conclusions? _You_ were not in _need_ of Tremaine when you read that
book.” “Tremaine,” answered I, “would have set me _thinking,_ but would
not have convinced me upon _all_ the topics which he discusses, though
_some_ of his reasoning is admirable. He meets many difficult questions
very ably, but to read any author on these subjects with advantage, the
mind, if inclined to infidelity, must undergo a process for restoring it
to its neutral state; and a few arguments of the _negative_ kind are a
very necessary preparation for those of a _positive_ character.” “What
are these negative arguments?” replied my brother. The first I told him
presented itself in the form of a question, as to the _spirit_ in which
I had doubted; and a little serious self examination “landed” me in the
mortifying, but salutary assurance, that in the _strength_ of reason I
had taken so much for granted, and assumed so many arbitrary positions
on which to ground my scepticism, that, when brought back to first
principles, I was obliged to confess the folly of my own inconsistency,
and admit that the dogmas which I laid down required proof quite as
much as those which they attempted to controvert. Till then I had
misunderstood the Scriptural admonition to come as a little child for
instruction; and conceived that it amounted to no less than a prohibition
against the exercise of those faculties given us for the very purpose of
discriminating between truth and falsehood. I _now_ began to comprehend
that the soundest philosophy called upon me for a total relinquishment
of my own theories in learning _any_ science. The empiric who sets up
for medical skill, untaught by the rules of art, is not in a fit state
to practice physic, nor even to become a student, till he has got rid of
preconceived notions which militate against the best authority. Neither
is the man who thinks himself a better lawyer than can be found in the
Courts, without having been himself educated to the bar, in any condition
to decide upon an intricate case. To learn any human branch of knowledge,
requires that the person desirous to learn should come in a teachable
state to the task, and not inflated with the vain idea of being already
capable of communicating instruction. What more is demanded of us in the
commencement of our religious course, than we see to be but reasonable
in undertaking any earthly enterprize? And with what additional force
does the injunction to prepare by an humble spirit for the reception of
divine knowledge apply to the understanding, when we reflect on our utter
inability to search into the counsels of God with our finite powers of
capacity! When I had reached this conclusion, I saw every thing in a
new light, and began to rest satisfied with the measure of information
which the Almighty has seen fit to impart; determining no longer to waste
life in prying into the hidden things which are not more suited to the
present condition of our intellectual strength, than the unmitigated
blaze of a meridian sun is fitted to the structure of our visual organs.
I began to perceive the absurdity of expressions which had passed for
sound sense upon my understanding. How often had I talked flippantly (at
least thought within my own breast) of the _course of nature_, never
recollecting that the poor Indian’s concatenation of supporters for
the world, in his list of elephants and tortoises, is not more easily
resolved into ignorance, than the arguments by which infidelity delays
the confession that it is in utter darkness? Will the most sagacious
reasoning on the formation of a bone, by the gradual accretion of
calcareous matter; or the most ingenious display of physiological lore in
tracing the growth of a plant from the cotyledon up to the forest’s king,
apply to the _first_ created animal, or the _first_ formed oak? There the
course of nature deserts us. The anatomist, and the naturalist, alike
lay down their arms; here they are baffled and arrested. The former has
no need of his animal laboratory in which the chyle is separated in the
process of digestion from the daily food, and phosphate of lime is added
to the soft cartilages that are intended to become the bony skeleton. The
latter neither requires the acorn nor the “_nursing leaves_” to advance
the oak from the seedling to the sapling, and thence to the full-grown
monarch of the wood. He wants no gradual process of deposition by water;
no metamorphosis produced by fire, neither calx, nor crystalization is
demanded for the _primary_ minerals of the earth--the great “back bone”
of creation. In _some_ period of time there was a _beginning_ of these
things. Remove that period indefinitely, and you may lose sight of the
difficulty in its distance from your eye, but you cannot reduce its real
dimensions; it exists in its full size and bulk, though placed without
the range of your vision. Arrived at this point (and driven to it you
_must_ be sooner or later) you are involved in the absolute necessity of
a revelation of some sort or other, unless you can believe that matter
is self created, and carries within itself all the power, energy, and
intelligence which we _know_ that it does not possess, or that man is
a being governed entirely by instinct, like the inferior animals, and
capable, at his first entrance into life of performing all the functions
requisite to sustain his existence, and perpetuate its succession, as
a crow is to build its nest. _Neither_ of these opinions being tenable
without a surrender of that very experience derived through our senses,
which we consider as the highest possible source of demonstration; the
question which _next_ occurs is what account is there of any instruction
to the first pair who were placed in the vast expanse of an unknown
world, in which they were to become the founders of an unborn race of
creatures? _Some_ record of a matter so vitally important to the new
creation might reasonably be expected, and we naturally look for such.
_One_ narrative alone there is to satisfy the curiosity of inquirers
on this interesting subject, and to cavil at _that_ is easier than
to supply another, or give a satisfactory reason why none whatsoever
should have been preserved. Once admit, that those things most important
_are_ usually handed down in some way or other from generation to
generation, and that it is therefore _probable_ some attempt _was_ made
to continue the knowledge of God’s first intercourse with mankind to
succeeding posterity, it then remains only to try the history which
is presented to us by the rules that we employ in every subject of
human testimony. Now, the wise and the learned declare that the more
severely they investigate, the more thoroughly are they convinced that
there is evidence for the Bible’s having been written by the various
authors to whom the several books which compose the Sacred Volume have
been attributed, beyond that which can be found to substantiate the
genuineness of any other work which has ever been printed. The wise and
the learned also protest that the farther they scrutinize into collateral
testimony, the more completely are they satisfied that these authors
recorded _truth_, and not falsehood; and that the farther the search is
carried, the more certain is the result to corroborate the validity of
Scripture. When such gigantic minds as those of Newton, Boyle, and Bacon,
with the long list that might be added on their side, bear evidence to
this declaration, shall we take the _ipse dixit_ of a Voltaire, a Bayle,
or a Bolingbroke, who may choose to deny, without being able to _prove_
the negative, or set up any attested credentials to supply the place
of that revelation which they are desirous to annul? Testimony, be it
ever remembered, has no concern save with matters of _fact_. When human
reason has taken cognizance of all the circumstances for or against the
existence of any event which is said to have taken place, it has done its
duty, and finished its work. With the _nature_ of such an event, it may
have nothing at all to do. If a hundred spectators, who have no motive
for collusion, declare to having seen a stone three feet in length, and
two in breadth, descend from the clouds, and if one of these witnesses
happening to be a chemist, should report to me its analysis, which I
find to differ from that of any stone on the surface of the earth, I am
very unphilosophical in contradicting the possibility of an occurrence
verified by so many credible spectators, upon the simple ground of my own
ignorance. Though _I_ may never have heard of an Aërolite, such things
are, and, being a product of the atmosphere, it is not extraordinary that
its composition should differ from that of stones produced on the earth.
Thus all my reasoning to the non-existence of these meteoric phenomena
grounded on analogy would be fallacious, like that of the king in some
Eastern climate, who laughed incredulously when he first heard of ice,
never having himself seen water, except in a liquid state. The _more_
ignorant, the _less_ are we enabled to believe, if we measure truth by
the estimate of our understandings. So far then is scepticism from being
proof of a powerful mind, that the reverse is oftener the fact; and
every advance which we make in knowledge and intelligence increases the
expansion of _faith_, not only by enlarging the sphere of experience,
and multiplying those arguments of which the mind takes advantage in
examining any new matter presented to its contemplation; but what is of
higher value, we are taught at every step a lesson of humility by being
compelled to acknowledge the narrow limits of those abilities on which
we so arrogantly relied for scanning the attributes of Divinity. Had the
Bible _not_ told of things difficult to comprehend, I should have wanted
one direct argument in favour of its coming from God. No scheme of merely
human invention would have baffled all human sagacity to understand it
in all its bearings, _unless_ the difficulty of doing so arose from
_contradiction_ to reason, which is not the case. The Bible _tells_ us
that it contains _mysteries_ too deep for human penetration; were such
_discovered_, they would cease to be what the word of God has declared
them; and of that word we are told that not a tittle shall pass away. We
are desired to read and to search the Scriptures; but we are _not_ told
that the utmost limit of curiosity shall be satisfied in this world. It
is vain to attempt the Penetralia which will be shut against us, till
the soul shall awaken in the etherial regions of a spiritual existence,
disencumbered of its “mortal coil.” Respecting _internal_ evidence,
the great stress rests with me in a small compass; I look no farther
than into my own heart to see such depravity, such continual danger of
yielding to temptation, which urges me to do the thing which my better
spirit condemns, that I am ready to own my utter helplessness to attain,
without a guide, either happiness or virtue. If I try the goods of this
life, I am forced to cry with Solomon that all is vanity; pleasure but
a bubble, which, glittering for a moment, passes away; that riches,
fame, rank, power, beauty, are but gewgaws incapable of satisfying the
cravings of an immortal soul; but even when the mind is of such mundane
temperament that these things _do_ seem sufficient, and that it would
fain build its tabernacle amongst them, Death, ‘the great teacher Death,’
interposes to prevent the dreamer from long enjoying the illusion of
his wishes. Death comes at last to force the unwelcome conviction on
all who will not otherwise entertain it, that the idols of earth must
inevitably be torn from our grasp, and that the cold grave must close on
every tie which binds us to this sublunary scene. This strong and simple
truth is one of those irresistible and universal arguments that apply
to all capacities of intellect, and to all conditions of fortune. All
shall die; all leave whatever ministered to pride or vanity behind them.
‘A little earth that saves the world a nuisance,’ once scattered on the
silent remains, the inheritance is seized, and he who, but a week before,
lived in every tongue, descends into the narrow house where all things
are forgotten. No more trace exists to mark his brilliant career on
earth than lingers on the bosom of yonder ocean, whose waves dance gladly
in the sunbeams, as if laughing at the engulphment of that majestic
sail which lately skimmed upon its surface. In this _one_ general fact
there is unspeakable reality of wretchedness--irrefragable assurance
of human nothingness--and in this solitary certainty there is argument
enough to make all mankind, from the emperor to the beggar, ponder on
the _possibility_, if not the probability of an hereafter. All men hate
to die. They are told that they shall _not_ die, that the body _only_
shall return to its dust, and ‘the spirit to God who gave it.’ Here is
a _motive_ the most powerful, to seek, in order to believe, and if to
believe, to act as shall accord with the directions afforded for securing
a blessed immortality. Driven by that motive I go to my Bible, and not
only discover the _only_ lamp which lights up a dark and dreary valley
through which I _must_ pass, however horrible to my imagination; but I
find also, that even the most imperfect efforts to assimilate my actions
to that conduct which the Scripture enjoins, the feeblest endeavours to
cultivate those tempers and affections which the Sacred Volume enforces,
are rewarded by an inward peace which nothing beside has power to impart;
and that in proportion as I attempt to prepare for _another_ world, I am
happy in _this_, which is but its vestibule.
When I had proceeded so far in my little sketch of a “Confession of
Faith,” my dear brother said, “You prove to me, that the subjects on
which my mind has been long and anxiously revolving, are familiar to you;
and from the little that you have said respecting these obscure points, I
anticipate much comfort in entering more at large with you into the field
of inquiry, but remember, that _my_ chief difficulties remain untouched,
and before I let you entirely behind the scenes of my own incertitude,
I must know how you get over a barrier which seems in my mind so
insurmountable. You must also tell me whether you are one of those who
hold _belief_ to be within our own power. If you _are_, I fear that we
shall have to combat on the threshold, for I confess nothing irritates
me half so much as to be told that I can believe if I _please_. _I_ feel
that my _will_ has nothing to do with my understanding. Nay, so far from
adopting the popular maxim, that we have faith according to our _wishes_,
I find the tendency of my mind is rather to suspect in proportion to the
desire that any proposition may be true, and, dreading disappointment, I
investigate with more precision whatever I am most interested in hoping
may prove to be a fact, than those matters of common occurrence, which
are indifferent to me in their consequences.”
I replied, that I had purposely left the topics to which he alluded
for the last. “You desired,” said I, “to know on what shore I had been
landed, what haven of rest I have found, after having been tempest-tossed
like yourself upon the ocean of doubt and vacillation. I complied with
your requisition, and have told you that my bark is, I trust, safely
moored in the harbour of conviction. I will now retrace my way, and
tell you how I have been enabled to meet the tremendous questions of
free-will, spiritual immortality, and personal identity, so far as to
satisfy myself completely, that while in the flesh it is a vain attempt
to explain them in any other way than by saying, that they are too high,
and elude mortal grasp altogether. To know this is something, and we
arrive at the knowledge by _means_ of reason, it is doubly satisfactory.
Whether _my_ reasoning will carry any weight to _your_ mind, I will not
presume to anticipate; but, as briefly as possible I will give you an
idea of the course which I pursued myself with success.”
As my letter has run on to an overgrown length, I will conclude it here,
where the subject naturally divides itself; and in my next will proceed
with my narrative, in the hope that you will aid my purpose by observing
on every defect in the chain of my endeavours, and furnishing strength
to my weakness from the stores of your own information. My whole soul
is engrossed in the cause which heaven has blessed already beyond my
most sanguine expectations. Our dear friend, Mr. Otway, is a powerful
auxiliary. I should say that he were the _principal_ instrument, if his
knowledge of human nature did not teach him to lie by in a great degree,
till I, as a pioneer, have cleared the path. “The still small voice” of
female affection, like the mouse in the fable, will sometimes achieve
more than the lion’s force, and I am heartily contented to rank no higher
than “yon wee bit sleek, and cowering beastie.” as our favourite Burns
styles this tiny animal, if I may only be permitted by my humble efforts,
to unloose the cords which would restrain the spirit’s flight, and bind
to groveling earth an angel of the skies.
Adieu, dear friend,
Your faithful and affectionate,
CAROLINE DOUGLAS.
LETTER XXXV.
FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.
_Marsden._
My dear Friend,
You are expecting a letter, and it shall be delayed no longer. To return
to the subject of my last: my brother confessed, as I told you, that
his great difficulties lay in questions _without_ the range of Bible
testimony, considered either as a system of moral virtue, or a history of
mankind.
“I know enough,” added he, “to give it the palm of excellence over the
several claims of Confucius, Menu, Zoroaster, and Mohammed. The nobleness
of its _principle_, in making the love of God stand forward grandly as
the only test of true religion, is sufficient to raise it beyond the
finest compositions of human skill, which rest their foundations in
convenience or necessity. I am likewise aware that much of what is to
be admired in the best specimens of ancient wisdom, is directly imitated
from the laws of Moses. I know that this lawgiver has been the means of
preserving the people committed to his charge, and that too amidst the
most tremendous reverses and astonishing vicissitudes of fortune for
almost four thousand years by the same laws; while the boasted Grecian
philosophy of the Lycurgus’, the Solons, the Platos, though indebted to
him, has passed away in empty air. I know also, that the infidel hue and
cry that Moses borrowed his plans of jurisprudence and morality from the
Egyptians, has been transmitted through the crowd as mere sound divested
of sense, and is easily arrested by the least degree of acquaintance with
that mythology from which unbelievers pretend to derive the _Hebraical
Institutes_. Could I be _assured_ that I am to live hereafter, the Bible
should unquestionably be the light and staff of my journey towards
that unseen world which _you_ are so certain of beholding, and in the
existence of which there is nothing revolting to my understanding,
except the difficulty of _knowing myself_ in a disembodied state. What is
to convince me of my identity?”
To this question I ventured to reply, “The argument of identity has
been much misunderstood by a large portion of mankind, including almost
all the sceptics whose writings I am acquainted with, and who confound
this idea with that of _consciousness_. Now, Butler, whose book you see
before you, has admirably and clearly drawn the true distinction, and
shewn that _consciousness takes cognizance_ of identity, but is not the
thing itself. You may sleep for a million of years as for a single night,
without destroying your identity. Were it not so, each interruption from
forgetfulness, however short, or from whatever cause, whether a natural
slumber, lapse of memory, epileptic fit, swoon, or contusion of the
brain, would be as fatal to the continuity of _self_, as the longest term
of oblivion.
“How then do I arrive at the idea of identity? I say by _intuitive_
knowledge, so totally independent of the circumstances with which it is
combined in the body, that these may undergo every variety of change
without impairing its force. Suppose that you were taken at your birth,
like Hunter, and brought up amongst the North American Indians; that you
believed a tatooed chief of a particular village to be your father, and
a certain squaw to be your mother. At one-and-twenty, you are brought to
Europe, and discover, by a remarkable chain of circumstances, that you
are _not_ a North American Indian, but a child of British parents. You
are _not_ what you believed yourself to be; yet _this_ has nothing to do
with your identity--you are still _yourself_.
“Suppose again, that by successive cannon shots, you have been deprived
of your limbs; your arms and legs have been shot away, and, as nearly
as is compatible with continued existence, you are reduced to a mere
trunk. No diminution takes place in the consciousness of your personal
identity, any more than results from the gradual substitution of new
particles which, it is calculated, replace those which composed the whole
of the former body, once in every seven years. _Memory of the past_ is
not necessary to our belief that _we are ourselves_. Whole years may
be blotted from our recollection, and still we have some invisible,
intuitive assurance that we have continuity of being, and have not gone
through any metempsychosis, which destroys it; but this knowledge is
limited by certain boundaries, beyond which we have absolutely nothing to
guide us, except the evidence of _other people_. Ask yourself solemnly,
and searchingly, what is your ground for believing that, ere you saw the
light, you lived during nine months in another state as different from
your present condition of existence, as the present union of body and
spirit can possibly be from a future mode of being in which the soul,
freed from human restraint, shall expatiate with as much more liberty
than it can now exert, as it enjoys at present, when compared with the
former period of its imprisonment.
“Is there one human creature who could be so certain that you are
absolutely the person for whom we take you, as not by _possibility_ to be
deceived? Even your _mother_, after her heart had yearned to the first
faint cry of her own baby, may have been deceived. Suppose that her own
had died, and that you were presented to her. _How_ do you know _what_
or _where_ you were before sensible objects began to make impression on
your faculties? You have no more actual _connection_ with your former
being, even during the first six or eight months,--I might go on to say
the first year of childhood--when you slept in your nurse’s arms, than
you have with that oak that overshadows your window, if you estimate that
connection by your power of tracing its links without any hiatus in the
chain.
“You were pleased the other day with that admirable essay, which you
were reading, entitled “Historical doubts respecting the existence of
Napoleon Buonaparte,” in which the argument is so perfectly established
that, if we give reins to scepticism, we have no _demonstrative_ proof,
at this moment, that the wonderful Buonaparte who swayed the world by the
magic of an almost preternatural influence for a few years, and is now
_forgotten_, put himself under the protection of Captain Maitland, and
visited Spithead on board the Bellerophon. What wonder that you should
know no more than that your boat put off from the shore, on which you saw
a dense crowd of assembled spectators, that you neared the stern of a
great vessel, saw a little man with a star on his breast and a cocked hat
upon his head, were told and _believed_ that it was the royal prisoner,
the usurper of France, the wizard Corsican at whom you gazed from your
wherry, when you have no _demonstration_ that you are General Douglas, no
_irrefragable_ proof that you belong to that line of Scottish heroes from
whom you believe yourself to be sprung, and may not be, on the contrary,
a foundling transplanted from the parish of St. Giles’ into your splendid
cradle, where first you received the fond caresses of your reputed
parents.
“See then how much we are _obliged_ to take for granted; and is there any
greater difficulty in believing that consciousness of identity, which
we never doubted, may form a part of our essence hereafter, than that
it is inseparable from our existence here, however the continuity of
remembrance may be interrupted? All _analogy_ is with me, and I now find
this idea, which once was a stumbling block, easy and familiar.
“Then, as to the soul’s existence after being separated from the body.
Let us only consider how unreasonably we argue, when we confound the
mental and corporeal functions, simply because we see them combined.
Analogy here also is against such reasoning. A spark of electricity
or galvanism is only rendered _apparent_ to the eye by certain
circumstances. As long as these subtle fluids pass quietly through
conductors, they are wholly invisible, and pervade the earth and
atmosphere entirely unseen: yet we doubt not the existence of electricity
and magnetism, because they float invisibly in æther. We never doubt the
existence of the sun’s light, though the substitution of a wooden block
for a transparent window of glass shall totally obstruct his rays. These
are mere analogies; but they are in our favour. We see the operations of
the spirit through the means of our bodily organs, as we perceive the
light of the sun through glass, which is so constituted as to transmit
its beams to our senses; but we have no more right to confound the
vehicle, or medium, with the matter of light, or the power of thought,
conveyed in the one case than in the other. Will you call me fanciful if
I say that I consider all intellectual energy, all that we denominate
_soul_, as emanating from divinity; and I find no more difficulty _now_
in imagining a certain portion of this divine principle arrested and
concentrated in the organic structure which we call man, than I find in
collecting the sun’s rays in a burning glass or a prism.
“Mingling with the dross incident to a temporary junction with the base
particles of matter, the spirit partakes of the feculence of the channel
through which it permeates (if you will permit me to use the language
of metaphor), just as the rays of the sun are broken, refracted, or
reflected by the cloudy atmosphere, or shattered glass, through which
they pass. Remove the medium, and the emancipated essence regains its
source; with this difference, that while the light, which is only
material, the magnetism and electricity, which are unconscious forces,
recover all their purity with their liberated expansion, the soul of
man, on which the boon of immortality is conferred,--the soul which shall
not be extinguished like that splendid orb that illumines our nether
sphere shall receive its final billet, and be admitted into one or the
other of two classes of spiritualized existence, _according_ to the use
which has been made during its sojournment in the body, of _free will_,
bestowed upon the human species at its creation.”
Here my brother heaved a sigh, which seemed to issue from the very centre
of his heart: “Aye, Caroline,” said he, “there’s the rub; there is the
inscrutable mystery, the impenetrable veil;” “Which,” answered I, “no
mortal intellect--no human eye will ever pierce.”--“Then how _believe_
what I despair of comprehending?” “If,” replied I, “we turn a subject
according to two opposite theories, and after the clearest investigation
which we are enabled to bestow upon each, find that both involve an equal
measure of incompatibility with our reason and experience, we arrive at
least naturally at a state of neutrality which would leave us unbiased
and ready to lean to one side or the other, as _new_ motives might
be suggested to incline the understanding through force of evidence
or probability, towards the adoption of one scheme in preference to
the other, its _own_ powers being confessedly unequal to unravel the
difficulties of either. Let us view the wonderful question of free-will
in this light: that the Almighty could _decree_ man to be free, we have
no reason to deny. Omnipotence can achieve _all_ things; and even were we
inclined to declare, that not being satisfied that free-will exists, we
will not give credit to the Great Framer of the universe for more than we
see, still we are _pinned_ on the other side; for if we only admit what
we see, we cannot by the same rule consistently negative that which we
do _not_ see. _Ignorance_ is not entitled to predicate for or against.
We can only with propriety say, that what is hidden, is hidden. _But_
my _experience_ tells me that I _am_ free; and that when not coerced
from without, when not restrained by extrinsic force, I follow the
dictates of my _will_, I find that no temptation assails me with such
violence as to make it _impossible_ that I should not have resisted its
approaches: and find that the common sense of all mankind is with me,
since every human law is founded on the distinction between voluntary and
compulsory action. Every species of control, moral or physical, is taken
into account; every aberration which disturbs the balance of the mental
faculties is allowed to operate favourably in excusing the delinquent who
is brought to judgment; and nothing but _free_, _determined_ wickedness
is punished by the laws of man. Whatever injury has been sustained by
society, _crime_ is not imputed to the person who has been an unwilling
instrument of wrong. So far there is no contrariety in the decisions; no
variety amongst the opinions of men. What says the Bible, which we have
already agreed should be the lamp of our feet, _provided_ that we submit
to be guided where our own light is not sufficient? It tells us, that
God placing us here in a merely probationary state, and designing us for
an ulterior destiny, made us free _in order_ to our being accountable.
Now that we should be accountable _without_ being free is a solecism
which no human sagacity could comprehend, not merely because it is too
high for us to reach, _but_ because it absolutely contradicts that reason
through the means of which we come at the ideas of truth and falsehood.
The Bible says, that “good and evil are placed before us,” and that we
are responsible at the bar of a future Tribunal for the choice which we
make between them. Here is an exact accordance between revelation and
the natural conclusions of reason. Again, if we consider what is most
suitable to our ideas of grandeur and power in the Deity, we hesitate
not in saying, that to form a _free_ creature is a much more magnificent
exhibition of Divinity than is manifested in the creation of puppets
that _must_ obey the original impulse imparted to them. How much grander
is the idea of an Almighty Ruler who, giving the _greatest latitude_ of
action within its individual sphere, to each separate congeries of nerves
and muscles, which He has ordained to be the seat of a human soul, can
so order the _ends_ of His astonishing plan, that not a _tittle_ of His
word shall be frustrated; not a particle of the great scheme subverted;
than any notion which we can substitute of a Creator who had tied down
and limited the work of His hands in the moment of casting the first
specimen of its existence, so as to secure a monotonous and necessary
result from the mechanical revolution of certain wheels, or the mindless
operation of certain fixed springs, not one of which could by possibility
vary in its round, or be altered in the _quantum_ of its elasticity.
Thus far reason and experience move harmoniously together, and authority
confirms their joint conclusion. We _feel_ that we are free; reason
tells us that we _ought_ to be free; and Scripture, which professes to
be the revealed Word of God, informs us that we _are_ free. The mass of
probability appears, then, entirely on this side: let us now consider the
other.
“If man be a mere machine, irresistibly governed according to fixed
laws, from which he cannot swerve, and performing every action through
the influence of an impelling power, which he is unable to resist;
it is plain, first, that he cannot be an accountable creature, for
accountableness can only be understood when there is liberty to do, or
abstain from doing; and, secondly, this scheme involves an absolute
contradiction between our experience and the fact, supposing us to be
creatures of necessity, by which, if we be really overruled, and placed
in _duresse_ from which we have no power to emancipate ourselves; we are,
then, put into the extraordinary predicament of _being_ one thing, while
we are so constituted as to _believe_ ourselves to be another. That is to
say, in fine, that we are _conscious_ of freedom, though in reality we
are bound; and are thus practically and irresistibly acting all our lives
upon a fraud, a delusion, which compels us to give up the testimony of
our senses, at the same time that we declare their evidence to furnish
the most unquestionable source of knowledge that we possess, and to
afford the principal rule upon which our whole conduct is regulated,
either in public or private life.