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PRINCETON
.
NEW JERSEY
PRESENTED BY
Dr. Earl A. Pope Manson Professor of Bible Lafayette College
BL 182 .C42 1833 v Chalmers, Thomas, 1780-1847 On the power, wisdom, and goodness of God
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ON THE
REV.
THOMAS CHALMERS
PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN
THF.
D.D.
UNIVFRSfTY
OF FDINBUnOIl
VOL
II
LONDON
WILLIAM PICKERING
1833
C.
CONTENTS
TO THE SECOND VOLUME.
PART
On the Adaptation
of
I.
Constitution of Man.
Chap. VII. On
the
VIII.
On
and on the
both to the of
it,
man and
the
Character
God
IX. Miscellaneous Evidences of Virtuous and Benevolent Design, in the Adaptation of
ternal
51
Ex69
Nature
to the
Moral Constitution of
Man
X.
On
a
World
for
making
the
Species
happy;
this,
and
Ar-
God and
the
Immortality of
Man
97
VI
CONTENTS.
PART
On the Adaptation
of
II.
Chap.
I.
Chief Instances of
Adaptation
131
II.
On
Emotions
III.
180
On
Will
IV.
219
Defects and the Uses of Natural Theology 257
On the
PART
I.
Chapter VII.
On
which conduce
to the
in
well-
being of society, to the extent that this is dependent on certain mental tendencies whether these can be demonstrated by analysis to be only
secondary
results, or in
themselves to be simple
constitution.
elements of the
human
We may
be said indeed, to have already bordered on this part of our argument ^when considering the or the manner origin and the rights of property that apaffections, in which certain possessory pear even in the infancy of the mind and anti-
cipate
exercise of
human
it,
than
or
human wisdom could possibly have devised, at least than human power without the help
carried
For there might be a useful economy sanctioned by law, yet which law could not have securely established, unless it had had a foundainto effect.
For in this respect, there is a limit to the force even of the mightiest despotism insomuch that the most absolute monarch on the face of the earth must so far conform himself,
tion in nature.
to the indelible
human
over
whom
else, in
And
they would hurl him from his throne. thus it is well, that, so very generally in the
Avay.
far
better, that,
made up
of
own
capricious inventions
she should,
to so
We know few
chievous
this
effects,
course of which, we
The evils which two remarkable instances. ensue when law traverses any of those principles, that lie deeply seated in the very make and constitution of the mind, bring out into more
striking exhibition the superior
wisdom of that
3
as
even
more
fully demonstrated,
it
but
that
And
thus too
it is,
may
be gathered,
from the errors with their accompanying evils of unsound legislation on those occasions when the wisdom of man comes into conflict and collision with the wisdom of God. 2. Of the two instances that we are now to produce, in which law hath made a deviation from nature, and done in consequence a tre-
evil,
We
the
is
in
any way
Still
it
but
very
much
the reverse.
we
hold
it
should
as to do most unnecessary
all
some other of the public burdens, been commuted into a pecuniary and yearly tax on the proprietors the possessory
the
tythe, like
Had
by
it.
But
it is
the constant
be intolerable.*
But
meto
law,
and which all its authority is unable to quench would be a commutation into land. Let the church property in each parish be dissevered in this way from its main territory and then, both for the lay and the ecclesiastical domain, there would be an accordance of the
It is
because
so
much
exasperation in England,
No
doubt law can enforce her own arrangements, however arbitrary and unnatural they might
*
The
alleged will
is
to revolt
The
ter of
fee-simple of the
Durham
is
in the
The custom
on leases of forty
the
payment of arbitrary
which
fines
moderate, one year and a quarter being asked for houses, and
for lands.
own
terms.
but
it is
a striking exhibition,
we have always
And, in resistance to all the opprobrium which has been thrown upon them, do we affirm, that,
with a disinterestedness which is almost heroic, they have, in deed and in practice, forborne
to the average extent of at least
one
truth
half,
is,
the
that
assertion
of their claims.
The
the
odium which attaches to the system ought never to have fallen upon them. It is an inseparable consequence of the arrangement
felt
itself,
so
as to be constantly rubbing, as
that possessory feeling,
were, against
which
may
be regarded
sweeten
the
brood-
many
heartburnings and so
the
many
festerments,
by which
elements of
an unappeasable warfare are ever at work between the landed interest of the country, and
most important class of its public funcand, what is the saddest perversity tionaries
far the
;
of
all,
those,
whose
office
it is
by the mild
per-
and righteousness
c. II.
they
are forced
c
of
system which
current,
many
of
them
a
deplore, into
placed
people's
in
that very
along which
hatred
and
a people's
obloquy are
was with
diffi-
which the
gifted
its
diseased as offerings.
violence done
Such, in
system
fact,
is
the
by
this
to the possessory
exactions,
may be
test of religious
obedience
ill
such an obedience,
days of the Hebrew polity, although it had the force of temporal sanctions, with the miracles and manifestations of a presiding deity to sustain
as
it
now
is
is
by
There
is
it,
which
under
laid
upon a
Avhole order,
and indiscriminate charges, which have been preferred against them, by the demagogues of our land. We believe that nothing has given more of edge and currency to these invectives, than
the very unfortunate
provided for
dividuals
way in which their maintenance has been and many are the amiable and accomplished into
among themselves
whom
it
is
a matter of downright
agony.
enforcements of that dispensation, ought never to have been perpetuated in the days of Christianity.
There are
distinct, and,
we
hold,
vaUd
of
men
to the people.
But maintenance
in a
way
so
obnoxious to nature,
civil
is alike adverse to a sound and a sound Christian policy. Both the cause of religion and the cause of loyalty have
suffered
by
it.
The
of
wealth, were
but there are few things which would conduce more to the strength and peace of our nation, than a fair
interests
;
highest
England
and
3.
right
commutation of
it.
example of a mischievous collision between the legal and the possessory, is the English system of poor laws. By law each man who can make good his plea of necessity, has a claim for the relief of it, from
flagrant
soil, or from the owners and occupiers of houses and never, till the end of time, will all the authority, and all
;
them of the
invaded.
Law
strong
possessory feeling,
as
to reconcile
the
proprietors of
mity, or rid
violence.
It
this
the voice that nature gives forth on the right of property, and the voice that arbitrary law gives forth upon it it is this, which begets some-
thing more than a painful insecurity as to the stability of their possessions. There is besides^
we should call, a most That strong possessory feeling, by which each is wedded to his own domain in the relation of its rightful proprietor; and which they can no more help, because as much
natural irritation.
a part of their original constitution, than the parental feehng by which each is wedded to
his
own family
in the
relation
of
its
natural
protector
say,
is,
this
strong
possessory
feeling,
we
under their existing economy, subject all over England to a perpetual and most painful annoyance. And accordingly w^e do find the utmost acerbity of tone and temper, among the upper classes of England, in reference to their
poor.
We
the
are
if
there
be
any great
tw^een
difference, with
many
of them, be-
which they have towards the poor, and the feeling which they have towards poachers. It is true that the law is on the side of the one, and against the other. Yet it goes most strikingly to prove, how impossible
feeling
it
is
for
law
to carry the
it
acquiescence of the
heart,
when
that
to
paupers are
poachers in the
public imagination and that the inroads of both upon property should be resented, as if both alike were a sort of trespass or invasion.
4.
And
it
is
further interesting to
observe
Even
in their deport-
ment,
right. And whereas, it has been argued in behalf of a poor-rate, that, so far from degrading, it sustains an independence
to the possessory
of spirit
among
the peasantry,
by turning
that
which would have been a matter of beggary into a matter of rightful and manly assertion there is none who has attended the meetings of a
sertion to a right of
assertion of
any other right whatever, whether on the field of war or of patriotism. There may be much of the insolence of beggary but along with this, there is a most discernible mixture of its mean, and crouching, and ignoble sordidThere is no common quality whatever ness.
;
this worthless
and dissipated crew, and the generous battle-cry pro arts et focis, in which the humblest of our
population will join
when
all his
paternal acres, or
invaded.
all
his challenging
and
boisterousness, there
10
is
still
impression, that,
after
all,
there
plea.
is
He
upon which he is standing and, in spite of all done to pervert his imagination,
whom
the
he
him
in
face,
man
demands
the
of
unquestionable justice.
In
spite of himself,
what
look
poacher.
And
unfortunate blunder,
There
is
but one
to affirm,
by which
politic
body
can
And
right to be at least
common
sense of
would make
it
and as
to the poor,
mankind by utterly
liberty,
which should ever be a matter of love and and when she aggravated ten-fold the
11
dependence and misery of the lower classes, by divorcing the cause of humanity from the willing generosities, the spontaneous and unforced sympathies of our nature.
5.
But
special affections
tress,
our
compassion
including, as one of
most prominent
compassion
objects, our
We
have already
its
how
;
implanted affections, for the establishment of property and for the respect in which, amid
all
its
inequalities,
it is
held
by
society.
But
which a mere system of property appears to leave out and which, if not otherwise provided for by the wisdom of nature in the constitution of the human mind, would perhaps justify an attempt by the wisdom of
;
it
in
the constitution of
which have been instituted by the hand of nature, and which, if not traversed and enfeebled by a legislation wholly uncalled for, would of themselves, prevent the extensive prevalence of want in society. These are the urgent law of self-preservation, prompting to industry on the one hand and to economy on the other and the strong law of relative affection which laws, if not tampered with
certain other securities
;
12
and undermined in their force and efficacy by the law of pauperism, would not have relieved,
but greatly better, would have prevented the vast majority of those cases which fill the
England.
prevented
Still these,
all
poverty.
few instances,
like
but withal effectually met in the country parishes of Scotland, would still occur in every little community,
however virtuous
or
well
regulated.
And
made
special
provision
beautiful law of
by which nature hath for them even the compassion, in virtue of which
the sight of another in agony, (and most of all perhaps in the agony of pining hunger), would,
if unrelieved, create
a sensation of discomfort in
what he should have felt, had the suffering and the agony been his own. 6. But in England, the state, regardless of all the indices which nature had planted in the
human
constitution, hath
its
law of pauperism, it hath, in the first instance, ordained for the poor a legal property in the soil and thereby, running counter to the strong possessory
its
;
own hands.
By
Jiftection,
it
13
which belongs
to
him.
And
in
the
compassion,
second instance, distrustful of the efficacy of it, by way of helping forward its
instead of supple-
made
for
be chiefly provided
machinery of its law is to enforce the rights of justice, or to defend against the violation of them and never does it make a more flagrant or a more hurtful invasion, beyond the confines of its own legitimate terri;
by nature thus leaving it for, by methods and by a own. The proper function of
it
tory
than,
it
justice,
to the
should have
taken a lesson from the strong and evident distinction which nature hath made between these
two virtues, in her construction of our moral and should have observed a corressystem
;
ponding distinction
in its
but leaving
14
When
law, distrustful
is in all hearts,
enacted a
did in-
system of compulsory
relief, lest,
in our neglect
;
it
comparably worse, than if, distrustful of the appetite of hunger, it had enacted for the use of food a certain regimen of times and quantities, lest, neglectful of ourselves, our bodies might have perished. Nature has made a better provision than this for both these interests but law
;
still,
But
it
has
done much to quell and to overbear the affection of compassion that never-failing impellent, in a free and natural state of things, to deeds of charity, for the well-being of the social economy. The evils which have ensued are of too potent and pressing a character to require description. They have placed England in a grievous dilemma, from which she can only be extricated, by
the
new modelling
provisions
Meannever
15
by
is
done,
when her
processes
We
that would
justice
more
on its which
virtue
is
founded
and that therefore justice, to may be added truth, is no further a virtue, than as it is instrumental of good to men thus making both truth and justice, mere species or modifications of benevolence. Now, as we have
not with the theory of morals, but with the moral constitution of man that we have properly to do; and, most certain it is,
it is
already stated,
that
man
justice
and truth, irrespective altogether of their consequences or, at least, apart from any such
view
to these
is
mind
at all
Without contending
for the
mean
by virtues of perfect
in reality
and in the
nature of things as between justice where the obligation on one side implies a counterpart right upon the other, and benevolence
to
penser, there
may be on the part of the disno corresponding right on the part of the recipient. The proper office of law is to enforce the former virtues. When it
is
it
makes
a mischievous extension
own
legitimate boundaries.
16
ill
and that
for
is
irrespective of all
;
its
subse-
quent
is
utilities to
the animal
an appetite
its
minates in virtue,
spect to
economy and there doing what is right which terand which bears as little re-
good of self or for the good of society. The man whom some temptation to what is dishonourable would put into a state of recoil and restlessness, has no
other aim, in the resistance he
makes
to
it,
than
simply
This
is
to
make
full
and he looks no furhis landing place There may be a thousand dependant blessings to humanity, from the observation of moral But the pure and simple appetency rectitude. for rectitude, rests upon this as its object, without any onward reference to the consequences which
ther.
shall flow
from
it.
is
as
and incorrect in the expression of it. If a man can do virtuously, when not aiming at the then useful, and not so much as thinking of it to design and execute what is useful, may be
ception,
and
*
is
a virtue
but
it is
not
all
virtue.*
is
right,
to its utility
that
we
hold
maximum
of utility, utility
is
is
right
and
He
17
There
is
one
way
in
which a
theorist
It is
may
to
is
man
be doing virtuously^
train.
when,
he
its
But then
is
it
may be
affirmed, that
he really
sensible
so
thinking
although
he
is
not
of it. There can be little doubt of such being the actual economy of the world, such the existing arrangement of its laws and its
sequences
instances,
that
virtue
;
closely associated
and
no
less
in those
where the resulting happiness is not at all thought of, than in those where happiness is the direct and declared object of the virtue. Who can doubt that truth and justice bear as manifold and as important a subserviency to the good of the species as beneficence does? and yet it is only with the latter, that this good is the object of our immediate contemplation.
But then
it
is
affirmed, that,
must be as constant an association of them in the mind of the observer of nature an association
at length so habitual,
and therefore
rig-ht
is
so rapid,
is
is
most useful
fulness,
yet, in
many
instances,
it
it is
to be right.
We
agree too
end
in creation
18 that
we become utterly unconscious of it. Of this we have examples, in the most frequent and familiar operations of human life. In the
act of reading, every alphabetical letter
must
have been present to the mind yet how many thousands of them, in the course of a single
hour,
in
fleeting
succession,
without so
moment's sense of their presence, which the mind has any recollection of. And it is the same in listening to an acquaintance, when we receive the whole meaning and effect of his discourse, without
as
much
one
the
distinct
consciousness
the meaning.
of very
many
of
pensable
to
and
yet
more
inscrutable
;
mysteries
relate,
in
the
human
constitution
and which
not to
we
to
we put
forth,
and
very
many
of which
we
We
have only
to reflect
on the number and complexity of those muscles which are put into action, in the mere processes of writing or walking, or even of so balancing
ourselves as to maintain a posture of stability.
It is
will,
distinct
their part
and
19
are
ness.
which wholly escape the eye of consciousAnd thus too, recourse may be had to
and too fugitive for being the objects of remembrance afterwards. And on the strength of these it may be asked how are we to know, that the utility of truth and justice is not present to the mind of man, when he discharges the obligation of these virtues and how are we to know, that it is not the undiscoverable thought of this utility, which forms the impeltime,
lent
principle
Now we
this question in
are precluded from replying to any other way, than that the
such an argument
all its
for
materials
is
But we can at least say, that a mere argumentum ah ignorajitia is not a sufficient basis on which to ground a philosophic theory; and that thus to fetch an hypothesis from among the inscrutabilities of the mind,
to
20
is
to rear
a superstruc-
facts which He within the between the known and the unknown, but upon the fancies which lie Mdthout A great deal more is necessary for this limit. the establishment of an assertion, than that an adversary cannot disprovfe it. A thousand possibilities may be affirmed which are susceptible neither of proof nor of disproof; and surely it were the worst of logic to accept as proof, the mere circumstance that they are beyond the They, in fact, lie alike reach of disproof. beyond the reach of both in which case they should be ranked among the figments of mere imagination, and not among the findings of
upon the
limit of separation
experience.
the
bosom
do not
orbits
round the
inter-
our telescopes
worlds
all
of
them teeming,
like
our
cheerful animation.
Now,
But we
we do
not
know
but
it
it
may
so,
be
so.
is
till
a telescope of power
21
And
it
is
the
us.
same of the
It rests, not
upon what
it
finds
among
the
it
arcana of the
fancies to be
human
there
;
spirit,
and they are fancies too which we cannot deny, but which we will not admit till, by some improved power of internal observation, they are
turned into findings.
We
;
been made
sensible, that
this virtuousness,
had of the
for a
utility of truth
moment
consciousness.
We
our
own bosoms
around
to truth
to
and observe
us,
due
and
the
to
be
same with
we render
Or, in other
words,
virtues
we do
venerate
while,
of
for aught ive know, the utility not in all our thoughts. We agree
in thinking, that,
" con-
seem
to us the only
this
He
"ab-
22
is
something pleasing and amiable in sincerity, something disagreeable openness, and truth and disgusting in duplicity, equivocation, and
;
Dr. Hutcheson himself, the great patron of that theory which resolves all moral for qualities into benevolence, confesses this he speaks of a sense which leads us to approve
falsehood.
However
difficult it
may
in
which
pable distinction, which the Author of our moral frame hath made, between justice and truth on
the one hand, and beneficence on the other.
And
had discriminated, as nature has done, between justice and humanity although the mischief of their unfortunate deviation serves, all the more strikingly,
it
had been
well, if law-givers
moral constitution
society.
to the
exigencies of
human
The
law^
by enacting the
;
way
has
that
it
it
Beneficence loses
23
moves on the impulse of a legal obligation Should law specify the yearly simi that must pass from my hands to the desthen, it is not beneficence titute around me which has to do with the matter. What I have to surrender, law hath already ordained to be the property of another; and I, in giving it up, am doing an act of justice and not an act of
it
from without.
liberality.
To
;
sum
that
is
spe-
by law
to
seize
and thus law, in her attempts upon beneficence, and to bring her
under rule, hath only forced her to retire within a narrower territory, on which alone it is that she can put forth the free and native characLaw, in fact, teristics which belong to her. cannot, with any possible ingenuity, obtain an imperative hold on beneficence at all for her
Should law go forth on the enterprize of arresting beneficence upon her own domain, and there
laying upon
her
its
authoritative
dictates
it
would find that beneficence had eluded its pursuit and that all which it could possibly do, was to wrest from her that part of the domain of which it had taken occupation, and bring When it it under the authority of justice.
;
it
only,
;
in
new
division of property
and
in so doing,
it
24
tempts
to
to force
while,
its at-
left to
has done
much
afFections.
widen the space which justice might call her own, and to contract the space which beneficence might call her own. But never will law be able to make a captive of beneficence, or to lay personal arrest upon her. It might lessen and limit her means, or even
of demarcation
to
as
utter
annihilation.
But never
It is alto-
can
late
it
make
to
own.
any given extent with one's it ceases to be his own and any good that is done by it is not done The force of law and the freeness of freely. love cannot amalgamate the one with the other. Like water and oil they are immiscible. We
law interposes
to
cannot translate beneficence into the statutebook of law, without expunging it from the
statute-book
extent
that
1 1
of the
heart
and,
to
whatever
to
And
is
put to
flight, is
25
of this emotion
is
another's
good- will.
which law hath enabled me to plea as my own right nay to demand, with a front of hardy and resolute assertion. It is this which makes it the most delicate and dangerous of all ground when law offers to prescribe rules
will of another, that
comit
which
end
is
indispensable to
its
existence.
;
And
but
presence and
its
its
free-will offerings
all
awaken
in
laying an arrest on
the music
and delicious echoes, which are reflected, on every visit of unconstrained mercy, from those families that are gladdened by her footsteps. And what is worse, it is substituting in their place, the hoarse and jarring discords of the challenge and the conflict and the angry litigatiful
tion.
We may
is
a province
in
human
affairs,
to
their
own
into utter
apathy
field
beyond the
once
reach of jurisprudence
or on which, if she
26
of
all
those
unbought and unbidden graces that natively adorn it. So that while to law we would commit the defence of society from
sions of violence,
all
the aggres-
strict
and the
we
lest it
withered
and expired under the grasp of so rough a proand lest before a countenance grave as tector that of a judge, and grim as that of a messenger;
should be turned, as
into stone.
12.
if
by the head
of Medusa,
ills
in
this
though
it
be no slight mischief to any community, that the tie of kindliness between these two orders should have been broken and that the business of charity, which when left spontaneous is so
;
fertile
in
all
the amenities of
life,
should be
a perpetual violence.
smitten the social
this,
hath
27
many
a vivid recollection.
The
reckless
whom
for,
the
headlong dissipation, in
consequence
the
the
also
absolves a
man from
attention
to
himself will
absolve
him
from attention
to his relatives
all
the
little
vicinities
for
each
man under
this
universal provision
from attention
to
his neighbours.^
^These
dis-
tempers both social and economic have a common origin and the excess of them above what
;
may
all
be traced
which,
constitution of
we have
in nature, for
impetuously urged
right to the
by the advocates of
the
system of pauperism
that
every
man
;
has a
means
of subsistence.
Nature does
but with
continued occupation,
28
ciple to
which
it
voice
legitimate
owner of the
fruits of his
ciples on
own industry. These are the prinwhich nature hath drawn her landmarks over every territory that is peopled and
by human
beings.
cultivated
And
the actual
partly of
man's own direct aim and acquisition, and partly of circumstances over which he had no control.
The
right of
man
to the
means of existence on
is
a factitious sentiment
notwithstanding
ness
tending
of nature's landmarks,
and
to
traverse
those arrangements,
far better for the
nay
its
more sure and liberal support of all members. It is true that nature, in fixing
for the
man
sistence,
has
left
human
family
some
who,
on neither of nature's principles, will be found It possessed of any right, or of any property.
is for
interposed,
in
and,
by
creating
endeavoured
make good
But
it
if
dis-
and
if
must
29
be through the medium of a right that the destitute shall obtain their maintenance then, would there have been no need for another
principle,
which stands out most noticeably in our nature and compassion would have been a
;
human
constitution.
It
not
by
minds
not by
;
man
but by
without a
of their fellows.
to
and
there-
and more persuasive advocate, who might solicit and, for their for them at the bar of mercy
;
men an
for
ear
melting
charity.
But
is
not to
any
rare, or
romantic
of
the deprava-
which humanity
were an
the
agonies of
hunger
and rather
than
30
endure it, would they share their own scanty meal with them.* It were still more intolerable to the householders of any neighbourhood insomuch
that,
to supersede
would, whether in town or country, give rise to an internal operation of charity throughout
every
little
which law hath done, by trying better mechanism which nature had
is
itself
wisdom of
The
perfection
of
her
never more strikingly exhibited, than by those evils which the disturbance as when her law in of them brings upon society
arrangements,
by England's
and this violation followed up, in been of the natural order has
wretched law of pauperism
consequence, by a tenfold
poverty and crime.
*
increase
both
of
The
is
beautifully exemplified in a
from which
and a
is
no allowance of food
to the debtors,
who are confined The former live on their own means or the Instances have occurred when benevolent.
and
ensued, had not the criminals, rather than endure the neighbourhood of such a suffering, shared their own scanty pittance along with
them
thus
affording an
argumentum a
seeing that
had survived
cell.
tW
such a system
and
to ascertain
quences of a departure from her guidance on the man for if so, it will supply another
exquisite adaptation which she hath established between the moral and the physical, or between the two worlds of mind and matter. Certain, then, of the parishes of England have afforded a very near exemplification of the ultimate state to which one and all of them are tending a state which is consummated, when the poor rates form so large a deduction from the rents of the land, that it shall at length cease to be an object to keep them in cultivation.* It is thus that some
The following
is
an extract from the report of a select com" The consequences 1817. from
this state
which are
which
'
likely to result
"Wombridge
in
Salop,
fast
approaching
to
this
state.
The
petitioners state
in this parish,
and houses
is
even
same were
them;
will
be without
or
any
the
are
known mode
of obtaining
afforded to them.'
petition before
fast
them, that
And your committee apprehend, from this is one of many parishes that
Poor law Commission have
The
still
32
and
as their place
by
others,
re-
who have no
sult
might be, that whole estates shall be as effectually lost to the wealth and resources of the country, as if buried by an earthquake under
some blight of nature had gone over them and bereft them of their powers of
water, or, as
if
vegetation.
Now we know
this,
not, if the
whole his-
more
striking de-
monstration than
may
a
be done, by attempting
among
common humanity, the blessings and the fruits of one common inheritance. The truth is that we have not been conducted to
respecting property,
legislation at
all.
we
that a
to
man
by
his industry
is
acknowledged
be his
the original
mode
of acquisition
man
retains
is felt
by long acknowand
Legislation ought to
do no more than barely recognise these principles, and defend its subjects against the violation
33
And when
it
it
when
offers to
w hen,
it
English poor-laAvs,
does
nearer equality of enjoyment we know not in what way violated nature could have inflicted on the enterprize a more signal and instructive chastisement, than when the whole territory of this plausible but presumptuous experiment is made to droop and to wither under it as if struck by a judgment from heaven till at length that earth out of w hich the rich draw all their wealth and the poor all their subsistence, refuses to nourish the children w ho have abandoned her and both parties are involved in the wreck of one common and overwhelming visitation. 15. But w^e read the same lesson in all the laws and movements of political economy. The superior wisdom of nature is demonstrated in the mischief which is done by any aberration there;
from
when
The
when commerce
evolutions
;
is left
is
and
neither
34
cial
artifi-
cial restraints
human
poUcy.
The
greatest
economic good is rendered to the community, by each man being left to consult and to labour
for his
own
particular good
is
or, in
other words,
obtained by the
many
thousand
its
wills,
own
medicate the fancied imperfections of nature, or to improve on the arrangements of her previous and better mechanism.
It is
when each
and exclu-
man
is left
own individual benefit it is then, that markets are best supplied that commodities
sive aim, his
;
and
and abundance that the comforts of life are most multiplied and the most free and rapid augmentation takes place in the riches and resources of the commonwealth. Such a result, which at the same time not a single agent in this vast and complicated system of trade contemplates or cares for, each caring only for himself strongly bespeaks a higher agent, by whose transcendental wisdom it is,
;
that all
is
made
to
conspire so harmoniously
and
to
to terminate so beneficially.
We
are apt
of
man,
~a
35
universal
in
ment of some prosperous and pacific scheme of where each who shares education
;
the inidertaking
in
is
aware of
its
object,
or
acts
may have
who
But it is widely different, wdien, as in political economy, some great and beneficent end both unlooked and unlaboured for, is the result, not of any concert or general purpose among the thousands who are engaged in it but is the compound effect, nevertheless, of each looking severally, and in the strenuous pursuit of individual advantage, to some distinct object of When we behold the working of a his own. complex inanimate machine, and the useful-
ness of
its
products
we
it.
infer,
consciousness of
all its parts, that there must planning and a presiding wisdom been a have
in the construction of
The
conclusion
is
not
we think it emphatically more so, when, instead of this, we behold in one of the animate machines of human society, the busy
the less obvious,
result,
an optimism
wrought
movements of a vast multitude of men, not one of whom had the advantage of
by
the free
the public in
effected
all
his thoughts.
When
good
is
an
and gave
it
birth.
When
good
is
effected
by a combination
of con-
36
AFFECTIONS
Vv
HICH CONDUCE TO
wholly different with each from the compound and general result of their united operations
this
bespeaks a higher will and a higher wisdom than any by which the individuals, taken separately, are actuated.
When we look
condition,
at
each
striv-
own
we
see nothing
When
Ave
look at the effect of this universal principle, in cheapening and multiplying to the uttermost all
the articles of
establish-
world
we
The whole
science of Political
Economy
w ants
which bespeak
and the working of its profoundly We shall instance, constructed mechanism. first, that speciality in the law of prices, by
laws,
Avhich
they
oscillate
varieties in the
they do in the mere comforts or luxuries of human life. The deficiency of one tenth in
the imports of sugar, would not so
price of
that article, as
raise
the
a similar deficiency in
rise
even a
* See further upon this subject, Observations by Dr. Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, in his recent volume on Political Economy.
37
by the diminution of a
to
tenth
It is
market.
we
at present
its
have
final
do
not
;
with
its
efficient,
but with
cause
or
it is
which
law of wider variation in the price than in the supply of first necessaries, is the reason why a
population survive so well those years of famine,
when
not
This does
country
may
or,
only, for
usual
in
may
at an average be served with three-fourths of their usual subsistence, at the very time that the cost of it is three times greater than usual.
And
to
make
it
;
alto-
gether,
is
likely,
to limit
comforts
in the
and
the
first
many
of the
wont to impart a relish to their coarse and humble fare to husband more strictly their fuel and be satisfied for a time with vestments more threadbare, and even more tattered, than
C. II.
38
what
first
better
It is
times
to
appear
in.
all
be
yet
to
weather the
it
And
in the second
they are enabled to purchase at this cost because, and more especially if they be
a well-habited and well-conditioned peasantry,
with a pretty high standard of enjoyment in ordinary years, they have more that they can
save and retrench upon in a year of severe
scarcity.
of that
revenue which before went to the purchase of dress, and of various luxuries that might for
a season be dispensed with
;
expend on the materials of subsistence. It is this which explains how roughly a population can bear to be handled, both by adverse and seasons and by the vicissitudes of trade
more
to
how
after
all,
there
will
is
means, which
keep
many
many an
observer,
interest
how
the seemingly
frail
and precarious
all,
have
39
of the seasons
and
that,
we
find
after
and still gloomier fears, that the families do emerge again into the same state of sufficiency
as before.
We
know
not a
fitter
nism,
or in
by which a process so gratifying is caused, which he will find greater reason to admire
must be referred to the providence of Him who framed society, and suited so wisely to each other the elements of which it is composed. 17. There is nought which appears more
that
those elements
national
regulated.
to
How
another
;
unlike in cha-
one season
and between
moisture,
the
how
exceedingly different
essentially depends.
may be
Even
the amount of
man
mise of abundance
is
well
hurricane of a single
day,
or the rain of a
piled
to
together
on the harvest-field,
food
of millions.
were enough
destroy the
We
40
of
is
and exposure, so that the weather which adverse to one part of the country might be
soil
;
favourable to another
autumn must only be partial, from the harvest of the plains and uplands falling upon different months. Still,
of a desolating tempest in
with
all
of different years
lized
;
and
still
its
fluctuations would
distress
come charged
destitution
to
with
more of
and
families
may be
termed the
political
economy.
The
price of
human
diately
that
that
is is
produced,
brought
put
to
market
and
for
operation
increasing the
latter
so
as to repair as
much
It
is
a small
short-coming in
advance of prices
for this
upon
it
is,
to serve
throughout
which
tion
is
of families, there
encouragement given
41
by
this
ii]3on
farms,
and by certain
to
shifts
in
their
management
make
object of sale
and supply
to
With a high
price, the
farmer
as
feels
it
much
and
for this
purpose, he will
retrench to the
uttermost at home.
And he
has
the
much
feed
to
in his
power.
retrench
cattle,
More
and
in
particularly,
considerably upon
as
far as
this
wont
consist
way
to the supplies
of the market.
One must
often
have been
is
mal food
in a year of scarcity.
This
because
af-
man, lightens still more the farm consumption, and disengages for sale a still greater amount
of the necessaries of
that the
life.
We
farm suffers a derangement by this change of regimen, from which it might take
years to recover fully.
tolerable
more
mity
evil
becomes
weathered at
furthest
42
and without,
operation of
and
all
the causes
that
supply of the
smaller limits
explained, the
oscillate within
insomuch
that
though the
deficient
latter
should be deficient by
one-
be
by one-fifth or one-sixth of what is brought to market annually. 19. This effect is greatly increased by the
distillation in
suspending of
years of scarcity.
And
short,
after
all,
If such
even within the limits of a country, as in some measure to balance the scarcity which is
experienced in one set of farms, by the compa-
abundance of another set this will apply with much greater force to a whole continent, or
rative
to the
world at large. If a small deficiency in the home supply of grain induce a higher price than with other articles of commerce, this is just a
provision for a securer
the deficiency
thing of far greater importance with the necessaries than with the
of
life.
That law of
43
which we have
attempted to expound,
is
by
man,
in
those seasons
more certainly and the more speedily through the earth that which has been dropped upon it unequally from Heapartial
so
as to diffuse the
ven.
should thus
be given
by which the
first
descend
upon
to
it
and, however
much
it
may
be thought
create such
it
failure in their
yet certainly
the
more powerful, by
which corn flows in from lands of plenty to a But what we have long esteemed the most beautiful part of this operation, is the instant advantage, which a large importation
from abroad gives to our export manufacturers
home. There is a limit in the rate of exchange to the exportation of articles from any country but up to this limit, there is a class of
at
;
labourers
articles.
employed
Now
tation
such as to enlarge
this limit
sell
so
and carry out a greater amount of goods than before, and thus enlist a
with a larger
44
An
make
employment spring up
time that
ticular
it
in
disappears in another.
when
is
the
demand
commodity
slackened at home,
is
stimulated abroad.
to the
way
in
We
proportion of
saries of
life,
first
neces-
from the
saries of life.
may
;
be regarded as one
were woful indeed, if on the precise year when food was dearest, the numerous workmen engaged in this branch of industry should find that employment
of the second necessaries
it
and
was
But in very proportion as they are abandoned by customers at home, do they find a compensation in the more quickened descarcest.
mand
It is in these
various
so well
ways
its
that a country
is
found to survive
;
and
of
even under a
subsistence,
its
taken in
mention that the four preceding paragraphs are gubstance, and very much in language, from a former
45
When any
given object
is
anxiously cared
by a
forth in
and all its wisdom is put devising measures for securing or exlegislature,
tending
it
it
that what
may have hitherto been the laborious aim and effort of human policy, has already been
for,
provided
nature
with
all
perfection
and
entire-
workings of human
and that
wisdom of the state has been anticipated by a higher wisdom or the wisdom which presides
human
Of
this
nomy
as
for the at
and the object of capital for the preservation and growth of which there is a like misplaced anxiety, and for the decay and disappearance of which there is an equally misplaced alarm. Both, in fact, are what may be termed
self-regulating interests
or, in other
words, in-
terests which result with so much certainty from the checks and the principles that nature
hath
already instituted,
as
to
supersede
to
all
publication
human
and
at a time
when
%ve
were not
quest of
it.
46
but
it
holds equally
is,
There
on the
needless excess
hurtful
And, by a law of oscillation as beautiful as that which obtains in the planetary system, and by which, amid all disturbances and errors, it is upheld in its mean state indestructible and inviolate does capital, in like manner, constantly tend to a condition of optimism, and is never far from it, amid all the variations, whether of defect, or redundancy, to which it is exposed. When in defect, by the
operation of high
prices,
it
almost instantly
it,
recovers itself
when
in excess,
by the ope-
mediocrity.
is to
In the
first
case, the
;
speedy accumulation of
case, the
trade
It is
In the second inducement is to spend rather than to and there is a speedy reduction of capital.
itself,
in the
way that
the country
so
any and
47
that precisely because of a previous moral and mental regulation by the wisdom of God.
any thing can demonstrate the hand of a righteous Deity in the nature and workings of what may well be termed a mechanism, the very peculiar mechanism of trade it is the
21
.
But
if
healthfid
impulse given to
is
all
its
movements,
wherever there
and
so
as to ensure an in-
and the economic comfort of a people. Of this we should meet with innumerable verifications in political economy did we make a study of the science, with the express design of fixing and ascertaining them. There is one very beautiful instance in the effect, which the frugality and foresight of workmen would have, to control and equalize the fluctuations of commerce acting with the power of a fly in mechanics and so
or
now occur
so often,
and
What
the neces-
so as,
;
if possible, to
compen-
sate
by
and yet the inverse effect of this in augmenting and perpetuating that glut, or overproduction, which is the real origin of this
of
its
remuneration
48
would not happen in the hands of a people elevated and exempted above the urgencies of immediate want and nothing will so elevate and exempt them, but their own accumulated wealth the produce of a resolute economy and good management in prosperous
whole calamity.
;
times.
when
live,
through
husbanded means, the commodities of the overladen market would soon clear away when, with the return of a brisk demand on empty M^arehouses, a few weeks instead of months would restore them to importance and prosperity in the commonwealth. This is but a single specimen from many others of that enlargement which awaits the labouring classes, after that by their own intelligence and virtue, they have won With but wisdom and goodness their way to it. among the common people, the whole of this economic machinery would work most beneficently for them a moral ordination, containing in it most direct evidence for the wisdom and goodness of that Being by whose hands it is that the machinery has been framed and constituted and who, the Preserver and Governor, as well as
;
sits
with presiding
evolutions.
49
But
this is only
many the
is
universal,
all
and which
may
be detected in
al-
most
principles of the
economy
is
but
one grand exemplification of the alliance, which a God of righteousness hath established, betw^een
and physical comfort on the other. However obnoxious the modern doctrine of population, as expounded by Mr. Mai thus, may have been, and still is, to weak and limited sentimentalists, it is the truth which of all others sheds the
greatest brightness over the earthly prospects of
humanity
This
is
and
we
live,
and the moral nature of man, its chief occupier. There is a demonstrable inadequacy in all the material resources which the globe can furnish,
for the increasing
ing species.
gifted
But over and against this, man is with a moral and a mental power by
which the inadequacy might be fully countervailed; and the species, in virtue of their restrained and regulated numbers, be upholden on
the face of our world, in circumstances of large
and
most distant
ages.
The
first
consum-
50
mation
but car-
and lasting effect by the laws of political economy, through the indissoluble connection which obtains between the wages and
ried into sure
commerce and
civilization, the
produce of industry and of the produce of the soil, which shall fall to the share of the work-
men,
is
virtually at the
determination of the
work-men themselves, who, by dint of resolute prudence and resolute principle together, may
rise to
an indefinitely higher status than they now occupy, of comfort and independence in the commonwealth. This opens up a cheering prospect to the lovers of our race and not the less
;
so,
that
it is
and virtue which it can ever be realized. And it sheds a revelation, not only on the hopeful destinies of man, but on the character of God in having instituted this palpable alliance between the and so assorted the moral and the physical economy of outward nature to the economy of
intelligence
human
The lights and passions. apprehend made us have of modern science more clearly, by what steps the condition and the character of the common people rise and insomuch, that, while on fall with each other
principles
is
the
51
produce of the earth, nor the produce of human industry, but that proportion of both which falls
own share. Their economic is sure to follow by successive advances in the career of their moral elevation nor do we hold it imposto their
;
sible, or
even unlikely
that gaining,
every ge-
dignified leisure,
make
perpetual approximations
culti-
to the fellow^ships
vated
life.
Chapter VIII.
On
the Relation in
which the
special Affections
of our Nature stand to Virtue; and on the Demonst rati 071 given forth by it, both to the
Character of
Man
and
the Character
of God.
1.
There
tions of
which instead of expounding at great length, we have only stated because, however efFecbriefly or incidentally
52
no anxious or formal explanation but, on the instant of being presented to their notice, are read and recognized
extreme obviousness, as
;
to require
by
all
men.
One
man, is the force and prevalence of compassion an endowment which could not have proceeded from a malignant being; but
constitution of
which evinces the Author of our nature to be himself compassionate and generous. Another example may be given alike patent and recognisable, if not of a virtuous principle in the hu-
man
constitution, at least of
such an adaptation
that,
would both originate and sustain, the outward and general prosperity of man is indispensably connected. We mean the manifest and indispensable subserviency of a general truth in the world,
to the general well-being of society. It is diffi-
God
of
of infinite power,
and consummate
workmanship, but have devised would withal a lover of falsehood, such a world or rather, that he would not, in patronage to those of his own likeness, have
skill
;
ordered the whole of its system differently so reversing its present laws and sequences, as that,
instead of honour
and
genuousness and fraud should have been the usual stepping-stones to the possession both of
53
ments.
actual of
life
How
this is
to the
economy of
abundantly
whole experience
it
making
evident,
tween honesty and success in the world is the the connection between dishonesty and
;
success
is
the exception.
we should
observe a
still
avowal of
which could be easily effect it would have in society, if, all things else remaining unaltered, there should this single difference be introduced, of a predominant falsehood, instead of a predominant truth in the world. The consequences
falsehood,
tracing,
by
to
be enumerated.
The world
into
up
be paralyzed
a state of cessation
and
at least the
ticable.
movements were impracAnd were truth to disappear, and all dependence on human testimony to be deswithout which
its
is
troyed, this
C. II.
54
be mined by
tionship
It
and
all
the
comforts of
the world.
2.
life
would
from
and truth
that
without
society would
cease to keep
ascertain,
together
it
might
be well
to
by
what special provision it is in the constitution of man, that the practice of these virtues is upheld in the world. Did it proceed in every instance, Irom the natural power and love of
integrity
in
the heart
we
should
rejoice
in
between the worth contemplating and the of man's character, on the one hand security, as well as the abundance of his outward comforts upon the other. And such, in fact,
this alliance
;
is
moral depravation
which our species has obviously fallen, we probably do not overrate the proportion, when we affirm, that at least a hundred truths are But uttered among men for one falsehood. then, in the vast majority of cases, there is no temptation to struggle with, nothing by which
into
to try or to estimate the strength of the virtue
all
concerned
know-
O-J
this.
Instead
it
of
selfishness
and
honesty
it
vastly
Generally speaking,
that he should have
not
more
his interest
men
of integrity to deal
with
than
own
of this virtue.
To be abandoned by the
he would find
his
pride,
to
than ruinous
his
prosperity in
the world.
We
is
many
and
to
an occainjustice
sional harvest
made from
deceit
men would
be trusted.
is
cease to thrive
to others,
to himself.
gainful
And
therefore
it is,
that,
throughout
men
are as sensitive of
an aspersion on
in fact, is
that,
their
The
one,
tantamount
justice
to the other.
It is thus,
fidelity
and
current observation
copious
;
and
and while,
is
exceed-
and uncertain
still
in all hearts
human
and
may
subsist
by
the
literal
50
3.
Here then
is
in principle,
all
Were a profound
take account of
intercourse,
all
observer
of
human
life
to
he would
w^ere
;
mainly due
to the
or that they
were so
prevalent in society, because each man was bound to their observance, by the tie of his own personal interest insomuch, that if this
become an
inert or
on the repeal or suspension of the law of gravitation. Confidence the very soul of commercial enterprise, and without
of
merchandise
not of
were
that
man
man
own
special advantage.
This
good wrought out for society w^hile each component member is intently set, only on a distinct and specific good for himself a high interest, which could not have been confided to human but which has been skilfully extracted virtue
human
selfishness.
In as
57
and justice
not
by
it
:
in so far in
the goodness of
man
has no share
the
unpromising
emphatically
speaks
the
all
both
for
wisdom
goodness of God.
4.
But
in this there
is
no singularity.
even our
;
or im-
by
their
own
often
tuousness
not in
all
our thoughts.
We
are
so actuated,
as to do
what
is
best for
good of society
;
and our
which a moral regard to the greatest happiness of the species would dictate without any moral purpose having been conceived, or any moral It is thus principle been in exercise within us. that our resentment operates as a check on the injuriousness of others, although our single aim be the protection of our own interests not the
And
own dread
of resentment from
effect,
others,
which
honour or a respect
would have
58
a respect for their feelings would have had upon our converse with those around us.
It is in this
way
God makes the wrath of man to praise and the same is true of other affections of our nature, which have less the character
that
;
Him
It is
by a sense of duty, but under the force of a mere natural proneness, that mothers watch so assiduously over the helplessness,
and fathers
toil so
sistence of their
children.
Even compassion,
its
life,
movements, does
is
for
human
shape of a
The good
is
rendered, not
by
man
but
by man
surely
by the
not
all
the
by a law
in
is
it all
when,
these,
we
man
as an instru-
who
the agent
is
not
the being
who
is
59
The
instinct of
;
animals
at
is
wisdom
also
but,
a palpable
Man
as
;
has
his
instincts,
which
serve
in
the
substitutes
of
moral
goodness
him
but
which therefore mark all the more strongly, by their beneficial operation, the goodness of
his
Maker.*
5.
To
see
how widely
may
man we
made
infe-
rior animals.
arouses to de-
an escape from it, and the maternal affection which nourishes and rears forward the successive young into a condition of strength and independence for the protection of themselves
to
Dr. Smith
that
marked
" though
in his
re-
we never
fail to
we
When
we
by natural
we
impute
sentiments
imagine that
the
in reaiitv
i?i
the
wisdom of God."
60
these
have
same time are alike incapable of morality and reason. There is no moral purpose served by these implantations, so
at the
far at least as respects the creatures themselves,
who
with
whom
virtue
is
and unattainable. In reference to them, they may be viewed simply as beneficent contrivances, and as bespeaking no other characteristic
happiness and
This might
help us to
distinguish between
those
mental
of man.
in
common
with
the inferior animals; and so far they only discover to us the kindness of the divine nature, or
the parental and benevolent concern which
God
takes in us.
The
our race,
and are indicated by certain phenomena of our mental nature, in which the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air have no share with us
by
its
own
rightful
supremacy over all our affections and doings by our capacities for virtue and vice, along with the pleasures or the pains which are
;
61
disciples.
These
and additional
relation in
us,
which
stands to us
revealing
He
to
not
Him
only as
but
Him
also as the
Governor of man, and ourselves in a state of pupillage and probation, or as the subjects of a moral discipline.
C).
And
here
it
may
be proper
to
remark, that
we understand by
comprehensive of
The term
to
is
moral excellence.
Truth,
and
evil
justice,
moral
which has received the peculiar denominathese are all good moral properties, and so enter into the composition of perfect moral goodness. There are some who have analyzed, or, in the mere force of their own wishfulness, would resolve the whole character of the Deity into but one attribute that of
tion of H^oliness
and, in
Him
of
sovereignty and of
all
sacredness
holding
62
Him
and not
Governor of men.
But
this
analysis
is
The forebodings
life,
of
the
human
present
phenomena of human
and righteousness, as
however glossed
been,
ligion.
distinct
and
and
disguised they
may have
re-
we may
of
its
the
benevolence
or
human
life,
human
society
we read that
For in the larger capacities of man, and more especially in his possession of a moral nature, do we regard him as born for something ulterior and something higher than the passing enjoyments of a brief and ephemeral existence.
it.
And
so
when we
whether of his animal or mental economy, a subserviency to the protection, or even to the enjoy-
ments of
we
cannot discon-
Chap.
vii.
Art. 7.
63
going.
In
the instinctive
affinities of
fondness of parents,
and the
anger
species,
and
fear,
we
;
behold so
many
elements con-
may be termed
an apparatus of
guardianship
reared
that
by Providence in behalf of every creature breathes. But in the case of man, with his
and prospects, the terminating such an intermediate and tempois
larger capacities
object, even of
rary apparatus,
It is to
For meanwhile character is ripening and, whether good or bad, settling by the power and operation of habit into a state of inveteracy and so, as to fix and prepare the
a moral discipline.
;
What
to the inferior
animals are
the accom-
the provisions of a
life,
are to
man
modations of a journey.
In the one
we
singly
With
the other,
we connect
;
the purposes of a
divine administration
liberality of a Parent,
we
And
64
the existing
economy of
life,
are not
in
without
their influence
a system of
moral discipline. And it is quite obvious, that, ere we can pronounce on the strict and essential virtuousness of any human being, they must be
admitted into
tlie
reckoning.
In estimating the
indispensable to
into
it
executed,
is
far
he was schooled
at the
bidding of principle,
and
in
how
far
urged
feels
by
is
To do good
because he
that he ought,
from doing the same good, by the force of parental love, or of an instinctive and spontaneous compassion
as
from the
In as
am prompted
by
movement
the
of natural pity
in so far less is
I
In as far as
of an
am
restrained
from
out-breakings
anger
which
tumultuates within,
by the dread of a
counter-
resentment and retaliation from without in so It is thus that the far virtue has less to resist.
special affections
may
at
temptations of
at
and,
one time or of
frailty,
may
which
in its
own unaided
65
among
been overborne.
among men,
that,
by
means of the
of principle
we
in
highest wisdom,
delicacy.
But
still
be deducted,
computing the real amount and strength of the other and so the special affec;
but are of essential and intimate effect the processes of our moral jireparation, and
Man
is
When
it is
he likes
likes
doing what
it is
not always,
not generally,
because of
its
it. But his inclinations, these properties of his nature, have been so adapted both to the material world and to human society, that a
great
accompanying
which God hath given to him. And when doing Avhat he feels that he ought, it is far from always because of its perceived usefulness, that he so feels. But God hath so formed our mental constitution, and hath so adapted the whole economy
of external things to the stable and everlasting
06
two does not constitute their unity. Virtue is but God hath not right, because it is useful made it useful, because it is right. He both
loves
virtue,
and
wills
the happiness of
will,
his
creatures
this
benevolence of
being
itself,
Godhead.
He
wills the
and accordingly, hath so constructed both the system of humanity, and the system of external
nature, that, only through the
medium
of virtue,
or
lasting
happiness
be
these
two elements, because of the inseparable yet contingent alliance, which a God of virtue hath The Cosmopolites established between them.
are for merging
all
one
place a
human
conduct.
all
And
the Utilitarians
one
and would
substitute in their
place the
greatest usefulness,
as
which every question respecting the morality of The former would actions should be referred. do away friendship, and patriotism, and all the
67
the system of
human
nature.
The
latter
would
at least degrade, if not do away, truth and justice from the place which they now hold in the sys-
tem of Ethics.
The
changes on the happiness and security of social life, would exhibit the vast superiority of the
economy of things, over that speculative economy into which these theorists would transform it or, in other words, would prove by how mighty an interval, the goodness and the wisdom of God transcended both the goodness and the wisdom of man. 9. The whole of this speculation, if followed
existent
;
and legitimate consequences, would serve greatly to humble and reduce our estimate of human virtue. Nothing is virtuous, but what is done under a sense of duty or done, simply and solely because it ought. It is only
out into
its
just
is
present to the
mind, and
there
is
that
man can be
or to act virtuously.
We
any perform-
ance however beneficial, that is done under the mere impulse of a headlong sensibility, without
any sense or any sentiment of a moral obligation. In every good action, that is named good
because useful to society, we should subduct or separate all which is due to the force of a spe-
we might
little
precisely ascertain
how much
due
or
how
remains, which
may
be
The
inferior ani-
and therefore incapable of virtue, share with us in some of the most useful and amiable instincts which belong to humanity and when we stop to admire the workings of nature's sensibility whether in the tears that compassion sheds over
;
and endearments which are lavished by a mother upon her infant family, we seldom reflect how little of the real and proper character of We accredit man, as if they virtue is there.
were his own principles, with those instincts which the divinity hath implanted within him
;
and
it
so perverse a reckoning
this incense to
that, while
we
offer
humanity,
we
the hand of
is
so
adorned.
69
Chapter IX.
Miscellaneous Evidences of viituous and benevolent
Moral
Constitution of Ma7i,
It will be enough, if, after having led the way on a new territory of investigation, we shall select one or two out of the goodly number of
]
.
and
fer-
of the land.
We have
already endeavoured
benefits,
to prove,
even
but a multiple
This evidence, in
fact,
is
proportioned to the
final
number, not of
ture
eflicient
but
causes in na-
so
example of a good
its
rendered
humanity, in virtue of
actual
constitution,
may
by an
at
and kind purposes. The reduction of these examples into fewer laws does not extenuate the argument for His goodness and it may enhance the argument for His wisdom.
;
Introductory Chapter.
C. II.
70
2.
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS.
The
first
is
that
law of
is
affection,
by which
its
intensity or strength
its
object.
It
descending, for
example, with
to
much
children, than
law
as
;
much
more
so, as
even
idiot
boy.
Such instances could be greatly multiplied and we invite the future explorers of this untrod3.
task of collecting them. We hasten to instances of another kind, which we all the more gladly seize upon, as being cases of purest and strictest adaptation, not of the exter-
den
field to the
nal mental, but of the external material world, to the moral constitution of man.
The power of speech is precisely such an adaptation. Whether we regard the organs of
4.
utterance
and hearing
in
man, or the
aerial
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS.
71
are conveyed
do we
by
it,
by means of an elaborate material construction that this pathway has been formed, from one heart and from one understanding to
Still
it is
another.
And
therefore
it is,
communication by words, with all the power and flexibility which belong to it, by which the
countless
benefits
of
human
intercourse
are
secured,
and
all
common property for the good of mankind, may well be ranked among the highest of the examples that we are
thought are turned into a
now
in quest of
it
an adaptation as can be named of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of
spirits
and
indispensable.
has been
made
for these,
articulation
and hearing, as
72
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS.
mediate element, by the pulsations of which, ideas are borne forward, as on so many winged messengers from one intellect to another bespeaks, and perhaps more impressively than
any other phenomena in nature, the contrivance of a supreme artificer, the device and finger of
a Deity.*
5.
But
is
articulate
There
though
expressive gestures.
tions alone,
is
and there
is
similarity
the
natural signs of
and cheerfulness, for extended beyond the limits of our own species, and over a great part of the sentient creation. We learn by experience and association the sig*
It will at
may
be
extended
rials
to wiitten lang-uage,
and
mate-
its
munication of
human
thoughts.
We
in truth could
have multi-
plied indefinitely such instances of adaptation as we are now but we judge it better to have confined ourselves throughgiving
character
leaving the
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS.
73
for almost
at least
each distinct
intonation
sensibility,
that,
own
appropriate
so
we
can, from
its
melody
what are the workings of the and even what are the workings of the intellect. It is thus that music, even though
heart,
is
so powerfully
the
mental processes
interest is
insomuch
is
that,
without the
many
a story of deepest
most impressively
It
told,
many
a noble
or tender sentiment
veyed by
original
it.
says
much
predominance of virtue it
assertion of
its
and may be
deemed another
eminence
music
ciple,
is
designed pre-
and highest
that which
it
charged with
loftiest prin-
whether
ness, or is
to
employed
purposes and
;
animate the struggles of resolved patriotism and that never does it fall with more exquisite
cadence on the ear of the delighted
listener,
than
when attuned
it tells
to the
home sympathies
of nature,
woes and all humanity. The power and expressiveness of music may well be regarded as a most beauteous adaptation of External Nature to the Moral Constitution of Man for what can be
in accents of love or pity, of its
its
wishes for
74
MISCELLANEOLS ADAPTATIONS.
more adapted to his moral constitution, than that which is so helpful as music eminently is,
to his
moral culture?
sounds are
sounds are
;
or most those most expressive of moral heroism fitted to solemnize the devotions of the heart,
aspirations
and resolves
of
A philosophy
and some have contended that both the beauty and the sublimity of sounds
this contemplation
from their association with moral Without affirming that associqualities alone. ation is the only, or the universal cause, it must
are derived
at least
be admitted
to
each of the mental affections have its own approand there be the same or priate intonation
;
similar intonations
which are
inferior to
man then,
frequent
and familiar on every side of him, must be many of those sounds by which human passions are suggested, and the memory of things awakened
which are
fitted to affect
it
is,
and
And
thus
is
that,
to the ear of
;
a poet,
all
nature
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS.
stream whose softer murmurs would
lull
75
him
to
repose or
in the
mighty
forest,
when he
hears
by
its
innumerable
the wind,
to
and from
catch
the
whose
fitful
changes he seems
But the imagination will be still more readily excited by the notes and the cries of animals, as when the peopled grove awakens to harmony or when it is figured, that, amid the amplitudes
;
derness
making
it
to ring
all
and, as far as have in the sounds of nature sympathy with human emotions is awakened by
an adap-
But the same philosophy has been exto sights as well as sounds.
tended
The
inter-
change of mind with mind is not restricted to There is an interchange by looks language. also; and the ever- varying hues of the mind are represented, not by the complexion of the
face alone or the composition of
its
features,
76
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS.
thus that
to
human
sentiment or passion
be expressed by the colour and form and even the motion of visible things
may come
by a kindred physiognomy
nay,
for
all
the
like
by a
objects of
It is
on the aspects
violet, the
and we accor-
commanding mountain, the smiling landscape. Each material object has its character, as is amply set forth
innocence of the
lily,
the
Mr. Alison and so to the poet's eye, the whole panorama of nature is one grand personification, lighted up throughout by consciousness and feeling. This
in the beautiful illustrations of
;
is
the reason
why
in
all
languages, material
images and moral characteristics are so blended and identified. It is the law of association which thus connects the two worlds of sense and
*
We
may
is
the
medium by which
so
light
may
be regarded as standing* in
Much
could be said
we
are under
it,
indecency
The works of
works of darkness.
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS,
of
77
is
sentiment.
Sublimity in
the
in
one
the
the
other
and beauty
in the
one
is
the counterpart to
Both the graceful and the grand of human character are as effectually embodied in the objects and scenery of nature, as in those immortal forms which have been transmitted by the hand of sculptors
moral delicacy in the other.
to the admiration of distant ages. It is a
noble
moral and the external loveliness are thus harmonized as well as to the wisdom which has
each other, that supreme virtue and supreme beauty are at one.
*'
The
Of beauteous
There hand
and sublime.
in
hand
sit
There enthroned,
celestial
Venus with
divinest airs
AKENSIDE.
remark a certain neglect of external things and external influences, which, however enlightened or transcen8.
And we may
here
dentally rational
it
may
the
seem,
is
at variance
We
would
instance
undervaluing of the
78
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS.
all
makes
and power between spoken and written languageseeing that, superadded to articulate utterance, the eye and the intonations and the
gestures also serve as so
many
signals of con-
veyance for the transmission of sentiment from one mind to another. It is thus that indifference
to
manner
or even to dress,
may
real
a dereliction
against
the
be as grievous philosophy of
atti-
social intercourse
as
indifference to the
tude
and the
drapery of figures
against the philosophy of the fine proceed on the forgetfulness of that adaptation,
arts.
would be Both
which materialism is throughout instinct with principle, and both in its colouring and forms, gives forth the most significant On this ground too we expressions of it. would affirm, both of state ceremonial and
in
virtue of
professional
insignificant
;
is
and that he who in the spirit of rash and restless innovation would upset them, as if they were the relics of a gross and barbaric
doing violence not only to the usages of venerable antiquity, but to the still older and more venerable constitution of human
age,
may be
nature
imion,
weakening in truth
by dispensing with
of
those
influences which the Great Author of our constitution designed for the consolidation and
This
is
not accordant
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS.
with the philosophy of Butler,
*'
79
who wrote on the use of externals in matters of religion," nor with the philosophy of those who prefer the
findings of experience, however irreducible to
system they
9.
may
be,
to
all
the subtleties or
we remark,
that
is
makes
taste a derivative
emotions of taste
may be
vivid
and powerful,
weak
as
have no ascendant or governing influence over the conduct. This is no unusual phenoof our mysterious nature.
menon
general
There
is
but
not
it
is
of a dilettanti than
This
is
more
than
that
the
man
of
he should
momen-
from the music of war and patriotism. It seems the effect and evidence of some great moral derangement, that there
*
fine
well adapted to
all
rebuke
which
sensible
by
us.
80
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS.
such
should be
man between
when we observe a like incongruity in the objective nature by which he is surrounded we mean, between the external mental and the
external material world.
We
have only
is,
to
open
loveli-
contrast
or dissimilarity
between
templation
the
the hand of
God
and trans-
formed by the
extent,
spirit
of man.
We
believe with
much
in association
reigning
expression
and waterfall, impregnated with character the Avhole of the surrounding landscape. How comes it then, that, in the midst of living society, where we might expect to meet with the originals of all this fascination, we find scarcely any other thing than a tame and uninteresting level of the flat and the sordid and the ordinary whereas, in that inanimate scenery, which yields but the faint and secondary reflection of moral qualities, there is, on every line and on every feature, so vivid an impress of loveliness and glory? One cannot go forth of the crowded
which gives its and lake and which may be said to have
that
it
is
this
to
every tree
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS.
city to the fresh
81
nature,
and the
fair of rural
so
much
in
to
and
the
to
irritate
the
natural scene,
It
reminds us of
which is sometimes exhibited, between the soft and flowery lawn of a cultivated domain, and the dark or angry spirit of of whom we might almost imagine, its owner
on the intrusion
of every unlicensed
visitor.
And
is
it
may
be put
whence
of sense, as
its
beams upon us from its woods and eminencies and its sweet recesses of crystal
of which
but
the
imagery or the visible representation, should, in our world of human spirits, be so wholly
obliterated,
or
at
least
if
so
Does
left
it
not look as
materialism in
it
a great
touched, while
hath inflicted on
man
a sore
and withering leprosy ? Do not the very openness and benignity which sit on the aspect of
nature reproach him, for the cold and narrow
and creeping jealousies that be at work in his own selfish and suspicious bosom and most
;
82
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS.
tell
impressively
what
man
and what he ought to be ? 10. There are certain other adaptations; but on which we forbear to expatiate.* Some of them indeed border on a territory distinct from
is,
they do not altogether belong to it. The relation between food and hunger, between the object and the appetite, is an instance of
our own,
if
the
adaptation
between
external
nature
and
man's physical constitution yet the periodical recurrence of the appetite itself, with its imperious demand to be satisfied, viewed as an impellent to labour even the most irksome and
severe,
has an important
effect
both on the
pecting the
text suggested by the celebrated question resWe cannot but admit how liberty of the human will.
much
would have deteriorated the constitution of humanity, or essential parts, had rather destroyed one of its noblest and most not accountable was man either that as it been so constructed,
it
for his
own
were free
in the sense
by one of the parties in the controversy that is, contended random contingencies which had no parentage in many so were no any events or influences that went before them, or occupied Of the reasoners on the opposite place in a train of causation.
for
the
of human moral liberty, and the other for the physical necessity one to be the hold who many are there it is clear that
actions
argumentatively harmonize
But what the wisdom of man cannot in the world of speculation, the power
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS.
state of society.
83
The
superficies of the
human
made
so exquisitely alive
may be
This
is
purely a physical
adaptation, but
also
:
it
and
sensitive avoidance,
at the first
moment
of the spirit's
in
wantonness,
or
even
self-destruction
the
moment
further
of
its
despair.
on
specific
instances,
and
replete,
so that
irresistibly feels
himself
to be
an accountable creature
are as
much
many
and certain
We
are not
sure if the evolutions of the will are more beyond the reach of prediction than the evolutions of the weather.
It is this
union of the
certainty
of our volitions,
puzzling-, to
many
felt
of our controversialists
by us
in the
adjustment
and exquisite
so that
skill
while every
of
man
is,
in
point
of
less
is,
in point of result,
no
84
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS.
comprehensive argmnent.
have already adverted to the objective nature of virtue, and the subjective nature of man, as forming two wholly distinct objects It is the latter and not the of contemplation.
11.
We
God. more
is
of ethical doctrine
is
no
racter,
than would the system of geometry. It not geometry in the abstract, but geometry as
in the
embodied
Heavens, or in the exquisite structures of the terrestrial physics which bespeaks the skill of the artificer who framed
In like manner
it is
them.
the abstract
and so made, that virtue is the only element in which their permanent individual or social happiness can be realized, which bespeaks the great Parent of the human family to be Himself the lover and the exemplar of In a word, it is not from an righteousness.
so circumstanced
our lesson respecting the divine character, itself a fact, is to be learned and it is by keeping this
;
we
help for drawing from the very conflict and diversity of moral theories on the nature of
virtue, a clear,
for
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS.
12.
85
The
painful
suspicion
is
apt to intrude
upon
may
we
witness
and the controversy into which have fallen, on the subject of its elemoralists mentary principles. But, to allay this feeling,
it
first
place, that,
with
and constituting quality, is there is a pretty general agreement among moralists, as to what the separate and specific virtues of According to the the human character are. selfish system, temperance may be a virtue, because of its subservience to the good of the individual while by the system of utility it
essential
;
own
is
its
observation, our
services are kept entire for the good of society. But again, beside this controversy which relates to the nature of virtue in itself, and which maybe termed the objective
powers and
question in morals
there
is
a subjective or an
human mind.
The
Now,
which respect the origin or the pedigree of our moral judgments, it should not be forgotten, C. II. H
tions
86
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS,
they
are
nearly unanimous,
felt
as
to
upon mo-
rality itself
being
of supreme obligation.
by the mind as a matter They dispute about the about the origin and con;
but they
have no dispute about the supreme authority of conscience even as, in questions of civil polity and legislation, there may be no dispute about
and and formation. Dr. Smith, for example, while he has his own peculiar views on the origin of our moral
be antiquarian
its
may
doubts
origin
He
to the rationale, or
The
not in
and the supremacy of that decision are the least doubted by him. There may be
mode
of
and
it
at the
same
as
the guide
and the regulator of human conduct ^just as may be an anatomical controversy about
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS.
objects
87
attend-
and
By
ing to this
eliciting
we
When
its
opposing
theories,
would seem
on moral science,
virtue
to
let it
upholden,
is
that
rise
the conflict.
There
is little
or no scepticism,
in regard to the
sustaining
to sus-
and
it is
because of so
distinct
much
or of the
which it rests amount of ethical controversy in the world. There has been many a combat, and many a combatant not because of the baselessness of morality, but because it rests on a basis of so many goodly pillars, and because of such a varied convenience and beauty in the elevation
many
controversy
is,
that
too
wedded to his own exclusive view of an edifice mighty and majestic for his grasp, has either selected but one of the upholding props, and
affirmed
tecture
;
it
to
or
graces
and
utilities,
and affirmed
it
to
88
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS.
pose of the magnificent building. The argument of each, whether on the foundation of virtue or
on
be found a distinct trophy to its worth for each can plead some undoubted excellence or good effect of
its
nature,
when beheld
aright, will
own
theory.
Each may
had selected as that those properties of virtue which others had selected, were thrown into the shade, or at most but admitted as humble attendants, in the retinue of his
own
;
great principle.
And
whether morality
be a solidly constituted fabric but what that is which constitutes its solidity, and w^hich should be singled out as the keystone of the Each of the champions in this warfare fabric. has fastened on a different keystone and eacli pushes the triumph against his adversary by a
;
demonstration of
virtue
is
its
firmness.
Or in
other words,
dance of strength, as
for the
Samson
of old
lies.
what
is
that
is,
wherein
its
great strength
It
which sometimes
arises
when
are taken, and counter-explanations are advanced and argued, about the one characteristic or constituting charm, which hath conferred upon it so much gracefulness. It is even
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS.
SO of morality.
his
89
Each
;
own system
more
fully exhibited
not
neutralized
by
but
curity,
and with augmented sefrom the foam and the turbulence which
its
play around
base.
To her,
argument, that
may
is
the right of
God
to the
let
God's
absolute right be fully conceded to them. And when others reply, that, apart from such right, there is a native and essential rightness in morality, let this
be conceded also. There is indeed such a rightness, which, anterior to law, hath
had everlasting residence in the character of the Godhead and which prompted him to a law, all whose enactments bear the impress of purest morality. And when the advocates of the sel;
system affirm, that the good of self is the sole aim and principle of virtue while we refuse their theory, let us at least admit the fact to which all its plausibility is owing that nought
fish
;
to
happiness,
than the
observation of
all
90
of
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS.
human
conduct.
And when
a fourth party
affirms that
nought but the useful is virtuous ; and, in support of their theory, can state the unvarying tendencies of virtue in the world towards
human
family
let it
blends in his
devised the
He
hath so
its
economy
processes, as to
make peace and prosperity follow And when the position that virtue is its own reward, is cast as another dogma into the whirlpool of debate, let it be fondly allowed, that the God, who delights in moral excellence himself, hath made it the
direct minister of
after his
enjoyment
to
own image,
it
delights in
also.
And
when
others, expatiating
among
be followed up
all its
by
exhibi;
tions, there is
and that God, rich and varied in all the attestations which He has given of His regard to it, hath so endowed His creatures, that, in moral
worth, they have the beatitudes of taste as well
as the beatitudes of conscience.
And
should
it
there be philosophers
is
who say
of morality that
let it at
least
be granted, that
He whose hand
did frame
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS.
our internal mechanism, has attimed
it
91
in the
most correct and delicate respondency, with all the moralities of which human nature is capable.
And
tive
who
so
and substanof
things,
the
nature
as
to
make
distinct
it
ment
let
it
with
is
the
mind
hold
so constituted as to
firm
of the
moral which
;
has of the
prove no-
mathematical relations
thing
else,
it
and
if this
Author
virtue.
and
legible
impress
on the
side
of
We should
ville
;
Hobbes and Mandeand the latter reprebe the love of human thus much, the one
the former
creation of
human
senting
praise
its
sole principle to
for
even they
is
tell
that virtue
community, the other that it has an echo in every bosom. We would not dissever all these
testimonies
but bind them together into the sum and strength of a cumulative argument. The controversialists have lost themselvejs, but it is in
;
a wilderness of sweets
rials
out of wh
ich
the mate-
incense at
92
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS.
the shrine of morality, as should be altogether Each party hath selected but overpowering.
one of its claims and, in the anxiety to exalt it, would shed a comparative obscurity over all the rest. This is the contest between them not but whether morality be destitute of claims
;
;
what, out of the number that she possesses, is the great and pre-eminent claim on which man
should do her homage.
haps never
to
may be
settled
but to
make
the
make
14.
it
suffer
But
this contemplation is
even the righteous character of Him, who, for the sake of upholding it hath brought such a
number
of contingencies together.
utility
When we
and
selfishness, let
us look upwardly to Him, through whose ordination alone it is, that virtue hath such power to
life
and of
society.
Or when told of the principle that virtue is its own reward, let us not forget Him, who so constituted our
and
in the contemplation of
it.
Or when
it
this
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS.
93
it
with
all its
perceptions and
feelings.
He
moral rectitude
which
in the
He
He
hath written
in the aspect of on the hearts of all men eternal and unchangeable fitness, under which
He
in
controversy,
these,
but in
glorious
we
also
behold a
God.
question,
when
the
speculation
;
solution there
Him who
righteousness
by means
He
hath
would adorn, and the beatitudes by which he would reward it. 15. Although the establishment of a moral
theory
is
He
not
now
we may
who would
or
not
into
its
any native
indewill of
pendent rightness of
84
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS.
has a right to
all
Him who
our services.
Withit
Supreme Being,
;
is
but, far
law derives
all its
Him
the Divinity.
ness and
It is
He had
a nature, before
that
He
uttered
it
Previous to
all
those
hath embodied into a gorgeous universe and of which every rude sublimity of the wil;
He
landscape,
in like
And
manner, previous to all government, there existed in His mind, those principles of righteousness, which afterwards, with the right of an absolute Those sovereign. He proclaimed into a law.
which we now read on a tablet of jurisprudence were all transcribed and taken off
virtues of
from the previous tablet of the divine character. The law is but a reflection of this character.
In the fashioning of this law.
He
pictured forth
Himself
ness.
and we,
is
His
there that
we
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS.
primeval seat of moral goodness.
95
Or, in other
own
apart from
law,
and anterior
to all juris-
diction.
Yet the right of God to command, and the rightness of His commandments, are distinct elements of thought, and should not be merged into
16.
one another.
We should not lose sight of the indiand act together in friendly Because two influences are conside,
is
stand side
by
cooperation.
no reason why they should be confounded in thought. Their union does not constitute their unity^ and though, in
and
all
rectitude,
be an obligathe divine
tion laid
man by
law
yet
is
nature
authority
17.
another.
is
an approval of rectitude, apart from all legal sanctions and legal obligations, there is eternal and unchangeable demon-
That there
God
Himself.
He
is
by
moved. Morality with Him is not of prescripand tion, but of spontaneous principle alone
;
96
MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS.
acts virtuously, not
because He is bidden its inherent and eternal hath but because virtue residence in His own nature. Instead of de-
He
we should
;
derive law,
and so far from His own character looking upwardly to His law as the fountain of morality, do we hold it to be the emanation from
lity of
is
His unchangeable essence, and is eternal as the nature of the Godhead. 18. The moral hath antecedency over the
juridical.
God
jurisdiction
of a primary
It was not and law which originated the moralities of the divine
character
and
eternal as
The
virtues
had
all their
ere
He
stamped the
There was an inherent, before there was a preand righteousness, and goodceptive morality ness, and truth, which all are imperative enactments of law, were all prior characteristics, in the underived and uncreated excellence of the
;
Lawgiver.
97
Chapter X.
On
the
Capacities of the
;
and
1.
the immortality
of Man,
distinction, be-
We
moral excelit
and of
those,
consist
of benevolence alone.
tion of
its
element
into
when
it
is
alleged,
reducible
benevolence,
which
is
regarded as the
that
is
comprehensive of
beauty in
them
all.
There
is
a
it
theoretic
this
imagination
yet
all
our
We
cannot
in truth
and
in justice, apart
viency
to the
good of men
all
98
standmg forth in their own independent character, and having their own independent claims both on the reverence and Now, akin with this observation of mankind. attempt to generaUze the whole of virtue into
as virtues
is
the
character of
God
into
one single
moral perfection.
exposed
to
Truth and justice have been the same treatment, in the one con-
that
is,
regarded
more
istic
mary
themselves.
The
love of
philosophic simplicity
may
have led
;
to this in
the abstract or moral question but something more has operated in the theological question.
It falls in
with a
still
;
more urgent
falls in
affection than
the taste of
man
it
and
it
to
And
not
ness and holiness, appears, not merely in the pleasing and poetic effusions of the sentimental,
but also in the didactic expositions of the academic theism. It is thus that Paley, so full and
effective
natural,
99
of
but
at variance,
The one
takes
which depones
and
justice, as distinct
from benevolence and carries this lesson upwards, from that tablet of virtue which it reads
on the nature of
man
upon which
it
God
above.
The
would fain amalgamate all the quaand woidd make into one lities that one the beautiful and undistinguishing It would sink the venequality of tenderness. and to this it rable or the awful into the lovely is prompted, not merely for the sake of theoretic
speculation,
of the
Godhead
simplicity
but in
nature, the
sinners
feel,
heaven, as
holiness.
when they look to their sovereign in a God of judgment and of unspotted Nevertheless the same conscience
which tells what is sound in ethics, is ever and anon suggesting what is sound in theology that we have to do with a God of truth, that we have and this to do with a God of righteousness lesson is never perhaps obliterated in any breast, by the imagery, however pleasing, of a universal parent, throned in soft and smiling radiance, and
100
although
we would,
that justice
;
and judgment are the habitation of His throne and that His dwelling-place is not a mere bUssful elysium or paradise of sweets, but an august and inviolable sanctuary. It is an elysium, but only to the spirits of the holy and this sacredness, we repeat, is immediately forced upon the consciousness of every bosom, by the moral sense which is within it however fearful a topic it may be of recoil to the sinner, and of reticence in
;
The
sense of
heaven's sacredness
is
What
itself,
our moral nature. virtue to be in apprehends conscience that also it will apprehend virtue to be in
;
and
if
truth
and
the
constituent elements in
direct of
;
other also.
by learning
God from
or taking
the
phenomena
it tells
of
human
conscience
what
the very virtues of the Godhead, realized, in actual and living exemplification upon His character
it is
thus that
we escape from
the
illu-
which they
offer to
101
When we
moral nature
when
we make account
of the
when
hearts,
we
own
state,
that to
Him
and,
if
when we assign
Him
virtue, is
comprehensive of them all we are then on firmer vantage-ground for the establish-
phenomena of
our academic
Many
of
as
if
happiness
but
and
moral
government,
they
were
the
They have
exiled
and put forth every thing like jurisprudence from the relation in which God stands to man and by giving the foremost place in their demonstrations to the mere beneficence of the Deity, they have made the difficulties of the subject far more perplexing and unresolvable than they needed to have been. For with benevolence alone we cannot even extenuate and much less extricate ourselves, from the puzzling difficulty of
C. II.
J
102
universally liable.
It is
only by admitting
may be
termed
Whereas, if, apart from the equities of a moral government, we look to God in no other light, than mere tasteful and sentimental religionists do, or as but a benign and indulgent Father whose sole
enigma can be
at all alleviated.
delight
is
there are
certain stubborn anomalies which stand in the way of this frail imagination, and woidd render
able mystery.
3.
A specimen
it
to the
system of Natural Theology, when the infinite benevolence of the Deity is the only
element which
will
admit into
the
its
explanations
in
and
which its advocates labour to dispose of the numerous ills, wherewith the world is infested. They have
its
reasonings,
is
manner
recourse to arithmetic
on each side of the question, as they would the columns of a ledger. They institute respective summations of the good and the evil and by the preponderance of the former over the latter, hold the difficulty to be resolved. The computation is neither a sure nor
an easy one
its
but
it
justness,
103
why
all.
under
This
is
power and
infinite
benevo-
an enigma which the single attribute of benevolence cannot unriddle, or rather the very
enigma which
approximate
4.
it
we even
to the solution of
difficulties
that refuge
assumed that all the disorders of the present scene are to be repaired, and full compensation made for the sufferings
is
It
is
is
affirmed, that,
unperishable
hath burst
its
its
unfettered
way from
buoyancy
the prison-house of
it
and delight of
that,
inert
winged insect rises in all the pride of its now expanded beauty among the fields of light and ether which are above it,
so the
human spirit finds its way through the opening made by death upon its corporeal framework among the glories of the upper
Elysium.
It
is
this
immortality
all
which
is
supposed
to
unriddle
which converts
is
104
of a
a scene
all
imagination to rest
now
exercise us shall
be
pects
and where, from the larger proshave of the whole march and destiny of man, the ways of God to His creatures shall appear in all the lustre of their full and noble vindication.
we
shall then
5.
But
as
God
is
moral attribute
when
that benevolence
for
that
be a matter of far too doubtful calculation, on which to rest a confident inference then, let in favour of the divine benevolence other prop no lean have to upon, this benevolence
is,
;
now
and
in its turn,
it
is
far too
doubtful a pre-
slender
and sentimental
paternal
theists,
many who
for the
divinity
of kind
105
creatures
fact,
be
the
The mere
pains
of
and
is
what
all
may be
But
the
to
let
a future
life
be assumed, in which
defects and disorders of the present are be repaired and this may reconcile the
;
great actual
wretchedness that
of the
the world.
of
life
Out
an
and
assumed immortality together, a tolerable argument may be raised for this most pleasing and
amiable of
all
but
it is
But
how is the immortality itself proved ? not by the phenomena of life alone, but by these phenomena taken in conjunction with the divine
benevolence
God.
to
Each
is
used as an
for
assumption
and
this
the
reasoning
is,
both.
that
106
volence, or a future state of compensation for the evils and inequalities of the present one either
of them, if admitted,
may be
held a very
suffi-
cient, or, at least, likely consideration on which But it makes very bad reato rest the other. soning to vibrate between both first to go forth
with the assumption that God is benevolent, and therefore it is impossible that a scene so
dark and disordered as that immediately before us can offer to our contemplation the full and final developement of all his designs for the human family and then, feeling that this scene does not afford a sufficient basis on which
;
to
rest
strengthen the basis and make it broader by the assertion, that it is not from a part of His
complete
and compre-
hensive whole, as made up both of time and eternity, that we draw the inference of There is no march of a benevolent Deity.
argument.
We
It
swing as
is
it
assumptions.
geometry, which remains indeterminate for the want of data. And the only effectual method of being extricated from such an ambiguity,
would be the
of
But
is
107
alone
which incapacitates
is
this
sively to the
God;
and will not, cannot, brave the contemplation of His righteousness. It is this which makes
the reasoning
flimsy.
It,
as
feeble,
as
the sentiment
is
first to
argue
immortality on
the
doubtful
assumption
The
whole
is
fabric,
strength,
ready
to sink
difficulties.
Deity
to
is
not
obviously or
decisively the
as,
lesson of surrounding
phenomena,
of
itself,
be the foundation of a
If
God
or the prospects
we would
we would learn all which these phenomena, when rightly and attentively regarded, are
capable of teaching
indications
if
of
benevolence,
present indications of a
have
data,
materials
It
is
for
to
an
argument
texture.
108
owing
whereas,
did
we employ
them together
solid reasoning.
ground-work of a
sensitive avoidance
by our
we
We
we
give
them
fair
and
full
interpretation
as
indicating
not
by
moral economy, indicating His love of righteousness and hatred of iniquity. It might not
resolve,
but
it
would
alleviate the
mystery of
of a
things, could
we
observation,
collect
not
merely
God who
Now
the
great
evidence
Divinity,
this
latter
characteristic
of the
near at hand
our
own
felt
not
fetched by imagination from a distance, for The supreevery man has it within himself.
macy
of conscience
is
a fact or phenomenon of
;
and from this law of the heart, we pass, by direct and legitimate
Him who
it
estab-
there.
In a law,
;
of
tlie
law-giver
and
this,
or a written law.
We
we w hether
109
mena
of conscience, that,
however God
is
may
their
will the
He
as
is
as
well
and
it
is
we take
of
Him,
unless,
Him
we have
Him
a sovereign and a
assertion
virtue, in
its
attend
original
and
same
may
life
even
may
very phenomena,
which
so
and refusing
to
it
che-
and prejudiced view of the Deity. spirit, have attempted to strike a balance between the pleasures and the pains of sentient nature, and to ground thereupon the very doubtful inference of the divine
Those
theists,
who, in this
benevolence
110
go before them.
riority,
however ill or uncertainly made out, of the physical enjoyments over the physical sufferings of
life.
Now we
hold
it
of capital im-
own
moral
and these
are
mainly
resolvable
into
causes
cases,
insomuch
can
;
be and
due
to
a vicious
and
it
ill-regulated
ills
morale.
When we
mediate
dissipate,
of
life
in their im-
origin,
it
though
may
not altogether
which vex and agitate the great amount of them, from the fountain of and come forth, not of a distemhis own heart material, but of a distempered moral pered Were each separate infelicity reeconomy.
;
ferred to
its
distinct source,
we
should, geneperversity,
some moral
whether of the affections or of the temper so that but for the one, the other would not It is true, that, perhaps have been realized.
in every instance,
assigned, for
nature
is
Uable
but then,
it is
a cause without,
Ill
in all
So that
mind must be taken into account, as well as the influences which play upon it from the surrounding world and what we affirm is, that, to a
;
When
very
or a
perhaps unintentional neglect, lights up in many a soul the fierceness of resentment or coldness, and disdain, and the mutual glances
slight,
mass of
to
infelicity
these
are
be ascribed, not
constitution,
untowardness of outward
fruits of
own
a disor-
And
the
same may be
which springs from indolence which comes on the back of misconduct of the pain or uneasiness which festers in every heart that is the prey, whether of licentious or malignant passions in short, of the general restlessness and unhingement of every spirit, which, thrown adrift from the restraints of principle, has no well-spring of
of the disgrace
;
casual fluctuation of
There are, it is true, sufferings purely physical, which belong to the sentient and not to the moral
outward things.
112
nature
as
is
frame
sometimes agonized.
Still
it
will
be
amount of human wretchedness, can be directly referred to the waywardness and morbid state of the human will to the character of man, and not to the condition which
found, that the vast
he occupies.
8.
Now
what
is
were
to cast
may
not
It
only indicate the reality or the presence of another. Suffering without a cause and without
may
an object,
being.
may be
But
it
When
thus
the bene-
He may He loves
it
So
may
13
In attempting
to
divine character from the existing phenomena, the fair proceeding vrould be, not to found it on
the actual miseries which abound in the world,
but
on the
which abound in the world, to make a virtuous species happy. We should try to figure its result on human life, were perfect virtue to
revisit earth,
and take up
question
is,
its
abode in every
so constructed
family.
The
are
we
and
so
accommodated,
happy.
What, we should ask, is the real tendency of nature's laws whether to minister enjoyment to the good or the evil? It were a
system of things
while
it
and
adaptations
if,
virtue of
it
mankind and their happiness or peace, impeded either the prosperity or the heart's ease of the profligate and the lawless. Now of this we might be informed by an actual
as constantly
survey of
human
life.
We
human
were
to
his
fellow with
a brother's eye
were a
this
114
to
be the spontaneous emanation of a universal were each man's interest and reputation as safe in the custody of another, as he
cordiality
;
now
strives to
dianship of his
prompt and eager benevolence on the part of the rich, ever on the watch to meet, nay, to overpass
all
to
be a
full
defence for
encroachments of
were liberality to walk diffusively abroad among men, and love to settle pure and unruffled in the bosom of families were that moral sunshine to arise in every heart, which purity and innocence and kind affection
;
and, even
in
w hen
some
visitation
painful
be poured into the cup of tribulation from the feeling and the friendship of all the good who were around us. On this single transition from vice to virtue among men, does there not hinge the alternative between a pandsemonium and a paradise ? If the moral elements were in place and operation amongst
us, should we still continue to fester and be unhappy from the want of the physical ? Or, is
it
all
115
were
but the disease of our spirits medicated, were there but moral soundness in the heart of
man
10. And what must be the character of the Being who formed such a world, where the moral and the physical economies are so ad-
if universal,
would bring ten thousand blessings and beatitudes in its train, and turn our earth into an
elysium
whereas
spirit,
nothing
so
distempers the
human
ciety,
and
as
varieties
the vice and the violence and the of moral turpitude wherewith it is
infested. Would a God who loved iniquity and who hated righteousness have created such a world ? Would He have so attuned the organism of the human spirit, that the consciousness of
worth should be
the
oil
felt
?
through
of gladness
structed the
it
conthat
should never work prosperously for the general good of the species, but by means of truth and
and uprightness ? Would the and patron of falsehood have let such a world out of his hands ? Or would an unholy being have so fashioned the heart of man that, wayward and irresolute as he is, he never feels
philanthropy
friend
so ennobled, as
by
spurn every base allurement of sensuality away from him and never breathes so etherially, as
;
116
when he maintains
would
tion
;
which
even from one unhallowed imaginaand never rises to such a sense of granrecoil
deur and godlike elevation, as when principle hath taken the direction, and is vested with full
ascendency over the restrained and regulated passions? What other inference can be drawn
from such sequences as these, but that our moral
architect loves the virtue
He
placency
and execrates the vice He thus If we disgust and degradation ? with up follows look but to misery unconnected and alone, we
;
may
But should
conclusion,
to
have ascertained that, in proportion as virtue made entrance upon the world, misery would retire from it? There is nothing to spoil Him of this perfection, in a misery so originated
but, leaving this perfection untouched,
to
it
attaches
is
Him
another, and
we
infer, that
He
not
and holy.
God
happiness of his creatures, but with this reservation, that the only sound and sincere happiness
He
awards
to
them,
;
is
happiness through
still
the
to
medium
of virtue
that
He
is
willing
117
cellence
that
children, but
that dear to
He loves the gratification of His He loves their righteousness more Him is the happiness of all His
still
their worth
and that
and
We have
a mechanism,
design of
the derange-
ment it has subsequently undergone even as by the inspection of a watch, we can infer, from the place of command which its regulator occupies, that it was made for the purpose of moving regularly and that, notwithstanding the state of disrepair and aberration into which it may
;
have
fallen.
And
so,
rightful
supremacy which
occupied by the
conscience of
moral system, we can infer that virtue was the proper and primary
in his
;
man
and
that, notwithstand-
and history of his life. Connect this with the grand and general adaptation of External Nature for which we have now been contending even the capacity of that world in which we are placed for making a virtuous species happy and it were surely far C. II. K
principles, over the habits
18
we founded our
which man's
suffers
original
fitted
to
by
some
way
perverted.
the
mind and
of the
maker; and not from the actual effect, when that tendency has been rendered abortive, by the extrinsic operation of some disturbing force on an else goodly and well-going mechanism.
The
may be
read
tendency of things and surely, it speaks strongly both for His benevolence and His righteousness that nothing is so
in the natural, the universal
fitted to
it.
And
if,
instead of this,
we behold a
conclusion
at
disquietudes
beneficial
the
that
the
lished therein,
and which are therefore due to all been thwarted by the moral perversity of man. The compound lesson to be gathered from such a contemplation
the benevolence of God, have
is,
that
God
is
the friend of
human
happiness
hath
human
in
vice
seeing, He
up an economy
MAKING
119
and overborne it. 12. We are now on a ground work of more firm texture, for an argument in behalf of man's immortality. But it is only by a more comprehensive view both of the character of God, and
not the latter stepped in
that
we
obtain
much
His
state,
righteousness,
might
furnish
logical
have already stated that the miseries of life, in their great and general amount, are and did each man resolvable into moral causes
13,
;
We
own
might be
in
But
this pro-
portion
is,
The
miseries
though but
of his own.
to the
from the injustice and calumny and violence and evil tempers of those who are around him. On the large and open
theatre of the world, the cause of oppression
often the triumphant one
families,
;
He
is
the most
household, are frequently the victims for life, of a harsh and injurious though unseen tyranny.
120
It
is
which
forms the most popular, and enters as a conpart at least, into the most powerful
We
cannot imagine of a
God
of righteousness, that
He
;
will
leave
any
is
question
of justice
unsettled
and
there
human
life
to
there should be so
many
unsettled
questions of justice
first
be-
man
The
in
every day by
of
man upon
his fellows.
The
;
history
teems with these and the unappeased cry, whether for vengeance or repasociety
ration, rises to
human
heaven because of them. We might here expatiate on the monstrous, the wholesale atrocities, perpetrated on the defenceless by the strong; and which custom has almost legalized having stood their ground against the indignation of the upright and the good for many ages. Perhaps for the most gigantic example of this, in the dark annals of our guilty world, we should turn our eyes upon injured Africa that devoted region, where the lust of gain has
121 har-
exhibition of
its
up
of
in
and luxuri-
ously regale
a picturesque,
and seems a powerful argument for some future day of retribution, when we look, on the one
iiand, to the prosperity of the lordly oppressor,
jugated people
and suband look, on the other, to the tears and the untold agony of the hundreds beneath him, whose lives of dreariness and hard labour are ten fold embittered, by the imagery of that dear and distant land, from which they have been irrecoverably torn. But, even within the confines of civilized society, there do exist materials for our argument. There are cruelties and wrongs innumerable, in the conduct of business there are even cruelties and wrongs, in the bosom of families. There are the
sulFerings of a captive
;
triumphs of injustice
and malignant policy on the one side, on the other the ruin and the overthrow of unprotected weakness. Apart from the violence of the midnight assault, or the violence of the high
there
is,
way
the
even under the forms of law, and amid blandness of social courtesies, a moral
its
by which
at
confiding simplicity
may
once be bereft of
122
rights,
be enriched by the spoUation. Have we never seen the bankrupt rise again with undiminished splendour, from amid the desolation and despair of the
been ruined by him? Or, more secret though not less severe, have we not seen the inmates of a wretched home doomed to a hopeless and unhappy existence, under the sullen brow of the tyrant who lorded over them ? There are sufferings from which there is no
families that have
between
there
is
of which there
is
no ad-
justment here
but
we might add
expectancy of our nature, that there shall be an adjustment hereafter. In the unsated appetency of our hearts for justice, there is all the
force of an appeal to the
appetite within us
to
make sudden
them
we
feel
own moral
prudence of
15.
constitution,
Him
unfinished
between
man and
his
The same conscience which asserts own supremacy within the breast, suggests the God and the Moral Governor who placed
Maker.
its
123
there.
It
is
thus that
man
cognizance of his
to
own deUnquencies
but he
he is accountable. He passes by one and with rapid inference, from the feeling of a judge who is within, to the fear of a Judge
whom
step,
who
sits
there stands
associated the
sentiment.
They
feel
it,
as
did Catiline
and the worst of Roman emperors, in the horrors of remorse. There is, in spite of themselves, the impression of an avenging God not the less founded upon reasoning, that it is the reasoning of but one truth or rather of but one
transition,
to
within,
more awful reckoning of a God who is the author of conscience and who knoweth all
things.
Now,
it
is
thus,
that
men
are
led
not
by
their hopes,
we
think,
but by their
fears; not
by a sense
of unfulfilled promises,
124
penalties;
by
their
upon them. Hence the impression of a futurity upon all spirits, whither are carried forward the issues of a jurisprudence, which bears no marks but the contrary of a full and final consummation on this side of death. The prosperity of many wicked who spend their days in resolute and contemptuous irreligion the
;
this said
to
conscience which
quell
;
the
many
emphatic denunciations, not uttered in audible thunder from above, but uttered in secret and
impressive whispers from within
to accounts
these
all
point
between God and His creatures that If there be no future state, the great moral question between heaven and earth, broken off at the middle, is frittered into a degrading mockery. There is violence done
are yet unfinished.
to the continuity of things.
The moral
its
consti-
and is stript of His wisdom and authority and honour. That consistent march which we behold in all the cycles, and progressive movements of the natural economy, is, in the moral economy, brought to sudden arrest and disruption if death annihilate the man, instead of only transforming him.
tution of
is
man
stript
of
significancy
125
And
16.
it
is
by which
And
can be adjusted and harmonized.* there is one especial proof for the
;
and therefore so identical in principle with the subject and main argument of our essay that we feel its statement to be our best and most appropriate termination of this especial enquiry. The argument is this. For every desire or every faculty, whether in man or in the inferior animals, there seems a counterpart object in external nature. Let it be either an and let it reside either appetite or a power
;
in
the sentient
or
in
the intellectual
or
in
the moral
economy
still
is
altogether suited
to
there
is
air
for
the
lungs
there
is
;
food for
there
is
there
is
society
;
there
of
all
is
a boundless field
the objects
in a word, there
It is
well said by
and original
not
work on Prophecy
The one
is
It
is
which go together."
126
living creature,
terpart
creation.
in
fact,
which forms an
founded.
The
ambient nature
separate
and
is
well
chapter
by Paley,
on
the
relation
But
approximate
still
our argument.
They
consist
ments
be
or parts, not of
preparations going on economy, whereof the full benefit is not to be realized, till some future and often considerably distant developement shall have taken place such as the teeth buried in their sockets, that would be inconvenient during the first months of infancy, but come forth when it is sufficiently advanced for another and a new sort of nourishment such as the manifold
of use
in the animal
; ;
eventually
no use
of
indispensable use
;
larger
be and freer
state of existence
127
and, as far as
we can
observe,
we
have no reason to believe, that, either in the first or second sort of expedients, there has ever aught been noticed, which either bears on no object now, or lands in no result afterwards.
We may
perceive in
this,
the glimpse
We
may
the
by Dr.
**
whoever considers
anatomy of the fcetus, will find, in the strength of bones and muscles, in the organs of respiration and digestion, sufficient indications of a design to remove his being into a The observant and the inteldifferent state. ligent may perhaps find in the mind of man
parallel signs of his future destination."*
beino" extracted
Dr. Ferg'iison's reasoning- upon this subject is worthy of more largely than we have room for in the text
foetus,"
he observes,
*'
were qualified
to reason
womb
this
of his parent, as he
globs,
may
afterwards
on
terrestrial
he might no doubt
chord,
life,
apprehend
in
umbilical
and in his
womb
a total extinction of
for
how
could
it
to
continue
nourishment
indeed
vital stock
He might
manv
which should
128
17.
this
Now what
inference shall
we draw from
is
and
faculties
are
endowed ?
opportunity of exercise
in
trine of immortality,
to this law.
man would be an
exception
He would
nature with aspirations in his heart for which the universe had no antitype to offer, with capain
cities of
seem
to
have no relation
his state
in the
womb.
For what
mouth
to
Why
?
one
another
many
move
to
flexures or joints
Why
made
to
upon
felt
hing-es,
be
Why
which nothing
fitted to
made
is
to pass
And
drink up the
fluids,
was neither
qualified to
now well apprized the proper answer would be the life which you now enjoy is but temporary and those particulars which now seem to you so preposterous, are a provision which nature has made for a future course of life which
to
make nor
answer,
we
are
you have
to run,
and
in
will
appear
sufficiently evident.
" Such are the prognostics of a future destination that might be and similar prognostics of
;
destination
still
ances in the
life
129
things,
more enduring theatre to the dormant faculties which are in him for the mastery and acquisition of all the sciences, and yet the partial ignorance of all, and the profound or total ignorance of many, in which he spends the short- lived years
of his present existence
here, the
to the boundless,
but
unopened capabilities which lie up in him, for the comprehension of truths that never once draw his attention on this side of death, for the contemplative enjoyment both of moral and intellectual beauties which have never here revealed themselves to his gaze. The whole labour of this mortal life would not suffice, for traversing in full extent any one of the sciences
;
and
yet, there
in his bosom,
a taste and
talent for
none of which he
for
each
science,
though
definite in
out-goings in
130
is in
man, a restlessness of ambition an interminable longing after nobler and higher things, which nought but immortality and the greatness of immortality can satiate a dissatisfaction with the present, which never is appeased by all that the world has to offer an impatience and distaste with the felt littleness of all that he finds, and an unsated appetency for something larger and better, which he fancies in the perspective before him to all which there is nothing like among any of the inferior animals, with whom,
;
there
is
if
we
between each desire and its correspondent gratification. The one is evenly met by the other and there is a fullness and defiso term
;
may
up to the capacity of enjoyment. Not so with man, who both from the vastness of his propensities and the vastness of his powers, feels himself straitened and beset
niteness of enjoyment,
in a field too narrow for him.
He
alone labours
under the discomfort of an incongruity between his circumstances and his powers and, unless
;
there be
in
more advanced
failures.
131
PART
II.
Chapter
I.
(1.)
the
as denominated
by Dr.
If two
Thomas Brown,
any one time then the them afterwards, is apt to suggest the thought of the other also and the same is true of the objects of all the senses. The same smells or sounds or tastes which have
mediate succession,
at
occurred formerly,
often
again, will
recal the
objects
which they were then associated. When one meets with a fragrance of a particular sort, it
may
132
THE INTELLECTUAL
it
came
the garden
where it grew the friend with whom we then walked his features, his conversation, his re;
When
-
present
over
again
an
if
has
taken
place,
till,
as
by an
thought
invincible
is
necessity,
its
the
antecedent
sure to bring
it
;
usual consequent
along with
may
2.
in this
manner be
explained.
And
many
of the inter-
all
of
flit
so
as to pass unnoticed.
more
quents
in
which
remain
and all memory of the words, still more of the component letters, though each of them must have
been present
to
the mind,
pass irrecoverably
away from
steps of
it.
many a
may
actually
CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
133
be described, yet
attention
resting,
means,
we seem
if
to judge,
on the
not
of distances, as
under a guidance
that
instinctive,
and
by the
led to
because
which
with
The mind
is
too
for
much occupied
the information
light
itself,
who brought
and shadowy footsteps of the messenger it, which it would find difficult if not impossible to trace and besides, having no practical call upon it for making such a
retrospect.
It
is
thus
that,
when looking
in Nature,
intensely on
we
are so
much
which
connects the
which
is
we
feel in the
The
principle
has been
much
resorted
to,
in
by which the education of the senses is carried forward and, more especially, the way in which the intimations of sight and touch are made to correct and to modify each other. It has also been employed with good effect, in the attempt to establish a philosophy of taste. But these
;
134
THE INTELLECTUAL
form also an unseen process; and we are not therefore to wonder, if, along with many solid explanations, they should have been so applied in the investigation of mental phenoreal,
mena, as occasionally to have given rise to subtle and fantastic theories. 3. But our proper business at present is with and instead results, rather than with processes
;
of
entering on the
of the science,
may
it is
our intellectual constitution, which demonstrate, without obscurity, the benevolent designs of Him
There are some of our mental philosophers, indeed, who have theorised and simplified beyond the evidence of those facts Avhich lie before us and our argument should
who framed
us.
be kept
it
The law
were the sole parent and predecessor of all the mental phenomena. Yet it does not explain, however largely it may
influence, the
phenomena of memory. When by means of one idea, anyhow awakened in the mind, the whole of some past transaction
or scene
ciation
is
brought to recollection,
it
is
asso-
which
CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
of our former history.
135
But
is,
association cannot
its
actual
and
histo-
or
what
it
makes it also an act of remembrance. By means of this law we may understand how it is, that certain ideas, suggested by certain others which came before it, are now present to the mind. But superadded to the mere presence of these ideas, there is such a
of conception,
of
case of imagination
above the conception of certain objects, there is also a conviction of their substantive being
which we connect with the thought of them and this is what the law of
at
the
time
association
cannot by
itself
account
for.
It
memory
world of experience.
And
the
same
is
true
of
our believing
we have now
retro-
affirmed
to
be true of our
believing
The confidence wherewith we count on the same sequences in future, that we have observed in the course of our
spects of the past.
past experience,
by some
136
alone.
THE INTELLECTUAL
Now when we
have
seen a certain
afford a
why
but
it
by the
idea of
it
consequent
contains within
no
reason,
the antecedent,
we should
also.
taken place, should induce the certainty, that the consequent must have taken place also, is
another mental phenomenon.
We
cannot coninvolved
in
found these
two, without
being
the idealism of
Hume
or Berkeley.
Were the
mere thought of the consequent all that was to be accounted for, we need not go farther than to the law of association. But when to the
existence of this thought, there
is
superadded
its
archetype, a distinct
mental phenomenon comes into view, which the law of association does not explain and which,
;
aught that the analysts of the mind have yet been able to trace or to discover, is an ultimate
for
principle of the
belief,
human
understanding.
This
one thing.
two
allege
at
least
things.
for,
And
they
to
are
the
in
addition
CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
belief in the subjective mind, there
is
137
a corresobjective
pondent and
nature.
counterpart reality in
but there
is
or, in
The
unexpected fulfilment, and constancy of nature. law of association does of itself, and
meets with
venience
that
mind
to
are
made
quadrate
thought
should
is
that
which we now are especially regarding. It forms our first instance, perhaps the most striking and marvellous of all, of the adaptation of
external nature to the intellectual constitution
of man.
138
5.
THE INTELLECTUAL
This disposition
to
is
not the
it
or at least
earUest of those
of her
which can be traced backward in the history of an infant mind. Indeed it has l)een well observed by Dr. Thomas Brown, that the future constancy of Nature, is a lesson, which no
observation of
its
Because we have a thousand times to be followed in immediate succession by B, there is no greater logical connection between this proposition and the proposition that A will always be followed by B than there is between the propositions that we have seen A followed once by B, and therefore A will always be followed by B. At whatever
rience could have taught us.
observed
may
be
made, whether longer or shorter, whether oftener or seldomer repeated the conversion of the
and
it is
is
as vigor-
full
maturity of the
human
regaled
understanding.
The
child
first
who
time,
strikes
and
is
by
with
same
to
result,
it
as if the succession
for
CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
years.
139
before
There
is
the
expectation
;
the
the
and
still
wonder and gratitude is, that this instinctive and universal faith in the heart, should be responded to by objective nature, in one wide and universal fulfilment.
6.
The proper
is
office
of experience, in this
;
matter,
this
and
tell,
;
phy
but
Her
office is
not to
progressions actually
from
its first
outset,
and
in virtue of a constitu-
dawn
that
of the before
understanding,
is
prepared,
and
sequences.
But
at
is
sequences in themselves.
proper busi;
but
may
require
many
be made to understand, what be the distinct terms even of but one sequence. Nature presents us with her phenomena in complex
disciples
assemblages
and
it
is
from each
cedent with
its
among
14Q
stances
is
THE INTELLECTUAL
by which they
are surrounded.
There
of nature's successions.
is
The only
uncertainty
;
and the
to ascer-
is
And many
samenesses of Nature.
general confidence,
will
We
that
the
same antecedent
be followed by the same consequent; but we often mistake the semblance for the reality,
in the expectations
we
form.
This
is
growing confidence, wherewith we anticipate the same results in the same apparent circumstances,
the oftener that that result has in these circumstances been observed
by us
as of a high-water
to
morning.
Nature,
in
It is not that
we need
be more
assured than
we
the
and causal
mass of
But we need
to
be assured of the
contemporaneous things under which the result has taken place hitherto and of this we are
;
more and more satisfied, with every new occurrence of the same event in the same apparent
circumstances.
This too
is
CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
the repetition
141
of experiments.
Not that we
suspect that Nature will ever vacillate from her constancy for if by one decisive experiment
we
this
should
fix
experiment were
good as a thousand.
But each succession in nature is so liable to be obscured and complicated by other influences, that we must be quite sure, ere we can proclaim our discovery of some new sequence, that we
have properly disentangled her separate trains from each other. For this purpose, we have
Nature in many different ways combine and apply her elements variously we have sometimes to detach one ingredient, or to add another, or to alter the proportions of a third and all in order, not
often to question
;
we have
to
Nature, for of
we have had
;
instinctive certainty
from the
beginning
what the
connect each effect in the history of Nature's changes with its strict and proper cause. Mean-
amid all the suspense and the frequent disappointments which attend this search into
while,
and inviolable uniformity of these proremains unshaken a confidence not learned from experience, but amply confirmed and accorded to by experience. For this incesses
stinctive expectation
is
142
THE INTELLECTUAL
to the
of
the
inquisitions
of
;
science,
never
her immutability
but persists,
by a spark, or an explosion, or an effervescence, or some other definite phenomenon, the same result to the same circumstances or combination of data. The anticipations of infancy meet with their glorious verification, in all the findings of mansame question
;
or gives forth,
hood and a truth which would seem to require Omniscience for its grasp, as coextensive with all
;
Nature and
7.
all
History,
is
deposited
by
the
hand
of God, in the
little cell
of a nursling's cogitations.
Yet the immutability of Nature has ministered to the atheism of some spirits, as impressing
on the universe a character of blind necessity, instead of that spontaneity, which might mark
the intervention of a willing and a living God.
To
as
an unintelligent
Divinity,
fate,
being
the
alone
is
presiding
the
common
appeal
to the infinity
and exquisite
to attack this
But
and dislodge it thence, the more appropriate argument would be the very, the individual adaptation on which we have
now
insisted
the
immutability of Nature, in
earliest childhood,
even from
that
all
CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
143
men
liave of it;
being
itself
When
viewed aright,
a wiser and sounder conclusion than that of the fatalists. In the instinctive, the universal
faith of Nature's constancy, w^e
mise.
behold
fulfilment.
When
in connection, then, to
God
be told that Nature never is to be told that of Nature never recedes from his faithIf not
fulness.
voice,
at least
by
He
hath
and
to
to
He makes all Nature and all History conspire realize it. He hath not only enabled man
retain
in
;
his
of the past
but
memory by means
a faithful transcript
of this constitutional
it
tendency, this instinct of the understanding as has been termed, to look with prophetic eye
by which w^e connect experience with anticipation a power or exercise of the mind coeval with the first
future.
It
is
upon the
the link
acquired
and
so
firmly
first
original
and
it
is
only because of
which
subsists
144
THE INTELLECTUAL
commences with the faculty of thought, and keeps by it through hfe, and enables the mind to convert its stores of memory into the treasures of science and wisdom and so to
of
nature,
;
elicit
past,
both
and
that,
latter
we
and mag-and
at
our
still
work throughout the anterior stage of The lucid and satisfactory demonstration
little
upon
this
has not been improved upon, by the lucubrations of any subsequent author.
beautiful process
The theology which he would found on the which he has unfolded so well, is somewhat
Certain
it is,
things in God.
could
not have
an
mind
in the uniformity of
same consequents
is
made,
and that
well as
confidence, that
leads
all
men
and
to
it
a subtle analysis to
in the
Without partaking
him
" Something
there
is
of divine
CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
145
to this, the
Nature never disappoints, or, which is equivalent Author of Nature never deceives us.
The generality
for the
of Nature's laws
is
indispensable,
But
this
ere
use
may
it is
language addressed
awaken
the mind,
little
it
and deserve
it
its
utmost attention
learned with so
clearly
pains,
and aptly,
and dispatch, by
more
distinct
knowledge of things, than could be got by a and, while it informs, it amuses and
:
it
is
human
on dead
men
and
it
answers so apposite
to the uses
and necessities
make them of
less
concern
to us.
be overlooked.
strike
whereas
think and
the
Hence a common man who is not used to make reflections, would probably be more convinced of being of a God by one single sentence heard once in his life
all
with
such
exquisite
skill,
so
constantly
addressed to
eyes, and
Him
with
Minute Philosopher.
whom we XV.
have
to
do."
146
of
it,
THE INTELLECTUAL
the sense
and the contident expectation of this generality must be previously in our minds and the concurrence, the contingent harmony of these two elements the exquisite
;
utilities to
which
it
is
sub-
the palpable
which
subsists,
between
all
pro-
outward universe
that
while
and unity of
adjusted
the
material formations to
each
We
this close
and unexcontingent
of
cepted,
the
same
time,
harmony,
an
between
the
actual
constancy
be
which would represent the whole system of our thoughts and perceptions to be founded on an Certain it is, that beside an indefinite illusion.
number of
as
truths received
the
conclusions
of
not
the
the
first
of
CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
147
its
logical
to
is
another
thing
known
be
not
eternal,
commencement
must be
of at least
truths,
some of these
trains, there
dence from others, announce themselves immediately to the mind in an original and independent
evidence of their own.
Now
the philosophical
infidelity
of those,
who,
truth,
do
in
all
whether demonstrated or undemonstrated seeing that underived or unreasoned truth must necessarily form the basis, as well as the
continuous
cement
of
all
reasoning.
They
mind
to
that they
may be
as
much due
organization of
the
percipient faculty,
And we
of this.
We
not
any where
of ratiocination
nor can
we deny
that beings
might have been so differently constituted, as tliat, with reverse intuitions to our own, they
148
THE INTELLECTUAL
have
recognised
as
truths
might
what
or
felt
we
to
And when
suspicion
is
once
judgments of the
sistent that
it
intellect,
it
Our
is
virtuous or of
what
is
may be
what
true
may be
from
all
being in nature
fixed principle,
adrift
may
itself in
universal
Pyrrhonism.
,9.
Nature
;
is
speculation
but
there
is
a comfort in being
enabled
to vindicate the
has inspired
as
in
those
where some
and decisively
to,
tested.
And
it is
so of our faith
throughout
all
actual constancy
the other
its
rigid
is
This
perhaps
CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
149
which can be quoted, of a belief anterior to experience, yet of which experience affords a wide and unexcepted verification. It proves at least of one of our implanted instincts, that it and that, over against a subjective is unerring tendency in the mind, there is a great objective reality in circumambient nature to which it
;
corresponds.
This
may
we
in
live,
but
a world of
It is
a noble example
of the
original
spirit
harmony which
obtains,
between the
make and
constitution of the
human
upon the one hand, and the constitution of external things upon the other and nobly
;
Him, who,
as the
drous adaptation.
the sceptics
is,
of
of
falsities into
human
The
rious deception
on the creatures
whom He
has
made.
hearts
the universal
is
expectation with
its
universal fulfilment,
this
triumphant refutation of
degrading mockery
evincing, that
it
is
not a phantasmagoria in
which we dwell, but a world peopled with realiThat we are never misled in our instincties.
tive belief of nature's uniformity,
C. II.
demonstrates
150
THE INTELLECTUAL
we may commit
assured,
that,
and an everlasting righteousness with which we have to do. 10. This lesson obtains a distinct and additional
in-
man.
adaptation
we must
between those truths which are so distinct and independent, that each can only be ascertained by a separate act of observation and those truths which are either logically or mathema;
tically involved in
each other.*
For example.
*
'
See
this distinction
(which
exclusive authority,
much the
fashion to depreciate.
The
author, if
given to
might use the expression without irreverence, has Bacon the things which are Bacon's, and to Aristotle the
I
He
its
that
instead of placing
all
it
the
under
direction,
by assigning
to
as its
He
CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
there
is
151
no such dependence between the colour of a flower and its smell, as that the one can be reasoned from the other and, in every dif;
two
On
is
the
other
hand, there
is
and most general law of our nature, and the proposition that no man will starve if able and
in circumstances to
work
for his
own mainte-
nance
by
And
still
more there
orbit
moves
its
in
an
elliptical
focus in the
so
and
it
by attending
we come
of
is
to perceive the
leading us
for the
cannot achieve.
It is
an instrument, not
for
the
discovery
of truths
virtually
to
of the premises, but only with the truth of the connection between
the premises and the conclusion.
152
THE INTELLECTUAL
be satisfactorily demonstrated of many a curve from the simple definition of it. We do not
afiirm,
that, in any case, we can establish a dogma, or make a discovery independently of all observation any more than in a syllogism
we
of the premises
propositions
both
is all,
way
the conclusion,
wherewith In none
can only
the logic of
;
itself available
purposes of discovery
and
it
when
furnished with
sound data, the accuracy of which is determined by observation alone. This holds particularly
true of the
which
premises,
in
like
Even
in
some
of
obscurely
observation
initial
rudimental
process
mind could
that,
of quantity or number.
in
all
Certain
however,
the sciences,
for
however dependent
on observation
we
can.
CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
15.J
by reasoning on the data, establish an indefinite number of distinct and important and useful
propositions
which,
if
soundly
made
;
out,
ob-
servation will
afterwards verify
but
which,
test,
the mind,
by
its
own
excogitations,
may
objects of
its
by the
inferences
discover what should for ever have remained unknown, had it been left to the findings of direct observation and that, on the other hand, though observation could not have made the
;
discovery,
it
never
fails to attest
it.
Visionaries,
on the one hand, may spurn at the ignoble patience and drudgery of observers; and ignorant
practitioners,
whether in
the walks
of
the reasoners
betAveen an hypothesis
is,
know how
and
gatives of both.
12.
When
own
the
mind has
retired
from direct
inner
it
which
then delivers
154
itself
THE INTELLECTUAL
up
to its
analytically
ciples,
and then descending synthetically from principles to yet unobserved phenomena. We cannot but recognise it as an exquisite adaptation betvreen the subjective and the objective, between the mental and the material systems
that
the
results
of
the
abstract
of
intellectual
process
and the
in
all
realities
external
It
is
nature
exem-
in
the physico-mathematical
as
when
Newton, on the calculations and profound musings of his solitude, predicted the oblate spheroidal figure of the earth, and the prediction was confirmed by the mensurations of the academicians, both in the polar and equatorial
*
fine
made in the region of pure thoug-ht to the facts and phenomena of actual nature as when the properties of conic
sections, demonstrated
by a laborious
analysis,
remained inappli-
cable
till
ments of astronomy.
" These marvellous computations mi^ht almost seem to have been devised on purpose to show how closely the extremes of
speculative
approximate."
perform in the
how
ought
to
be
CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
regions
;
155
or
as,
when abandoning
himself to
own
con-
this
greatest
wonder of
the
it.
intellectual
mastery which
man
has over
That such a
this
made
conquest
cell of
that
his
little
own
own
have led
to a dis-
closure so magnificent
his
that
by a
calculus of
formation,
as
talisman,
the
supremacy over
all,
which constitute the modern mathematical analysis, in all the more difficult applications of exact calculation to her phenomena."
p. 33.
" Almost
all
many
pure
of
its
intellect,
grounding
its
number
of elementary propositions, in
metry."
p.
63.
is
The discovery of the principle of the achromatic telescope, termed by Sir John " a memorable case in science, though not
a singular one, where the speculative geometer in his chamber, apart from the world, and existing among abstractions, has
originated views of the noblest practical application." p. 255.
156
THE INTELLECTUAL
laws of matter and the properties of mind to each other. It is only thus we can be made to understand, how man by the mere workings
of
his
spirit,
should
liave
penetrated so far
;
into the
stricted
workmanship of Nature
though he be
to
tell
or that, re-
a spot of earth,
of
if
he
should nevertheless
the suns
and the
as
he had travelled
the torch of
Our next adaptation is most notably exemplified in those cases, when some isolated
13.
(.3.)
phenomenon, remote
conceivable .relation to
theless converted
intellect
and having
at
first
no
human
aftairs, is
never-
and
important
world.
One example
been made of the occultations and emersions of Jupiter's satellites, in the computation of longitudes, and so the perfecting of navigation.
When
this
sort fetched to us
from
afar,
it
is difficult
not to
special
imagine of
adjustment,
it
some
that
came
within the
purpose of
parts
Him, who,
mechanism of
its
CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
system.*
157
The
conclusion
is
rather enhanced
way
which the telescope was discovered. The observation of the polarity of the magnet is an example of the same kind and with the same result, in multiplying, by an enlarged commerce the enjoyments of life, and speeding onward the science and civilization of the globe. There cannot a purer instance be given, of adaptation between external nature and the mind of man
The author of
Edward's
edition of
on the
will, presents us
with the
fol-
and the
raises
artificial
him.
If these correspondences
;
plank
who
sides
all
Is it
makes the
?
or
may
it
not safely be
its
primary
intention
may
this
human
race
influence
arrived
destined
moment
in
the
revolution of
it
human
affairs,
when
would
Nor should we
the relation between the inclination of the earth's axis and the
rival, attracts
of the vulgar, and shows the north to the wanderer on the wilder-
158
THE INTELLECTUAL
re-
mained
fertiUty
into
intelligent
hands of the unand unthoughtful, is converted, by the and power of the human understanding,
for ever useless in the
an instrument
for
means
of gratification.
The prolongation of their eyesight to the aged by means of convex lenses, made from a substance at once transparent and colourless
ness or on the ocean,
is
the
in like
manner a
beneficent arrangement.
Those who would spurn the supposition that the celestial locality of a sun immeasurably remote from our system, should have
reference to the accommodation of the inhabitants of a planet so
inconsiderable as our own, forg-et the style of the Divine
Works,
which
is,
to serve
some
g-reat or principal
interests.
Man
;
must neglect
It is
Contriver.
phenomena (and
^ others) which
do not fully or effectively yield the end they promise, until after
long and elaborate processes of calculation have disentangled them
from variations,
disturbing forces
and
apparent
it,
irregularities.
To
the
mde
fact, if so
we might
designate
it
a mass of recondite
upon the
arts of life.
Thus the
moons
commentary furnished by
The
of steam must employ the intelligence and energy of the mechanicians of an empire, during a century, before the whole of its
beneficial
activity.
botanical science
affirm,
in
filled
an articulate
to benefit
manner,
the
Creator
two-fold purpose
of the
man and
to educate
him.
CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
force of
159
made
its
of
it
the
dis-
resistance to the
abundance and portability of those materials by which written characters can be multiplied, and,
through the impulse thus given
copious circulation of
to the
human
conceptions
and
informations
and reasonings
made
material substances
many such
important uses of natural objects are not those which offer themselves to us
most obviously.
The
moon
five
for
man's
thousand
And
since
it
amongamong"
known
must hereafter
disclose,
we
may
power of penetrating
and
Sir
John Herschel's
160
of
THE INTELLECTUAL
matter, are sufficient to
mind and
mark an
skill in
other.
Enough
with
its
is
the
fittest
been
employed
it
for
its
is
Every new
triumph achieved by the human intellect over external nature, whether in the way of discovery
or of art, serves to
trious.
make
the proof
more
illus-
and
man
which surround him is every year becoming more conspicuous the pure residt of adaptation, or of the way in which mind and matter have been conformed to each other the first endowed by the Creator with those powers which qualify it to command the second no less evidently endow ed with those corresponding susceptibilities which cause it to obey.
14. (4.)
The way
of
is
now prepared
for
our next
the
that
power,
discoveries,
which,
CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
161
are found
capable of those
which
is
felt
without
which our present lunar observations could have been of no use for the determination of the longitude. This dependence of the popular and the practical on an anterior profound science
runs through
much
of the business of
life,
in the
human
that
it
force in society
lities,
beside securing
homage
multitude.
plicated with
the
more emphatically for a presiding intellect, which must have devised and calculated the whole. We have already stated,* by what peculiarity in the soil it was, that a certain number of the species was exempted from the necessity of labour; and without which, in fact, all science and civilization would have been im*
Part
I. c.
VI. 29.
102
possible.
THE INTELLECTUAL
We
in
some
and
led
men
them.
But
still it is
a precarious
to
be disturbed by
many
tent in society.
side, of revolt
and
irritation against
it
and by
for
men
rank
and
station,
may
at length
be overborne.
In the
by which, they
at
condition,
tionate
vehemence of
largement
nothing
is
them
a factitious sense of their wrongs, and to inspire them with the rankling imagination of a heartless and haughty indifference on the part of their lordly superiors towards them, whose very
occupation of wealth, they
may
be taught to
down of
which were
in the popular
an
act
of
generous patriotism.
Against these brooding elements of revolution mind, the most effectual preser-
vative certainly,
CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
classes,^
163
or that
our great
men
should be good
and next to it in importance were, that to the power which lies in wealth, they should superadd the power which lies in knowledge or that the vulgar superiority of mere affluence and station, should be strengthened in a way that would command the willing homage of all spirits, that is, by the mental superiority which their opportunities of lengthened and laborious education enable them
men.
to this,
to acquire.
By
have a certain
fellows; and,
ascendant
power
over
their
by the same
have an ascendency also and it would mightily conduce to the strength and stability of the commonwealth, if these insessors of learning
if
the
and the scale of intelligence, in as far as that was dependent on literary culture, could be made to harmonize. The constitution of science, or the adaptation which obtains between the objects of knowledge and the knowis
ing faculties,
alliance for
to
singularly favourable to
the
that,
insomuch
;
sound the depths of philosophy, time and independence and exemption from the cares and
labours of ordinary
life
seem indispensable
and,
on the other hand, profound discoveries, or a profound acquaintance with them, are sure to
164
THE INTELLECTUAL
a ready deference even from the mul-
command
titude,
whether on account of the natural respect which all men feel for pre-eminent understanding, or on account of the palpable utilities to which,
in a
found
be subservient.
On
crew
*
"
We
by a
naval
officer,
variety of
results
his
may become
He
west coast of Mexico, and after a voyage of 8000 miles, occupyingeighty-nine days, arrived off Rio Janeiro, having, in this interval
passed through the Pacific Ocean, rounded Cape Horn, and crossed
the South Atlantic, without
Horn.
situation in
this within
it
at a
having ascertained
of the
from
five to
way by
known
to navigators,
between
one known point and another, but which cannot be trusted in long
voyages, where the
moon
is
The
we
are enabled
by
own words
"
:
'
We
steered towards Rio Janeiro for some days after taking the lunars
of the coast,
vshould break,
hove-to
till
four in the
;
for although
we
About eight
o'clock
became
CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
the
165
consummate generalship of its commander will subordinate all the movements of the immense host, to the power of one controlling and
actuating will
so, in
by means
in these other examples, would the intellectual ascendency thus acquired, be found of mighty
effect, to consolidate
and maintain all the gradations of the commonwealth. 15. It is thus that a vain and frivolous arisand beset with
the narrow
prejudices of an
that high van-
down from
when
it
suddenly cleared
and
had
the satisfaction of seeing the great sugar loaf peak, which stands on
one side of the harbour's mouth, so nearly right a-head that we had
not to alter our course above a point, in order to hit the entrance of
Rio.
first
land
we had seen
set
for three
months, after
crossing so
many
seas,
and being
to
and
it is
needless
officer
may
incidents, indicative
consequent
power beyond
It is
their reach."
Herschel's Discourse,
though often
p. 28, 29.
and
civil
in
the
C. II.
1(36
THE INTELLECTUAL
ground on
tage
placed
them where, by
belonging to the state in which they were born, they might have kept their firm footing to the
latest generations.
Did
all
face of observation,
to all
and was
alike accessible
tion
men, they could not with such an adaptaof external nature to man's intellectual conhave realized the peculiar advantage
stitution,
But it is on which we are now insisting. because there is so much of important and applicable truth, which lies deep and hidden under the surface, and which can only be appropriated by men, who combine unbounded
leisure with the habit or determination of strenu-
ous mental
effort
it
is
an adaptation, that they who are gifted with property are, as a class, gifted with the means,
if
it,
of a great intellectual
There
It
wisdom.
from the land. Did our high-born children of affluence, for every ten among them, the mere loungers of effeminacy and fashion, or the mere lovers of sport and sensuality and splen-
dourdid they, for every ten of such, furnish but one enamoured of higher gymnastics, the
CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
167
and who accompUshed w arfare of the senate, and himself for the work by his deep and comprehensive views in all the
gymnastics of the mind
;
government, and
politics,
by a few
be saved
gigantic
men among
arrested
on that headlong descent, which, at the impulse of the popular will, it might else have made, from one measure
of fair but treacherous promise, from one ruinous
plausibility to another.
because
The
thing most to be
and superficial legislation, into which a government may be hurried by the successive onsets of public impatience, and under the impulse of a popular and prevailing Now the thing most needed, as a countercry.
dreaded,
is
that hasty
intellectual
parliament, where shall predominate that masculine sense which has been trained for act and
application
by masculine
studies;
and where
not be
the
silly
watch-word of theory
shall
from the depths of philosophic observation, or shone upon by hghts from afar, in the accumuWe have infinitely lated experience of ages. more to apprehend from the demagogues than
168
THE INTELLECTUAL
;
from the doctrinaires of our present crisis and it will require a far profounder attention to the
principles of every question than
many deem
to
be necessary, or than almost any are found to bestow, to save us from the crudities of a blindfold legislation.*
16.
And
it
economy, such an indiscriminate havock made so that pensions and endowments for the reward or encouragement of science, should have had the same sentence of extinction passed upon them, as the most worthfor
ought
to cultivate,
is
On
this
subject
we have elsewhere
said
that
**
there
is
whom
it
actuates to
insti-
which
is
often
the
endowed and
established seminaries.
We think
that a
more
is
It is just
mechanic
institutions.
The
same
latter will
CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
less
109
of our
sinecures.
The
difficulties
most
make
it
who
truly
are
own
maintenance
insignificant
portion
of
the
country's
When
the
short of that
the social edifice, will only cause the lustres which are in the higher
fabric
be greatly more elevated, yet without violence to the symmetry of the whole architecture for the pinnacles and upper stories of the building will rise as proudly and as gracefully as ever above
;
and science
in
for
;
of higher positions
and
in virtue
of a popular philosophy
now
taught
this
schools of art,
we
are to have
more
lettered mechanics,
will
have a more accomplished gentry, a more intellectual parliament, a more erudite clergy, and altogether a greater force and fulness
of mind throughout
all
The whole
of society will ascend together, and therefore without But, in every stage of disturbance to the relation of its parts.
this progress,
places of intellect
its
most
solid
and
Use
Endowments.
170
THE INTELLECTUAL
means
have been put into their hands we can only reproach their ignoble preference, and lament
the ascendant force of sordid and merely animal
propensities, over the principles of their better
But when
is
that
which
indi-
also found to
do
the exercise of
its
deliberate wisdom,
and
when instead
new
it
destination of Avealth in
days
this,
not a deed
mandate of a senatehouse, were a still more direct and glaring contravention to the wisdom of Nature, and to the laws of that economy which Nature hath instituted. The adaptation of which we now speak, between the external system of the universe, and the intellectual system of man, were grossly violated by such an outrage and it is a violence which Nature would resent by one of those signal chastisements, the examples of which are
of lawless cupidity but the
;
so frequent in history.
The
which
tumultuates against
all
that
wont
to
command
the respect and admiration of society, and is strong enough to enforce its dictations it may
CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
well
171
be regarded, as one of the deadliest symptoms of a nation ripening for anarchy, that dread consummation, by which, however, the social
state,
relieved
of
its
distempers,
is
at
length
renovated like the atmosphere by a storm, after throwing off from it, the dregs and the degeneracy of an iron age.*
17. (5.)
We shall
all
do
other
adaptations,
noticed,
and
And
first,
there
is
countless
diversity
of
and correspondent to this, a like diversity in the tastes and talents of men, presenting, therefore, a most beneficial adaptation, between the objects of human knowledge and the powers Even in one science of human knowledge. there are often many subdivisions, each requiring a separate mental fitness, on the part of
sciences,
those,
who might
select
it
as their
own
favourite
walk, which they most love, and in which they In most of the are best qualified to excel. physical sciences, how distinct the business of
the observation
is
men
of
who
in the exe-
* tion
The same effect is still more likely to ensue from the spoliaand secularization of ecclesiastical property.
172
THE INTELLECTUAL
human
industry
multiplied
ment.*
be a like variety of intellectual predilections and powers scattered over the species a congruity between the world of mind and the world of matter, of the utmost importance, both to the perfecting of art, and to the progress and perfecting of science. Yet it is
work simultaneously and to each other's hands, how little respect or sympathy or sense of importance, they have for any department of the general field, for any section in the
wide encyclopaedia of human learning, but that on which their own faculties are concentrated
and absorbed. We cannot imagine aught more dissimilar and uncongenial, than the intentness
of a mathematician on his demonstrations and
" There
is
no accounting
of minds or inclina-
tions,
were
ment of phenomena, another to speculate on their causes but it not for this happy disagreement, it may be doubted
whether the higher science^ could ever have attained even their
Sir
CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
of a collector or antiquarian on the faded
scripts
173
in the
manuand uncial characters of other days. Yet compound result of all these multiform
is
labours, there
between the practitioners and the theorists of science, between the pioneers and the monarchs
of literature
even as in
be no mutual intelligence between the subordinates who fill them, there is a supreme and connecting wisdom, which presides over and animates the whole. The goodly system of philosophy, when viewed as the product of innumerable contributions, by minds of all possible variety and men of all ages bears like evidence
to the universe
Him who
is
family.*
And
it
here
it is
that
is
Divine
worth
own
special
The
*
The
tiplication of professorships in
all
more
into
one.
174
to
THE INTELLECTUAL
a high sense of the importance of
attain
any science, and of the worth and beauty of it embraces nothing more is necessary than the intent and persevering study of them. Whatever the walk of philosophy may be on which man shall enter, that is the walk which of all others he conceives to be most enriched, by all that is fitted to enterthe objects which
the admiration of
can
or the chemist
who can
assign
who can
the
laws
of
human
who can
discrimi-
who can
the shells
respective
enquirers
is
become the worshipper of his own theme, and to look with a sort of indifference,
apt to
bordering on contempt, towards what he imagines the far less interesting track of his fellowlabourers.
Now
each
is
he renders to the grace and grandeur of that but all are field which himself has explored
;
wrong
in the
distaste
they
feel,
or rather in
fields
the disregard
they
cast
on the other
which they
We
should
CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
take the
that
175
testimony of each
to
the worth of
reject
which
he
does
to
know,
and
the
testimony of each
lessness of that
and
that
then
the
unavoidable
that
must be
glorious
indeed
replete
and
gorgeous
still
universe in which
ception
birth to
we
dwell
and
prolific
more
gave
arose,
and whose
and
variety.
And
instead of the temple of science having been reared, it were more proper to say, that the
temple of nature had been evolved. The archetype of science is the universe and it is in the
;
disclosure of
its
successive parts,
to step
that science
any new architecture of its own, but rather unveiling by degrees an architecture that is
old as the creation.
The
labourers in philosophy
create nothing
tion that
is
which was before created. And there harmony in their labours, however widely apart from each other they may have been prosecuted not because they have ada resulting
justed
one part to another, but because the adjustment has been already made to their hands. There comes forth, it is true, of their
a
labours,
most
magnificent
harmony,
yet
harmony which they have made, but a pre-existent harmony which they have only
not a
176
THE INTELLECTUAL
visible
made
so
philosophy,
let
materials.
The
last
adaptation that
we
shall
instance
rather one of
mind
to
mind, and
depends on a previous adaptation in each mind of the mental faculties to one another. For the right working of the mind, it is not enough that each of its separate powers shall be provided with adequate strength they must be mixed
in a certain proportion
for the
greatest incon-
venience might be
felt,
but in the excess of some of them. We have heard of too great a sensibility in the organ
of hearing, giving rise to an excess in the faculty,
which amounted
to
disease,
by exposing
the patient to the pain and disturbance of too many sounds, even of those so faint and low, as In to be inaudible to the generality of men. like manner we can imagine the excess of a
memory
the
ideas,
for
example,
amounting
to
by
ex-
to
presence and
many
even of those
which are so insignificant, that it would lighten and relieve the mind, if they had no place there Certain it is that the more full and at all.*
* his
It
meniory was
by him as an incumbrance
in
the writing of
CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
circumstantial
for
is
177
is
the
its proper work of and comparing becoming the more oppressive, with the number and distraction of irrelevant materials. It would have been better that these had found no original admittance within the chamber of recollection or that only things of real and sufficient importance had left an enduring impression upon its tablet. In other words, it would have been better, that the memory had been less susceptible or less retentive than it is; and this may enable
the judgment to do
given
selecting
us to
of the
faculty
perceive
the exquisite
requisite,
balancing
defect of
that
in
the construction
mind
is
when
made
of
the
very
one
thus
to aid
and
to anticipate
the
operations
another.
He who
alone
knoweth the secrets of the spirits, formed them with a wisdom to us unsearchable. 20. Certain it is however that variety in the
proportion of their faculties,
is
And
individual,
may
that faculty
is
selected
history
adding
as
it
It is
on
the
same
and
words may form an obstacle to extemporaneous speaking, as has been illustrated by Dean Swift under the comparison of a thin church emptying faster than a crowded one.
178
THE INTELLECTUAL
as the characteristic
by which
to
distinguish
him
and thus he
may be
designed as a
man
men
calls
and,
more
or
especially,
movement
forth
united counsel
requisite,
that
No
man combines
power
;
the
ingredients of
mental
and no man is wanting in all of them so that, while none is wholly independent of others, each possesses some share of importance in the commonwealth. The defects,
even of the highest minds, may thus need to be supplemented, by the counterpart excellencies of
minds greatly
this
is
inferior to their
own
and,
in
way,
the
;
pride
of
exclusive
and the respect which is due to our common humanity is more largely diffused throughout society, and shared more equally among all the members of it. Nature
superiority
mitigated
gifts
among her
children,
what
perhaps
is still
more
among men.
21. In almost all the instances of
riority,
it
will
be found, that
it
is
above the average level of the species, in but one thing or that arises from the predominance of
CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
179
the rest.
to excel in
two
ment of
injustice,
his
There
done by the men who have but one faculty, to the men who are under the misfortune of having two. In the writings of Edmund Burke, there has at length been discovered, a
rich
tion,
felt
reflec-
and beauty of things, as well as their relations and so, he could at once penetrate the depths, and irradiate the surface of any object that he contemplated. The light which he flung from him, entered the very innermost shrines and recesses of his subject but then it was light
;
own
brilliant imagi-
and many gazing at the splendour, recognized not the weight and the wisdom underneath. They thought him superficial, but just because themselves arrested at the surface and either
;
because with the capacity of emotion but without that of judgment, or because with the capa-
judgment but without that of emotion they, from the very meagreness and mutilation of their own faculties, were incapable of that comcity of
180
its
ingredients.
Thus
his genius,
around him
his imagina-
wisdom.
and posterity
in the literary
;
Now
fixed
that,
instead of a passing
meteor, he
is
by authorship
hemisphere, men can make a study of him and be at once regaled by the poetry, and instructed
by the profoundness
brations.
of
his
wondrous lucu-
Chapter
II.
On
Einotions.
1.
The
mind, and
its
the
and the latter to what Sir James Mackintosh would term the emotive or pathematic part of our nature. Bentham applies the term pathology to the mind in somewhat the same sense
not expressive, as in medical science, of states of
181
;
suffers
but ex-
pressive, in
tibility,
under which the mind is in any way affected, whether painfully or pleasurably. Had it not been for the previous usurpation or engage-
ment
of this
term
by medical
it
writers,
who
to the
distempers of
it
all
mental constitution
is
in its healthful
and natural
the
is
to the
medical use of
it is
Greek
iraayw
According from
Accordfor
it,
which
derived,
we now propose
in
Tratr^^w
would be understood in the sense of the Latin When treattranslation, afficior, to be affected.
ing of the mental pathology,
we
treat,
not of
mental sufferings, but, more general, of mental susceptibilities. The iraayw of the Greek, whence
the term comes,
*'
is equivalent, either to the " of Latin, the former afficior" the patior," or
and the
latter
simply
*'
to
be affected,"
that
is
the former
mental pathology.
The two
differ as
much
the
one from the other as passion does from affection, or the violence of a distempered does from
the due and pacific effect of a natural influence.
C. II.
182
Even the Latin patior might be translated, not merely into "suffer" but into "the being acted upon" or into " the being passive." Medical
pathology
study of
is
phenomena that arise from influences acting upon the mind viewed as passive, or as not putting forth any choice or activity at the time. Now, when thus defined, it will embrace all that we understand by sensations, and
those
affections,
and passions.
It is not of
my
will
that
sensations
upon
my
my
ear.
It is
not
my w
ill,
I often
cannot help, that I am so nervously irritable, under certam disagreeable sights and disagreeable noises. It is not of my will, but of an aggressive influence which I cannot withstand,
that,
when placed on an
if I
am
turn not
my
and
my
I
Neither
is it
of
my
will
that I
am
But these
Yet we may gather from them some general conception of what is meant by mental pathology, whose design it
bordering upon disease.
is
to
into
183
is
our nature.
And,
to
pathology pure,
we
by the
will,
and
to
be the very
states
which
result
from the
law of the external senses, or the laws of emotion, operating upon us at the time, when the mind is
either wholly powerless or wholly inactive.
To
be furnished with one comprehensive term, by which to impress a mark on so large an order of phenomena, must be found very commodious and though we have adverted to the etymology
of the term, yet, in truth,
it is
of no consequence
whether the process of derivation be accurate or not seeing that the most arbitrary definition, if
it
only be precise in
its
objects,
desirable.
The emotions
both
They
are
distinguishable
from
though,
states
common
with
these,
characterised
vividness of feeling,
from the
intellectual
may
cific
language
but
in spe-
instances
being
no
loss
to
which of
184
the two
the acts
of
which we should
or
refer the
shame, or any of the numerous affections and desires of which the mind is susceptible.
3.
The
first
is
we
shall notice
principle of curiosity
having
all
the appearance
and character of a
in the
distinct
and
original
tendency
for the
purpose to
This prinin very
which
so obviously subservient.
its
ciple evinces
reality
and strength
speech
reach
on any new article that is placed within its and afterwards, by its importunate and
;
never-ending questions.
the acquisition of
It
is
this
avidity of
knowledge which forms the great impellent to it being in fact the hunger of the mind, and strikingly analogous to the
by which each is manifested, to be the product wisdom than ours, the effect of a more providential care than man would have
taken of himself.
seeks for food as
its
The
corporeal
appetency
regard to
of
life.
its
ulterior
in
the sustaining
for
know-
terminating
185
beuetits,
ulterior
enjoyments.
The
prospec-
wisdom of man could be trusted with neither of these great interests and so the urgent appetite of hunger had to be provided for the one, and the like urgent principle of curiosity had to be provided for the other. Each of them bears
;
object
and
that
and
human
foresight.
The resemblance
how a mental
fectually
It is true, that,
men, the
perious, as
But even
this difference, we can perceive a reason, which would not have been found, under a random
economy
need
to
to
of things.
be alike strong, or at
enough
for
this effect,
But there
is
not the
same reason
curiosity should be
186
alike strong
To
not
is
needed, that
all
men
as to bear
them
toils
The dominant,
regions,
will
the
trodden
for
earn
for
discoveries,
all
not
their
men
if
be but strong enough for the perusal of his agreeable record, under the shelter, and
curiosity
And
it is
of a few,
is
ever
thirst
truth,
by thousands.
this variety,
who
discover truth,
curiosity
The
food
own
aliment alone.
The
fruit
own
may become
the property
of
all
men.
But, apart from this singularity,
4.
we behold
a ma-
in curiosity,
viewed as a general
If,
attribute,
man
is
placed.
to the rich
187
is fitted to
stimulate
and regale the curiosity of the human mind we should say of such an external nature as this, that, presenting a most appropriate field to the inquisitive spirit of our race, it was signally
adapted
to
if,
of man.
Or
in in
its
recondite
mysteries,
deep
and
difficult recesses
finite
extent
as
therefore
busy
and most laborious exercise of his powers we should say of such an intellectual constitution
as ours, that
was signally adapted to the It would require system of external nature. a curiosity as strong and steadfast as Nature
it
Hunger
bour,
its
is
and the
of this appetite
is
reward.
Curiosity
a great impellent to
to
the
of
knowledge,
we
cannot
fail to
counterpart objects in
188
each other.
5.
the
does
not
stop
itself,
here.
The
impel
in the
although
no additional pleait,
The
sense of taste,
with
its
been regarded, as a distinct proof of the beneAnd the same is volence and care of God. true of the delights which are felt by the mind, in the acquisition of knowledge as when truth discloses her high and hidden beauties to the eye of the enraptured student and he breathes an ethereal satisfaction, having in it the very substance of enjoyment, though the world at
it.
The
pleasures
;
inso-
much, that a life of deep philosophy were a life of deep emotion, when the understanding
receives
of
its
own proper
aliment
having
And
way
to those
charm does not lie in the ultimate discovery. There is a felt triumph in the march,
and along the footsteps of the demonstration which leads to it in the successive evolutions
;
its
successful con-
189
there
is
Like every other enterprize of man, a happiness in the current and conevery student in geometry can
at the
tell,
ment
as
will
who
felt
on his arrival
delight he
traces
in
is a glory and a transcendental which the world knoweth not but which becomes more intelligible, because more
truth,
pleasure,
And though
follow
who comprehend
yet
or
all
Newton
gigantic walk,
may
when
mystery and magnificence of Nature stood submitted to his gaze an eminence won by him
intellect
or than ever
set forth,
perimental truthhe, in
fact,
who
at the outset
190
resists
respect for
of
observation,
is
at
a surpassing loveliness.
The
inductive philo-
sophy began its career, by a renunciation, painful we have no doubt at first to many of its disciples, of all the systems and harmonies of the
But in the assiduous prosecution of its labours it worked its way to a far nobler and more magnificent harmony at the last to the real system of the universe, more excellent than all the schemes of human conception not
schoolmen.
but as an
self-denial
The
which
like all
is
reward.
In giving
often to
;
up
to its guidance,
we have
quit
in
tlie
but
exchange for these, are at length regaled by the higher and substantial beauties of actual nature. There is a stubbornness in facts before which the specious ingenuity is compelled to give way and perhaps the mind never suffers more painful laceration, than when, after having vainly attempted to force nature into a com;
own splended
generalizations,
impracticable phenomenon,
force
upon
when she
191
goodly speculation superseded by the homely and unwelcome experience. It seemed at the
outset a cruel sacrifice,
culation, with
all its
of spe-
manageable and engaging and, on besimplicities had to be abandoned amid the we, observation, coming the pupils of varieties of the actual world around us, felt as if
bewildered,
of a chaos.
ferance, but
if
not
lost,
among
the perplexities
In return
a
for
made
of
her charms.
;
and, in the
now found
that
imagination.
Even viewed
in
the light of a
noble and engaging spectacle for the fancy to dwell upon, who would ever think of comparing
with the system of Newton, either that celestial
machinery of Des Cartes which was impelled by whirlpools of ether, or that still more cumbrous machinery of cycles and epicycles which
It is
thus
commencement
is
of this observational
of
there
an
abjuration
beauty.
But
it
soon reappears in
another form,
and
brightens as
we advance
192
arises,
Nor
is
difficult to per-
What we
discover
by
observation,
is
nation
stable
bodied
and
by
enduring universe.
What we
the
devise
product of
shadowy representation of those conceptions which are in the mind of man. It is even as with the labourer, who, by excavating the rubbish which hides and besets some noble architecture, does more for the gratiother
is
The
the
than
if,
and sketches of
his
own.
And
In the
christian in-
and
feeling-,
there occurs
'
It
by a
late
Newton and
Gallileo took a
That
this
quite true
in
need only
refer
you
glanced at
subsequent pages of
this
volume
in order to evince,'
193
at
whose fascinations
of
its
it
resisted
the
of truth and
is
The pain
The views
con-
medium
of observation,
above
all
through the
medium
But the
first,
toils
that the
The same
is
its
and where the internal processes of actual and ascertained Nature are found to possess a beauty, which far surpasses the crude though specious plausibilities
alone, but throughout of terrestrial physics
;
most of
all
in
chemistry,
of other days.
We
man
happy ordination
is
by which
made
precede the
luxury of the
spirit, or
its
must strenuously labour in the investigation of truths ere he can luxuriate in the contemplaIt is
by
of truth
first,
that the
].94
strict
ance
first
for
any opinion.
its
Whatever
authority,
be,
it
whatever
engaging likelihood
to
may
must
be made
undergo the
freest treatment
It is at
one time stretched on the rack of an experiment. At another it has to pass through fiery trial in
the bottom of a crucible.
At
another,
it
has to
undergo a long questionary process, among the fumes, and the filtrations, and the intense heat of
a laboratory
;
and, not
till it
and survived it, is it preferred to a place in the temple of truth, or admitted among the laws and the lessons of a
sound philosophy.
7.
to
science which
in science itself,
as the
it,
curiosity
which impels
to the prosecution of
and the
and the
is
templation of
its
objects
endowments
are not sure
are held
by general
society.
195
operation, in speeding onward the march of discovery, than the love of philosophy for the sake of its own inherent charms and
;
who, but
for
an expected
arduous walk.
We
are
abundantly
sensible,
helped
of
vulgarize both
the
that
and science
the
of the
country
men,
in
capable
most
attic
refinement
the one,
may,
for the
sake of a
to verbiage
wider
popularity,
false
have descended
and the
splendour of a mere-
tricious eloquence;
have exchanged
the
profound
the
argument
for
showy and
to
superficial
illustration pre-
ferring
the
homage of
when
exalted few,
lighter parts of
access to the easier and knowledge has been suddenly enlarged, the heights of philosophy may be abandoned for a season the men who wont to occupy there, being tempted to come down from their elevation, and hold converse with that increasing host, who have entered within the precincts, and now throng the outer courts of
It is thus, that,
196
the temple.
certam transition
philosophy
may
combine, with the inestimable benefit of a more enlightened commonalty, both the glory and the substantial benefit of as cultured a literature and as lofty and elaborate a philosophy as before.
shall
from which
when she
we
And we
greatly mistake,
if w^e
think, that in
They
it
must be such
is
exquisite
that precious
aroma, which fills not the general atmosphere, but by which the few and the finer spirits of our
race are satisfied.
light of popularity.
Theirs
It is
is
a fame of a higher
order,
and grounded on those rare achievements which the public at large can neither comprehend nor sympathize with. " They sit on a hill apart," and there breathe of an ethereal element, in the calm brightness of an upper region, rather than in that glare and gorgeousness by which the eye of the multitude
or the elite in science,
is
dazzled.
It is not the
197
The
occupy is aloft in the galaxy of a nation's literature, where the eyes of the more finely intellectual gaze upon them with delight, and the hearts only of such are lighted up in reverence and con amove towards them. Theirs is a high though hidden praise, flovv^ing in secret course through the savans of a community, and felt by every true academic to be his most appropriate
reward.' *
The emotions of which we have yet spoken stand connected, either in the way of cause or
8.
as
these efforts,
investigation
the curiosity which prompts to and the delights attendant on the and discovery of truths which
;
reward them
beside
the
grateful
incense of
select,
or
that
superiority,
and form
perhaps the most powerful incitement to the arduous and sustained prosecution of mental
labour.
sort,
still
But there
higher importance
it
which
We often
*
p.
Ecclesiastical
Endowments,
165166.
C. II.
19B
of
the
danger or clisagreeableness of another, as anger or fear, or envy of the obhgation that lies upon us to cherish and retain certain other emotions,
insomuch that the designation of virtuous is generally given to them, as gratitude, and compassion,
and the special love of relatives or country, and in one word, all the benevolent affections of our nature. Now, however obvious
when
ject,
stated,
it
is
to,
and
still
less in
very
We
can only
feel
the emotion of
an emotion of
terror,
in the
;
an
it.
who
conferred
Such then
is
an object
to
emotion suited
quently arise
whether
be love
U)9
on the
sations
retina.
It is
owe
the
without
presence and
which they could not possibly have arisen. And should be alike obvious, that the emotions owe their being to a mental perception, whether by sense or by memory, of the objects which are fitted to awaken them. Let an object be introduced to the notice of the mind, and its correlait
tive
let
We
deem
its
it
no exception
to the invariable-
and
many
may be
present
and
in full
proper to
it.
awaken compassion.
if
a creature in
the
mind s contemplation.
But the
person,
now
in suffering,
may
and the
is
different,
really
different an offender
200
Or
may
be inflicted
in
by our own hand on an unoffending animal the prosecution of some cruel experiment.
compassion be wholly
in this instance the
unfelt,
it
If
is
not because
connects this
law has been repealed which emotion with the view of pain but
;
mind
;
to this
object
is
displaced
by
another object
so
even the
for
is
discovery of truth
and
what but
this
over-
And
so with all
Were danger
;
singly the
we but it may
fear,
be
sight
or
the
menaces of an insulting enemy who awakens burning resentment in the heart, and when anger arises fear is gone or it may be danger shared with fellow combatants, whose presence and observation kindle in the bosom the love of glory and impel to deeds of heroism not because any law which connects, and connects invariably, certain emotions with certain objects, is in any
;
but because, in
forces,
one
Still, in
201
inso-
much, that if we want to recal a certain emotion, we must recal to the mind that certain object which awakens it if we want to cease from the emotion, we must cease from thinking of its object, we must transfer the mind to other objects, or occupy it with other thoughts. 10, This connection between the percipient faculties of the mind and its feelings, reveals to us a connection between the intellectual and the
;
How
the one
brought instrumentally
to
will
is
be afterwards explained. But meanwhile it abundantly obvious, that the presence or the
can no more break up the connection between the thought of any object that is viewed
mentally, and the feeling which
the heart, than
it
We
impresses on
we can break up
the connection
between the sight of any object that is viewed materially, and the sensation which it impresses upon the retina. If we look singly and steadfastly
to
is
an object of a particular colour, as red, there an organic necessity for the peculiar sensation
eyes, or turning
differently
of redness, from
by shutting our
objects that are
If
we
202
an organic necessity also for the peculiar emotion of resentment, from which there appears to
stifling the
objects of contemplation.
and
of capital importance to
know how
to retain
which
so
by awaken
is
it is
awaken the
latter.
And
wrong
by
thinking in a certain
ties are
way
that
sensibili-
holden.
that
we
by
in its vivid
and
aflecting
details, that
pity
is
called forth.
tions of the
and
In one word,
tainer of feeling
once the harbinger and the susand this, of itself, forms an important link of communication between the intelthought
is
at
lectual
1
1
.
We
not be able
to
complete our
emo-
203
we have established a which comes afterwards Neither do we now expatiate on into notice. their uses, of which we have already given suffiof the mind, until
certain ulterior principle
cient specimens, in our treatment of the special
affections.
We
at present,
human happiness
much
They
external
affections
which share
whether pleais,
human
existence.
what a
vivid
and varied
interest that
And may be
repetition of those
words which compose the nomenclature of our feelings as hope, and fear, and grief, and joy,
and
and
many
separate affec-
knowledge,
alto-
which
and sustain or
sensible being.
fill
It
numeis
crowded with objects, that keep them in full and The details of this contembusy occcupation. plation are inexhaustible; and we are not sure
204
which may be founded upon these, could be more effectually learned by a close attention of the mind upon one specific instance, than by a complete enumeor Divine benevolence,
ration of all
the instances,
them.
12.
And
it
all
the
more impressive,
of
all,
was
we
common perhaps
when we
reflect on those homelier and those every-day sources, out of which, the whole of
human
is
through the successive hours of it, seasoned with enjoyment^; and a most agreelife,
is
able zest
to the ordinary
among
men.
When
205
is
suited
we can
of the emotion,
But we
wisdom and
same
prin-
mental ordination
ciple,
when
the very
we
call
plain
and ordinary citizen, the love of news. Yet in this humbler and commonplace form,
needless to say,
it is
how
prolific
it
it
is
of enjoy-
ment
giving an edge as
principal
charm
to
the
Perhaps a still more be had in another emotion of this class, that which arises from our sense of the ludicrous which so often ministers to the gaiety of man's heart, even when alone and which, when he congregates with his fellows, is ever and anon breaking forth into some humoof every social party.
effective exemplification
may
and finds vent in one common shout of ecstasy. Like every other emotion, it stands
of
all,
as
its
antecedent, the
tirst
discovery or con-
206
and on the
first
utterance of which,
sympathy into the hearts of all who are around him whence it obtains the same ready discharge as before, in a loud and general eifer-
vescence.
To
it
perceive
think of
and
we
can,
all
the possi-
of
wayward
deviation,
liberalities of truth
shape of new imaginations by the mind of man, or of new combinations and events in actual
history.
It is
human
in
life
nor
is
it
be any rare
order
peculiarity of mental
to realize
it.
conformation,
it
We
find
men
and
whose habit
gance.
of fantastic levity,
When
they
may
if
politics or
some matter of
serious intelligence
be the theme
yet
part
207
struck out between them and the interview, though begun perhaps in sober earnest, but
seldom passes
other to enliven
off,
it.
so long
on
human
it
were there
of bene-
not so
much
of happiness
and
is
so
much
as
very synonymes, to which the language employed for the expression of its various phenomena and feeling has given rise. To what else but to the pleasure we have in the ludicrous is it owing, that a ludicrous observation has been termed a pleasantry or how but to the affinity between happiness and mirth can we ascribe it, that the two terms are often employed and whence but as equivalent to each other from the strong connection which subsists between benevolence and humour can it be explained, that a man is said to be in good humour^ when in a state of placidness and cordiality with all who are around him ? We are aware that there is not a single disposition wherewith Nature hath endowed us which may not be
;
perverted to evil
both of
exhilaration of heart
so constantly giving
ministering
gaieties
of festive
companionship
we
cannot
208
but regard
Father,
as a sweetener
or an emollient
ills
13. It
is
is
and that its operation, in lightening the pressure of what might have otherwise been viewed as somewhat in the light of a calamity, This balancing of is far from inconsiderable.
us
;
by
different parts
of
the one
if
pleasant
emotion,
is
in
not
afforded
by an acquaintance
is
in the
act of falling.
There
full
no doubt an incongruity
his
walking uprightly,
bend-
and
the next
moment
of his floundering
all
in the
his
might
philo-
They who
209
be yet interposed,
to follow
between the two which they regularly observe each other, they have not completed
the investigation,
ascertained.
till
It is therefore so far
an advantage
in regard to the
it
host of spectatorship.
14.
But
this
very exhibition
may
give rise
to
The
provocative
fall.
awkwardness of the
to abide as
that a limb
is
fractured,
blood
is
In pro-
be the sympathy of
of
the
far
number
be
so
by-standers
and
might
heightened
to
by
him
whom
the
borne.
15.
The two
of the
ness
and
its
severity.
210
one of these
ascendency.
the point,
may
so
as to leave the
mind under
which,
A
at
by a gradual
increase
or diminution
upon
or
the tran-
them.
him.
that
was made from the one to the other of In this we may not be able to satisfy But all may have been sensible of an
occasion,
so delicately poised,
vibrated
so
as to
make
between
emotions.
and
nearly
opposite
This
marking
and
the instances,
friend
or ludicrous mishap
involved,
liarities
of this
midway
if there be so many acquaintances w ho share it among them, and more especially, if they meet together and talk over the subject
aggravated,
of
it
in
wdiich
case,
it
will
be no singular
should be
of a
common sympathy
found
to alternate
21
ment.
16.
too,
We cannot fail
how
When we look
to
it
may
be,
severity,
its
to
the
heart follows
the
how whichever
is
is is
regarded by the
sure to be responded to
by an appro-
priate emotion
17.
We should not have ventured on these illusbut for the lesson which they serve to
trations,
establish.
They prove
humanity is exposed. It is true that much evil may be done, when it puts to flight, as it often does, seriousness of principle but, on the other hand, there is unquestionable good done by it,
;
when
it
puts to
flight,
resentment
And
effect,
when we think
and
pettier miseries of
life,
which,
if
not
so alleviated,
would keep us
in a state of con-
tinual festerment
we
212
this
humbler part of the constitution of man, as a palpable testimony both to the wisdom and goodness of Him who framed us.* 18. Before quitting this department of the subject, we may advert, not to an individual peculiarity, but to the respective characters by which two classes of intellect are distinguished, and to the effect of their mutual action and reaction on
the progress of opinion in the world.
19.
The
first
may be
seen in those
who
are distinguished
by
their fond
and tenacious adherence to the existing philosophy, and by their indisposition to any
it.
changes of
their
They
feel
it
painful to relinquish
wonted and established habits of thought as if the mind were to suffer violence, by having to quit its ancient courses, and to unlearn the
and therefore on the general happiness of society, sufficiHow many hours would pass wearily along, but ently obvious. for those pleasantries of wit, or of easier and less pretending gaiety
which enliven what would have been
dull,
may seem
trifling,
when considered
serious concerns,
we
life
as fortunate or
were to be regarded,
in
we might
other circumstances
We might
often have
213
We
labour which
ing of a
is
new system,
com-
proofs
enters
for the
determined preference
although the associations too of taste and reverence share largely in the result.
a peculiar reason
It is
thus that
of
to
why schools and corporations learning should make the sturdiest resistance them. It is a formidable thing to make head
new
opinion has
especially,
and more
the hours and days of years, which terminated at last in the dis-
whom we
wished to see
not, in our
and the
gaieties of social
life,
journey of
what we
at
a light that gives every object to sparkle to our eye with a radiance
is
not
is
its
own."
Brown
Lecture 59.
But
this
emotion
allied with
There
is
ife
is
is
awakened
by them, a benevolent
C. II.
214
if it
masters.
many
and
in the
termed the conservative party in science or in the literary commonwealth that party which maintains the largest and most resolute contest with all new opinions, and will not give way, till overpowered by the weight of demonstration, and energy of the public voice in their favour.
20.
Opposed
to this
we have
the incessant
operations of what
may be termed
the
movement
urged onward by the mere love of novelty and change others by the love
;
of truth
sort of ardent and unreached heights in philosophy, and of the new triumphs which
await the
human mind
commanding discovery
re-
We
or collision that
constantly kept
up between
On
way
it
is
well,
that philosophy
But
215
it
is
well, that
it
should re-
which
it
now
oc-
had rather that it looked with an on the mere likelihoods of speculation than that, lightly set agog by every specious plausibility, it should open its schools to a restless and rapid succession of yet
cupies.
air of forbidding authority
We
undigested theories.
too obstinately
It is possible to
;
hold out
it
but yet
is
well,
world of speculation
of society
sedative
in its
and that the general mind should have at least enough of the
;
it from aught like violent disturbance, or the incursion of any rash adventurer in the field of originality.
composition, to protect
And
velty,
for this
purpose
for
it
is
well, that
each noto
kept at bay
a time, and
made
un-
dergo a
sufficient probation,
should be compelled,
its claims^ere it be admitted to take a place beside the philosophy, which is recognised by all the authorities, and
thoroughly to substantiate
received into
21.
all
And
which,
when
is
ficially,
There
no
spirit
to
be
216
of
legislatioii
and so
far
by
which
is
rather
the characteristic of
established authorities,
we
should regard
it
in the light of a
wholesome
by which to stay the excesses of wild and wayward innovators. There is a great purpose served in society by that law of nature, in virtue of which it is that great bodies move
counteractive,
slowly.
It
were
to veer
of speculation
if
easily liable
to
be diverted
from the steadfastness of their course, by every lure or by every likelihood which sanguine adventurers held out to them.
It is well, that in
splendid
imaginations and
bilities,
pated
all unsound and hollow plausimight spend their force and be dissiand, so far from complaining of it as
is
so hard
its
and
very
impulse,
we
which we should be driven to and fro by every wind of doctrine on a troubled sea that never
rests.
On
these accounts
we
body
politic, there
;
should be
really is so,
a preponderance of ballast over sail and that it we might put to the account of that optimism, which, with certain reservations, obtains to a very great degree, in the
frame-work
217
machine of a which we now advert, does not preclude that steady and sober-minded improvement which is all that is desirable. It only
22.
this property in the
to
But
government
restrains
it
only
must run the gauntlet of many and they are mortifications not to expect by one, but by several and successive blows of the catapulta, that inveterate abuses and long established practices can posIt is thus, in fact, that sibly be overthrown. every weak cause is thrown back into the nonentity whence it sprung, and that every cause of inherent goodness or worth is ultimately carried
gotten, they
reverses and
many
former, at
overtures
but,
back every time with a fresh weight of public feeling and public demonstration in its favour,
till,
arduous struggle of
it
many
upon
it
of
by
218
proposal.
We have therefore
;
let it
and there
is
the hope,
with perseverance, of
that has
all
that
really important
or desirable in reformation.
The
sluggishness
been ascribed
property
as being the
;
those overtures,
upon representatives from every quarter of the land and, so far from any feeling of annoyance at the retardation to which the best of them is subjected, it should be most patiently and cheerfully acquiesced in, as being in fact the process, by which it brightens into prosperity, and at length its worth and its excellence are fully manifested.
23. It
is
mechanism,
it,
when
improvement
had
to
momentum
voked
away.
it
had
at length
been cleared
219
drifted
unconto
Chapter
III.
On
and
WilL
1,
There
is
distinction
and a mental power. Should we attempt to define it, we might say of the power, that it implies a reference to something consequent, and of the susceptibility that it implies a reference to something antecedent. It
tal susceptibility
is
is
conceived to indicate
latter.
We
as
it
and
so regarding
it
an
we
effect
220
its
and
of the
so
regarding
it
it
as a
cause,
we conceive
mind when
wills as
being in a state of active efficiency. And yet a determination of the will may be Viewed not
merely as the prior term to the act which flows from it, but also as the posterior term to the influence which gave
it
birth
or in
other words,
power or as the
thus that desire,
to the cause
from
it
whence
it
sprung,
we should
call a susceptibility
on
looking forward to
prompts
feeling
for the attainment of its object, we should call an impellent; and thus depth of
is
identical,
or at
least, in
immediate
and use of those appropriate terms which are employed for expressing the results of it, we have often to desert the common language, and are apt to lose sight of certain great and palpable truths, of which that language is the ordinary
vehicle.
When
exposure of the mind to a seducing influence, and the deed or perpetration of enormity into which it is hurried, we are
first
between the
engaged
in
what
to
may
physical inquiry
as much so
properly be termed a
as,
when passing
from cause
consequent,
or train
any succession
221
But
it
is
when
thus employed
we
we
are contemplating;
series
and
it is
to forget
when
or at
vicious, the
comes
all
to
the difficulties attendant on the physiological inquiry, there should be such a degree of clear-
men
and prompt discernment equal to that of the philosopher, seize on the real moral characteristics of any action submitted to his notice, and pronounce on the merit or demerit of him who has performed it. It is in attending to these
*
Dr. Brown has well distinguished between the two inquiries " In one very important respect, how-
mind,
differ
from
If
we
its
with exactness the series of simpler thoughts which have progressively given rise to them, other inquiries, equally or
still
is
more
to
We
do not known
all
which
be
known
all
mind when we know all its phenomena, as we know which can be known of matter, when we know the appearof the
it
ances which
to place
it,
it
is
possible
which
it
then acts or
is
acted upon
222
we
learn those phenomena which are of main importance to our argument now that, after having bestowed a separate attention on the moral and
intellectual constitutions of
human
nature,
is
we
be-
which
tween them.
3.
The
first
versal decisions,
is,
which we
is
that nothing
not
voluntary.
murderer
may be
conceived, in-
own
hand, to force
into the
it,
hand of
cruelty,
relative
and,
by
his
When we know
still
that
man
to
would be fulfilling a duty or perpetrating a crime. Every enjoyment which man can confer on man, and every evil which he can reciprocally inflict or suffer, thus become objects of two sciences first of that intellectual analysis which traces the happiness and
misery, in their various forms and sequences, as mere
or states of the substance
phenomena
ethical
mind
more than
is
what
is
silence,
and
which
it is
in
frailer heart to
I.
Broiuns
Lectures, Lecture
223
superior strength, to compel the struggling and the reluctant instrument to its grasp. He may
thus confine
the
it
to
arm
it
of one,
who
that perpetration, of
as
ters
were the material engine and could matbe so contrived, as that the real murderer
should be invisible, while the arm and the hand that inclosed the weapon, and the movements of
the ostensible one, should alone be patent to the eye of the senses then he and not the other
But so soon as the real nature of the transaction came to be understood, this imputation would be wholly and instantly transguilt.
ferred.
The
distinction
would
at
once be
in this
recog:-
and the unwilUng instrument. would no more of moral blame be attached to the latter, than to the weapon which inflicted the mortal blow and on the former exclusively, the whole burden of the crime and its condemnation would be laid. And the simple difference which gives rise to the whole of this moral distinction in the estimate between them, is, that with the one the act was with the will with the other it was against it.
; ;
deed of There
4.
The
will
may
He
willed
224
to
was his will so to do. But there is another term which is more properly expressive of the act, and is not at all expressive of the faculty. Those terms which discriminate, and which restrict language to a
special meaning, are very convenient both
in
science
and
in
common
life.
The
will
then
may
willing. But the act of willing has been further expressed by a term appropriated wholly to
itself
and that
be
is,
volition.
volition to
by employing
in,
And
mind
from any particular action." Dr. Reid more briefly, but to the same
says that
to
it is
effect,
*'
do or not to do something which we conceive to be in our power." He very properly remarks, however, that, after all, determination
is
and he
on
the plea,
mind do
5. There is certainly a ground, in the nature and actual workings of the mental constitution, for the distinction, which has been questioned of late, between will and desire. Desire has been thus defined by Locke " It is the uneasiness man finds in himself, upon the absence
225
an uneasiness which many may remember to have felt in their younger days, at the sight of an apple of tempting physiognomy, that they would fain have lain hold of, but were restrained from touching by other considerations. The desire
the
idea of
delight
with it"
is
and by
the
of,
effectual solicitations,
its
it
side
in
may
gain
which
case,
is
through
medium
laid hold
and turned to its natural application. But the will may, and often does, refuse its consent and we then better perceive the distinction between the desire and the will, when we thus see them in a state of opposition or when the urgency of the desire is met by other urgencies, which restrain the indulgence of it. One might be conceived, as having the greatest appetency for the fruit, and yet knowing it to be injurious to his health so that, however strong his desires, his will keeps its ground against their solicitations. Or he may wish to reserve it for one of his infant children and so his will sides with the second desire against the first, and carries this latter one into execution. Or he may reflect, after
all,
is
not his
own
property, or that
perhaps he could not pull it from among the golden crowds and clusters around it, without injury
to the tree
upon which
it
is
hanging
and so he
226
is
led
by
abeyance
and the
issue
untouched, just
to
complying with
volition,
it,
and refuses
to
that
which would instantly be followed up by an act and an accomplishment. And thus, however good the tree is for food, and however pleasant to the eyes, and however much to be desired, so as to make one taste and be satisfied yet, if strong enough in all these determinations of prudence or principle, he may look on the fruit thereof and not eat. 6, Dr. Brown and others would say, that
there
is
and
so identify will
and desire
no more
But though a
volition should
be the sure
*
Edwards,
;
Locke
very
but
in
much
to a question of
On
and a
;
main
doctrine of Jonathan
Edwards
for,
though
volitions be distinct
results of
may nevertheless be the strict and unvarying Even Edwards himself seems to admit, that the mind has a different object in willing from what it has in desiring an act of our own being the object of the one the thing desired
from desires, they
them.
;
our own
is
There may be
227
they should be identified, than why the prior term of any series in nature should be
identified
why
or confounded, with
any of
its
pos-
whether more or less remote. In the process that we have been describing, there were different desires in play, but there were not
terior terms,
There was one voliappended to the strongest desire but the other desires though felt by the mind, and therefore in actual being, had no volitions appended to them proving that a desire may exist sepadifferent volitions in play.
tion
is
proper to
it,
and
and
distinct
The truth is, using Dr. Brown's own language, the mind is in a different state when framing a volition, from what it is when
from each other.
feeling a
desire.
When
feeling
a desire, the
which
acting with
own
a great desire to
a blow on an offender
may
not pass
Edwards would say that even here the volition does not run counter to the desire, but only marks the prevalence
of the stronger desire over the weaker one.
Now
without at
all
The
volition does
the impulse of the stronger, and there are three distinct mental
phenomena in this instance, the stronger desire, the weaker desire and the volition, which ought no more to be confounded, than any movement with the motive forces that gave rise to it, or than the
posterior with the prior term of
any sequence.
228
bility.
When
by which
said
to
it
and
so
be putting forth a mental power."^ But whether this distinction be accurately expressed or not, certain
ently conditioned,
desire
it
is,
the
mind
is differ-
when
it is
from what
when
ceiving a volition.
things,
It is
engaged with
and looking
different
ways in
the one
which the
will
The
palsied
man who
cannot stretch forth his hand to the apple that is placed in the distance before him, may, nevertheless, long after it and in him we perceive
;
desire singly
for he
is
is
restrained
by very help-
object of which
that
we know
to
We
by Dr. Brown, in virtue of which we regard the mind not as a congeries of different faculties, but
as, itself
one and indivisible, having the capacity of passing into different states and without con;
of faculties,
in a different state
it is
when
it
simply desires.
See Art.
of this Chapter.
2*29
Mill,
we think
that in confound-
and we abide by the distinction of Dugald Stewart and the older writers upon
this subject.*
But the point of deepest interest is that step of the process, at which the character of right or wrong comes to be applicable. It is not at that
7.
point,
when
solicit
nature
from the
will a particular
move-
of desire, that
evil.
"
it
arises
when
evil
may
the defini-
Hume, and
it is
a very
good one.
this
And
it
tallies
with the
is
some
And upon
is between a desire and a volition. " A man desires that his children may be happy, and that they may behave well. Their being happy is no action and their behaving well is not his action but theirs." "A at all
man
but
for
will.
In other cases he
for health
may have
the
*'
A man
may
take a nauseous
Desire,
not will
leads to
is
it
though
It is,
it
may at all
withstood.
so often
accom-
panied by
will, that
them.
I
may
is
I will
my
C. II.
230
ment
neither
is it
at that point,
when
either a
against
it.
when
the con-
pleaded
for,
other
is at
but all-important
it is
to
that point
we
its
deeds
ment on one side of the question, or of the reply upon the other, that we found our estimate but wholly upon the decision of the bench, which decision is carried into effect by a certain order
;
who execute
it.
And
of his
hand,
is
forth.
There
may be
I
reasons
it,
why T should restrain the desire so that though may not will it. For this application of the verb to
desire
will,
we
have the authority of the best English writers. " Whoever," says Dr. South, " wills the doing of a thing, if the doing of it be in his
power, he will certainly do
it
;
which he has
in his
power
that
And
Locke
says,
**
the
man
he can walk
volition as
if
he
wills it."
upon the
precise nature of a
volition
opposed to other things that may or may not lead to a when he says, " that there is as much difference between
after
it
between a man's viewing a desirable thing, and reaching with his hand." He further says of a wish, which is
desire, that
" a wish
;
is
man who
is
man
231
instigated
may have
him on
conscience that
the other
in the
may have
struggle, but
put an end to
the
will,
which is carried into effect by those volitions, on the issuing of which, the hands, and the feet, and the other instruments of action
are put into instant subserviency.
8.
To prove how
with
its
wilfulness,
it
gave
it
immediately as
proximate cause, or be a
in
which
latter
termed a purpose, conceived at some period which may have long gone by, but which was kept unalterable till the opportunity for its execution came round.* There may be an interval of time,
which which
is
it is
One may
resolve
* It
is
true that
if
attained by the proposed act, the purpose would cease along with
it,
but it were confounding the things which in reality are distinct from each other, to represent on this account the desire and the purpose as synonymous. The one respects the object that is wished the other respects the action, by which the object is to be for
;
attained.
232
will,
to-morrow.
It is
addition
and no
enhancement.
It
The performance
of to-morrow
may
an uncertainty.
It
may
prove
the strength of that determination which has been already taken how it can stand its ground through all the hours which intervene between the desire and its fulfilment how meanwhile the visitations of reflection and remorse have been kept at a distance, or all been disre;
garded
how with
relentless
to,
depravity,
the
been
nought
and
final
accomplishment
nor suffer
all
the
now on
who
are to be deeply
wounded
by the
tidings of his
fall,
or the authority of a
233
remembrance of a
rightful object,
it
must have
had the consent of the will to go along with it. It must be the fruit of a volition else it is utterly beyond the scope, either of praise for its virtuousness or of blame for its criminality. If an
action be involuntary,
it is
any moral reckoning, as are the pulsations of Something ludicrous might occur, the wTist. which all of a sudden sets one irresistibly on the action of laughing or a tale of distress might be told, which whether he wills or not, forces from him the tears of sympathy, and sets him as irresistibly on the action of weeping or, on the appearance of a ferocious animal, he might struggle with all his power for a serene and
; ;
manly
action of trembling
or if instead of a formidable
he might no more help the action of a violent recoil perhaps antipathy against it, than he can help any of the organic necessities of that conor even stitution which has been given to him
;
is
disgusting in the
may
be overpowered into a sudden and sensitive averand lastly, should some gross and grievsion
;
civil-
234
ized
life
more be able to stop that rush of blood to the complexion which marks the inward workings of an outraged and offended delicacy, than he is
able to alter or suspend the law of
tion.
its
circulais
invo-
luntary
it
is
so,
the
can be applied to
And
so of every action
;
that
comes thus
It may also be painful have not had the consent of his will, even that consent without which no action that is done can be called voluntary, it is his misfortune and not his choice; and though
be painful
to others.
to himself.
But
its
consequences on
will, it in
How
to
then,
it
may
an emotion, which
be an organic or pathological phenoseems menon, wherewith the will may have little, perhaps nothing to do? Nothing we have affirmed
is either
and how then shall we vindicate the moral rank which is commonly assigned to the mere susceptibilities of
in
our nature
We
235
we
regard malignity, or
envy, as so
many depraved
and
yet,
virtuous or vicious,
wilful.
It is
that a
man
;
and therefore we
it is
him
feels
doings
but
we must
learn
how
at the bid-
will,
be implied in the very notion of desert that the will has had some
if it
if
it
may
require
some consideration
how
far the
element of moral worth is at all implicated in an emotion. If the emotions of sympathy be as much the result of an organic frame-
work
and
if this
be
true of
the emotions
it
remains to be seen,
why
to
awarded
taste
any of them.
Whether an emotion of
arises within
me
an
the
may
in
as passive, or there
have been as much of the strictly pathological the one emotion as in the other.
1 1
.
Now
it
may be
236
has as
my bosom
impresses on
that colour.
my
Yet the
mate,
notwithstanding.
may
have been
at the bid-
ding of
my
will, that,
from
ness,
a scene of wretchedas
it
were
And
I
;
also at
my
it,
will,
that
place myself
that I direct
my
eye towards
and keep
it
open
to that
have voluntarily realized, is equally unavoidable. I might have escaped from the emotion, had I
by keeping aloof from the spectacle which awakened it. And I might escape from the sensation, if I so will, by shutting my eyes, or turning them away from the object which is its cause or, in other words, by the command
so willed,
;
which
belongs to me.
And
237
made
by the
other, objects
may
be either
made
tain
the
faculty, this
is,
that the
that
;
the
mind by the
towards the
the direction
of
its
looking
faculty
by
of it
hand,
away from these objects, could, on the other Avill them again into extinction. Such we
It
forms the
between the percipient and what has already been named the pathematic departments. It is the control which
departments of our nature
;
or
makes man
and so responsible for the emotions which pathologically result from them. 12. If it be by a voluntary act that he comes to see certain objects, then, whatever the emotions are which are awakened by these objects, he may be said to have willed them into being. In like manner, if it be by a voluntary act that he comes to think of certain objects, then, may
entertain,
it
which follow
all
admitted on
238
human
frame,
it
can
the
summon
of
away certain
objects
effect
sight.
And,
notwithstanding
sical
which the expositions of certain metaphyreasoners have had, in obscuring the proit is
cess,
can either
summon
into pre-
sence or
bid away
The
faculty of attention
for
we regard
as the great
instrument
the achievement
of
this
the
the
messenger,
whose wakefulness and activity we owe all those influences, which pass and repass in constant succession between our moral and intellectual nature.
Dr. Reid, in his book on the active powers, has a most important chapter on those operations
13.
of the
mind
Among
however of any profound or careful analysis, he presents us with a number and from the unof very sensible remarks
where, instead
;
guidance
attention
among
239
and
But
;
to
successful in his expositions of this faculty and by which he makes it evident, that it is not more distinct from the mental perception of any
any
object of sight,
it.
is
distinct
of seeing
15.
In his chapter on the external affections combined with desire, he institutes a beautiful
analysis
;
he has thrown
conclusive reasoning.
We
fear,
age of superficial readers, the public are far from being adequately aware of that wondrous combination of talent, which this
in
this
own
the
person
facility,
yet elegance, he
among
metaphysics.
refer,
is
The passage
to
which we now
of
perhaps the
all
finest exemplification
this
in
his volumes;
adventurous speculations
not,
have been led by the fascination of his minor accomplishments, to brave the depths and
240
For among the steeps and the arduous elevations of that high walk which he has taken, he kindly provides the reader with many a resting place some enhas given to the world.
chanted
spot, over
taste hath
or where, after
may
he has won, look abroad on some sweet or noble whose footsteps he follows hath thrown open to his gaze. It is thus that there is a constant relief and refreshment afforded along that ascending way, which but for this would be most severely intellectual and if never was philosophy more abstruse, yet never was it seasoned so exquisitely, or spread over a page so rich in all those attic delicacies of the imagination and the style
perspective, which the great master
;
which could make the study of it attractive. 16. There is a philosophy not more solid or more sublime of achievement than his, but of that would spurn " the fairy sterner frame dreams of sacred fountains and Elysian groves and vales of bliss." For these he ever had most benignant toleration, and himself sported among We are aware of the creations of poetic genius. than kindness and fascinating, the more nought complacency, wherewith philosophy, in some of
can
make
her
241
own
when
she has
and again, "there are some objects which are more striking than others, and which of themselves almost call us to look at them. They are the predominant objects, around which others seem to arrange themof the multitude
selves."
18.
The
between the mere presence of a thought in one's mind and the mind's attention to that which is the object of thought. Now the look, according to Dr. Brown's analysis, is made up of the simple external affection of sight, and a desire to know more about some one of the things which we do see. We think it the natural consequence of the error into which he
has
will,
tantamount
to the difference
fallen, of
that
he has failed
giving a complete
or continuous
of attention
order of his
own very
242
this
mixed perception and desire on the part of the observer, that he willed to look to the object in question; and he might have spoken of the volition which fastened his eye and his attention upon it. Both he and Mr. Mill seem
averse to the intervention of the will in this
exercise at
desire
;
ciation,
all the one finding room only for and the other for his processes of assoascribing attention to the mere occur-
Now
if this
all,
question
or
observation at
tinguishable as
ever.
and willing seem just as disany other mental states whatAt the time when the mind desires, it
the time
when
it
wills,
it
bears
respect
this, to that
own which
is
is
The
desire that
is felt
from the
which prompts or precedes the The desire may have caused the voliaction. tion but this is no reason why it should be
volition
;
volition.
And
in
like
manner, a feeling of interest in an idea, or rather in the object of an idea, is quite distinguishable from that volition which respects a
something different
from
this
object
which
243
we
shall give to
it.
The
interest
any object of thought may have been the cause, and the sole cause of the attention which we give to it. But the necessary connection which obtains between the parts of a
that
is felt
in
process,
is
no reason
why we
should overlook
any
to
part, or
each other.
confound the different parts with In this instance, Mr. Hume seems
the philosophers
have observed more accurately than either of whom w^e have now named, when he discriminates between the will and the desire, and tells us of the former, that it exerts
itself when the thing desired is to be attained by any action of the mind or body. A volition
is
as
distinctly
felt
in
bodily process
that
although
first
the will
its
muscles as
be in the latter only, on some one of the instrument, and issues in a visible
acts
movement
by the difference, the palpable difference which there is, between a regulated train of thought and a passive reverie. And there is
nothing in the intervention of the will to contravene, or even to modify the general laws of
association.
the incongruity
and absent
not
We may
244
have an idea that is absent, and yet have the knowledge of its being related to some other
and we therefore attend to this latter idea and dwell upon it, for the purpose, as is well expressed by Mr. Mill, of
idea that
is
present
" giving
it
all
the
is
associated
it
for
by not
attending to
it,
we
It
deprive
is
more
or less of that
opportunity."
expresses
suffer
it,
therefore, as he elsewhere
that
to
we
pass.
is
a voluntary act
that we
detain
we
will to detain
them.*
even
is
which
virtuefies emotion,
not
object
is
emotion
may, by an organic
or pathological law,
have
come unbidden into the heart. The emotion may have come unbidden but the idea may not have come unbidden. By an act of the will, it may, in the way now explained, have been summoned at the first into the mind's presence and at all events it is by a continuous
;
;
it
is
Will
in
Mill's
analysis
of the
human mind.
245
The
will
it
is
emotion, but
is
object which
therefore,
although
it
contact
with
the
emotion,
may be
it.
control over
It
awakens
but it house of mourning, and then the compassion will flow apace or it can bid a mental concep;
and
afflicted
family there,
arise,
sensibility
will
equally
whether a suffering be seen or a suffering be thought of. In like manner, it cannot bid into the breast the naked and unaccompanied feeling
of gratitude
;
but
it
can
call to recollection,
and
keep in recollection the kindness which prompts it and the emotion follows in faithful attendance on its counterpart object. It is thus that we can will the right emotions into being, not immediately but mediately as the love of God, by thinking on God- a sentiment of friendship,
by dwelling
excellence,
attention to
by means of a
it.
and steadfast
It is
we
bid aw^ay
objects
with
emotions
we
But we
s
246
of the emotions,
exciting
for
of their
of anger,
example, by forgetting the injury ; or of a licentious instigation, by dismissing from our fancy the licentious image, or turning our sight
vicAving vanity.
It
is
this
command
makes
transmuting
the
intellectual
into
the
moral,
and consideration
and
mental system, as the great ligament between the percipient and the pathematic parts of our
nature.
to
It is
by
its
means
is
made
touch at least the springs of emotion if it do not touch the emotions themselves. The will
tells
on the
sensibilities,
through an intermediate
machinery which has been placed at its disand thus it is, that the culture or regulaposal tion of the heart is mainly dependent on the
;
We may
perhaps more
and inveteracy of habit and that, not by the power of emotions to suggest emotions, but purely by the power of thoughts to suggest
thoughts.
In
emotions will of
course intermingle
with their
own
counterpart
thoughts
and both ideas and feelings will succeed eacli other in their customary trains all
;
247
pass unbroken
by any
intervention of the
will,
science.
way
own depraved
inclinations
up
to
him, from
which now he scarcely has the power, because he never had the honest or sustained will to bid away. That may truly be called a moral chastisement under which he suffers. The more he has sinned, the more helpless is the necessity under which he lies of sinning a bondage strengthened by every act of indulgence, till he
may become
passions which
And he
is
domi-
by thoughts
broken
and
it
is
or, in
other words,
it is
through
medium, that the moral distemper If he be rescued from his is cleared away. delusions to sobriety and virtue, ideas will be the
an
intellectual
the sirens
set
him
to himself,
by chasing away
is
encompassed.
248
would become
whole.
would yet behave himself aright, and noble did he only bethink himself aright recoveries have been effected, even from most
;
He
power of thoughts
when
made
to
dwell on the
distress of friends,
the
mind can
them
Emo-
tions,
far
causes
in
and by the control which it has over the faculty of attention, can will those ideas into its presence by which the emotions are awakened. It is well
*
strict
purposely abstain,
till
we approach more nearly towards the conStill we may here remark how strikingly
is
Gospel
in
what Scripture
its
enjoins on the
management
but in
frequent
affirmation, as a general
and reigning
principle, of the
power
which
its
mind which
sanctified
exemplified in such phrases, as " being receives them by the truth," and " keeping our hearts in the love of
faith."
249
man
is
but also in a great degree with a control over his emotions, these powerful imover his actions
pellents to action
fitting of
and
it
required an exquisite
the intellectual to the moral in man's mental system, ere such a mechanism could
be framed.
tion
But we not only behold in the relabetween the will and the emotions, a skilful
human
constitu-
each other
we
Man
can,
by
means
make
By
an entry into an abode of destitution, he can effectually soften his heart by an entry into an abode of still deeper suffering, where are to be
;
But a still more palpable use of of objects wherewith the number that indefinite world is so filled and variegated, is, that by
solemnize
it.
may
man
anger, or the
wayward
licentiousness of feeling,
;
which might otherwise have lorded over him and to the urgent calls of business or duty or amusement, do we owe such lengthened periods of exemption both from the emotions that pain,
250
and
But
there
is
another application, of at
subservient.
By
over the
only for
states.
there
quency
in the state of a man's belief, proceeds on the voluntary having had no share in the pro-
it.
Now
through the
inter-
medium
of the very
same
it
view of
as true
is,
the mind
the belief
so the emotion
is.
And
it is
mind
so
will to
do
has equally
it.
before
sity
There
may be
a pathological neces-
succession,
beyond our control, in that final step of the which connects the object that is perits
ceived with
dence that
lief.
is
perceived with
counterpart be-
But in like manner as it is by the attention, which we might or might not have exercised.
251
it
perceived
by
is
us, so is
by
the
which we might
or
that the
evidence
causal antecedency
and the state of a man's the prior state of his chaon depend creed may We have already seen how a present racter. compassion may have been the result of a previous clioice and so may a present conviction be the result of a previous choice being in proportion not to the evidence possessed by the subject, but to the evidence attended to, and
over the intellectual
;
The
it
and
is
which
voluntary
and
is
much
to do, if not
which lead to it that man may be reckoned with for the judgments of his understanding, as well as for the emotions of his heart
or the actions of his history.
23.
That man
is
any moral reckoning for his belief, would appear then, to be as monstrous a heresy in science
as
it
is
in theology, as philosophically
as
it is
religiously
unsound
^52
plausibility
is
in
It is not
man
to see
an
object,
which
is
can either a rightful condemnation or a rightful vengeance be laid upon him, because he has not perceived it. It must lie within that
sphere, else he
is
it
nor
no more responsible
to
It
for not
having reached
which needs to to do with the seeing of it. Now to see is not properly an act of the will, but to look is altogether so and it is the dependence of his looking
;
and then the only question be resolved is, what the Avill has
;
reference to
And if there be but a looking faculty in the mind, man may be alike responsible for what he believes or
believe, in reference,
which are placed within the territory of his intellectual or mental vision. Now attention is even Man can turn and transfer it at -such a faculty. pleasure from one to another topic of contemplation. He can take cognizance of any visible thing, in virtue of the power which he has over
'253
body a power
laws of vision, but to bring the organ of vision within the operation of these laws. And he can
take cognizance of any announced truth, in virtue of the power he has over his attention which a power, not to alter the laws is his mental eye
of evidence, but to bring the organ of the intelAttention is the lect within their operation.
intellec-
as
were,
by which
the interchange between these two departments a messenger too at the bidding of is carried on the will, which saith to it at one time go and it
goeth, at another
third do this
come and
it
it
cometh, and at a
thus that
and
doeth
it.
It is
man
becomes
of
his
understandingfor these conclusions depend altogether, not on the evidence which exists, but on that portion of the evidence which He is not to be reckoned with, is attended to.
either for the lack or the sufficiency of the existent evidence ; but he might most justly be
reckoned with,
his attention.
light of
for the
It is not for
him
to create the
day
but
it is
for
him both
to
open and
Nei-
to present his
eye to
all its
manifestations.
ther
down if it be indeed true But of the upper sanctuary. that that light hath come into the world, then it
is it for
him
to fetch
254
is for
him
it.
;
to
towards
There
is
and thenceforward the question is involved with most obvious moralities. The thing
is
perform
now submitted
if
to his choice.
He may
;
the light,
not,
and
if
have he do
evil of
his
And
thoughout
the very
of
it,
is
the subject
in
to the full
which
At the commencement
see nothing but the likeli-
we may
hoods of a subject
the question
nothing which
imperative upon
and yet every thing which is imperative upon our attention. There may be as great moral a perversity in resisting that call, which the mere semblance of truth makes upon our further attention as in resisting that call, which the broad and perfect manifestation of it makes upon our conviction. In the i^ractice of Scottish
our
belief,
law, there
is
a distinction
made between
the pre-
carried
into effect in
England by the respective functions of the grand and petty jury it being the office of the former
;
to find a true
bill,
255
and
trial,
it
that
being the office of the latter to make and to pronounce the final verdict
thereupon.
Now
what we
full as
affirm
is,
that there
might be to the
grievous a delinquency
;
in
the denial of a further hearing to the cause after the strong probabilities which have transpired
at the
one stage, as in the denial of a fair verdict after the strong and satisfactory proofs which
have transpired at the other. All the equities of rectitude may be as much traversed or violated, at the initial or progressive steps of such an
inquiry,
as
To
resist
a good
and valid precognition, and so to refuse the trial, is a moral unfairness of the very same kind, with that resistance of a good and valid proof
iniquitous judge,
who should
inter-
the impression
forth
of those verities,
which
now brightened
his investigation.
judge,
the impression of those verisimilitudes, that even but obscurely and lan-
who
should
guidly
25.
beamed upon him at the outset. Now, in all the processes of the human
there
is
intellect,
yet
first
substantially
forward.
There
is
256
110
but which
at least constitutes a most rightful claim upon our attention, a faculty, as we before said, at the
bidding of our
will,
and
which
we
are therefore responsible seeing that whenever there is a rightful claim upon our attention,
and the attention is not given, it is wrongously withheld. But we know that the effect of this
faculty,
is
to brighten
plation to
which
it
is
gradually to
lineaments,
its
impress the right conviction upon the understanding. In other words, the man,
lastly to
and
on such an occasion as this, is intellectually right, but just because he is morally right. He becomes sound in faith but only in virtue of having become sound in principle. The true
;
which he ultimately lands, is not all at once forced upon him, by the credentials wherewith it was associated but he had the patience and the candour to wait the unrolling of these crebelief in
;
dentials
his
them with
own hand.
He
some proposition which involved in it the intethe obligations of humanity; because there sat upon it, even at the first, a certain creditable aspect, which had he had the harrests or
dihood to withstand or to turn from, it would have made him chargeable, not with a mental alone, but with a moral perversity -not with
*257
incumbent duty. Many are the truths which do not carry an instant and and overpowering evidence along with them announcement, first their which therefore, at are not entitled to demand admittance for themof
an
Nevertheless
;
they
may be
entitled to a hearing
and,
by the
refusal
of that hearing,
man
incurs,
not the
Chapter IV.
Oil the Defects
and
1.
We
behold
in the influence
states,
which we did
In the
first place, it is
that the will should have a certain over-ruhng power over the conclusions of the understanding
seeing
And
pellent forces
which are
secondly,
there
is
a striking adaptation,
to
the things
258
and the objects which be around us. For although there be much of truth, having that sort of immediate and resistless evidence, which forces itself upon our convictions whether we will or not there is also much, and that too practically the most momentous, of which we can only attain the conviction and the knowledge, by
they
may be
first
and minutely acquainted with their visible properties, only by a prolonged look, which is a sustained and voluntary
act
and we become
so,
many
dimly apprehended on the first suggestion of them; and of which, we can only be made firmly to believe and thoroughly to know, by means of a prolonged attention, which is a sustained and voluntary act also. It is thus that
the moral state determines the intellectual
it is
for
by the
what
will,
that
a subject are at length brightened into its proofs, and the verisimilitudes of our regardful notice
become the
2.
verities of our
confirmed
faith.
of
Of all the subjects to which the attention the human mind can be directed, this prin-
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.
subject of theology
259
it,
as
involving in
Loth the
of our
destinies
moral
and
blended,
of
devotedness of
3.
confirmed assurance.
to the
the
distinction
in
and
logical import,
disbelief.
be the furthest
amount of the atheistical verdict on the question of a God. The atheist does not labour But he to demonstrate that there is no God.
labours to demonstrate that there
is
no adequate
but he
position,
He
God
not
that
God
is
is.
God
it
only that
not proven.
is
It is not that
is
disproven.
He
is
but an Atheist.
consideration,
He
is
not an Antitheist.
4.
Now
the
there
one
a
affords
inquirer
singularly
commanding
question.
It
this.
We
all
cannot, without a
glaring contravention to
260
We
do not need
back than
in
the
region of antitheism
but by an act of tremendous presumption, which it were premature to denounce as impious, but
which we have the authority of all modern science for denouncing as unphilosophical. To make this palpable, we have only to contrast the two intellectual states, not of theism and
atheism, but of theism and antitheism
along
we can
by which
alone,
be logically and legitimately led to them. 5. To be able to say then that there is a God, we may have only to look abroad on some de-
and point to the vestiges that are given of His power and His presence somewhere. To be able to say that there is no God, we must walk the whole expanse of infinity, and ascertain
finite territory,
by
observation,
that
to
be
Him
can
be which our pimy optics have explored does it follow, that, throughout all immensity, a Being with the essence and sovereignty of a God is nowhere to be found? Because through our loopholes of communication with that small
discerned in that quarter of contemplation,
portion of external nature which
is
before us,
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.
therefore conclude of every
261
trodden
that no divinity
there
Or
because, through
little
day, these
is
it
the periods of
;
which
is
behind us
and
to say,
that
never hath a
God come
forth
with the
? Ere we can say that there is a God w^e must have seen, on that portion of Nature to which we have Access, the print of His footsteps, or have had direct intimation from Himself; or been satisfied by the authentic memorials of His converse with
no God all nature, and seen that no mark of a Divine footstep was there and we must have gotten
there
is
over
and learned from each, that never did visit him and we must have searched, not into the records of one
a revelation of the Deity
;
solitary planet,
but
into
the archives of
all
worlds, and thence gathered, that, throughout the wide realms of immensity, not one exhibition of a reigning and living God ever has been made. Atheism might plead ^ lack of evidence
within
its
own
field of observation.
But
anti-
202
field.
breaks forth
and beyond
prescribed
all
those
limits,
that
have
been
to
man's
excursive
spirit,
;
experience
tremendous,
all
space
and of
all
time,
this
no God.
travel
To make
exhausted
all
out,
we should need
to
till
we had
and
to search
backward through
;
to traverse
and sweep the outskirts of that space which is and then bring back to this itself interminable
in every direction the plains of infinitude,
;
little
blank, wherein
we had not met with one manifestation or one movement of a presiding God. For man not to know of a God, he has only to sink beneath the level of our common nature. But to deny him, he must be a God himself.
must arrogate the ubiquity and omniscience of the Godhead.*
* This idea has
He
in the fol-
lowing passage extracted from one of his essays. " The wonder turns on the great process, by which a
man
could
grow
immense intelligence that can know there is no God. What ages and what lights are requisite for this attainment ? This
to the
God
is
denied.
For unless
this
man
is
omnipresent, unless he
is
at this
moment in every place in the Universe, he cannot know but there may be in some place manifestations of a Deity by which even he would be overpowered. If he does not absolutely know every
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.
6. It affords
263
that
we cannot recede a
of ignorance
or
way from
the
point
unbelief.
We
cannot,
move one
step
back from
this,
We
can figure an
inquirer taking
up
his position in
midway
athe-
ism. But he cannot, without defiance to the whole principle and philosophy of evidence,
make
theism.
There
is
which forbids his proceeding in that direction and there is another principle equally clear,
though not an
intellectual
if
but a moral
one,
We
are not
is,
to believe in
little
God.
expect
a friendly as
agent
If he
in the
is
we
upon
not himself the chief agent in the universe, and does not
is
know what
in
so, that
which
all
is
so
may be God.
propositions
he
is
not
absolute possession of
the
that
constitute
God.
If
may be that there is a he cannot with certainty assign the cause of all that he may
be a God.
If
every thing that has been done in the immeasurable ages that are
past, some things may have been done by a God. Thus unless he knows all things, that is, precludes another Deity by being one himself, he cannot know that the Being whose existence he
rejects,
2()4
the question.
is,
that
he
And
to
we think that an effective appeal might be made to his own moral nature.
suppose him
still
We
to
be an
atheist, but
no
Baconian logic, the very farthest remove from theism, at which he or any man can be placed by the lack of evidence for a God, is at the point of simple neutrality. We might well assume this point, as the utmost possible extreme of alienation from the doctrine of a Creator, to which the
more than an
atheist
for, in all
right
mind
it,
of a creature can in
any circumstances
cannot move from
be legitimately carried.
violence to all that
is
We
just in philosophy
and
we might
therefore
commence with
inquiring,
In the utter destitution, for the present, of any argument, or even semblance of argument, that a God is there is, perhaps, a certain duteous
7.
to take,
on the
cer-
The
to certain
proprieties.
But
so also
may
God
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.
its
265
sibiUty,
8.
To make
this palpable,
we might imagine
and translated all at once into sufficiency or affluence by an anonymous donation. Had the benefactor been known, the gratitude that were due to him becomes abundantly obvious and
;
who should
had
been enriched, and yet pass unheedingly by the Yet does not a proportion of giver of them all. this very guilt rest upon him, who knows not the hand that relieved him, yet cares not to
inquire
?
It
burden of all obligation that hand which sustains him. He incurs a guilt, if he do not want to know. It is enough to convict him of a great moral delinquency, if he have gladly seized upon the liberalities which were
brought in secret
the quarter
that the
to his door, yet
willing
hand of the dispenser should remain for ever unknown, and not wanting any such disclosures as would lay a distinct claim or obligation upon himself. He altogether lives by
the bounty of another
;
to
him.
His
266
charge of ingratitude
the charge again,
if
but
it
plainly
to
awakens
he choose
remain in
might dispel
for
it.
lii
still
possible
full
him
to
evince ingratitude
is
to
make
unmoved by kind-
due
to
it,
an indifference
shown, by the
his
unknown
after that
friend, as
him
is
he has found him. 9. It may thus be made to appear, that there an ethics connected with theology, which may
into play, anterior to the clear view of
objects.
cqme
of
to
its
any
More
especially,
we do
to
not need
have certain
towards
him.
For
this
and absolutely to believe that God is. It is enough that our minds cannot fully and absolutely acquiesce in the position that
God
is not.
To be
fit
we
do not need
nature which
gathered, in
territory of
OF NATURAL THEOLOGV.
positive conclusion that there
is
267
It is
a God.
enough
its
if
we have not
;
directions
immensity
after
extent, the sphere of and and if we have not scaled the mysin all its
is
past
nor,
for
a divinity in
vain,
have come
it is
quite
barely
a finite creature,
who
on the question whether God is neither has yet so ranged over all space and all time, as definitely to have ascertained that God is not
but with
it still
whom though
to
in
ignorance of
all
proofs,
God may
be.
10.
Now
this
go
for
quest of that
I
unseen
benefactor,
who
aught
know, has ushered me into existence, and spread so glorious a panorama around me. It is to probe the secret of my being and my
;
birth
and,
it
if
possible,
to
make
discovery
was indeed the hand of a benefactor, that brought me forth from the chambers of nonentity, and gave me place and entertainment in that glowing territory, which is lighted up with the hopes and the happiness of living men. It is thus that the very conception of a God throws a responsibility after it; and that duty, solemn and imperative duty, stands assowhether
268
ing in
rior
full
knowledge of God, or in embryo, there is both a path of irreligion and a path of piety and that law which denounces the one and gives to the other an approving testimony, may find in him who is
to
all
knowledge
is
still
in utter
fit
end, a
deals
in.
He
is
gard
God,
whom
he has found.
But
his
to the knowledge of that God, he was bound by every tie of gratitude to seek after a duty not founded on the proofs that may be exhibited for the being of a God, but a duty to which even the most slight and
borne disregard
whom
rise.
And
and
deny
that,
antecedent to
all close
presumptions in behalf of a God, to meet the eye of every observer ? Is there any so
least
many
hardy as to deny, that the curious workmanship of his frame may have had a designer and an
architect, that the ten
thousand independent
cir-
cumstances which must be united ere he can have a moment's ease, and the failure of any one of which would be agony, may not have met a random, but that there may be a skilful and
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.
269
unseen hand to have put them together into one wondrous concurrence, and that never ceases to uphold it that there may be a real and living
;
whose fingers did frame the economy of and who hath so marvellously suited all that is around us to our senses and our powers of gratification ? Without affirming aught which is positive, surely the air that we breathe, and the beautiful light in which we expatiate,
artist,
actual things,
human frame-work,
may have been provided by one who did benevolently consult in them our special accommodation. The graces innumerable that lie widely
spread over the face of our world, the glorious
is
panorama ever brings new entertainment and delight to the eye of spectators these may, for aught we know, be the emanations of a crea-
tive
mind, that originated our family and devised such a universe for their habitation. Regarding
humble
light of
if
we go
not forth in quest of a yet unknown, but at least possible or likely benefactor. They may not resolve the question of a
God. But they bring the heaviest reproach on our listlessness to the ques;
tion
and show
that,
anterior
to
our assured
270
imperious obligation to
stir
we may
11.
Such presumptions as these, if not so many demands on the belief of man, are at and least so many demands upon his attention
;
which he ought to inquire may be more and more enhanced, till they brighten into proofs which ought to convince him. The prima-facie evidence for a God may not be enough to decide
the question
;
but
it
man
how
To
think upon
man
or in external
enjoyment and the most acute and most appalto think how ling of physical agony may turn delicate the balance is, and yet how surely and
;
steadfastly
it
is
may be
to think of
the pleasurable sensations wherewith every hour is enlivened, and how much the most frequent
mixed up with happiness to think of the food, and the recreation, and the study, and the society, and the
and familiar occasions of
;
life
are
own, so as in fact to season with enjoyment the great bulk of our existence in the world to
;
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.
271
think that, instead of living in the midst of grievous and incessant annoyance to all our
faculties,
man, and both gave forth such music to his ear and to his eye such manifold loveliness to
;
think of
all
adaptations,
and yet to care not, whether in this wide universe there exists a being who has had any hand in them to riot and regale oneself to
;
all this
profusion,
and yet to send not one wishful inquiry after that Benevolence which for aught we know may have laid it at our feet this, however shaded from our view the object of the question maybe, is, from its very commencement, a clear outrage
against
its
ethical proprieties.
If that veil of
our immediate perceptions, were lifted up and we should then spurn from us the manifested
God
But
may be
we
impiety.
impiety to be so immersed as
busy objects and gratifications of life; and yet to care not whether there be a great and a good spirit by whose kindness it is
are, in the
that
life is
upholden.
It
spirit
should reveal himself in characters that force our attention to him, ere the guilt of our impiety
has begun.
But ours
is
272
seeking
12.
after
is
Him
if
haply we
if
may
is to
find
Him.
because
if
Man
not to blame,
an
atheist,
But he
blame,
an
is
He
been seen by him, if no such evidence there were within the field of his observation. But he is to blame, if the evidence have not been seen, because he turned away his attention from it. That the question of a God may lie unresolved in his mind, all he has to do, is to refuse
a hearing to the question.
He may
if
abide with-
he so choose.
crimi-
But
matter of condemnation.
To
resist
God
after that
He
to
is
known,
is
nality towards
Him
but
be
satisfied that
He
should remain
towards Him.
spirit
with him
who
is
many
even
thus that,
may be
a
of
responsibility towards
God.
The Discerner
merable wherewith He has strewed the path of every man. He be treated, like the unknown
benefactor
who was diligently sought, or like the unknown benefactor who was never cared
for.
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.
273
same distinction of character may be observed between one man and another whether God be
full
develope-
ment
to our world.
would not efface the distinction, between the piety on the one hand which and the laboured and aspired after Him impiety upon the other which never missed the evidence that it did not care for, and so
existence
;
this
its
own
sensuality
and
is
The eye
of a heavenly witness
;
upon all these varieties and thus, whether it be darkness or whether it be dislike which hath caused a people to be ignorant of God, there
is
with
Him
He
13. It
can extend even to the outfields of atheism. would appear then, that, even in the
of the
is
initial state
human mind on
the question
of a God, there
an impellent force upon the conscience, which man ought to obey, and which
he incurs
guilt
by
resisting.
We
do not speak
or rudi-
of that light
which
embryo
which serves
of his
mencement
knows,
way
and which,
for
comaught he
may brighten,
full
as he advances onwards, to
revelation.
the blaze of a
and finished
'
At no
274
not to those
who we
have already pronounced upon and we trust proved to be madly irrational) at least to those who stand on the ground of Atheism, who,
though strangers
is
It
an
obvious principle
and that a right obligatory call can be addressed to men so far back on the domain of irreligion and ignorance. It is deeply interesting to know, by what sort of moral force, even an atheist ought to be evoked from the fastness which he occupies what are the notices, by responding to which, he should come forth with open eyes and a willing mind to this high and by resisting which, he will investigation incur a demerit, whereof a clear moral cognizance might be taken, and whereon a righteous moral condemnation might be passed. The " fishers
;
of
their
and
it is
and authority at all, there is a voice proceeding from her which might be universally heard so that even the remotest families of earth, if not reclaimed by
religion, that, if she have truth
of righteous
reprobation.
14.
On
moral dynamics,
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.
275
may
15.
be grounded three important apphcations. The first is that all men, under all the
may
neverthe-
be the
fit
may
have
of a
God
an unseen
steps,
who, tending
all
their foot-
was
their guardian
and
their guide
through
Now
in
fugitive though it be, in these uncertain glimpses whether of a truth or of a possibility, there is that, to which the elements
thought,
so that to
all
them, there
is
not the
responsibility,
which
will
man
who
is
sunk
Even with the scanty materials of a heathen creed, a pure or a perverse morality
of a day old.
in those
longings of a vague and undefined earnestness that arise from him who feels in his bosom an
affinity for
God and
godliness
or,
in the heed-
unknown
careless,
benefactor,
alike
much
light
and evidence as
be had
in
276
These differences attest what man is, under the dark economy of Paganism and so give token to what he would be, under the bright economy of a full and finished
Christendom.
revelation.
It is thus that the
Searcher of the
children,
among among
feebly.
the
rudest
of
nature's
or
Even the simple theology of the desert can supply the materials of a coming judgment
no
on which
He
men
might
of
all
clearly
and righteously
prin-
ciple
on the subject of religious education. For what is true of a savage is true of a child. Its moral may outrun its argumentative light. Long anterior to the possibility of any sound
conviction as to the character or existence of a
God,
it
may
feeling to the
mere conception
of
Him.
We
may,
religious education,
in opposition to the invectives of Rousseau and others, be fully and philosophically vindicated.
is,
that,
at least
awakens
to the
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.
question.
It
277
;
intellec-
steps of the
process
insomuch
that, in
manhood
ought
to
from their infancy heard of God. Many have been trained to think of Him, amidst a thousand Some, under a roof associations of reverenceof piety, have often lisped the prayers of early
morning and evening orisons, they have become familiar to His name. Even they who have grown up at random through
oft
repeated sound
of
we
plead.
They
Sovereign.
riot
and blasphemy
reminds them of a God. The worshipbell of the church they never enter, conveys to them, if not the truth, at least an imagination of
the truth, which,
if it
though
it
be guilt against a
u
who
is
unknown.
c. II.
278
17.
But
lastly,
we may now
perceive what
that
is,
debasement.
not that
God
summon
tertainment of
They have
such a
own
consciences
This
is
a clear
which operates at the very commencement of a religious course and causes the first
;
transition,
The
truth
is,
that there
is
a certain
may
be grafted
as
much
as to
condemn,
if
not to
awaken the
already said
apathy of nature.
What we have
men
Though
is
room
moral differences
the elements of
among men
for
even then,
all
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.
morality might be at work, and
all
279
the tests of
and
still
arisen, or
some hopeful opening had occurred for There is the investigating the secret of a God.
utmost moral difference that can be imagined between the man who would gaze with intense
scrutiny
would turn his between the man who would eyes from them seize upon such an opening and prosecute such an investigation to the uttermost, and the man who
either retires or shrinks from the opportunity of
And
the
same moral
force
which begins
it.
and sustains
If
God
to create and constitute the duty of seeking after Him, this power grows and gathers with every
footstep of
tion.
advancement
have rightfully awakened a sense of obligation within us to entertain the question the view of
;
a probable deity must enhance this feeling, and make the claim upon our attention still more
urgent and imperative than at the
new
likelihood
makes the
call
280
we had
attained,
would
whom we had
do.
and
so emphatically to
Under
we
should follow on to
know God
till,
after
having
all
done
full justice
our powers,
we had made
the
was within our reach, and possessed ourselves of all the knowledge that was accessible. 19. We can conceive, how, under the influence of these considerations, one should begin and
available evidence that
till
he
had exhausted
remains.
it.
But an
interesting inquiry
esti-
mate what the proper leadings of the mind are, at the commencement and along the progress of the study. The remaining question is, what were the proper leadings of the mind at the
termination of
20.
it.
And
first it will
Avhich
we have
Theology can extinguish the use of it a use which might still remain, under every conceivable degree, whether of dimness or of disEven the faint and tinctness in its views.
distant probabilities
of the subject,
may
still
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.
inquisition
;
281
and
that, long
The
posts,
by
we
Although Natural Theology therefore should fail to illuminate, yet, by a moral force upon the attention, it may fully retain the power to impel. Even if it should have but some evidence, however slender, this should put us at
question.
and
Thus a great
object
is
practically fulfilled
by Natural Theology.
if
It gives
us to conceive, or to conjecture, or to
know
so
much
of God, that,
there be a profest
message with the likely signatures upon it of having proceeded from Him though not our duty all at once to surrender, it is at least our bounden duty to investigate. It may not yet be
but
it is
at least
standing
where
if it
it
may
wait the
It
full
and
fair
examination of
but enough
its
its
credentials.
may
not be
If Natural
direct our
to fix
and
may
fulfil
282
but
it
does
way
to
it.
Even
of our
upon us
to
go forth in quest of
God.
And
in
proportion as
we advance,
audible, in calling us
It
onward
for
further manifestations.
it
says
much
mencement, and carries us forward a part of this way and it has indeed discharged a most important function, if, at the point where its guesses
;
or
its
discoveries terminate,
light, as
it
leaves us with as
all
much
should
make
us
awake
to the
further notices of a
God, or as
There
is
made
to the Natural,
The apprehension
former,
as the
latter
was
then,
;
truths
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.
of revelation.
283
There is a certain dread or jealousy, with some humble Christians, of all that incense which is offered at the shrine of the whose daring indivinity by human science
it
is
thought,
its
dence of the
the believer.
22.
infidel,
and
to
But
should
of
be recollected, in the
it
will
be
to,
all
the
respectfully deferred
should
a previous natural theology have assured us of His existence, and thrown the radiance of a
clear
and satisfying demonstration over the perHowever plausible fections of His character.
its
credentials
may
be,
we should
its
feel
no great
overtures, if
we
it
whom
come
and
it is
precisely in as
we
a throne in heaven, and of a God sitting upon that throne, that we should receive what bore the signatures of an embassy from Him with
awful reverence.
23.
But there
is
another consideration
still
more
and importance of
every
possible
Christianity,
notwithstanding
284
many
tion.
For example, though science has made known to us the magnitude of the universe, it has not thereby advanced one footstep towards the secret of God's moral administration but
;
from
now more
hopeless, because
To
not always
solution
way, rather,
that can be
to
make
more
inextricable.
And
made by
it
problem which
is
tianity to resolve.
by which philosophy enhances the goodness and greatness of the Supreme Being, does it deepen still more the guilt and ingratitude of those who have revolted against Him. The more emphatically
it
lence of
God
the
it
with
this,
does
of man.
The same
which
irradiates the
more
moral
has fallen.
Had
natural
g;ether extinct,
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.
285
law or law-giver among men, we should have been unconscious of any difficulty to be re-
any dilemma from which we needed extrication. But the theology of nature and conscience tells us of a law and in proportion as it
dressed, of
;
does
it
its
subjects
upon
of a
earth.
With the
rebellious
phenomenon
new
and so makes the louder call for that remedial system, which it is the very purin eternity
;
We
God
and
that,
even from
for
it
its
His moral and natural attributes. But when undertakes the question between God and
man,
It is
lies.
attempts to decipher
sovereign.
which which
to
it
is
that
rests
species.
fears
28(i
U.SES
It emits,
and audibly
the deliverance.
of the
human
just
spirit,
knowing
enough
but
It
can
diffi-
culty
having
just as
be a measure of light, we do allow but, like the lurid gleam of a volcano, it is not a light which guides, but which bewilders and terrifies. It prompts the question, but cannot frame or furnish the reply.
Natural theology
may
see as
much
gation,
draw forth the anxious interro**What shall I do to be saved?" The answer to this comes from a higher theology. 25. These are the grounds on which we would
as shall
which
is
sometimes
set forth in
such an
as23ect
Many
there are
who would
;
and who, in the midst of all that undoubted outrage which has been inflicted by sinful creatures on the truth and the .holiness and the justice of God, would,
difficulties
of the question
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.
*287
by merging
into a placid
still
all
keep
by which
It is
to irra-
thus that
an airy unsupported romance has been held forth as the vehicle, on which to embark all the hopes and the hazards of eternity. We would
not disguise the meagreness of such a system.
We
same time of
its
We
man, would rob the Deity of his perfections, and stamp a degrading mockery upon his law. When expounding the arguments of natural theology, along with the doctrines which it dimly shadows forth, we must speak of the difficulties which itself suggests but which it cannot dispose of; we must make mention of the obscurities into which it runs, but which it is unable to dissipate of its unresolved doubts of the mysteries through which it vainly tries to grope its uncertain way of its weary and fruit-
less
efforts of
its
unutterable longings.
And
the speculations of
the other, the cer-
human
ingenuity, and, on
tainties of
we
must not so
288
L'SES
that
The two
cileable
religion
first
of the
insufficiency
of natural
and secondly, the great actual importance of it. It is the wise and profound saying of D'Alembert, that,
sagacity to resolve
'
man
has too
of
little
an
infinity
questions,
which he has yet sagacity enough to make.' Now this marks the degree, in which natural
theology
is
sagacious
being
able,
from
its
own
number of cases, which same time it is not able to reduce. These must be handed up for solution to a higher calculus and thus it is, that the theology of nature and of the schools, the theology of the ethical
resources, to construct a
at the
;
class
treated
as
a terminating science is most important, and the germ of developements at once precious and delightful, when treated as a rudimental
It is
one.
a science, not so
;
of desiderata
are met
by the counterpart
is
of the
evidence
tween them. It is that species of evidence which arises from the adaptation of a mould to its counterpart form for there is precisely
;
this
sort
of
fitting,
in
the adjustment
which
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.
obtains,
289
between the questions of the natural and the responses of tlie supernatural theology. For the problem which natural theology cannot resolve, the precise difficulty which it is wholly unable to meet or to overcome, is the restoration of sinners to acceptance and favour with a God of justice. All the resources and expedients of
natural theology are incompetent for this solution
it it
being, in fact,
which
cannot
satisfy.
performs an
important part in making us sensible of the desideratum. It makes known to us our sin
;
but
cannot
make known
to us salvation.
does, in
its
which
it
it
does not.
cannot
and nowhere so much as at turning-point, are both the uses and the detheology so conspicuously blended.
however little to be trusted as an informer, yet as an enquirer, or rather as a prompter to enquiry, is of inestimable service. It is a high function that she discharges, for though not able to satisfy the
search, she impels to the search.
We
are apt to
undervalue,
if
imperfect
and the
fulness of reve-
But
this
is
because
we
overlook the
2.90
one hand,
to to
to fasten the
attention
or,
condemn the
office
want of
it.
This we hold
be the precise
office too,
of natural theology
and
who
an
which
she performs,
science
among
her demon-
strations in the
academic hall but which she also performs with powerful and practical effect,
as the theology of conscience, throughout
all
It is this
so
useful,
we
quite overit
rated
as the
It is not that,
but
taper
our
way
the edifice.
The
it
stability of a
upon which
as leaning
it
rests
and
were ascribing a
it
forth,
upon
way
that
Christianity
own proper evidence and if, instead of this, she be made to rest on an antecedent natural religion, she becomes weak throughout, because weak radically. It is true that in theoon
its
;
it
aspires,
It
and which
it
is
prompted
to seek after.
goes before,
not
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.
291
It is
the
conclusion
creates
but
it
is
that
it
natural
religion
;
an appetite which
is
cannot quell
and he who
urged thereby,
own views
if it
28.
exemplification of the
way
in
religion bears
upon Chrissinner's
religion
tianity, is furnished
by the question of a
Natural
can
man
however dim her objective view of the Deity, there is no such dimness in her ethical notion of what is due even to an uncertain God. Without having seriously resolved the question, we may stand convicted to our own minds of a hardened
and habitual carelessness of the question. If our whole lives long have been spent in the midst of created things, without any serious or
sustained effort of our spirits in quest of a Creator
if,
as our consciences
can
tell,
the whole
drift
and
and occa-
if
the sense of
292
Him
lar,
and we, by
is
to earth,
is
and
atheism
with
we
of our engagements
these
is
unworthiness, nature
visited
enough on which to found the demonstration and the sense of her own unworthiness and hence a general feeling of insecurity among all
;
spirits,
is
all
mere
sensitive
and
popular impression
prudence.
but in
strict
accordance
with the views of a calm and intelligent jurisIt enters into the
must
have sanctions which' could not have place, were there either to be no dispensation of rewards and punishments or were the penalties, though denounced with all the parade and pro;
It is
God
would,
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.
for the creatures
293
let
whom He had
made,
down
the high state and sovereignty which belong to Him ; or that He would forbear the infliction of
the penalty, because of
any
soft or
timid shrink-
would give to the objects of There is nothing either in history or nature, which countenances such an
it
His displeasure.
imagination of the Deity, as that, in the relentings of mere tenderness. He would stoop to
any weak
unworthy compromise with guilt. The actual suiFerings of life speak loudly and
or
experimentally against
the
supposition
and
when one looks to the disease and the agony of spirit, and above all the hideous and unsparing death, with
its
painful struggles
and
uni-
gloomy forebodings,
but imagine of the
which are
spread
we cannot
God who presides over such an economy, that He is not a being who will falter from the imposition of any severity, which might serve the objects of a high administration.
Else
all
steadfastness of purpose,
and
steadfast-
God would
creatures, a
own
And he
of whom
we image
that
He
monarch of heaven and earth by subjects dishonoured, by the sovereign unavenged would possess but the semblance and the mockery of a throne.
with
a law
C. II.
294
30.
to
Such a conception
is
is even academic theists, at times by our as a violence to the sound philosophy of the subject. The most striking testimony to this effect is that given by Dr. Adam Smith, on the first appearance of his " Theory of Moral Sentiments ;" nor does it detract from its interest or
the
acknowledged
he afterwards suppressed it, in "All our natural sentiments," he says, *' prompt us to believe, that as perfect virtue is supposed necessarily to appear to the Deity as it does to us, as for its own sake and w ithout any farther view, the natural and proper object of love and reward, so must vice of hatred and punishment. That the gods neither resent nor hurt was the
its
value, that
general
maxim
of
all
;
ancient philosophy
and
if
by
resenting,
be
which often
heart
;
distracts
human
or if
by
hurting, be understood
tion.
undoubtedly unworthy of the divine perfecBut if it be meant that vice does not appear to the Deity to be for its own sake the
own
sake,
it is
fit
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.
295
consult our
means be
so easily admitted.
If
we
natural sentiments
we
more worthy of punishment, than the weakness and imperfection of human virtue can ever seem Man when about to appear to be of reward. before a Being of infinite perfection, can feel
but
little
confidence in his
the
the
duct,
compared to the still greater imperfection of theirs. But the case is quite different, when
about to appear before his infinite Creator.
To
to
be
But he can
how
the numberless
violations of duty, of
and punishment
why
loose,
vile
insect as
he
is
an must
hap-
appear to be.
piness,
If he would
still
hope
for
he is conscious that he cannot demand it from the justice but he must entreat it from
;
the
mercy of God.
liation, contrition at
296
which become him, and seem to be the only means which he has left, for appeasing that wrath which he knows he has justly provoked. He
all these, and wisdom of God should not, like the weakness of man, be prevailed upon to spare the crime by the most importunate
Some
other inter-
some other sacrifice, some other atonement, he imagines must be made for him, beyond what he himself is capable of making, before the
purity of the divine justice can be reconciled to
his manifold offences.
The
;
doctrines of revela-
and as they teach us how little we can depend upon the imperfection of our own virtue, so they show us at the same
anticipations of nature
been made, and that the most dreadful atonement has been paid, for our manifold transgressions and iniquities."
31. This interesting
passage seems
to
have
is
been written by
involved.
its
He
He
quency on the part of man. And his feeling is, that the government would be nullified by a mere act of indemnity, which rendered no
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.
2.97
acknowledgment
violated, or to
had been trampled on. In these circumstances, he casts about as it were for an adjustment and puts forth a conjectural speculation and guesses what the provision should be, which, under a new economy, might be adopted for repairing a defect, that is evidently beyond all the resources of natural theism and proposes the very expe;
; ;
We deem
it
a melancholy
have disappeared in the posterior editions of his work revised and corrected as they were by
his
own hand.
It
is
not for
men
to sit in the
a greater awe or tenderness upon their spirits, than when called to witness or to pronounce upon the aberrations of departed genius. Yet when one compares the passage he could at one
time have written, with the memoir that, after an interval of many years, he gave to the world
of
David Hume,
that ablest
champion of the
one fears lest, under the contagion infidel cause of a near and withering intimacy with him, his spirit may have imbibed of the kindred poison
;
and he at length have become ashamed, of the homage that he once had rendered to the worth
and importance of
Christianity.
298
to
a land-
We
;
many
such outgoings
that
is
the uttermost
felt
want, and
and perfect
adaptation thereto.
Now
;
academic theism, as commonly treated, is that it expresses no want that it reposes in its own fancied sufficiency and that all its landing-places
;
are within
itself,
limits
of
its
own
territory.
no reproach against
and appropriately theirs or not incursion into another department than their own. The legitimate complaint is, that, on taking leave of their disciples, they warn them
is strictly
;
which
made
not, of their
at the outset or in
it.
They in
have
fact take
highway
when
they
should
reared
which lie beyond. The paragraph which we have now extracted, was just such a finger-post though taken down, we deeply regret to say, by the very
finger-post of direction to the places
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.
299
hand
his
that
had erected
it.
Our
veneration for
name must
this,
by
a pro-
fessor of
be raised, in every quarter, the floating signals of distress, that its scholars, instead of being
lulled into the imagination that
repose as in so
ling places,
many
supplies, to
theology.
a difficulty here in the theism of nature, within the whole compass of which, no
33.
There
is
solution for
which the one bears upon the other, if we state the method of escape from this difficulty that has been proin
It will at
least
The
great
moral problem which under the former waits to be resolved, is to find acceptance in the mercy of God, for those who have braved His justice, and done despite to the authority of His law ;
and
that,
dignity.
By
New
300
and through
are
it,
the
reconciliation
extended unto
and a sceptre of forgiveness, but of forgiveness consecrated by the blood of a great atonement, has been stretched forth, even to the most polluted and worthless outcasts of the human family and thus the goodness of the divinity
;
obtained
its fullest
for
the affront
done
to
paired
of
by
trious sufferer,
all
;
those
homage to its authority of an illuswho took upon himself the burden penalties which we should have
borne
So
that, instead of
a conflict or a concussion
between these two essential attributes of His nature, a way has been found, by which each is enhanced to the uttermost, and a flood of most
copious and convincing
illustration has been poured upon them both. 34. This specimen will best illustrate of moral philosophy, even in its most finished state, that it
is
not what
It is
may
ment
teacher, not
who
satiates but
who
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.
petite,
301
it
wholly unappeased.
This arises from the real state and bearing of the science, as being a science, not so much of docAt most it leaves its trines as of desiderata. And, if scholars in a sort of twilight obscurity.
a just account
will
is
having reached a secure landing-place, we have broken off, as in the middle of an unfinished
demonstration.
That indeed is a most interesting adjustment between Moral Philosophy and the Christian Theology, which is represented to us by the unresolved difficulties of the one science, and the
35.
reduction which
the
other.
is
made
of these difficulties in
most important example of this, in the doctrine of the atonement that sublime mystery, by which the attributes and of the divinity have all been harmonized
We
have
far the
mercy
all
to the offender,
while
still
justice of the
Lawgiver have been vindicated, and the securities of His moral government are
upholden.
By
for there
seems
to
be no other alternative, than that man should perish in overwhelming vengeance, or that God
should become a degraded sovereign.
the moral government of the world,
C. II.
It nullities
if all
force
30^
sanctions
and
angels desired to
into,' how the breach could be healed, which had been made by this world's rebellion, and yet the honour of heaven's high Sovereign be untarnished by the compromise. The one
and by the
that
we
are extricated.
;
The
the
but,
for
we must
an instrument of more powerful discovery and of fuller revelation. The one starts a question which itself cannot untie and the other furnishes
;
it.
The desideratum
and it is this frequent adjustment, as of a mould to its counterpart die it is this close and manifold adaptation between the wants of nature and the overtures of a profest revelation
;
it
is
laid
it
the way,
more
especially, in
which the
dis-
and earth has been restored, and the frightful chasm that sin had made on the condition and prospects of our
is
species
wholly repaired
to all
it is
this
mingled harmony
w hich
He who
put the
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.
candle which glimmers so feebly into
it is
303
my
heart,
He
also
who poured
were foreign to our prescribed subject attempt an exposition, in however brief and
only remark, that, amid the lustre and variety of its proofs, there is one strikingly analogous, and indeed identical in principle, with
We
our
of
own
peculiar argument.
If in the system of
external nature,
we can
its
God being
it
author,
to the
the
adaptations
Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man there is room and opportunity for this very evidence in the book of an
wherewith
teems
external revelation.
struction of a world
What
might be made
appear as
may
present as obvious
to
and
an accommodation
And
of
it is
its
fitnesses
being the original system, abounds with those which harmonize with the mental con-
Christianity,
as
same
We
more
delicate
304
ON NATURAL THEOLOGY.
and decisive tests of a designer, than have yet been noticed in the former and certain it is, that the wisdom and goodness and even power of
;
a moral architect,
may be
as strikingly evinced
primary establish-
ment of a
M4)ral Nature.
FINIS.
LAM.
<1