from the union of mind and matter." In framing a definition a cautious phraseology is required in order to secure accuracy of statement and prevent a misleading influence. To use life and soul as synonymous is a high idea, but it is not broad enough ; to say that life is the sum of the union of mind and mat- ter is certainly not discriminating, for it does not concede that mind is independent of matter, nor does it insist that the vital principle is not a property of matter. Life is the sura of mind and matter ; therefore, it is not either alone. Applied to the vegetable kingdom, the definition is faulty, for mind is not ascribed to it at all ; applied to man, it makes matter as much an essential as mind. Life is more than a sum ; it is not a total of activities. The activities resulting from the union of mind and matter are the manifestations of life through an organization, by which we predicate life, but with which we do not confound life. In some particular cases, and applied nar- rowly, life may appear to be the sum of its own manifestations; but in a large sense this is confounding results with causes. The material- ist interprets life to be the result of organization ; Dr. Wythe inter- prets it to be the result of the union of mind and matter, without -which life would be impossible. Dr. Wythe is not a materialist but his interpretation is logically materialistic. 162 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. Dissatisfied with idealistic and materialistic definitions, it is in- cumbent upon us to advance a definition, in doing which we confess we run the usual risk of failure. However, our estimate of life is in very general tei'ms that it is the cause of all physical and intellectual manifestation ; that it precedes all organization and is separate from all physical forms, having no physical property whatever ; that it is in- visible, intangible, the supreme force, superior to magnetism, gravity, heat, light and motion, is inconvertible into any thing else, and is eternal. It is the principle _, of ^ creatipji, the breath of God, and therefore capable of an infinite variety of forms, phases and mani- festations. It ranks law, force, matter, every thing visible, formal, phenomenal. It is not a material substance; it is not a combina- tion of chemical elements ; neither is it a total of manifestations, or activities. In particular, f'i/ejsj^irii ; its activity is the activity of spirit ; its manifestation is the manifestation of spirit. Paul says, " The spirit giveth life." This is its origin ; it flows from the fountains of the eternal. Life is the stamp of the unseen on the seen. Life is God, the sign of God in the world. The living, whether in animals, plants, or men, is the proclamation of the living God. The word " life" has now a new meaning ; it is the word of words. Inspiration is in its bosom ; eternity is in its atmosphere. Defining the word thus, we have escaped the usual dilemmas of the definition- makers, and have accounted for the appearance of life in a way con- sistent and satisfactory to the reason. If we consider the kinds of life on the earth, the subject will have a practical complexion, but lose none of its philosophic interest. Indeed, the interest is heightened, for difficulties multiply as the varieties of life are considered in their relation to one another, and in their higher relation to a common source. In ordinary phrase, there are vegetable life, animal life, human life, intellectual life, spiritual life. Is life a unit ? Are these varieties the product of one life ? Is there a unity in the life of the world ? Science answers that the four elements, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, compose all kinds of bioplastic material, with sometimes the accidental addition of other elements, and that bioplasm is the same in appearance, whether it be the bioplasm of a geranium, a sponge, an elephant, a dog, a croco- dile, a horse, or a man. The microscopic appearance of universal bioplasm is doubtless tlie same, but evidently the power of the bio- plasm in each individual is different, or the result would be the same. The sameness of bioplastic substance is incompatible with variety. The unity of life does not signify bioplastic sameness or similarity. In fact, bioplastic life relates only to the animal and vegetable king- THE TROUBLES OF EVOLUTION. 163 doms, while the life that includes or accounts for intellectual and spiritual activities is of another kind. Beginning with bioplastic life, as thus limited, it is profitable to note the difiereuce between it and non-living matter. The distin- guishing mark is that inertia belongs to the non-living and spontaneity to the living. A piece of quartz illustrates the one, amoeboid motion the other. Self-motion characterizes the bioplastic center ; inertia dominates in the inorganic world. Equally conspicuous is the power of reproduction in the living and its absence in the non-living. The power of identity also attaches to bioplastic life. Living matter, from its law of activity, is like a river, ever flowing, and yet bearing the same name and preserving itself Forever sweeping on and changing in appearance, its identity is a marked fact in its history. Heraclitus's doctrine of the flux of mat- ter has a constant illustration in the realm of bioplasm. With all the varieties of living matter, the special peculiarities of the original vi- talistic substance predominate, and are ever maintained. There are varieties of oak, varieties of roses, varieties of sheep, varieties of in- sects, varieties of birds ; but it is noticeable that the law of identity is not disturbed. Relationship in varieties is easily traced. This leads necessarily to the perplexing but inviting dogma — if it may be so termed — of the stability or permanence of species, a dogma as perplexing to the evolutionists as it is comforting to Christian metaphysicians. Its chief value is its demonstration that life is under law, and yet above natural law ; that it has metes and bounds, beyond which it will not pass, and that the life-world has a fixed order, consistent with apparent variations from it. This is a hard lesson for the evolutionist. The dogma is not difficult to understand. The animal kingdom abounds in species which have not multiplied since the age of man. Varieties, many and singular, have multiplied, but the species are identical ; that is, fixed, permanent, unchangeable from age to age. Evolution, if true, would require the occasional, if not frequent, production of new species, but the utmost that it can do is to produce new varieties of the same species. If evolution produced species in other ages, why not now ? Here the evolutionist stumbles and falls. The changes of evolution result in varieties only. The dog is the dog in all lands ; the ox is always the ox ; the horse is the horse. The fact is all the stronger when it is remembered that man, with all his skill and genius, and moved by a scientific purpose to break the law, has been unable to undermine the permanence of species in any direc- tion. He has not originated any new .species, and none have appeared during his occupancy of the earth. Species may become extinct, but 164 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. new species are unknown. The relation of Jiybrids to species in no way disturbs the dogma of the stability of species, for the attempt to produce new species results in abnormal products, stamped with ster- ility, the sign of nature's protest, and the proof of nature's law in the case. Tins means sometking. It means tlmt life has its appointed chan- nels 'and limitations; it means ilie overthrow of the scientific theory of evo- lution as an explanation of the genesis of life; it compels a reconstruction of the scicrUifu: vieiv of creation, and secures the confirmation of the Biblical revelation of the same. The introduction of species is quite as mysterious as the stability of species is perplexing. Any natural process of introduction is bound to continue to produce species, while a supernatural process may stop with one exercise. This seems really to have been the case. The cre- ation of one pair for the propagation of one species is the only refuge for the thinker ; the sending down the ages of one line of animals, not to be broken by nature or man, but to be preserved amid all its changes and varieties, is proof of a creative will and a supervising in- telligence. This is creatiouism again, the inevitable issue of every fact in nature. Bioplasfti is tinctured with creationism ; the vegeta- ble kingdom chants creationism ; the animal kingdom is alive with it. The speculation that stability is only apparent, and not real, we dismiss as idle. It is proof that there is trouble in the camp of the agnostics, and nothing short of a denial of the dogma will answer their end. It is patent to the reader that living matter is distinguished by the power of growth and non-living matter by its absence. Iron does not grow ; the fern grows. Silver does not grow ; the squirrel, the os- trish, man grows. Life signifies enlargement, development, change of form, and final cause. These no one predicates of non-living things. If, with these distinctions, we stop, where are we ? The chief differences between non-living and bioplastic matter are : as to living matter, spontaneity of motion, or power of self-motion, power of re- production, power of identity, power of internal development ; as to 7ion-living matter, the absence of all these — its negative characteristics, its positive characteristic being inertia. The vitalistic principle focal- izes itself in a number of concurrent powers, motion, reproduction, identity and development, while the non-living substance may be ex- pressed best by a single word — inertia. From bioplastic to spiritual life is the next step, if we choose to take it. Bioplastic life, as seen in vegetables and animals, and in the physical structure of man is intermediate between the inorganic or non-living world, and the psychological and spiritual life, which dis- BIRTH-MARKS OF THE SOUL. 165 tinguishes man from all below him, and allies him to every thing above him. Not a few scientists detest classification. It interferes with fancy ; it hinders speculation. Geometry, algebra, fixed forms, and fixed systems are inconsistent with theoretical science. For this reason Hiickel condemned the division of matter into organic and inorganic ; it made him pause. The classification of life into bioplastic and spir- itualistic disturbs the dreams of the materialist, who would run his biological thread through all the cells and tissues of all the forms and manifestations of life, regarding them all as varieties of one life. He insists upon the unity of life at the expense of ineradicable differ- ences, but classification compels him to recognize these diflferences, and through them to see varieties of life. His vegetable biology he would transmute into psychological biology, but this is a task he has not yet accomplished. Just as living matter is distinguished from non-living matter, so spiritual life has its differentia, standing out from bioplastic forms with a grandeur peculiar to itself, and inde- pendent of all physical relations. Keener vision will be required to detect the essentia of this high- est product of the vitalistic principle, since it is so modest that it often refuses to be seen. Between the psychological and the sensational life of man the materialist affects to believe that there is no radical difference ; but the difference between the non-living and the living is not so great as that between the psychological and the bioplastic. Psychological law may be in perfect harmony with physical law, just as base and soprano in music may be in harmony, but they are not the same. If in the process of thinking the brain seems to resemble the liver in its processes of secretion, it does not justify the conclusion that thought is a physical secretion, and that the mental process is physical. Yet modern materialistic philosophy has confounded the processes and degraded the thinker into a bioplastic machine. The_J}irth-mark_ oObs_souJ,is ^ mnscioiisness, a recognition of itself as distinct from every thing else? the ego and the non-ego, the subjective and the objective, become distinct realities to the soul, through the avenue of consciousness, and it never confounds them. In its" normal moods the soul clings to the idea of its separateness or exclusiveness from all things else. However rapid and extensive its flights through the power of imagination ; however retrospective in its thinking ; however distant at times it may seem from itself ;^ it always falls back upon the consciousness of its own individual exist- ence. The ogsmtions of consciousness may even be unconscious, as the mind often indulges in calculations which it does not remember ; but in either case the fact of consciousness remains. Unconscious 166 PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. calculations, unconscious indulgences, do not interfere with the vice- gerency of consciousness. The mind often determines as to the beauty of an object by an unconscious process; the individual can not explain or express the process by which he reached the conclu- sion ; but that he reached it he knows. Thus the consciousness is so swift in its ratiocinations, its intuitive conceptions are so electric, its discernment of ratio is so immediate and comprehensive^ that the mind can not report the processes, and even loses sight of the data which were employed, rejoicing only in the results. Now, thisjs riot a characteristic of bioplastic material. No philosopher atFributes con- sciousness to a rose, or a wheat-blade. There is spontaneity of motion, but this is not self-recognition. There is identity of species, or self-preservation, but this is not self-knowledge. Thelaw of identity in bioplastic matter is analogous to the law of consciousnessln" soul-life. In both identity is maintained with this difference, namely, living matter does not recognize its identity, while tho soul does rec- ognize its identity. Soul-life is therefore the hiiilicr life. A still more marked difference is the power of volition, or of self-determination in the soul, the analogy to which in bioplasm is its spontaneity or the power of self-motion. But living matter is uncon- sciously spontaneous ; that is, while its direction is from within, it is instinctive rather than voluntarily intelligent. Even the bee build-\ ing its cell after the most correct mathematical principles, displays no ] such intelligent volitional power as the child in determining a moral , issue. Right horc is the abyss between the spontaneous activity of bioplastic life, and the volitional power of the soul, which has never been bridged. The volitional power in man is exercised with respect to~moral problems which bioplastic life is not called upon to consider. He must analyze the moral quality of actions, and he has the power to do it. He must understand the principles of the divinest juris- prudence and know how to apply them to the case in "hand. He must know what law is; he must knoAv the difference between right and wrong, justice and injustice, truth and falsehood, sin and holi- ness. He must be able to choose the right and reject the wrong. He must see differences, and choose between them. This is a high prerog- ative which bioplastic life never exercises. This prerogative, the *po"wer of alternate elioiee, tlie soul fully, freely, and responsibly does exercise. Tliis is its highest endowment; this lifts it above bioplasm. In itself, or through external influence, the >